Dr. Joe Galati's Blog

Proximity to Food and Obesity: Guest Blog by Chuck Garcia

The New York Times reported today a study by the University of California at Berkley which has interest to all those fighting the obesity war.  They concluded that if fast food outlets are within a block of high school freshman, those students are more likely to be obese than students who have to walk farther to buy a greasy cheeseburger and French fries.  The study was quite an effort by economists (who study people’s behaviors in addition to the economy) to determine what role proximity to fast food outlets contributes to obesity.   

A Shame: No Beets in the White House

Chuck Garcia posts another guest colums.

 

In yesterday’s health section of the New York Times, they reported that the White House garden will be planting 55 varieties of vegetables.  Sadly, there will be no beets.  President Obama doesn’t like them.  This news has triggered a whole wave of bloggers intent on trying to spread the word that the President is missing out. 

The Obesity War: Gaining Mainstream Media Momentum

Here is another post from Chuck Garcia-Guest Blogger.

 

Recognizing that 2/3 of the American public is overweight, what a pleasure to see yesterday’s cover of the Sunday New York Times Business Section (March 23).  The article poses a very daunting question:  “Is a Food Revolution Now in Season?”  I pose to our readers another question, “Can we win the war on obesity without a revolution?”  Not likely. 

Carbohydrates and Diet: Chuck Garcia - Guest Column

It’s high time we stop vilifying this word and start thinking differently.  Not all carbohydrates are created equal.  Why all the fuss?  If you are overweight, don’t blame it on carbohydratess.  Carb is not a dirty word and didn’t cause your problem.  It is the junk you chose to eat that caused the problem.  Carbohydrates are simply the form that junk food tends to appear on the supermarket shelf. 

Even though carbohydrates have been demonized, much is misunderstood about this basic nutrient.  Along with water, protein, and fats, it is a basic building block of a proper nutrition plan (notice I didn’t use the word DIET…more on that on subsequent postings).

Carbs have a required place at the dinner table, if only we knew which ones?

It’s simple.  Take your thoughts back to the definition of God Food versus Man Food.  Unfortunately, a great deal of Man Food is comprised of carbohydrates, thus giving the word a bad name!  However, what if carbs were found in God Food?  Would you still consider them to be in the axis of evil?   No way!  In spite of all the fuss about a “no carb diet,” a “low carb diet” and all the other nutty weight loss methods, keep this in mind:

Carbohydrates are found almost exclusively in plant foods, such as fruits, vegetables, peas, and beans.  Milk (and milk products) is the only food derived from animals that contain a significant amount of carbohydrates. 

Here’s the rub about this topic.  Man Food (i.e. Junk that we eat) is predominantly composed of carbohydrates.  Those foods are not bad just because they are laced with carbs, they are bad because they contain lots of calories with no nutritional value.  To the contrary, an apple or orange contains calories that are loaded with carbohydrates as well…the difference is they transport necessary vitamins and minerals needed to sustain good health.  Junk food delivers none of that.   That does not mean you can eat an unlimited supply of fruit simply because it comes from God.  A quick lesson:

Carbohydrates are divided into two groups – simple and complex.  Simple, sometimes called simple sugars, include fructose (fruit sugar), sucrose (table sugar) and lactose (milk sugar) as well as several other forms of sugar.  Fruits are loaded with simple sugars.  Complex, on the other hand, include fiber and starches (think oatmeal and whole grain bread).   Stay tuned for a future posting that explains why we should not eat an unlimited supply of carbs. 

When choosing carbohydrates-rich food, stay away from the refined carbs that constitute junk that has been processed such as soda, candy, etc.  We are not designed to ingest junk.  Instead, if you think of eating only carbs that come from the Earth (fruit, vegetables, beans) you will come to understand that CARB is not a 4 letter word. 

Stay focused on God Food.  Stay off the junk.  Your health will improve dramatically not with the elimination of CARBS, but with the elimination of JUNK. 

Guest Column: Chuck Garcia

Why the urgency?

“Let food by thy medicine, medicine by thy food.”  Hippocrates

Consider this on the obesity crisis:

• Two-thirds of American adults are overweight
• Close to 30 percent of

  U.S.

  children are overweight
• Childhood obesity has doubled in the past 20 years
• Childhood diabetes has increased dramatically over the years.

These statistics reflect a very dangerous situation.  It’s not difficult to see what is going on here:  People made absolutely terrible eating choices over a very long time.  How did we get we get here? 

We ate our way into this crisis!   How do we solve it?  We need to eat our way out of it!  

Poor eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle increase the risks of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.  In short, eating poorly compromises your immune system.   Our terrible habits, which led to these startling statistics, are the result of a compromised immune system.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  To put this into perspective, consider that God gave us an immune system and all of nature’s bounty (God Food) to support it.  However, it’s important to understand a bit about this system and how we can help overcome this daunting and scary obesity crisis. 

The immune system we are born with is a marvelous machine.  Like many other machines, we take it for granted every time we put a piece of Man food into our bodies.  The bodies (like our cars, houses, etc) begin to break down when not properly cared for.  When you combine fast food, drug dependencies, air pollution, and stress, these are all factors that work against the body’s natural ability to stave off sickness and disease. 

However, nature intended us to fight maladies by fueling our inner healing self with the right natural substances to ensure our internal systems work up to their potential.  The way you fuel your body is up to you.  You can fuel it with junk (and work against your own immune system), or you can fuel yourself with God Food; nature’s intended fuel. 

What does that fuel consist of?

1.    Water

2.    Proteins

3.    Carbohydrates

4.    Essential Fats

5.    Vitamins and Minerals

For now, I’ll focus on number 1, water:  I’ll comment on the other elements in subsequent entries.  Trying to explain it all in one shot is counterproductive.  Like overeating, you can only digest so much at one time.  Today’s lesson then:  Stop drinking soda, juice, Red Bull, etc.  Start drinking water only!  Why?

The human body is 2/3 water.  Water is an essential nutrient that is involved in every single system of your body.  If nothing else, it transports nutrients and waste products in and out of our cells.  It is necessary for all digestive, absorption, circulatory, and excretory functions.   It sounds so simple, yet you are buying diet soda and all kinds of other beverage concoctions at the convenience store.  STOP! 

What will you do today to change your eating habits and improve your immune system?

Drink water.  Several glasses a day!  No more beverages that come from a factory.  Ignore diet soda, fruit juice (artificially sweetened), and anything else that isn’t H2O.  Start now, don’t delay.  It took you a while to become overweight, it can take a while to lose that weight and achieve optimal fitness.  Keep the sugar, chemicals, and any other processed component out of your body!  Water is a gift from God, soda is man made.  Are you beginning to understand the distinction between God and man food???

While I am calling for urgency in fighting this crisis, you don’t have to make huge dietary changes at all once.  Sustaining change tends to work better through evolution rather than revolution.  My objective is to help you with a plan to gradually get on the path to good health through better dietary choices. 

In subsequent blogs I will expand on the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats) as well as the micronutrients (vitamins/minerals) and help you to start changing your eating habits a little bit at a time.  Before you know it, you’ll have evolved into a completely different kind of eater.  You will notice improve health through a stronger immune system.  All of that can be accomplished through eating right.  Stay tuned for more. 

Guest Column: Chuck Garcia and "God Food"

GOD FOOD

Chuck Garcia

Welcome to the first entry of GOD FOOD.  I chose this title because no matter what God you may believe in, he/she intended us to eat food that was present on Day 1.  When the world was born, there were no food processing plants that could turn corn into corn starch.  Who knew how much we would abuse that concept in the 20^th century?  Our creator intended us to eat and drink what was readily available from our planet.  As I have stated many times on Dr. Galati’s radio show, let’s break what we eat and drink into 2 camps:

1.     God Food:  Food that comes from the earth.  What we consume is in its raw form, with no notion of processing or refining any of it.  Example:  Vegetables and fruit.  

2.     Man Food:  It is a misnomer to call it food.  It should be called food product, only because food product is actually based on something that was once God food.  Consider that potato chips actually originated from potatoes…go figure!!  By the time the potato is sent to the food processing plant, stripped of its nutrients, loaded with preservatives and artificial flavors, put inside a bag and sealed, only to sit on a supermarket shelf for months, how is that food???  It’s food product.  It has no nutrients and is laced with chemical additives.  Have you read the ingredients?  It should scare you when you consider what is about to pass into your digestive system! 

Bottom line:  The only food you should eat either grows out of the ground or has a mother (beef, chicken, fish…you get it).  Man Food is off limits and should be put into the Axis of Evil. 

I have been a health enthusiast my entire adult life.  I hope that my passion for good health leads others to think about the importance of nutrition and how taken for granted our dietary habits have become…leading to a terrible obesity crisis in this country.   I firmly believe that a path to sound nutrition (we seem to have lost the concept of nutrition) will lead our population to happier, healthier lives. 

Given my enthusiasm for achieving excellent health, I have the good fortune of being able to help many people who are totally stressed out and confused when trying to answer a simple question, “What should I eat?”  Given how confounding that question has become, I have concluded that when it comes to this subject, people are looking to me and other health professionals like Dr. Galati for two things:

1.     Advice

2.     Inspiration.  People ask me all the time, “How do I stay focused on God Food given the numerous temptations to eat Man Food?  Staying focused comes with being inspired!

Going forward, I will provide both advice and inspiration (God willing).  My goal is to inform, educate, inspire, and, maybe, just maybe entertain.  We need some comic relief to help keep us stay focused and to remind ourselves that this should not be a chore.  Eating right should be fun, pleasurable, and worth sharing with your friends. 

For those of you who don’t know me, I am not a physician or a trained nutritionist.  I am a regular guy, married, with 4 children and have worked in skyscrapers in  New York City for 25+ years.  I was a very fat kid and know what it is like to struggle with food choices.  I left that fat kid in the dust years ago and made up my mind that I would never look back.

I have learned a great deal about health and nutrition over the years and can relate to you in what I hope are very pragmatic, concrete examples of how to attain good health.  It’s up to you!  You are in charge on your health.  With advice and inspiration, you can achieve great health! 

I dedicate myself to fighting the obesity crisis and hope my enthusiasm is contagious.  I will post this blog with many different entries in response to the nutritional challenges we face every day.  Thank you for taking the time to share this journey with me.  I welcome you to the initiation of GOD FOOD and look forward to your comments. 

All the best,

Chuck 

Dangers of Sodium (aka Salt) in a Liver Patient's Diet

Salt is everywhere in the food we eat. A day does not pass where I am instructing my own patients, as well as their family, on how to maintain a low sodium diet.  For patients with advanced liver disease and cirrhosis, we strive for a diet with no more than 2000 mg of sodium daily. In some cases, we need to go even lower. There is always great confusion regarding salt and sodium, and the foods to stay away from. Many times, patients will state "I haven't used salt in years", yet on a quick scan of their diet history, they are well over 2000 mg. How does this happen, you ask? I do not doubt the patient is telling the truth and retired their salt shaker years ago, yet the sodium content of prepared foods is huge, and this is what throws most everyone over the limit. Eating out regularly, or consuming prepared foods that you nuke, are all loaded with sodium. In addition, both of these activities will lead to obesity.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are always best, and very low in sodium. Frozen vegetables are second best are generally low in sodium as well. Anything in a can needs to be avoided. Start reading food labels, and you will be shocked how much sodium a serving of canned soup contains.

Lunch meats over the years have gotten better with regard to sodium content. I have always been a fan of Boar's Head products. While I am not giving a blanket endorsement to all of their products, selective use of them can be OK. Their Ovengold Roast Breast of Turkey provides 350 mg of sodium in a 2 oz serving. It is low in fat and provides 15 grams of protein.

Beyond patients with liver disease, everyone should seriously consider reducing the sodium content in their diets. The American Heart Association has many wonderful links on the merits of a low salt diet. It's not easy to omit salt if you are used to it, but after a couple of weeks of a low salt diet, your taste buds will reset and the food will once again taste better.

Lastly, beware of salt substitutes. Table salt is sodium chloride (NaCl). Many of the salt substitutes in potassium chloride (KCl). The potassium content, for some individuals, may interact with other medications raising the potassium level to dangerous levels. For added flavor, avoid the substitutes and use Mrs. Dash, a salt free product. Of course, learn to cook with peeper, garlic, and all of the other salt and sodium free condiments available to you.

Airline Food

I was in flight today traveling to celebrate with my family in New York. The flight was uneventful and I was able to catch up on some of my sleep for nearly three hours.

Today I took special note of the food. I have always been cautious with food served on planes, but for those that know me, I have never denied a meal while airborne.

Continental Airlines served up a "breaded chicken sandwich" nicely heated in a plastic wrapper with the name "Pierre Creations" on it. Much to my surprise, and exhaustive search on Google found nothing on this company. I also suspect "Pierre Creations" also is the maker of the hamburger look-alike I have been served on similar flights. Todays lunch was rounded out with a small bag of baby carrots, a small serving of "lite" ranch dressing (to add fat to the carrots), a small packet of Hellmann's mayo (who by the way wants you to rethink the benefits of mayo in your diet), and of course, a small Milky Way candy bar.

Unable to find the maker of the chicken sandwich, with no nutritional information posted on the wrapper, I can only guess on sodium, fat, carbohydrate, and calorie content of this sandwich. My son feels that the Chick-fil-A original chicken sandwich may be the closest to compare to - with the airline version probably worse. This would provide you with 410 calories, 16 grams of fat, 1300 mg of sodium, 38 grams of carbohydrates, and 1 gram of fiber. The candy bar adds more sugar and fat, ditto the salad dressing.

If you travel on special occasions, this rotten a meal won't kill you. But for those that travel regularly, food on the plane and at the terminals will. For me, an apple and a bag of carrots, with free access to water would do fine for a three hour jaunt. I am not sure if the is a lesson here or anything to learn. Obesity is everywhere. This is a global war we are unfit to fight. Colleagues I have spoken with believe it will be an entire generation before we come to terms with obesity. In my day to day practice, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is becoming the number one disorder I am seeing. Obesity will strip the resources needed for routine health care, shifting these needed funds to care for diabetes, cancer, bone disease, and lung disease resulting from obesity.

Picking on the airlines is easy - maybe even unfair. But as a culture, at every turn, we are being offered poor choices.