Eat the Best Foods

from "Rust Out" by Dr. Royce Bailey, page 37

Choose plant-based diets rich in a variety of vegetables, fruits, legumes and minimize or eliminate processed starchy or refined foods.  These are advisements from the World Cancer Research Fund’s Global Dietary Recommendations to Prevent 20-40% of all Cancers.

Vegetables
Vegetables should provide at least 7% of your total daily energy.  Eat 15-30 ounces, or five or more servings a day, of a variety of vegetables or fruits year-round.   A serving could be equal to:

Super-vegetables:
Dark leafy greens (1/2 cup cooked serving); edible-pod peas; brussels sprouts, broccoli, or asparagus (1 cup serving); lima beans, peas (½ cup serving).

High carbohydrate vegetables:  Artichokes and corn (½ cup or one ear).

Low-calorie vegetables:  A whole tomato (1 serving): Green beans, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, cucumber, eggplant, okra, mushrooms, bell peppers (1 cup serving); lettuce (2 cups).

Fruits: You know what they are? I hope so.! Yes, an apple every day is good for your health.

Complex Carbohydrates and Protein
Starchy (complex carbohydrates) or protein-rich foods should provide 45-60 % of your total daily energy.  Eat 20-30 ounces or more than seven daily servings of cereals, legumes, nuts, seeds, roots and tubers.

Whole grains:  Whole-grain bread (1 slice) or cooked grains like- couscous, barley, bulgar, rice or     noodles (½ cup).

Nuts and Seeds:  Not more than 6 of one kind of nut a day; Sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (not more than a hand full or a ¼ cup).

Legumes:  Cooked dry beans, lentils, split pea (½ cup serving).

Roots and Tubers:  Potato, medium sweet potato (1 serving);  beets, carrots, parsnips, winter squash, turnips (1 cup).

Half of all vegetable servings eaten by Americans are potatoes, and half of those are high-fat, nutritionally challenged French fries.

Eliminate Simple Carbohydrates
Restrict or eliminate refined sugar (simple carbohydrates) in your diet. It should provide less than 10 % of your daily energy.  Most Americans get 40-60% of their daily energy from refined sugar products.  Reduce the intake of simple sugars and cow’s milk.

NOTE:    Protein and carbohydrates have four calories per gram, while fat has nine calories per gram of weight. 

Avoid labels that read:
sugar
high fructose corn syrup
modified corn syrup
light corn syrup
corn syrup
maltodextrin
sucrose (common table sugar)

These all weaken the immune response, by blocking your attack cells radar from seeing viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells, for several hours after use.  Avoid artificial sweeteners (like saccharin and aspartame).

Meat
Meat, if eaten at all, should provide less than 10% of your total daily energy; that translates into less than 3 oz. daily.  Minimize or eliminate red meat.  High-fat (saturated fat) diets are associated with breast, colon and prostate cancers.  I recommend a plant-based diet; you’ll visit my cardiology office less.  Avoid charred food.  Cured, smoked or grilled meats and fish should be eaten rarely. 

Fats
Fats and oils should provide less than 15-30% of your total daily energy.  Consumption of fatty foods should be limited, especially the saturated kind of animal origin, like meat and full-fat dairy products.

Alcohol
Avoid alcohol.  No, just a little is not OK!  The medical profession cannot make up its mind what it should recommend.  Since most physicians drink, they have modified their recommendations accordingly.  Some suggest that alcohol should be restricted to less than 5% of your total energy for men and less than 2.5% for women.  Nevertheless, articles  are published that consistently show the curse of alcohol in our bodies.

In my experience, any alcohol is dangerous because it robs you of nutrients and antioxidants that you might have eaten in its place.  It dulls the mind and this is the only avenue though which God can communicate with you. 

Medical literature documents that alcohol is associated with hypertension, cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heart beats) including atrial fibrillation, congestive cardiomyopathy (weakened heart muscle), bleeding strokes in young people, cirrhosis of the liver (fibrosis), bleeding ulcers and esophagus, psychosis and sudden death.

References:
American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund’s Global Dietary Recommendations to prevent 20-40% of all cancers. “Food, Nutrition And The Prevention Of Cancer: A Global Perspective.” Reviewed in , “Internal Medicine News,” November 1, 1997: 14.

Kijak, E., “Relationship Of Blood Sugar Level  And Leukocytic Phagocytosis,” Southern California State Dental Association Journal, September 1964; 32:9.

Loss of brain tissue in chronic alcoholics causes decreased cerebral blood flow and is associated with dementia. Am J Psych 148:3, 292-305;

Bleeding strokes in young people from alcohol. Am J Psych 149:3, 296; 1991.

Honolulu Heart Program, JAMA Vol. 255, No 17, 2311-14, 5/2/86.

Nitrosamines from beer act to increase rectal cancer in men and women,1.73 times and 1.55 times normal. Am J. Epi 134:157-166, 1991.

Alcohol causes muscle damage in healthy volunteers. Science Vol. 175, 327-28, 1/21/72.

Known since 1785 published reports that alcohol predisposes to infection and increases it’s severity by interfering with the normal immune host defense mechanisms. JAMA Vol 256, No. 11, 1474-79, 9/19/86.