I apologize for not posting for a few weeks but I have been swamped with work and travel. Football, Balboa, Paleo Brands and a new project have been taking more time than expected and Talk To Me Johnnie has suffered. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been working, reading and planning.


Recently, I was forwarded an article titled, “Eggs on Their Faces” written by Steven Malanga detailing America’s changing perception of diet. It seems the “crux” of the debate stems around the quantity of fat and carbohydrates Americans are to consume and how it relates to cardiac health. It seems perplexing the media and our nation of so called “experts” are so confused by what is making America fat and causing many of the illnesses/problems that are plaguing us. Funny because the cause is sitting just a few feet from our faces. Nevertheless, with increasing health care costs, health insurance premiums rising 13%-15% per year and millions of people on prescription drugs we are in a bind. A diet rich in whole grains, high in high fructose corn syrup, devoid of quality protein sources like red meat and packed with 12 oz cans of soda are making us sick, fat and unhealthy. Coupled with high amounts of fructose and fast forward the scene below to :43 seconds to find your fate.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs8QKXtCN9w[/youtube]

The author’s last line speaks volumes about the state of the crisis, “The best advice that government can give citizens is to develop their own diet and exercise regimes, adapted to their own physical circumstances after consultation with their doctors”. It seems the government is out of the advice business and grown weary of offering the wrong health prescription. And now they are heaping it upon the consumer to be proactive and find a solution. Imagine that…asking people to take personal ownership in their health and fitness.

The irony is…when people first come to train with us, we tell them, the cheapest and best health insurance is functional fitness and a Paleo diet. They always laugh and smile and then their expression changes as the statement sinks in. By showing up a minimum of three days a week for training and eating a diet based upon TTMJ’s diet recommendations via Chuck Norris of meat, fowl, fish, seafood, eggs, vegetables, roots, tubers, bulbs, herbs and spices as well as animal fats, olives & olive oil, avocados, and coconut (meat, oil, flour). While limiting nuts, seeds, and fruit and making better choices in the nut category include macadamias, cashews, and hazelnuts. While almonds aren’t terrible, seeds are generally rich sources of linoleic acid because they can be eaten in large quantities (the serving sizes are typically in the tablespoon to 1/4 cup range and can be misleading). Sunflower and sesame seeds are a terrible choices in the seed category. And by reducing the serving size if you are going to pick a fruit that has a high metabolic fructose content. Complete avoidance of cereal grains including: all varieties of wheat (spelt, einkorn, emmer, durum), barley, rye, oats, triticale, corn (maize), rice (including wild rice), sorghum, millet, fonio, and teff and legumes. Grain-like substances or pseudocereals including: Amaranth, Breadnut, Buckwheat, Cattail, Chia, Cockscomb, Kañiwa, Pitseed Goosefoot, Quinoa, and Wattleseed (aka aacacia seed). Pseudocereals are the seeds of broad leaf plants whereas grains are the seeds of grasses…you to can take matters into your own hands.

“Every five years, the federal Department of Agriculture and Department of Health and Human Services revise their Dietary Guidelines for Americans, a publication that sets the direction for federal nutrition-education programs…Will a public-health establishment that has been slow to admit its mistakes over the years acknowledge the new research and shift direction? Or will it stubbornly stick to its obsolete guidelines?…The crux of the controversy is the quantity of fat and carbohydrates that we consume and how it influences our cardiac health. As a recent review of the latest research in Scientific American pointed out, ever since the first set of federal guidelines appeared in 1980, Americans heard that they had to reduce their intake of saturated fat by cutting back on meat and dairy products and replacing them with carbohydrates. Americans dutifully complied. Since then, obesity has increased sharply, and the progress that the country has made against heart disease has largely come from medical breakthroughs like statin drugs, which lower cholesterol, and more effective medications to control blood pressure…Researchers have started asking hard questions about fat consumption and heart disease, and the answers are startling. In an analysis of the daily food intake of some 350,000 people published in the March issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers at the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute found no link between the amount of saturated fat that a person consumed and the risk of heart disease… A few weeks later, researchers at Harvard released their own analysis of data from 20 studies around the world, concluding that those who eat four ounces of fresh (not processed) red meat every day face no increased risk of heart disease…According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs…And it doesn’t appear that the government will change its approach this time around. The preliminary recommendations of a panel advising the FDA on the new guidelines urge people to shift to “plant-based” diets and to consume “only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.”…The public-health establishment has been sluggish about reversing course before…In 2000, the AHA revised its restrictions on eggs to one a day (from a onetime low of three a week), but it also recommended reducing consumption of other cholesterol-heavy foods to compensate. Similarly, the federal government’s dietary guidelines still recommend intake of no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol daily, which makes egg consumption difficult unless one excludes most other animal products. To what purpose? A 2004 article in The Journal of Nutrition that looked at worldwide studies of egg consumption noted that the current restrictions on eating eggs are “unwarranted for the majority of people and are not supported by scientific data.”…As increasingly sophisticated medicine focuses on tailoring therapies to individual needs, sweeping public pronouncements on health have become outdated at best and dangerous at worst. The best advice that government can give citizens is to develop their own diet and exercise regimes, adapted to their own physical circumstances after consultation with their doctors.”

Good luck!