Actually, except for the separation of vegetables from fruits and the addition of fats, oils, and sweets, the groups themselves hadn't changed all that much. What had changed was their format.
Whereas the Basic Four had given the groups equal value, the pyramid ranked them from most to least important. Grains held the place of honor at the pyramid's base, with fruits and vegetables receiving runner-up status. Animal proteins--meats and dairy products--and fats, oils, and sweets were assigned the top two tiers of the pyramid, a reflection of their diminished status.
The pyramid won cautious applause from nutrition experts, who hailed it as a step in the right direction. Yes, it still had problems (which I'll discuss a bit later). But at least it shifted the focus away from animal-derived foods to plant-derived foods--something that no previous guidelines had even attempted.
Not everyone greeted the pyramid so warmly. In particular, it drew the ire of the meat and dairy industries, who didn't appreciate the fact that their foods had been made subordinate to grains, fruits, and vegetables. Anticipating a decline in popularity and profits, these groups resisted what they perceived as a demotion.
Their protests did not go unnoticed. Within one day of its release, the Food Guide Pyramid was yanked for what officials described as "further study." It resurfaced in 1992, sporting a few minor modifications intended to keep the meat and dairy industries happy.
The Sad State of Nutrition
Unfortunately, even the new, "improved" Food Guide Pyramid fails to embrace the most fundamental truth of modern nutrition: Plant-derived foods heal, animal-derived foods kill. Instead, the pyramid perpetuates a diet that does little to stem the tide of chronic degenerative diseases.
Scientifically accurate and intellectually honest dietary guidelines would emphasize optimum intakes of grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables, which contain abundant supplies of disease-fighting, Renewal-supporting nutrients. They would not even mention meats, dairy products, fats, oils, and sugars, because these foods have no place in a health- and longevity-promoting diet. They deprive people of essential nutrients, while exposing them to an array of disease-causing substances.
Yet the Food Guide Pyramid, with its meat/dairy and fat/sugar tiers, gives the impression that these foods are not only okay but necessary. It goes so far as to recommend consuming two to three servings of meat, poultry, fish, or eggs and two to three servings of milk, yogurt, or cheese every day.
To reinforce its apparent acceptance of animal-derived foods, the USDA issued a pamphlet about the pyramid that states, "No one food group is more important than another--for good health, you need them all." Not so!
If you buy into this bit of antiquated advice, you're exposing yourself to a nutritional double whammy. First, animal-derived foods raise your risk of chronic degenerative disease. Second, when you eat them, you're forgoing the plant-derived foods that supply the nutrients your body needs. That puts you two steps behind in the Renewal process.
A Challenge to Change
Outraged by the USDA's apparent willingness to compromise public health in deference to the meat and dairy industries, a group of nutrition-minded doctors launched a campaign to dismantle the Food Guide Pyramid. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) decries the consumption of animal-derived foods as detrimental to both human and animal populations and to the planet as a whole. The organization also opposes animal experimentation as unnecessary, outmoded, and barbaric. I'm proud to count myself among the 6,000 PCRM members.
When the USDA's Dietary Guidelines Committee convened in 1995 to consider changes to the Food Guide Pyramid, PCRM members were on hand to voice their concerns. They criticized the USDA for deliberately watering down the pyramid's recommendations to increase their acceptability, calling the agency's actions "a disservice to individuals seeking accurate dietary advice." They also implored USDA officials to revise the existing dietary guidelines to reflect the latest findings in nutrition research.
Joining PCRM members in demanding a massive restructuring of national priorities and policies on diet and nutrition was a distinguished group of physicians and scientists. They included PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D.; William Castelli, M.D., director of the famed Framingham Heart Study; Henry Heimlich, M.D., medical innovator and inventor of the Heimlich maneuver; Dean Ornish, M.D., founder and director of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California; William Roberts, M.D., editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Cardiology; Benjamin Spock, M.D., noted pediatrician and humanitarian; and Peter Wood, M.D., of the Stanford Center for Research in Disease Prevention.
These medical luminaries called for the immediate withdrawal of the Food Guide Pyramid, arguing that it encourages fat and cholesterol intakes far above levels found to be healthful. They also admonished the USDA to refrain from endorsing the consumption of meats and dairy products, saying that such recommendations contradict overwhelming scientific evidence that these foods undermine human health. All of the nutrients that meats and dairy products contain, the experts noted, can be obtained from other, more healthful food sources.
To replace the Food Guide Pyramid, the PCRM proposed new dietary guidelines based exclusively on plant-derived foods: grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. PCRM members dubbed these the New Four Food Groups.
In Favor of the "New Four"
By eliminating disease-causing, age-accelerating animal-derived foods, the New Four Food Groups provide for truly optimum nutrition. They encourage maximum dietary intakes of the nutrients known to prevent disease, support health, and maximize life span. Plus, the New Four are easy to understand and follow--an unexpected bonus for those who find the Food Guide Pyramid's multitiered recommendations complicated and confusing.
In a news conference supporting the PCRM's New Four Food Groups, Dr. Spock called for everyone--adults and children alike--to give up meat and milk and embrace vegetarianism. He emphasized the importance of teaching children healthy eating patterns at an early age.
As might be expected, the meat and dairy industries pounced on Dr. Spock's comments almost immediately. Meat industry representatives denounced Dr. Spock for making an "extreme" and "unrealistic" proposal, noting that 75 million Americans eat beef every day. A dairy industry spokesman simply stated, "Children need milk to grow on, and that's that."
Of course, neither group offered any scientific evidence to support its position. Why? Because no such evidence exists. On the other hand, thousands of scientific studies have proven beyond any reasonable doubt that people who eat animal-derived foods are much more susceptible to heart attacks, cancers, and strokes than people who don't.
Introducing the Anti-Aging Diet
The New Four Food Groups provide the foundation for the Renewal Anti-Aging Diet. They are the only foods that you need to survive and thrive. The farther you stray from them, the closer you move toward suboptimum nutrition, poor health, and a shorter life span.
Because it emphasizes plant-derived foods, the Anti-Aging Diet is naturally high in carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, and minerals but low in fat and protein. It also seeks to eliminate consumption of pesticides, additives, preservatives, antibiotics, hormones, and other known toxins.
Chapter 18 provides more specific information about the Anti-Aging Diet. Plus you'll find a two-week menu plan and recipes beginning on page 487. In the meantime, let's explore the diet's key principles.
Avoid Foods of Animal Origin
Well, this one may be obvious, but I can't stress it enough. If you want a longer, healthier life, giving up your carnivorous ways and becoming a vegetarian is vitally important.
As a nation, we remain wedded to the notion that we aren't feeding ourselves properly unless we eat meat and dairy products every day. Because the health problems associated with these foods usually don't show up until later in life, we're convinced that our diet is harmless. In fact, it is slowly and silently killing us.
I advocate vegetarianism not just because it supports longevity but also because it prevents the debilitating diseases that can make our later years extremely unpleasant. Heart attack, cancer, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, circulatory problems, and other conditions significantly diminish quality of life. They are much more closely related to poor diet than to aging per se.
If you are not already vegetarian, I urge you to make the switch. Phasing out animal-derived foods and replacing them with grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables is the most important dietary change that you can make. You'll take a giant step toward optimum health and a longer life.
Choose Complex Carbohydrates
As I mentioned earlier, a diet built around plant-derived foods is naturally high in complex carbohydrates. Ideally, 80 percent of your calories should come from complex carbs--foods such as whole-grain breads, cereals, pasta, rice, potatoes, yams, and squash. The remaining 20 percent of calories should be equally divided between protein and fat.
Incidentally, complex carbohydrates do not encourage weight gain, as conventional wisdom would have you believe. But you do need to distinguish them from refined carbohydrates--white sugar, white flour, and other processed foods.
Once ingested, refined carbs are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream because they don't need to be broken down. This sends blood sugar levels on a roller coaster ride, precipitating food cravings and ultimately leading to weight gain. As if that weren't bad enough, refined carbs are quickly converted to fat by the body.
Because complex carbohydrates must be broken down before they're absorbed, they enter the bloodstream much more slowly and steadily. This helps prevent fluctuations in blood sugar levels as well as the food cravings that normally follow. What's more, complex carbs actually discourage weight gain by satisfying your appetite with fewer calories.
Elevate Your fiber Intake
Plant-derived foods have another distinct nutritional advantage: abundant supplies of fiber. Animal-derived foods contain no fiber at all, while processed foods have had theirs removed.
There are actually several different types of fiber, each of which performs a unique set of tasks within the body. Perhaps fiber's best-known role is as a bulking agent, keeping stools soft and easy to pass. But fiber also promotes intestinal health by sopping up toxins and escorting them out of the body. And it has proven to be a key player in the prevention of an array of ailments, from constipation and hemorrhoids to heart disease and cancer.
To ensure that your body has continuous supplies of the various types of fiber, I recommend augmenting the Anti-Aging Diet with a fiber supplement. You'll learn more about the importance of fiber in chapter 30.
Cut Way Back on Fat
Now here's an interesting bit of information: The typical diets of Western populations are responsible for more premature deaths than all of the wars in human history. What makes these diets so deadly? Excessive fat.
When you follow the Anti-Aging Diet, your fat intake naturally drops to a healthful 10 percent of calories. This is because the plant-derived foods on which the diet is based are naturally low in fat.
Just be careful not to fall into the vegetable fat trap. Many people mistakenly believe that they're doing their bodies a favor simply by switching from animal fats to vegetable fats--oils, nuts, seeds, and the like. Although consuming too much fat is far easier on a carnivorous diet, it's just as possible on a vegetarian diet.
As a Renewal-seeker, you must choose your fats carefully. Because the truth is, virtually all types of fat in some way contribute to the development of life-shortening chronic degenerative diseases. The sole exceptions are the essential fatty acids , which safeguard health and slow the aging process. (You'll learn more about good fats and bad fats in chapters 7 and 8.)
Favor Fresh Foods
The Anti-Aging Diet recommends choosing fresh, whole foods as often as possible. They retain their vitamins and minerals--unlike many packaged foods, which are not only stripped of their nutrients but also pumped with additives and other toxins during processing.
Packaged foods may undergo any of a number of devitalizing procedures, including frying and hydrogenation (which produce disease-causing free radicals), radiation (which sacrifices nutrients to increase shelf life), defatting (which removes all fats, including the essential fatty acids ), defibering (which removes fiber), and emulsification, enrichment, and fortification (which attempt to restore the vitamins and minerals depleted during processing). Such high-tech tampering can turn even normally healthful foods such as fruits and vegetables into shadows of their former selves, at least in terms of their nutritional profiles.
To you, these mechanically altered foods may look, smell, and taste just fine. But to your body, they bear only a faint resemblance to the real thing. Your body isn't getting the high-quality nutrients that only fresh, whole foods can provide. Ultimately, this has a devastating impact on cellular health.
Be Wary of Pesticides
Unfortunately, even fresh foods can pose health risks. Many of the fruits and vegetables on display in supermarkets and even farmers' markets have been treated with pesticides and other chemicals. When you consume these foods, your body absorbs the toxins. In effect, you're slowly being poisoned by what's on your plate.
In this country, the use of chemicals in farming remains widespread. Take pesticides as an example: Upwards of 1,000 different products are routinely applied to crops. Most of these products went to market with minimal testing, especially concerning their long-term effects. Of the few that have undergone adequate testing, virtually all are toxic.
The government hasn't done a lot to regulate these extremely hazardous substances. Nor has it moved to yank them off the market. So the chemicals continue to silently sicken us, making us vulnerable to cancer and myriad other health problems.
Until the government decides to take a more aggressive stance against these toxins, the surest way to protect yourself from them is to go organic. The Anti-Aging Diet advocates consumption of organically grown foods.
There was a time when organics were available only in health food stores. But thanks to public demand, you can now find them even in regular supermarkets.
By spending your grocery dollars on organically grown foods, you do more than improve your own health. You're sending the message that you disapprove of the use of pesticides and other chemicals in the public food supply. In the long run, this improves the health of the planet as well.
Make It a Habit
If the Anti-Aging Diet seems to ask a lot of you . . . well, it does. After all, it has a rather lofty goal: to make your body last a good, long time. You can help by making the diet a habit. By that I mean you should use it to guide all of your food choices--every meal, every day.
There was a time in my life when I believed that an occasional "junk meal" wouldn't do me any harm. Whenever I indulged, I simply reassured myself that I'd eat better the next day. But I quickly cleaned up my act when I realized that even one bad meal produces a dietary triple whammy from which my body may not recover for several days.
To illustrate what happens, let's suppose I stop by the local fast-food joint for a quick lunch of a cheeseburger, french fries, and a cola. Whammy #1: I'm plying my body with unhealthful doses of fat, cholesterol, sugar, pesticides, and preservatives. Whammy #2: I'm depriving my body of vitamins, minerals, fiber, and other basic substances that it needs to function. Whammy #3 (and the coup de grâce): To process my junk meal and minimize its adverse effects, my body has to tap its nutrient stores. In other words, my junk meal not only fails to supply essential nutrients but also uses up my reserves from previous meals.
Eating this way creates chronic nutrient deficiencies and lays the groundwork for heart disease, cancer, and a host of other debilitating conditions. Are you willing to pay the price of a burger and fries with your life? I certainly hope not.
The Diet for Life
The Renewal Anti-Aging Diet has helped me to develop eating habits that put me on the fast track for maximum life span. It can do the same for you. You'll build your meals around whole, fresh, organic plant-derived foods--foods that contain abundant supplies of the nutrients your body requires to engage in Renewal. At the same time, you'll wean yourself from animal-derived foods, which mounting evidence implicates as causative factors behind degenerative disease and premature death.
You can begin your transition to the Anti-Aging Diet right now. At your next meal, simply replace some or all of an animal-derived food with a selection from one of the New Four Food Groups--grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables. With each subsequent meal, devote a little more of your plate to plant-derived foods, a little less to animal-derived foods. Before you know it, you'll be eating vegetarian--and loving it!
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