Here we go again. In another example of, “it used to be bad for you, but now it isn’t,” the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee is expected to declare dietary cholesterol is no longer a “nutrient of concern,” reversing more than 40 years of recommendations that changed the way Americans eat and greatly affected the egg industry.
However, they have not changed their views on saturated fats, mostly found in animal products, including milk. Those still are seen as harmful to health, especially contributing to heart disease and obesity.
From a wellness viewpoint, all this is “much ado about nothing.” According to my nutrition training, dietary cholesterol never was a problem; it has been a part of our diets forever. It does not lead to heart disease or obesity. The original research on dietary cholesterol was done on — are you ready for this? — rabbits. The problem is, rabbits are herbivores and their diets contain almost no cholesterol. They are unable to process dietary cholesterol, and they get sick when it’s fed to them. This really is not a surprise.
The lesson isn’t that we should avoid cholesterol because it is bad for rabbits. What we should learn from this is feeding any creature a food that is not in its natural diet will harm its health. This also is not a surprise, but it continues to elude the medical nutritionists who make the guidelines.
Saturated fats, like cholesterol, have been a key part of the human diet since humans have existed and they absolutely are not a problem for us to eat. Sugar, other refined carbs and highly hybridized wheat — all newer foods — are the dietary culprits. Add to that list soda, artificial sweeteners, taste enhancers such as monosodium glutamate, colorings, preservatives and anything else that has been added to our diets during the last hundred years or so. These are my “nutrients of concern” — except there is no nutritional value to most of them.
It really isn’t a surprise medical nutritionists have done such a terrible job making their guidelines. Nutrition training in medical school is minimal at best. A 2010 article in the Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges stated medical training in nutrition “continues to be inadequate.” According to the article, only 25 percent of medical schools even have a separate nutrition course. Several schools did not teach it at all. Only 28 of the 106 schools met the 25-hour minimum recommended by the National Academy of Sciences, down from 40 schools in 2004.
Cleveland Chiropractic College, my alma mater, offers 60 hours of nutrition training, which is typical of chiropractic colleges. The University of Bridgeport Naturopathic College requires 108 hours.
But the biggest difference between medical and wellness nutrition training is not the number of hours, it is the basic philosophy. Medical nutrition is called “reductionist,” which means it reduces food to individual nutrients: vitamins, minerals, antioxidants. While I learned all this in chiropractic college, I also was taught nutrition from a holistic viewpoint: a whole food is more than the sum of the nutrients it contains. According to reductionist nutrition, the nutritional damage done by the processing of foods — for example, bleaching whole-wheat flour to white — can be undone by adding in highly refined vitamins and minerals. Those of us who look at nutrition holistically believe no such thing. There is no additive or supplement that can replace the nutritional value of a whole food. Unlike current medical advice, I do not expect this advice to change next year or even in the foreseeable future.
I follow the advice of my wellness-based nutrition teachers: eat whole, intact foods; include lots of veggies, preferably raw or lightly cooked; and meats and animal products from local animals, not raised in “factory farms” and fed unnatural foods and antibiotics. Eating this diet of whole, natural foods allows you to stop obsessing over how much of any particular nutrient you are getting.
Dr. Michael Noonan practices chiropractic, chiropractic acupuncture and other wellness therapies in Old Town. He can be reached at noonanchiropractic@gmail.com.