THE MAGIC POWER OF FOOD FOR LIFE EXTENSION Part 4

by Wayne Gendel

7 Biggest Dietary Factors for a Healthier Heart

1. Whole foods
Minimize your consumption of refined white sugar – pastries, cakes, ice cream, candies, chips, crackers… Refined sugar is not whole food. When we take sugar cane and process it and remove the molasses, the substance which contains the minerals in sugar and gives it its brown color, you are no longer eating whole food. You are now consuming a food that is powerful (in a harmful way) in raising your blood sugar. White refined flours, sugars and most processed foods are high on the glycemic index and raise our blood sugar too fast because minerals that buffer blood sugar are abscent in these foods! When minerals are removed in food not only it is harmful on us because of the stress of quickly rising blood sugar, but also because the food is very acidic. University of Toronto found that those who consumed higher glucose loaded foods had a 2-3 times higher risk of heart disease! Eating foods that are too acidic, such as too much protein, refined sugars and overeating requires our body to use alkaline minerals to compensate and buffer one’s blood acidity. So where do the minerals come from? Our bones, teeth, tissues. Solution? Go simple, go back to nature. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables! Stay away from packaged foods as much as possible!

2. Lower cholesterol levels
Reduce processed fats and refined sugars and flours, fried foods, and eating sweets after meals. Eating refined sugars after large meals requires the body to release more insulin from the pancreas to buffer the blood sugar. So your body is now storing this extra food as fat! Have fruit 2 hours after your meals as a natural treat!

3. Raw Fat consumption
Raw fats contain enzymes and will not cause weight gain, but will actually help with weight loss. Cooked fats have no enzyme called Lipase. When we start to eat raw fats with lipase they actually can assist in eliminating the stored fat from our tissues! By the way the only thing your body stores for long term is fat. It does not store carbohydrates or protein, only fat. So if you want instant energy eat fresh whole ripe fruits!

a. Eliminate Unhealthy Fats
40-45% of Americans obtain their calories from this category! Hydrogenated oils, cookies, pastries, pies, candies, margarine, fried foods, stir fries, consuming incorrect brand of oils!

b. Moderate Fats – 1x week
Fatty animal foods, cocoa butters, coconut oil, fried foods, stir fries, dairy. Ghee or clarified butter is the safest fat to cook with and minimizes free radical damage.

c. Regular Fats – 2 or 3 weekly
Fish such as mackerel, salmon, tuna and most cold water fish.

d. Daily Fats – all RAW!
1. Avocado: 1/3 to 1 a day. Contrary to popular belief, it has no cholesterol but is loaded with vitamins!
2.Oils: Raw, true cold pressed oils. 1-2 tablespoons daily. Olive, flax, sunflower and pumpkin are best. They must be produced at less than 100 F as oils labelled cold pressed can be higher, which turns the fat into a trans fatty acid that is damaging to the body. Look for processing temperature and expiration dates on your oil!
3. Raw nuts and seeds. Almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, sunflower, sesame, flax, pumpkin. Store in the refrigerator to prevent the oils from going rancid and to maintain peak freshness.
4. Olives, low or no salt. Rinse well or soak in oil and herbs to draw the excess salt out.

4. Caloric input.
Two major benefits achieved by under eating:
1. Less energy used up by the body for digestion. This in turn assists the body in releasing more natural hormones. In other words excess food suppresses the natural hormones release in the body.
2. Excess food and excess acidic foods cause too acidic environment in the blood and urine. Acidic foods are white refined flours, sugars, meats, dairy, most grains, nuts, seeds andmost cooked foods. These should comprise only 20% of one’s diet. Alkaline foods are mainly fruits and vegetables and should be about 80% of one’s diet.

5. Protein consumption
2% in mother’s milk. Long lived cultures eat dramatically less protein in their diets than more ill cultures. Even one large meat meal causes mineral and bone loss (9). Too much protein is only a stress on one’s kidneys, blood, liver… Elephants eat only greens, so do you really think we need all that much protein? Sure eat some quality organic meats, but not every meal! Eat lots of raw vegetables and you can eat your meat! Everything that grows from nuts to vegetables to fruits has proteins. More fruits and vegetables not more protein! Eat your greens!

6. Enzymes 
Raw foods are loaded with enzymes! Eat 70% of your diet fresh fruits and vegetables.

7. Liquids
Drink 6- 10 glasses daily. Many people do not drink enough. This can overload the liver and kidneys with too much acids, which can lead to kidney stones and gall and liver stones. Drink only purified waters, fresh squeezed vegetable juices and herbal teas. 4 ounces of organic red wine is also acceptable. Avoid excess coffee (releases insulin), milk, sodas, bottled juices, soy and rice milks (loaded with sugars and no enzymes. They are dead food that raises insulin response – fat!)

All foods have the following categories of elements:

1. Oxygen
3-5 minutes without it and brain damage can set in! Breathe. Exercise, do yoga, walk, make love! Just keeping active is important not so much what type of exercise.

2. Enzymes
Over 100,000 identified. The main digestive enzymes are amylase – digests starch, protease – digests protein, lipase – digest fats, cellulase which helps digest fibers. Enzymes in raw food help to break down the food you eat. But if one consumes more than 25% cooked foods at any one meal, the body must put out it’s own extra enzymes from our digestive organs, such as stomach, liver and colon (11). This takes energy! When any food is processed or cooked over 118F (11) for a period of time all enzymes are destroyed. In addition even vitamins and minerals are depleted! Enzymes are present only in raw foods! Foods with no enzymes take longer to digest. Raw vegetables digest in an hour or so, and cooked more than 2! (12) So if the food sits in our bodies longer, it takes more energy to digest! Here is a great personal example. If I consume a mainly cooked food meal, which I occasionally do every few months, my bowel movement the next morning is warm and has odour! My body is so used to eating raw that cooked is telling me that it is going through too slow! So include plenty of raw fruits and vegetables!

3. Minerals – 60 essential.
Two reasons we crave foods: 1. We consume too many empty calories from refined white flours and white sugars. These foods, that are too acidic, leach minerals from our bodies and therefore alkaline minerals are required to balance the acidity. So consuming too many empty calories will cause more and more cravings. 2. Not enough organic vegetables and fruits. I recommend organic. Virtually always they taste better and they are more nutritious (13) (14) Harvard University found 50-300% more nutrients in organic versus non-organic produce. Richters University found some non-organic produce did not even have some minerals at all versus the organic!

4. Fatty acids – 3 essential

5. Vitamins 16 +

6. Amino acids – 9 essential.

7. Phyto-Nutrients
Oils, hormones, fibers, sterols, and over 100,000 estimated (3) more elements in foods. This is one big factor that is missing in refined and processed foods and synthetic supplements. All these important co-factors in a whole apple, a whole grain, a whole vegetable and fruit are very important to making the food absorb and get full benefit from all its vitamins, mineral, fatty acids and amino acids. Just the way nature intended!

Let’s follow the healthy crowd!

Personal note: For clarity we do not have to be concerned with polyunsatured, monosaturated and all the various types of fats. All cultures eat fat. And different kinds. Making more fresh vegetables, fresh fruits part of the diet along raw fats seems to be the important common link. Just eating raw fats is the emphasis here. Raw fats are healthy fats. To show you the power of raw foods I will cite from personal experience to show that even raw animal fat is not harmful. Excess cooked animal fat is. Raw animal fat is not. I experimented thinking that animals in nature eat all their food raw and fresh. Humans and domesticated pets are the only species that eat their foods cooked and highly processed, and altered from their natural state. So for 1.5 years I consumed raw animal foods. I ate raw milk, raw cream and raw cheese, fresh without being pasteurized! I also consumed raw fish. I ate some form of raw animal food daily for 18 months. I had my blood tested before and after. My blood work has stayed almost the same ever since. I started testing when I was in my early 20’s. My cholesterol has always been very low. Usually ranges from 95 to as high as 130. So I happened to test my blood after the 18 months on raw animal foods and my cholesterol went from 104.2 which was the last test I had to 100.3. yes it went lower! I was so elated and confident that raw fats are a big secret to keeping a healthy heart!

Now for the single biggest factor in your having a long healthy life. Is only four letters long! Make the right choice what goes on your …. F O R K !

To me doing the same thing expecting different results is a bit unreasonable. Over 1 Trillion dollars was wasted in the last 29 years on just heart disease, it is really insane! Change creates opportunity! Try this new simple powerful way of eating not only to live longer and healthier, but also to feel more energy. Your skin is going to become more youthful, your weight will normalize, and the most amazing thing is your taste will change. You will want to eat more fruits and vegetables! The only thing you have to gain is feeling better! Learning is Knowledge. Action is Wisdom. Make the choice to live healthy and follow the healthy crowd!

Bottom line: Make the choice not to suffer. Avoid overeating. Eat healthy quality foods and live longer!

References: 
1. The Okinawa program 2001, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.d & Makoto Suzuki, M.D.
2. The Okinawa program 2001, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.d & Makoto Suzuki, M.D.
3. Conscious Eating, Gabriel Cousens, M.D.
4. World Health Organization. Press releases 2000. WHO issues new healthy life expectancy rankings June 4, 2000 Washington D.C.
5. Conscious Eating, Gabriel Cousens, M.D. 2000
6. The Okinawa program 2001, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.d & Makoto Suzuki, M.D.
7. The Okinawa program 2001, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.d & Makoto Suzuki, M.D
8. Tobacco stats!
9. Dr Douglas Graham, Nutrition and Athletic Performance
10. Gordon, T., and W.B. Kannel. 1971. Premature mortality from coronary heart disease. The Framingham Study. JAMA 215:1617-25; W.P. 1988. Cholesterol and lipids in th erisk of coronary heart disease – The Framingham Heart Study. Can J Cardiol 4 (suppl.A):5A-10-A. & The Okinawa program 2001, Bradley J. Willcox, M.D., D. Craig Willcox, Ph.d & Makoto Suzuki, M.D
HDL and LDL cholesterol are a good indicator of heart disease and heart attacks.
HDL is a healthy cholesterol the range should be above 35 and up to 60 very good.
LDL is the bad cholesterol. To calculate your ratio divide your cholesterol by your HDL and you will get your total. Example 200 mg/dl American scale (Canadians divide by 38.6) then divide by your HDL cholesterol number example 50 = 4.0. This would be considered good.
By the way no one ever documented has died of a heart attack with a general cholesterol of 150 mg/dl or less.
Okinawan elders have an average of less than 180 with an overall ratio of 3.3! well under the 4.5 recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program. Under 4 is very good.
11. Enzymes Nutrition. Dr. Edward Howell
12. Bernard Jensen D.C. N.D. Tissue Cleansing through Bowel Management
13. Harvard University study 1995
14. Richters University study 1998
15. Glucose load and diabetes: Salmeron, J., J. Manson, M. Stampfer, et al. 1997. Dietary fiber, glycemic load, and risk of non-insulin diabetes mellitus in women. JAMA 277:472-77. Glucose load and coronary hert disease: Liu, S., W. C. Willet, M.J. Stampfer, et al. 2000. A prospective study of dietary glycemic load, carbohydrate intake, and risk of coronary heart disease in U.S. women. Am J Clin Nutr 71(6):1433-61
16. Gabriel Cousens M.D., Conscious Eating 2000.