Restaurant Suggestions

When eating out, always ask how your meal will be prepared. Grill your waiter or waitress about sauces, dressings, and fillers. meatballs, for example, might be a great low-carbohydrate choice, but only if they are made without bread crumbs. A piece of fish might contain hidden carbs if the sauce on top of it is made with sugar. When looking at the menu, look for words such as scampi, garlic and oil, grilled, poached, braised, baked or broiled. Also, remember to get more vegetables, either as a salad or as a side dish. Few restaurants serve enough with the meal.

The Thyroid

Thyroid hormone helps regulate metabolism, energy levels, mood, body temperature, and various bodily organs. If your thyroid is not functioning optimally, you will gain wait easily, resist weight loss, feel cold, become depressed, and suffer from dry skin, thin hair, low sex drive, joint and muscle aches, high cholesterol, and fatigue. The American College of Clinical Endocrinologists estimates that 1 in 10 Americans have an underactive thyroid and that half of them remain undiagnosed.

Fat: The Whole Truth

Besides improving the taste and texture of food, dietary fat is vitally important for good health.

Dietary fat:

• Is critical for proper brain and nerve function, eyesight, skin health, and even sperm count.
• Slows the progression of age-related memory loss and other cognitive disorders.
• Bolsters mood and prevents depression.
• Is used to make cell membranes, hormones, and hormone like substances.
• Carries the fat-soluble vitamins A,D,E and K. (Without fat, you’d become deficient in these vitamins.)
• Helps convert carotenes into vitamin A.
• Enables mineral absorption.
• Allows the body to fill in bone with calcium and other minerals.

The Importance of Fat Balance

The consumption of trans fats, sugar, and refined carbohydrates may not be the only factor in the rising rates of heart disease in this country. An imbalance in our conumption of different types of fat may also contribute to the problem. As it turns out, our bodies evolved on a diet that was relatively rich in a type of fat called omega-3 fatty acids (found in salmon and walnuts, among other foods) and relatively low in omega-6 fatty acids (found in many vegetable oils, particularly soy and corn oil). Many researchers believe that no more than twice as many fat calories should come from omega-6 fats as from omega-3 fats, but most of us are consuming 25 times as much omega-6 fats as omega-3s. Our consumption of omega-3s are low for a number of reasons. Few of us eat enough fatty fish, walnuts, flax, greens, and other foods that are rich in this type of fat. Commercial farming also reduces the natural omega-3 fats that would normally be present in animal meat, eggs, and vegetables. Eggs from hens that eat insects and green plants, for example, are richer in omega-3s than eggs from hens that are fed soy. Worse, most processed foods are loaded with omega-6 fats from corn or soybean oil.