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The Smoker’s Diet
Published as a short book, including excerpts from Psychodietetics, 1974.
* * *
If you want to break the smoking habit and either get back or keep your trim figure, then read this book carefully and put its nutritional advice into practice.
Kitty is assembling her family’s food supplies for the week. As she makes her way up and down the supermarket aisles she’s outwardly serene, inwardly in turmoil.
“Eggs? No, they raise cholesterol levels. Chocolate cookies? The kids will howl if I don’t buy them. How bad can they be? Potatoes are on sale. Better not, they’re starchy. Margarine or butter? Wish I could remember what I read about that. Bananas should be safe. Did someone tell me they’re gassed before picking? Oh, my God, I wish I knew what I was doing.”
Do you approach your food shopping with similar confusion? Have all the nutritionists’ warnings left you feeling totally inadequate in the supermarket?
Dr. Michael Jacobson, a food scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, believes the average shopper has a lot to learn. In his view the country’s major food marketers are cunning adversaries, dedicated to “private wealth” rather than “public health,” and he advises consumers to grow adept at identifying their devious ways. The following quiz, designed to assess your nutritional know-how, was prepared with his help. Select the answer, (A) or (B), you think most appropriate:
- A number of food additives have been linked to detrimental health effects. If you were trying to avoid the two worst additives, you would read labels carefully to steer away from products containing (A) Polysorbate-60 and EDTA; (B) sugar and artificial coloring.
- Fiber or roughage is removed from wheat and rice when they are processed. Since fiber does not contain any vitamins or minerals, it is nutritionally worthless. (A) True; (B) False.
- You are sure to increase the nutritional adequacy of your diet by carefully choosing foods labeled as having been “enriched ” during manufacture. (A) True; (B) False.
- All fruits are good and nutritious, but the one that contains the most vitamins per average serving is (A) a wedge of watermelon; (B) an apple.
- A wise choice for a nutritious and healthy dessert is fruit flavored gelatin. (A) True; (B) False.
- The riboflavin (vitamin B2) that is contained in milk is best protected against loss by (A) a waxed-paper carton; (B) a clear glass bottle.
- Meat is an excellent source of protein. You are making a better nutritional buy when purchasing (A) choice of prime cuts of beef; (B) good or standard grades of beef.
- If you were relying on carrots for your daily vitamin A supply, you would be wise to eat (A) raw young tender carrots; (B) steamed or boiled older mature carrots.
Think you did pretty well? Score yourself as follows:
Question 1.
Question 2. Question 3. Question 4. Question 5. Question 6. Question 7. Question 8. |
(A) 1 point
(A) 1 point (A) 1 point (A) 2 points (A) 1 point (A) 2 points (A) 1 point (A) 1 point |
(B) 2 points
(B) 2 point s (B) 2 points (B) 1 point (B) 2 points (B) 1 point (B) 2 points (B) 2 points |
Only those who score a perfect 16 points have the nutritional sophistication to saunter down the supermarket aisles and emerge unscathed.
Dr. Jacobson booby-trapped the quiz with a couple of sneaky questions. For example, carrots do not contain much vitamin A until they mature, and what vitamin A they do contain is locked into a strong cellulose structure. That makes carrots one of the few vegetables providing more nutrition cooked than raw.
A perfect score, however, is no guarantee that you will not fall victim to some of the newer advertising gimmicks. Food manufacturers, well aware of growing public interest in nutrition, are pushing worthless fad foods as “fortified.” In reality, they offer no better nutrition than a starchy, low-quality vitamin pill.
It takes a special kind of expertise to know there is more nourishment in Alpo Dog Food than in a drive-in’s hamburger. According to Dr. Jacobson, Alpo also rates higher than pork chops, shrimp, boiled or sliced ham, higher, even, than sirloin steak. Until nutritional labeling on foods meant for humans provides information as accurate as that found on most products packaged for pets, a conscientious shopper is distinctly at a disadvantage.
Supermarket shelves are packed full of incredible edibles, more toys than real foods. Quik, ee-zee or redi, they have a nutritional content as atrocious as their spelling.
One cardinal rule sums up what you need to know: Avoid as much as possible those foods that have been refined or processed and that contain food additives and chemical pollutants. The less doctored foods you choose, the less likely you’ll need doctoring yourself.
The prettier the package, the more suspect is the food. Those colorful boxes may even be more nutritious than the contents. A biochemist at the University of Georgia chose one of the new, attractive to-the-kiddies-cereals, emulsified both the box and the cereal, then fed one white rat the box and another the cereal. The one that ate the box thrived better.
Develop a reading-habit–label reading–when it comes to selecting cereals as well as other foods. Cereals which have been puffed, popped, sugared, and colored are to be avoided, for they contain chemicals designed to increase their shelf life, not yours.
The average adult yearly intake of food additives, in addition to 115 pounds of sugar and 15 pounds of salt, includes 8.4 pounds of corn syrup, 4.2 pounds of dextrose (glucose), and 10 pounds of about 2000 other additives. You can significantly reduce your chemical consumption by taking the time to read food labels each time you shop.
At first you will be discouraged. You’ll find yourself rejecting an enormous number of items you previously popped automatically into the market basket. But if you persist, your disposition and finances will both improve. Whatever television commercials tell you, junk and convenience foods are the most expensive. Try not to be influenced by advertising. Those foods with the least nutritional value are often the subjects of Madison Avenue’s cleverest, most expensive campaigns. When was the last time you saw a TV ad for fresh fruits or vegetables?
Your best Cook’s Tour through a landmined food market is our Smoker’s Diet. Based on our findings, it clearly distinguishes good foods from bad and emphasizes the need for essential nutrients. The Smoker’s Diet is, in one sense, not a “diet.” There are no menus for you to follow, no calories or carbohydrates to count, you need not measure or weigh portions of food. All foods are categorized into three easy-to-remember groups: Foods to Eat Liberally, Foods to Eat Sparingly, and Foods to Avoid. You can develop rational eating habits for the rest of your life by choosing foods according to the Smoker’ s Diet guidelines.
How liberally? How sparingly? Portions should be adjusted to suit appetite and individual goals. Both the underweight and the overweight, as well as those with special nutritional needs, find that the Smoker’s Diet gradually readjusts their metabolic balance, thereby eliminating food-related problems. In other words, the Smoker’s Diet is an “optimal diet.”
Foods to Eat Liberally
Foods containing nutrients that enhance the body’s defenses against disease should be your mainstay. These resistance nutrients, which include protein, vitamins, minerals, and essential fats, are found in a variety of wholesome foods.
The most nutritious protein foods, those containing all the essential amino acids in proper balance, are obtained largely from animal sources: meat, fish, fowl, eggs, cheese, and milk. Since these foods can effectively replace daily body protein losses, they are said to have a high “biologic value.” Whole-egg protein has a biologic value of 100 percent, meaning it replaces, gram for gram, daily protein losses. The relative value of other proteins are: animal protein (meat, fish, fowl), 70-100 percent; milk protein (milk, cheese), 70-75 percent; vegetable protein (fruit, vegetables, grains) 40-65 percent.
Many of the foods we are recommending you eat “liberally”–eggs, dairy products, fish, and meat–may be the very items you have been avoiding, for fear their cholesterol content will raise your blood cholesterol levels. Eggs, for example, have been foolishly vilified as a killer food, thanks to the simplistic and incorrect notion that the cholesterol in your blood comes directly from the cholesterol you eat. Most of it does not.
Eighty percent of the cholesterol in your blood is manufactured within the body by the liver and other organs. It is synthesized from acetate radicals found in carbohydrates, proteins and fats into cholesterol. Only 20 percent of the cholesterol in your blood comes directly from preformed dietary cholesterol. The amount of cholesterol in the diet is not a significant factor in the development of atherosclerosis for the vast majority of people, since the human body ordinarily synthesizes far more cholesterol than is obtained from foods.
There is general misunderstanding of the cholesterol problem because high serum cholesterol is the result of internal metabolism. Some of the cholesterol problem comes from an unsuspected source-refined carbohydrates which furnish large amounts of acetate radicals. Some of the cholesterol problem is related to a lack of nutrients. Lecithin, vitamin C, nicotinic acid, and grain and vegetable fiber are all cholesterol lowering agents and help the body to regulate cholesterol levels. Eggs are particularly rich in lecithin, the very substance medical researchers have shown to be cholesterol-controlling.
Eliminating foods containing cholesterol from your diet can actually escalate a cholesterol problem since there is ample evidence that when a diet is deficient in pre-formed cholesterol, a complicated feedback system goes into operation which encourages the body to manufacture excess amounts of this substance.
If your doctor has placed you on a low cholesterol diet, discuss these matters with him before adopting the Smoker’s Diet.
Eggs: Eat at least one egg each day; eat two if you enjoy them. The eggs will furnish more nutrients per calorie than any other single food except milk.
Scavenging the supermarket for egg substitute products is apt to prove a fruitless exercise. There is a four-to-one probability that you cannot eliminate your cholesterol problem by putting all your eggs in a non-egg basket.
Cheese: Use cheese freely in your diet for snacks or as a meat or milk substitute. Eat both hard cheese and cottage cheese in its natural state. In other words, eat whole, unprocessed cheese in preference to the types that you scoop out of jars, squeeze out of tubes, or spray out of cans. The latter are actually mixtures of cheese and other less nourishing foods and are chemically contaminated besides.
Milk: Milk can be consumed with meals or as a snack. Skimmed or low-fat milk, whether fresh or reconstituted from powder, is preferable to whole milk if overweight is a problem. Generally, two glasses a day are sufficient. Fermented or cultured milk products such as yogurt and buttermilk have several advantages over sweet milk. The cultured product aids in the digestion and absorption of essential nutrients, by counteracting the discomfort suffered by those older people who lack the enzyme lactase and therefore cannot digest milk sugar (lactose). In addition, the microorganisms that ferment milk into buttermilk and yogurt continue their activity in the intestinal tract and actually contribute to the body’s manufacture of essential vitamins.
Meat, Seafood and Poultry: These foods should be eaten at least once each day; twice if you do not eat eggs. Give preference to the lean varieties of meat. Liver and other organ meats such as pancreas, kidney, tripe, and brain are also excellent high protein foods. Restrict fried meats. Before cooking beef, pork, and lamb servings, trim off as much fat as possible.
Since it takes five to six hours to digest meat, its consumption at the evening meal may cause indigestion and lead to a variety of other complaints, including allergies, skin disorders, arthritis, even mental illness. Eating meat at breakfast or lunch rather than dinner insures complete digestion and is one way of avoiding such problems.
Fruit and Fruit Juice: When available, fresh fruit should be eaten twice daily, with meals or as a snack. Ideally, one serving should be of a citrus variety. Raw fruit is preferable to cooked. If canned fruit, frozen fruit, or refrigerated bottled fruit is used, select unsweetened varieties packed in their natural juices or in water. Hypoglycemics and the overweight should avoid prunes, dates, raisins, and other dried fruit; those people who are underweight can benefit from their natural sugars.
Fruit juices may replace one serving of fresh fruit. If citrus juice is chosen, the fresh-fruit serving should not be citrus. Juices serve as substitutes for undesirable beverages such as coffee, tea, soft and alcoholic drinks. Any kind of fruit juice, canned, frozen, or fresh is acceptable if no sugar has been added. If you are hypoglycemic or overweight, avoid grape or prune juice; the reverse applies to the underweight. Those who are overweight may prefer grapefruit to orange juice, since it has less natural sugar.
Vegetables: The list of nutrient-rich vegetables is almost endless; yet vegetables make up one of the two food groups most commonly absent from the average diet (the other is fruits). The Department of Agriculture reports that Americans consume 13 percent less fresh fruit and 7 percent less fresh vegetables than they did ten years ago. This decrease reflects the extent of current nutritional illiteracy.
Eat four or more servings of vegetables each day. When fresh varieties are not available or acceptable, use frozen or canned vegetables. Potatoes are satisfactory once a day. Whole potatoes, baked or boiled with the skin intact, provide the maximum nutritional value.
One vegetable serving each day should be a raw vegetable or vegetable salad. Tomatoes should be included frequently in this category, since they are an excellent source of Vitamins A and C. When the only tomatoes on the market have the winter blahs, raw green peppers can be added to your salads to supply the Vitamin C, and broccoli is one of the richest vegetable sources of both A and C.
Other vegetable servings should include–but need not be limited to–the dark green or yellow varieties, for they are particularly rich in many valuable nutrients, such as iron, riboflavin and calcium. Almost every vegetable, from asparagus to zucchini, has something worthwhile to contribute to your well-being, but the types specified should be given preference because of their higher nutrient content. When vegetables are to be cooked, cook until just tender in as little water as possible to assure the best retention of vitamins and minerals.
Vegetable juice, with no sugar added, may replace one of the cooked vegetables or may serve as a mealtime beverage or as a snack.
Breads and Cereals: Try to eat four servings daily of whole-grain foods. Make your selection from: whole-grain breakfast cereals, wheat germ, 100-percent whole-wheat bread and flour, brown rice, and whole-grain cornmeal. (Hypoglycemics may need to restrict many of these foods. The overweight should eat skimpier portions–they should not be eliminated from the diet. The underweight should eat them freely.) Whole-grain cereals that require cooking, such as oatmeal and wholewheat cereals, are the most nutritious.
If you prefer a precooked cereal, use the natural whole-grain varieties that do not contain chemical additives. Since these and all other precooked cereals contain sugar or honey, don’t limit your breakfast to a bowl of cereal. It’s a good idea to enrich the precooked cereal with one or two tablespoons each of toasted wheat germ, wheat bran and lecithin granules.
Since the Smoker’s Diet requires a minimum of sugar, here is the sugar content of commercially available cereals.
Cereal Product | Sugar (sucrose) Content (%) |
Shredded Wheat (large biscuit)
Shredded Wheat (spoon size biscuit) Cheerios Puffed Rice Uncle Sam Cereal Wheat Chex Grape Nut Flakes Puffed Wheat Alpen Post Toasties Product 19 Corn Total Special K Wheaties Peanut Butter Grape Nuts Crispy Rice Corn Chex Corn Flakes (Kellogg) Total Rice Chex Crisp Rice Raisin Bran (Skinner) Concentrate Rice Crispies (Kellogg) Raisin Bran (Kellogg) Heartland (with raisins) Buck Wheat Life Sugar Frosted Corn Flakes 40% Bran Flakes (Post) Team Brown Sugar-Cinnamon Frosted Mini Wheats 40% Bran Flakes (Kellogg) Granola 100 % Bran All Bran Granola (with almonds and filberts) Fortified Oat Flakes Heartland Super Sugar Chex Sugar Frosted Flakes Bran Buds Sugar Sparkled Corn Flakes Frosted Mini Wheats Sugar Pops Alpha Bits Sir Grapefellow Super Sugar Crisp Cocoa Puffs Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries Kaboom Frankenberry Frosted Flakes Count Chocula Orange Quangaroos Quisp Boo Berry Vanilly Crunch Baron Von Redberry Cocoa Krispies Trix Froot Loops Honeycomb Pink Panther Cinnamon Crunch Lucky Charms Cocoa Pebbles Apple Jacks Fruity Pebbles King Vitamin Sugar Smacks Super Orange Crisp |
1 1 2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 7 7 8 8 8 9 9 10 10 10 11 14 14 15 16 16 16 16 16 17 18 20 21 22 23 25 29 30 32 34 38 40 41 41 43 43 43 44 44 44 44 45 45 46 46 46 46 47 47 49 49 50 50 54 55 55 59 61 68 |
You can make a tasty “granola” that contains no sugar. Toast oatmeal flakes (old-fashioned oats) in the oven, and then add nuts, sunflower seeds, toasted wheat germ, wheat bran, and lecithin granules. Between your local health food store and your supermarket, you can find all these ingredients.
Buy 100 percent whole-wheat bread that contains no sugar or additives if you can get it. Even though the supermarket brands of 100 percent whole-wheat bread contain some sugar or molasses and additives, they are a good second choice.
Nuts and Seeds: These are valuable additions to your diet, and occasionally may be substituted for meat. They also supply essential fatty acids. Any of the dry-roasted nuts, as well as raw sunflower seeds, raw pumpkin seeds or non-hydrogenated peanut butter, make nutritious between-meal snacks. If you have a blender, some roasted peanuts, and vegetable oil, you can make peanut butter quite easily in your own kitchen. The underweight may nibble freely on peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnuts, pistachio nuts, and cashews, but should avoid the varieties to which salt has been added.
Foods to Eat Sparingly
The interpretation of “sparingly” depends upon a number of individual factors such as overweight, underweight, physical activity, cholesterol level, and hypoglycemia. The overweight, sedentary, or hypoglycemic person, for example, may need to reduce the daily servings of some “liberal” foods–fruit, fruit juice, bread, cereal, rice, potatoes, and corn. The underweight person may interpret “sparingly” much more “liberally.”
Fat: Careful attention should be given to fat intake. When it comes to fats used as “spreads” on bread, potatoes, and for seasoning foods, a limited amount of butter is preferable to products made from hydrogenated (saturated) refined vegetable oil. An acceptable alternative is the recently introduced squeeze-bottle spread which has a much lower degree of hydrogenation.
An ideally balanced spread can be made at home by blending a four ounce stick of butter with four ounces of unrefined (cold pressed) corn oil, sunflower seed oil or safflower oil. You may have to get this type of oil from a health food store since most supermarkets don’t have it.
Hydrogenated fats encourage a cholesterol problem, since they disturb cholesterol metabolism. The great bulk of fats in your diet will come from their use in cooking, salads, and mayonnaise, and you should be careful to select those fats from unrefined vegetable oils such as corn oil, peanut oil, cottonseed oil, or safflower seed oil. Of these, corn oil and safflower seed oil are the better choices, since they contain the largest amount of unsaturated fatty acids.
All of these oils, however, increase your need for vitamin E, and you should be sure you are getting more than a token amount of this essential nutrient.
Salt: Everyone would benefit from a reduction in salt intake; it is mandatory for those with high blood pressure or a tendency to retain fluid in their bodies.
Coffee and Tea: The nutritional value is negligible, so consume them sparingly and only with meals. Do not sweeten them with sugar. An artificial sweetener can be used frugally for these beverages (if you’ll be miserable otherwise), but try to avoid using them to sweeten other foods.
Contrary to what many believe, there is no such thing as a “healthy” sugar. Brown sugar, raw sugar, turbinado, confectioner’s sugar, and all such products are little better from a nutritional point of view than white table sugar, although some of them are extravagantly priced. They are all essentially the same–sucrose.
Substituting honey for table sugar can also present problems, but does hold certain advantages. Since honey is twice as sweet as sugar, you are likely to use smaller quantities. Also, the principal sweetening sugar in honey is fructose, which does not need as much insulin to be metabolized as the sucrose found in other sugars and is therefore preferable.
Foods to Avoid
Obviously, foods that increase the likelihood of disease should be avoided: sugar, white flour, hydrogenated fat, food preservatives such as the nitrates and nitrites, and the many artificial flavoring and coloring agents.
While it may be virtually impossible to eliminate all these undesirable substances from your diet (it can be frustrating even to try), it is possible to cut intake as much as 75 percent by substituting foods from the “liberal” category.
Of all the foods to be avoided, sugar is the most harmful. It is a prominent factor in the development of overweight conditions and diabetes, hypoglycemia, dental cavities and periodontal disease, kidney stones, urinary infection, cardiovascular disease, intestinal cancer, diverticulosis, indigestion, hormone disorders–and mental illness.
Since the calories in sugar-rich foods are “empty” calories, they contribute very little to the body’s need for vitamins, minerals, essential fats, and protein. At the same time, considerable quantities of such vitamins and minerals as thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), pantothenic acid, phosphorus, and magnesium are necessary to metabolize sugar properly; thus, people who ingest sugar and sugary food instead of those rich in vitamins and minerals are bound to end up with vitamin deficiencies.
Sugar: Much harmful sugar is consumed unknowingly. Check labels carefully on the products you buy. Select unsweetened varieties when you have a choice. Refrain from using table sugar and from adding it to home-cooked foods. Popular foods with substantial sugar content include:
Food | Serving | Tsps. of sugar |
candy
cakes cookies etc
ice cream pie
soft drinks milk
spreads and sauces
fruits |
candy chocolate bar, 1 average size
chocolate fudge, 1 1/2 in. sq. chocolate mints, 1 medium (20 to 1 lb.) chocolate cream, 1 average marshmallow, 1 large chewing gum, 1 stick
chocolate, 1/12 cake (2-layer iced) angel food, 1/12 of large cake sponge, 1/10 of average cake cream puff, 1 custard-filled, iced doughnut, 3 in. diameter, plain macaroons, 1 large or 2 small brownies, 2x2x3/4 in. molasses cookies, 3 1/2 in. diameter
gingersnaps, 1 medium sherbert, 1/2 cup ice cream, 1/2 cup cherry, 1/6 med. pie raisin, 1/6 med. pie apple, 1/6 med. pie pumpkin, 1/6 med. pie
sweet flavored soda, 6 oz. gingerale, 6 oz. chocolate, 1 cup, 5 oz. milk eggnog, 1 glass, 8 oz. milk cocoa, 1 cup, 5 oz. milk
chocolate sauce, 1 tbs. thick jam, 1 tbs. level marmalade, 1 tbs. level jelly, 1 tbs. level syrup, 1 tbs. level
rhubarb, stewed, sweetened, 1/2 cup prunes, stewed, sweetened, 4 to 5 med. 2 tbs. juice fruit cocktail, 1/2 cup peaches, pears, canned in syrup, 2 halves, 1 tbs. syrup |
7
4 3 2 1 ½ ½
15 6 6 5 4 3 3 2
1 6-8 5-6 14 13 12 10
4 ⅓ 3 ⅓ 6 4 ½ 4
4 ½ 3 3 2 ½ 2 ½
8 8 5
3 ½ |
Omitted from this table prepared by the American Dental Association are the sweetened, precooked breakfast cereals, sweetened fruit juices, and sweetened breakfast drinks. Avoid them!
The sugar-laden American diet has led to a national epidemic of hypoglycemia, an ailment characterized by irrational behavior, emotional instability, distorted judgment, and nasty personality defects. Almost 10 percent of the population is hypoglycemic.
The disease is full of paradoxes. One might reasonably assume that eating too much sugar would raise the level of sugar in the blood, but the body does not work in such a simple fashion. Instead, low blood sugar is the result.
Hypoglycemia is the exact opposite of diabetes; yet it is often the forerunner of that disease. In diabetes, too little usable insulin circulates in the blood stream; in hypoglycemia (also called hyperinsulinism), there is too much. An excess of this sugar-regulating hormone, released by the pancreas in response to a rapidly rising blood sugar, drives blood-sugar levels below normal, triggering a craving for sweets along with a variety of physical or mental symptoms.
This crazy-quilt pattern of symptoms is hard to diagnose, easy to pass off as “just an attack of nerves.” Most hypoglycemics are regarded as “cranks” or “complainers” by their families, “hypochondriacs” by their doctors, “neurotics” by society. Milder cases are advised: “You’ll get over it–eat something sweet when the craving hits.” This is the worst thing a hypoglycemic can do, for the more sweets eaten, the more insulin is released, the lower the blood sugar levels plunge, the more sugar is craved…on and on in a never-ending cycle.
Sweetened snack foods and drinks and white-flour products (refined carbohydrates) are the most deadly for hypoglycemics. A normal pancreas, through its insulin production, is able to keep the body’s blood-sugar levels under control and in balance. But when it is habitually assaulted by these offending foods, it panics and produces too much insulin, causing blood-sugar levels to plunge downward.
Medications such as anti-inflammatory drugs, analgesics, anticoagulants, antibiotics, diuretics, hormones, stimulants and tranquilizers, and a number of other chemicals can alter blood-sugar levels.
Caffeine can raise blood-sugar levels in diabetics; but by stimulating insulin release, it can lower blood-sugar levels in nondiabetics and hypoglycemics.
Nicotine also encourages hypoglycemia by causing an increased release of adrenal hormones. These raise the level of glucose in the blood, stimulating a further release of insulin–and the hypoglycemic cycle is once again underway.
Habitual cocktail-partying can bring on hypoglycemia, especially if the partygoer skips a meal or two while on the circuit. Alcohol also primes the pancreas so that refined carbohydrates subsequently eaten produce hyperinsulinism. Other contributing factors are chronic malnutrition, abnormal liver and kidney function, a deficiency of certain adrenal hormones, and a lack of trace minerals such as chromium and manganese, which are essential for carbohydrate and sugar metabolism.
For many hypoglycemics, the cumulative daily effect of nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, and sugar is devasting. All too many Americans skip breakfast or start the day with coffee and a sweet roll, followed by a cigarette. This begins the hypoglycemic cycle once again. The combination of caffeine, sugar, and nicotine triggers a flood of insulin into the system. Blood-sugar levels first rise, then plummet some two or three hours later, just in time for the mid-morning coffee break.
More coffee, another pastry, a few more cigarettes, and our victim feels better–temporarily. If by lunchtime his nerves demand a quick drink or he skips that meal and satisfies his hunger with more coffee, a soft drink, or a heavily refined carbohydrate repast, he will be tense, nervous, and irritable by two, in worse shape by four, and even a well-balanced dinner will not restore his physical and mental equilibrium. He is exhausted, yet he may get only a few hours’ sleep each night.
The Smoker’s Diet will prevent the physical and mental drain from this type of hypoglycemia (reactive), so read on!
White Flour: Restrict your intake, as much as possible, of baked goods made from white flour: white bread, saltine and other crackers, rolls, buns, biscuits, noodles, macaroni, spaghetti, and sweetened baked goods.
Don’t let the label “enriched flour” fool you. Remember, of the twenty-odd different vitamins, minerals, and amino acids removed during the transformation of wheat into white flour, only four are put back. And even if all of them were replaced, there would still be an undetermined nutrient loss since all the essential substances have not as yet been identified. In one experiment, a biochemist took a natural bran product, carefully removed all of the known nutrients, then fed the supposedly worthless residue to a group of laboratory rats in addition to their regular diet. The rats thrived, compared to a control group not given the “worthless” supplement!
Hydrogenated Fat: Hydrogenated (hardened or saturated) vegetable oils such as oleomargarine, peanut butter containing hydrogenated oil, solid cooking fat made from vegetable oil, and coffee whiteners should be eliminated, as much as possible, from your diet.
Hydrogenated fat is the result of a chemical process by which liquid fats are hardened with hydrogen. This produces an unnaturally saturated fat which the body is not able to cope with successfully and disturbs cholesterol metabolism.
The only peanut butter, by the way, that does not contain hydrogenated oils will say so on the label. The new liquid margarines have a lower degree of hydrogenation and are therefore more unsaturated and preferable.
Most commercial baked goods, both sweetened and unsweetened, contain hydrogenated fat. Since they are usually made with sugar and white flour as well, you have a threefold reason for eliminating them from your diet.
Sodium Nitrate and Sodium Nitrite: These additives are used to cure, color, preserve, and flavor many meat products. They are frequently found in ham, bacon, sausage, canned and sliced luncheon meats, corned beef, salami, bologna, most frankfurters, liverwurst, and smoked fish.
Nitrates and nitrites can combine with other chemicals in your body or in these meats to form nitrosamines, which, in very small amounts, can contribute to cancer. They also cause indigestion, which can in turn lead to mental problems. Consumer pressure has inspired some meat processors to eliminate these dangerous chemicals from their products. Reading labels will enable you to select foods free of nitrates and nitrites.
Artificial Colors and Flavors: The admirable judicial concept of “innocent until proven guilty” cannot be applied when it comes to foods containing these chemical additives. Some food manufacturers, since they are not required to state the presence of artificial colors and flavors on their products, have package labels which are void of such information. Where possible, it is best to avoid those foods, which more often than not contain such additives: most brands of ice cream, other frozen desserts, dessert and cake mixes, bakery products, oleomargarine, many breakfast cereals, gelatin desserts, candies, chewing gum, jam or jelly, luncheon meats, frankfurters, “kiddie drinks” canned fruit-juice punches and drinks. Many processed cheeses and cheese products, as well as colorfully coated pills (including some vitamin products) also contain these harmful additives and should be avoided where possible.
Label-reading will help to this extent: products free from artificial additives generally proclaim their “innocence” on the package. Try to limit your food purchases to those items whose labels boast of all natural ingredients.
Did that list of suspect foods sound familiar? It should–many that have been named are the ones that should also be avoided because they contain sugar, white flour, hydrogenated fat, or nitrate-nitrite additives. Remember, food is like the little girl with the curl in the middle of her forehead: when it’s bad, it’s horrid.
Caloric yield in terms of resistance agents–protein, vitamins, and minerals–can be greatly increased through wise food selection. When items from the “foods-to-eat-liberally” list make up the bulk of your diet, you can get up to fifty times more nourishment each day than you might otherwise. To show you how this works, we have chosen an adequate day’s menu from the “foods to eat liberally” list and compared its nutritional value to an inadequate menu largely selected from the “foods-to-avoid” list. The two menus provide an identical number of calories, but there all similarity ends.
Let’s start with breakfast:
Adequate menu: 1/2 grapefruit, 2 eggs, 3 oz. ham, 1 slice wholegrain bread with butter, 1 glass of milk.
Inadequate menu: 3 hotcakes with butter and syrup, 1 cup coffee with sugar and cream.
Now let’s see how these two breakfasts compare nutritionally:
Nutrients | Adequate Breakfast (700 Calories) | Inadequate Breakfast (700 Calories) | Adequate/Inadequate Ratio |
ascorbic acid (mg.)
nicotinic acid (mg.) phosphorus (mg.) calcium (mg.) riboflavin (mg.) protein (gm.) iodine (mcg.) iron (mg.) vitamin A (I.U.) thiamine (mg.) fat (gm.) carbohydrate (gm.) |
50 15 760 460 1.07 45 17 7 4200 0.8 40 40 |
0.0
0.6 100 65 0.18 8 4 2 1400 0.4 30 100 |
50.0:1 25.0:1 7.6:1 7.1:1 5.9:1 5.6:1 4.3:1 3.5:1 3.0:1 2.0:1 1.3:1 0.4:1 |
Let’s follow the same procedure for two sample lunches:
Nutrients | Adequate Lunch (655 Calories) | Inadequate Lunch (655 Calories) | Adequate/Inadequate Ratio |
iodine (mcg.)
ascorbic acid (mg.) iron (mg.) riboflavin (mg.) calcium (mg.) vitamin A (I.U.) phosphorus (mg.) thiamine (mg.) protein (gm.) fat (gm.) nicotinic acid (mg.) carbohydrate (gm.) |
34 10 4 0.53 370 1930 440 0.26 28 27 3 75 |
1.4
1 0.6 0.1 75 420 120 0.07 11 21 2.5 105 |
24.3:1 10.0:1 6.7:1 5.3:1 4.9:1 4.6:1 3.7:1 3.7:1 2.5:1 1.3:1 1.2:1 0.7:1 |
And then comes dinner. Which of these two meals looks familiar?
Adequate dinner: 4 oz. tomato juice, mixed green salad with vinegar dressing, 6 oz. roast beef, baked potato with 1 square butter, green peas, 1/2 cantaloupe with 1 oz. cheddar cheese, 1 glass buttermilk.
Inadequate dinner: spaghetti and meatballs, mixed green salad with French dressing, French bread and 1 square butter, French pastry, coffee with sugar and cream.
Nutrients | Adequate Dinner (890 Calories) | Inadequate Dinner (890 Calories) | Adequate/Inadequate Ratio |
ascorbic acid (mg.)
riboflavin (mg.) iodine (mcg.) nicotinic acid (mg.) calcium (mg.) thiamine (mg.) phosphorus (mg.) vitamin A (I.U.) protein (gm.) iron (mg.) fat (gm.) carbohydrate (gm.) |
90 1.4 45 16 600 0.84 860 4900 70 10 30 85 |
10
0.29 11 4.5 175 0.26 321 1900 28 4 40 105 |
9.0:1 4.8:1 4.1:1 3.6:1 3.4:1 3.2:1 2.7:1 2.6:1 2.5:1 2.5:1 0.8:1 0.8:1 |
You don’t have to be a math whiz to see that the “adequate ” calories provide up to fifty times more nutritional value than the “inadequate” calories. As the foregoing charts indicate, the “adequate” breakfast provides fifty times as many milligrams of ascorbic acid as the “inadequate” one, twenty-five times the milligrams of nicotinic acid, and so forth down the nutrient list.
Having learned what to eat, does it matter when and in what combinations? Yes. The first meal of the day is critically important. (We’ll bet this isn’t the first time you’ve heard that.) Breakfast breaks the overnight fast and prepares you for the day’s physical and mental exertion. For the hypoglycemic, breakfast is even more essential. Remember, hypoglycemia increases the craving for a cigarette.
Those people who skip breakfast or eat a skimpy one usually feel a mid-morning letdown. Their energy, physical and mental, is certain to be lowered. Ideally, you should get a fourth to a third of your total daily nutrients at breakfast. You can’t do this on junk foods or those instant breakfast items advertised to be “just as good as” the adequate breakfast menu described.
Contrary to popular belief, between-meal snacking is not necessarily an undesirable habit. Assuming the calorie total remains about the same, it’s fine to spread daily food intake over five or six feedings, say, three meals and two or three snacks. Breaking up your food intake into smaller, more frequent “meals” helps stabilize blood-sugar levels and decrease hunger and fatigue. A great many dieters lose weight more easily on five or six feedings a day, and the underweight often gain.
Choose your snack foods carefully. Don’t fall into the junk food trap. Restrict your nibbling to such foods as nuts, sunflower and other seeds, milk, cheese, fresh fruit, unsweetened fruit or vegetable juices, and raw vegetables. These foods satisfy your body needs, and you will soon lose your craving for all those bubbly, sticky, sugary, or crunchy products normally considered snacks.
Let’s assume that you’ve closely followed all the advice in the pages of this book. Are you now assured of an adequate supply of all the essential nutrients each day? Perhaps. An optimum supply? Not on your life: You still need additional vitamins and minerals, for a number of reasons.
Significant nutritional value is lost as food is processed.
An excess of each essential nutrient is desirable as a hedge against malnutrition from primary or secondary dietary deficiencies. An increased requirement for one or more nutrients may be caused by individual biochemistry, psychological stress, surgery, all kinds of diseases, physical inactivity, pollution, aging, medicines by the hundreds, and many other factors too numerous to mention. The food you eat, by itself, simply cannot assure this important nutrient excess.
No one can or will eat optimally 100 percent of the time; so even if food lost no value either when grown, prepared, transported, or served (and it inevitably does), supplements would still be necessary.
When choosing a dietary supplement, remember that the product should provide all the essential vitamins and minerals plus many of the so-called nonessential elements as well. Vitamin-mineral supplements should always be taken before or during each meal, when the digestive juices are flowing. This assures your having all the essential nutrients present at the same time in the digestive tract, a condition essential for optimal growth, maintenance, and repair of your body and brain cells.
How do you choose a vitamin-mineral supplement? Read the label. A good one, taken with each meal, would supply these quantities of brain-cell nutrients per day:
vitamin A
vitamin D vitamin E (d-alpha tocopherol) vitamin C bioflavonoids vitamin B1 (thiamin) vitamin B2 (riboflavin) vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) vitamin B12 (cyanocobalamin) folic acid niacin or niacinamide pantothenic acid PABA biotin choline inositol calcium phosphorus iron copper iodine zinc manganese magnesium potassium chromium selenium |
10,000-25,000 USP Units
1,000- 2,500 USP Units 100-800 I.U. 300-1500 mg. 50-300 mg. 10-25 mg. 10-25 mg. 10-25 mg. 20-100 mcg. 75-100 mcg. 75-150 mg. 50-200 mg. 25-50 mg. 25-50 mcg. 100-500 mg. 100-500 mg. 250-1000 mg. 100-200 mg. 10-25 mg. 0.5-2 mg. 0.15 mg. 2-20 mg. 2-20 mg. 20-300 mg. 20-40 mg. 50-200 mcg. 10-50 mcg. |
Brewer’s yeast, desiccated liver, and bone meal are good sources of some B vitamins, of important trace elements not included in the supplement formula, and of as-yet-unidentified nutrients. Yeast and liver are, in addition, excellent protein supplements.
One of the controversial questions of the day is how much vitamin C and vitamin E should be taken. Since these two nutrients are likely to be on the low side in many supplements, you may have to purchase a separate quantity of each to get at least 1000 milligrams of vitamin C and 600-800 international Units of vitamin E daily. Recent evidence indicates that men need 2500 milligrams of vitamin C daily to protect them from the common cold; women need 2000.
Are there inherent dangers in taking large doses of vitamins? Can you take too much of any nutrient? Yes. You can take too much of anything, including water and air. Common sense would dictate that you can take too many vitamins.
The margin of safety is the point to consider. Fortunately, when it comes to vitamins, there is a tremendous margin. The few studies to date which seem to support a vitamin A and vitamin D toxicity potential used fantastically large quantities to demonstrate an ill effect. You’d have to sit down and plan your own demise to take a damaging dosage of these nutrients.
What about a wasteful excess? Vitamin critics often claim that large amounts of vitamin C, for example, are simply urinated away. A number of studies, however, indicate that an excreted overflow is no proof that the vitamin C wasn’t needed and used. Moreover, what the body is able to use depends not only upon need, but upon how the nutrient is presented. If you take 100 milligrams of vitamin C in one dose, you will excrete far more of it than if you break up the same amount in smaller doses spread throughout the day, taken with each meal.
Those suffering from indigestion may need to take a digestant, hydrochloric acid in some form, in addition to a vitamin-mineral supplement. In a study of 3484 patients with gastrointestinal distress, nearly a third did not secrete enough hydrochloric acid in their stomachs to begin the digestive process. (A teaspoon or two of vinegar with each meal will tell you in one day if you do or do not need more acid in your stomach.) If it relieves your indigestion, you need hydrochloric acid. In such a case, consult your doctor. He can prescribe it in a variety of forms. Some symptoms of stomach-acid deficiency are: sore mouth (rawness, burning, dryness) or tongue, cracks or sores at the corners of the lips; a burning sensation in the stomach; feeling full for long periods after eating, especially after meat; noticeable gas in the stomach and intestinal tract. A deficiency of stomach acid, and the malnutrition it causes, may impair mental health, and any existing mental illness may be aggravated.
If you have trouble digesting fat, bile salts and pancreatic enzymes (no prescription needed) will relieve the indigestion in one or two days. The latter also aid in the digestion of carbohydrates and protein.
Where digestion disturbances have existed for some time, or have been caused by antibiotics (which kill useful intestinal microorganisms as well as disease-producing ones), it is often necessary to reinoculate the digestive tract with friendly microbes. A supplement of the microorganism Lactobacillus acidophilus taken with each meal, in liquid, tablet or capsule form, will help to reestablish a normal microbial population in the digestive tract and aid significantly in relieving indigestion and diarrhea. Buttermilk and yogurt, both sources of Lactobacillus, can be consumed between meals. If you’re taking an antibiotic, taking buttermilk or yogurt along with it will keep you from developing a microbe-depleted digestive system.
Constipation or diarrhea can result from a diet deficient in undigestible vegetable fiber, much of which is removed in grain processing. One to six teaspoonsful of unprocessed wheat bran, taken with each meal, will help to regulate you.
By following the Smoker’s Diet, you directly affect your intake of essential nutrients. In less time than you might have believed possible, many emotional and physical symptoms will diminish, then disappear.
You may wish to check your food choices with the unique food-scoring system introduced by Dr. Jacobson in his booklet, Nutrition Scoreboard: Your Guide to Better Eating. He grades the most commonly consumed foods by assigning ratings ranging from +200 to -100. His plus-rated foods, for the most part, are those we recommend as “foods to eat liberally.” The foods to which he assigns a negative value are those we tagged as “foods to avoid.” Here are some examples from each group:
liver
broccoli cantaloupe broiled fish milk, whole rye bread tomato juice peanuts hot dog soda pop Morton coconut cream pie Kool Aid jello Del Monte vanilla pudding candy bar |
2 oz.
3 1/3 oz. 1/4 3 oz. 8 oz. 2 slices 4 oz. 1/4 cup 1 12 oz. 1/4 pie 8 oz. 1/2 cup 1 15-cent bar |
+172
+116 +99 +40 +39 +29 +26 +25 +6 -92 -62 -55 -45 -43 -34 |
The adequate eater is frequently referred to as a “health nut” or a “food faddist.” The real “food faddist,” however, is the inadequate eater who is living on empty-calorie junk food.
Based on the Nutrition Scoreboard food ratings, the average diet of a “nutrition-conscious woman” and a “young food faddist” would score like this:
The following case histories from our file on more than 15,000 patients demonstrate the physical and emotional improvement which accompanies the Smoker’s Diet. Such changes make nicotine withdrawal a much more tolerable experience. In many instances this “cold turkey” period is practically free of significant physical and/or emotional symptoms.
In each case, psychological tests and seven-day computerized diet analyses were done, both before putting the patients on the Smoker’s Diet and three to six months afterward.
Case #14937. This fifteen-year-old boy was suffering several psychological disturbances when we first saw him: he worried a great deal; his feelings were easily hurt; he got upset at the slightest criticism; he was on guard, even with close friends; he was easily upset or irritated. In his words, “little annoyances get on my nerves and make me angry, and I get angry when someone tells me what to do.” He also reported finding most people both annoying and irritating.
Maybe he sounds like your own teenager, or the Dennis the Menace next door.
After putting this boy on the Smoker’s Diet, we analyzed his before-and-after nutrient changes and found that they ranged from an increase of 825 percent to a decrease of 78 percent. Of the seventeen essential brain-cell nutrients, we analyzed thirteen; of these, eleven increased and six more than doubled. Here is his actual record of nutrient change.
His before-and-after psychological condition? He went from eight complaints to zero complaints in less than six months.
Case #14904: When this suburban housewife first signed in, she was suffering from forty-one psychological complaints and was a prime candidate for psychoanalysis, tranquilizers, and other medications.
Here is the way she described herself:
“I’m nervous, shaky, my work falls to pieces whenever anyone is watching me or talks to me. I’m confused, I’m afraid when alone, usually unhappy and depressed, have frequent crying spells–I’m always miserable and blue, and often wish I were dead and away from it all. Worrying gets me down, and I’m shy and sensitive. Even my best friends consider me a touchy person, and people usually misunderstand me. I stay on guard all the time and always do things on sudden impulse. I usually feel as if I am ready to go to pieces at a moment’s notice, have a violent temper, often shake and tremble because I’m so constantly keyed up and jittery. Sudden noises or movements frighten me and leave me weak or shaky. Many a night I pop awake after a frightening dream, and I frequently find myself, even during the day, scared for no good reason.”
Was she suffering “midlife crisis”? Seeking her “identity”? Aimless and lost because of her life situation? Our analysis revealed that she was just eating badly. We analyzed her nutrient intake before and after she had been on the Smoker’s Diet; it varied from an increase of 253 percent to a decrease of 80 percent. Thirteen of the seventeen essential brain-cell nutrients were included in this analysis. All thirteen increased, five of them by more than 100 percent.
After years of escalating mental torture, our patient enjoyed almost complete emotional recovery in less than six months. Her psychological complaints were reduced to ten, most of a minor nature, and there is every reason to believe that she will someday be down to an emotionally stable zero if she sticks to the smoker’s Diet.
Case #14935. This was a fifty-year-old man, set in his ways, and particularly hard to convince that changing his diet would change his disposition–which, he admitted, was “rotten.”
“I’m basically shy and extremely sensitive,” he told us, “yet I know I have a violent temper. I’m always nervous and indecisive under pressure–I sweat profusely, feel shaky, and sometimes shake literally.”
He went along with our program, skeptical every step of the way. His before-and-after intake of specific nutrients ranged from an increase of 650 percent to a decrease of 50 percent.
Again, thirteen of the seventeen essential brain-cell nutrients were included in our analysis. Ten of the thirteen increased, and six more than doubled.
No one was more surprised than our patient when he found that he no longer became easily upset or irritated, that he had lost his violent temper, and that he could talk to his boss without dissolving into fearful tremors and shakes.
Most behavioral scientists would scoff at the idea that fifty years of “learned behavior” can be reversed in just a few months by a mere change in diet; yet this case, like all the cases in our files, can be verified.
Similar dramas take place every day; you can write the next scenario yourself.
Winston Churchill once advised the Duke of Windsor: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time–a tremendous whack.”
And on that advice, we’re going to hit it one more time: All our research, everything in our clinical experience over the past twenty-five years, has convinced us that you can improve your emotional and physical health by improving your nutrition: by making sure that every body cell receives optimal amounts of every essential nutrient.
Without such changes it is difficult to kick the smoking habit. However, with the remarkable increase in physical and mental vigor which accompanies compliance with the Smoker’s Diet, it is possible to break the physical and psychologic addiction of nicotine (and other drugs).
Afraid that giving up cigarettes will cause you to gain weight? Forget it: The Smoker’s Diet will cause your body to seek its optimal weight–down if you’re overweight and up if you’re underweight.
The Smoker’s Diet has shown you how. The next step is up to you.
Typical Example From 15,000 Case Histories
Here is the weight loss record of a 19-year-old male who was able to quit smoking on The Smoker’s Diet. I will use the name Joe for identifying him.
Joe weighed 275 pounds when he began The Smoker’s Diet on 26, May 1975. His weight at succeeding visits was:
During these 32 weeks, Joe lost 70 pounds for an average of 2.2 pounds each week. One to two pounds per week is an ideal weight loss pattern.
Joe not only lost a lot of weight, he lost a bad habit as well. And he isn’t nearly as likely to lose his temper the way he used to. The way The Smoker’s Diet works–with both emotional and physical results–it actually takes a weight off your mind as well as your body.