Video Transcript: The Standard American Diet & Increased Cancer Rates
Dr. David Brownstein: Let’s go back to diet. I call this the basics. Basic number one is: let’s eat a better diet. When we were growing up, we learned in elementary school the food pyramid. The food pyramid showed that we should eat the majority of our food as grains. I remember there was a big loaf of bread there and crackers and grains were down in that big part of the food pyramid.
Fats and oils were up on top and it said, “Use sparingly.” Well, I could tell you we followed that food pyramid since it was introduced, I believe, in the early 1970s or late 1960s. And, the consequences of us, the American people, following this food pyramid was that we ate more grains, we limited our fats and oils in our diet, we switched our fat intake from primarily animal fat products to using polyunsaturated vegetable oils like corn oil and soybean oil and some other oils that are commonly sold in the grocery stores.
The consequences of that is we’ve become the most obese people on the face of the planet. We have more diabetes than we know what to do with. We have more metabolic syndrome than we know what to do with. And I say it’s a direct result of following the USDA’s recommendation of following the food pyramid.
Ty Bollinger: Following the “SAD” American diet.
Dr. David Brownstein: It makes people sad and it makes people fat and makes people diabetic. Certainly, once diabetes comes into play, cancer and other illnesses follow suit as the blood sugar goes up, since cancer cells require blood sugar to function and to rev their metabolic rate.
Ty Bollinger: So, Dr. B, you just mentioned the “SAD” American diet; the fact that we got the pyramid with the grains and the oils at the top, very few, use sparingly. What should a health food pyramid look like?
Dr. David Brownstein: Well, in one sense, maybe we could flip the food pyramid on its axis and make the grains “use sparingly,” because grains turn into sugar very quickly. I frequently tell my patients to limit grains in a diet and to use a lot more fats in their diet, because fat slowly releases into the body.
So what should it look like? I say people should eat whole foods, free of pesticides, free of hormones, and organic food, absolutely. Organic animal products can be very healthy for people, such as organic eggs and organic meats and any organic product. It definitely needs to be free of pesticides, because we know pesticides are not metabolized well in the body.
There are carcinogenic studies with pesticides. If we get enough of them in our body, and certainly with the hormones they’re feeding the animals and the conventionally raised animals, that’s a big problem. I think that’s one of the things that’s causing one in seven women to have breast cancer and one in three men to have prostate cancer.
Ty Bollinger: Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking… so the hormones in the meats, the chickens… could that be one of the reasons that so many young girls are going into puberty so early?
Dr. David Brownstein: Well, there’s no question that’s one of the reasons girls are going into puberty so early. There’s no question that’s why breast size has increased over the years, and there’s no question that’s why breast cancer has increased. For men it’s prostate cancer. There’s no reason they need to feed these hormones to the animals. They should be limited, and since they are going to feed them to conventionally raised animals, the only thing we can do is to eat a better diet.
Article Summary
When we were growing up, we learned in elementary school the food pyramid. The food pyramid showed that we should eat the majority of our food as grains, and use fats & oils “sparingly.”
The consequence of following the food pyramid is the American people have become the most obese people on the face of the planet with rampant diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
People should eat organic whole foods that are free of pesticides and hormones.
Hormones in food are causing early puberty and increased breast cancer and prostate cancer rates. Since hormones are fed to conventionally raised animals, the only thing we can do is to eat a better diet.
As long as the medical industrial complex is “for profit” how can we expect it to want us to be healthy.
Oh man, this is so skewed and biased and based on misrepresentation. It isn’t the grains in our diets that are the culprits, it is the REFINED carbs, fat and animal products! The reason the “low fat craze” was a dismal failure was because the processed foods industry used to replace the fat contained tons of cheap processed carbs and sugar! Cutting fat of all kinds is critical to health, and eating WHOLE food is also! How do I know? I was sick and diabetic until I finally switched to a whole food plant based diet and started eating whole grains and starches. Think about countries like China, Mexico, all the blue zones, where people THRIVE on up to 90% healthy starches, eat less than 10% fat and diabetes is almost unheard of. WHY if carbs are so evil? Because diabetes is a disease of intramyocellular lipids, too much FAT in the cells, not carbs, they fuel our cells! High glucose is the symptom, not the cause! If you want to stop Cancer and other lethal diseases, get the FACTS straight and stop spreading even more misinformation and confusion… unless that is your goal? Yeah, like you will let this post, it will get omitted just like all the other things I’ve written here in the past that don’t agree with the “agenda”. This time I am copying and posting this elsewhere so others can benefit.
I’ve been eating organic and primarily VEGAN for over thirty 30 years; I am a health and wellness specialist also utilizing very advanced perceptive skills and I love Dr. Brownstein’s work! I subscribe to his newsletters and I have a long history in this natural health and healing in life. I’ve reversed my own Advanced Ovarian Cancer evidenced if you will erroneously by a CA125 blood test, CT Scan and I used what I used in 1989 learning from Pamela Masters – RAW FOOD, select supplements and have been at the forefront of this movement, daily juicing. It was any time I got ‘off track’ emotionally or scared by Western Doctors I used as an adjunct with my pregnancy with my son in 1994 that insisted my potential of giving my son neural tube defects by way of my being VEGAN? That I got off course temporarily several times in my life and began eating less of a high raw and vegan diet and I always got clear signals from my body! My business is helping people REVERSE DISEASE, any of it; largely from mucous accumulation, calcium deposits, and poor diet, lack of exercise, etc. At age 55 this summer, I’m 144# at 5′ 9″ and fit! No gray hair, thick hair, and at the gym most mornings, doing yoga, and getting my large dogs outside; working, and productive which is the American way! Being a contributor in society as I see far too many preventable ‘diseases’ that is costing the life of the individual and the character of our Country.
Hi Karen , I am 57 and have suffered from Rheumatoid Arthritis since age50! At the time I was an active person with no health issues of note. I have RA in my hands and a thumb and ring finger are now bent and swollen at the middle joint! My left wrist is ‘frozen’.
I am trying to change my diet…away from processed foods….but I live I a third world country where it’s hard to find organic raw products…I strive to grow my own veggies organically, don’t eat sugar, only use organic coconut oil for cooking and toothpaste. I don t have grey hair…but my arm muscles have atrophied from lack of use…..I am now feeling pain in my left hip at night….what can you suggest?
Lorraine, you are doing some wonderful things to benefit your health; particularly since you state you live in a third world country. I’m not sure where you live that has some significance, also does your receiving any vaccinations in your lifetime: what type, when, etc. What potential environmental toxins you may have been exposed to: insecticides, pesticides, spray of excrement from factory farming industrial businesses? There is also the ‘story’ of your Mind Body issues for which I have become quite proficient: what the mind perceives the mind believes, taught to me by my foremothers in the 1960s. Much of what manifests in our lifetime is psycho somatic and connected to our mind. I am not minimizing in any way what you are manifesting, yet I am stating that I consider as a Shaman legitimately, in all my many years of working with people to find the Root that in my thousands of hours hands on and daily study now, I see and consider all, the food, lifestyle, mind body, and the envirionmental. I offer individual wellness consultations by telephone or skype. This is my business and how I support myself.