Therapeutic Nutrition

More I learned about Nutrition, more I got into the complexity of biology. Our bodies and how food interacts with our body is highly complex science. 

Here's a little background of me. I used to weigh 95 kgs 3 years back. I googled standard guidelines posted by WHO and FDA. I followed these for exactly 6 months I remember. I worked out and ate like a nerd, counting my calories, stripping my food of any saturated fat and doing cardio. After 6 months, I weighed 96 kgs with even lesser energy and mental clarity. Not to mention dieting and tiring cardio sessions. 

I started to look beyond conventional science and guidelines. I was amazed by what I learned. Everything conventional academics say about nutrition is false, and its not exaggeration. Even our modern diet is root cause of epidemic of chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

In case of every macro-nutrient, modern science has taken things wildly wrong. 

Fats, firstly they demonized fat for cardiovascular diseases, although now recently they acknowledged thousands of study proving fat isn't the culprit. they still promote monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, mostly seed oils, which various studies show are highly inflammatory and causes health problems. They still demonize Indian culinary treasure, cow ghee and coconut oil, owing to these being 98% saturated fats, now its well proven that these are healthiest oils on planet.

Proteins, these academic experts still recommend way more protein that we need. After so many studies proving, protein requirements are way less than what WHO and FDA claims to be, they haven't learned. Most people taking recommended protein amounts are either having kidney problems or hyperuricemia. Also sources of proteins recommended by them, seems to be health damaging in many other ways. A1 milk protein, found in dairy products found to be inflamogen and diabetogenic, still they didn't bother to rectify their recommendations. Well its tough when Nestle and Danone, two dairy majors are huge donors of WHO and FDA.

Carbohydrates, all our body needs and evolved for was very complex carbs and fibres. Humans were never designed to have enormous amounts of sugar and starch we eat, advertising and recommending cereals is one of biggest crime our industry has committed. Our pancreas never made to handle that much starch and sugar, and free radical damage sugar does is enormous. But never mind, WHO and FDA do have minimum recommended values of sugar. Sugar industry is second largest lobbying group after dairy.

So, whom should we trust? As I said Nutrition is too complex to understand, doesn't mean we should stop understanding this complexity, we should and even I believe that would be really amazing we someday able to prove why unprocessed, local and seasonal, unrefined food works the best. but until then, stick to the cuisine that has been tried and tested since generations without any problems that is traditional foods of 'your' place, because its tried and tested for your genotypes.

And yeah, I weigh 75 kgs now, barely do workout 2-3 times a week and yeah I quit counting my calories and indulge into delicacies my mother prepares.

Akhil Garg 

Final year, ESIC Medical College Faridabad