chapter 13 for more on the power of the bacteria in your gut.)
Dairy, which contains saturated fat, is often considered a tricky area; for a
long time, people argued you should have low-fat or nonfat versions of milk,
cheese, and so on. But a recent paper published in the journal Circulation
suggests that people who eat full-fat versions of dairy do better than those who
eat nonfat versions. The thinking is that the low-fat version may not be as
satisfying, so people respond by having more sugary foods to compensate. Plus,
when you take fat out of milk, you are left with mostly sugar, which affects your
hormones adversely. Remember, you need some fat in your diet. That’s why I
recommend the 2% fat version of dairy products.
WHY GRANDMA’S CHICKEN WAS BETTER
If you think chicken doesn’t taste the way it did when you were a kid,
you’re right. On our show we looked at the reasons why. Chickens—our
number one protein source—are no longer raised on farms and in pastures
where they live outside, eating grass, bugs, and other natural elements.
Instead, most are packed into barns, eating a bland mix of corn, soybeans,
and minerals—so that they grow quickly and cheaply. (Chicken-growing
contests in the 1940s helped inspire folks to perfect the plumping-up
process.) It turns out that what chickens eat affects the way they taste. And
we learned that some processing techniques leach the flavour from the
birds. Today only a small percentage of chickens are free-range, meaning
they have space to eat and roam while they grow. We found that the farm-
grown chicken that took fourteen weeks to mature was still 50 percent
smaller than the chicken that was speeded up in the modern farming
process to grow up in six weeks. The old-time, farm-raised chickens
mature more slowly—and in the end, are tastier.SURPRISING SOURCES OF PROTEIN
Meat, eggs, beans, fish, and nuts aren’t your only options. Check
nutritional labels and you’ll discover some who-knew ways to get your