One Food Plan Doesn't Fit Everyone

Yep, true statement. Each of us has about 300 million activities taking place at the cellular level at any given moment, and it stands to reason that what is best for my body may not be the same for yours.

However, there are some fundamentals that prove to hold true across all body types, all blood types, and other idiosyncratic differences. For example: high fructose corn syrup. Studies have shown that cancer cells grow 7 times faster on a diet of HFCS over natural sugar. The implications are that cancer cells proliferate on natural sugars anyway, just slower... and they may, but I have no statistics to prove that statement.

For starters about foods in our daily diet, let's look at carbohydrates. Most of us eat too many simple carbs, and too few complex carbs. For me personally, I have to be careful to limit my complex carbs, and not include much in the way of grains and potatoes. Your body may be different.

Carbohydrates provide fuel for our bodies, in the form of glucose or sugar. There are two types of carbohydrates -- simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates are sugars, such as the ones found in candy, fruits and baked goods. Complex carbohydrates are starches found in beans, nuts, vegetables and whole grains.

Two-thirds of all us Americans are overweight, if not obese. We have an epidemic on our hands! This is the result of eating far too many processed foods and believing the low-fat diet myth. (I'll cover that in another post.)

What most people don't know is that we don't actually need carbohydrates -- they are not essential for survival, and the RDA for carbs is actually zero. If we ate no carbohydrates, like many traditional Eskimos and other indigenous peoples do do, we would survive as long as we had enough high-quality protein, fat, water and minerals.

While both grains and vegetables are carbohydrates, most grains should be avoided and most vegetables are acceptable. Our bodies function better with the carbohydrates in vegetables rather than grains because it slows the conversion to simple sugars (glucose) and decreases our insulin levels Grain carbohydrates, on the other hand, will increase our insulin levels and interfere with our ability to burn fat.

Highly Recommended Vegetables:
Asparagus    
Avocado (actually avocados are a fruit)    
Beet greens    
Bok Choy    
Broccoli    
Brussels sprouts    
Cauliflower    
Celery    
Chicory    
Chinese cabbage    
Chives    
Collard greens    
Cucumbers    
Dandelion greens    
Endive    
Escarole
Fennel
Green and red cabbage
Kale
Kohlrabi
Lettuce: romaine, red leaf, green leaf
Mustard greens
Onions
Parsley
Peppers: red, green, yellow and hot
Spinach
Tomatoes
Turnips
Zucchini

Use these vegetables sparingly due to their high carbohydrate levels:
Beets    
Carrots    
Eggplant
Jicima
Winter Squash

Avoid altogether:
Potatoes

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