My Diet - A Work In Progress

 

The easy way to eat all your fruits and vegetables….

 

Diet is endlessly debated in the US.  The health and wellness industry is three times larger than the pharmaceutical business. Much of their focus is influencers telling you about what you should eat and what supplements to take. They don’t let science or conflict of interest get in their way. 

For most of my life – I did not eat correctly.  I ate carbohydrates; some fish but usually dairy based proteins and too much sugar sweetened foods.  I always rationalized it as a cultural or genetic distaste for vegetables and fruits were just too problematic to store.  I read all the papers on diet and the advantages of a well-balanced diet.  That led to some gradual improvements. 

About 40 years ago I stopped eating processed meat products like hot dogs, sausage, and pepperoni.  30 years ago, I stopped eating beef.  20 years ago, I started to cut sugar sweetened foods way back to reduce gout attacks and minimize body weight fluctuations between cycling and skating seasons. 15 years ago, I started to eat a salad every day that consisted of lettuce, olives, and matchstick carrots.  Then about 3 years ago, I was at a restaurant and had a blueberry burrata salad made with spring greens and decided that blueberries needed to be in all my salads.  For the past two years my typical salad consists of tri-color slaw, blueberries, a light raspberry vinaigrette, and croutons.  I ate about 120 lbs of blueberries last year. 

My main protein source consists of Greek yogurt, skim milk, and eggs.  I do eat chicken and fish when available.  The yogurt ranges from 15-25 g of protein per serving and I eat 3 servings per day.  For breakfast I eat yogurt mixed with a combination of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.  I am considering expanding the berry selection to black currants and strawberries.

I don’t need a lot of variation in my diet. I was in the Peace Corps and ate homemade French Fries every day and a grilled cheese sandwich. Powdered milk was an additional protein source. I still eat desserts now and then and sprinkle chocolate chips on my yogurt and call that dessert.  I eat large restaurant salads made with spring mix generally because of the storage problem with spring mix.  I also tend to eat beet salads that are popular in Minnesota restaurants. Cubed beets drenched in ice cold vinaigrette with spring mix is a fantastic salad.  The tri-color slaw lasts longer and I can generally expect to eat it all (5 servings) before it goes bad. I have had too much lettuce go bad in about 3 days and by the official expiration date it looks like a bag full of motor oil.  I regularly eat large bean (black, chili) burritos, nachos with beans, and just plain beans.  I drink 2 cups of coffee per day – not because I like it but for the antioxidants. It must be hazelnut flavored.

I decided to post this today because of two reasons.  I just got back from my annual checkups at the Mayo Clinic and had to answer their nutritional questionnaire twice.  One of the questions focused on combined vegetable and fruit consumption.  They defined serving size as a tennis ball sized volume of the fruit or vegetable and that is somewhat controversial.  Some have the opinion that the volume of a tennis ball is ½ cup and others think it is closer to 1 cup.  When I look at a measuring cup my portions are easily closer to the 1 cup size, although in the case of tri-color slaw (carrots, red cabbage, green cabbage) it gets complicated.  

On the Mayo survey – you can land on the 2-4 or 4-6 portions per day.  I tallied it up as red cabbage, green cabbage, carrots, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries or a total of 6 portions per day.  On their extended survey I got credit for low fat dairy consumption and eating nuts (cashews, pistachios, pecans, Brazil nuts, almonds, pine nuts, walnuts) – but lost credit for eating cookies (Animal Crackers, ginger snaps) nearly every day.  In the end I was rated as having a moderately good diet.

The second reason is to illustrate that you can overcome a bad diet gradually over time by finding something that you like. I always preferred carbohydrates as a calorie source but at some point – I came to the realization that even if potatoes were a healthy food – eating them deep fried or drenched in butter or in the case of sweet potatoes coated in brown sugar and butter probably did not add much nutritional value.  I have never been much of a meat eater.  The nuts and berries really broadened my horizons and markedly improved the taste of cabbage and leafy green vegetables. I have the advantage of being able to eat the exact same thing every day without the need for variation. I heard David Lynch describe this once.  He ate a chocolate malt and a grilled cheese sandwich every day for years. 

There are a couple of related current issues that are relevant.  Lately there is a lot in the media about processed foods. They are simply defined by having a lot of additives to enhance flavor or shelf life.  It is hard to avoid them, but the bulk of my diet has none. All the berries are frozen and the only ingredients are the frozen berries.  The Greek yogurt contains stevia – a natural sweetener but no artificial sweeteners. The slaw mix is only cabbage and carrots. The salad dressing contains the usual components.  I drink the occasional zero alcohol beer for additional antioxidants.  Although I do not have a specific antioxidant strategy – I am genetically loaded for a lethal neurodegenerative disease that I really hope to avoid (see Supplementary 2 below).  Like all these diseases oxidative stress is considered a potential mechanism so the antioxidants from this diet can’t hurt.

That is the diet I have come up with after decades of trial and error.  I am not recommending it to anyone else or suggesting that it will work for anyone but me.  It is not for anyone who needs a lot of variation in their diet.  You will also have a hard time keeping your teeth white.  The berries in this diet are one of the few things I have found that can stain Corelle dishware.  

In the end I have a moderately good diet according to Mayo and would never have guessed that I would land there. It took about 50 years to piece it together.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

References:

1:  The Mayo Clinic Diet Score (test your diet):  https://diet.mayoclinic.org/us/get-my-free-diet-score/

2:  Carlsen MH, Halvorsen BL, Holte K, Bøhn SK, Dragland S, Sampson L, Willey C, Senoo H, Umezono Y, Sanada C, Barikmo I, Berhe N, Willett WC, Phillips KM, Jacobs DR Jr, Blomhoff R. The total antioxidant content of more than 3100 foods, beverages, spices, herbs and supplements used worldwide. Nutr J. 2010 Jan 22;9:3. doi: 10.1186/1475-2891-9-3. PMID: 20096093; PMCID: PMC2841576.

3:  The Antioxidant Food Table, Carlsen et al. 2010. the main results of the present study; the table includes all the 3139 products with product descriptions, details and antioxidant analysis results, categorized into 24 categories and arranged alphabetically within each category

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/instance/2841576/bin/1475-2891-9-3-S1.PDF

4:  Ejaz A, Waliat S, Afzaal M, Saeed F, Ahmad A, Din A, Ateeq H, Asghar A, Shah YA, Rafi A, Khan MR. Biological activities, therapeutic potential, and pharmacological aspects of blackcurrants (Ribes nigrum L): A comprehensive review. Food Sci Nutr. 2023 Aug 15;11(10):5799-5817. doi: 10.1002/fsn3.3592. PMID: 37823094; PMCID: PMC10563683.

5:  Singh M, Arseneault M, Sanderson T, Murthy V, Ramassamy C. Challenges for research on polyphenols from foods in Alzheimer's disease: bioavailability, metabolism, and cellular and molecular mechanisms. J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Jul 9;56(13):4855-73. doi: 10.1021/jf0735073. Epub 2008 Jun 17. PMID: 18557624.

6:  Spreng S, Dawid C, Dunkel A, Hofmann T. Quantitation of Key Antioxidants and Their Contribution to the Oxidative Stability of Beer. J Agric Food Chem. 2024 Jul 24;72(29):16423-16437. doi: 10.1021/acs.jafc.4c01000. Epub 2024 Jul 15. PMID: 39010731; PMCID: PMC11273605.

Graphic Credit:

Click on photo to see photographer and CC license for use.  It is used as is with no modifications.

Supplementary 1:  I have attached a brief but selective table on the antioxidants in my diet. The antioxidant literature is interesting to an old chemist like me because the reported values depend on what food was analyzed, the extraction methods, what chemical group is analyzed, and the reporting methods.  As an example, on reporting the Antioxidant Content column below reports mmol/100g (from reference 3).  Many papers will report mg/100 g instead. 

The analysis in reference 2 was spectrophotometric based on the reduction of Fe³⁺TPTZ (2,4,6-tri-pyridyl-s-triazine) complex to Fe^2+--TPTZ complex that results in a blue solution that can be measured at 600 nM and the content estimated in mmol. The 100g is the amount of each sample extracted for this determination. That main limitation of this assay method is that it will not measure glutathione or other sulfhydryl groups due to the redox potentials, but some of these compounds can interact and lead to overestimates of the antioxidant content.   

The specific groups of antioxidants in column 2 are generally polyphenols with the capacity to transfer electrons and buffer what are known as Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) that cause oxidative stress.  Any one of the foods in the table can be searched and you probably will be able to find a specific paper about the antioxidant content ranging from basic (like the 20 foods with the highest antioxidant content) to highly technical papers on the redox (oxidation-reduction) equations and potentials of these compounds.

Food	Antioxidant Content mmol/100g (3/5)	Antioxidant Mix:  Anthocyanins, Flavonols, Flavone, Flavanones, Isoflavones, Catechins, Proanthocyanidins,  PP polyphenols
Red cabbage	0.8/ 2.153	F, Cat
Yellow cabbage	0.15	Kaempferol, quercetin, apigenin
Carrots	0.02	Kaempferol, quercetin, and apigenin, cyanidin
Beets	1.50	A
Peas	0.61	PP
Corn	0.20	PP, vitamin C
Blueberries	7.13/ 2.159	A, F, Pro
Blackberries	5.98/ 3.99	A, F, Pro
Raspberries	3.46/ 2.334	A, F, Pro
Strawberries	5.44/ 2.159	A, F, Pro
Black Currants		A, F, Pro
Walnuts	1.27/ 13.126
Cashews	0.66	cardanols, cardols, phytosterol, triacontanes, anacardic acid
Pecans	9.67	Tocopherols, PP
Pistachios	1.43	A, PP
Pine Nuts	0.77	Polyphenols, xanthenes, carotenoids, tocopherols
Brazil nuts	0.47	Se, vitamin E, PP
Almonds	0.26	caffeic acid, sinapic acid, ferulic acid, p-coumaric acid
Red Beans	0.33	Delphinidin, cyanidin, procyanidin, phenolic acids
Chili Beans	0.26	gallic acid, rutin
Coffee filtered	2.60	chlorogenic acids, caffeine, nicotinic acid, trigonelline, tocopherols, cafestol, kahweol
Chocolate chips 70%	10.74/ 4.188	Pro
Bakers Chocolate	10.47/ 4.188	Pro
Diet Pepsi	0.04	caffeine
Yogurt Greek Zero Fat	0.06	Bioactive peptides
Stevia	0.04	Stevia glycosides
Chicken	0.02	Selenium, niacin (vitamin B3), 2-oxo-imidazole-containing dipeptides (2-oxo-IDPs), vitamin E, carotenoids
Fish – Walleye	0.04	vitamin E, peptides, glutathione peroxidase, superoxide dismutase, ubiquinones, and catalase
Eggs – Whole	0.06	ovalbumin, ovotransferrin, phosvitin, phospholipids, vitamin E, vitamin A, selenium, and carotenoids
Pizza/marinara sauce	0.88	Lycopene, PP
Potato	0.33	A, carotenoids. PP
Baked Sweet Potato	0.79	A, PP
Beer (zero alcohol)	0.10	hordatines A–C, saponarin, and quercetin-3-O-β-d-(6″-malonyl) glucoside

 

Supplementary 2: 

In the above post I described being at high risk for a neurodegenerative disease.  The following graphic is a polygenic risk analysis of my DNA that shows I am in the 100th percentile risk for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS - a fatal neurodegenerative disease.  There is no known treatment or cure and dietary factors play an uncertain role.  Environmental factors including diet are thought to be an important factor in all neurodegenerative diseases despite the clear biological components.