GI and Omega 3 Nutritional Food Data

GI and Omega 3 Nutritional Food Data

Food Analysis: GI, GL, Fat Ratio, and Inflammation

Starting in late 1999 I personally cured a number of chronic diseases -- not one, but many, including being overweight. Before I started "the cure," I believed my ailments were normal signs of advancing age. It turns out that was a stupid assumption because I was sick from eating horrible foods, not from growing old. I know that for a fact because I'm obviously older now but far and away healthier from eating real food!

When I changed my diet my body function improved so fast I was amazed. That spurred me on and I kept at it. I increased my portion sizes, stopped cutting off the fat, ate more meat than ever, cut out the grains and other junk, ate piles of veggies, and today I feel great. I not only improved my body physically but also mentally. So I now KNOW how important it is to eat right.

The free advise on this Web page and others on my Web site will work for you, because it works for everyone that has the discipline to change and no longer follow the crowd of fat, sick people who are all around us. There is no doubt in my mind that you too can actually cure and at the very least arrest your chronic diseases by eating like a caveman. But you have to change what you eat and avoid all the concocted foods that everyone else relishes and will expect you to eat along with them.

Every time I go to the grocery store to supplement my grass-fed meats I am confronted with a huge array of options in the fruit and vegetable department. Theoretically, according to some nutrition advocates, virtually everything in that department is supposed to be good for you. But I've discovered that one must thread the needle if they want to maintain and continue to improve body function.

Therefore I put together a list of foods and their glycemic indexes, glycemic loads, Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acid levels, the all-important Omega-3 deficit number, and a relatively new variable – the inflammation factor. As you'll see from the data, not all fruit, vegetables, and nuts are good for you. Some are downright UGLY! In my opinion, one must concentrate their food choices in the vegetable and meat departments and leave all others in the never-to-touch or sparingly-eaten categories.

I color coded only the foods that will cure health problems and restore healthy immune systems. Some of the other foods are marginal, but most must be avoided altogether. Where the data indicates a food is borderline, try it. If you react negatively, avoid it. I have provided an extensive explanation of my take on the data and how best to use it in an essay that starts below the tables. So, make sure you read my comprehensive analysis of the data along with looking at the tables. That way the tables will make more sense.

Slanker's Grass-Fed Meats Food Nutrition Table

Caution: Data Is Not Always Accurate

Over the years I've been studying nutritional data I discovered the data keeps changing. There are numerous reasons why.

For decades the government, the actual source for most of the nutritional data published on the Internet, has been contracting out to universities and other sources for studies on foods. There is literally reams of data in the government's various data banks. Some of the data is decades old. Some of it is on food products that actually differ from seemingly similar products available today. Consequently a lot of old data is mixed in with modern data and who knows which is best. When the data is presented it's usually impossible to determine how, where, on what, and when the data was acquired.

Some changes in the data are due to more sophisticated equipment. Today, automated equipment can pick up nutrients in a single run that were previously only detectable by tedious lab work. But the improvements in technology do not always indicate greater accuracy. For instance, some machines designed to analyze fatty acids may work great on vegetables but poorly on meats. Yet unless this is somehow determined, data creeps into the data banks that is flat out wrong.

Alarmingly, the data on some food products may be wrong because the food products themselves were improperly selected or labeled. I know this happens frequently with grass-fed and grain-fed meats. Some grain-fed meats are not from fully grain-finished cattle and some so-called grass-fed meats are from cattle supplemented with grain while on pasture. Compare samples from those two supposedly dissimilar groups and you'll find little difference!

Next is just the way some data, such as the Glycemic Index, are determined. GI numbers are subjective because not everyone reacts exactly the same way to high glycemic foods – and the number is a measure of how sharply the food raises blood sugar. In addition GI does not take into account the quantity of carbohydrates in the food. So if you take raw data that can vary and add in errors and mislabeled products, a calculated Inflammation Index will also miss the mark. So the Inflammation Index is a doubly controversial assessment because all of the variables and errors end up in the Inflammation Index. To top it all off, the calculation of the Inflammation index may be grossly flawed because it does not recognize that fungal infestations and mycotoxins (not food stuffs) may be the primary cause of inflammation.

Consequently, in the months and years ahead I will be upgrading the data in these tables. Hopefully the data is more than just a little helpful as it is. So, with these caveats in mind read on about the indexes so you'll know what type of data we are working with now.

Glycemic Index vs Glycemic Load

Here is how the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University explains the differences between Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load.

Physiological Responses to High- versus Low-Glycemic Index Foods

By definition, the consumption of high-glycemic index foods results in higher and more rapid increases in blood glucose levels than the consumption of low-glycemic index foods. Rapid increases in blood glucose are potent signals to the beta-cells of the pancreas to increase insulin secretion. Over the next few hours, the high insulin levels induced by consumption of high-glycemic index foods may cause a sharp decrease in blood glucose levels (hypoglycemia). In contrast, the consumption of low-glycemic index foods results in lower but more sustained increases in blood glucose and lower insulin demands on pancreatic beta-cells.

Glycemic Load

The glycemic index compares the potential of foods containing the same amount of carbohydrate to raise blood glucose. However, the amount of carbohydrate consumed also affects blood glucose levels and insulin responses. The glycemic load of a food is calculated by multiplying the glycemic index by the amount of carbohydrate in grams provided by a food and dividing the total by 100. Dietary glycemic load is the sum of the glycemic loads for all foods consumed in the diet. The concept of glycemic load was developed by scientists to simultaneously describe the quality (glycemic index) and quantity of carbohydrate in a meal or diet.

GI and GL data range from low, medium, to high. Most nutritionists agree that for the GI the low range is 0 to 55, medium is 56 to 69, and high is 70 to 100. For the GL the low range is 0 to 10, medium is 11 to 19, and high is 20 to 60. The healthiest foods are in the low ranges. I prefer foods with a GI of 40 or less.

Omega-6 to Omega-3 Fatty Acid Ratio

Most of us are already familiar with the all important essential fatty acid ratio. It is believed that for land animals the ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 fatty acids should be one to one by weight in the membranes of all cells. Because we have a grain-based food system most Americans have ratios that are 20 : 1 or even much higher. In laboratory experiments with rats and other critters researchers have determined that when the ratio exceeds 4 : 1 chronic diseases (both mental and physical) are measurable. So it's no wonder health care costs are so high. Nearly everyone is sick and getting sicker.

There have been scores of studies in the past 30 years that show over and over again that people suffering from chronic diseases of all kinds experience improvement when they take Omega-3 supplements. Consequently Omega-3 fatty acids have earned anti-inflammatory and other positive labels. Of course, if people ate the Real Diet of Man nobody would discuss the Omega-3 Fatty Acid because everyone's ratio would be 1 : 1.

Omega-3 Deficit

One of the failings of the essential fatty acid (EFA) ratio is that it can fool you into believing some really bad foods are good. Let's take walnuts for example. They are advertised as being really good sources for Omega-3 fatty acids. But look at the data.

The EFA ratio is a near-friendly 4.19 to 1.00. But a tiny one-ounce serving of walnuts creates an Omega-3 deficit of 8,124 mg! That's a huge deficit to overcome. The only way to do it is to eat ground flax seed by the handful. Combine walnuts and flax seed and one's fat intake soars well beyond anything closely resembling "normal" limits. I believe normal limits are very moderate such as one finds in grass-fed meats and green leafy vegetables.

Antioxidants

In April 2000, an advisory group in the National Academy of Sciences (the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine), reported that Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, and carotenoids like beta-carotene should come from food, not supplements. Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, and beta-carotene are the “Big Four” antioxidants.

The reason the advisory group emphasized the need to get antioxidants from the foods we eat is because when people take antioxidant supplements they can overdose and create health problems.

Interestingly, I know for a fact that Vitamin E and beta-carotene levels are higher in grass-fed beef compared to grain-fed beef. The Vitamin E levels can be four times higher. The beta-carotene levels can be twice as high. For that reason I believe grain-fed Americans are also experiencing similar Vitamin E and beta-carotene deficiencies in their own bodies. And that may also mean the Vitamin E and beta-carotene levels in grass-fed meats are the exact levels we need in our own bodies.

I also know that grass-fed beef has Vitamin C and selenium. But I do not know how their levels compare with grain-fed critters. Vitamin C is very volatile, consequently to acquire adequate Vitamin C levels from beef one would have to eat it virtually raw.

Currently, there are many antidotal studies that indicate adequate levels of antioxidants are extremely important in fighting off chronic diseases and even aging. So foods that contain antioxidants rank high in terms of being anti-inflammatory. So, it seems to me that grass-fed meats may be a perfect source for antioxidants.

Inflammation

Nutrition Data and The Inflammation Free Diet Plan by Monica Reinagel are the sources for the Inflammation data in the table. The following quote from Nutrition Data explains its inflammation index.

Monica Reinagel, a noted nutritional researcher, is the creator of the IF (Inflammation Factor) Rating™ system. Before creating her system, she spent years studying systemic inflammation, and compiled data from hundreds of different research studies. Her system considers the inflammatory and anti-inflammatory effects of more than 20 separate nutrients. In Nutrition Data's opinion, this rating system is the most sophisticated approach to date for predicting the inflammatory effects of foods.

Early in 2006, Monica authored the book “The Inflammation Free Diet Plan,” which provides simple guidelines for using her system to plan your diet, and includes IF Ratings for 1,500 common foods. Nutrition Data recommends this book to anyone considering using the advice of the IF Rating™ system.

A negative IF Rating™ means that the food is considered to be inflammatory (i.e. increases inflammation), and a positive IF Rating™ indicates that the food is considered to be anti-inflammatory (i.e. reduces inflammation). There is no upper or lower limit for the IF Ratings, so you'll see a wide range of values reported. IF Ratings are also dependent on serving size, so you'll see the IF Rating™ value change if you change the serving size in the Serving Size drop-down at the top of the Nutrition Facts page.

IF Positives: This food contains known anti-inflammatory nutrients, including monounsaturated fat, selenium, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and folate.

IF Negatives: This food contains known inflammatory nutrients, including arachidonic acid and saturated fat.

Before reading this next section, make a note about “arachidonic acid.” For a fact it is an essential Omega-6 fatty acid, but is it inflammatory when at normal levels?

Fungus Among Us

Personally, I think the inflammation data may be marginally useful, in spite of the fact that Monica Reinagel maybe overlooking the real cause of inflammation. The “real cause” I'm referring to is fungal infestations and she does not mention fungi in her work!

Our bodies can be dealing with perfectly natural inflammation on many fronts. For instance, if we are exercising regularly and rigorously, we may have sore muscles and joints. The soreness is from inflammation. Our immune system may be fighting off a minor bacterial or viral infection. We may have accidentally cut our finger while preparing a meal. The healing processes will include inflammation. So some inflammation from time to time is natural.

There is yet another source of inflammation. That is from fungal infestations within our bodies. (For much more on this topic visit these two scientifically focused Web sites http://www.thinkfungus.com and http://www.doctorfungus.com.) Certain fungi in our bodies will put out mycotoxins, especially when we eat high glycemic foods, grains, and nuts. Straightforwardly mycotoxins are toxic chemicals produced by fungi. When fungi reside inside a body heavy mycotoxin loads can be very disruptive of normal body function, especially if a body has a compromised immune system. These “disruptions” are diagnosed as chronic diseases!

Consequently, many foods are considered very inflammatory because when these foods are ingested the fungi within our bodies thrive and spew out mycotoxins to mark their territory and prevent other parasites from eating their food. (Fungi live off hosts.) So it's not really the food so much as it is the body's response to fungal infestations and the mycotoxins they produce that cause people the greatest grief!

Yes, it is possible to have many inflammatory occurrences within a body at the same time. Some of the inflammation may be part of the healing process to mend a wound while some may be in response to a mycotoxin overload. A body may exhibit a mycotoxin overload in various ways and the symptoms are usually diagnosed as chronic diseases – both mental and physical.

In the physical department it's easy to imagine upset stomachs, intestinal problems, yeast infections, dandruff, skin rashes, acne, arthritis, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, asthma, hemorrhoids, toenail fungus, and the list is actually endless. When it comes to brain function mycotoxins can be responsible for depression, rage, anxiety, mood swings, ADHD, autism, and this list too goes on and on.

Therefore, high glycemic foods, foods high in Omega-6 fatty acids and low in Omega-3 fatty acids, carbohydrate foods, and/or foods that have become laced with mycotoxins may be inflammatory no matter what they are. Therefore the inflammatory rating is only one more warning flag to watch in order to sort out which foods, even though nutritious, may be harmful. That's because even anti-inflammatory foods that have a fungus on them can be inflammatory.

A Triple Rated Medical Doctor

Very few medical personnel have even a rudimentary knowledge of fungi and mycotoxins. But there is one particular doctor whom I've listed in our Science Links section for years who is an expert in that field. I call him a Triple Rated Doctor. His name is Dr. David Holland and his Web site is http://www.thinkfungus.com.

He is triple rated because his undergraduate degree is in Microbiology and he has a serious "hobby interest" in mycology and mycotoxicology. His graduate degree is a standard medical doctor's degree. And unlike most doctors he is a student of “real” nutritional science.

The number of medical doctors in our country with degrees in Microbiology and an understanding of mycology is probably limited to a few hundred at most. Yet it is fungi that may be responsible for and/or associated with most if not all chronic diseases.

When it comes to nutrition what most doctors know is what everyone else knows – next to nothing. “Next to nothing” is what everyone has learned about nutrition from their local newspaper's Sunday Supplements, various newsstand tabloids, and other toot-fruit media sources which includes the Internet.

For this reason I asked Dr. Holland to review my food tables and my commentary. He did and provided these additional comments which I think are of utmost importance.

Inflammation Factor — things to factor in.

Ted, there are some things you hit right on the head. For example, eating a grain food may lead to inflammation because it's “feeding” an underlying yeast overgrowth (in the intestines, etc.); therefore, the inflammation that may be measured in the body is not because of the food, but because of what that food does to fungi. Old studies have already established the fact that yeast overgrowth can be stimulated by simply eating a high carbohydrate diet. Fungi in the body are germs; germs and infections cause inflammation.

One thing that most people are erroneously concluding: that inflammation is the cause of such diseases as Alzheimer's, heart disease, obesity, cancer, etc. They see that, in all of these conditions, there is an underlying level of inflammation. However, the obvious fact remains that inflammation is a reaction to something else. Inflammation can cause swelling, heat, pain, and tissue damage, but back up a minute: what caused the inflammation? The body doesn't get inflamed for just any reason. Something has triggered the immune system — a poison, infection, trauma; some outside agent. Inflammation can be good — the reaction recruits white blood cells and increases blood supply to the needed area. So, inflammation is not the bad guy here. Whatever triggered the inflammation — there's where we need to focus our attention.

Another point: I may be wrong here, but simply eating a food does not cause inflammation (assuming that the food is not contaminated with bacteria, toxins, or mold). A food with high inflammation potential — such as corn, which is on the negative end of the inflammation scale referenced on http://www.InflammationFactor.com — does not trigger inflammation. Rather, it simply supplies the needed precursors that fuel the inflammatory response. Thus, the food does not trigger inflammation, but it does increase the inflammation potential. Next time a germ comes around, the body will react in a manner out of proportion to what it might have, had the person been eating foods lower in omega-3 oils rather than omega-6 (pro-inflammatory) oils. And I don't mean to put down omega-6 oils entirely. One of them, arachidonic acid, is an essential nutrient that we must get from our diet.

My case above is supported from this, below, taken right from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachidonic_acid

“Arachidonic acid supplementation in daily dosages of 1,000-1,500 mg for 50 days has been well tolerated during several clinical studies, with no significant side effects reported. All common markers of health including kidney and liver function[19], serum lipids[23], immunity[24], and platelet aggregation[18] appear to be unaffected with this level and duration of use. Furthermore, higher concentrations of ARA in muscle tissue may be correlated with improved insulin sensitivity[25]. Arachidonic acid supplementation by healthy adults appears to offer no toxicity or significant safety risk. The safety of arachidonic acid supplementation in patients suffering from inflammatory or other diseased states is unknown, and is not recommended.”

This, above, would indicate, again, that merely eating “inflammatory” foods does not, in itself, lead to inflammation.

As well, it just so happens that some of the “inflammatory” foods, high on the negative scale, such as corn and grains, are also more commonly contaminated with fungal toxins. Stored grains are all at risk for fungal contamination. Fungi produce mycotoxins, and mycotoxins have been linked to neurologic damage (gliotoxin), blood vessel damage (Aspergillus fungi), cancer (aflatoxin and others), diabetes (streptozotocin), immune suppression (trichothecene mycotoxins) and a host of so-called, “auto-immune” diseases. Is it the food, then, or the hitch-hiking molds and their corresponding mycotoxins? The “pro-inflammatory” foods simply bring along their potential to fuel the inflammatory response … caused by the molds and their destructive mycotoxins. Thus, the danger in eating grains has little — in my opinion — to do with the fact that it may lead to inflammation in the body and much more to do with the fact that grains are commonly contaminated with powerfully destructive mycotoxins; and, these mycotoxins themselves (not the grains) are at the root of the cause of so many diseases.

As a last note, it's interesting to note the Inflammation Factor of grain/farm-raised salmon versus wild salmon that is depicted on http://www.InflammationFactor.com. You can apply that same difference to industry-raised versus grass-fed beef. Not that I put all of the importance on grass-fed vs grain-fed, but this is an important point: if you want to lower your chances (and that's what it's all about — reducing the odds of disease coming into your life) of disease, or an overactive immune system, then selecting the best choices of foods should be one of your long-term goals. Just know why you're selecting that food.

What to Eat

As can be seen from the tables, there are many very popular foods that when eaten may lead to health problems. But there are still a number of different offerings in nearly every category that we can eat and still be confident we will probably improve our body function.

However, to illustrate just how important it is to avoid grains, check this out. If you eat one ounce of old fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, then you must eat 12.8 ounces of iceberg lettuce during the same meal to keep your essential fatty acid profile at its natural level of 1 : 1. If you decide to eat salmon instead of lettuce, you only need to eat 0.3 ounces of salmon to reach the appropriate balance. But grain is not the only problem. Put one ounce of olive oil on your salad and you create a surplus of 2,521 mg of Omega-6 that needs to be offset with Omega-3 fatty acids. To do that requires 80 ounces (five pounds) of spinach.

The reason for my concern here is that in order to maintain optimal health, physically and mentally, and a strong immune system your meals must have an equal balance of Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids. It's the balance of your essential fatty acids in each meal that is critical. This means many of today's concocted foods, those radically high in Omega-6 fatty acids, will not work because there are so few foods that are high enough in Omega-3 fatty acids to offset the concocted foods.

Note that grass-fed meats come with the perfect balance of the essential Omega-6 and Omega-3 fatty acids. Additionally grass-fed meats are loaded with all the other nutrients (chemicals) a land animal needs for proper body function. But, if the other foods on your plate are heavy in Omega-6 fatty acids, you will never be able to eat enough grass-fed meat to offset the imbalance. The only way to offset an imbalance high in Omega-6 is to have foods that are low in Omega-6 and high in Omega-3s – and they are rare!

The next important criteria is the Glycemic factor. I want my foods to rank low on both Glycemic Indexes. I can have severe reactions to foods that rank medium to high. That's because fungi react to sugars and spew out mycotoxins to “preserve” that stimulating food source within your body.

To further underscore how this works I will quote a paragraph from a piece by Dr. George J. Wong, Associate Professor of Botany, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Botany, 3190 Maile Way, Honolulu, HI 96822-2279.

Fungal diseases are common place in plants and animals. In such diseases, the fungi are actively growing on and invading the body of their hosts. There is another means by which fungi can cause harm without invading our bodies. When fungi grow on a living organism or on stored food material that we consume, they may produce harmful metabolites that diffuses into their food. It is believed that fungi evolved these metabolites as a means of protecting their food supply by preventing other organisms from eating it. These metabolites are referred to as mycotoxins, which literally means “fungus poisons.” Fungi that produce mycotoxins do not have to be present to do harm. If a fungus was growing in, say a grain storage silo, the environment may have become unsuitable for the fungus and it dies. Even though the fungus is no longer alive, while it was growing, if it produced a mycotoxin, it will have poisoned the grains. So for those of you who are always looking to save a little money by buying cheese that has been contaminated with a fungus and cutting out the part where the fungus is growing, perhaps this is not such a good idea. It is possible that the fungus growing on your cheese has produced a mycotoxin that has diffused throughout the cheese, even though the fungus itself has not. The effects of poisoning by mycotoxin is referred to as mycotoxicoses. The knowledge that mycotoxicoses is the result of fungal actions was a relatively, recent discovery. This is understandable since illnesses in this case are due to consumption of mycotoxins that has been released by the fungus and is not directly caused by the fungus. So demonstrating this would not have been an easy task.

Conclusion

Yes, mycotoxins and improperly built bodies with damaged immune systems (the wrong foods) are the primary reasons for most chronic diseases. The mycotoxins can be produced within our bodies from fungal infestations and/or they can come from being in our foods. (Dr. Wong mentioned cheese. There is one cheese that is less likely to have mold on it and that is Gouda cheese.) Fungi are organic so organic means nothing when it comes to nutrition or even food safety. Thus organic corn is meaningless in terms of nutrition and food safety. It's fat profile is still ugly, organic or not. And organic or not it is still a host for 22 different fungi. Consequently, corn (no matter what its label reads) is usually contaminated to some degree with mycotoxins and in all cases will radically skew your critically important essential fatty acid profile.

With my food table nutrition data, a little imagination, and some effort anyone can create outstandingly nutritious, caveman-type meals. But you must be selective. Grocery stores everywhere sell at least some of the foods we can eat with gusto. Also, it's very simple to always have proper food with you while you're on the road or at the office. Yes, you must plan ahead. Right, your brain needs the exercise. And always keep in mind that it even works to take along prepared meats to lunch meetings. Order a salad and add your own grass-fed meat or pop in tuna or sardines from a can. If anyone expresses dismay over your dietary extremism, tell them you honor your body and you want to take care of it.

The person objecting to your discipline and self respect is usually a great example of being physically and mentally what you never hope to be.

Ted Slanker

April 4, 2010

http://www.texasgrassfedbeef.com

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