Joel Fuhrman - Eat To Live

Eat to Live 37

fining foods lowers the amount of hundreds of known nutrients, yet

usually only five to ten are added back by fortification.

As we change food through processing and refining, we rob the

food of certain health-supporting substances and often create un-

healthy compounds, thus making it a more unfit food for human

consumption. As a general rule of thumb: the closer we eat foods to

their natural state, the healthier the food.

Not All Whole-Wheat Products Are Equal

Just because a food is called "whole grain" does not make it a good

food. Many whole-grain cold cereals are so processed that they do

not have a significant fiber per serving ratio and have lost most of

their nutritional value.

Eating fragmented and unbalanced foods causes many problems, espe-

cially for those trying to lose weight.

Whole wheat that is finely ground is absorbed into the blood-

stream fairly rapidly and should not be considered as wholesome as

more coarsely ground and grittier whole grains. The rapid rise of

glucose triggers fat storage hormones. Because the more coarsely

ground grains are absorbed more slowly, they curtail our appetite

better.

Whole-grain hot cereals are less processed than cold cereals and

come up with better nutritional scores. They can be soaked in water

overnight so you do not have to cook them in the morning. Some

hot whole-grain cereals that I recommend are oatmeal (not instant),

Roman Meal, Steel Cut Oats, Wheatena, Ralston High Fiber, and

Quaker Multigrain.

Unlike eating whole-grain foods, ingesting processed foods can

subtract nutrients and actually create nutritional deficiencies, as the

body utilizes nutrients to digest and assimilate food. If the mineral

demands of digestion and assimilation are greater than the nutrients

supplied by the food, we may end up with a deficit — a drain on our

nutrient reserve funds.

For most of their lives, the diets of many American adults and

children are severely deficient in plant-derived nutrients. I have

drawn nutrient levels on thousands of patients and have become