Column #227

We live in the clickbait age. Advertisers, journalists, and editors know that people who get their news via constantly-shifting social media, rarely read complete articles; they glance at a headline and apply confirmation bias to it. If the headline echoes a view they support, these attention-challenged readers will give the thumbs up. If they don’t like the headline, they give it a thumb down with a hostile comment.¹

Of course consumers may do as they wish, but all too often the headline itself actually gives an impression that masks the true story. In the health food industry the true story is based on biology, chemistry, and other mundane, complex, and very boring sciences that can make economics sound exciting. Unfortunately most of the news regarding health food is in the form of sensational headlines and politically correct, emotion generating schmooze. This is why I believe the most deceptive actors in the food industry are in the health food business.

As the calendar clock rolls over from 2019 to 2020, millions of people get the urge to make a fresh start so they may have a better outcome than in the previous year. It’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east. Internet searches for “DIET” soar and stay hot for weeks. Advertisers willingly pay $2 to $4 per click to get eyeballs on their pages. The only products that can compete in that environment have very hefty markups with pitches that resonate immediately with consumers who are more familiar with common knowledge than science. The average consumer just won’t take the time to analyze comprehensive stories quoting scientific literature with its technical terminology.

Advertisers make more wild promises than you can shake a stick at. Drink this product and lose weight fast. Eat this for these particular nutrients. Take this pill for the solution. Buy this meal package for two months and solve obesity. These simple solutions do not require more knowledge than what everyone already knows. They offer little actual change in the foods consumed which is always appealing.

If the big promise approach doesn’t work, scaremongering is the next favorite tactic. Calling foods sketchy, saying huge businesses are destroying the small farmer and the environment, and implying that mass produced products are laden with hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics are frequently effective. In the meat business there are all kinds of nice words involving pastures, free range, natural, heritage, wild, humane, and organic which have little to do with actual nutrition and food safety. Then, of course, the low fat, low salt, and balanced diet folks always garner good followings because they incorporate time-honored phrases and terms that must be true. Say the same thing over and over and pretty soon there are believers.

In all these marketing tactics pertinent facts are ignored. For instance, if it wasn’t for the independent American farmer, the large food processors wouldn’t have a steady supply of commodities to mass produce. In other words, for their own survival big food processors RELY on there being many small independent farmers. If any food is actually laced with harmful chemicals or pathogens, it will be recalled with processors taking the hit. Nearly all plant-based foods contain antinutrients because plants naturally produce pesticides for self preservation. The bottom line is that it’s actually the chemistry of each food item that determines its nutritional characteristics. But only a small fraction of the consuming public thinks these things through.

So, here’s my take on what’s best to eat to improve health and/or maintain health.

Human bodies, physically and mentally, require a very broad range of nutrients of which many must be in a particular balance in order for bodies to function best. Bodies are also very sensitive to harmful substances and/or deficiencies which can cause body failures.

Because of its chemistry the green leafy plant is the foundation food for all animal life on land and in the sea. It must be at the bottom of mankind’s food chain because edible green leafy plants supply nearly all nutrients needed in almost perfect balance. The only food that’s better than green leafy plants is meat from animals that have the green leaf at the bottom of their food chain.²

My Food Analysis Tables provide simplistically handy breakdowns for most of the popular whole foods with nutrient rankings and essential fat balances. By examining the data with understanding it’s relatively easy to see which foods are best, better, marginal, or deficient.³

The green leafy plants such as kale, spinach, collard greens, etc. are superb because they are low glycemic, nutrient diverse and dense, with ideal 1:1 or lower ratios of Omega-6 to Omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs). Only grass-fed/Omega-3 meat and wild caught seafood exceed the nutrient qualities of the green leafy plants. That’s because meat excels in Vitamin B12, Creatine, Carnosine, Vitamin D3, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), Heme iron, Taurine, and some amino acids.^{4 5}

It’s possible for people to avoid meat and eat this or that vegetable plus take supplements to get the nutrients they need and keep them in proper balance. But eating that way is like self medicating and being one’s own pharmacist. Grass-fed, Omega-3, and wild caught meats are whole foods that by themselves can provide humans the full compliment of required nutrients they need in the proper balance.⁶

For certain, maintaining the ideal 1:1 ratio of Omega-6 to Omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs) in the diet is impossible if one eats foods that are high in Omega-6. And this is where most folks go wrong. They don’t understand that incidences of chronic disease (physical and mental) increase when EFA ratios exceed 4:1. They even may be eating many of the so-called healthy whole foods that have super food rankings for specific nutrients but, if those foods are also big Omega-6 sources, Omega-3 supplements can’t offset the sixes. Many people do try to eat healthy part of the time, but when too many inferior foods are consumed, the proper foods won’t be able to supply their needs adequately.^{7 8}

During the holiday season few folks can avoid the overload of sugary treats which is so destructive to physical and mental function. That’s why avoiding high sugar (glycemic load) food is one of the first decisions everyone must make if they want to improve their health. Next they must eat whole foods that are nutrient diverse and dense while focusing on balancing the EFA ratio of their entire diet.

Yes, eating properly requires some homework and then actual changes in what one eats. That means one learns how to avoid clickbait traps and march into the new year to the beat of a different drummer.

Formulating a healthy diet is relatively easy. Sticking to it is a whole “nother” story. The answer there is to keep the goal in mind and get back on the wagon quickly when you fall off. Changing is not easy.⁹

Happy New Year!

To your health.

Ted Slanker

Ted Slanker has been reporting on the fundamentals of nutritional research in publications, television and radio appearances, and at conferences since 1999. He condenses complex studies into the basics required for health and well-being. His eBook, The Real Diet of Man, is available online.

Don’t miss these links for additional reading:

1. Clickbait Content: Is It Good or Bad? by Ann Gynn from Content Marketing Institute

2. Man Is an Extension of the Leafy, Green Plant by Ted Slanker

3. Food Analysis: EFA, Protein to Fat, Net Carbs, Sugar, and Nutrient Load by Ted Slanker

4. Seven Nutrients That You Can’t Get from Plants by Atli Arnarson, PhD from Healthline

5. What to Know about Essential Amino Acids by Jennifer Berry and medically reviewed by Natalie Olsen, R.D., L.D., ACSM EP-C from Medical News Today

6. Plants vs. Plant Eaters by Ted Slanker

7. Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Health and Disease and Growth and Development by Dr. Artemis Simopoulos

8. Nix Six & Eat Three - to Cut Inflammation by Bill Lands from efaeducation.org

9. Let's Get SMART by Ted Slanker