This week, our search for a healthy diet brings us to the South Beach Diet.

The South Beach Diet is a creation of an M.D. in—guess where—Miami Beach, Florida. Cardiologist Arthur Agastson came up with the diet as an alternative to low-fat diets, which his patients had difficulty staying on.

Dr. Agastson’s goal was to improve the health of his patients’ hearts. However, when his patients began shedding pounds, word got out and it quickly became one of the hottest weight loss diets around.

The diet consists of three phases. Phase one lasts for two weeks, during which time you cut all starches and fruit out of your menu plan. This is to help you eliminate unhealthy cravings and sugar addictions.

In phase two, you get to gradually add in up to three fruit servings daily, as well as up to three starchy food servings (no refined grains). Phase three allows for pretty much anything you want, unless you begin to gain weight again. Then you are to go back to phase one and two, until your weight goes back down to where you want it.

When I learned about the South Beach Diet, I was good with it (generally speaking) until I read about Phase Three. Humor me, will you, and let me start there as I show you

How the South Beach Diet fails

1. The “anything goes” allowance in Phase 3 goes against what any self-respecting nutritionist or nutrition researcher would advise. You can go back to fettuccine alfredo—as long as you don’t gain weight. A Snicker’s bar every couple days—as long as you don’t gain weight. White flour bagels for breakfast—as long as you don’t gain weight.

The underlying implication in the diet is that you should stick to only whole grains and healthy fats, even when you enter Phase Three. But as it doesn’t explicitly ban refined foods, many people—in the absence of understanding the health risks involved—may return to their old dietary habits once they’ve lost the weight they wanted to lose.

Recent research, and studies of people groups who consume traditional foods, can’t be any more conclusive: eating refined foods is one of the primary causes of modern degenerative diseases. You can be skinny and still be headed for an early grave if you are not discerning about what crosses your lips.

2. The diet allows for artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners are chemicals that the body recognizes as toxins. Aspartame is particularly nasty, having been proven to cause symptoms ranging from headaches to memory loss.

Furthermore, as I stated earlier, studies have shown that artificial sweeteners may be a bigger culprit in weight gain than white sugar itself.

3. The South Beach Diet has no caution against factory-farmed animal products. Like the other diets I discuss above, the South Beach Diet begins with a menu that revolves around meat, cheese, and eggs. And like the other diets, it provides no discussion of health benefits in consuming clean meats, nor the risks in consuming factory meats.

4. The diet does not allow for individual differences in nutritional needs. Some people don’t do well at all on a meat-laden diet. They might actually gain weight in the first couple of weeks of trying to follow it. In addition, some of us have naturally occurring low blood sugar, and to go without any starchy foods or fruits for longer than a couple of days is sheer torture.

5. The diet does not work for everyone. Remember how the South Beach Diet got its start? To help prevent further heart damage for people with heart disease?

I know one couple who started the diet several years ago, mainly because the husband had heart problems.

He still does.

6. The diet makes beef fat the enemy. Although certain types of beef are allowed for the Phases 1 and 2, fatty cuts are forbidden. In a way, that’s good, since the toxins in factory farm animals accumulate mostly in the fat.

However, the saturated fat in grass fed beef is actually healthy, providing brain food and improved immune system function. As a matter of fact, recent studies conclude that a diet that includes grass-fed beef several times a week can actually prevent heart disease, because of its high omega-3 fatty acid content.

If Dr. Agastson were to promote clean meats and read up on the latest research, he would do his diet’s followers a great favor.

Just as The South Beach Diet has fewer problems that some of the afore-mentioned diets in this series, it also has more redeeming qualities.

Where the South Beach Diet Triumphs

• The diet encourages the consumption of healthy fats and whole grains.
• It eliminates sugary and starchy foods for two weeks to help dieters break their sugar addiction.
• It calls for a liberal consumption of vegetables and salads.
• It requires dieters to eat to their satisfaction. No deprivation or calorie counting.
• Dr. Agastson encourages calcium supplementation (a deficiency in calcium has been linked not only to osteoporosis and other bone deficiencies, but also to the development of other degenerative conditions).
• The gradual re-introduction of fruits, starchy vegetables, and whole grains over a period of time aids in changing the dieter’s food preferences, making processed foods less appealing.

In summary, while the South Beach Diet isn’t the best “healthy diet” out there, you could do worse.

Is Dr. Barry Sears’ Zone diet a truly healthy diet?

The theory behind Barry Sears’ Zone Diet is that when you tightly control the balance of the macronutrients—protein, fat, and carbohydrates—your body produces the right kind of eicosanoids.

Eicosanoids are the body’s superhormones, and when you stimulate the production of the “good” ones your blood-sugar level stays at a healthy level. How do you get that to happen? By eating fewer carbohydrate-rich foods.

This is not, however, another Atkins in disguise. It is not, as some of its critics have claimed, a high-protein diet. I know, because this is one of the three diets I’ve tried. Also, anyone following The Zone will have a much lower fat intake than Atkins fans.

So, what is the proper balance of macronutrients according to Sears? Forty percent carbohydrates, thirty percent protein, thirty percent fat. In fact, 40-30-30 is another common name for this diet.

But is staying within these rigid boundaries really necessary for optimum health, as Sears claims?

How The  Zone Diet fails

1. More rules. You must adhere to those percentages at every meal and snack. If you stray from them, whoa be unto you! Instead of counting calories, you count food “blocks.” A protein block is one ounce of meat or one egg; a carbohydrate block is one cup broccoli or ½ an apple or ¼ cup pasta; a fat block is ½ teaspoon oil.

2. Barry Sears uses nebulous evolutionary speculation to claim that The Zone is how we are genetically designed to eat. Please. No one really knows how our pre-historic ancestors ate. If anything, they more likely ate monomeals. If they found a buffalo, they would eat the whole thing for three days. If meat was scarce, they would fill up on roots. If they found a bush covered with berries, they would gorge themselves until their faces were covered in purple juice.

3. The claim that eicosanoids are the be-all and end-all of our health. In fact, critics of The Zone scoff at Sears’ claim that eicosanoids are as important as he makes them out to be.  Furthermore, health is complicated, and many factors need to be taken into consideration when determining what causes disease.

4. The Zone is a very calorie-restrictive diet. When I decided to try The Zone Diet, I was doing it because I believe its claims that it would make me healthy, not because I wanted to lose weight. Having been chronically underweight, that was certainly not my goal.

However, given my protein requirements according to Sears’ theory, and making my meals and snacks add up in the correct proportions, I was only eating 1200 calories per day.

I’d try it for a week, I decided. If, at the end of seven days, I had lost even a fraction of a pound, I would end the experiment.

When I weighed myself a week later, I’d lost two pounds.

“Great,” you might be saying, “I want to lose weight.” Before you run out and buy a copy of Sears’ book, read on a bit further.

5. The Zone is a low-fat diet. During that week-long experiment, I was consuming 1 ½  teaspoons of oil (or its equivalent) per meal. That’s about 150 fat calories a day. Much less fat than our brains need to function at optimum levels, much less fat than a woman’s body needs to manufacture estrogen and other reproductive hormones at normal levels.

In addition, a moderate amount of saturated fat—practically banned by the diet—boosts the immune system. If you don’t consume enough, you are at higher risk for catching every virus that floats your way.

6. The diet doesn’t allow for individual nutritional needs. Like the Atkins diet, The Zone assumes that everyone does equally well with the prescribed amount of proteins, fats, and carbs, which is utterly false.

7. The diet restricts fruits. Because fruits contain sugar, they are high in carbohydrates, and quickly add up in the “carbohydrate block” category. Again, anyone who follows The Zone strictly misses out on the vital antioxidants and other phytochemicals that fruit provides for our bodies.

Well, I was a little easier on The Zone than on Atkins. The reason is simple: the Zone menu is healthier than Atkins’ in several ways.

Where The Zone Diet triumphs

• Like Dr. Atkins, Barry Sears encourages his readers to avoid a lot of starchy carbohydrates, thereby discouraging the consumption of refined grains.

• As he discourages the starchy carbs, Sears in turn advocates the consumption of an abundance of green vegetables. For example, my dinners would consist of three ounces of meat. Therefore, I needed three carbohydrate blocks. I could either eat three cups of cooked broccoli, or one cup of broccoli and a large vegetable salad (you need a lot of lettuce to make up one carbohydrate block!

• Even though it’s a calorie-restricted diet, I didn’t feel hungry between meals. So maybe there is something to having the right proportion of protein and carbohydrates, after all….

• The Zone has little room for trans fats, as Sears heavily encourages the consumption of monounsaturated fats, such as olive oil.

• The Zone eating lifestyle would probably work as a good temporary weight loss program for many people.

Of the diets I’ve covered in this series so far, it is probably the healthiest one. But the Zone Diet is not the best healthy diet choice, long term.

Did Nathan Pritikin provide the world with a healthy diet when he came up with his “Pritikin Plan”?

He was a believer in the dietary fat/cholesterol leading to heart disease. So, when he came out with his diet in the 1960′s, one of the main components was that fat provided no more – preferably less – than 10% of the daily caloric intake.

So how did (do) people fill up on such a low-fat diet? Fiber:  major on whole grains, with a minor in fruits and vegetables.


I read about his so-called healthy diet when I first became aware that I needed to make some changes in my eating habits. At the time, I was eating about two servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit – including orange juice – every day, and had major ongoing problems with constipation.

Upon reading the book, I immediately implemented the principles – which includes eating at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables per day – into my diet. That was the last day I had a serious problem with constipation.

Unfortunately, while I was following this diet strictly, I was hungry all the time. One reason is because I wasn’t getting the fat I needed to feel satiated. The other reason is that I was constantly having an insulin reaction due to all the glucose from the grains – yes, even though grains are whole grains, too much will spike your blood sugar level.

Here are the general eating guidelines of the Pritikin Program:

• At least five servings of whole grains and/or potatoes and/or legumes. Ideally, you will eat no refined grain products, but two servings a day is considered acceptable.
• At least four servings of vegetables per day.
• At least three servings of fruit per day, including one glass of juice.
• Two servings calcium-rich foods.
• Emphasis on water and vegetable juices for drinking.
• Restriction on alcoholic intake.
• No more than 2 ounces nuts daily.
• No more than 10% of calories from fat.

I can go with all the guidelines except for the first, and last two (I believe he allows for too much alcohol consumption as well, but that’s a topic for another post).

Grains are a relatively new introduction into the human food source, and as such cause problems for many people – whether they know it or not – because our bodies are generally not well-adapted to grains.

Of course there are those who are gluten-intolerant or have Celiac disease (allergy to gluten), but the heavy glucose that is released in the digestion of grains – yes, even whole grains – can cause problems a person may not even be aware of, such as PMS in women, because of the hormonal chaos it can cause in the body.

My research and experience leads me to recommend not more than two servings of whole grains per day – preferably not all at one meal – and zero servings of refined grains.

The other major problem with this diet plan is the fat restriction. A moderate intake of healthy dietary fat actually causes the body to produce a hormone that burns fat. Furthermore, saturated fat is essential for optimal brain function, a strong immune system, and several other physical health benefits.

Your diet should be void of any trans fats (the hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils) and focus on omega-3s and the healthy fats found in avocados, raw nuts and pastured animals. Virgin coconut oil and cold-pressed olive oil are also two healthy fat sources.

Nathan Pritikin eventually developed cancer and committed suicide. The cancer could have come from consuming pesticide-laden produce and/or feedlot animals (which tend to be full of toxins) and/or an inability of his body to deal with an overconsumption of grain.

The suicide? He didn’t eat enough fat to help keep his brain chemistry in balance.

Maybe.

We can’t be sure, but what we can be sure of is that the Pritikin plan is far from the ideal healthy diet.

Anyone figuring out a healthy diet plan knows that water should be the number one “food” they consume every day.

You probably know it. I know it. Yet, whenever the weather suddenly becomes cold (there is no gradual temperature change in north Texas; one day, it’s 85 degrees, the next, it’s 50 with a forecast low of 28), my water consumption drops down by at least 16 ounces. I’m not hot anymore, so I don’t feel thirsty very much, so I simply forget to drink all the water that I should.

For about two days, anyway. Then my sudden inability to – a-hem - eliminate waste gives me a little hint that despite the cooler weather, I need more water.

Or should I say, because of the cooler weather. When it becomes really cold – say, below thirty degrees Fahrenheit – the air gets so dry that you need as much water as if it were 100 degrees outside! Unfortunately, many people make the same mistake I do every year…only, they don’t realize the dangers to their health and continue to get more and more dehydrated as the fall and winter continue.

If you really want to work on a healthy diet plan, don’t forget the water…even when it gets cold.

And notice I said “water.” Beverages with caffeine can actually lead to further dehydration, and don’t even get me started on the health risks posed by consuming sugary sodas and juices. Drink filtered water, and if that still doesn’t taste good enough to you add a drop of lemon or orange essential oil to every glass (consuming water with real lemon juice all day long can literally wear on your teeth and contribute to decay).

Other symptoms of dehydration

How do you know if you’re not getting enough water? Other than constipation, some of the symptoms of dehydration include:

• Headache
• Dizziness
• Fatigue
• Yellow urine (if you’re properly hydrating it will be almost to completely clear)
• Excessive thirst/dry mouth

Another symptom, hard to peg on just one thing, is getting more frequent colds and flu. Water is a great cleanser, and if you omit it from your otherwise healthy diet, you omit one of the best boosts to immune health that nature provides.

So as you get on with your healthy diet plan, remember your eight eight-ounce glasses of water (at least!) per day. Your bowels will thank you for it.

Looking for a healthy diet? In today’s post, as I continue with a ten-part series, “Why Diets Suck”, I analyze The Raw Food Vegan (or, Raw Vegan) Diet.

This diet has gotten more and more press lately, as it gains more and more adherents to its radical lifestyle. It’s almost a sort of cult, with Raw Vegan gurus promising health, longevity, and even a higher spirituality to anyone who would join it.

The diet consists of exactly what it says: uncooked vegan—or, exclusively plant—food. What makes a food raw is its living enzymes. If a food has been heated past 118 degrees Fahrenheit, the enzymes in the food are killed, and it is no longer raw.

Technically, you can call yourself a Raw Foodist if at least 75% of your diet consists of raw food. You can call yourself a Raw Food Vegan if none of the food you eat comes from animals. Although many (if not most) Raw Foodists eat some cooked food, such as steamed vegetables or herbal tea, others believe any cooked food to be toxic to the body and won’t touch it with a ten foot pole.

I bought into that not too long ago. For an entire year, I was a 100% Raw Food Vegan. After a friend told me that she and her husband experienced extraordinary weight loss and energy when they tried the diet, I started to read up on it.

It sounded like the perfect diet. Everything made sense, from the enzymes as a life-giving force, to green smoothies as the best way to get minerals into your body. So off I went, learning how to prepare raw gourmet dishes, and just knowing that I was going to live longer than everyone I knew who refused to see the Raw Vegan light.

Six months into the diet, I started experiencing symptoms. And began digging a little deeper. And began to find out

How the Raw Food Vegan Diet fails

1. A strict vegan diet is devoid of Vitamin B12. Vitamin B12 can only be found in animal foods. The typical argument is that, well, our guts manufacture that vitamin, therefore we don’t need to get it from food sources.

That’s all well and good—if your digestive system is one of the rare ones found on the planet (especially the USA where processed foods and drugs have messed us up since birth) that is functioning perfectly. But the fact is, you can’t know for sure how efficiently any of your organs are working, and the chances are better than not that you need a food source containing B12 in order to have the amount your body needs.

2. A vegan diet can lead to mineral deficiencies. I was doing everything right as a Raw Vegan, including eating at least a pound of greens every day, and a good bit of that in green smoothies. But six months into the diet, I noticed my hair getting thinner, and my fingernails were brittle and full of white spots. More frightening, my mind was beginning to act as though it were in the early stages of Alzheimers.

I began to research, and learned that my symptoms were signs of mineral deficiencies. I dug further, and found that the body absorbs iron and certain other minerals much more easily from meat sources than from plant sources.

3. Raw food vegans can be more prone tooth decay. According to Ramie Nagel, author of Cure Tooth Decay, dental caries are caused not by sweet stuff stuck to our teeth, but by our body chemistry and blood sugar levels. Since raw vegans need to eat a lot of fruit to get the calories they need not to feel starving, they consume a lot of sugar. Too much sugar in the system causes calcium depletion. The body must take it from the bones in order to neutralize the acidic effects of the sugar in the blood.

Not every raw vegan experiences dental problems; however, they take a risk when they fill up on fruit. This is especially problematic for children, whose growing bodies need a lot of calcium and iron in order to develop correctly.

4. The Raw Vegan Diet ignores the fact that different people have different nutritional requirements. I know of a few people who seem to have excellent health (at least so far—it can take years for a B12 deficiency to develop) on the raw vegan diet. However, if you lurk on any of the Raw Food Vegan forums, in no time at all you will find threads where people are complaining that they can’t lose weight, or that they’re losing too much weight, or that they’re lethargic, or constipated, etc. after having been on the diet for some time.

On the other hand, I have heard people complain that they couldn’t lose any weight on this so-called “healthy” diet.

My brain functions much better, and I have more energy, when I am consuming animal products on a regular basis.

5. Eliminating animal products from your diet reduces your sex drive. Never mind how I know that. If you want further information, look up “John Kellogg” on wikipedia.com. You will never eat Corn Flakes again.

6. Raw food veganism has its roots in religion and animal activism rather than science. The vegetarian diet sprang up originally from such religions as Buddhism, which has as its first principle “I will be mindful and reverential with all life, I will not be violent nor will I kill,” and Hinduism, which also holds to non-violence as one of its primary principles.

Strict veganism arose, in part, out of the additional belief that the cholesterol and saturated fat found in eggs and milk are “bad.” Some vegan Christians add that because the original diet in the book of Genesis was solely plant-based, that is how we are to eat today.

Here are the facts about how humans have eaten for most of history:

• In the Bible, God gives humankind permission to eat meat after the Flood. Whether that was because our fallen bodies could no longer absorb the nutrients in plant food properly, or because people were about to inhabit parts of the earth where cold and snow excluded the possibility of eating fruits and vegetables year round, the story remains in black and white.

• People groups whose traditional diet is high in protein, thus saturated fat and cholesterol, but who do not consume any processed foods, have normal cholesterol levels and little to no heart disease among them. How do you tell them that they do not consume a healthy diet?

• The design of human teeth indicates that we were intended to eat both plant and animal food.

• There is no traditional society today that is strictly vegan. Even in the tropics, where fruit is the mainstay, insects are consumed either accidentally or even on purpose, as a gourmet treat.

• In areas of the world where there are groups or tribes that consume a mostly vegetarian diet, they are generally sicker and weaker than their meat-eating neighbors.

7. Certain plant foods are best used by the body when they are cooked. For example, plants from the Brassica family—broccoli, cauliflower, kale, etc.–contain a substance called goitrogens that may suppress thyroid function (depending on the person and the quantity eaten). Also, the phytochemical called lycopene in tomatoes is much more easily absorbed when they are cooked.

8. The Raw Food Vegan Diet is severely lacking in saturated fat. Some Raw Foodists recognize the importance of saturated fat, and so include raw coconut oil as part of their daily diet. When I was on the diet, however, I never saw—in either the raw food books or on raw food forums—any particular emphasis on the need for saturated fat.

Based on what I read on Raw Vegan forums, the vast majority of fats in most people’s diets came from nuts and avocados. While the fats in those foods provide their own health benefits, they don’t support the immune system and cellular and bone health to the extent that saturated fats do. In addition, saturated fats are necessary for optimum absorption of fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E and K.

It also greatly helps with weight loss.

As many problems as exist with the Raw Food Vegan Diet, it is not all bad. In fact, several facets of the diet make it one of the healthiest ones around—if only some raw or low-and-slowly cooked animal products were added to it.

Where the Raw Food Vegan Diet triumphs

• Raw Vegan followers emphasize the consumption of organic produce over conventional produce.

• Raw foods contain enzymes (a kind of protein), which are destroyed in cooking. Although there is some controversy as to whether the enzymes in our food are necessary to help with the digestive process, they certainly provide an aid which can improve not only digestive function, but also perhaps with other human body organ functions.

• Raw vegans recognize and fight against the inhumane treatment of factory-farmed animals.

• Raw vegans recognize the health risks incurred by consuming factory-farmed animals products.

• Most versions of the raw vegan diet (there are several) include a good amount of greens on a daily basis, which makes it a more healthy diet.

• Green smoothies rock! (From what I understand, green smoothies became popular as a result of the Raw Vegan movement.) Even though we’re no longer vegan, my family still often has green smoothies for breakfast.)

• Following a raw vegan diet for a couple of weeks will give you a burst of energy and help do some body detoxing.

• The Raw Vegan Diet HAS NO ROOM FOR ANY PROCESSED FOODS!

• Thanks to the Raw Food revolution, you can find tons of recipes for easy-to-make healthy sweets, made primarily from raw nuts and dried fruit.

Eating a high amount of raw foods definitely helps make for a healthy diet; but to go raw food vegan for more than a couple of months may not only sabotage your weight loss goals, but your general health.

Should a good healthy diet include soy-based foods?

Tofu and other soy-related products began to grow in popularity in the United States back in the 1960’s and 70’s. The hippie vegetarians, with their cries that eating animals was cruel and that animal fat caused heart attacks, began using soy products as a replacement for meat and dairy.

High in protein and calcium, and low in fat, it seemed like the ideal health food. Besides, what was good for the long-lived, healthy Japanese had to be good for us, right?

Except that the traditional Japanese diet consists of much more shellfish, pork and poultry than soy-based foods. In China, in the 1930’s, soy only made up 1.5% of the diet. On the occasion that Asians do consume soy, they consume it mostly in a non-processed fermented form, such as miso or tempeh (fermenting neutralizes most of the many toxins found in the soybean).

In recent years, more and more studies are showing the dangers of eating processed soy. It is high in phytic acid (the substance that blocks mineral absorption) and contains cancer-causing substances. It also contains phytoestrogens, which mimic real estrogen and disrupt the endocrine system.

This does not make for a good healthy diet.

Babies fed infant soy formula have up to 22,000 times more estrogen compounds in their tiny bodies than babies fed milk-based formula. This estrogen overload often leads to premature development in girls and underdevelopment in boys, as well as to a diseased thyroid.

In adults, a diet high in soy is strongly linked to breast cancer, thyroid cancer, and infertility. Yes, yes, I know you’ve heard that women going through menopause should eat soy because it will help with hot flashes. Well, guess what? Eliminating processed foods from your diet and drugs from your lifestyle helps a lot more.

Soybeans are a great product when it comes to making healthy candles, and in other places where it can be used to replace toxic chemicals. But if you think it makes for an essential part of a good healthy diet, think again.

Soon, healthy diets to lose weight will be in high demand. Come January 1, thousands upon thousands of well-meaning Americans will resolve to lose so many pounds. Books on weight loss will fly off bookstore and library shelves.

Amazon will probably see a nice increase in profit that month.

And while a handful of those New Year’s dieters will actually stick it out and see lasting results, most will not.

The reason? Diets suck. They simply do not work.

Now, before going on I need to clarify the word “diet” in this context. Technically, the word refer to one’s usual daily regimen of food. What you eat is your diet. But in this series of blog posts, I am going to use the term as most Americans do: a way of eating that is supposed to lead to weight loss.

Back to my earlier premise: how can I claim that healthy diets to lose weight don’t work? Three reasons:

1. Most aren’t nearly as “healthy” as they claim to be. We’ll get into details of that with each diet that we discuss.
2. Research is on my side. Study after study has shown that the vast majority of dieters end up regaining any weight they had lost.
3. Dieting alone will bring mediocre results, at best. If exercise is not also a critical component, the ubiquitous plateauing of weight loss will come much sooner and long-term results will be practically impossible.

What this series will bring

Over the next nine Wednesdays, I am going to analyze various fad diets, some of which popularity waned years ago (yet continue to be resurrected by a few people every year), some of which are going strong now.

I will be fair: I will talk about the good things about each diet as well as the bad.

The diets I am going to cover follow in the list below. I will concede the argument that Raw Food Veganism, the Macrobiotic Diet and the Blood Type Diet are more like eating lifestyles than weight-loss diets. However, I am going to include them because many people jump into them because of the implied promise of the respective gurus of each diet to help overweight people shed pounds. Okay, the diets:

• Raw Food Veganism
• The Pritikin Plan
• Atkins
• The Zone
• South Beach
• Macrobiotic
• Beverly Hills
• HCG
• Blood Type

I am not going to include the extreme fad diets, such as the grapefruit diet, the 3-Day Diet, the cabbage (or chicken) soup diet, or the 3-Day Hot Dog Diet (??!!). Suffice to say that people try all sorts of “healthy” diets to lose weight. And most of these diets have some good things going for them.

In the tenth week of this series, I’ll pull it all together and give you some solid principles that will help you achieve your weight loss goals…without resorting to starvation, rules, or unhealthy nutritional practices.

So if you’re in search of healthy diets to lose weight, stay tuned for the next ten Wednesdays!

There are a lot of claims out there as to what constitutes a healthy diet. Some say unpasteurized milk products are dangerous; others say they are not only safe to consume, but extremely healthy. Some say meat is bad for you; others say you need it daily if you don’t want to risk nutritional deficiencies.

The more extreme groups claim either that your diet should consist of only plant food, or that your diet should consist of only raw meat.

In last week’s episode of the “Weird Is Great” podcast, I explained four of the most popular eating lifestyles around today: traditional foods, Paleo, vegan, and vegetarianism (non-vegan). I also hinted at where I believe each one has credence, and where each one falls short.

In this week’s episode, you get the Crunchy Coach’s full opinion of what healthy eating really looks like. Join the show today as we discuss:

• what is glycation, and why learning about it freaked me out for a few days;
• why I won’t get on board with veganism (and yes, I have tried it out);
• why I won’t get completely on board with the Paleo diet;
• the terrible misuse of the phrase “all things in moderation” and how it really should be applied when it comes to your eating habits;
• and other fun stuff you don’t want to miss.

The book by John Robbins: Healthy at 100: The Scientifically Proven Secrets of the World’s Healthiest and Longest-Lived Peoples

How do you prevent osteoporosis? There is a lot of talk in both the medical and natural health field these days about how to answer that question. The usual response is, “Take a calcium supplement”, or, “Drink more milk.”

But is extra calcium really the answer?

Let’s look at the milk factor first. The command to “drink more milk” almost always refers to the milk you find in stores – the pasteurized kind. Since many nutritional experts believe that the process of pasteurizing milk converts the calcium in the milk to a form that is not bio-available, one could argue that right there, the belief that drinking more milk somehow strengthens bones is simply a myth.

Even if pasteurization actually does nothing to the calcium, the absolute truth is that calcium cannot be absorbed by the body unless other certain nutrients are present, chief among them being magnesium. As milk contains practically no magnesium, and as the typical American doesn’t get enough of it in their diet, drinking milk – raw or pasteurized – would seem not to be the solution.

Neither would taking a calcium supplement – unless it contains magnesium as well. But I have yet to find a calcium-magnesium supplement which is actually absorbed well by my body, the only exception being angstrom minerals.

Oh, and did I mention that nations where pasteurized milk is regularly consumed have the highest rates of osteoporosis in the world?

What the healthiest peoples teach us about preventing osteoporosis

In his book Healthy At 100, John Robbins talks about the four known longest-lived people groups in the world. These people groups are – or were, I should say, since sadly many are now consuming processed foods – almost completely free of any degenerative disease, even among the most elderly.

Here is their traditional lifestyle:

• A plant-based diet, with meat being consumed once a week or less frequently, and including a lot of vegetables and some grain
• One or two servings of raw dairy, often cultured, per day
• No processed foods (until the last three decades or so, when degenerative disease begin finding its way into these cultures)
• No supplements, drugs or medical counsel
• Little stress
• Tons of exercise every day

Your solution to prevent osteoporosis

• Eat a lot of vegetables, including a generous amount of greens
• Consume dairy in moderation, preferably raw
• Exercise at least five days a week, aiming for an hour total a day
• Reduce your stress levels
• Keep meat consumption down to once a day, preferably not every day

What is the truth about grains? Are they good or bad?

Who’s right, the pro-meat Paleos or the anti-meat vegans?

Weston A. Price supposedly found that people with healthy teeth ate a lot of animal products. But John Robbins’ research leads him to believe that the longest-lived people eat meat only on occasion, and dairy (not pasteurized!) only once or twice daily, if at all.

Am I the only one who has spent years and read dozens of books trying to sort out the confusion?

This week’s episode of the “Weird Is Great” podcast is the first part of two that will deal with these and related dietary questions. I save my “Crunchy Coach Tells All” segment for next week, choosing instead to take my time to analyze the claims of the contradictory so-called nutritional “experts”.

In Part One, I explain the following eating lifestyles:

• traditional foods,
• Paleo,
• vegan, and
• vegetarian.