This week met with the unveiling of the "Food Plate" which was allegedly created by First Lady Michelle Obama to replace the well-known Food Pyramid. The First Lady is praising this replacement of the Food Pyramid as “a quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we’re eating.”

There has also been a website created known as www.ChoseMy plate.com which goes into more detail about what the 'Food Plate' consists of.A nutritionist from NYU also weighed in on the new 'Food Plate' stating "that labeling a large section of the plate “protein” was confusing and unnecessary, because grains and dairy products also are important sources of protein and most Americans get far more protein than they need." (Ibid)

Let's now take a look at what the 'Food Plate' consists of and how this new dietary campaign will only worsen the Nation's already staggering problem with obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer; as well as many other medical problems too numerous to mention.

The food plate shows of course a dinner (or I guess breakfast or lunch, you decide) plate with the top from left to right in triangular delineation fruits and grains (the fruit triangle being smaller than the grain triangle), and on the bottom (again left to right) vegetables and protein, with the vegetable triangle bigger than the protein triangle). Just adjacent to the grain triangle is a circular 'dish? or plate' labeled diary.

Before I go any further with my discussion of the correct way to eat, allow me to share with you how I start off my dietary discussions with my patients. I start by going through the three big dietary myths;

Dietary Myth # 1- Eating Fat Makes Us Fat.
This is wrong. Eating fat does not make us fat as long as we are not eating alot of carbohydrate along with the fat.

Dietary Myth # 2-Eating Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Containing Foods Causes Heart Disease.
This is false. Not only does eating more saturated fat and cholesterol containing foods NOT cause heart disease, the consumption of foods high in saturated fat and cholesterol lowers one's risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes and many different types of cancers.

Dietary Myth # 3-We Need to Focus on Calories in Order to be Healthy.
This too is false. A calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree. This is a calculation which becomes important only if we want to quantitate how much heat is being given off when we burn, or combust something. It has absolutely no place in human nutrition.

The frightening thing is that this new 'Food Plate' along with the First Lady's and the NYU nutritionist's statements underscores the continued pervasive belief that fat and cholesterol needs to be limited in our diets and that the calorie has attained some kind of 'Holy Grail' status.

A quote I like states the following "Whenever one finds them self on the side of majority it is time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain. Well, the preponderance of people out there including major health organizations are on the side of majority, but have not, in any way shape or form even begun to 'pause and reflect.' You see, eating low saturated fat and low cholesterol containing foods has NEVER been shown to lower one's risk for heart disease. Never, ever, ever! But most of the media circuits make this claim and most of us believe this to be true. That is, that eating say steak or egg yolk increases our risk of heart disease.

Or how about this statement we all have heard again and again, 'that lowering one's total cholesterol below 200, or lowering total cholesterol in general will lower our risk of heart disease.' Again this is false. How about I tell you the truth about lowering total cholesterol and the truth is that lowering total cholesterol has NEVER been shown to lower one's risk of heart disease. Of course the pharmaceutical companies do not want you to know this; heck, how many times have I heard a doctor make the claim that we should add a 'statin', which is a cholesterol lowering drug ‘to the drinking water.' This is an absolutely absurd and profoundly ignorant statement to make only revealing the nutritional biochemical ignorance of the cardiologist, the internist, the family doc, the endocrinologist, the pediatrician; suffice it to say that most doctors would think it a good idea to add a 'chemical with significant side-effects' to our drinking water.

Anyone really frightened....I am.

You see, we doctor's go to Medical School to learn how to use medications to treat diseases, we do not learn natural ways to not only treat disease, but cure and prevent what I call 'The Top Four Diseases' killing our Nation. That is, Heart Disease, Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes and Cancer. Heck, I only received two weeks of nutritional instruction taught by an overweight dietician. This is not a joke. Sitting in that two week nutritional 'mis'instruction I often wondered if the professor practice what she preached....I believe she did.

OK, so what is causing the algorithmic increase in heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer? It's simple. We are eating way too many carbohydrates (carbs) and not enough saturated fat, cholesterol and protein. You see, carbs are wolves in sheep's clothing and they surround us everywhere we go. We all know and would never argue that cakes and candies are bad for us. But what if I were to state that grains including multi-grains, 7 grains, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, oatmeal and fruit were also not only bad for us, but that the consumption of these very foods increase our risks of the diseases mentioned above and makes the pharmaceutical companies richer and ultimately kills us.

Would you 'believe' me? Notice how I put believe in quotations for what I am sharing with you is not my belief, theory, supposition or opinion. What I state about the correct way to eat is based on basic biochemical facts of human nutrition. The problem with beliefs is that they can be right or wrong...the facts just are.

A good example of the huge difference between beliefs and facts is an analogy I go through with my patients when I'm discussing the correct way to eat. I'll ask my patient if the world is round or flat. Thank goodness to this date all have said round. I then ask if they believe that the world is round. All say 'Yes, I do believe that the earth is round.' I then immediately correct them and tell them that they do not 'believe' the world is round, they 'know' the world is round; to think any other way is just plain ridiculous. You see, the fact is that the world is round. Whether or not one 'believes' the world is anything but round (more pedantically speaking the world is a flattened sphere but we can ignore that for now), the world doesn’t care. It is round, it is not flat or hexagonal or rhomboidal, it is round. Facts just are and do not care about what one or what any organization may 'believe' about the facts. Facts just are. Incorrect beliefs do not become magically correct because a certain number of people believe an incorrect belief. For instance, how many children does it take to believe in Santa Claus to make Santa suddenly appear and become a real, live person?

So I'm relating nutritional dietary facts, not beliefs. What have we learned thus far? We learned about 3 big dietary myths; that eating fat doesn't make us fat; that eating saturated fat and cholesterol containing foods lowers your risk for heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer; and that the calorie means nothing in human nutrition. We also learned that lowering one's cholesterol has NEVER been shown to lower one's risk for heart disease. These are FACTS, not beliefs.

Let's get back to what I mentioned above, the fact that we all know cakes and candies are bad for us and the fact that whole grains and fruits and the like are NOT good for us. The simple reason is that cakes, candies, whole grains and fruits are ALL one in the same.

Huh? Have I lost my mind?

No, I have not.

Let's analyze very carefully what cakes, candies, whole grains and fruits provide us with. They all provide us with sugar, that's it. There are many people out there who would start the argument that there are two kinds of sugar, natural and artificial; and that the 'natural' sugar is somehow better for us than the 'artificial' sugar.
Another factual statement I tell my patients is that 'sugar is sugar is sugar.'

What this means is that sugar is sugar is sugar and it does not matter where the sugar molecule comes from, for it is simply sugar.

But why is sugar so bad? We all know that eating too much sugar is bad for us, don't we? So if a glucose molecule from say a cookie or a potato chip is bad for us; why wouldn't a glucose molecule from a whole grain piece of bread, brown rice or oatmeal be bad for us too? When a glucose molecule gets to the level of the cell and enters a cell for processing the cell doesn't stop and say to itself 'Woo Hoo, this glucose molecule came from a whole wheat piece of bread, I'm gonna do great things with this' or 'Uh-oh, this glucose molecule came from a piece of candy, only bad things are gonna happen now.' The cell will simply process the glucose molecule and the processing HAS NO RELATIONSHIP to where the sugar molecule came from.

What is the glucose molecule (and the fructose molecule) processed into by the cells of our body? The glucose and fructose molecules are processed into FAT and CHOLESTEROL. That's right, when we eat sugar in the quantities that we are advised to eat by the so-called experts, we are giving the cells all they need to make fat (which makes us obese) and plaque forming deadly cholesterol. You see, plaque-forming deadly cholesterol and fat production starts with GLUCOSE and FRUCTOSE!

Think I'm wrong. All one needs to do is consult any biochemical textbook and review how fat and cholesterol is made. The fact is that glucose and/or fructose FROM ANY SOURCE will be converted into fat and cholesterol. Another fact which follows logically is that the very foods that do not contain cholesterol or fat, are the very foods our bodies use to make cholesterol and fat.

Eating fat, saturated fat and cholesterol containing foods only helps to raise the HDL (the GOOD cholesterol) and gives our bodies our preferred fuel source 'free fatty acids.'

For more information as to why Total Cholesterol is irrelevant and why eating fat is good for us, check out the first ten chapters of my book at www.drjamescarlson.com

This is why the new 'Food Plate' is wrong. It again provides us with an overabundance of carbohydrates, ignoring (or really more accurately it is completely ignorant of) the fact that carbohydrates in any form are dangerous and deadly and that we need to be eating MORE fat, saturated fat and cholesterol....NOT less.
On a similar note the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines came out a few weeks ago, tenaciously holding on to the incorrect belief that eating fat and cholesterol is bad for us and that whole grains and fruit should be worshipped.

This is wrong, dead wrong; with emphasis on the dead.

To view my presentation as to why the 2010 Dietary Guidelines are incorrect go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TlBEf-v5fQ

I guess I'll end this by thanking the First Lady, the NYU Nutritionist and the USDA for not 'pausing and reflecting' thus allowing us to get fatter and sicker; all the while allowing the drug companies to get richer and richer.......
Now I'm going to go have some steak and eggs.......and by the way grains are an extremely POOR source of protein—way to go NYU Nutritionist…

For more info go to either www.drjamescarlson.com or check out my videos on You Tube (simply type in dr james carlson in the search box) and Enjoy!

Dr. James E. Carlson B.S., D.O., M.B.A., J.D.
AKA-----dr jim