Greetings,Below is a recent exchange of emails:
January 23, 2012
Hi Madhava,
I just watched your YouTube talk given at the Veg. Soc. of Hawaii, and found it very, very interesting. [Forever The Rainbow - How The Colors Of The Garden Can Save Your Life, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6fAzKKfGjc]
I've been going in circles with my dietary approach to diabetes and would like your opinion. I'm 49 yrs old, diagnosed with diabetes during my first pregnancy at age 40--my doctors are calling me a "type 1.5 diabetic "(pancreatic autoantibodies negative) -- was maintained on insulin for about a year, came off it, then got pregnant again and immediately needed insulin again, stayed on it for about 2 years at that point.
Diabetes got better, but not gone, after each delivery, and then I found Dr. Fuhrman's site and on his recommendation, ate plenty of greens, beans, 3-4 oz nuts/seeds/day (to maintain weight; have a BMI of 18 and he didn't want me to drop too low). My blood sugars continued erratically high, but with plenty of (exhausted) exercise, was able to stay off insulin, with a HgbA1C of 5.8-6.2.
However, this diet has been increasingly difficult to sustain as have been plagued by frequent, long-lasting migraines (making me curtail exercise), which I recently found was related to my bean and nut consumption, and to a lesser extent, gluten consumption. Avoiding these three categories, and continuing on a vegan, no-junk-food diet, has improved the migraine tendancy a lot. But it's been hard to find something to eat, as I have been "brainwashed" to believe that a diabetic should avoid rice and potatoes. And I really want to avoid insulin.
I had also been so thoroughly indoctrinated with the belief that nuts/seeds are a necessary, vital component of a healthy diet, that when I discovered Dr. John McDougall's approach to diabetes, it was with fearful disbelief that I tried going high starch, no/low fat.....and found my blood sugars amazingly improved. But again, it was hard to follow his plan as I felt I needed to avoid legumes and gluten (migraine), rice and potatoes (too glycemic for diabetics); that left corn, sweet potato, and some of the more exotic (to me) non-gluten grains.
Because of these perceived restrictions, I have recently been contemplating going the meat/veg route, avoiding starches.and sweets...but the truth is, I don't really like meat and I do like starches!
So I was very interested to hear your comment on the YouTube talk, that roots and tubers are the healthier choice of starch over beans and grains. Also was "blown away" by your comment that nuts are toxic.
My question to you, then, is:
Do you think I could maintain my health, avoid insulin, and have enough energy to be active, on a diet of primarily potatoes and quinoa, plenty of a variety of nonstarchy greens and vegs, and one or two moderate servings of fresh fruit (primarily berries or apples)? No other grains, no legumes, no nuts/seeds (but maybe flax???), and not much of any fruit? (worried about missing out on health benefits of lots of fruit, or is this just hype?)
Other health issues, in case it's relevant, is a tendancy to high lipids (total chol 334 a few yrs ago, down to 177 on a Dr. Fuhrman diet with the 4 oz nuts/seeds), and a recent diagnosis of osteopenia. I'm 5'1", 95#. Also have gall bladder disease, but have found off the SAD [standard american diet] diet it's not too problematic, so have avoided the recommended surgery. My only medicine is synthroid. I have never been overweight, and gained 23# with each pregnancy.
Thanks for any thoughts or opinions, and thanks for the talk to the VSH.
Ann
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Thank you for your tenacity to resolve your diabetes and to find the perfect diet for you!
OK here we go...
Joel Fuhrman and John McDougall - two great guys, must be harmonized to help all the good people like you who are, as you say - "going in circles".
My talk given at the Veg. Soc. of Hawaii was aimed toward that goal, and I'm so glad it hit home for you (as it has for a surprising number of others).
You have caught many things from the talk. Here's more:
According to the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health in 2007, based on unchallenged studies since 1935, calorie restriction (CR) (which is actually calorie normality (CN) with high nutrients) is the ONLY intervention PROVEN to extend both average and total, healthy, cognitive, disease free lifespan. In other words - excess calories are toxic.
In view of calorie restriction/ calorie normality studies, Dr. Fuhrman is correct about high nutrient-to-calorie-ratio foods being of primacy. But then he recommends nuts and seeds which although they have lots of nutrients also have lots of calories - therefore nuts and seeds are a poor choice by his own formula.
Dr. McDougall is correct that human civilizations have existed on a starch based diet. But how long is 5-10,000 years of grains and beans compared to the 2,000,000 or whatever years that near-humans have existed, and the 250,000 to 500,000 years of fully modern humans?
Australopithecus the 1st upright walking man (2-3 million years ago), existed (according to scientists at the Harvard anthropology department, et al) on a great ape's diet of mostly leafy greens, vegetable-fruits and sweet fruits, but added root-tubers and stem-tubers (scientifically called USO's for underground storage organs) that great apes don't generally eat.
So humans and their direct ancestors ate fruits and vegetables, and roots and tubers until relatively recently. Roots and tubers are human's starches. Grains, and to a lessor extent beans are technology's starches.
Roots and tubers are alkaline, while grains and to a lessor extent beans are acid forming in the body.
I called nuts "toxic" to make the point that they are high calorie foods - remembering that CR/CN studies have established that high calorie foods are "toxic".
You might want to read my book: Forever The Rainbow Taste Sensations: Health, Kindness And The Plant Life Cycle being published next month but available now for pre-order. ($20 sent via PayPal to mdasNow@gmail.com.) The whole thing is explained there in detail.
Now to your specific question:
The answer is YES! With some simple adjustments.
I would ask you to think in terms of the plant's reproductive life cycle.
As the successive harvest-able plant parts appear from leaf/stem, to bud/flower (broccoli, artichoke et cetera), to fruit (green beans, pumpkin, cucumbers, berries et cetera), to tuber, to seed in the plant's life cycle, the plant has more time to accrue and store energy in the form of calories.
That is to say leafy green vegetables have the highest nutrient to calorie ratios, and that seeds are the most calorie dense.
With CR/CN and high nutrient to calorie ratios in mind the preferential order and highest volume of eating, is to eat greens, buds, vegetable-fruits, sweet fruits and tubers (especially various types of sweet potatoes) foremost and generally in that order; or in descending proportions in that order, within each of a few different preparations. Quinoa is a seed so that would be last and least volume-wise.
Calorie-wise it works out that you get about equal calories from each stage of the plant's life cycle because each stage gets more calorie dense.
This is the IDEAL. In practice, any order and reasonably balanced volume of leaves, buds, vegetables, fruits and tubers is great. The next notch down is beans. According to National Geographic's Blue Zone investigation of the longest lived populations on the planet, beans are OK in smaller amounts. Again all this in in Forever The Rainbow.
A garden is a SUPER GREAT HELP. Greens grow the fastest especially when they get a good amount of water. Vegetable-fruits like green and yellow beans and sweet snap peas (LEGUME FRUITS) are both very healthy AND prolific and add nitrogen to the soil. Beans and peas (legumes) in their FRUIT FORM are THE healthy way to eat beans and peas - and by growing them, the best way to fertilize your garden.
Our vegan-organic garden (no animal sourced fertilizer like blood and bone meal as often used in organic growing ) is the single best thing my wife Sunanda and I ever did for our health.
Sunanda is from India (I'm from Pennsylvania and we live in Hawaii) and she will be co-author of the upcoming plant life cycle diet, veganic produce cookbook. Can you suggest a title?
About flax: Are you familiar with purslane (the most commonly eaten green in the world - except Europe and the US)? Did you know that most greens have sufficient amounts of omega 3 fatty acids? Do you use even a drop of vegetable oil in your diet?
Purslane which tastes great and is so easy to grow you can hardly stop it, is the highest or close to the highest source of omega 3 fatty acids. With a little purslane & a reasonable amount of other greens, and when one does not take one drop of separated vegetable oil, or nuts both of which are high in omega 6, then flax seed meal is not necessary. I no longer eat flax seed on any kind of a regular basis.
About fruit: Fruit is the part of the plant that holds the seeds. There are two broad categories of fruit. Non-sweet or vegetable-fruits; and sweet fruits. Vegetable-fruits (green beans, eggplant, okra et cetera) tend to grow on the ground and sweet fruits tend to grow on trees and bushes - not absolutely, but generally. In natural and favorable tropical or sub-tropical climates where humans lived until they were cast out of Eden so to speak and had to move to unfavorable northern latitudes - as far as easy availability of edibles, mostly there are leaves and fruits.
Generally people think of only sweet fruits when they think of fruits.
Don't exclusively eat sweet fruits - but your: "...moderate servings of fresh fruit (primarily berries or apples)", sounds great to me!
There are also a lot of starchy vegetable-fruits. Various types of squash /pumpkin squash are some. Ohh, you should taste my wife's Kabocha /Japanese pumpkin curry!
Or green banana curry. Or green papaya curry. Or breadfruit curry. In other words these sweet fruits are vegetable-fruits before they get old enough to become sweet.
Oh my, don't get me started on the varieties of great foods you can eat, especially in consideration of all the spicing techniques both my wife and I have developed over the years.
About active energy and weight: Ideal weight is the weight you have the most energy - energy here meaning that you feel good to do things. If you are too thin or too heavy while eating this way, simply eat proportionately more or less of everything - either by eating more often/less often or more/less at one time. Or shift slightly one way or the other in eating amounts of various foods according their life cycle stage/ nutrient-to-calorie ratio. It's in the book again.
There is so much more to say.
We love you and your interest and enthusiasm for food healing and health.
I hope I have answered your questions. If not or if you have more questions please ask and I'll answer them succinctly, and not ramble on like this email.
I'm very interested for you to stay in touch and update us on your experiences and progress. And with your permission, maybe feature you in a future book.
I'd also like to know that if the Plant Life Cycle Diet works for you, and after you are firmly established in it - if with your doctor's supervision, you will be able to get off synthroid.
Kind regards,
Madhava Das
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