Day 26: Macronutrients: Carbohydrates

Dr. Gabriel Cousens, M.D., Edward Howell, Enzyme Types: Metabolic and Digestive, Enzyme Preservation

Welcome to Day 26!

WHEN WE EAT, the enzyme amylase (a sugar splitting enzyme) is released into our saliva because humans are suited to eat a lot of plants! Today, and the next two days of the Program we are going to investigate macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, all of which we get in plentiful supply on a Juice Feast and on a Plant-Based or Integrated Diet in which enough plant-sourced calories are eaten.

Have no doubt – the juices you are now drinking are providing all the macronutrients you need to heal and build an amazing new you for the duration of your Juice Feast. In order to support your intellectual understanding of this, we have attached my file on Nutrient Calculations so that you can calculate a ballpark rundown of what you are consuming in your juices.

Nutrition Calculations

This file was also included in the Juice Feasting Intro pages, but is here in case it was lost amid all of your preparations. You can also head over to:

NutritionData.com

This site is amazing for calculating nutrient intake. Take it with a grain or two of salt, however. Foods are so varied in their nutrient makeup from farm to farm, season to season that your range of error even with this excellent site could be as much as 30-40%.

We created the Nutrition Calculations file so that you can see for yourself, in general detail, the nutrient make-up of your Juice Feast or dietary plan. On a Juice Feast, you will see that your macronutrients are in the corner of the triangle for carbohydrates. Do not be concerned that you are not getting enough protein. Check the total protein amounts in the data below to see what your intake is. For more on protein, wait for Day 28 for answers to protein questions coming up in the Program.

Nutrient Charts

Below in the downloads are Nutrient Charts for you: a detailed “Fruit Value Chart” and “Vegetable Value Chart” included from Norman Walker’s books, to help easily show Macronutrient amounts, selected vitamins and minerals for over 80 different fruits and vegetables.

Also included is a chart, “Nutrients Present in 100 Calorie Portions of Selected Foods.” Broccoli, Sirloin Steak, Romaine Lettuce, and Kale are shown.

You can see that GREENS ARE BUILDING FOODS. . .

A “Vegetable Protein Percentage Chart” is included, as well as an “Iron Content of Foods” chart, also showing that meats and fish pale in comparison to the iron contents of spinach, beet greens, cucumber…even cauliflower.

U.S. Sugar Consumption

The chart below is from the USDA Economic Research Service showing our clear trend over the last 100 years to consuming more refined processed carbohydrates. One of the big points on nutrition is that when we consume high-sugar, low-mineral foods, our health declines rapidly.

Again, ask yourself whenever you eat something, how many minerals are in this? Then investigate if by adding sea vegetables, or bee pollen, or deep green leafy plants, or a green superfood powder if you can increase the mineral density of your meal or smoothies. Stick to juice on the Feast, however – Smoothies aplenty will be available after the Juice Feast!

Sugar (Refined), Cooked Starches, and Behavior

The theme of the day is carbohydrates, particularly processed and refined sugars. Today’s file download is small, but with some excellent and memorable points that you will not soon want to forget about the effects of eating refined sugar. The two points you do not want to forget are these, excerpted from Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens, M.D.:

Case Study: Mrs. Barbara Reed, Probation Officer

The link between diet and social violence has been supported by consistent research findings on teenage offenders. When teenagers’ diets were changed from their typical high white sugar, fast-food, tamasic-type diet, a marked decrease in the teens’ acting-out, violent behavior occurred. For example, Mrs. Barbara Reed, a probation officer in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, found that when she switched offenders from what was essentially a diet of fast foods, et cetera, to a diet higher in fruits and vegetables, every one of the 252 teenagers in her case load stayed out of court as long as they maintained themselves on a healthy diet.

Study: Juvenile Delinquent White Sugar Consumption

A two-year, scientifically precise study with 267 subjects by Steven Schoenthaler, Ph.D., published in the Journal of Biosocial Research, showed that while the average American eats approximately 125 pounds of white sugar per year, juvenile delinquents in custody averaged about 300 pounds per year.

When this sugar intake was significantly reduced, junk food was reduced, and fruits and vegetables were increased, there was a 48% decrease in antisocial behavior of all types, including violent crimes, crimes against property, and runaways. This was true for all ages and races. This amazing result was achieved simply by changing the diet with no cost to the taxpayer.

Nutrition and Behavior by Russell Blaylock, MD

Want more detailed information on processed sugar and behavior?

You should check out the film Nutrition and Behavior by Russell Blaylock, M.D. You can see it in the Media-Films Section of today’s page.

In this lecture, Dr. Russell Blaylock explains one of the most important connections between nutrition and our health- how nutrition affects our behavior. Citing a series of important studies, he shows that good nutrition can powerfully enhance our memory, mood, and behavior in a socially desirable way. Like wise he shows us that poor nutrition can lead our youth into a world of violence, crime, depression and suicide. By using an impressive array of studies on both juvenile and adult prisoners, Dr. Blaylock demonstrates these principals and outlines specific measures you can take to protect your children from these detrimental effects. Most importantly, he shows us that it is never too late to make these nutritional changes.

What about the issue of raw vs cooked carbohydrates? 

This is a great question, and very important in understanding why we drink fresh juices on the Feast, and why the application of Live Food Nutrition is so valuable for our well-being. Gabriel Cousens writes in Conscious Eating:

“In research at George Washington University Hospital, when 50 grams of raw starch was administered to patients, the blood sugar only rose 1 mg in one-half hour before it began to decrease. With the cooked starch there was a dramatic average increase of 56 mg in one-half hour and then a 51-mg average drop by one hour. This is quite a significant shift in blood glucose. The major difference between the raw and cooked is the raw starch came with its own amylase and so was able to be predigested in the food enzyme stomach.”

This is the importance of raw vs pasteurized juices. We are aiming to keep blood sugar levels as consistent as possible, and huge swings, as experienced by the persons in the study reported above, are undesirable. Drinking fresh juices only minutes or hours old will keep our blood sugar steady, along with drinking plenty of low-glycemic fresh Green Vegetable Juice.

For more on sugar-related issues, you can look forward to the information on Day 72: Overweight/Obesity and Diabetes!

Refined Carbohydrates: Heart Disease, Cancer, and Diabetes

We will cover this more tomorrow on Day 27 when we discuss fats, but it is imperative to understand that a high-glycemic diet, particularly from processed refined sugars, creates inflammation in your body. It is this high-glycemic diet creating inflammation that is damaging to your body and sets the stage for heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Inflammation due to a high-glycemic diet sets the stage for dietary fats to be a problem, whether from plant or animal sources. Most whole-food carbohydrate and fat sources are fine – it is when inflammation from processed refined sugar enters the equation that we see a major increase in cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes in the presence of fats. More tomorrow on that one!

Over-Emphasizing Fruit: What About a Fruitarian Approach to Diet?

This is an excellent question. We have been around the Natural Hygiene and Vegetarian, Vegan, and Raw/Live Vegan communities for several decades. What we have seen is that almost ALL people who try a fruitarian approach do it for a time and then end it. Some see benefits initially and then their health declines. Others never enjoy it. There are the rare, rare minority (often very vocal) who do it for long stretches of years.

Most who report success on a Fruitarian approach exercise A LOT. Why? Fruit is not so high in nutrients as leafy greens or many vegetables and herbs, and is very low in fat. To get all of one’s essential nutrients on a long-term fruitarian approach, a high caloric intake is required. And you have to drive your engine hard to make your body ask for that many calories. Also, once you are exercising that much, your body asks for tons of calories.

Also as a side note on exercise and a fruitarian approach: our friend and colleague Chef Frank Giglio runs marathons and ultramarathons, and tried a fruitarian approach with his training for ultramarathons, eating thousands and thousands of calories a day from fruit. He found his body broke down on that approach…

Our opinion is that a fruitarian approach is too many calories (mostly from fruit sugar) and an over-emphasis on exercise. This does not match the responsibilities and lifestyle of the great majority of us who have jobs, careers, children to help with their homework, etc.

Our Integral or Integrated perspective on this – and it goes for all dietary approaches that include high amounts of one or two macronutrients and limit another is that long-term it is imbalancing and not sustainable. Short-term, sure. But long-term we need a dietary approach with a moderate amount of calories that honors and incorporates carbohydrates, fats, and proteins from a wide variety of whole-food organic sources, and is flexible and scalable according to seasons, food availability, activity level, lifestyle, the season of our life, and more.

Have a beautiful day! See you in The Green Room!

Sugary Drink Ads for Babies of the 1950s

Today’s Downloads

Graphic Pack : Nutrient Charts

Nutrient Charts. Detailed “Fruit Value Chart” and “Vegetable Value Chart” included from Norman Walker’s books, to help easily show Macronutrient amounts, selected vitamins and minerals for over 80 different fruits and vegetables.

Also included is the chart, “Nutrients Present in 100 Calorie Portions of Selected Foods.” Broccoli, Sirloin Steak, Romaine Lettuce, and Kale are shown. Sirloin Steak scores pitifully low on everything BUT! cholesterol and saturated fat. GREENS ARE BUILDING FOODS. . . A “Vegetable Protein Percentage Chart” is included, as well as an “Iron Content of Foods” chart, also showing that meats and fish pale in comparison to the iron contents of spinach, beet greens, cucumber…even cauliflower.

Graphic Pack : Sugar Consumption

Charts from the USDA Economic Research Service showing our clear trend over the last 100 years to consuming more refined processed carbohydrates. One of the big points on nutrition is that when we consume high-sugar, low-mineral foods, our health declines rapidly. Again, ask yourself whenever you eat something, how many minerals are in this? Then investigate if by adding sea vegetables, or bee pollen, or deep green leafy plants, or a green superfood powder if you can increase the mineral density of your meal or smoothies.

Online Articles

Added sugar is the number one culprit in the American health crisis by Linn Cole

Cancer. Heart disease. High blood pressure. Obesity. Diabetes. Premature aging. What we take for granted as hallmarks of life in the most affluent country on Earth have been popularly linked to everything from genetics to fast food. What if the real answer is so straightforward it’s as near at hand as the closest bottle of Coke? Mounting research pinpoints both cane sugar and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) as definitive agents in all of the “epidemics” this generation has become painfully familiar with.

Big Sugar’s Sweet Little Lies by Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens

ON A BRISK SPRING Tuesday in 1976, a pair of executives from the Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in “the forging of public opinion.” The trade group had recently pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in PR history. For nearly a decade, the sugar industry had been buffeted by crisis after crisis as the media and the public soured on sugar and scientists began to view it as a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Industry ads claiming that eating sugar helped you lose weight had been called out by the Federal Trade Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration had launched a review of whether sugar was even safe to eat.

Drinking high-fructose corn syrup really does make you stupid by Jonathan Benson

If you think eating and drinking foods that contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) every now and again will not do you that much harm, think again. A new study out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has found that consuming HFCS can actually destroy memory, slow mental function, and ultimately deteriorate brain performance.

HFCS explained: Here’s why it’s far more dangerous to your health than table sugar by Mike Adams

To make HFCS, a 100 percent glucose solution is converted via enzymes into a 42 percent fructose-58 percent glucose solution. This solution is further treated until it is 90 percent glucose, then mixed with more 42-58 solution to yield a 55-45 concentration. So while the final ratio of fructose to glucose might look similar to table sugar, it is in fact a very different product. Is it any wonder that HFCS is processed differently by the body?

The link between aspartame and brain tumors: What the FDA never told you about artificial sweeteners

On September 30, 1980, a public Board of Inquiry advised against the approval of aspartame, stating: “The Board has not been presented with proof of a reasonable certainty that aspartame (NutraSweet) is safe for use as a food additive under its intended conditions of use.” In 1981, however, the FDA approved aspartame for consumer use based on studies that seem tainted by heavy financial interest in its approval. To many medical practitioners and consumer interest groups, the approval was a gross betrayal of public trust.

Can Fruit Make You Fat? (The Answer is Maybe) by Frederic Patenaude

Andrew Perlot posted a video where he showed the results of a personal experience where he tried to see if he could get overweight eating large quantities of fruit.

Andrew is a raw foodist. Here’s had one of those raw food success stories, losing a tremendous amount of weight eating nothing but fruits and vegetables. In the raw food world, there’s a common belief that fruit is such a perfect food that no matter how much of it you eat, it can never make you fat.

Andrew decided to see what would happen if he ate “unlimited” quantities of fruits, along with vegetables, for 90 days. He decided to cut his experience short at 75 days, having gained a good 15 pounds and looking quite overweight by that time.

30 Bananas a Day Durianrider: A nutritional analysis of his low fat raw vegan diet

Harley Johnstone, AKA DurianRider, is a well-known fruitarian and competitive cyclist. This article is a very interesting investigation into Harley’s diet – the actual nutrient makeup of his fruitarian appraoch. What it shows is that a diet that is mostly fruits requires the eating of MASSIVE calorie-counts through lots of exercise to eat enough food so that micronutrients are eaten in sufficient quantities.

It also shows his diet contains NO Vitamin B-12. Go back and check Day 17 on Vitamin B-12 to see ample research on why a 100% plant-based approach necessitates B-12 supplementation.

In this article, the author investigates:

• What does this guy actually eat in a day and how much?

• He scoffs at supplements, of any type. Why does he need B12 injections?

• What if I put a day’s worth of food into a nutritional analysis, what would I find out?

• Eating this type of radical diet, for several years, and seemingly staying healthy, and able to do a vast amount of exercise. I wondered – does Harley’s diet show any nutrient deficiencies? I assumed many, especially Vitamin B12 which is usually non-existent in vegan diets. (He has B 12 injections after all) What about fatty acids? Omega 3? Essential amino acids from protein?

Great Books

Media, Films, & Documentaries

[Public Talk on DVD] Nutrition and Behavior with Russell Blaylock, MD

[Audio Interview] Sweet Seduction with David Wolfe (40:31)

Is this Common Food Ingredient as Addictive as Cocaine?
Interview with Dr. Joseph Mercola and Dr. Richard Johnson on Fructose

[Documentary] Big Sugar: Sweet, White, and Deadly (2005)

Documentary | That Sugar Film

I Am Active