Dr Joel Fuhrman – VALUE OF HIGH FAT FOODS
Summary
TLDRThe transcript discusses the importance of both macronutrients and micronutrients in a healthy diet. It emphasizes that while diets often focus on the ratio of fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, the key to health may lie more in micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. The speaker argues against extreme diets, suggesting that a balanced approach with nutrient-dense foods is better. They also warn against the dangers of low-fat diets, especially those under 10% fat, and highlight the American diet's reliance on unhealthy fats like animal fats and trans fats.
Takeaways
- 🍽️ Macronutrients (fat, carbohydrate, protein) are essential for energy but excessive intake can lead to disease.
- 🔍 Many diets focus on the ratio of macronutrients, but the key is to consume less of each in a balanced way.
- 🚫 A diet very low in fat (10% of calories) can be unhealthy and potentially cause medical problems.
- 🥗 Micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, are crucial for cell function and health.
- 📈 The discovery of vitamins and minerals led to a false belief that supplementation could prevent disease, which coincided with a rise in cancer rates.
- 🌱 Phytochemicals, found in natural foods, are vital for immune function and detoxification, and their importance surpasses that of vitamins and minerals.
- 🥦 The ideal diet should be high in micronutrients and low in calories, emphasizing green and colorful vegetables, berries, and nuts.
- 🇺🇸 The typical American diet is high in fat, particularly from unhealthy sources like animal fats, trans fats, and refined oils.
- 🧠 The perception of fat's role in heart disease is skewed because studies often focus on unhealthy fats rather than healthy fats like those from nuts and seeds.
- 🥜 Replacing butter or margarine with olive oil can have some health benefits, but adding olive oil to a diet doesn't necessarily improve heart health.
- ⚖️ The American diet's high fat intake, especially from unhealthy sources, contributes to weight gain and health issues.
Q & A
What are macronutrients?
-Macronutrients are nutrients that contain calories and include three types: fat, carbohydrate, and protein.
What is the relationship between macronutrient excess and disease?
-Macronutrient excess is a major factor in creating disease, with most Americans consuming too much fat, carbohydrate, and protein.
Why is a diet of 10% of calories from fat considered unhealthy?
-A diet that is only 10% calories from fat is considered unhealthy because it may be too low and can create medical problems and disease in a large segment of the population.
What are micronutrients and why are they important?
-Micronutrients are substances that don't contain calories but are essential for normal human cell function, including vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals. They are important for immune system function and the cell's ability to detoxify from metabolic waste products and toxic compounds.
How did the discovery of vitamins and minerals lead to a cancer epidemic?
-The discovery of vitamins and minerals led to the belief that adding them to food or taking vitamin pills would prevent disease. However, this approach did not consider the balance of nutrients and led to an increase in cancer rates for 75 years until women started smoking less and doctors stopped prescribing excessive estrogen.
What is the role of phytochemicals in our diet?
-Phytochemicals are natural substances found in plant-based foods that are essential for the immune system and cell detoxification. They are considered more abundant and important than vitamins and minerals.
What is the ideal diet according to the transcript?
-The ideal diet is one that is higher in micronutrients and lower in calories. It involves consuming less fat, carbohydrate, and protein, but ensuring that the consumed amounts are nutrient-dense.
Why are green vegetables and colorful fruits considered high in micronutrients?
-Green vegetables and colorful fruits are high in micronutrients because they naturally contain high amounts of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.
How does the American diet differ from the ideal diet described in the transcript?
-The American diet focuses on foods that are low in micronutrients and often contains excess calories, particularly from animal fats, trans fats, and refined oils.
What is dietary lipo-augmentation?
-Dietary lipo-augmentation refers to the process of quickly gaining weight and fat on the waist by consuming a diet high in unhealthy fats and excess calories.
What is the impact of substituting olive oil for butter or margarine?
-Substituting olive oil for butter or margarine can have some health benefits, but the addition of olive oil to a diet does not necessarily improve heart health. It is more about it being less harmful compared to other fats it might replace.
Outlines
🥗 Macronutrients and Micronutrients in Diet
The speaker begins by discussing the role of macronutrients in our diet, which include fat, carbohydrate, and protein. They emphasize that while many diets focus on the ratio of these macronutrients, the key to a healthy diet might not lie solely in these ratios. The speaker suggests that reducing the overall intake of macronutrients could be beneficial. They also introduce the concept of micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, which are essential for human health but do not contain calories. The speaker argues that a diet rich in micronutrients and low in calories is ideal. They critique the American diet for focusing on macronutrients and neglecting the importance of micronutrients, which are found in higher quantities in green and colorful vegetables, berries, and certain nuts and seeds.
🌱 The Importance of Nutrient-Dense Foods
In the second paragraph, the speaker continues to elaborate on the importance of nutrient-dense foods, which are high in micronutrients and low in unhealthy components like trans fats, acrylamides, and excessive salt. They highlight that the American diet is high in unhealthy fats, primarily from animal sources, trans fats, and refined oils. The speaker points out that less than 5% of fat intake in America comes from healthy sources like nuts and seeds. They also discuss the misconceptions around fats, noting that studies on fat intake and disease often focus on unhealthy fats rather than healthy fats like those found in nuts and seeds. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the need to seek nutrient-rich foods to maximize health and protect against diseases.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Macronutrients
💡Micronutrients
💡Phytochemicals
💡Calories
💡Disease
💡Nutrient Density
💡Vitamins
💡Minerals
💡Detoxification
💡Ideal Diet
💡Fat Intake
Highlights
Macronutrients are fats, carbohydrates, and protein, which are the nutrients containing calories.
Many diets focus on macronutrient ratios, but micronutrients are also crucial for health.
Macronutrient excess is a major factor in creating disease.
There is no one-size-fits-all ratio for macronutrients; different ratios can be appropriate for different individuals.
A diet with only 10% of calories from fat is not healthy and can create medical problems.
Micronutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals, are essential for human cell function and health.
Phytochemicals, with over 10,000 types, are more abundant and important than vitamins and minerals.
An ideal diet should be high in micronutrients and low in calories.
Green and colorful vegetables, berries, and nuts are high in micronutrients.
The American diet is high in fat, particularly from animal sources, trans fats, and refined oils.
Excess fat intake, especially from unhealthy sources, contributes to weight gain and health issues.
When substituting olive oil for butter or margarine, there are some health benefits observed.
Adding olive oil to a diet does not decrease heart attack rates or improve cholesterol levels compared to no oil.
The focus should be on nutrient-dense foods rather than just surviving or maintaining basic health.
The ideal diet should not only contain undiscovered nutrients but also avoid foods that undermine health.
The American diet's focus on low-micronutrient foods is a significant health concern.
To maximize health, one should strive for an ideal way of eating that includes nutrient-seeking behavior.
Transcripts
now Food Supplies us with macronutrients
and
micronutrients macronutrients are those
nutrients that contain calories and
there are only three of those fat
carbohydrate and
protein and while many diets address
just this macronutrient issue they try
to tell you eat more fat and more
protein and less carbohydrate or they
tell you eat more carbohydrate and less
fat or more prot in other words they try
to juggle some some precise and correct
ratio of fat carbohydrate and protein
and they think that that ratio of
micronutrients is going to make some
positive influence on your health and
I'm suggesting that that's not the main
factor that governs whether a diet is
healthy or not we already know that
macronutrient excess is a major factor
creating disease and that almost all
Americans get too much fat get too much
carbohydrate and get too much protein
we'd all do better with less fat less
carbohydrate and less protein but let me
remind you
there's not one precise amount of fat
carbohydrate or protein that's correct
there could be many different Rel ratios
of fat carbohydrate and protein that
could be excellent and be that could be
appropriate for a particular person or
appropriate for the mass for the for
most people and I'm suggesting as the
result of this talk and what you're
going to hear today that that
appropriate ratio of fat carbohydrate
and protein might so a diet might be 15
or 20% of calories from fat and that
that might be a good diet or a diet of
40% of calories and fat might be a good
diet too but one thing I am making clear
to say today and that is that a diet of
10% of calories from fat is not a
healthy diet and May in fact be too low
and create medical problems and disease
in a large segment of the population and
that's what we're going to talk about
that we need we do need some fat in our
diet so one of the critical messages I
teach is that food doesn't just is not
just a source of macronutrients
micronutrients are critically important
about 80 years ago scientists discovered
vitamins and minerals they they revealed
14 vitamins and 25 minerals that were
essential for normal human cell function
and they said wow and people said this
is terrific this is fantastic we can
stop being so sick we can add vitamin
pills we could sprinkle them on our food
we can add B1 and B6 to cool a we could
put thamin and ROFL and and nasin into
Cocoa
Puffs our problems are
solved and lo and behold that sparked a
cancer epidemic never seen before in un
history and we saw cancer rates increase
every year for 75 years in a row it
wasn't until two years ago the cancer
rates went down and we know because
women are smoking less cigarettes and
doctors stop prescribing so much
estrogen actually had its effect to let
it go the other way but can you imagine
75 years in a row cancer rates
increasing and most of you you know in
the year 1900 only 2% of the population
had heart attacks and strokes in America
and today it's 40 it's 40% heart attacks
11% Strokes 51% di heart attacks and
strokes about 18 years ago we got some
additional information and we learned
that it's not just vitamins and minerals
that Natural Foods also Supply us with
phytochemicals and that by this point
there's more than 10,000 of
phytochemicals and the magnitude by
volume and by amount of phytochemicals
even overwhelms V and minerals and
they're absolutely essential for
functioning the immune system and for
the cell's ability to detoxify from
metabolic waste products and toxic
compounds and without phytochemicals
just getting vitamins and minerals we're
going to be we're going to still have a
lot of disease and perhaps if the
vitamins and minerals are not balanced
in an appropriate
fashion they could even increase a risk
of cancer like for example people taking
vitamin A and beta carotene and these
vitamin E and individual nutritional
supplements that have been shown to
increase cancer risk rather than
decrease it so we've learned a lot in
recent
years so micronutrients are those
substances that don't contain calories
and I've
suggested that a simple way to remember
how to frame the concept of an ideal
diet is that we're looking to eat a diet
that's higher in micronutrients that's
higher in nutrients and lower in
calories we have to eat less fat but the
fat we eat has to be high nutrient fat
we have to eat less carbohydrate but the
carbohydrate it has to be high nutrient
carbohydrate and we have to eat less
protein but the protein we eat has to be
high nutrient protein got
that so I showed this slide last year
and this is just the micro the
micronutrients added up for equal size
portion of food to give people a rough
structure just to get an idea of what
foods are higher in vitamins and
minerals naturally occurring and to
recognize that the foods that have the
highest amount of discovered vitamins
and minerals are the same foods that
have the highest amount of undiscovered
nutrients like
phytochemicals as well you guys got
that so clearly the American diet
focuses on these foods that are low in
micronutrients and they want and they
try to juggle some right correct ratio
but the foods that are high in
micronutrients we hardly even
eat and the foods highest in
micronutrients right and in each
category the vegetables that are highest
in micronutrients are green vegetables
and colorful vegetables like carrots and
red peppers and the fruits that are
highest in micronutrients are things
like berries and papaya and Kiwis and
grapefruits right and beans in high in
nutrients and nuts that are highest
nutrients and things like sesame seeds
and sunflower seeds and flax seeds and
walnuts right so we have we're trying to
be nutrient seeking we want a nutrient
seek for Health you want to ask yourself
when you eating food are you nutrients
seeking when you make food choices
because we're like Jeff novic just said
we're not looking to survive we're
looking if you want to know what's ideal
and to protect yourself from
onslaughts and from your past bad habits
or from stresses in your life or in your
past life we want to have a diet that we
want to know what the Hallmark of an
ideal way of eating would be so we can
strive to that to maximize our
health so does this does this food not
only contain nut the Undiscovered
nutrients but does it not contain foods
that might undermine our health like
trans fats acrylamides salt or other
chemicals and
things but we have to
recognize that the American diet is very
very high in fat and obviously eating
excess calories of any type especially
especially excess fat causes us to gain
weight and I call it dietary lipo
augmentation meaning that we can eat in
a way to quickly put fat on our waist
and we could augment ourselves so we can
make ourselves look fatter very easily
by eating the diet most Americans eat
almost all the fats in the American diet
come from animal fats trans fats and
refined oils so in other words when I'm
saying Americans are eating 40% of
calories from fat we're saying that that
40% is totally made up of animal fats
Transat F and refined
oils so when we look at the in
scientific studies on the relationship
between fat intake and disease you're
not really studying the relationship
between fat intake and disease you're
studying the relationship between those
types of fats and disease because less
than 5% of fat intake in America comes
from nuts and seeds what we're calling
the healthy fats studying the dangers of
fats a fat and a diet in medical studies
doesn't look at nuts and Seed
consumption they look at those low
nutrient dangerous fats did you follow
that so we can look at studies on
various fats and we could see that
number one something to keep in mind is
that when you substitute olive oil for
butter or margarine we see some benefits
when we look at the addition we look at
studies that look at the addition of
olive oil to a diet over no oil we find
that it actually increases heart attack
rate increases heart attack rate and
increases LDL or the bad cholesterol
so it's not that olive oil has any
beneficial effects on the heart it's
just that it's not as bad as some other
fats might have been replaced
[Music]
with
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
yeah
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)