NUTRITION

THE NEWSTART LIFESTYLE DIET

What an exciting time to be alive!  A hundred and fifty years ago our forefathers shared this planet with mighty microbes that they couldn't see but which could, and often did, cut their lives short.  Diphtheria, Typhoid, TB, the Plague, the Flu, etc, swept away their millions.

Then came the clever scientists and brave pioneers, Louis Pasteur, Florence Nightingale, Dr Ignaz Semmilweis, etc, and now we have hygiene, antibiotics and vaccines.  The mighty microbes scarcely figure in our lives anymore.  What a great new day!

But wait ... we have beaten the microbes that swept many of us into an early grave but most of us still go to an early grave!  Degenerative diseases have taken over from the infectious diseases.  Heart attacks can take men in the prime of life.  Cancer kills even children. If we are still going to an early grave, are we any better off?

Now a new day has dawned!  The researchers are still learning but they have learned enough to explain heart disease, stroke, diabetes, etc, etc.  We bring these things on ourselves by the way we live.

"We have found the enemy and he is us!"


We can't catch a heart attack - every heart attack or stroke and most adult-onset diabetes is custom-made.  I fill my arteries with the fat and cholesterol I eat.  I dodge exercise and grow fat and flabby.

For those who love life, this is an exciting time to be alive!  Now we know how to live in health and vitality rather than die with degenerative disease.

If you have been reading the health literature, searching for information to help yourself (or someone you know) you will know that as scientists learn more they often revise, or even reverse, their conclusions.  There is a lot of confusion and many fads, in the field of health.  So how can you tell what is truth?  What can you believe?

The Newstart programme has been put together by Seventh-day Adventist health professionals who have tested everything by the Bible so they can be confident that future research will not overthrow what present research and the Newstart programme teaches.

What does the Bible teach on health?

First of all it tells us what God gave us for our food - fruits, grains and nuts (Genesis 1:29) and vegetables (Genesis 3:18).  This was a vegan [total vegetarian] diet, unrefined and cholesterol-free. On this diet men lived nearly a thousand years (Genesis 5). After the Flood the eating of the flesh of "clean" birds, fish and animals was permitted (Leviticus 11) but it resulted in shortening man's life to just under a hundred years. The Biblesanctions but does not promote the use of flesh.

In early Bible times, men learned to exract olive oil and the Bible approves of its use (Ezekiel 16:19) but forbids the use of animal fat (Leviticus 3:17).

The Bible identifies and forbids the use of "unclean" birds, fish or animals (eg. pig, eels, shell-fish, shark, etc. See Lev. 11). It warns against the use of alcohol (Proverbs 20:1) and it teaches that the human body is the "Temple of God" (I Corinthians 3: 16, 17; 6: 19, 20) and should not be defiled. Therefore the use of tobacco, caffeine and non-therapeutic drugs is not permitted.

Point by point modern science is endorsing the above as the guidelines for health and over the past several years the Newstart programme has demonstrated that when they are followed, degenerative diseases can not only be prevented, they can be substantially, or even completely reversed.

It took clever scientists to beat the great infectious killers of yesteryear, but who will beat the great non-contagious killers of today? CLEVER COOKS!!


NUTRITION
When a car is made, the company who makes the car writes a book, or manual to go with the car to tell what is the best fuels and oils for the working machinery in that car, to keep it running well.

In the same way, we are like machines that need good fuel to run well.  Certain foods will make the best kind of blood, muscle and bone in our bodies.

To keep us running well, we need to choose our foods wisely and keep our diet well-balanced, from the four main food groups:

  • Fruits

  • Grains

  • Nuts and seeds

  • Vegetables


It is healthy to start every day in the morning with a good, hearty breakfast being :-

Grains - like oats, bread, rice or porridge
Milks - coconut or soy or other dairy substitute
Fruits - Apples, bananas, peaches, oranges, etc.


At mid-day, a good vegetable meal with:-

Starches - like in potatoes, bread and grains
Protein - being in beans, nuts and seeds
Greens - cabbage, silver beet [Swiss Chard], spinach, parsley, kale, etc.
Colours - carrots, pumpkin [squash], cauliflower, beetroot [beets], broccoli, etc.


For the evening meal :-    a light fruit meal with cracker biscuits [crackers]


The light evening meal should be eaten at least 2 to 3 hours before going to bed.  It is also important to eat meals at regular times and not to eat between meals at all, as our stomachs need to rest as well.  It is well recormnended to have some raw salads with each meal also, as this aids digestion.

It is possible to eat even good foods the wrong way.  We need to have an understanding of the word "Nutrition".  It means to only eat foods that are good for the upbuilding of our bodies and eat them in moderation, at the right times.  Too much food is stored as fat, especially fatty foods and can pull the body down, making us more sluggish.  Eating a good hearty breakfast, a good sized mid-day main meal and a light tea [supper], gives us the fuel we need at the right times when we need the energy.  It also helps to keep our bodies in good shape and helps in weight control.

If the main meal cannot be eaten at mid-day, it would be wise to have this meal in the morning, rather than have a large heavy meal late in the day, as this can result in disturbed sleep, not waking refreshed in the morning and a unhealthy circle can develop very quickly.

Some foods are not good for our well-being.  Alcohol, smoking, coffee and drugs are very harmful.  Lollies [candy], canned drinks, ice creams, cakes, made with a high sugar content are also dangerous for our on-going health.  Bad results may not be noticed straight away, but it will begin to break down our immune system and can open the way for disease to set in more easily and end with damaged body organs.  Eating too many sweet and sugar foods can cause holes in our teeth and are not good for building strong healthy tissues and bones etc.

By not eating between meals, it reduces the temptation of sweets being taken into the body but if there is need after a meal to eat something sweet, a piece of fruit would be so much better, acid fruit like an orange or similar, especially after a vegetable meal.


CHOLESTEROL - Friend or Foe

CHOLESTEROL IS ESSENTIAL FOR YOUR LIFE

It insulates your nerve fibres; it is the basic material from which your body makes the male, female and adrenal hormones; and it is cholesterol in the skin that is converted to vitamin D by sunlight.  Cholesterol is also used in making bile to emulsify the fats and oils in your food.

Your body needs essential fatty acids and the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K but everything that happens inside your body, happens in solution in water, and fats and oils do not dissolve in water.

Cholesterol performs the vital function of making the fats and oils in your food water-soluble so that they can be processed in your body.

WHERE DO WE GET OUR CHOLESTEROL?

We make our own.  Almost every cell in our body can make it.


HOW MUCH DO WE NEED IN OUR DAILY DIET?

None.  Your liver can make 50 quintillion (50,000,000,000,000,000) molecules of cholesterol per second.  You don't need any more than that.

DOES CHOLESTEROL IN OUR DIET HURT US?
Yes

HOW?

Since we make all our own cholesterol, all the cholesterol in our food is excess to our needs.

The average Western male eats 500mg of cholesterol a day in the animal foods in his diet (milk, butter, margarine, cheese, eggs, meat, fish, sea food and fowl).  Most of these foods are higher in fat than plant foods and they are commonly fried in fat or oil, making a high fat diet (about 45% of calories from
fat).  To emulsify all this fat/oil the average Western male makes 1,000mg of cholesterol, giving him a daily total of 1,500mg.

By comparison, Adam ate no cholesterol in his food and his plant food diet provided only about 15% of his calories from fat.  Since his fat intake was only 1/3 of ours, his cholesterol production was only 1/3 of ours - 333mg/day.  We are flooding ourselves with almost five times as much cholesterol as Adam had.  We were not designed for this gross overload.  Since we have been designed for a low cholesterol situation, our bodies recycle it from the bowel back to the liver to be used again in making more bile (making bile is a slow process and so the liver needs this recycling process to help it cope).  Our bodies become a cholesterol pond.  Our arteries are choked with it and our two major killers are the result - heart attacks and strokes.


HOW DO WE USE CHOLESTEROL?

The level of fat in our blood must be kept within limits.  To make fat water-soluble and to control its level in the blood and to use it in the tissues, your liver makes tiny cholesterol particles (about the size of red blood cells) called Low Density Lipoproteins (LDLs).  These consist of triglycerides, phospholipids and protein on a "dinner plate" of cholesterol.  These LDL particles are designed in such a way that the muscle cells in the artery walls can use them for their protein, fat and lecithin needs.

As the muscle cells in the artery walls "eat" the LDL, the cholesterol is left (like dinner plates after a meal), littered along the insides of the arteries.

So far, two things have been achieved:

1. The hard working artery muscles have been fed and,
2. The cholesterol has been removed from the blood.

If this were the end of the story,  we would be doomed to eventually die of choked arteries.

But we were designed by the Master Mind.  No detail escaped His attention.  He designed us to make High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) to clean up the LDL and return it to the liver to be made into bile again.


THEN HOW IS IT THAT OUR ARTERIES GET CHOKED?

The HDLs would keep our arteries whistle-clean if we didn't drown ourselves in fat and cholesterol.

Several factors combine to choke our arteries in spite of the best efforts of our HDLS.

1. A high fat and cholesterol diet with a sedentary lifestyle, causes a high LDL count and a low HDL count.

2. If tobacco poisons are present in the blood, they paralyse the endothelial cells that act as gate-keepers and regulate how many LDLs pass through to the muscle cells to be eaten.  Too many get through, so there are more "dinner plates" to clean up.

3. High blood pressure causes the artery muscle cells to eat more LDLS.

4. If there are too many LDL particles in the blood, the muscle cells in the artery walls will eat more than necessary, to try to help keep the blood in proper condition.  This is a temporary, emergency measure.  When it goes on for years the arteries become choked with deposits of fat and cholesterol (and some calcium, etc, that is added).

To keep our blood free-flowing, every red blood cell carries a negative electrical charge.  Since like charges repel, the red blood cells never touch each other as they jostle along at up to 65 miles per hour; that is, if the blood fat level is not above normal.  If excess fat is present (as it is when fat/oil is added to our food) the negative charges are buried under a layer of fat.  Then the red blood cells stick together in little clumps, preventing the oxygen from being carried to the smallest capillaries, and contributing to angina heart pain.  Then larger clots create a potentially lethal situation, Our number one killer is too big a clot in too narrow an artery in the heart. (Half of all first heart attacks are fatal). If the site is in the brain the person suffers a stroke. If it is in the descending aorta that the deposits are laid, the tiny arteries that supply blood to the spinal discs are plastered over and the discs suffer from insufficient blood supply and are unable to keep up their repairs ad maintenance. (Many people begin to experience back pain before they get out of their teens - and by the time they are grandparents their hips are worn out through the same process).

These afflictions are non-contagious.  Each case is custom-made by our lifestyle.  Deposits have been observed in 4 year olds and by 20-25, the average young man's coronary arteries are one third closed.  And often no pain or other symptoms will be felt until one coronary artery is blocked and another is 60% closed.

We were not designed to handle a high cholesterol intake.  Our kidneys cannot filter off the excess.  Our liver cannot break it down.  It accumulates and accumulates until it cripples or kills us.

IS THERE ANY HOPE?

Yes.  Our Creator is eternal and when He created us He intended that we would live with Him in perfect health and happiness forever.  He designed us with sophisticated maintenance systems that will keep us in good health if we obey the laws of health.  If, after years of transgression and suffering, we return to obedience, these systems will restore and maintain a level of health that we hadn't thought possible.

WHAT CAN I DO?

1. Avoid foods that contain cholesterol. (There's cholesterol in everything that wiggles, from "snails to whales," and in their milk and eggs).  There is not a molecule of cholesterol in any plant food.  Eat unrefined plant foods because they contain no cholesterol and are low in fat but high in fibre (which combines with some of the cholesterol in the bile, causing it to be excreted with the stool).  Try to avoid refined grains, sugars and oils. (Vegetable oils - corn, soy, sunflower, etc, contain no cholesterol, but the moment they touch your tongue a message is sent to your liver, "make cholesterol".  After high-fat meals it can take up to two weeks for cholesterol production to drop back to true normal).  Unrefined plant foods are the ideal diet for restoring and maintaining health in general, and for removing cholesterol in particular.  When the supply of recycled bile from the bowel diminishes, the liver uses HDLs to bring cholesterol out of the deposits on the artery walls for it to make more fresh bile.

2. We have LDL's that put cholesterol into the deposits and HDLs that take it out.  Our high fat diet and sedentary lifestyle causes us to have a high LDL count and choked arteries.

Enjoyable exercise causes the HDL count to go up, and a diet of no added fat or oil will allow the  LDL count to come down.  This turns the "cholesterol tide" - now the cholesterol levels will  recede.

3. Sunshine falling on our skin converts the cholesterol in it to vitamin D and other hormones.  In this way, cholesterol in the skin is used up.  To keep the process ongoing, the skin receives fresh supplies of cholesterol from the blood.  And so sunbathing lowers blood cholesterol levels.

Caution:
To avoid skin cancer from sunshine, do not begin sunbathing until you have been at least one week on the unrefined, plant food diet.  This allows the level of fat in your blood to drop to true normal.  The wrong kinds of fat (refined) in your skin are changed by sunlight into "free radicals" - unstable chemicals that attack healthy cells and contribute to skin cancer.


DON'T BURN - USE THE SUN MODERATELY


In most cases, implementing the above information will bring the cholesterol down to a healthy normal. A few individuals have a genetic tendency to store cholesterol.  Their doctor may be able to give them help with this.  They should also follow the diet and lifestyle faithfully to achieve all the success possible.