Posts Tagged ‘alternative diets’

Which is the best diet for you? There are so many diets that are being touted, slogging through them will be labor intense. Food ideas seem to have religious undertones. The believers in each food system are sometimes overzealous.

Pitch

Food is not food anymore it is a philosophy. A critical review of each way of eating shows they all get results. They seem to be effective and explain their philosophy with clarity. They spreads by word of mouth. People adhering to the eating plan tout the benefits.

The pitch can be strident, and in your face. These are generic plans that at best work because of the adulterated foods that you have given up.

Types

They range from the fruitarian diet, vegetarian diet, low carbohydrate diet, macrobiotic, and high protein.

The reality is they all work to some degree, because of what you are giving up.  

Fruitarian

This is not a diet that everyone should blindly embrace. On this diet you have to be alert to see the down side. This is a high sugar diet, even thought it is in a natural form. It supplys vitamins and minerals, but it is high in fructose. For many people it has some critical nutritional elements missing.

What happens many people get caught up in trust and theater; they do not employ deep and critical thinking when embarking on this way of eating. It without a doubt can set some people up for problems in the long haul.

Yes, many people seem to do well at the beginning, what happens is that health issues appear later that don’t always attribute to the diet.

Vegetarian Diet

This can be a good diet for some, and others can’t figure out how to do a really good version. So vegetarian diets can become either a high end or low end junk food diet. In the vegetarian diet there is a lot of latitude, and pre-packaged food, which is high in sugar and sodium, can be a good part of the food supply.

Some of the best sources of iron, vitamins, and omega 3 fats come from grass fed animals. Everyone’s needs are different so it does matter when you leave out a food group.

Low Carb Diet

This has a lot going for it, but again you need to roll up your sleeves, and be prepared to figure out how to do it. Most of the today’s diets are too high in carbohydrates.

This is what matters where are your carbohydrates coming from. Vegetables are a good source, some whole grain works. Mankind started on a low carbohydrate diet and that is what our system is designed for. This diet includes some fruits. It is not neccesarily a high fat diet. Many people use low fat protein sources.

All the diets that work are a variation of cutting out the empty calories, and that means fabricated foods.

Macrobiotics

This is an unusual diet for most of the public, even thought it can be a healthy diet.

This diet is a high whole grain diet, with plenty of vegetables, including sea vegetables. What it has going for it is there are none of the standard pre-packaged foods that have become a staple in the American diet. People do eat animal protein in small amounts.

The draw back is that many people get so drawn in to the principal that they can overload on carbohydrates. This diet needs to be individualized to create a diet that works on a long term basis.

Individualized

Diets must suit lifestyles, genetic predisposition, and current health status.

Alternative diets pertain to diets that are not conventional. A conventional diet is one that is practiced widely, and widely accepted. It is any eating that falls into what is broadly accepted by a majority of the group. An alternative diet is usually an unconventional choice, because the largest part of the group does not use that pattern of eating.

Alternative diet seems to be a term used for all diets that diverge from the common, and observed eating habits of the population. This is true the world over. The conventional diet that American’s consume is one of the most unnatural diets, because it is defined by marketing and industry, and it boils down to money. Nature works, and it is not accurate to think that technology can improve on the nutrition derived from the earth.

Alternative diets offers options to America’s conventional diet. Alternative diets in a way broadens our food choices, adding rather than subtraction from our diet. The majority of allopathic health care professionals point a weary eye toward this trend. They allow the responsibility of America’s diet to fall into the hands of agriculture, ranchers, FDA safety inspectors, and a whole new industry of industrialized farming and manufactured food, when they council patients on good eating patterns.

What few of us realize is that  America’s conventional diet is in a way the biggest alternative diet plan, away from a natural food supply. At no time in history has man fooled with the food supply as now. It is truly astounding that the American diet is considered natural, and most alternative diets are thought of as either extreme or detrimental to our health. While this may hold true because of the way American’s seem to go to the extreme when they approach something new, it’s usually with an all or nothing mentality. However, that does not negate the basic tenants of these proposed alternative ways of eating.

It is thought by many main stream health practitioners that many alternative diets limit food choices, and bring about nutritional deficiencies. The public is advised to tell their doctor about any alternative therapy which includes diet changes. People with chronic illness are advised many times not to start an alternative diet without first consulting a doctor, as if he is an nutritional expert.

The alternative food camp has made some rather dramatic claims with diets helping patients heal from many conditions including cancer. According to mainstream medical press, there is little scientific evidence for this. Most doctors recommend a well-balanced diet. The best quote is moderation in all things. Here lies the problem, there is no moderation in the American diet. The reason is simple, just about everything considered standard American diet fare should not be eaten for health reasons.

The proof is in the statistics, we are in a national health crises with at least 2 million Americans subcoming to heart disease, Cancer, diabetes, strokes and auto-immune disorders. Half of Americans are over weight, and a quarter of the children. With this is coming an alarming rise in chronic conditions that the world has never experience before. The remarkable part is this is not due to famine, or a starving population. We have advanced medical technology, and over the top sanitation. The only place to shift the blame is on America’s conventional diet.

America’s conventional diet is costing us $1.4 trillion dollars a year on healthcare. America spends more money than any other country on healthcare, yet we are not the top in life expectancy, or considered the healthiest people on the planet. The major degenerative diseases are increasing in all age groups. What brought us to this point is America’s technology as applied to the food industry.

America’s conventional diet has two major problems, it supplies us with toxic additives, while insuring that we are malnourished. The former Surgeon General Dr. C.  Everett Koop said in 1988 in the Surgeon General Report that the American diet was the cause of approximately two-thirds of the deaths due to disease in America. We are over 20 years from that report, and we have seen to it that we will produce more foods that are detrimental to our health. While at the same time we have increased our reliance of these foods.

The question that we keep asking is alternative diets safe, and we can answer that we know America’s conventional diet is unsafe. We have a tendency to blame overeating, taking in too many calories as the main reason. That is not to say overeating is not partly at fault, but it is not without a scientific reason why it is so widespread. It isn’t because of the over abundance of food. The over abundance is not in food, but food like substances.   If we were surrounded by all types of vegetables as far as the eye can see, we would not be overeating. However, when your diet manipulates your appetite, and turns off the signals that let you know you are full you are going to overeat.

There are very few so called alternative diets than can cause the havoc of the standard American way of eating. We eat a diet that is made up of foods high in the wrong fats, carbohydrates that are not in their natural form, agricultural practices that are stripping the value of our crops,  all puting our health at risk. We have a conventional diet that is the opposite of what nature intended. Most of the alternative diets recommend organic fruits and vegetables, dramatic reductions of chemical laden foods. They tout healthy fats, with whole grain carbohydrates, usually nothing more extreme than America’s way of eating. Which can consist of a fist full of potato chips, some ice cold soft drink, white hamburger buns with bromide, and a flame cooked hormone, antibiotic pumped hamburger. That is a good home cooked meal, beats pre-packaged chemically designed entrees straight from the freezer. Top it all off with a sugar laden treat, that may have blue, green, and red sprinkles, now you are talking America Fare.