The Starch Solution by MD John McDougall Read Free Book Online Page A

dangerous as the ones that let you know right away you have made a big mistake. (A poison is a substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means.) You may never suspect these foods as the culprit when you become ill with heart disease, cancer, or inflamed joints as long as four decades later. The long lag between consuming these harmful foods and noticing the symptoms fools most people into believing they are safe. In fact, the overabundance of protein, fat, cholesterol, methionine (a sulphur-containing amino acid), and dietary acids in these foods leads us down a dangerous path from the moment we take our first bite.
     

C AUSE AND E FFECT
    What if the effects of the food choices we make were instantaneous? What if eating a plate of fried eggs caused excruciating chest pains? Or a stroke and paralysis followed a prime rib dinner? A cancerous lump appeared a week after eating a grilled cheese sandwich? Would you continue to eat those foods? Probably not. If the ill effects came quickly enough that we easily associated them with the foods that caused them, we would widely recognize animal foods for the real and serious risks they pose. Because the effects are not immediate, we have to dig a little deeper to understand how these foods affect us.
     
    Choices about what we eat aren’t very different from other lifestyle choices. If smoking a pack of cigarettes was followed by a week on a respirator, or if drinking a bottle of gin caused instant liver disease and coma, few people would make the choice to use these toxins. But choose them they do, because although they may have some unpleasant immediate effects, the perceived pleasure that people experience in the moment wins out over the damage that comes later.
     
    There is one fundamental difference between the danger of animal foods and that of cigarettes and drinking. With tobacco and alcohol, the risks are nearly universally understood. We know the facts.
     
    Meat, poultry, fish, seafood, cheese, milk, and eggs, on the other hand, are widely considered an appropriate, even essential part of a healthy diet. Most people eat these risky foods believing that they are nutritious and life sustaining. They may understand that eating too much fat or cholesterol, or too many calories, makes them vulnerable to health consequences, but that doesn’t stop them from eating those foods. It may cause some conscientious people to relegate them to special occasions, or to substitute “leaner” versions of their favorite foods. We don’t consider the danger inherent in eating these foods because nobody has told us how harmful they really are. We have been misled by medical doctors, dietitians, and advertisements bought by the food industries. It’s not a conscious effort to harm us and our families; it’s “just business.”
     

D ISTRACT Y OUR C USTOMERS, T HEN S LOWLY K ILL T HEM
    Food companies use “unique positioning” to promote their products. Whether seeking to sell beef, cheese, eggs, or chicken, each industry positions its product by elevating some benefit it wants you to associate with it. This type of marketing has convinced us that milk and cheese build strong bones with their generous supply of calcium. Got beef? Then you’ve also got plenty of iron. Chicken on the menu? Great, that’s an outstanding source of lean protein. Fish for dinner? What better way to get your brain-building omega-3 fatty acids? At least that’s what these industries would have you believe. But are the claims true? Do they tell the whole story?
     
    Marketing efforts by the meat and dairy industries have convinced us that calcium, iron, and protein are essential nutrients we should seek out in large quantities. In food and supplements, they are sold as a kind of insurance policy against deficiency-caused illnesses. These nutrients are indeed essential, but what the animal product and pill marketers won’t tell you is that illnesses from deficiencies of these