COMMON DIETS TODAY

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

Here are diets that many people are following, either consciously or out of habit. All of these diets cause significant health problems:

The chaos diet. This is a diet of fairly good quality food or even very good quality food. However, the person eats a little of everything, including many foods that we find are very hard on the digestive tract such as smoothies, or foods that have other problems such as fruit, fruit juices, avocado, nuts, seeds, pork, ham, a lot of fermented foods, or others.

The NO cooked vegetable diet. This is extremely common. Some follow it because it is convenient, or they just do not like cooked vegetables. However, I find that cooked vegetables are one of the most important foods to eat a lot of every day.

The no-fat or very low-fat diet. This is pushed by many doctors and the media. Sadly, it is quite deficient in the omega-3 fatty acids, and in vitamin D, both of which are very important. It can work fairly well in slow oxidizers, but not at all well in fast oxidizers, who end up eating a lot of sweets if they do not eat some fats and oils.

The junk food diet. This diet consists of eating out at the fast food restaurants at least a few times weekly. I am not sure why, but most fast food is of poor quality, no matter what is claimed for it. My guess is that the fast food restaurants cut corners and add chemicals that are hard to detect. The diet, as a result, is very deficient in vital nutrients and high in toxic chemicals.

It is much better to cook your own food, or go to quality restaurants, but not chain restaurants.

The Weston Price or GAPS diets. These diets are of decent quality, but too high in fat, in most cases, too low in cooked vegetables, and usually contain a lot of fermented foods such as fermented vegetables and kombucha tea. These may assist digestion, but they also poison the liver with aldehydes and perhaps other chemicals. They give rise to the Weston Price Syndrome.

Sadly, the aldehydes are somewhat stimulating, so one thinks one is better on a diet with many fermented foods, but it is not true. Digestion may improve, but the aldehyde problem remains. For more details, please read Fermented Foods, Weston Price Diet and GAPS Diet on this website.

Raw food diets. These are also very popular. They are easy to prepare and taste good. They include diets with lots of salads, fruits, nuts, seeds, soaked or fermented grains, and sometimes raw eggs and even raw meats.

People are told that the raw food is “alive” and contains food enzymes. What they are not told is the food is very yin in Chinese medical terms, and this upsets body chemistry. It is also often harder to digest raw, and may be unclean. For details on the problems with raw food diets, please read Raw Foods on this website.

Vegetarian and vegan diets. These are becoming more popular, and are quite dangerous. Vegan diets are the most dangerous, in my experience. I followed a vegetarian diet for some years, but I have since found it is not best at all. It is a deficient diet, no matter what other benefits it offers. For more details, read Vegetarian Diets on this website.

Smoothies, shakes and juice diets. These are becoming more popular all the time. Usually, one meal a day, or even more, is taken in the form of a smoothie or blended meal, or just large glasses of fruit or vegetable juices.

I find that up to 10-12 ounce of carrot juice or 1-2 ounces of wheat grass juice are excellent. However, consuming more than this much juice, or any smoothies, is hard on digestion. Also, smoothies are very poor food combinations in most cases, too raw and too yin. For more details, read Smoothies and Shakes.

The dehydration diet. This is found commonly among type 2 diabetics, and among others in the population. It consists of a diet in which a prominent beverage, usually, helps dehydrate the body. The most important is usually coffee, taken several times a day. However, the beverage can be caffeinated tea, fruit juice, Gatorade or some other sugary drink, or alcohol.

In fact, drinking or eating anything containing 1) sugar or other sweets, 2) caffeine or theobromine in chocolate, or 3) alcohol all tend to dehydrate the body. Too much carbohydrate in the diet may do this, also.

The diabetic connection. When dehydrated, the body may retain excessive amounts of sugar in the blood to assure enough water in the blood to avoid sludgy blood, a very dangerous complication of dehydration.

Doctors often lower the blood sugar with drugs, but do not ask about or check for dehydration, which can be subtle and hard to identify. However, if one corrects the dehydration, the blood sugar often declines on its own. This is one of the main mechanisms of Type 2 diabetes, in particular.

In addition, the person usually does not drink much pure spring water, making the dehydration much worse. At times, the person drinks reverse osmosis or RO water, or a beverage such as coffee made with reverse osmosis water. This also can worsen the dehydration because RO water does not hydrate the body well, for some reason. Occasionally, the person drinks another type of water that does not hydrate the body well, but this is more rare.

For much more details on this important dietary mistake, read Diabetes, Hydration and The Dehydration Diet.

The cult diet. This is an important and common diet that includes tunafish and fruit, and no red meat, and usually rooibos tea every day. For much more about this diet, please read The Cult Diet on this website.

Courses | About Dr. Wilson | The Free Basic Program