Nutrition in the headlines again - or it should have been!

I just finished reading this book, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet by  Nina Teicholz (https://thebigfatsurprise.com/)

It's familiar territory to me, but what an indictment of our nutrition authorities! Nina documents the shocking refusal of so-called nutrition experts to entertain the idea that there might be another way to look at the issue of saturated fat, instead accusing those who have studied the research carefully of 'quackery' for suggesting that saturated fat is not bad. They simply refuse to look at all the research with an open mind - a very bad habit for anyone calling themselves a scientist!

Two recent stories in The New York Times (one after the other in my large print weekly edition) make me wonder if we’ll ever get the nutrition right!

“Rising Obesity Rates Put Strain on Nursing Homes”

relates the problems nursing homes are having taking care of massively obese patients. And I’ll bet they are feeding them the very low fat high carb type of diet that made them fat in the first place, since that is the standard diet in nursing homes. And that is what we’ve been told is a healthy diet for nearly 40 years - still recommended in the government’s 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

This is what guides food policy in many institutions, including our public schools.  Pity the poor children that can have low fat chocolate milk with extra sugar, but not the whole milk that is truly nourishing – and never any butter on their tasteless vegetables.

Which leads me to the other shocking article, where nutrition is completely ignored, as babies are given drugs for problems that are probably the result of missing nutrients.

“Still in a Crib, Yet Being Given Antipsychotics”

Imagine giving babies,  or even toddlers, Prozac or Risperdal for depression! The doctors who prescribe these drugs know so little about nutrition, they have no idea that faulty nutrition of the child or even the mother could be at the root of the problem. Yet good nutrition is essential  for the brain to work properly. The influence on behavior of several common nutrient deficiencies is detailed in this article:

“Violent Behavior: A Solution in Plain Sight”

And good natural fats, like butter, are needed to absorb several of these important nutrients.

Parents who follow the Dietary Guidelines based on the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, DDS, rich with natural fats, have healthy happy children with little in the way of behavior problems. As evidence, check out the Healthy Baby Photo Gallery

These happy faces are an inspiration!

Kris, retired and reformed dietitian

Fat be not proud

It seems like there are item daily in the newspaper that I'd like to respond to. Here's a recent letter to The Blade responding to a Blade editorial called 'Fat be not proud' http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091206/OPINION03/912060316 (4th letter down the page)

While it's true that obesity is a major and growing health problem in our country, Congress and industry certainly need to share the blame. Agricultural subsidies support the growing of far too much wheat, corn and soybeans than we need, while our food industry turns them into the heavily advertised processed foods that line our grocery store shelves, foods that are stripped of essential vitamins and mineral that contribute to good health and laced with processed vegetable oils that undermine our health. Then our health authorities have provoked fat phobia, telling us to eat less fat and cholesterol, more fiber, and exercise more - none of which has proved particularly effective for successful weight loss. In Good Calorie, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes traces the research showing that the carb foods we're advised to eat are the very foods that contribute to weight gain, diabetes, and all the associated health problems. Cutting calories by trying to eat a low fat diet while avoiding high carb foods leaves you hungry and unhappy. My advice - avoid processed foods, limit carbs, overcome your fat phobia, eat natural whole foods, including meat, butter and eggs from pasture raised animals - the foods our ancestors ate without being plagued by diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Let's put our unemployed back to work doing the wonderfully satisfying job of raising high quality fruits, vegetables, grains and pastured animals on well managed organic farms that can be very bit as productive as our present commercial agriculture, while supporting, rather than undermining our health, our communities and the environment.

Kris Johnson, retired dietitian

There's more on my Website if you want to pursue these issues:

Carb Issues

Planning Healthy Meals

Justice and Agriculture Issues

Letter to the President

Dear President Obama,

I am concerned that health care reform will be ineffective unless the monopoly of the conventional drug/surgery paradigm is broken. Our present system is too driven by the search for profits which the insurance system just supports. With our present system effective natural therapies, such as natural foods, supplements and detoxification, that restore health and help the body heal, are blacklisted while patentable drugs and expensive surgeries, touted at "science-based," are reimbursed by insurance in spite of their long list of side effects and their poor record correcting the underlying causes of disease. Health care practitioners who use natural therapies are ignored and often condemned by their peers, who are brainwashed by their training into thinking that drugs are the answer, thanks to the excessive influence of the drug industry. Yet these natural therapy advocates often guide patients to successful healing, with therapies that the patient must pay for, when conventional doctors who were unable to help are covered by insurance. This system is broken and must be fixed!

If you would like to know what real health care reform should involved, you should talk to:

• Dr. James Roberts, M.D., in Toledo, Ohio, who reduced the cost of cardiac care and brought health and healing to his patients by using natural therapies rather than drugs and surgery - http://www.heartfixer.com/
• Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D., in Newport Beach California, who brings health and healing to his patients with diabetes and many other common health problems using natural therapies rather than drugs - http://www.whitakerwellness.com/
• Dr. Joseph Mercola, D.O., in Chicago, who brings health and healing to his patients with natural therapies, and won’t even take insurance because it is of such little benefit to his patients. He hosts a huge popular website, mercola.com, providing valuable guidance in how to stay healthy - http://naturalhealthcenter.mercola.com/
• Dr. David Brownstein, M.D., in West Bloomfield, Michigan, who brings health and healing to patients with puzzling ailments, whose conventional doctors has overloaded them with ineffective drugs, using supplements and natural hormones - http://www.centerforholisticmedicine.com/
• Dr. Bruce West, D.C., Monterey, California, who has brought health and healing to his readers for over 25 years through an informative newsletter, Health Alert, on natural therapies – http://www.healthalert.com/, 831-372-2103
• Dr. Samuel Epstein, M.D., who has documented the misguided and ineffective ‘war on cancer’ in his book "Cancer-Gate: How to Win the Losing Cancer War - http://www.preventcancer.com/
• Dr. Jonathan Wright, M.D., who has been helping his patients heal with nutritional therapies, along with the best of traditional medicine for 27 years. http://www.wrightnewsletter.com/

There are many others! As a dietitian by profession, with a masters in nutrition, now retired and ‘reformed,’ I understand the excessive influence of the drug and food industries on my training and practice, as I promoted the conventional ‘wisdom’ about food, until in retirement I read more widely and realized the benefits of natural whole foods, not Egg Beaters, Heart Smart margarine, and Hamburger Helper. The commercial agriculture/food industry is another piece in the puzzle of our sky-rocketing health care costs, along with our desire for cheap, convenient food, but that’s an issue for another day.

Thank you for your attention to these urgent issues. Let’s develop a system that pays doctors and hospitals to keep patients well, rather than paying more the sicker they become.

Carolyn K. Johnson, MS nutrition
Williston, Ohio

Also sent to Democratic Leadership Team & Pres. Obama 6/5/09

The Health Care Problem, continued

In spite of all the talk abut health care reform, few are identifying the real reasons why there is so much resistance to changing our system in which we spend enormous amount of money on "health" care while so few of us are genuinely healthy (without reliance on drugs!). A truly well nourished body has remarkable healing abilities, but the food industry makes lots of money supplying us with unhealthy, but profitable, processed foods stripped of essential nutrients and laced with unnatural additives. So the food industry would loose if we supported our health by eating natural, unprocessed nutritious foods to support our health. The drug industry, which makes enormous profits on our drug dependency, would lose if we maintained our health with real food, inexpensive herbs, and nutritional supplements. Hospitals would lose if we were healthy and rarely needed to go to the hospital. Conventional doctors, who have little real knowledge about nutrition, would lose, as we would rarely need medical care, instead visiting our local savvy nutritionist or naturopath for guidance in developing our individual nutritional path to vibrant health. Notice I did not say 'dietitian,' because as a dietitian myself I know that my training was heavily influenced by the food industry and biased against herbs and supplements - I had to learn that on my own after I retired, and I learned that some of the things I had been telling my patients, such as 'use margarine, not butter,' were just plain wrong - heavily influenced by the vegetable oil industry.

Why do most doctors know so little about nutrition? As I said before, our accreditation system was developed by in the early 20th century by Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, so only medical schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach received accreditation.* The numerous schools that taught a nutritional approach had to close. Was this based on sound science? No! It was money speaking, and it still speaks today! What do we need to do? Break the monopoly that conventional medicine has in our illness care system. There is a growing list of doctors who have learned nutritional approaches on their own and are bringing true health and healing to their patients, at much lower cost, yet they are often reprimanded and ostracized for their unconventional ways of practicing. Recognize the value of those who are well trained in nutritional therapies. Pay doctors and nutritional therapist to keep us well without reliance on drugs, which treat symptoms, but rarely correct the underlying causes. Fund the research that demonstrates the efficacy of these therapies - drug companies sure don't want to do it! Give us all some incentives to stay well and develop truly healthy life styles and eating habits.

Likely to happen? Don't hold your breath. Some will complain about contributing to the recession because of all those lost jobs in the illness care industry!

* This information courtesy of THE LIBERATION DIET, by Kevin Brown, CPT, NC & Annette Presley, RD, LD, CPT, another reformed dietitian.

Health Care Reform and the Medical Monopoly

Are you aware that allopathic medicine has been high-jacked by the drug industry. MD's are taught to diagnose disease and prescribe the appropriate drug, which does not address the underlying cause of the illness, and often has side effects requiring yet another drug, more side effects, and more drugs. They are not taught the remarkable healing powers of the body if it is given appropriate nutrition and support. The very health professionals who do have this knowledge, naturopaths, homeopathic physicians, nutrition oriented chiropractors, and a few self-schooled nutrition oriented MD's, are usually not covered by insurance, yet they are the ones who can lead us to true health, avoiding the enormous cost of the present system of unhealthy processed food, and drugs to treat the inevitable health problems. About one hundred years ago Carnegie and Rockefeller, who had large vested interests in pharmaceuticals, established the accreditation system for medical schools. Only schools teaching a pharmaceutical approach to medicine received accreditation. Before that there was plenty of competition from natural, homeopathic and nutritional approaches. Health reform will not succeed in reducing the present astronomical costs until we break the monopoly that conventional allopathic medicine and the drug industry have on our health care system.

Don't fall for the notion that health care should be based on "science-based research," since an estimated half of what doctors do now has no basis in good research. Good unbiased nutrition research is so expensive and so complicated, and proper controls so difficult, that it is easy to conduct a nutrition research project that shows no benefit of nutrition - important variables were neglected, poor quality supplements used, too short a duration, etc. Unfortunately good research is often ignored, thanks to the bias toward drug therapy. I saw that in my own training.
Excellent health, with minimal reliance on drugs, should be the gold standard for judging excellent of care. Our health care professionals should understand and utilize the value of careful planned, high quality nutritional supplements to support health and healing, or our health care costs will continue to escalate!