IMMUNE FOR LIFE: DISEASE FROM THE DINNER PLATE
You are what you eat, in the sense that food is the raw material with which your body—and your “doctor within’—work. Like any craftsperson, your “doctor within” needs the right tools and materials to do a good job. These include complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, fiber and water. Adequate supplies of protein, plus a small amount of fat, are also necessary.
Most of us eat the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.), which is loaded with fat, protein and simple carbohydrates (sugars), but sadly lacking in complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Eating the S.A.D. deprives your “doctor within” of many of the tools needed to build health. At the same time, eating the S.A.D. forces your body to work overtime trying to deal with the mounds of sugar and globs of fat filling your stomach.
Unwrap a stick of butter. Squeeze it in your fist. Rub that butter between your two hands, spreading it all over your hands and fingers. That’s about as much fat as there is in the food the typical person eats in a day. Feel that fat on your hands. It’s thick and gooey. Imagine that much fat in your arteries, turning your bloodstream into a swamp.
As if that weren’t enough, the S.A.D, with its quantities of meat and processed foods, is filled with chemical additives that can hamper—and eventually overcome—your “doctor within.” Despite the claims of the food industry, the additives we consume have not been properly tested. Many, in fact, have never really been tested at all: “Grandfather” clauses in the law exempted them from the more stringent requirements. Furthermore, we don’t know what happens when the chemicals get together inside your body. Chemical A in your ice cream may be relatively harmless by itself. So might Chemical B in your fast-food French fries. But what happens when the two chemicals meet in your bloodstream or liver? Do they ignore each other? Do they combine? Does A convert B into a more dangerous form? We don’t always know what happens. The untold numbers of combinations that can result from eating additive-laden foods have not been studied.
The S.A.D. contributes directly to much of the heart disease we suffer, as well as to strokes, diabetes, arthritis and even cancer. And to the extent that the fatty, sugary, nutrient-poor S.A.D disrupts your “doctor within,” it contributes indirectly to many other problems. To be blunt, the S.A.D. is a killer. And its one and only target is you.
I had known Joan for many years, since my days at Los Angeles County Hospital. Even back then she had a great love for food. She ate juicy hamburgers, steak sandwiches dripping with fat, milk shakes, sausage-and-mustard sandwiches, corned-beef sandwiches and pie for dessert. As we grew older, her weight grew. Although she was never grotesquely fat, there was almost twice as much of her as there should have been. “More of me to love,” she said with a smile.
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