Book Review #19
Just finished "Metabolical" by Dr. Robert Lustig, a must-read for anyone who cares about healthy living. Metabolical = Metabolic + Diabolical - you get the drift. Here is an attempt to summarize the insights and action points from this super book.
- The book's core advice can be summarized in six words: a) protect the liver, b) feed the gut. Our livers are stuffed, and our intestines are starved—because of processed food.
- Pesticides are just 10% of our problem. 90% is due to processed food and is the primary cause for diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, and tooth decay; correlative for cancer, dementia, hypertension, and depression; and plausible for autoimmune disease and anxiety
- Don't go by nutrition labels; it is not what’s in the food—it’s what’s been done to the food that matters
- Refined carbohydrate and dietary sugars are the biggest cause of type 2 diabetes. Mitochondria in your cells divert excess glucose (from carbs/sugar) into fat. When this happens in the liver, you get fatty liver, leading to insulin resistance
- Avoid food that has Fructose or High Fructose Corn Syrup. Fructose makes twice as much liver fat vs. glucose and generates 100 times more oxygen radicals causing cell dysfunction and structural damage to lipids, proteins and DNA
- Fiber is the single most important nutrient for health, as it protects the liver and feeds the gut. You don’t absorb fiber but it is for your the 100 trillion gut bacteria in your intestine
- Vegan diets and Keto diets are both extreme diets and either can cause problems. Big Food industry benefits from either and peddles both processed carbs and processed meat.
- Of all antibiotics sold in 2014, only 20 percent were for human use, 80 percent were used on livestock and poultry; these antibiotics survive slaughter and processing, and reach our intestines
- Seed oils are high in omega-6 fatty acids, that are highly inflammatory; Omega-3s, found in fish, nuts and seeds, are anti-inflammatory
- You can grow green vegetables almost anywhere—and it’s Real Food. And you can turn dirt back into soil. It’s called regenerative farming. You just need a cow :)
- Genetics explains only 15% of chronic disease, 85 percent is environmental
- Avoid and detest packaged food and instead eat real whole food; Robert's cookbooks are available free at www.eatreal.org
- It is a long and arduous fight against Big Food. Example, the dangers of trans-fats were first known in 1957 and Fred Kummerow fought till 2013 (he was 99 by then) when FDA finally acknowledged that trans fats weren't safe
- One way or another, you’re going to pay. You can either pay the farmer or the doctor—which would you prefer? Make a conscious choice
Eat Real and stay healthy.
#bookreview #food #healthylife Robert Lustig
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