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Hot New Diet That Features Nuts Has Ancient Origins
If history repeats itself, and there’s plenty of evidence that it does (just ask any Chicago Cub fan), Chinese restaurants, wok manufacturers, and Asian food stores will soon enjoy a sales surge. All this thanks to a scientific conference in San Francisco last fall that turned the spotlight on the Asian diet - and that reemphasized the important role of nuts in good nutrition.
Remember the attention given the Mediterranean Diet a few years ago? (See Almond Facts, November/December 1994.) And the scientific findings about how consuming lots of pasta, veggies, nuts, olive oil and red wine results in long, disease-free lives? And the spike in pasta sales that followed?
Now comes persuasive new evidence that the Asian approach to nutrition has at least as good - or even better - results in terms of longevity and comparative freedom from heart-disease and cancers - the key killers of Americans and western Europeans who regularly dine on cholesterol-rich foods.
So look now for longer lines at Chinese take-out kitchens ... and new consumer interest in almonds and other nuts.
Why nuts? Because the common denominator of both healthy diets is their emphasis on plant foods instead of animal products, and the high regard that both food traditions have for nuts - almonds in particular.
The catalyst for the new focus on the Asian diet was a conference jointly organized by Cornell University, Harvard School of Public Health, and Oldways Preservation & Exchange Trust. Held in San Francisco last November and titled “Nuts, Legumes and Health, Perspectives from Asia and the Pacific,” it provided a forum for food writers, chefs and leading scientists to discuss the role of traditional diets of Asia on health and longevity, and the importance of nuts and legumes in those diets.
The participants agreed that the road to a long, healthy life may be found in diets rich in plant foods and relatively low in animal products, such as those found throughout rural Asia. Their conclusions directly challenge the U.S. Department of Agriculture's celebrated 1992 U.S. Food Guide Pyramid with its acceptance of animal products in the diet and inclusion of nuts in the same category with them, instead of with other plant foods.
As every farmer and food marketer knows, the fortunes of agricultural products wax and wane on the latest diet information. The fallout from this conference could have some beneficial effects over the long run because it further reinforced the message that the International Nut Council (of which Blue Diamond® is a strong supporter) has long been touting: Nuts are good for you!
The conference provided the nut industry with additional valuable research to combat popular misconceptions about fat in nuts, misconceptions perpetuated by the USDA Food Pyramid. For example:
* Dr. T. Colin Campbell, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University, is co-leader of the China-Cornell-Oxford Diet and Health Project. Since 1983, Dr. Campbell and his associates have gathered information about the eating habits and health of over 6,500 rural Chinese, and conducted subsequent surveys of 10,500 Chinese from the mainland and Taiwan. Dr. Campbell concludes that a mostly vegan diet clearly lowers rates of coronary heart disease, various cancers, and other so-called “diseases of affluence.”
The Study found that average cholesterol levels and blood pressure of Chinese are substantially lower than Americans’. Rural Chinese have a mostly meatless diet, he notes, and their blood cholesterol counts averaged 88 to 105 milligrams per 100 milliliters of blood plasma compared to U.S. levels which generally range from 155 to 271. The Chinese with higher cholesterol levels showed a higher incidence of cancer, he pointed out.
The relationship between diet and disease was dramatically illustrated by Chinese immigrants to the U.S. who adopt the high-saturated-fat, high-animal-protein western diet and sedentary American lifestyle. They tend to develop heart disease, cancer and diabetes, just as Caucasians do. Similar increases in heart disease and cancers were found in urban areas of Asia where residents had adopted an American-style diet.
Campbell also compared data on Taiwanese subjects and found rates of coronary heart disease, diabetes and cancer were substantially higher among the more prosperous Taiwanese, who eat more pork, fish and another animal foods than do the poorer mainland subjects.
Based on these findings, Dr. Campbell suggests that the replacement of animal-based foods with plant-based foods could result in an 80- to 90-percent reduction in cancer in the United States.
* The health effects of eating more versus fewer nuts was discussed by Dr. Joan Sabate, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the School of Public Health, Loma Linda University. She stressed the need for western diets to include more legumes and nuts in order to protect against cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Dr. Sabate reported on The Seventh Day Adventist Study, an epidemiological survey of 26,000 Seventh Day Adventists in California, and the Iowa Women's Study of 34,000 women. Both study groups demonstrated a marked inverse relationship between nut consumption and death by heart disease.
Adventist study participants who ate nuts at least five times per week were only half as likely to die from heart disease as those who shunned nuts. Even those who ate nuts once a week received some benefit: They had 25% less heart disease than those who avoided nuts.
In the Iowa study, fewer women ate nuts -- but those who did were only 40% as likely to die from heart disease as those who never ate nuts.
* Dr. Gene Spiller, Director of the Health Research and Studies Center in Los Altos, CA, reported on 37 of his hypocholesterolemic patients who were given 100 grams of almonds per day. Their cholesterol levels were lowered between 8% and 15% in just three weeks, he said. Although the patients were concerned with weight gain from eating approximately 600 calories per day of almonds, there was no change in weight of the participants.
The World’s Healthiest Diet
Natural Health magazine's January-February 1996 issue hailed the China-Cornell-Oxford Study findings in an article titled, “The World's Healthiest Diet." Author Dana Jacobi wrote, "In specific terms we Americans need to cut the fat in our diet down to less than 20 percent of total calories, a recommendation many leading health professionals have been urging for some time. Asians consume far less than we do, with 6 to 24 percent of their calories coming from fat (15 percent on average) versus an average of about 35 percent for us. Most of the Asian fat comes from plant sources and is unsaturated. Along with helping to lower blood cholesterol, eating less fat may also explain why Chinese are less prone to obesity. While the Chinese consume 20 percent more calories, Americans at the same height are 25 percent fatter."
Don’t overdo the fat-avoidance thing, however, cautions Ann Coulston, senior research dietitian at Stanford University Medical Center. Avoiding fat altogether, which seems to be the current American obsession, may be harmful for some people, she says.
Lifestyle, Jacobi noted, has much to do with the weight difference between Asians and Americans. Although the Chinese consumed well over 2,000 calories per day, they relied on walking and bicycles for transportation and most spent time working in the fields. The Chinese also eat three times as much fiber as Americans (33 grams to 11 daily). Colon cancer rates are 6.6 for men and 4.3 for women per 100,000 in China. The U.S . figures are 16.9 for men and 13.1 for women.
Substituting vitamins and supplements for whole, unprocessed and unrefined plant foods doesn’t do it for you either, noted Dr. Tim Byers, professor of preventive medicine, University of Colorado School of Medicine. He cautioned against searching for instant cures by taking supplements, citing studies that show that many of the preventive effects of vitamins and minerals when consumed from plant foods, such as vitamins E and C, are not duplicated when those vitamins are consumed as supplements. In fact, the studies show that taking vitamin supplements either had no positive effect or increased the risk of certain cancers.
Asian Pyramid
In hopes of encouraging more Americans to make the change from an animal-based diet to the healthier Asian approach to nutrition, the conference sponsors provided an easy-to-follow graphic depiction of their recommendations for making healthy food choices. They unveiled "The Traditional Healthy Asian Diet Pyramid," a companion for their earlier Mediterranean Diet Pyramid. Both pyramids serve as nutritional guides for choosing foods to eat daily, weekly or monthly.
Not surprisingly, the base of the pyramid (foods that form the core of the diet and that can be consumed daily) includes rice, noodles, breads, millet, corn and other grains (minimally refined whenever possible). The next level includes fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds and vegetables, which are also daily staples.
Including nuts as part of the daily diet reflects reality in Asia. Nuts are prized in Asian cookery because nuts are filling, flavorful, and high in plant protein, fiber and other nutrients.
Optional daily food groups in the Asian Pyramid include fish and shellfish, and dairy foods. Sweets, eggs and poultry are allowed once a week, meat only once a month, or more often in small amounts. The recommendation for minimal meat consumption is in keeping with the Asian custom of using meat as a condiment, instead of as the central element of the meal.
The pyramid encourages daily physical activity and suggests using alcoholic beverages in moderation, primarily with meals.
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Blue Diamond® is working through the International Nut Council and the Almond Board of California to make the public more conscious of the nutritional value of nuts and to dispel the erroneous concept that nuts, because of their fat content, should assume only a limited role in the American diet. The Asian Diet Pyramid is one more tool in that important effort.
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