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Obessive Fear of Fat!
For my more detailed critique of Dr. Graham's book, see "Fruitarian Diets: How to make them Healthy" at [...] . The major fault of Dr. Graham's book is his obessive fear of dietary fat, even from raw nuts and seeds as part of a raw vegan diet. His prescription of 10% calories from fat follows a long tradition of alternative therapeutic diets that confuse the ASSOCIATION of high dietary fat and chronic disease as the CAUSE of these diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Graham misrepresents "The China Study" by failing to note how author Dr. T. Colin Campbell identified animal protein rather than fat from plants as a causative factor of chronic diseases. Dr. Graham's claim of knowing two raw fooders who ate lots of nuts and died of atherosclerosis relies on fear rather than facts to make his point.
Fat in whole, unprocessed nuts and seeds is generally emulsified, unlike in processed vegetable oils, so it does not stick together or to other surfaces. This is easily verified by noting how easily the fat from chopped nuts wipes clean off a dish with plain water. Not so vegetable oils.
Scientists have demonstrated that nuts have cardioprotective properties, and that these benefits are dose-dependent; i.e., the more you eat, the more cardioprotective benefits. Many of these studies can be found through a simple Web search. "Nuts and coronary heart disease: an epidemiological perspective" by Kelly and Sabate, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, 2006, is a good start.
One ounce of nuts a day is just insufficient to meet the needs of most people limited to a raw vegan diet. Training to stuff yourself on extreme amounts of fruit is not necessary, and deprives you of the health benefits of a diet properly balanced with nuts and seeds. This book would have been better off recommending 60/30/10. (Dr. Graham corrected this statement, indicating that fat is listed last in his formula, i.e., 60/10/30. Dr. Graham refused to comment on the rest of this review).
When you consider that most of the fuel burned by our bodies is fat burned aerobically in low-intensity muscular activity, like sitting upright in a chair all day, breathing, talking, operating a computer, and walking around a bit, an adequate supply of dietary fat makes perfect sense. Carbohydrates are used to restore glycogen in the liver and within muscles after brief periods of intense muscular activity. More importantly, glucose from carbs fuels the brain. However, by comparison, the amount of fat used in low-intensity muscular activity far outweighs the amount of glucose used, even in active athletes who require ample amounts of rest and recovery time.
Although it is possible to create sufficient amounts of fat for fuel from breaking down an excessive intake of carbs, this puts an unnecessary strain on the body. This is Dr. Graham's approach, which is similar to other low-fat diets, except Dr. Graham restricts carbs to raw fruit and excludes starch. Dr. Graham would probably be shocked to realize how much of his fruit intake is being converted to fat to fuel low-intensity muscular activity!
Why not just eat a sufficient amount of fat in the first place? An adequate intake of dietary fat has a glucose-sparing effect, allowing a normal intake of glucose to be used more efficiently for fueling the brain, and for infrequent intense muscular activity, rather than being continuously shunted off to fuel low-intensity muscular activity. That's why you feel better mentally and physically on an adequate intake of both dietary fat and carbs.
Dr. Graham's remedy for the lethargy and cravings that eventually accompanies a prolonged low-fat diet is to shovel in even more carbs. Are you craving cheese, pizza, ice cream, buttered English muffins? According to Dr. Graham, you don't need fat, you just need even more carbs! But, would you eat those English muffins without the butter? Probably not. That's because it's the fat you crave. Dr. Graham attempts to turn this logic around, claiming it's the carbs in the English muffins that you really crave, and that the only function of the added fat is to trick you into eating starch rather than fruit. Satisfy your cravings by eating a properly balanced diet with healthy sources of dietary fat, like whole, unprocessed, unsalted, raw, organic nuts, seeds, and fatty fruits like avocados.
Finally, Dr. Graham listed Dr. Virginia Vetrano as a valued reference source in his writing. In discussing dental problems associated with a diet extremely high in fruit, Dr. Vetrano mentioned in her own writings that tooth enamel could be protected by including more nuts in the diet. Not surprisingly, Dr. Graham conveniently omitted this segment of Dr. Vetrano's experienced advice from his book, recommending instead extreme amounts of raw vegetables that require blending for palatability. Ah yes, the food blender, Nature's way! How did we ever survive without it?
In fairness to Dr. Graham, I think he is on the right track...he just needs to do a little updating. There are health dangers associated with eating too little as well as eating too many nuts on a raw-food, vegan diet. For example, disturbances in calcium metabolism can occur from very high amounts of phosphorous if eating too many nuts. That is why nuts need to be balanced with proper amounts of green vegetables. That is the challenge! Balance!
January 2009 · Books · verified purchase