‘Top 4’ Key Changes to Balance our Mainstream Diet

Today obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer are at all-time highs, and while people will cite many different causes, I see one main link – diet (the newer study of epigenetics states that we can turn on and off certain gene expressions depending on what we eat – that is pretty powerful). So how can we help to balance mainstream diets, boost health, and prevent this proliferation of disease? Here is my 4-step plan!

1. Eat More Plants (& Less Animals) – This step is all about increasing the nutrient per calorie ratio and decreasing the toxic load. We’ve all heard that we should eat more plants, but often times when people are trying to eat more fruits and veggies they end up feeling like they aren’t getting enough food to really satisfy their needs. This is usually due to not eating enough plant based foods at a meal, so when it comes to these foods – eat up! Plants are generally low-calorie, but they are also extremely high in nutrients like vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals (their nutrient per calorie ratio is very favorable). The more plants you eat the less likely you will be deficient in the nutrients that your body needs to perform its daily tasks, this can help prevent disease. Because they are low-calorie people who start to consume more plants in their diet often lose unwanted excess weight. Plants are also high in fiber, and with our standard diet fiber is lacking, so this is another bonus. We need dietary fiber to keep a clean digestive tract for proper digestion and absorption which is essential to health. Animal products like meat and dairy are typically high calorie, high in protein and fat, and they lack dietary fiber.  It is easy to over-eat animal products as they are dense and it takes a lot of them to fill our stomachs. This can easily lead to obesity and other disease. Too much protein can be hard for our bodies to process and really stress our system, as can too much fat. Animal fat also contains cholesterol (the bad kind), unwanted hormones, herbicides, and pesticides. Scientific studies have shown that people who consume more of a plant based diet have much lower rates of obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. So you can see that our standard diet high in animal products and processed foods and low in plant foods can be quite harmful. If you add more plant based foods into your daily diet you will automatically crowd out the animal products, you will increase your nutrient per calorie ratio and your overall health will improve.
2. Balance Omega 6:3 Ratio – This step is about getting inflammation under control. Inflammation is a normal process that usually helps to protect and heal our bodies. But when inflammation is chronic it creates the perfect terrain for many diseases to set in. Some of the important nutrients that help with this delicate inflammation balance are the omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids. Omega 3 is an overall anti-inflammatory, and omega 6 has both anti-inflammatory and inflammatory properties. The problem with our standard diet is that we have far too much intake of omega 6, and not near enough of omega 3 – that is our omega 6:3 ratio is out of balance. The recommended ratio is 3:1 or 2:1, and our current diet sits around 10:1 or 20:1. Omega 3 and 6 also compete with one another in our bodies, so when levels of omega 6 are extremely high it can actually edge out the omega 3 and diminish its benefits. This definitely creates an inflammation issue. So what can we do? We need to both decrease our intake of omega 6 foods and increase our intake of omega 3 foods. Foods rich in omega 6 are most animal products, nuts, legumes, and grains. Foods rich in omega 3 are hemp seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, walnuts, algae, and leafy greens.
3. Eat Organic – This step is about boosting nutrients and decreasing toxic load. Organic plants have to grow against their environment, so their plant ‘immune system’ is stronger than that of conventionally grown plants. They have been shown to contain higher levels of vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals as the soil that they are grown in has a very rich nutrient content. Boosting your nutrient intake is essential to keeping your body strong and healthy. Organic produce also lack the level of herbicides and pesticides that conventionally grown produce are laden with. We are what we eat, and if we consume lots of toxins we will create a toxic body. Why not eat organic and ensure that every bite you take is nothing but the good stuff?
4. Focus on Anti-angiogenic Foods – This step is all about starving cancer! Angiogenesis is the process of developing new blood vessels (formation of capillaries). These are formed to supply cells in the body with nutrients and help them to grow and proliferate. Normally the body uses this process for things such as the building of the uterine lining in women, or for healing wounds. After the body has filled the need for this cell building it will naturally break down the blood vessel network and bring everything back into normal balance. Cancer cells, however, are able to continuously grow a blood (nutrient) supply through angiogenesis so that they can thrive and spread without ever having this network of vessels broken down. There is new research that certain foods have been found to be anti-angiogenic; that is their phytonutrients seem to stop this process of blood vessel formation (anti-angiogenesis) and essentially starve the cancer cells by stopping the supply of nutrients. These foods also appear to work synergistically, that is they are more effective when consumed together. The following table shows a list of anti-angiogenic foods that we can consume to help stop the nutrient supply to cancerous cells: 

With these 4 steps in mind whenever we are planning a meal or a snack we can really balance the mainstream diet. Remember, it’s all about adding foods in, not taking things away. If we focus on the adding and the abundance, we will crowd out the ‘bad’ with the ‘good’, and we will be on our way to renewed health and vitality!