| About the only refined-grain products I eat are the occasional pizza crust or sourdough and French bread (in restaurants) and sometimes pasta (which I always cook al dente because it has a lower glycemic index this way). I used to think I could never accept whole wheat noodles as "pasta." Never say never! In developing the recipes for this book, I used a whole wheat pasta blend and really started to like it (so did my family—which includes two picky teens).
Here's a quick list of all the ways that whole grains benefit your body. After reading it, you may ask yourself, "What don't they do? |
| I included a few meals each week that can be found in select fast-food places and restaurants; for many of us, that's a reality of life. I tried to include only one meat-centered meal a day, plus a couple low-fat dairy products, several fruits and vegetables, and at least three whole grain servings.
At the end of the sample menu section, I list a few high-synergy snacks that provide some of the Synergy Super Foods the menu may lack on some days. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Just go to any restaurant, especially those family chain restaurants, and try to order a bowl of soup. You mostly just get salt and MSG. There's hardly any other flavoring in the soup, since the physical matter in there has been so overcooked that it's just dead food with no taste subtlety remaining at all. These restaurants have to depend on salt and MSG to make these soups palatable to mainstream consumers. Personally, I can't touch a soup made by anything other than a gourmet restaurant, and canned soups found at the grocery store are also loaded with salt. |
Herbert Ross, DC with Keri Brenner, L.Ac.
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 Do you frequently eat out, particularly at ethnic restaurants, sushi bars, or salad bars?
¦ Do you eat raw fruits and vegetables?
¦ Do you eat raw or undercooked meat or fish?
¦ Do you work in a hospital, day care center, sanitation department, or garden, or around animals?
¦ Do you engage in oral or anal sex?
¦ Do you have some or all of these symptoms: dark circles under your eyes, distended abdomen, bluish lips, allergies, diarrhea or constipation, anemia, skin eruptions, anal itching, chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, insomnia, depression, or sugar cravings? |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 Don't eat in restaurants all the time, especially fast-food establishments. When you shop, stay on the periphery of your supermarket, where the fresh foods are found. Then look for fresh, whole food—organic when possible—not processed food filled with additives and chemicals. Eat lots of wild-caught fish. Once or twice a week replace beef with beans. Take a walk in the sunshine (vitamin D) every day for at least thirty minutes. Don't drink beverages with added sugar.
Specific diets may promote weight loss as well as good health. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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 Have you ever noticed how expensive restaurants shave Parmegiano-Reggiano cheese onto your salad? The taste is great, but the portion is small, so you save calories and they save money.
Soy and related protein source* þBlack soybeans þEdamame þSeitan (warning, this is wheat gluten) þTempeh þTofu (firm only) þTofu shirataki noodles
VEGETABLES
You can eat as much of the following as you wish. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| The Bottom Line
Exercise, cook your own meals, and avoid junk food and dining in restaurants. If you have IBS or you have to take antibiotics for an infection, you can try probiotics. Avoid use of antibiotics for colds and flus; they don't help, but they can mess up your gut flora. For those of you with GERD and ulcers I recommend that you stop taking arthritis medications, cut down on excessive alcohol, quit smoking, and, if needed, take an antacid. If this doesn't help, take H2 blockers, and next PPIs. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 I can't even eat at restaurants anymore at all, even those natural restaurants. They don't know they have MSG, because it's in one of the sauces or something.
Dr. Blaylock: I talked to them, and they said, "We get our food in these big crates, so there's no ingredients listed." It's the same thing for hospitals. I talked to a hospital dietitian and she said, "We can't tell because it comes in a crate, and they won't put the ingredients on it. It just says Salisbury steak or whatever."
They don't know, so it's hard for them to come out and tell their customers, "It's free of MSG. |
Brenda Davis and Tom Barnard
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 Business or Restaurant Lunch
With the tremendous boom of interest in health, it has become much easier to find appealing, plant-based meals in restaurants. Among your very best options are ethnic restaurants, as you will recall from chapter 8. Salads, soups, veggie stir-fries, and bean dishes are all great options. Even fast-food restaurants generally offer veggie burgers and salads.
Bag Lunches
The key to enticing, plant-based bag lunches is to get creative. Free yourself from the notion that lunch must come between two slices of bread. Carry soup, stew, or chili in a thermos. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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 As for restaurants in unfamiliar locales, use the same tactics while traveling that you use at home: try to call ahead and let the chef or maitre d' know what kind of meal you will need.
You will doubtless come up with strategies of your own. My patient Anthony Yen, who travels far and wide on business, has shown particular ingenuity over his twenty-plus years on the program. Among other things, he put together a set of cards that request— in a variety of languages—plant-based food that contains no oil. |
Ron Garner
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 The use of microwave ovens is almost universal in restaurants and homes in North America. Considering the foregoing information, it is likely that serious damage at the human cellular level is being wrought throughout the western world. Yet, as with many other aspects of our food, medicines, and environment, the cumulative effects of microwaves are gradual; when the onset of illness occurs, it is very hard to make the connection with the original cause. For these reasons, in my opinion, the use of microwave ovens, and eating food and drinks that have been heated in them, is not advised. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| McDonalds, Burger King, and chain restaurants like Applebee's and TGIF pile on the calories in ever-expanding portions, with sodium and fat all far in excess of what we actually need. And since there is a natural tendency to eat everything on your plate, you know the consequence of ordering from their menus.
People who eat fast food three or more times a week have a greater than 90% chance of developing heart disease or diabetes. I don't want to develop heart disease or diabetes, do you? That's why I stopped eating fast food. |
Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe
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 The final product consists of round, flat "pistoles," each the size of an American quarter, sold to the pastry chefs of the finest restaurants of the United States. To ensure that he was creating chocolate of the highest quality, Walsh engaged the services of Philippe Padovani, then executive chef of the Ritz-Carlton Mauna Lani on Hawaii; Padovani tested all the best chocolates from around the world, and developed an extremely smooth chocolate that had a high concentration of cacao butter and chocolate liquor. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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| The recent rapid increase in obesity parallels the widespread availability of fast-food outlets like McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Subway, and Hardees as well as chain restaurants like Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse, which serve megaportions of food. Every day one out of four Americans eats at a fast-food restaurant, 43% of the time at McDonald's. Convenience-food makers try to increase our desire for the items we crave most (fat, sugar, and salt) in order to sell their products, even if they are killing us. |
Jeffrey M. Smith
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 Depending on the dish, some restaurants can switch cooking oils just for your meal—using olive oil instead of their normal vegetable oil. It's not likely, however, that they will do this for deep fried dishes. Italian, Greek, and Middle Eastern restaurants and many fine dining establishments tend to use olive oil anyway. It's usually easiest to phone ahead and speak to a cook.
In Europe where food is labeled if its ingredients contain even a small amount of GM content, restaurants are supposed to list if any of their foods contain GM ingredients or have the information available upon request. |
Dr. Steven R. Gundry
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| But I will tell you that after even a couple of days on the lecture circuit away from my own kitchen and favorite restaurants, my cravings for raw food, especially salads, become intense.
My most successful patient volunteers, meaning those who permanently change their body and blood chemistry, do so by evolving to a diet that is at least 60 percent raw food. Should you eat mainly raw? That's your decision. Again, do what you can, with what you have, wherever you are. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 For some it's dinner at the finest restaurants, for others it's enough convincing data to let them prescribe confidently, and for others it's my attention and friendship ... but at the most basic level, everything is for sale and everything is an exchange."
High prescribers are identified from the Physician Masterfile database maintained by the American Medical Association, which pharmaceutical companies license for their own use. Reps work hard to maintain relationships with
The average doctor has a limited tool kit, and that tool kit consists exclusively of drugs. |
Jonny Bowden, M.A., C.N.S.
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 Back in the 1990s, a lot of restaurants in New York City served a delicious fish that nobody would order. In fact, the presence of this fish on the menu caused more than a little distress in some circles and led to some heated exchanges between customers and restaurant managers. Animal rights activists—who were frequently baby boomers with enough disposable income to keep the restaurants afloat—were the most vitriolic in their condemnation of the establishments that served this fish, but the outcry from "regular" folks was not much more muted.
The fish was dolphin. |
Jack Challem
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 Japanese and Chinese rice bowl or express restaurants are the Asian equivalent of fast food. Many people believe that a quick Asian-style lunch is healthier than an American fast-food lunch. The problem is that you get a small amount of chicken, beef, pork, or seafood, often with a sugary sauce, on top of a large mass of white rice.
Of these cuisines, Thai food probably contains the least amount of hidden sugar and other types of carbs. If you're sensitive to dairy foods, Thai cuisine offers a bonus: coconut milk is often used the way other cuisines use dairy. |
| Some Mexican and South American-style restaurants serve ceviche, which typically contains seafood marinated and "cold cooked" in lime juice and a mix of mild and hot peppers. Ceviche is very tasty and free of sugar and other carbs. Still other options are came asada (broiled or grilled steak) and polio asado (broiled chicken).
New Mexican cuisine has many differences from Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine. When you order chili (spelled chile in New Mexico), you typically get a red or green chile stew made without beans, although refried beans are usually served on the side. |
Andreas Moritz
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 In 2007 New York City banned the use of trans fats in its restaurants; however, the trans fats are merely being replaced with new artificial fats that have the same or worse effects.
Healthy Today—Sick Tomorrow
Unfortunately, high cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia) has become the dominating health concern of the 21st century. It is actually an invented disease that doesn't show up as one. Even the healthiest people may have elevated serum cholesterol and yet their health remains perfect. |
| One of the main problems with this oil is that it should not be heated, yet heating it is a standard practice in the production process, and in restaurants and households. According to a January 26, 1998 Omega Nutrition press release, "heating distorts the omega-3 essential fatty acid found in canola, turning it into an unnatural trans form that raises total cholesterol levels and lowers HDL [good] cholesterol."
Japanese researchers found that the life spans of rats fed diets rich in canola oil were 40 percent shorter. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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| What would he do at restaurants? While traveling? How could he possibly eat this food? He had always hated fruits and vegetables. "Big Macs, French fries, milk shakes were favorite foods," he readily admits. "My favorite thing was chocolate."
From the start, Jim made it sound as if what I asked him to do was absurd, a constant inconvenience. He deeply treasured the food that had gotten him in trouble. But he was an intelligent person, and what finally won him over was the logic of the program. We were trying to follow the nutritional example of countries where disease was nonexistent. |
Alan R. Gaby, M.D., Jonathan V. Wright, M.D., Forrest Batz, Pharm.D. Rick Chester, RPh., N.D., DipLAc. George Constantine, R.Ph., Ph.D. Linnea D. Thompson, Pharm.D., N.D.
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 As nonsmoking sections of restaurants have nearly the same level of smoke as do the smoking sections, it makes sense to seek restaurants that do not permit any smoking and to avoid bars unless they are also non-smoking establishments.
Other inhalant pollution
Inhalant exposure to diesel exhaust, pitch and tar, dioxin, arsenic, chromium, cadmium, and nickel compounds may also increase the risk of lung cancer.26 Exposure to asbestos is associated with an increased risk of lung cancer.
Radon exposure has been reported to contribute to the risk of lung cancer in rhe general population. |
Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., M.D.
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| But there are some potential allies in the cause: the professional chefs of the world, those employed by upscale hotels, restaurants, businesses, clubs, and other venues that require food of exquisite taste, texture, variety, and presentation. These chefs are masters at achieving delightful meals no matter what the basic foods.
Several years ago, I was invited to speak about arresting and reversing heart disease at a luncheon meeting of health maintenance organization directors at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. |
Jack Challem
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| Fresh fish, shrimp, and scallops are also common entrees in Italian restaurants.
In general, safe sauces include pesto, piccata, and various types of tomato sauces, although sometimes tomato sauces contain added sugar. When wine sauces are used in cooking, most of the alcohol burns off.
When you order salad, ask whether the Italian dressing is homemade. If it isn't, get oil and vinegar or ask that the chef make an oil-and-vinegar dressing with basil and oregano. It won't take him more than a few seconds. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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| Indian restaurants usually provide a little bowl of fennel seeds for customers. Chewing on them freshens the breath in the nicest and most natural way.
Combo Cure for Aging Brains
IF YOU'RE A baby boomer, at some point in your life you've undoubtedly heard yourself say the following words: "Senior moment!" And if you aren't a baby boomer, chances are you still know what your boomer friends mean when they say them. (If you don't, let me translate from boomer-ese. A "senior moment" means "I can't remember where I put my keys. Oh my God, is this the beginning of Alzheimer's?" |
Jack Challem
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| These fats are called inter-esterified fats, and food companies and restaurants have looked to them as a replacement for trans fats. But according to a study in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism, they're even more dangerous than trans fats!
Like trans fats, interesterified fats lower the "good" high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which alters the ratios among blood fats and increases the risk of heart disease. |
Craig Pepin-Donat
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 Even if you are successful at simply not purchasing items with hydrogenated oils or shortening, you still get stung with fried foods in the vast majority of restaurants that use cooking oil laced with trans fats and saturated fat. The only way to avoid them is to avoid fried foods or at least dramatically cut down on them. This is difficult for some people because fried food tastes so darn good. Every day, we have to manage the balancing act of what tastes good and what is good for us. The occasional fried food should be the exception, not the rule.
Avoid foods with high fructose corn syrup. |
| Both fast food and full service restaurants, competing to make vast sums of money, are serving portions that are way too large. In their desire to lure us into their unhealthy trap they are doing us a huge disservice. The human body was not meant to consume as much as the average American does on a daily basis. Food should be enjoyed, but its purpose is to provide the nutrients and energy we need to survive and thrive. When you overindulge on a regular basis you upset the natural balance that your body seeks. You control the quality and quantity of the food you put into it. |
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