The world of nutritional advice is confusing. How are you to know what advice is right for you and your family?
It is the “sad” truth that a majority of deaths are considered due to poor quality of the Standard American Diet (SAD). Even with strong evidence, improvements in diet are often more influenced by popular opinion than by sound recommendations sustainable by individuals, families, countries and our planet. Why is this such an issue? Why don’t we seem able to feed ourselves for body and mental balance? I am often asked in my practice about nutrition. What foods are best for myself, for my child, my condition, my beliefs? I used to answer what I was told in naturopathic school -- “a vegetarian diet, of course!”. I tried vegetarianism myself in medical school, and I have to admit I was the chubbiest and most tired that I have ever been!
Then it was the Blood Type Diet. The HypoAllergenic Diet. The Gluten Free Diet or Avoid All Fat Diet. And then I thought, enough of this already -- What IS the best diet?
And in my research I discovered a few things. For one thing, I examined a number of systems for more specifically defining the best diet for an individual. These did, indeed, exist, but because they categorized people with lab and physical exam type testing, they were often not readily available or understandable for the average person. To provide this for patients, I use Metabolic Typing at various levels in my practice. Metabolic Typing can help to determine in which way your metabolism is currently imbalanced and how to reverse it. It can also help over time to determine what your best diet is if your ethnicity is unclear, a situation that often occurs in a country like Canada.
I have seen appropriate diets work miracles not just for health maintenance but for the long term management of significant health complaints -- arthritis, respiratory diseases, obesity, hormonal problems, addictions, mental illness etc. Every function and structure of the body is determined by the pathways of the metabolism, so a correction of how foods flow through the system can have a dramatic effects on the expression of most conditions. Where the ethnicity is clear, follow your ethnic diet. For example, the Inuit traditionally eat seal meat, organs and blood, and eating the SAD is particularly deadly to this population of heavy meat and fat eaters.
Some of the longest lived and healthiest people in the world are the Okinawans of Japan, and the Sardinians of the Mediterranean. They don’t have the same diet at all, but they follow their ethnic diet and you can see the results. For comparison, we looked at the 7th Day Adventists, who are a religious community in the United States. They have long held beliefs and guidelines about food that have been summarized by the 7th Day Adventist Dietetic Association, and you can read their very common sense advice for yourself to see what guidelines have ensured that on average, they have lived a decade longer than their local counterparts in the US. For a ballpark of your Metabolic Type, you can consult The Metabolic Type Diet by Bill Wolcott. There are also great reference books on Ayurvedic typing and Chinese Medicinal Diets for various tendencies in the individual (although it helps to be Indian or Asian to be familiar with the dietary choices!). You can do a reasonably priced cheek swab genetic test that can show what percentages of what ethnicities you have in your DNA!
Take a look at the offers from www.myheritage.com!
If you would like to know more about Metabolic Typing and your Metabolic Type book an appointment with us Today! 403.283.7683
