What is fundamentally wrong with our modern lifestyle ?
I would like to introduce to you a man who is far more advanced than I am in analyzing all this health stuff. Call me a fan of Ed of the Netherlands.
Like most experts, Ed was sick and he found his cure and now he wants the world to know his experiences and his analysis and suggestions to heal people.
I love his page about What is fundamentally wrong with our modern lifestyle?
I think this is the best argument against grains and legumes.
See http://www.newtreatments.org/whatiswrong
Just in case something goes wrong with that website, I copy and pasted the text below:
What is fundamentally wrong with our modern lifestyle ?
First, I’ll present some background information. The first lifeforms that formed on this planet were single-cell organism. These cells consist of a big cell soup in which all activity takes place. We call this type of cell prokaryotes. Bacteria were one of the first prokaryotic lifeforms on this planet and they are still here. Prokaryotes can only thrive in places where there is no oxygen. They have an anaerobic metabolism (meaning they don’t need oxygen). Their primary source of fuel is glucose (sugar), which they ferment to get energy out of it. This is a very inefficient process. They get a very small number of ATP (energy) molecules out of every glucose molecule.
When the first plants evolved, the plants started to turn carbondioxide (CO2) into oxygen (O2). When the oxygen levels in the atmosphere reached a certain level, a new lifeform evolved, the eukaroytes. The eukaryotes are much more advanced cells. Instead of a big cell soup, they consist of different components, called organelles. Examples of organelles are the mythochondria (the powerplant), the nucleus and the ribosome. The cellular powerplant, the mytochondria, enables the cell to convert fats into ATP molecules very efficiently. It can also convert glucose into ATP molecules, but it’s less efficient, needs three intermediate steps and renders less ATP molecules. For both processes, the eukaryotic cells needs oxygen. The efficient conversion of nutrients into ATP molecules is aerobic (meaning it needs oxygen).
Summarizing:
* Men, animals, yeast and other high-life forms are eukaryotes
* Bacteria and lower-life forms are prokaryotes
* Eukaryotes need oxygen to work efficiently
* Eukaryotes can very efficiently turn fats into energy
* Prokaryotes need oxygen-free places to work efficiently (anaerobically)
* Prokaryotes can only feed on glucose
In short: Men have a major advantage over bacteria; We can get huge amounts of energy out of fats, while bacteria can’t.
To get back to the question, what is fundamentally wrong with out modern lifestyle. I think you know what it is I’m talking about. All dietitians and FDA’s are focussing on decreasing fat-intake and increasing carbohydrate intake. Fats make you fat and carbohydrates are healthy. That’s what all of them are saying. This is completely incorrect and it’s getting clearer and clearer every day. The last thirty years the amounts of fat in our diets have dropped markedly. However, the populations gets more and more obese. Diabetes II is turning epidemic. More people die early of cancers, strokes, heart-attacks and more modern diseases.
All these diseases didn’t exist in the paleolithic age. The few tribes on this planet that still eat like we used to do more than 10.000 years ago, are very healthy. Obese eskimo’s don’t exist, cancer and diabetes also is non-existant among eskimo’s in their natural habitat.Vilhalmur Stefansson, a physician and antropologist already learned this in his many years that he lived among the eskimo’s. He hasn’t found a single case of cancer in all these years !
Why is it that cancer doesn’t exist among people that don’t eat carbohydrates ?
It’s very simple and I’m ashamed of the medical community that they didn’t come up with this before. It’s known that cancerous cells are in fact more like prokaryotes than eukaryotes. If you take a petridish in which you put some healthy human eukaryotic cells and you deprive them of oxygen, they should die, because they can only work aerobically. However, something else happens: They differentiate into prokaryotic cells: Cancerous cells ! They somehow remember their ancestors and transform themselves to make sure they don’t die. Being a prokaryote, enables them to thrive without the much-needed oxygen. As I already summarized above, prokaryotes can only live on glucose. When you take away the glucose, the cancerous cells can’t get enough energy to grow and as a result to start to deteriorate. Studies show that tumors decrease in size when a person stops eating carbohydrates !
Carbohydrates are optional !
Not many people know that carbohydrates are not essential. People can live in full health without eating any carbohydrates. Proteins and fats are the nutrients that are mandatory. Almost every natural food comes with the minerals and vitamins that are needed to digest and metabolize it efficiently. For example, full-kernel wheat contains lots of chromium, which is needed to metabolize carbohydrates efficiently. It also contains zinc and other minerals. The refined wheat we eat as in donuts and white bread is almost completley void of these minerals. Result is that when one eats refined wheat, the carbohydrates in it deplete the mineral and vitamin stores of the body. The body releases stored chromium once you eat bread, because it’s essential for getting the glucose into the cells. It expects that the food comes with its own chromium, so it can replete its chromium stores easily. When there is no chromium available it doesn’t take long before the chromium stores are completley empty and insulin resistance is the result. Please don’t think now that full-kernel wheat is OK, because it isn’t. Read it below.
Glucose is toxic !
The body knows very well that glucose is toxic. The moment you put carbohydrates in your mouth, the pancreas is signalled to start producing insulin, so it can be released swiftly when the glucose enters the blood. High glucose levels cause glycation of proteins. This destroys the proteins. Very small amounts of glucose are needed to induce very high blood-glucose levels. Even worse, high glucose levels are toxic for the pancreatic islets of Langerhans, the insulin-producing cells. Every time you eat carbohydrates, high glucose levels are the result and each time some of the Langerhans islets die.
Glucose also causes the excretion of very essential minerals like magnesium and potassium. Low magnesium is closely related to insulin resistance ! This is a vicious cycle. Lower magnesium levels cause worse insulin action, causing higher and longer high glucose levels, which in turn causes even more excretion of magnesium !
Insulin: The fatstorage-hormone
The insulin, produced by the pancreas, kicks in action after one eats carbohydrates and signals the liver to start converting glucose into fats. Yes, you read it right. Glucose is the nutrient that causes the storage of fats in the adipose tissue ! Man can only store fats when there is insulin present. Insulin is often called the fatstorage-hormone. If a person doesn’t eat any carbohydrates, the result is that no insulin (very low levels are always available) is produced and no fat can be stored. But wait, there’s more. Insulin is the antagonist of glucagon, meaning that when insulin levels are high, glucagon levels are low as a result. Glucagon is needed to induce lipolysis, which is the burning of fats as fuel. Summarizing: Insulin is the fatstorage-hormone and insulin inhibits fat burning !
Studies show that when one eats a 90%-fat diet without caloric restrictions (or even with excess calories), the person does not grow fat ! The same for a 90%-protein diet. On the other hand, a 90%-carbohydrate diet will cause an increase in weight, even with caloric restrictions. Even worse, a 100% carbohydrate diet will cause the dying of many internal organs, like the liver, the pancreas.. A very interesting study shows that rats die earlier when they are fed Cornflakes than when they’re fed the carton box the flakes came in ! So much for the *healthy* breakfast alternative !
Anti-nutrients in grains and legumes
There are many foods that carry in their ingredients the proof that the foods are not compatible with human beings. Let’s start with the legumes. Legumes are foods that mostly grow underground. Most legumes are poisonous if eaten raw. I quote from the Healing Crow (I can’t write it any better): Legumes are high in lectins, protease inhibitors, and phytates. Lectins are proteins that bind carbohydrates, been identified as being inflammatory and toxic, and have a casual relationship with auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, Type I diabetes, and lupus. Phytates or phytic acids, have been shown to inhibit the absorption of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc in the digestive tract. Furthermore, the presence of protease inhibitors interferes with the breakdown of proteins into amino acids. Vegetarians seeking protein from legumes, may actually be making their protein deficiencies worse! A diet high in legumes, at best, will give you gastrointestinal problems and could result in a mineral deficiency. At worst, a diet high in legumes could induce an “auto-immune” response. Furthermore, the soy industry has been pushing the “health benefits” of soy. As a result, most of our processed foods contain a soy additive or byproduct, in effect, lacing our foods with possible toxins.
Grains are also laden with anti-nutrients. I quote from this site: The bran of grains tend to contain anti-nutrients such as phytic acid, which inhibits the absorption of calcium and other minerals, thus contributing to calcium depletion. This can be avoided if the grains are refined, disposing of the bran, but what is left is a carbohydrate relatively high in calories and low in nutrients: flour. By processing the grains, most of the nutrients are lost along with the anti-nutrients. Many grains also contain proteins, such as gliadin, that can cause difficulties with the human immune system, sometimes damaging the intestinal lining
Our modern diet creates a walhalla for all parasites and bacteria
Our carbohydrate-rich diet perfectly feeds all parasites and bacteria. This is why candida and other bacterial infections are so common. This is also why candida is so easily treated by going on a low-carbohydrate diet. This robs the candida of his nutrients and it will die off fairly quick. We have to remember we are superior to the prokaryotes in that we can utilize fats as fuel and they can’t. Use that advantage for treating bacterial infections and also cancer !