Corrupt Food Industry aside, what is a true proper diet?

Recently my father has been diagnosed with a Extreme High Risk of becoming Diabetic. He is overweight, has a job where he sits all day, smokes and doesn't do much exercise.

He is however trying to get some good diet advice and asked me to check on the internet for some information (as I can pretty much find anything on the internet).

I was astounded by the amount of mixed information on the internet regarding dieting in general as well as special diet recommendations for diabetics. People supporting the food pyramid, people against it....people condemning artificial sweeteners, people suggesting them...

Not to mention the strings of advertisements which have to be completely disregarded based on their nature alone...but then again it also makes you wonder....


Are doctors and other semi-professional food bloggers being sponsored by artificial sweetener and other food companies to write positive reports on their products?


I have even read some old threads on ATS which discuss the possibility that Food Agencies and the like actually recommend a diet which leads to diabetes so that another organization can profit on the medical hand.


After thinking about this and trying to find out the truth...it really puts me off believing anyone, or taking anyone's word seriously on the matter.

Each person has to find their own best diet so my ideas won't work for everyone. I eat organic fruits and veggies mostly. I'll eat basically as little as possible then wait until I'm hungry again. I try not to eat multiple foods in one meal, no meat, potatoes, bread, corn ect in one meal. I try to eat each individually only when I'm hungry so I end up eating quite often but that helps balance blood sugar.

Cinnamon has been shown to slow passage of food into the GI system so your dad could start adding that to some meals. Slower passage means less of a spike in blood sugar and hunger will be supressed longer. Fat also slows the rate of absorption so that can be added to some meals in modest amounts, and again it increases the time until you next feel hungry.

I've heard some negative stuff about fruit, but for me I limit my diet so much as it is, to worry about fruit would be unrealistic. Fruit also has fiber which slows digestion. If you eat only small portions it honestly doesn't matter what you eat, even bread/grains can be eaten if you eat small amounts. Problem is is that those foods tend to be dense in calories so if you eat a small amount, you won't feel full but you would have gotten a large amount of calories. And of course, refined flour has basically zero nutritional value. I read gum arabic, however that is spelled, also has an effect on gastric emptying and it can be added to just about anything I think.

This is a rough suggestion but occasional fasting or alternate day fasting can help restore insulin sensitivity, even in healthy people who eat too frequently. Some of these ideas might seem a bit difficult but if people want to be healthy and stay away from the doctor's office, they really need to do it. Problem is most would rather just continue on with their habits and suffer the consquences down the road.

Protein also has a good impact on blood sugar, and in trying to prevent diabetes it might make sense to eat protein frequently.

The food pryamid is a joke really. Fruits and veggies should be at the top of almost everyone's list. An easy way to get your veggies in is with a blender I find. Takes like 10 secs to get your daily amount of greens.

Artificial sweeteners are bad for health, I don't think there is a way to get around that. Aspartame breaks down into methyl alcohol, aspatate, and formaldhyde from what I've read. There are better options for sweeteners like stevia or xylitol (which I haven't tried yet). I've seen people addicted to diet soda and it isn't pretty. Sorry if it's messy, it's late over here lol.

[edit on 11-2-2009 by ghaleon12]

My advice is to eat a little bit of everything. Portion size is more important than trying to limit types of food. And, yes, vegies and fruits are very good for you whether on a diet or not. Remmeber, celery has negative calories! You burn more calories eating and digesting it than it contains!

There are other natural foods that are close to having negative net calories as well, but you need to train yourself to eat less or any weight loss will be very temporary. Eat lots of different things, just less of them.

First the bad news for you:

If he doesn't get active and stop smoking then it wont really matter much anyway.

And the good news!

There is some books that mens health puts out called the eat this not that series. Its a great start for somebody that is looking to take the first steps in being a healthy eater. It will tell you whats the most healthy at fast food places that you may like or even what type of dessert will be better at any of the bigger restaurants. Some of the things in there are very surprising and you would not have ever guessed to pick them over a so called "healthy" menu item.

Everyone's body acts differently to foods so some of it will be trial and error but as long as your watching how many calories go in vs how many go out you will start to see a positive trend in your waistline. Stop eating fast food every other day and you will be amazed how you will start to feel.

how to put this action into place.

Your dad can't do this alone and because you needed to look the info up I'm sure you could possibly be up for a little bit of a change also .

Make a bond with your dad that you guys are going to do this together. Maybe go walking 1 time a week together and try and increase the distance. Go out to dinner but make it be something healthy or have a nice little competition. Maybe the loser must answer any question truthfully the other wants!.

If you can do this for one month you will start to form a habit and in this case its a good one. I don't really get cravings for bad food anymore and if I drink a full coke my throat acts like I'm chugging 20 year old scotch. Don't be afraid to have a cheat day though and don't make such a drastic change you wont be able to keep up with it later.

I hope that helps and good luck to you.

I mentioned this a bit already but unless you have health conditions that prevent you, I think everyone should try a short water or juice fast at least once in their life. About 3-4 days should be fairly easy. In that time you'll get to know what true hunger feels like and hopefully will learn something about when to eat, which people generally don't feel/know since they eat all the time.

Fasts also help "reset" our taste buds to actually enjoy healthy food. It is also much easier to let go of the unhealthy foods after a fast. Totally cut out pop, and fruit juices. If you want to keep steady blood sugar, pop is out of the question and even with juice being a "fruit" the lack of fiber makes the sugar enter the blood stream faster.

You could also buy a food scale and moniter what your diet looks like over a week. If you have 90% carbs or something, it might be a good idea to modify your diet. Free software programs can show what vitamins and minerals are in all the foods so you can see if you're low on anything.

[edit on 11-2-2009 by ghaleon12]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I will definetly have to try some of these out.

It's refreshing to hear advice without blatent product placement. I have read a bit of Men's health here and there...those guys love their Low Carb Beer a bit too much I reckon.

High quality advice is extremely scarce in Indonesia, especially of a medical or dietary\nutritional nature. So as a result I often turn to the internet which is as I described flooded with questionable marketing.


I guess that determining Right from Wrong in the dispensal of dietary advice will always be a mega gray area since human bodies tend to vary a lot between each other. Corporations seem to be able to take advantage of these grey areas and profit on poor undecided souls. Similar to the medical industry, or even the pesticide industry as depicted in that recent post about herb growing restrictions.

Dr. WC Douglass has really great information on many of the topics you are searching out answers for.

I do agree with the above posters, and xylitol is actually a very good alternative for sugar, since it's made quite naturally from a wood resin, but it does give some people an extreme case diarrhea (maybe if there was a diarrhea face, somehow...)

Raw milk, straight from a healthy cow is some of the most (delicious), beneficial stuff out there, since its protiens haven't been dangerously altered by the pasteurization process (pasteurization has turned out to be very bad because of what it does to the vital proteins...)

Yes, aspartame is absolutely terrible, and Dr. Mercola does very good work on killing pharmaceutical and diet myths. Douglass and Mercola are actually out there for people's health and not for the money. Pharmaceutical companies only want to make money... they don't make money off of the healthy.

All natural is best. Natural stuff can't be patented, so no one can really make money off of it, and that means consumers don't hear about what REALLY helps, only because it doesn't equal more cash for the companies. (For example, the eight-year old cure for cancer!)

I'm sure there are many other doctors going for health and not for money, but those are the only two I know of! (I don't want to sound like I'm advertising for them, but they are well worth the investigation!)

reply to post by Lifthrasir


Whoa! Where do you find these guys? Douglass is pretty intense....but I guess in a way he has to be to go up against the brainwashing that has already occured with corporate medical advice.

Thank you for bringing this information to my attention, you have possibly saved me from going down some possible bad paths later in my life.

More people should put some critical thinking towards these health "myths" and "junk medicine" else fall into the trap of being a customer to corporate medicine.

It is a messed up truth......healthy people make bad customers. It's a pretty big flaw in the business of medicine! Surely makes for an ethical challenge for those tempted by corruption.

reply to post by Nick_X

A very wise and kind member here on ATS directed me to
"Eat Right for your Blood Type", and everything I have read on it
says it works.

Once I burn thru my current food stores I am going on the
diet and hope to get the results ppl say they are getting from it.

Dr. Mercola is one of my favorites. He has a lot of good commentary on health studies and he is honest when it comes to what effects things really have on the body. Dr. Mercola had a list I read awhile ago with 100 things that sugar does to your health and its pretty interesting.

Another thing I just thought of that might help would be to get a blood sugar meter to see where he's at. As people age, their insulin sensitivity generally goes down and in order to feel "good" people need a higher blood sugar level (pretty sure that's right, correct me if I'm wrong). High blood glucose does awful things to the body, it messes up hormones, decreases blood circulation, increases oxidative stress, contributes to poor vision, ect. Restoring insulin sensitivity can be done via fasting in healthy people, its rough but your body adapts to the lower blood sugar and after the fast you can tolerate a much lower blood sugar level. A teen might feel good at a blood glucose level of 100 but for an older person who can't handle blood sugar as efficiently, 100 would have them experiencing a number of uncomfortable effects. Exercise also helps restore insulin sensitivity.

[edit on 12-2-2009 by ghaleon12]

I am a big believer in taking in very little processed foods - and also focusing on ensuring that the foods I feed myself and family are all homemade from varied veggies and organic meat (mainly eat this for welfare reasons).

Supposedly, ensuring that the body doesn't subject itself to the cyclical onslaught of rush of sugar to rapid sugar deficit is key. So low glycaemic index food is important.

As is exercise, that's pretty damn important too. Even a walk.

My dad died of stomach cancer at 52 about three years ago. Did a lot of research into the interaction of foods, processed sugars and stress.

Bio-availability is supposedly important - how easy it is for your body to get minerals and enzymes, etc, out of what you eat. A reasonable proportion of our diet, we try to make raw (not meat!)...cooking destoys enzymes etc.

We will occasionally will have wheatgrass (and on a friday night have it in some vodka just for fun)...

It's hard to get people to change their approach to food unless there's a shock...and event then you tend to slip back into old habits (we slip reasonably often!). We are by no means "health food fascists"

But the one area we have focused on trying to get right is our dogs = we feed them purely on raw food. No commercial dog food, nothing cooked...just raw meat bones, veg and fruit.

An experiment was done in the UK where a group of 'ill' adults were provided with a stone age diet of seeds, fruit, veg, lean meat...

A couple of them were diabetic. Weight issues were turned around, as were the diseases...


“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food”. - hippocrates

cool thread, nick_x

Eat less exercise more. they call it common sense. your welcome to review this comment for its validity.

A true healthy diet is one that makes you feel good and energetic. Fast food slows you down. Unhealthy, fatty food picks you up for a while, but you crash the same way you do with sugar.

Eat the way our ancestors did- lots of plants, and meat cooked over an open fire.

That's right.

Throw your microwave away.

reply to post by Nick_X


From what I've come across, there's a few different type of 'proper diets' for different body types kind of like blood types.