"We Are What We Eat, Drink And Breathe"

Preface
About this Book
Glympse

PREFACE

Provocation?

The American Diet: A Recipe for Disaster is a provocative title, is it not? Intentionally so. This book is a wake-up call to Americans, and I make no apologies for what may feel like a brusque awakening. I believe that we must become aware of the errors in our way of eating and in the way we think about—or do not think about—our diet. Our health as individuals and as a nation depends upon it.

Attention Americans!

How can something “American” be a “disaster”? The term American elicits strong positive beliefs. What is American is considered to be inherently good, even the best in the world. Americans swear by all things American. By contrast, the term disaster has a truly un-American ring to it. It defines a happening that causes great harm and damage. A disaster is a serious misfortune, a calamity. So how can anything American, i.e. that which we consider to be inherently good, be a disaster?
I have purposely juxtaposed these two terms for two reasons: to grab your attention and to throw down the gauntlet. I challenge the average American diet because of its direct connection with poor health. By “the American diet” I mean all that we Americans eat and drink on an everyday basis. I am not referring to special diets created for a specific purpose.

This book lays out the imbalances in our American diet. It analyzes and discusses their impact on our health. It also promotes the understanding of how we can change unhealthy eating habits to healthy ones.

Hard Evidence

The American Diet: A Recipe for Disaster contains hard scientific evidence.
The scientific evidence comes from the growing number of publications describing the links between diet excesses and deficiencies and health. Over the last 5 years the number of these publications has been increasing at an accelerated rate. The Scirus search engine yields 8,568 such documents issued in three years between 1991 and 1994 and 435,897—fifty times more, from 2001 to 2004 over a similar period of time.

About this Book

“The American Diet: A Recipe for Disaster” is intended as a template for people willing to educate themselves about nutrition and health. It is intended to be a thorough primer, establishing the all-important links between diet and health. Although this book covers a wide variety of the kinds of health conditions that my correspondents inquire about, it intentionally differs greatly from other books that address various aspects of health and disease. Rather than advising people to blindly follow directions, The American Diet contains an abundance of facts, presents the conclusions at which I have arrived, and invites the reader to draw upon these facts to form new understandings for their own benefit.

Three Objectives

My objectives in writing the book is to create awareness of the connection between diet and health, to furnish arguments for the legitimacy of that connection and to provide an easy access to the scientific data supporting that connection:

1. Awareness of the Diet/Health Connection

My first objective is to raise awareness about the vital connection between diet and health. I have found that many people still daily underestimate or disregard the importance of this connection. Even those who are adept at managing their diet do not always realize the depth and the variety of the connections between diet and health. And this says nothing of the people who simply are not conscious of the connection. I want to make it clear that even a modest awareness will create big health payoffs.

2. Acceptance of the Legitimacy of Diet Correction

The second objective of this book is to convince the reader that a correct diet is one of the primary and major factors in improving and promoting health. This idea is still foreign to the medical establishment. Health practitioners are educated to use pharmaceuticals to treat the symptoms of conditions, even if these conditions result primarily, if not exclusively, from errors in the diet of their patients.

3. Accessibility of Scientific Data

The third objective is to make scientific data concerning diet and health accessible to everyone. Until about ten years ago scientific information about nutrition, like most scientific information, remained sequestered in specialized journals. The general public had little or no access to it. Over the last several years that situation has changed dramatically. While scientists still publish their articles in specialized journals, their knowledge, opinions and discoveries now also appear on web pages that are available to everyone with a World Wide Web (WWW) connection. Nowadays the problem is no longer the availability of data but the overwhelming abundance of it. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that scientific journals and scientists are not the only ones who create web pages with medical, scientific and health implications. People with limited and/or inaccurate understanding of diet can and do create Web sites with a scientific guise in order to sell their products and remedies, give advice or promulgate their opinions. It is becoming increasingly difficult to know what information is accurate and to differentiate between valid and scientifically bogus Web sites. Beyond that there looms the question of how best to apply the information to oneself. Given the magnitude of these challenges it is clear that anyone in search of the most accurate nutrition information requires either a solid scientific background or a trustworthy guide. I offer this book to you as a trustworthy guide. It is my sincere desire that it significantly contribute to your understanding of the many connections between your diet and your health. May you learn that the essential key to improving your health is as near at hand as your willingness to learn why and how to make corrections in your daily diet.

This Book is a Primer

What makes this book a primer is the content of the CD that comes with it. The CD lists the references cited in the book. Most of the references contain URLs. You have now—with a World Wide Web connection and your browser program, access to the abstracts of most of the references cited and for many of them also to the full text of the publication, as well as access to numerous illustrations.
The CD also contains a list of more than 1,500 addresses of Web sites of interest. The list is alphabetic by topic and expands the scope of your information even more

Glympse

This book demonstrates:

That human are still adapted to the diet prevalent 20,000 years ago.
That there can only be a partial adaptation to the changes resulting from the introduction of agriculture.
That there is no adaptation at all to more recent changes in the diet, like the excesses and the
   deficiencies of the American Diet
That the combination of these excesses and deficiencies, the Seven Deadly Sins of the American diet
   contribute to multiple health deteriorations.
That the correction of these excesses and deficiencies helps restore health.

Table of content :

Preface
The Human Diet over Time
Carbohydrates
Excess of Starch and Sugar
Minerals and Vitamins
Mineral and Vitamin Deficiency
Essential Fatty Acids
Excess of n-6 EFAs, n-3 EFAs Deficiency
 Scarcity of Some Carbohydrates
Excess of Pesticides and Additives
Calorie Excess
Wake up Americans!