Old Macdonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O
And on his farm he had some carrots, E-I-E-I-O
With a … with a …

Well, there’s the problem:  we don’t know what noise carrots make.  If we’re going to turn fat kids into skinny kids by having them sing about carrots instead of pigs, we need to come up with a fun sound for carrots.  I’m open to suggestions on that one.

On the other hand, I’d say it’s pretty unlikely changing the lyrics to “Old Macdonald” is going to do diddly about childhood obesity, but apparently a school district in Philadelphia is giving it a shot, along with some other ridiculous initiatives:

The gym teacher, Beverly Griffin, teaches healthy eating using a toy model of the federal food pyramid and rewritten children’s songs. “And on his farm he had some carrots,” Tatyana, a first grader, belted out one recent morning, skipping around the gym with her classmates.

Ah, so that’s why the Food Pyramid has been such a colossal failure:  we forgot to produce toy models of it for the kids to play with.  A good toy trumps the biological need for quality protein and natural fats every time.

“Mrs. Griffin, I’m hungry!”

“You already had some whole-wheat toast with margarine and cup of skim milk, dear.”

“I know.  But I’m really, really hungry!”

“Well, uh … here, play with these plastic loaves of bread.  You’ll feel better.  And when you’re done, remember they belong on the base of the food pyramid.”

The Philly school is, of course, engaging in all this nonsense to bring itself into alignment with the federal government’s nonsense:

With 20 percent of the nation’s children obese, the United States Department of Agriculture has proposed new standards for federally subsidized school meals that call for more balanced meals and, for the first time, a limit on calories. The current standard specifies only a minimum calorie count, which some schools meet by adding sweet foods.

The Agriculture Department wants to change the content of federally subsidized school meals — 33 million lunches and 9 million breakfasts a day — by the fall of 2012. Beyond the calorie cap, the new standards would emphasize whole grains, vegetables and fruits and set tighter limits on sodium and fats.

Fernando Gallard, a spokesman for the Philadelphia School District, said schools were meeting the new federal meal proposals by using more dark green and orange vegetables, as well as fruits, whole grains and legumes.

Great.  Awesome.  Fabulous.  So we’re going to give kids calorie-restricted meals full of fruits and grains, but low in fat.  I tried that type of diet back when I didn’t know any better, and all it did was make me hungrier.  An email I received today from a recent Fat Head viewer sums it up pretty well:

I had always wondered why eating a big bowl of Cheerios for breakfast at 7:30 left me starving by 10 am, while I could get by until 10:30 on nothing but a mug of tea.  Oatmeal has me jonesing for lunch by 11, while a cheese omelet sees me through dinner.  This morning I set aside my usual two slices of wheat toast with jam and ate two hardboiled eggs instead.  I feel rather awesome, not hungry at all.  And ALERT!

Well, heck, we don’t want schoolkids feeling satisfied and alert.  We want them so light-headed and hungry, they’ll happily run around singing songs about carrots.  Then when their blood sugar crashes because they didn’t eat enough fat to provide real fuel for their bodies, they’ll run out and grab the first sugary snacks they can find.

But no worries.  The school and some parents who don’t know any better are attempting to fix that problem with a new program called Hassling Local Businesses:

Tatyana Gray bolted from her house and headed toward her elementary school. But when she reached the corner store where she usually gets her morning snack of chips or a sweet drink, she encountered a protective phalanx of parents with bright-colored safety vests and walkie-talkies.

“Candy!” said one of the parents, McKinley Harris, peering into a small bag one child carried out of the store. “That’s not food.”

The parents standing guard outside the Oxford Food Shop are foot soldiers in a national battle over the diets of children that has taken on new fervor.

Good grief.  Nothing like recruiting parents to act as Food Fascists in that national battle over the diets of children.  The vest-and-walkie-talkie brigade was apparently the brainchild of the school principal, who has decided convenience stores are part of the problem:

To match the efforts inside the school, one of Ms. Brown’s first acts as principal last August was to ask owners of nearby corner stores to stop selling to students in the morning.

Gladys Tejada, who owns the Oxford shop, said, “It’s a good thing, what they’re trying to do, but I can’t control who comes in.” Nor can she control what they buy. “They like it sweet,” she said. “They like it cheap.”

Bingo.  Ms. Tejada is running a store, not a diet center.  Unless she’s giving away snacks for free, the kids are spending money given to them by their parents.  It’s not Ms. Tejada’s job to be a substitute mommy and control what these kids eat.  That’s a job for their own parents.

If schools are prohibited from serving whole milk but allowed to serve chocolate skim milk, juice boxes, and peaches in syrup, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we’re raising a generation of sugar addicts.  Convenience stores -– like all stores –- can only sell what people are willing to buy, as I pointed out in a recent post.  For some reason, do-gooders can’t seem to grasp this basic principle of economics … which explains programs like this:

Since 2001, a Philadelphia organization called Food Trust has worked to get corner stores to offer healthier foods, including fresh fruit, vegetables and water, as well as products with reduced sugar, salt and fat. But just 507 of the city’s estimated 2,500 corner stores have signed on.

So only about 20% of the stores signed on, hmm?  I wonder why the other 80% aren’t jumping in there and doing their part to battle childhood obesity by offering more fruits and vegetables?

Jetro Cash and Carry, which supplies many corner stores, joined the effort. But Jack Sagen, a Jetro sales and marketing director, said he recently lost $500 buying several dozen cases of 15-cent bags of sliced apples that perished before they could catch on with the stores.

Well, obviously the 15-cent price tag was a major deterrent for all those kids clamoring for apples.  Thank goodness the federal government is spending $400 million to make fruits and vegetables cheaper and more available in “under-served” urban areas.

But after several weeks of parent intervention, Ms. Brown said more children were skipping the corner stores, showing progress against the pull of sweet snacks.

I would of course love to see kids stop eating so many sweet snacks.  But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts (and you can keep the donuts) those kids are just finding the foods that feed their sugar addiction somewhere else.

“It does what they need it to do for that moment,” she said of the snacks. “It hits them in the stomach. They feel full. It’s cheap and fast.”

Here’s a crazy idea:  maybe those USDA-approved school breakfasts and lunches should include more protein and animal fats.  Then when the kids head home from school, they’ll already feel full.

I’ve received hundreds of emails since Fat Head went on Netflix. A few have been hate mails (one from a doctor who called me an ignorant American for not pronouncing “bologna” as it’s pronounced in Italy, then went on to berate me in sentences full of misused words and incorrect punctuation), but the vast majority have included a “thank you” in one form or another. Here’s a typical example from today’s inbox:

Your documentary has completely changed the way I think about food. I’ve nearly totally cut carbs from my diet, and as a result, I have more energy! I also don’t get that icky, lethargic, must-lie-down feeling after eating. I’ve suffered from IBS for 15 years, and after changing my diet over the past few weeks (since watching Fat Head), I finally think I know what it’s like to feel “normal.” Damn Dr. Oz for telling us all to eat so many whole grains!

Reading those emails provides me with some pleasant pat-myself-on-the-back moments. But it’s emails like the one below that remind me why I feel compelled to keep spreading the message that much of what we’ve been told about nutrition and health is wrong:

I’ve been ovo-lacto vegetarian for nearly 20 years. In fact, I received a “Certification” in Natural Hygenic Nutrition through the “Life Science Institute” by paying tuition to Marilyn and Harvey Diamond (of Fit for Life) and by taking a nearly 2 year course. I later found out the “Certification” was worthless and could not get me a job anywhere in the nutrition field.

Later in life, while looking for a way to lose weight, I came across Susan Powter. She screamed to “Stop the insanity” and urged everyone to eliminate fat from their diet. I can even remember her decribing how you could eat “bowls and bowls” of pasta and lose weight. I wanted bowls and bowls of pasta. It was then that I began my journey into vegetarianism, lowfat eating, PCOS and a 100 pound weight gain.

Over the years I tried everything. Weight watchers was particularly bad. Everyone thought I was cheating and eating too many points. For me, since there were no limits on what it was as long as the points were low, I loaded up on the carbs and gained weight while on the diet.

One time I went 6 months straight as a raw vegan. I only ate raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Admittedly, I felt better than I’ve ever felt in my life. I lost 50 pounds. It was tremendously hard to maintain. Meals were complicated and the clean up of all the gadgets was very time consuming. Then my husband came home from Iraq and ordered a pizza and I officially lost my mind. I don’t think anything in the world has ever tasted better than that first bite (well, maybe the second).

What I’m getting at is that I’ve been vegetarian for so long and I’ve been singing this same old song. No one could convince me different. Here I am… this morbidly obese (BMI of 47) 40 year old vegetarian. My typical diet is usually fruits, vegetable and CARBS. When my Endocrinologist asked me what I ate for dinner the night before, I told him I’d put some watermelon, a cored apple, the juice of a lemon, some ice and a massive handful of spinach in the blender. I blended it and drank it. He was horrified. Anyone else would have said how amazing my diet was. I should look like a supermodel. But it was all carbs. He asked me to consider where was the protein or fat. I’ve spent so long thinking I knew it all that it was hard for me to accept that eating fruits and vegetables was wrong. I even argued with him in the office as he told me I have: Dysmetabolic Syndrome X, PCOS, Insulin Resistance, Hypothyroidism and possibly Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis. It was no comfort to hear that it wasn’t my fault and that, if I did not take medication, I would continue to gain weight no matter what I do.

The full email was longer, but you get the idea. This woman ate what she believed was a wonderful diet — making sacrifices to follow the supposedly wonderful diet — and ended up obese and sick for her efforts.   She also has a son who suffers from autism, ADHD, ODD, OCD and Tourette’s syndrome.   She’s only recently learned this his problems are probably related to her PCOS and metabolic disorders.  I’ve received similar horror stories from other viewers as well.

As I explained in Fat Head, some people live on diets they know are lousy. They eat whatever they like, and to hell with the consequences. That’s their choice, and it’s okay by me.  But I feel terrible for people who actually try to take care of themselves, try to do the right thing, but end up with lousy health simply because they’ve been given so much bad advice.

I realized this morning that yesterday was my two-year anniversary as a blogger.  Emails like the one above remind me why I won’t be stopping anytime soon, and why I’m grateful for fellow bloggers like Jimmy Moore, Mark Sisson, Richard Nikoley, Dr. Mike Eades, Stephen Guyenet, Don Matesz, Gary Taubes, and many others.  We need to get the information out there to people who might learn something useful before the damage is done.

I was recently contacted by a famous vampire (the subject of a book and later a movie) who told me he wanted to update his story. Somewhat hesitantly, I agreed to meet with him last night at a local pub. Here’s our interview: 

Fat Head:  I appreciate you agreeing to meet in a crowded public place.

Vampire:  I thought you’d feel more at ease if we weren’t alone.

Fat Head:  I do. I’d feel even more at ease if they served True Blood here.

Vampire:  Unfortunately, that’s pure fiction. There is no True Blood or any other synthetic blood we can drink, although I like the TV show very much. It’s nice to be portrayed as the good guys for a change.

Fat Head:  Good guys, yes, but also good guys who happen to be muscular and attractive, which I’m sure doesn’t hurt the ratings any. In fact, in pretty much all the TV shows and movies I’ve seen about vampires, you’re portrayed as these sleek, strong, sexy creatures. Which … uh … well, never mind.

Vampire:  Go ahead, ask me the question.

Fat Head:  I’m not sure how to put this …

Vampire:  Don’t be afrrraid.

Fat Head:  Cool accent! Very Bela Lugosi.

Vampire:  I’ve had a lot of time to practice. Now ask me the question.

Fat Head:  Well … you’re not exactly what I envisioned. I mean, I expected the pale complexion. But frankly, the pot belly, the bad posture, the sunken eyes, the missing teeth, the limp hair … you don’t exactly fit the Hollywood image.

Vampire:  Not anymore, no. The truth is, I’m sick. A lot of us are sick. That’s really why I wanted to meet with you: to ask you to convince the humans to stop making us sick.

Fat Head:  But you’re a vampire! You can’t get sick. I could jam a poison-tipped knife in your belly, and all you’d have to do is go drink some human’s blood, and … oh, I see.

Vampire:  Exactly. Most human blood these days is just awful. You people have completely screwed up our food supply. And like I said, there’s no such thing as True Blood.

Fat Head:  So with all the diabetics and pre-diabetics walking around these days, it’s hard to find –

Vampire:  Hey, we used to love finding diabetics with all that sweet, sugary blood. But they were rare, so we saved them for desserts and special occasions. Now they’re everywhere, so the sugar content in our diets has gone through the roof.  And it’s not like we chose to do this ourselves, you know.

Fat Head:  I had no idea high blood sugar could harm a vampire.

Vampire:  Neither did we, until we had to start living on the stuff.

Fat Head:  So I guess you could say feeding on modern humans really sucks, huh?

Vampire:  What are you, a comedian?

Fat Head:  Well, actually –

Vampire:  It isn’t funny being sick when you’re immortal. At least you humans can die and be out of your misery. If I lose my toes, I’ll be limping around for eternity.

Fat Head:  I’m sorry, I didn’t know. What kind of ailments are we talking about here?

Vampire:  You can pretty much guess, since you write about the effects of high blood sugar all the time. Organ failure, obesity, tooth decay.

Fat Head:  Tooth decay? I can see where that would present quite a problem.

Vampire:  Yeah, not to mention it’s embarrassing. I have a friend who jumped some woman outside a singles bar a few weeks ago, and when he tried to sink his last two remaining teeth into her neck, they popped out.

Fat Head:  So he wasn’t able to feed on her?

Vampire:  Naw, the poor schmuck ended up gumming her on the neck. All he got out of it was her phone number.

Fat Head:  Pity.

Vampire:  There’s even a booming market for vampire dentures now. How pathetic is that?

Fat Head:  And you’re telling me a vampire’s organs can fail too?

Vampire:  Are you kidding me? Lousy blood is lousy blood, period. We’ve even got vampires going blind.

Fat Head:  So you could say they’re –

Vampire:  And if you make any “blind as a bat” jokes, I’ll tear your heart out. And I don’t mean in a bad love-song sort of way.

Fat Head:  Uh … right. But here’s what I don’t understand: why don’t you and your kind just limit yourselves to feeding on the more nutrient-dense humans?

Vampire:  You think that never occurred to us? Most of us left the country for awhile and lived near people who ate more traditional diets. Unfortunately, the idiots in your government got together with the idiots in your sugar and grain industries and figured out how to export your food all over the world. There’s no escaping it.

Fat Head:  If I’m understanding you correctly, then, you’d like me to help convince humans to eat better food so you can eat better humans?

Vampire:  We don’t eat humans! What kind of animals do you think we are?

Fat Head:  Okay, drink from better humans. The point is –

Vampire:  Look, we’re going to feed on you either way. There’s no reason we shouldn’t all be healthier. And think about this: you’re only one bite away from being one of us. If you don’t want to end up as a sick vampire, then don’t be a sick human.

Fat Head:  Can’t you spot the sick humans and just avoid eating — er, drinking from them?

Vampire:  We tried that. Sure, you can stay away from the obviously obese people. We’ve always done that anyway, except during the holiday season. The trouble is, even skinny people are walking around with high blood sugar these days. And half of them are taking some damned statin drug. Let me tell you, that’ll turn good blood into bad blood faster than anything.

Fat Head:  I hadn’t thought of that. Do statins cause you the same kind of muscle pain and weakness they cause in humans?

Vampire:  You know how strong vampires are supposed to be, right?

Fat Head:  Sure. Like super-humans.

Vampire:  Well, one of my progeny sucked up so many doses of Lipitor over the years, he went hunting one night and got his ass kicked by a teenage girl. Then she went to Hollywood and wrote a TV show about a teenage vampire slayer. Man, that really pissed us off. It wasn’t a fair fight.

Fat Head:  No, of course not.

Vampire:  Then you’ve got the cognitive side effects. I personally know two vampires who suffered from episodes of transient amnesia. One even forgot he was a vampire and decided to take a little stroll in the afternoon sun. Two minutes later he was rolling around on the sidewalk, sizzling like a steak and screaming, “Al Gore was right! Al Gore was right!”

Fat Head:  That must’ve been terrible.  In so many ways.

Vampire:  Indeed. So please, I’m just asking for one small favor here. You and the other health bloggers do whatever you can to help us return to our natural diet. Keep spreading the word. I mean, you felt better when you got off the grains and went back to meat and eggs, didn’t you?

Fat Head:  Much better. I feel stronger and healthier now than I did 20 years ago.

Vampire:  And you actually practice what you preach? No sugar, no grains, no rancid vegetable oils?

Fat Head:  Yes, that’s right. I’m pretty strict these days.

Vampire:  Hmm. Your blood must be exquisite.

Fat Head:  Well, I don’t want to brag, but the last time I had a checkup, the doctor said … Uh, excuse me, are you licking your lips?

Vampire:  Me? No.

Fat Head:  Good, because … you just did it again.

Vampire:  Nervous habit. Think nothing of it.

Fat Head:  Because I’m not really a bling-bling sort of guy, but I did take the precaution of wearing a silver necklace. See, under the t-shirt here?

Vampire:  Chill. I have no interest in attacking you. I want you to go home and tell everyone what I said.  A lot of living-dead people’s lives depend on it.

Fat Head:  I will. Thank you for your time.

Dear Members of the USDA Dietary Guidelines Committee: 

I’m writing to thank you and all the members of the previous committees for your tireless work on the USDA’s dietary guidelines. You’ve made my job as a parent quite a bit easier.

I came to that conclusion yesterday when my wife and I joined our seven-year-old for lunch in her school cafeteria. My wife sends our girls to school with lunches she packs at home … usually some kind of meat or meaty stew accompanied by cheese sticks, carrots, apple slices, or olives. She also puts small bottles of water in their lunchboxes.

Most of the other kids eat lunches prepared in the cafeteria, which of course is required to follow the USDA guidelines. Yesterday’s government-approved lunch consisted of chicken nuggets (battered and deep-fried in vegetable oil), macaroni and cheese, mandarin oranges in some kind of syrup, and a drink. Some kids chose juice boxes for their drinks, others chose 1% or 2% milk, but the most popular choice was the 1% chocolate milk.

Naturally, I was horrified to see kids eating a meal consisting primarily of processed grains and sugar, and only slightly less horrified to realize that the meal was nearly devoid of natural fats. When I observed how many kids seemed to prefer the chocolate milk, my wife informed me that since the new USDA guidelines call for restricting fat even more, the school will soon limit its milk offerings to 1% white milk, skim white milk, and skim chocolate milk.

That’s when I realized what a huge favor you’ve done me.

Like any other father, I want my kids to succeed in life. I want them to win scholarships, attend the best colleges, and excel in whatever fields they choose to study. According to their teachers, they’re both bright girls. However, their school district is the highest-ranked in Tennessee and also one of the higher-ranked districts in the country, which means there are a lot of other bright kids in their classes. The competition to win scholarships some years from now ought to be fierce — but I don’t think it will be, at least not by the time my girls are in high school.

In an otherwise equal competition, there are two ways to gain an advantage: make yourself stronger, or find a way to weaken your opponents. We’re helping our daughters become as strong and as smart as we possibly can, but that may not be enough. Luckily for us, your dietary guidelines will simultaneously weaken the competition … sort of like a federally-funded Tonya Harding conspiring to give a whack to Nancy Kerrigan’s knees.

A growing human brain needs plenty of natural saturated fat and cholesterol, which is why Mother Nature was smart enough to put rather a lot of both in breast milk. Unlike their classmates, my girls have no idea what skim milk tastes like, because we never buy any. In fact, my daughters sometimes ask for extra cream in their whole milk, and we give it to them. They also eat lots of Kerry Gold butter, egg yolks, bacon fat, and marrow fat whenever my wife makes a stew.

Your committee and the previous committees have scared most parents away from serving kids these amazingly nutritious foods, which means my girls will have an advantage in cognitive development — especially now that you’ve instructed schools to remove what little natural fat was left in the milk. It may take some time for the difference in cognitive development to manifest, but the high concentrations of grains and fructose in the government-approved meals are already working to our benefit. While my girls are both alert and calm in class, other kids are already exhibiting signs of hyperactivity or difficulty concentrating.

When my seven-year-old was a toddler, she had occasional play dates with a boy her age who struck me as bright at the time. The boy’s mother served him fruit-spread sandwiches and juice for lunch and proudly informed us that she kept the boy on a low-fat diet. We learned recently that the boy — now a seven-year-old — is in a special class at school because he’s been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. Multiply him by several million, and you can see why I’m confident your dietary guidelines are giving my daughters a leg up on the academic competition. I don’t expect all kids who follow your recommended diet to be quite so hampered, but frankly, even a minor deceleration in cognitive growth will push my girls that much higher on the curve.

And if for some reason my daughters don’t reach the top academically, I think it’s possible they’ll nonetheless surpass their peers physically and win some kind of athletic scholarship. The kids in my daughter’s second-grade class are all lean at this point, but when I looked over to where the fifth-graders were eating, I saw several examples of what just a few extra years of a government-approved diet can accomplish. It’s kind of depressing to see 11-year-old girls with pretty faces and protruding bellies, but when I reminded myself that young women with fatty livers aren’t going to beat my daughters out of starting positions on the college track or basketball teams, my spirits were lifted.

So again, my sincere thanks for all the work you put into the 2010 Dietary Guidelines. I don’t know how much interaction you have with similar committees in other countries, but I urge you to do whatever you can to promote these guidelines around the world. After all, my girls will someday need to compete in a global economy.

Last week I posted an on-line debate between me and someone who is, I believe, a nutritionist. Most of the debate was over grains, which she insists we need as part of a balanced diet. (Note: Sorry if this seems sexist, but I’m assuming the nutritionist is a she, since the vast majority of dieticians and nutritionists I’ve seen quoted in the media are women. I don’t like writing sentences of full of awkward “he or she” and “him or her” phrases, so I’m going with she.)

I asked her to explain the scientific basis for her belief that we need grains but never received a reply, other than further insistence that we need them — especially those oh-so-wonderful whole grains. I suggested she find and read Dr. Loren Cordain’s paper on grains, lectins and diseases … which I seriously doubt she did, since learning that grains are bad news could cause her head to explode.

Cordain’s paper, titled Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword, isn’t an easy read — some of the biochemistry can make your head swim — but it’s worth the effort.  I first read it after Fat Head was already in the can, which is why (to answer a question some people have asked) I didn’t quote Cordain in the film or ask for an interview.  After reading the paper, I finally understood why my vegetarian phase was such a disaster:  I was getting the bulk of my calories from grains and legumes.  Some humans may have adapted to those foods, but many (if not most) have not.

Below are some quotes from the paper, with my comments.

For the vast majority of mankind’s presence on this planet, he rarely if ever consumed cereal grains. With the exception of the last 10,000 years following the agricultural ‘revolution’, humans have existed as non-cereal-eating hunter-gatherers since the emergence of Homo erectus 1.7 million years ago.

It is apparent that there is little or no evolutionary precedent in our species for grass seed consumption. Consequently, we have had little time (<500 generations) since the inception of the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago to adapt to a food type which now represents humanity’s major source of both calories and protein. The sum of evidence indicates that the human genetic constitution has changed little in the past 40,000 years. The foods which were commonly available to pre-agricultural man were the foods which shaped modern man’s genetic nutritional requirements.

This is why it drives me nuts when nutritionists insist we “need” grains.  It makes zero biological sense.  According to Cordain, grains have been part of the human diet for roughly 0.4% of our existence. If 99.6% of my ancestors managed to live without them, why would I need them now?

Generally, in most parts of the world, whenever cereal-based diets were first adopted as a staple food replacing the primarily animal-based diets of hunter-gatherers, there was a characteristic reduction in stature, an increase in infant mortality, a reduction in lifespan, an increased incidence of infectious diseases, an increase in iron deficiency anemia, an increased incidence of osteomalacia, porotic hyperostosis and other bone mineral disorders and an increase in the number of dental caries and enamel defects.

So we became shorter and sicker, with reduced lifespans and bad teeth.  On the other hand, according to today’s nutritionists, switching to grains probably cured the type 2 diabetes problem among Paleolithic humans.

Consumption of high levels of whole grain cereal products impairs bone metabolism not only by limiting calcium intake, but by indirectly altering vitamin D metabolism. In animal studies it has been long recognized that excessive consumption of cereal grains can induce vitamin D deficiencies in a wide variety of animals including primates.

Consistent with populations from the fossil record showing a characteristic reduction in stature with the adoption of cereal-based agriculture, is the observation that present-day populations depending upon cereal grains for the bulk of their energy and protein also tend to be of short stature. Further, vegan and vegetarian children often fail to grow as well as their omnivorous cohorts despite apparently adequate intakes of amino acids and nitrogen.

Wait, that simply can’t be true … I just read an article published by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine that explains how feeding your kids a vegetarian diet is Raising Them Right From the Start.  I’m not going to be persuaded by actual evidence when it’s in competition with a catchy phrase.

Because primates evolved in the tropical forest, all of their potential plant food was derived from dicotyledonous species; therefore, the primate gut was initially adapted to both the nutritive and defensive components of dicotyledons rather than the nutritive and defense components of monocotyledonous cereal grains.

Consumption of monocotyledonous plant foods, particularly cereal grains, is a notable departure from the traditional plant foods consumed by the majority of primates. Consequently, humans, like all other primates, have had little evolutionary experience in developing resistance to secondary and anti-nutritional compounds which normally occur in cereal grains.

Don’t feel bad; I had to look ‘em up too.  From what I read online, grasses are monocotyledons and most other plants are dicotyledons.  Grains are grasses, and according to Cordain, humans haven’t been eating them long enough to build up much resistance to the anti-nutrients Mother Nature gave them as a means of warding off over-consumption by predators.

After several pages explaining how grains have replaced more nutrient-dense foods and may even block the absorption of nutrients we still manage to consume, Cordain begins to deal with effects of the anti-nutrients contained in grains. The worst anti-nutrients seem to be the lectins — which, by the way, are also found in legumes and are particularly high in soybeans.

Lectins are proteins that are widespread in the plant kingdom with the unique property of binding to carbohydrate-containing molecules, particularly toward the sugar component. They were originally identified by their ability to agglutinate (clump) erythrocytes which occurs because of the interaction of multiple binding sites on the lectin molecule with specific glycoconjugate receptors on the surface of the erythrocyte cell membranes. Because of this binding property, lectins can interact with a variety of other cells in the body and are recognized as the major anti-nutrient of food.

Of the eight commonly consumed cereal grains, lectin activity has been demonstrated in wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, and rice but not in sorghum or millet. The biological activity of lectins found in cereal grains are similar because they are closely related to one another both structurally and immunologically. The best studied of the cereal grain lectins is wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), and the in vitro biological effects of WGA upon tissues and organs are astonishingly widespread. In his comprehensive review, Freed has shown that WGA can bind (in vitro) the following tissues and organs: alimentary tract (mouth, stomach, intestines), pancreas, musculoskeletal system, kidney, skin, nervous and myelin tissues, reproductive organs, and platelets and plasma proteins.

But … but … but … my college nutrition textbook says grains are good for us.  So, uh … lectins must bind to our alimentary tract, pancreas, musculoskeletal system, kidneys, skin and nervous system so we’ll never be without them!  (I don’t even want to think about lectins binding to my reproductive organs.)

Most food proteins entering the small intestine are fully degraded into their amino acid components and therefore do not pass intact into systemic circulation. However, it is increasingly being recognized that small quantities of dietary protein which escape digestive proteolytic breakdown can be systemically absorbed and presented by macrophages to competent lymphocytes of the immune system. Under normal circumstances, when the luminal concentrations of intact dietary proteins is low, absorbed proteins generally elicit a minimal allergic response because of the limiting influence of T-suppressor cells.

Because of their resistance to digestive, proteolytic breakdown, the luminal concentrations of lectins can be quite high, consequently their transport through the gut wall can exceed that of other dietary antigens by several orders of magnitude. Additionally, WGA and other lectins may facilitate the passage of undegraded dietary antigens into the systemic circulation by their ability to increase the permeability of the intestine. Consequently, dietary lectins represent powerful oral immunogens capable of eliciting specific and high antibody responses.

In other words, lectins can lead to leaky-gut syndrome.  They poke holes in your intestines, seep into your bloodstream and are carried throughout your body, which then must produce antibodies to attack them.  If that were the end of the story, it would be bad enough.  But that’s not the end of the story.  The amino-acid profile of lectins is similar to the amino-acid profile of many of your own tissues.  The result of what Cordain calls “molecular mimicry” isn’t pretty.

Autoimmune diseases occur when the body loses the ability to discriminate self proteins from nonself proteins. This loss of tolerance ultimately results in destruction of self tissues by the immune system.

So your body ends up attacking itself.  We already know grains cause celiac disease.  Based on both observational and clinical evidence (such as high concentrations of the antibodies produced when lectins seep into the bloodstream), it’s also likely that grains cause or aggravate ailments like these:

• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Dermatitis Herpetiformis
• Insulin-Dependent Diabetes
• Sjogren’s Syndrome
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Epilepsy
• Schizophrenia

Based on my own experiences as well as countless emails and comments I’ve received, I’d add psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma and chronic fatigue to that list.  And yet nutritionists are apparently taught in school that humans need grains to be healthy.  So they scurry off to the clinics and tell people to eat foods that can make them sick.

That’s why I don’t listen to nutritionists anymore.

The following is a transcript of an online debate between me and someone who works at a medical center and is either a nutritionist or has great respect for the advice they dole out.  This should give you an idea of what sick people are being told about diet.  My mom received the same advice from a nutrionist, but between my lectures and the books by Drs. Eades & Eades, she was persuaded otherwise.

Nutritionist comments are in italics, mine are plain text.

it’s not wise to cut grains out completely. your body needs varieties of different foods, grain included.

Humans lived without grains for 99% of their time on earth. Many native cultures still live without eating grains, which require processing to be edible. On what are you basing your claim that it’s “not wise” to cut out grains completely? (I have, and all that’s happened is several ailments have gone away.)

well good for your individual results. humans have been eating grains for at least 10,000 years, some evidence found it going way further back. granted it only seems like a blink of the eye, but it a significant amount of time nonetheless.

basically you need carbs to function. you need them for your brain and also to exercise. i’m not saying go out and eat a bunch of white bleached and enriched bread, just eat healthy grains.

Evolution doesn’t work that quickly. Some humans have adapted to grains, but many have not. No humans NEED grains to be healthy, and grains can have negative effects on health. The lectins in grains can lead to autoimmune diseases, to name just one. Nor do we need carbohydrates to exercise (I exercise frequently) or for brain function (I write, do standup comedy, and program software all without benefit of carbohydrates other than vegetables). Look up gluconeogenesis.

you actually do need carbs for lots of things, including the central nervous system, the kidneys, brain and muscles (including the heart). you need it cause it’s your main source of energy. without carbs your body will consume protein from your muscles. you also get carbs from fruit and veggies. and again, i’m not saying go eat a bunch of refined carbs, but brown rice, whole grain pasta, and multigrain breads should be a moderate part of your diet.

With all due respect, you’re simply stating an opinion with no facts to back it up. If you consume enough fat and protein, your body will not digest your muscles. I’ve gained quite a bit of muscle since cutting carbs. Carbs are the “main source of energy” as a matter of convenience in grain-growing societies, not as a biological necessity. Most of your body will happily burn fat for fuel — that’s why your body stores energy as fat. (Kind of makes sense, doesn’t it?)

your body will burn muscle and fat as a last resort, it’s a survival mechanism. and with all due respect, you don’t know my educational background, therefore are not qualified to call my opinion just that. an opinion, and with no facts nonetheless. i don’t know if you’re promoting this film for someone or if it’s your film, but arguing on youtube is not a good way to endorse a product.

What is your scientific basis for the “last resort” theory? Without fat or protein, you’ll die. Without carbs, you’ll live just fine, as many hunting and fishing tribes throughout history did. My ancestors lived in Ireland. Pre-agriculture, how did they manage to get all that “essential” carbohydrate? No potatoes, no grain farming, no wild fruits or vegetables except in season. The idea that we evolved to “need” grains and starches a mere few thousand years later is absurd.

it’s a well known medical fact in the order in which the body burns its resources. first carbs, then fat, then muscle. therefore, it’s a last resort. if you didn’t know that then i suggest you take a nutrition class.

Let’s see … biologically, we evolved to “need” foods that are new to the human diet, that were mostly unavailable before agriculture and transportation, and require extensive processing to be edible. (Try plucking wheat and eating it.) But the foods that were abundant and can be eaten immediately and raw — game meats and fish — are “last resort” sources of fuel, and our bodies chose a “last resort” form of storing calories, a.k.a. fat. Wow, evolution is strange indeed.

We burn carbs first to avoid the biological emergency of high blood sugar, which is toxic — therefore, it’s a survival mechanism — not because carbs are the body’s preferred fuel. If you didn’t know that, I suggest you take a biochemistry class.

[NOTE:  It occurred to me later that our bodies will burn alcohol before anything else.  According to the nutritionist's logic, that makes alcohol our preferred fuel.  All in favor a 60% alcohol diet, raise your hands.]

funny, i always though eating meat raw was dangerous as well. believe what you must, but stop telling everyone to alter their diet when you’re obviously not a doctor nor a nutritionist.

Your lack of knowledge is becoming more apparent. Eating a fresh kill isn’t dangerous, and humans did it for ages. Bear Grylls does it on Man vs. Wild and lives to tell. Cooking provided an advantage by allowing meat to be kept longer without spoiling.

No, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, which is why I don’t offer lousy, unscientific, because-my-nutrition-textbook-­said-so advice such as “you need grains.” (Works for doctors … then they can prescribe arthritis drugs.)

“No, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist” then stop pretending you know what people need. what works for you may not work for someone else.

Gosh, yes, because only a doctor — who is trained to prescribe drugs and spends a scant few hours in nutrition classes during all of medical school — can talk intelligently about nutrition. Certainly people who merely read dozens of books and hundreds of academic papers and regularly interview researchers aren’t qualified. As for not telling other people what to eat, you’re the one who felt compelled to encourage people to eat grains — which will make many of them ill.

but a nutritionist is specifically trained to be able to tell certain people how they should eat, unlike you who bunch everyone together and say no grain for you. asians are the healthiest people on earth, what is one of the staples in their diet? rice. hello. it’s a grain. if you would pay attention to what i said at the beginning you would understand that i’m not saying people should eat refined carbs, but veggies, fruits and beans, and whole wheat are needed in your diet.

Nutritionists are trained to follow the food pyramid, which isn’t based on science. It’s based on the USDA’s desire to sell grains.

Rice is the least problematic grain, but can still cause blood-sugar spikes for people whose ancestors didn’t come from rice-eating areas. Nobody “needs” rice or especially whole wheat, which can be disastrous. Read Loren Cordain’s paper on grains, lectins and diseases or Dr. William Davis’ posts on wheat … then tell me we need whole wheat.

they do not only follow the food pyramid, they use common sense. you wouldn’t give everyone 6-7 servings of grain. the USDA isn’t out to get us, neither are the majority of doctors and by encouraging people by saying eating tons of fast food isn’t bad for you is ridiculous. come work where i do at a dialysis center for one day and you’ll figure out why.

It isn’t common sense to promote a food pyramid with a base built on a food — grains — that cause health problems for many people. It isn’t common sense to tell people in a population where insulin resistance is rampant to consume 300 carbs per day. That’s partly why dialysis centers are necessary.

High blood sugar damages kidneys. High-carb diets spike blood sugar. The last thing people with kidney problems need is advice from carb-promoting nutritionists.

dialysis patients don’t need to limit grains, and some are encouraged because they need to gain weight. however, because of levels of phosphorus, whole wheat shouldn’t be consumed. but they’re encouraged to eat white, rye and sourdough bread. continue to argue if you must. it’s not the way to win customers.

So you encourage dialysis patients to eat white bread, a sure-fire way to spike blood sugar?!!  Lord help us.  Business must be booming.

white bread doesn’t have as much phosphorus, therefore better for them then whole wheat. again, don’t try to understand something you have no education in.

I see … because “don’t eat bread or other foods that raise your blood sugar” would kill them outright.

High blood sugar damages kidneys. White bread spikes blood sugar. Which part of this equation am I failing to understand because I did’t attend nutritionist school?

too much carbohydrates can result in high blood sugar levels, and too little can result in low blood sugar levels. you need to go to your nutritionist to see the amount you need. dialysis patients can’t eat a lot of foods as it is, so moderately eating white bread is needed to keep their weight up. that’s what you’re failing to understand.

Well, that make sense. After damaging their kidneys with foods that spike blood sugar, dialysis patients need white bread to raise their blood sugar and keep their weight up. And this therefore proves your original contention that all humans require grains in their diets, especially the whole grains that dialysis patients can’t eat because it would further damage their kidneys.

I stand corrected.