Food For Life: How the New Four Food Groups Can Save Your Life by Neal Barnard M.D

Author:Neal Barnard, M.D.
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307755322
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: 2011-02-22T21:00:00+00:00

6

The New Four Food Groups

and How They Work

When the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine proposed the New Four Food Groups in April 1991, Tonight Show host Johnny Carson gave his own idea for the four food groups: cheeseburgers, fries, ketchup, and Coke.

Well, it is true that the New Four Food Groups are a departure from the diet on which most of us were raised. Years ago, when I decided to swap my North Dakota diet of pork chops and roast beef for a healthier menu, I was not so sure how to go about it, nor did I have any idea how wonderful this switch would turn out to be.

What kinds of foods can be made from grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes? The most delightful menu you can imagine. In the Georgetown district of Washington, D.C., a Middle Eastern restaurant brings the patron a feast of fifteen different plates of exquisite tastes, from exotic salads to delicately spiced vegetables, spreads, and entrees. In a family-owned restaurant on Italy’s Mediterranean coast, fresh linguine is combined with a hearty marinara sauce, with a selection of vegetables and breads. By a lake shore in Switzerland, the sidewalk cafés outside luxury hotels turn green beans, carrots, endive, and broccoli into tastes befitting such a wonderful place. These masterpieces were made from grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes, not because the foods are the very basis of healthful eating but because they delight the palate.

You do not have to be a gourmet chef to make these foods. In Chapter 8 you will find menus and recipes that translate the New Four Food Groups into delicious meals.

The New Four Food Groups are grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes. Together, they are a much more powerful menu than previous dietary plans. Although the old nutritional food groups crowded vegetables and fruits into one group, we have given them separate categories because both are so important.

What is most noteworthy, of course, is that two of the old food groups—meat and dairy—have been dropped: Meats—all meats, poultry, and fish—contain cholesterol and saturated fat, and all meats are totally devoid of fiber and contain virtually no complex carbohydrates. So there is no meat group in the New Four Food Groups. Likewise, dairy products contain fat, cholesterol, lactose, and allergenic proteins, and have no fiber or complex carbohydrates. So there is no longer a recommendation that dairy products be included in the diet.

Now, you may be saying, can I get enough protein without animal products? Can I get calcium? The answer is yes, and in this chapter we will look at these and other common questions. The New Four Food Groups are the Clark Kents of the nutrition world. Their modest and unassuming nature hides extraordinary strength. If your goal is to reverse heart disease, the old food groups were simply too weak to help you. Cholesterol is found only in animal products, and most meat-eaters eat hundreds of milligrams of cholesterol every day. But there is not a speck of cholesterol in the New Four Food Groups because they are 100 percent plant derived.

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