Check out the excellent book review in today's Sacramento Bee by Allen Pierleoni, for March 21, 2011, "Between the Lines: 'Eat' explores world's diets." How many people in Sacramento who travel and are in the nutrition or food business are exploring and discussing what people eat around the world? Who might be exploring world diets?
There are lots of books comparing what people eat around the world or emphasizing world diets. For example, check out, The Jungle Effect: Healthiest Diets from Around the World--Why they Work and How to Make them Work for You.
Did you ever wonder why some people in Sacramento eat the most expensive or richest foods, and yet develop degenerative, chronic diseases? On the other hand, ask yourself why do the relatively poor native populations in Mexico and Africa have such low levels of the chronic diseases that plague the United States? You don't find too much high blood pressure in Africa, but as people age in Sacamento and other industrialized cities of the world, blood pressure rises as people age. Is it the polluted air or the processed food?
Why is the rate of seasonal affective disorder in Iceland—a country where dreary weather is the norm—so low? Why is it that older women in Okinawa have such low breast cancer rates that it is not considered cost-effective for them to get screening mammograms? The Jungle Effect has the life-changing answers to these important questions, and many more. Whether it's the heart-healthy Cretan diet, with its reliance on olive oil and fresh vegetables, the antidepressive Icelandic diet, and other diets that include omega-3 fatty acids and other dietary ingredients considered healthy around the world.
Also see the book, The 5-Factor World Diet. Following on the heels of his hugely popular blockbuster, The 5-Factor Diet, celebrity trainer and nutritionist Harley Pasternak has searched the world to add a little variety and spice to weight loss plans. The 5-Factor World Diet takes the 5-Factor principle–five meals a day, five core ingredients, five-minute prep time–and incorporates the best foods and nutritional habits from ten of the world's healthiest countries.While jetting to exotic locales with some of Hollywood's biggest stars as their personal health and fitness expert, Pasternak has sampled local cuisine from many corners of the world.
And there's a new book on what people eat around the world comparing diets for you to savor. Read the book, What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets, by photojournalist Peter Menzel and his wife, former TV producer Faith D'Aluisio (Material World/Ten Speed Press, $40, 335 pages). Comparative nutrition, that is comparative diets are looked at for what 80 different people in in 30 countries. You'd be surprised by how many people eat 800 calorie per day diets as their regular meal routines.
In this study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are organized by the total number of calories each person puts away in a day. Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet in this book's blend of photography and investigative reporting. reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food. « less
The book focuses on photos and interviews with those 80 people, accompanied in each case by a menu of their meals on a typical day. Their stories are arranged by daily caloric intake, from a low of 800 to 1,900 calories to a high of 5,000 to 12,300 calories. The goal of this excellent book is to "shed light on the widening caloric gap between the rich and the poor," according to the book's authors.
Think of the diet of African royalty which is 800 calories daily. In Kenya, one of the wives of a Maasai chief derives her 800 calories from porridge, bananas, tea, milk and sugar. How many people in Sacramento are handed an 800-calorie diet to lose weight to to recover after a major illness or surgery? You'll see numerous physicians and HMO's in Sacramento handing out 800 calorie daily diets to various types of heart patients recovering from chronic illnesses.
The book also shows how different diets can be. For example, in London, a mother of three, age 31, consumes 12,300 daily calories from three full meals, plus three daily snacks that include chocolate cake, ice cream, soda, candy bars, potatoes and ham-and-cheese sandwiches. At the time she was profiled, she was 5-foot-5 and 230 pounds.
The book review in the Sacramento Bee also mentions a California "wind farmer" (think giant turbines) John Opris (3,700 calories) of Fairfield, who eats a lot of fresh produce, cereal bars, string cheese and turkey. In Inglewood, the book shows how Iraq war veteran Felipe Adams eats daily a diet of 2,100 calories, and in San Onofre, paddle surfer Ernie Johnson eats a daily diet of 3,500 calories.
What do the book's author's eat? Menzel consumes 2,800 calories, derived mostly from produce, cheese, bread, chicken and seafood. D'Aluisio eats a daily diet of 1,500 calories from a similar menu. They also are the authors of the award-winning book, Hungry planet: what the world eats. (Material World, $24.99, 287 pages).
How many calories do you eat in Sacramento? The idea of someone in Kenya eating daily only 800 calories might result in one of the reasons why in certain areas of the world blood pressure doesn't rise as people get older as it usually does in industrial societies. People eat more calories because they either work harder and need the energy of dense protein to be able to do the work, such as an athlete or heavy construction worker, or they consume calories because they feel hungry more often than people who feel more full with less calories.
It's an individual choice based on hormones, metabolism, and genes. Sometimes people eat too much for emotional reasons, for example, eating comfort food while under stress. In Sacramento, some doctors, nurses, and nutritionists give heart attack patients an 800-calorie diet to eat while they recover. The patients usually are told to eat small amounts several times a day instead of huge meals.
Maybe we all can take a lesson on how to quickly develop chronic degenerative diseases from those people in Kenya who daily eat 800-calorie diets. But what if they aren't developing diabetes from it, but someone in Sacramento or any other industrial society lives on bananas and sugar with some porridge and comes down with type 2 diabetes because another person requires dense protein or a variety of vegetables?
What does your body need to recover? You could take a lesson in diets from the world's healthiest countries. Or you could tailor your foods to your own metabolic needs. The best way to find out what your body needs in the way of calories is to see how many quality foods you can eat to maintain the weight you want to keep and not have spikes in blood glucose from sugar highs and crashes. Should you eat low on the Glycemic Index to stay healthy? Or should you eat several small portion-size meals daily to reach your maximum state of health and activity?
Some people do well on 1,500 calories a day, and others need more or less depending upon their energy expenditure and the weight they want to maintain, gain, or lose. Are diets individual? Or do they affect the health of a country or community? Then again, it may depend on how fast or slow your metabolic rate burns up the calories you consume. Your health care team can help you find out how many calories are right for you and how many small meals a day work for you.
Sometimes it's not what you eat but when--what time--you eat that may cause some people to gain more weight than at other times of the day with similar foods. What experience have you had with eating smaller portion sizes? Did it work for your health needs? Comparative studies of diets around the globe are useful. It's one way of looking at what foods your body really needs. Then again, some people are exploring 'ancestral' diets--what their ancestors ate to maintain health and whether it worked for them.
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