Food Matters vs Trick and Treat - Barry Groves

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Permalink Reply by Jess Etcell on March 16, 2011 at 11:11am

Hi Barry,

 

Thanks for your discussion - it certainly is a controversial topic!

 

Food Matters was created to help James' father become educated on healing methods which are proven for 'untreatable' conditions such as cancer, diabetes, mental illness and heart disease. We are constantly learning and evolving and by no means claim to be everything to everyone.

 

There are ALOT of competing beliefs around what proper nutrition actually is - if you tuned in to Kevin Gianni's recent 'Great Health Debate' I'm sure you will know exactly what I'm talking about!

 

Vegan diets (which are generally low fat by default) are extremely powerful cleansing tools which undeniably have the ability to arrest and reverse conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. You can't deny this - just look at the work of The Gerson Institute, Dr Esselstyn, Gabriel Cousins.

 

At the same time - there are is heaps of research, case studies and personal experiences to suggest that a vegan diet may not be the natural human diet. There are virtually no traditional cultures that were completely animal protein/fat free. The work of Weston A Price, Sally Fallon and Dr William C Douglass is well admired and known to treat things such as obesity, thyroid conditions, infertility and mood disorders.

 

More studies are coming out debunking the myths around animal protein and cholesterol also.  There are people coming out who are ex-vegans claiming deficiencies and that they needed to supplement their diet with animal protein and fat to regain their health (Heather Pace, Daniel Vitalis, Susan Schenk, Lierre Keith). A lot of vegans also consume and rave about coconut oil, which happens to be a saturated fat.

 

This all of course doesn't start to consider the environmental and ethical debates around consuming animals and animal products. Some interesting reads on this include 'The Vegetarian Myth' and 'Diet For A New America'.

 

What we could possibly draw from this is that there may not be one 'diet' that is right for everyone. The work of Dr D. Adamo (Blood Type Diet, Genotype Diet) explores this further and I personally have had great success following his diet and lifestyle guidelines for my individual type. What works for you, may not work for your partner or friend depending on a million different things including your metabolism, your health history, your genetics, your blood type, any ailments you have or have a family history of, etc, etc, etc. A diet proven to arrest heart disease may be very different to one proven to heal infertility.

 

The common ground between all views seems to be this:

• Eliminate trans-fats
• Don't eat 'new' foods (processed foods, packaged foods, artificial sweeteners)
• Eat only natural sugars - fruits, vegetables, honey, maple syrup, stevia (even Weston A Price allows these things in moderation)
• Don't microwave your food
• Choose organic
• Choose local, in season foods
• Exercise, meditate and stretch regularly
• Get plenty of sleep
• Drink plenty of clean, non-fluoridated water. Spring water collected yourself is the best.
• Don't obsess about food or go on 'crash diets' - keep a healthy emotional connection to food and keep it in perspective. 

 

Beyond this things start to get confusing. Eat some fruit, don't eat fruit, eat only fruit. Eat some fat, don't eat fat, eat mainly fat. Eat some protein, don't eat protein, eat mainly protein. Whichever way you want to go - you will be able to find a study, guru and support group to help justify your decision. At the end of the day, we all have to listen to our own bodies and what intuitively feels right for and makes logical sense to us.

 

Food is immensely powerful and controversial. At Food Matters we try not to buy into the dogma of one particular way of eating, but present all of them to you as we gain access to them.

 

Our next film will explore this further by including many different approaches to health on a particular topic. Stay tuned, more info to come soon.

 

Perhaps the best thing you can do for your health is not to stress - after all, it's only food ;)

 

I completely understand (and share) your frustration, but I hope this helps a little.

Please feel welcome to contact me any time if I can help out at all.

Kind regards,

Jess Etcell
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Permalink Reply by Jess Etcell on March 17, 2011 at 7:56am

I just realised I called you Barry!! Ahhh - mid week braindead disorder! Sorry David :S

 

I wanted to find out a little more about your diet if you're open to sharing? It could help others also to hear what is working for you.

 

Do you eat any fruit? What's a typical day's eating like for you? Do you exercise? How old are you?

 

Jess :)

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Permalink Reply by David Guest on March 17, 2011 at 8:44am

Haha,  no worries, was a bit confused why u called me Barry. lol So why are you into the whole nutrition debate? I love the passion and your reply to my opinion was well worthy of appreciation! You said what was needed to be said. It made a lot of sense. I think simplicity is the answer and by reading to much or getting too involved in whats right and wrong makes it all that much difficult to be content with life.

 

With regards to my diet, I eat very little vegetable matter. Tons of organic meats, organ meats, raw unpasteurised milks, and other dairy products. Use lards, butters, coconut oils and so on. A very high saturated diet. It works for me but like you said it could be different for other individuals. 

 

I don't exercise all too much even though I'm a personal trainer. I belive in diets being the key to a healthy you. Yet obviously activity is extremely beneficial but still I think what we eat and fuel ourselves for makes the big impact in our lives.

 

Age wise I'm 25.

 

How old are you, and where about are you from. I'm actually South African but live and work in the UK as a PT. Used to be a Safari Guide believe it or not! lol. What do you do Jess?

 

Nice to be chatting. :-)

x

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Permalink Reply by Jess Etcell on March 17, 2011 at 9:48am

Hi David - thanks for sharing.

 

Very interesting indeed! I know of a few people who eat similarly and it works beautifully for them (the folks over at Blackbird Naturals - Alexandra Maw and Anthony Anderson). On the flip side I know a few people who this really didn't work for.

 

I'm part of the Food Matters team and we are based in Australia.

 

Great to connect with you also!

 

Jess

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Permalink Reply by Kathleen Deggelman on March 25, 2011 at 5:36am

Hi David & Jess. Thanks for the interesting discussion! Great info.

 

David, I like what you said about simplicity. One rule of thumb is, if your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it. Haha! For the most part, if it comes from a package, bad. If it comes from the earth, good. What do you think?

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Permalink Reply by Jess Etcell on March 25, 2011 at 7:42am

What a great rule Kathleen, I think you can't go too far wrong if you use this approach.

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Permalink Reply by Joel Cramer on April 12, 2011 at 9:53am

Hey thanks for the great discussion! And the helpful information.

 

I have found it very frustrating reading so many different theories. I really wanted someone to just tell me what was good for me and teach me how to eat it. But i realise now that no one can do that because there are still so many things we don't know.

 

I guess it doesn't pay to stress too much. And i think the best teacher is often our own bodies. They can tell us a lot if we are observant and take note of  how they respond to the things we feed into them. 

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Permalink Reply by Jess Etcell on April 12, 2011 at 11:29am

Well said Joel!

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Permalink Reply by Eva G. on April 13, 2011 at 12:13pm

Hi David,

if you’re still there… wow, your eating habits are quite interesting and unique.  Thanks for sharing with us.  It seems like the “primitive tribes” you’re modeling your diet from, those early humans may not have a kill every day.  Maybe once a week… also they consumed large amounts of fresh organic fruits and vegies back in the hunter-gatherer times.  Their “workout” every day was much more than ours now so they burnt up most of the calories.  Most of all, they had a much shorter life span (30-40 years max), right? 

I agree with you that we need fat, lot’s of it.  Most health authorities recommend 20% of our calories from fat, the good kind of fat mostly, in order to maintain the ideal state of health (excellent brain function, hormone production, cadio health, etc).  Polyunsaturated fats and oils (good fats) are the ones we supposed to eat… who can always do that?  Hmm, I myself probably don’t do it right many times. 

A slice of juicy steak – yummy – contains mainly the bad kinds of fats (saturated and monounsaturated fats).  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t eat read meat at all, though I myself am on a vegan diet, but let’s suppose a mix of healthier sources of fats would likely provide you long term health benefits. 

You’re still young and the possible results of “mistreatment” of your body may manifest itself later on in life.  So I’m glad you’re feeling good now but that doesn’t necesserely mean that this diet is the best choice in the long run. 

Sugars: I fully agree with what you said about them.  Fruits are good for you on the other hand because they contain the slowly burning sugars.  So unless you pack up a ton of pineapples and pears (both I think has too much sugars total) feel free to eat fruits especially high antioxidant berries as snacks or toppings. 

Now processed sugars (white kind, high fructose corn syrup, etc) stay away from those, they break down fast and cause troubles you mentioned, gaining weight, ups and down in blood sugar, etc.

Milk: do you still have energy left for this?  I love the flavor of milk but I heard that even fat free milk contains a ton of Calcium and way too low in Magnesium.  Anyways, to cut the long story short, milk consumption leads to bone loss, breakage of bones.  What the hey, looks like too much milk may not be the best idea either.

Wishing you the best of luck and sorry about the long mumbling on…

Eva

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie Elise on April 19, 2011 at 9:05pm

Barry - I follow the Genotype Diet too; and I would normally consume 90 - 100 g of raw fats per day... I try to eat about 1g of fat for every gram of protein that I eat.

I'm about 92 pounds so I don't find eating large quantities of natural organic fats any problem, but I think whatever works for you is what you should stick with !

I try to get a wide range of different fats, from raw butter - raw hemp oil, avocado etc. For me, variety is the spice of life!! I think often in western society, its the foods that we consume fat with - i.e. butter on white bread toast, or avocado with corn chips, mashed potato with cream etc.

Anyway, I hope this helps in some way ! :)

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Permalink Reply by Sandra Schafer on April 22, 2011 at 4:49am

Hi all,

 

I read all the replies and was compelled to reply especially after reading reply from Eva G regarding dairy products and bone loss. And isn't it ironic that the very product (dairy) touted to fight osteoporosis and build strong bones is actually the culprit for bone disease and fractures. I read a very informative book, called The China Study, which has compiled scientific research from many nutritional studies including how consuming dairy actually leads to bone loss. In a nutshell, consuming dairy products causes our bodies to become more acidic, and the body responds by pulling calcium from our bones to neutralize it. Furthermore, dairy products inhibit vitamin D absorbtion!

 

David - you do not mention whether or not you have tested your cholesterol levels. Animal products are high in fat and cholesterol, which are linked to heart disease and many cancers. You have to keep in mind, that our Doctors and ourselves will feel that we are in "perfect" health until we discover we have a disease. Many people are surprised when they are told they have a clogged artery or have cancer somewhere. There are better plant based sources for protein and fat.

 

Sandy

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Permalink Reply by Daniela on April 29, 2011 at 2:03am

Hi everybody,

 

Very interesting discussion. I am a vegan + fish consumer. I reached my forties.

Initially, I started being only vegetarian  (20 years old) but after 3 years , I did not feel very good and I started eating fish.

After 20 years I decided to enhance the consumption of fish and saturated fat (milk, nuts) and , only now I consider that I am fine.

I still do not eat other type of meat but I believe that at least for me the fish is essential every day.

 

Daniela

 

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