So what should we eat?

So this is a question that probably does not have a clear answer. Maybe it's best to deal with what not to eat. There will hopefully be a solution.

When I became interested in the effect of diet on humans about ten years ago, it was because I subconsciously felt that official dietary recommendations were going nowhere. There is no point in repeating the same mistake over and over again and waiting for a different result.

At that time I found the so-called Optimal Diet by Dr. Kwasniewski, a Polish military doctor. He noticed that dietary recommendations do not make military pilots super healthy individuals, but quite the opposite. They suffer from diseases more than usual. It was already in the sixties of the last century. At that time, the food in Poland was still quite clean, and historically proven feeds were used to feed the animals. Therefore, his experience cannot be directly applied today. However, it is worth exploring.

His optimal diet could be described as one, two, three, ie one part carbohydrate, two parts protein and three parts fat, meaning parts by weight of pure carbohydrates, proteins and fats, without counting the water content. If we preferred to calculate the energy of the individual components of the diet, the ratio would be one part of carbohydrates, two parts of protein and six parts of fat. This is because fats have twice the energy content of the same amount. He therefore recommended about 66% of energy from fats and only 11% of energy from carbohydrates.

It seems crazy, doesn't it? So much fat and the result is the healthiest army. Does It make sense?

Look at the previous post. One of the solutions to metabolic problems is to reduce the amount of carbohydrates in your diet. At the same time, it is not possible to increase the amount of protein too much, because protein is a building material and the excess will be converted into glucose, but at the cost of a large amount of waste, which will burden the body.

In America, Dr. Atkins, however, did not fully understand the function of proteins. Only his followers, who are still appearing and gaining more and more attention from all those interested in a healthy diet, understood the importance of fats in the diet, proved in a number of studies that if we eat the right fats, no fear, on the contrary, they are the best source of energy for a person's basic energy needs. Carbohydrates and glucose, on the other hand, are a good source of energy to cover the sudden need for energy expenditure during exercise, sports, etc.

Personally, however, I think I found the answer to what to eat in the book The Perfect Health Diet, written by Paul Jaminet. His answer is probably that every food is both a nutrient and a poison. The only difference is in quantity. It is important to move with the intake of a certain food in an area where it nourishes but is not yet harmful. It is therefore necessary to compile the diet so that it contains as many nutrients as possible with the least possible amount of poisons and at the same time does not exceed the maximum amount of energy required. Good strategy, don't you think?

So using information from Paul Jaminet, macronutrients become toxic above a specific intake threshold, which is 600 kcal per day (150 g) for proteins and 600 kcal per day for carbohydrates (150 g for metabolic syndrome, ie exactly the limit above which they begin to form fats from glucose using de novo lipogenesis) plus up to 500 kcal for each hour of athletic training, for polyunsaturated fats (omega-6) it is max. 100 kcal per day (or max. 10 g). There is no limit for other fats, they are not toxic.

The numbers in the figure apply to food weights, not pure macronutrients.

Protein intake:

Optimal protein intake is achieved by consuming 250 g to 450 g of meat, fish and eggs per day.

More protein is needed in low-carb diets and in athletes during training.

Children, especially infants, should not eat too much protein.

People trying to lose weight should not eat too little protein.

Lower protein intake may promote longevity, higher protein intake promotes strength.

For longevity and muscles, try intermittency: high protein intake after training, low protein intake on days off.

Carbohydrate intake:

Carbohydrates should account for 20 to 35% of total energy intake, except for those on a therapeutic ketogenic diet (slightly less) or athletes in training (slightly more).

About 85 % of carbohydrates should be in the form of starches, only a maximum of 15 % of carbohydrates should be fructose, starches should be preferred to sugars.

Starches should be consumed with fat, vinegar and vegetables to minimize their hyperglycemic toxicity. Starches are food, not snacks! (I would add to the starches that the more they are hidden, the better. For example, finely ground flour is worse than coarse or whole grain. Whole rice is better than rice flour. Cold rice is better than warm rice, some starches in the fridge turns into resistant starches, which then nourish the right bacteria and create short fatty acids for the well-being of your intestines).

Avoid adding sugars. If you are chasing sweets, follow the recommended ratio of 85% glucose (dextrose) instead of sugar.

Intake of dangerous fats (PUFA):

Americans and Europeans eat five times more omega-6 fats and less omega-3 fats than optimal.

To be at the top of the food chain, based on green plants and algae, eat small fish, crustaceans and ruminants (beef, lamb, goat).

Eat tropical plants, but not their seeds.

Ruthlessly remove foods high in omega-6 from your diet, especially seed oils such as soybean oil, corn oil, rapeseed oil and safflower oil.

Intake of safe fats:

Saturated (SAFA) and monounsaturated (MUFA) fats can be safely consumed, even in large quantities. They are the most adjustable macronutrient in our diet, the amount consumed can be adjusted up or down to satisfy the appetite.

For calorie-restricted diets, it is macronutrients that need to be reduced.

Intake of short and medium chain fats (MCT):

One or two tablespoons of MCT oil a day seems to be beneficial to everyone. (yes, we will deal with this later and it is a key issue)

A ketogenic diet is therapeutic for metabolic and especially neurological disorders. Human breast milk provides about 10% of fat calories (6.5% of total calories) in the form of short and medium chain fats (MCT). If this is the optimal value for adults, then most people lack these fats. But the shortcoming can be easily remedied: 2 tablespoons of MCT oil provide about 140 kcal of medium chain fat, or about 6% of total calories for most people.

So much for Paul Jaminet with my notes. I will return to short or medium chain fats, it is a topic for a separate post. It should also be noted that fats must in principle be taken up as mixtures of different types of fatty acids of different lengths. Each has some function and they complement each other. Therefore, we prefer animal fats to vegetable fats, which are usually composed of one dominant fatty acid. But even vegetable fats can be combined with butter and then a very interesting mixture of fatty acids can be formed.

Butter composition

Another look at what to eat and not to eat is the issue of food processing. This is a big topic to which I will definitely return. In general, the more industrially processed the food, the worse its nutritional properties and the more toxic it is.

What about the conversion of carbohydrates into fat?

The conversion of carbohydrates into fats is very interesting. If the intake of carbohydrates is higher than about 120 g per day, the body prepares in advance for the expected intake of carbohydrates according to the previous history of their intake. In other words, it slowly empties glycogen stores in the liver at a constant rate throughout the day and converts them into fat (DNL - de novo lipogenesis process), specifically into saturated C16:0 palmitic acid. By the way, this constantly employs the liver and limits its other activities, such as the breakdown of toxins. This fat can be further converted to saturated C18:0 stearic acid and C18:1 monounsaturated oleic acid. Why would the body produce and store harmful fat itself? This makes no sense and, as we already know, there is no need to worry about saturated or monounsaturated fats.

With a high intake of carbohydrates in the diet, it also immediately increases the rate of conversion of glucose to fat. This allows glucose to be taken from the blood even when the capacity to convert to glycogen is exhausted. It is an amazing mechanism that prevents an unsolvable situation from overfilling our fast energy storage facilities. Changing the rate of the constant component of DNL by changing the diet can be done, but only slowly. The change will not take effect until five days later.

The picture shows the dependence of DNL on energy intake, CH = carbohydrates, P = proteins, fat intake does not affect this process. Empty bars show an ongoing process, full while eating.