I was delighted to find in “The Times Magazine” of 24th May, 2014, a rare bit of good nutritional wisdom in mainstream media. Giles Coren, having just returned from two months of reviewing American eateries, opined that, “In Britain, we divide broadly into slim, wealthy, educated people who understand the basics of nutrition and eat relatively healthily, and poor, uneducated, fat people who do not even pretend to give a damn. In America, on the other hand, most people think they are on a diet. This is the land which (in the Fifties) first established the bogus link between the consumption of animal fat and unhealthy human body weight, and the idea still persists in 2014, with the result that almost all processed food (which combined with food consumed in restaurant and fast-food joints, comprises 90 per cent of the American diet) advertises itself as containing ‘0 per cent fat’, while listing under its ingredients many obesifying sugars that have been used as compensatory flavour enhancers. So the ‘healthier’ you eat, the fatter you get.
“Most Americans still believe animal grease is the enemy. They do not grasp that the true foe is carbohydrates, which are processed as glucose and activate the production of insulin, secreting armfuls of fat. Hotel breakfasts are hilariously revealing…”.
The continuing belief that saturated fat is bad, which is still peddled by most conventional commentators and which is rightly debunked by the slim Mr Coren, is, of course, linked to the cholesterol myth. In one respect only would I disagree with Mr Coren and that is in relation to fresh fruit, which he later refers to as “delivering its own weight in sugar.”. Certainly the glycaemic impact of processed fruit juices and processed fruit products should be avoided, but a reasonable portion of fresh fruit is good and not, as Mr Coren says, “murderous” (please see previous blog of 9th December, 2013, about research into whole fruits and juices).
The three rules of good nutrition are to avoid sugar, processed food, trans fats and oxidized oils, to eat home prepared food with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables without fear of saturated fat and to take important good quality supplements such as vitamin C, Omega 3 and Co-enzyme Q10. Above all though, I can say from my own experience, the most important supplement is L-arginine to generate “the miracle molecule” (Arginine Derived Nitric Oxide”).