promise of vitamin C, low-fat yogurts packaged with granola toppings that are nothing more than candy, organic breakfast cereal with just as much sugar as the neon-colored kiddie stuff, 100-calorie packs of cookies (100-calorie packs of everything), and many more deluges from the Sugar Storm.
Don’t think that some of these gimmicky foods like squeezable bubble-gum-flavored-yogurt-in-a-tube were cynically created just for kids; adults buy and consume these items, too. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that men between the ages of twenty and fifty-nine, not kids, are among the biggest consumers of sugar!) And whether or not you can find the word “sugar” on the label, these foods and beverages all have one thing in common: They can ruin your metabolism—and your life.
premium ice cream?) But if you’re eating this stuff daily, watch out! You can avoid the problem by enjoying your grass-fed steak without the bread and potatoes (it’s great with a garden-fresh salad) or the organic cheese without the cracker (swap out the cracker and have some luscious slices of fresh pear, instead). These smart choices are much better for your health.
We realize that we’ve given you a lot of reasons not to eat certain foods—foods that may have been on your list of all-time favorites. So, does all this mean that you can’t have a slice of birthday cake with a scoop of ice cream ever again? Of course not.
We’re not the Food Police. We’re also not Diet Dictators. (The real Diet Dictators are the ones who got us into this mess in the first place.) We are, however, here to share with you what we know about nutrition and health. We know without a doubt that certain foods will short-circuit your health
—and shorten your life—and it’s our responsibility to let you know that and to show you how smart fats can be the solution.
But we are also realistic. We all have lives. We like to celebrate with friends and family—and food is often a part of that. We have relatives who insist on “doing” Thanksgiving (with the worst trimmings) and a ninety-year-old grandmother who still sends you sugar-cookie care packages. We go on a dream vacation to a city that is famous for its food. A kid is finally home from college and begging to go to a favorite burger joint for a family meal. Your best pal is hosting the annual Super Bowl/Oscars/Memorial Day blowout, and the dining room table is covered with chicken wings, ribs, potato salad, chips and dip, soda, beer—and brownies.
It’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth it or not.
Your sister’s wedding? Special. A midweek lunch with your colleague who likes to get stuffed-crust pizza? Not so special. (But go anyway and use the opportunity to practice your skills by smart-fatting your lunch choice.)
We aren’t going to be there with you when you have to make the decision on what to eat and what not to eat. But we are here right now, to give you practical information—and the life-saving science behind it.
CHAPTER 4
Unlearn What You Know About Food
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ETWEEN THE TWO OF US we’ve met many thousands of people who can reel off calorie counts for hundreds of foods. They also know their total percentage of calories from fat; have memorized total number of grams of protein, saturated fat, and carbs; and can recite these numbers faster than a sports fanatic can rattle off baseball stats. Some of them can even tell you the exact amount of potassium in a potato. In a world in which billions of eaters have access to the Internet, information on food is easy to come by.Not all that long ago, every conscientious “dieter” had a well-thumbed paperback in the kitchen that listed the calorie counts for everything imaginable. Then the listings got more specific. There were separate books for those who wanted to count carbs and for those who wanted to calculate protein. There were books on how to avoid fat in your diet. Next came books that listed a food’s glycemic index. And soon the books themselves were replaced by countless websites and apps for tracking and analyzing every single morsel or sip. Meanwhile, the nutrition and ingredients labels on food packages grew longer and longer—not exactly a good omen for the consumer.
We have a lot of facts at our fingertips about what we eat and drink—more than at any other time in history. But has all this information really helped us? We’re still struggling with our weight and our health, diabetes is rampant, we’re in the midst of an obesity epidemic, and according to a statistical update from the American Heart Association, heart disease kills almost eight hundred thousand people a year in the United States alone.
Why is this happening?
We have an answer. It may not be the only answer—health is, after all, a complex, multidetermined affair—but it’s definitely an important part of the answer.
We think that one reason for our nutritional dysfunction, and the serious health consequences that have resulted, is because we’ve learned the wrong lessons from all those facts that we’ve accumulated about food. We’ve drawn incorrect or incomplete conclusions; we’ve misunderstood the science (which is often badly reported, overly hyped, or oversimplified by the media); we’ve listened to erroneous information from diet and health gurus; and we’ve been led to believe things that simply aren’t true. Sometimes the misinformation is deliberate (like when the facts come from the marketing departments of chemical companies), and sometimes it’s innocent (such as advice from well-meaning doctors who just don’t know much about nutrition).
Either way, much of the information we’ve been “taught” has turned out to be dangerous to our well-being. Specifically, we’ve learned the wrong things about the macronutrients that make up most of our daily diets: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Now it’s time to unlearn what you know about the
relationship between these three categories of food and replace it with a real, working knowledge that you can use in a practical way to help you reach your goals. The Smart Fat Solution will work for you—for life—and you’ll appreciate why once you have all the smart facts.