The basis of a diet adapted to human physiology

Let us never forget that plants are the main source of vital energy and constitute the basic food. It is through metabolism that this food is transformed into carbohydrate, lipid and protein molecular chains, and thus used as building materials for the body. In conclusion and in short, man is simply constituted by what he eats, from head to toe.

Some general recommendations

The following advice is general and is a "baseline" plan for everyone. However, some adaptations can be made according to age or certain health problems. Indeed, it should be noted that the protein intake should normally be higher in the elderly or in adolescents. From then on, think eggs or plant-based proteins.

For example, it is preferable to avoid raw vegetables in people suffering from colitis and whose "intestinal susceptibility" does not tolerate excess fiber. In this case, you should think about consuming these raw vegetables in the form of juices, which will be better tolerated, but this is just one example.

 To be consumed every day

• -Organic vegetables and fruits, of which the daily intake should be 500 grams per day, of which at least 70% should be eaten raw.
• -Maximum: one or two glasses of quality red wine.
• -A little bit of grain, avoiding wheat and corn. Choose quinoa, kamut, rice, oats, spelt or buckwheat.
• -Two tablespoons of olive oil, one of rapeseed oil, flaxseed oil and raw walnut oil, i.e. unheated. You can add them to your salad dressings, or mix them into your dishes after cooking.
• -Don't hesitate to season your dressings, sauces and dishes with fresh aromatic herbs.
• -Always include fiber and vegetables at every meal.
• -Drink at least one and a half liters of water per day, outside of meals.

To be consumed 2 to 3 times a week

• Fatty fish, mainly from the cold seas, such as mackerel, herring, sardines, etc.
• -Poultry: chicken, turkey, duck, goose, guinea fowl, ostrich, from guaranteed organic farms and wild game. It is important to eat them without the skin.
• -Goat's and sheep's cheeses, possibly a little Gruyere.

This diet, with a slight vegetarian orientation, represents the ideal daily diet. It is obvious that the quantities and the nature of the substances absorbed depend largely on the physical and mental expenditure and activities of the person.

The Cretan diet

Numerous research teams have highlighted the benefits of the diet followed by the Cretan population, which maintains, year after year, a life expectancy far superior to the usual duration observed in many other countries.
In order to demonstrate the incredible protective effect of this diet on health, Dr. Serge Renaud applied it in Lyon to a population of people who had already had coronary problems. The results obtained were exceptional and there was a 70% improvement in the health of the patients.
This traditional Mediterranean diet is essentially composed of :

- Cereals and bread, legumes, green vegetables, fruits and fish,

- Almost no meat, no cheese, no butter, no wine,

- Olive oil (rich in monounsaturated oleic fatty acids), walnut oil and rapeseed oil (rich in polyunsaturated alpha linolenic acid).

This advice is particularly aimed at people with cardiovascular problems, but it should be applied and adapted to each individual in order to preserve his or her health capital, and this from a very young age.

The traditional Japanese diet

Other diets, such as the Japanese diet, which traditionally consisted of rice, fruits, vegetables, 60 g of meat, 90 to 115 g of fish, 1/2 cup of milk, one egg, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce and 420 ml of beer daily, is another example of a balanced diet that increases the chances of escaping heart disease.

I cite for information a few strict diets that are very restrictive, but are really effective in cases of serious pathologies. They will only achieve their therapeutic goal if they are strictly followed without any deviation.

It seems to me that a difference must be made depending on whether one belongs to the group of patients, of subjects at risk, or if one applies these dietary advices in a preventive way only. The application of these different proposals may seem cumbersome and restrictive if you do not suffer from any pathology. On the other hand, if you have a serious pathology or if you have a predisposition (hereditary factors), it is essential that you comply strictly with the advice given by these different researchers. It is up to you to choose a more or less strict choice, depending on your tastes, your wishes, and your state of health.

The hypotoxic diet of Dr. Seignalet

Its goal is to offer a diet that provides 95% of the benefits of the "instinctotherapy" method, but is as easy to practice as the Kousmine or Fradin methods. This diet will be designated indifferently as original type, ancestral type or hypotoxic type. The latter proves to be very effective in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, since it is low in dangerous foods and rich in protective foods, but especially in all the pathologies known as "civilizations" such as cancers, multiple sclerosis, polyarthritis, colopathies ...

Here are some fundamental principles of Dr. Seignalet's diet :

1) Exclusion of cereals, except for rice.

Wheat is dangerous because of its protein structure and the fact that it is always cooked. It is therefore necessary to eliminate bread, croissants, cakes, pizzas, cookies, rusks, wheat cakes, wheat flour, pasta and semolina. Wholemeal bread is even worse than conventional bread because it is more baked and richer in Maillard molecules. Barley, rye and oats are part of this family and are also banned.

Corn is dangerous for the same reasons as wheat. This means cutting out corn flakes, popcorn, sweet corn kernels and corn meal.

Rice has remained similar to its prehistoric wild form. Clinical experience shows that it is rarely harmful. Therefore, both white and brown rice are allowed.

Buckwheat, buckwheat and sesame remain, until now, authorized.

In short, modern, mutated, cooked, incomplete and aged cereals are to be avoided.

Whole grain, wild-crafted, raw or cooked below 110°C, quickly consumed, may be beneficial, at least in some individuals.

2) The cow's milk has many drawbacks for humans. It is therefore prohibited as well as its derivatives: butter, cheese, cream, ice cream, yogurt. Animal milk should be avoided, regardless of its origin: goat, sheep, mare, etc.

Soy milk and soy yogurt are good substitutes for cow's milk and conventional yogurt.

3) The meats are considered bad when cooked, and good when raw. In case of disgust, the shortest and least intense cooking possible should be tolerated. In non-organic meat, prefer lean to fat, which is often full of lipophilic waste.

Meat must be of impeccable quality, purchased from a trusted retailer. Poultry, rabbit and game are difficult to eat raw, as are offal.

4) cured meats are allowed for as long as they are raw. The following are therefore accepted: raw ham, sausage, chorizo, salami. Cooked meats are excluded: cooked ham, pâté, rillettes, blood sausage, andouillette, etc.

5) The egg is harmful when cooked but valid when raw. It is best to buy organic eggs. The white one, only made of albumin and not very tasty, can be discarded, while the yellow one will be gobbled up. For patients who do not wish to eat raw eggs, they can be prepared in the shell at low temperatures.

6) Cooked fish is less formidable than cooked meat. However, it is better to opt for raw fish. A simple recipe is to marinate thinly sliced fish, such as salmon, in lemon juice with a little olive oil, flavored with large amounts of coriander, dill and basil.

7) The crustaceans, shellfish, and shellfish are permitted. Raw shellfish, oysters, mussels, clams, etc. are even recommended.

8) The green vegetables are very widely allowed: asparagus, artichoke, eggplant, beet, mushrooms, cabbage, fennel, spinach, green bean, turnip, leek, potato, salsify and exotic vegetables. If they are too hard to eat raw, they are steamed or stewed.

9) The dry vegetables or legumes : peas, white or kidney beans, lentils, chickpeas, fava beans, quinoa, tapioca, and soy. They are allowed, after a cooking similar to that of green vegetables.

10) The cruits : we will use widely the foods belonging to this group: carrot, celery, mushrooms, cucumber, watercress, endive, lamb's lettuce, melon, bell pepper, radish, green salads, tomato.

11) It makes heavy use of fruits : apricot, pineapple, banana, cherry, strawberry, raspberry, tangerine, orange, grapefruit, peach, pear, apple, plum, grape, exotic fruits, just to name a few.

12) Dried or preserved fruits are widely represented in the diet: date, fig, almond, peanut, hazelnut, walnut, olive. They must be eaten raw. Thus, roasted peanuts will be discarded in favor of raw peanuts.

13) Advised miscellaneous foods : honey and pollens, natural products par excellence, and also sprouted seeds of legumes, or ancestral cereals or little manipulated by man: soy, lentils, chickpeas, beans, rice, buckwheat, spelt, millet, alfalfa.

Chocolate, which is cooked and contains refined sugar, should be limited. Choose dark, organic chocolate with whole grain sugar.

Jams and white sugar should be avoided in favor of wholegrain sugar, which is much richer in potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, iron and vitamins (Dejean, 1989).

14) The oil should be consumed in fairly large quantities. Of course, I speak here about raw virgin oils, obtained by first cold pressure (see CHAPTER 1 - paragraph 14. Lipids).

15) The condiments are all allowed: salt, pepper, vinegar, lemon, onion, garlic, mustard, parsley, caper, pickle, curry and herbs. The quantity of salt must be limited and it is necessary to prefer whole salt, much richer in minerals.

16) The drinks : it is absolutely necessary to exclude beverages rich in white sugar and phosphoric acid, powerful demineralizers (cola, sodas, commercial fruit juices), as well as beer, which is assimilated to a cereal. Other beverages are permitted. Water is recommended in large quantities. It must be as little mineralized as possible to avoid overloading the emunctories. Avoid tap water, which is polluted and often heavily loaded with fluoride. Coffee and tea are tolerated in reasonable quantities. Chicory is encouraged. Alcoholic beverages other than beer are allowed in moderate doses.

The vegan diet

This method condemns all food of animal origin. Animal products as well as all by-products such as eggs, milk, cheese... are totally excluded. From then on, the diet is essentially made up of watery vegetables and dry vegetables (beans, lentils...), cereals, fruits and dry fruits (almonds, hazelnuts...). Advocates of this diet claim that plant proteins are cholesterol-free and do not contain purines. Purines are considered to be very acidifying elements for the body since they are transformed into uric acid and are very harmful. This diet unquestionably provides all the necessary vitamins for humans and is adapted to their physiology. However, according to other research, tea, coffee, soy, yeast or even legumes are highly loaded with purines, and this sometimes more than some meats. As far as the cholesterol argument is concerned, we must not lose sight of the fact that diet is responsible for only one fifth of the total cholesterol in the body. And let's not forget that part of the cholesterol is essential to the metabolism, since it is involved in the transport of lipids through the bloodstream as well as in the synthesis of certain essential hormones.

Cereals, legumes and oilseeds are very high in calories and contain a very high proportion of fat. As a result, some people who follow this type of diet for a long time exceed their caloric needs, and end up with alarmingly high levels of cholesterol and lipids.

It is certain that excess meat can lead to high blood pressure or uremia, or even appear as one of the carcinogenic factors, and that therefore it should not be abused. However, not all amino acids are present in the plant kingdom and the hydrochloric secretion of the stomach is only activated by protein foods of animal origin. This stomach secretion in turn influences duodenal secretions such as pancreozymin, cholecystokinin or secretin, all of which are enzymes involved in optimal digestion. In the total absence of animal proteins, it appears that a total digestion cannot take place.

Thus, it can be seen that this type of diet can be practiced on a one-time basis if one is aiming for weight loss or cholesterol reduction, but it cannot be considered as continuous daily diet since it leads to more damage to the body in the long run than positive results.

Raw foodism

It is a vegetarian type of diet that favors raw food. Raw food eaters consume little starchy food, trying to avoid colloidal overload. They also consume little animal products and red meat, thus trying to reduce crystalloid acid overload. If starch intake is not sufficient, the body diverts and uses certain amino acids from the digestion of protein foods to fuel gluconeogenesis and convert these elements into glucose. This process is essential to meet the body's energy needs. This is a roundabout way of providing the energy necessary for the body's efforts by using amino acids rather than the slow sugars of the starch type that should normally fulfill this function. Amino acids diverted in this way can no longer fulfill their anabolic role. This means that they can no longer serve as building blocks for our tissues and secretions. This can lead to anemia or significant loss of vitality.

Again, this type of diet can be practiced over a short period of time with a very specific goal such as weight loss. However, too much fruit consumption often leads to an increase in acid. These last ones, too numerous, cannot be totally metabolized at the hepatic level, and only a part will be transformed into glycogen and stored, whereas the excess of acid accumulating in the organism will need to be buffered by the reserves of mineral bases of the body, leading in the long run to a demineralization

This diet appears to be excellent in "ideal" living conditions, i.e. in a tropical climate, without any constraint or stress and when a large part of the vital energy does not have to be mobilized by the vegetative nervous system. This does not represent the conditions of life in our industrialized, stressful, high-performance society.

The dissociated diet

Defended by the great hygienist Shelton, and then taken up by many other authors, one of the best known of whom is certainly Montignac. It presents interesting therapeutic results always respecting the idea of not making it its permanent type of diet.

It is a matter of isolating carbohydrates or proteins during the same meal. During the same day, there will be 2 main meals, one of which will be predominantly nitrogenous and acidic, and with a predominance of stomach digestion, while the other will be carbonaceous and alkaline with a predominance of oral and intestinal digestion. Whether it is one or the other, the meal will always be accompanied by raw vegetables or cooked vegetables. Fruits are not recommended during meals and are recommended between 10 am and 5 pm so that they can be digested separately from the food bowl.

This method reduces the phenomena of fermentation as well as the production of toxins intestinal. Thanks to this advice, we have seen improvements and even cures for dermatitis, catarrh and arthritis.

This diet applied to the letter, and without any deviation during a prolonged period, leads to a significant weight loss, but especially a loss of vitality and energy.

This phenomenon could be explained by the fact that, during the nitrogenous meal, there is a significant secretion of glucagon that acts at the liver level by transforming most of the amino acids into glucose, and that, on the other hand, the secretion of insulin responsible for carbohydrate digestion is low. Generally, it is the midday meal that is nitrogenous or proteinous, and the evening meal that contains the carbohydrates that will lead to high insulin production. This hormone has another role in protein anabolism, as it allows amino acids to cross cell membranes. However, most of the amino acids absorbed at noon have been used during neoglucogenesis to be transformed into glucose thanks to glucagon. As a result, their quantity is no longer sufficient for them to fulfill their membrane role. This tissue deficiency could explain the weakening and the rapid weight loss provided by this type of diet.

In this case, the crystalloidal type disorders will obviously be improved, and the weight and colloidal overloads will decrease dramatically.

There are other diets, such as balanced diet (a diet where the dissociation is spread over two days), cerealism(based mainly on the consumption of seeds and grains), or those that involve reducing either lipids (for atherosclerosis or hypercholesterolemia), either protides (during renal or hepatic problems), or carbohydrates (in case of diabetes or insulin deficiency), or also aiming at the reduction of fibers during fragility of the intestinal or esophageal mucosa. They can all be practiced on an ad hoc basis to achieve a specific goal for a particular problem, but it is strongly discouraged to adopt them as a daily routine.

It seems that in today's world, even if we adopt an impeccable diet that is close to perfection, supplementation is essential in order to be in good shape, to preserve our health, or to slow down the aging of the body in general, or the brain in particular. In a holistic approach to health, we must provide our body with all the nutrients and elements it needs to function on a daily basis. It appears that the physiological quantity of proteins, vitamins, minerals, trace elements, or fatty acids, required by the body for optimum functioning, is often far greater than the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) recommended by the official organizations in place in our countries. And it also appears that, nowadays, this "optimal quantity" can hardly ever be provided by our diet alone, however "perfect" it may be! It is therefore thanks to nutritional supplements in all their forms, powder, tablets, capsules or liquid that you will find the required "quota" and ideal health.