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Overview
In 2002, Alex Jamieson watched in horror as her boyfriend, Morgan Spurlock, ate food for 30 days to find out if, as the fast-food giant claimed, their food was "healthy." Over the course of the month, she watched her fit, slim, and athletic partner gain 25 pounds and nearly destroy his health. The rest of the world got to watch, too, as Spurlock's diet became the center-piece of the hit documentary Super Size Me. Once the cameras stopped rolling, Alex stepped in. By following Alex's detox plan, Spurlock was back to health and nearly back to his pre-super-size-me weight in just 8 short weeks.
We are a nation of bingers and fast-food fanatics. Our food supply is made up of overly refined, highly processed food products that are touted as being "convenient" but which have been stripped of their nutritional value and loaded with ingredients like sugar, caffeine, salt, trans fats, and chemicals. Highly processed food wreaks havoc on our digestive system and damages our overall health.
Most of us don't even think about what we eat until we're overweight, miserable, or just feeling lousy. Then we sign on to the latest fad diet, which probably focuses too heavily on promoting some kind of deprivation instead of working to restore balance to our eating. And that's when we fail: It's impossible to lose weight and keep it off if we're not nourishing our bodies in the balanced, essential ways they're aching for.
The Great American Detox Diet is really an "antidiet" book. It shows us that by detoxing our diets and learning to eat whole, healthful foods we can literally change our lives.
Alex Jamieson shows us how to clean up our lives by replacing packaged foods with whole, fresh, healthful foods that will strengthen our systems, restore our vitality, and protect us from major illnesses and disease. She also gives us the dirt on what's really in that fast-food hamburger, microwavable dinner, or box of cookies, and encourages us to become "food detectives" so we can avoid the often-hidden ingredients that make processed food so unhealthy.
Included in the book are nearly 100 easy, delicious recipes by Chef Alex and resources and tips on how to make detoxing a way of life.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781594864841 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rodale Press, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 06/27/2006 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 644,338 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.01(w) x 9.04(h) x 0.98(d) |
About the Author
ALEX JAMIESON attended New York City's Natural Gourmet Cooking School and the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, the only holistic nutrition school in the world integrating all different dietary theories.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The All-American Guinea Pig: Morgan's Story
I met Morgan Spurlock in December of 2001, while I was working as a cocktail waitress at night and attending culinary school during the day. He came into the bar one night and we hit it off. The next week, he came in to take me out to breakfast when my shift ended at 4:00 A.M. We have been together ever since, and I have to say that, except for 1 terrifying month, I never gave a thought to the idea that I might lose him. Let me explain.
In 2002, Morgan and I spent Thanksgiving with his family in West Virginia. After another terrific meal (Morgan's mom modified some of her traditional dishes so I could eat them, too), we were watching television and a bizarre news item came on. It seemed that two teenage girls in New York City, who were both quite obese, were suing McDonald's for making them fat and unhealthy. A spokesman for the fast-food industry was speaking out against the lawsuit, and I can still hear him ranting: "You can't link our food to these girls being sick and obese! Our food is healthy, nutritious, and good for you!" I recall being outraged by his comments, and I immediately yelled something back at him, but Morgan's reaction was different. "Wait a minute," he said, "that means I should be able to eat their food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner without any adverse health effects at all." A sense of doom came over me as I turned to him on the couch. But it was too late: The lightbulb had gone off.
Morgan took this contention—that fast food is nutritious and good for you— and put it to the ultimate test. He decided that he would eat only McDonald's food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 30 days and record how he felt throughout this monthlong fast-food-only diet. Being a filmmaker, he decided he would make a documentary film about his experience (and, by extension, mine, as a cameraman literally moved into our tiny sixth-floor walk-up apartment for the duration of the project). I remember him laughing at the fact that if nothing bad happened to him, he would be making the greatest advertisement of all time for McDonald's. Unfortunately, this is not what happened at all.
When Morgan began filming Super Size Me in early 2003, we had been living together for almost 2 years and he had been eating a diet rich in fresh vegetables, whole grains, fresh fruit, and organic meats and dairy products. Breakfast usually consisted of a fresh fruit shake or a whole grain porridge that was cooked fresh each day, with fruit, nuts, and real maple syrup. (This is a far cry nutritionally from the packets of sweetened oatmeal that you can microwave in 30 seconds: The nutrition in those products has been overshadowed by the unbelievably high amount of sugar that has been added.) For dinner, we always sat down to a home-cooked meal, and I often made a hearty chili or stew, sauteed vegetables with some combination of a whole grain, or beans. Since we both love Mexican food, we occasionally order in from the great restaurant down the block from our apartment. Morgan often ate lunch at his desk or, when he had a meeting, in a restaurant, so he did eat plenty of rich foods such as pasta dishes, meats, and desserts. And he is a card-carrying meat-lover. Even so, his diet (due to the fact that he lived with a vegan chef who loved to cook for him) was nearly two-thirds organic and vegetarian.
For a 33-year-old man, Morgan was in excellent health. He enlisted three well-regarded medical doctors, a nutritionist, and a fitness expert to be a part of his "team" for the month. Fit and trim, he is 6 feet 2 inches and weighed in at 185 £ds, and had only 11 percent body fat. His blood was tested and his cholesterol levels were excellent, as were his other blood levels, including his blood pressure.
He was also physically fit. Morgan (as I had) grew up in an athletic family (he and his two brothers had been—I kid you not—ballet dancers!). He rode his bike all over Manhattan and practiced yoga on a pretty regular basis. He also, like most New Yorkers, walked everywhere. (The average New Yorker walks about 5 miles a day, while citizens in other parts of the country log only 400 yards to 1 mile per day on foot.) The fitness pro told Morgan that both his fitness and flexibility were excellent and that he was in the top 10 percent for his age group in both categories.
I know that I should have been reassured by the fact that Morgan was going into this experiment in superb health, but I couldn't keep my sense of foreboding at bay. Part of what was frightening me was that I was the only one who thought this kind of diet (which, in a relative way, would take the lousy diets most of us have to a surreal extreme) might be seriously bad for Morgan. Not one of the three doctors he consulted suggested that he might jeopardize his health by doing this. They thought he might gain a few £ds and that his cholesterol might rise some, but they all believed that his body would handle it. No problem. How wrong they were, and, sadly, how right I was.
I knew that eating this way would compromise Morgan's health because I had, to a far lesser degree, polluted my own body with fast foods and overprocessed foods before I detoxed myself. I had chosen to make a career out of helping people get away from overly processed foods and feeling bad, and back to a saner, healthier way of eating—which meant going back to fresh, whole foods in their original, un-tampered-with state. There was no way, to my mind, that Morgan would get through this without having to pay a serious price.
Before he got started, Morgan established some simple ground rules. During the 30 days, he vowed to try everything on the menu at least once. And though he would never ask for a meal to be "super-sized," if the server offered this option, he had to take it. (During the month, he had nine supersized meals.) He would also monitor how much he walked and would try to walk less, in an effort to mimic the habits of most other Americans. Other than that, all bets were off.
Morgan started his McDonald's odyssey with the glee of a kid who has been let loose in a candy store. He positively bounded into a McDonald's in New York (which has the highest density of McDonald's restaurants per acreage of any city in the United States) and began his new diet. By day 2, after his first supersized meal, he was puking his guts out. At the end of week 1, he had gained an astonishing 9 £ds. Normally energetic, active, and outgoing, he was now cranky and felt lousy enough that he'd arrive home at the end of the day and want to go right to bed.
By the 2nd week, Morgan had gained another 8 £ds, for a total of 17 £ds, which meant that he had gained nearly 10 percent of his body weight! His mood had taken a serious turn for the worse, and he was quite depressed and exhausted by day's end. Also, at this point, his sex drive vanished: It is nearly impossible to feel sexually aroused when you are plagued by headaches, depression, and a feeling of bloated malaise. Despite feeling so bad, Morgan forged ahead and crisscrossed the country, interviewing experts, food industry bigwigs, and people on the street, all the while fueling his body on nothing but McDonald's.
Going into week 3, Morgan's system began to show signs of serious trouble. His percentage of body fat was now 18 percent, and his blood pressure was up, as was his cholesterol. He was struggling to concentrate, often had blinding headaches, and felt depressed and sluggish all the time. (Interestingly, the only thing that would give him a "boost" was eating again, when he'd get a rush from all the caffeine and sugars in the food.) Day 21 was the worst of all: He woke up in the middle of the night with severe pressure in his chest and was having trouble breathing. His doctors recommended that he stop the diet immediately and even advised him, if the pain in his chest persisted, to check into the hospital. At this stage, his blood tests revealed another terrifying development: His liver was beginning to fail, as it had become overwhelmed by the rancid fats he was ingesting. It was toxic and leaking enzymes. The fact that his liver was being destroyed prompted all three of Morgan's doctors to tell him to quit the experiment immediately. (One of his doctors described his liver as being like pate.) All three of them agreed that what they were seeing mimicked—exactly—what they see in alcoholics who are in the midst of a serious binge. They were now concerned that he would not survive the 30-day McDonald's diet. When Morgan insisted he wouldn't quit, they begged him to at least take an aspirin a day to ward off any heart complications. He declined, saying that taking an aspirin might cloud the results of this experiment, and besides, aspirin wasn't on the menu!
At this point, I felt desperate for him, so I began to plan how I would detox him once he was off this hideous diet.
At the end of week 3, Morgan actually weighed in at a £d lighter, bringing his total weight gain to 16 £ds. His nutritionist reasoned that he had likely lost some muscle mass, given that he was no longer exercising regularly. He was now so fatigued that even climbing the six flights of stairs to our apartment was overwhelming for him, and he'd arrive home pale and out of breath. Nonetheless, he forged on.
Finally, finally day 30 arrived. At his last weigh-in, we learned that he had gained a whopping 24.5 £ds. In one month! His body fat was close to 20 percent, and his cholesterol had gone up 65 points (from 165 to 230). But the numbers were just the half of it. Morgan looked terrible and felt worse. By now, "normal" to him meant feeling depressed, wiped out, and foggy-headed. It was difficult for him to recall feeling fit and well, even though it had been only a month.
Why did McDonald's food make Morgan so sick? Because it is food that is so overly processed and so stuffed with chemicals, fillers, and flavor- enhancers that it has, quite literally, become toxic to us. And I'm not the only one who thinks this.
A study conducted by two prominent physicians in the United States and published in January 2005 in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet shows a correlation between eating fast food and obesity and insulin resistance (a precursor of diabetes). The 15-year study followed 3,000 young Americans and was designed to monitor their cardiac health. Even after making statistical allowances for other factors, the researchers concluded that those who eat fast food two or more times a week are, on average, 10 £ds heavier than those who do not.
"Fast food is commonly recognized to have very poor nutritional quality," stated Dr. David Ludwig, the director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital Boston and the senior author of the study. He continued, "In the absence of such data, the fast-food industry continues to claim that fast food can be part of a healthful diet."
Let's look more specifically at what Dr. Ludwig means by "poor nutritional quality." A man of Morgan's age should take in approximately 2,500 calories a day. No more than 30 percent of his daily intake should be fat, meaning he should not consume more than 68 grams of fat per day. He needs only small amounts of salt in his diet, so sodium intake should be moderate. And he should have stimulants like caffeine and sugar in very low doses, if at all.
Here's what Morgan would ingest—just for breakfast: A Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle has 560 calories, 32 grams of fat, 1,290 milligrams of sodium, and 16 grams of sugar. Add to this a hash brown, a large coffee with cream, and a large orange juice, and Morgan would consume a breakfast of 895 calories that packed a whopping 41.5 grams of fat (13.5 of which were saturated fats and another 3.5 of which were trans fat, the ticking time bombs that are found only in processed foods), 1,580 milligrams of sodium, and 53 grams of sugar. With breakfast alone, he had met more than a third of his daily caloric needs and more than half of his daily allotment of fat! On top of this, he'd already ingested obscene amounts of salt, sugar, and caffeine. Nutritionally, it was all downhill from here.
On pages 20-21 is a table showing what a typical day for Morgan during his McDonald's-Only Diet might have looked like. Remember that these are foods that McDonald's presents in its advertising as fresh, healthy, and absolutely okay to eat regularly. Also, I put this day together based on the McDonald's menu, and it may or may not have been exactly what Morgan ate on any given day, though it does represent, accurately, the nutritional content of his average day.
Since Morgan is about 6 feet 2 inches, keeping his tall frame at a steady weight of 185 would require about 67.8 grams of total fat a day. Based on the sample day on pages 20-21, Morgan could be eating more than twice the amount of fat someone of his height needed for maintaining his weight. According to the National Academy of Sciences, 1,100 to 3,000 milligrams of sodium per day is a healthy range. The McDonald's diet was burying Morgan under twice the recommended amount of sodium to maintain health. The USDA recommends capping added sugar at 6 to 10 percent of daily calories. This diet provided 246 grams of sugar, or 61.5 teaspoons of added sugar a day, which is about 25 percent of the total daily calories.
This all may seem pretty extreme, but remember these are meals that McDonald's presents in its advertising as being good for you.
Why is the nutritional content of these "foods" so compromised? Some would argue that it is because they are not foods at all! Instead, they are "food products" that have been modified, formulated, preserved, and marketed to us in such away that we've been brainwashed into thinking this stuff actually is food and actually is good for us.
Table of Contents
| Foreword 1 | vii | |
| Foreword 2 | x | |
| Part 1 | Don't Diet-Detox! | |
| Introduction: My Own Detox Experience | 3 | |
| Chapter 1 | The All-American Guinea Pig: Morgan's Story | 13 |
| Chapter 2 | The Sad, Sad American Diet | 24 |
| Chapter 3 | Why Americans Need to Detox-Not Diet | 33 |
| Part 2 | The 8-Week Detox Plan | |
| Chapter 4 | Everyone into the Pool! | 47 |
| Chapter 5 | How Sweet It Isn't | 64 |
| Chapter 6 | The Caffeine Crutch | 84 |
| Chapter 7 | The Skinny on Fat | 97 |
| Chapter 8 | A Carb Is Not a Carb Is Not a Carb | 113 |
| Chapter 9 | Too Much of a Good Thing? | 128 |
| Chapter 10 | Beyond Your Diet | 145 |
| Chapter 11 | Detoxing Your Life for Life | 159 |
| Part 3 | Recipes and Resources | |
| Recipes | 173 | |
| Products for Transitioning | 269 | |
| A Week's Worth of Sample Detox Menus | 273 | |
| Diet Diversity: Why Different Cultures Eat Different Things | 276 | |
| Pantry Staples: The Essential Foods and Spices to Have in Your Kitchen | 279 | |
| Web Sites You'll Like | 281 | |
| Additional Reading | 282 | |
| Organizations That Support the Detox Lifestyle | 283 | |
| Index | 284 | |
| Acknowledgments | 292 |