As promised, it is time to delve into the next chapter of Forks over Knives, and tackle another important issue the film opens up for us, food as addiction. I am very familiar with this problem, I think we all are to some extent (be they good or bad dependencies), with gluten, specifically via pasta. When I eat a nice plate of pasta (always loaded with veggies, btw), I am good for hours, because the gluten is an incredibly thick, dense, and generally hearty protein found in all varieties of wheat and barley, and some other cereal grains (but those glutens, like those found in corn, are altogether different). This process of satiation from nutrient dense foods is one of the red flags for poor eating habits that people have with the standard American diet that is heavy (no pun intended) in processed foods like bread, pasta (gluten), meats, oils and dairy. We are filling up on these foods, mostly processed carbs, instead of eating a variety of vegetables which are less attractive, and frankly, less accessible. Meat and dairy are great examples of nutrient dense foods that we are over-eating because we like them so much, in fact, our brains are idiotically drawn to them, the video explains, precisely because they are dense and rich, and will fill us up. Cheese is the best example I can think of. How much do we all love cheese? Because it is rich, nutrient dense, and texturally heavenly. But is it really feeding us the protein, fats and minerals it boasts? The brain in our stomach seems to think so. Worse yet, is how poorly we are consuming and denaturing what was once a luxury food. When we eat animal flesh, that which is now an agro-industrial commodity devoid of its original, pastoral integrity, many of us, all over the world, actually, are cooking it up and burning the bio-availability right out of it, and even making this sustenance carcinogenic (browning your meat is caramelizing it, creating cancer causing compounds from the sugars). To put it simply, in principle, when meat, or anything, is OVERCOOKED, it becomes hydrophobic, which means it becomes such a tight, contractive mass that it actually repels water; how well do you think the nutrients from such a product are absorbed into our cells and body tissue? Furthermore, when you cook anything, you cook its digestive enzymes out of it when your cooking heat exceeds 118 (that is barely hot enough to melt butter), thereby making it that much harder for our body to digest it in general. The body likes raw animal protein, that which has digestive enzymes intact, but if you cant stomach it, be sure you are not burning your meat. Braising, boiling, poaching, and what my teacher, Chef Celine, called swateeing (saute-ig with water), are ways to ensure your food does not burn. Finally, there is "well done" food. Food that has the vitality literally cooked right out of it. This is most readily observable in starches that are prized when they are "golden". Dr. Oz explains this process on his website:
"Certain natural sugars and certain natural protein building blocks become fused together to form acrylamide when temperatures top 250°F.The substance...acrylamide...It’s an industrial chemical known to increase infertility and neurological problems at high doses...And, the browner the toast or cereal or potato, the more acrylamide it likely contains"(http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/toxic-toast-411-acrylamide)
It is recently being discovered that these acrylamides are actually carcinogenic, so why do we like these compounds,the dark products of fire roasted foods? Can our instinctual wiring for food be so senseless, and even self-destructive? The documentary explains that it is not our nature, but our nurture that is damning us. The standard American diet has predisposed us to foods that pop! How does a plate of steamed broccoli stand a chance? That plate of broccoli, eaten with some healthy starches, fats, and some animal protein, like a rice pilaf with beans, and a poached egg, is a great meal that will fill up your stomach, and trigger your stomach's sensors for a full, adequately dense meal. The video explains that 500 calories of vegetable foods fills up the stomach quite nicely, and tells your brain you have had enough. Rice and beans, a meal that provides complete protein, is quite filling! And you can load that with all kinds of vegetables in the bean stew, in the rice, and served alongside both (various salsas, chutneys, guacamole, pickled vegetables, raw onions, scallions, radishes, etc.). On the other hand, 500 calories of nutrient dense food is a snack; it barely fills up half the stomach, and while that may temporarily sate us, and literally triggers happy hormones in our brains, it does not give us the nutrients, fiber, and real meal feeling that we need to feel that we have had enough. So we eat more, and more poor calories is the recipe for disease this film warns us about.
We are all of us in the American pleasure dome, and until that cycle is broken, we are doomed to repeat poor eating habits that fill us up without giving us what we really need.
PS. One more IMPORTANT point: when our body eats too much protein or sugar (from an excess of carbs) it goes into an acid shock, known as metabolic acidosis, and our cells and tissues begin to suffer, sometimes irreversibly. It is what happens when our bloods pH goes below a certain level, and becomes acidic. Leafy greens, low sugar citrus, such as grapefruits and lemons, and other ALKALIZING foods balance the acids in our bodies. Look 'em up, and enjoy, to your health!
PPS. Look it! I got this for my kids someday. Those crusts are burned, and kids are right for not wanting to eat them! Dont encourage them!
