South Indians, low fat diets and the cholesterol drama

Let's start out with facts. South Indians (at least the majority of them), and in particular the Tamil vegetarian community have one of the lightest fat diets in the world, low in fat (high in simple carbs of course). And every aunty-uncle couple I have met has some combination of diabetes and cholesterol between them. Of course this has spread beyond the realm of aunties and uncles now to ages very uncomfortably close to my own. (We'll leave the discussion of whether I am an aunty myself to another time).

Yet, every reaction to the high cholesterol diagnosis has been to lower fat further, go to fat-free milk, remove whatever ghee was remaining, dismissing the tadka, etc.... you get the gist. I recently read in several places that Indians have among the highest rates of heart disease anywhere. Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" quotes from another study that North Indians who eat 17 times as much fat as South Indians have 7 times less heart disease! Both of these indicate that South Indians have the highest burden of heart disease in the entire world (yes, not the red meat eaters of Europe and North America, not the only-meat-eating Inuits, but the largely vegetarian South Indians). And while I don't have a reference for this statement by itself, I can state just by anecdotes that this is probably true.

So, do we have all of our nutritional science wrong? Is a low-fat vegetarian diet not the magic antidote we have been chasing? Well, from a few limited interviews of my mother and aunts, I gathered that in the olden days, "Madrasis" didn't really die that much of heart disease. My mother remembers several natural deaths. I can't say that I have seen even one (North or South, East or West). Sally Fallon, to prove her point against low-fat diets piles a whole lot of adjectives on "Madrasis" - puny, ailing, life span of 20 years (!!) and so on. A lot of this is from quite-suspect anecdotes by some pukka-sahibs in the early 1900s- suspect because I don't currently know very many puny and ailing Madrasis (oh, how I passionately hate this term, and the abuse that it has endured), and I won't even deign to comment on the life-span.

The point being that our traditional diet in our traditional climate didn't hurt us too bad. But that diet has changed. Our rice used to be hulled, not polished (making it a slightly more complex carb with some fiber than the ultra-polished white rice we ingest now), our oils were cold-pressed by chekku maadu-s (and didn't potentially oxidize at the high-heats that solvent-extracted oils are subjected to), our milk was raw, hormone-free, non-homogenized, and our vegetables and fruits were organic. Also this food gelled well with our super hot summers and non-existent winters.

Cholesterol, it turns out, is less of a final problem, and more of an indicator. It (LDL) is produced by our livers as a repair agent, to fix inflamed tissue, such as in arteries. High cholesterol is therefore an indicator of high inflammation, or damaged tissue. It also has been shown that more than 85% of our cholesterol is produced by our liver (as opposed to 15% from food), making reducing our diet fat quite useless in reducing cholesterol. Our concern should be more about why the tissue is damaged in the first place rather than lowering the cholesterol (which no doubt frees up clogs in our arteries, but leaves them damaged anyway). One of the unambiguous factors that have correlated with tissue damage is high blood sugar. The other one (although opinions differ on this one) is a diet deficient in fat soluble vitamins and high in vegetable oils.

What am I trying to say? Just that blindly obeying the dictats of modern medicine, that are based on a few years of possibly highly skewed research, has led us to a more unhealthy lifestyle very far from our roots. Tamil Brahmins reducing fat in their diet is the most extreme diet measure I have heard of. We know that people have lived long and healthy a certain way in a certain place. It is easiest to return even partially to that life, than to follow a largely unknown path, especially one that has proven over the years to be quite useless. Pass the ghee and the coconut oil, please. And make them organic and extra-virgin, while you are at it.

Love your guts

Bacteria... This most maligned of species deserves an entire post (and several books and more) to itself. Our race has travelled long distances, been lost in various diseases, only to discover that the answer to every problem and the cause of every other problem is ... bacteria.

Lowering the drama a bit: I have been shocked and awed at the role that microbes (change of word) play in the human intestine. We have a gastro-intestinal (GI) tract with the surface area of a football field covered entirely (in a healthy human gut) by numerous species of beneficial and some not so good micro-organisms, all of which make up our gut wall providing selective permeability for what passes through.

It is known that a child in the womb has a sterile gut which gets populated through vaginal birth, breast feeding, and then through environmental interactions. The intestine is also the seat of our immune system. In short, bacterial imbalance = poor digestion = perhaps leaky intestine = brain sees stuff it should not see AND immune dysfunction = who knows what syndrome. Bad bacteria take over, yeast takes over, metabolizes sugars into alcohols, your gut barrier allows partially digested food to be absorbed into the blood, your brain (and immune system) sees stuff it never would have normally - and the brain fog begins.

It is amazing that gastroenterologists and neuro-physicians either do not know or will not tell you about the close link between microbial health and gut health, and between gut health and immune health, and between gut health and brain health.

My son has Autism. I didn't know this for the longest time, all symptoms being swept under the all-encompassing rug of Down Syndrome. But he has had all his vaccines, several courses of anti biotics, and every other onslaught on his immune system and gut flora that I could manage. Had I known that 10% of children with DS develop Autism, and had I known the gut-brain connection, things might have been different.

{You are probably wondering about the vaccine connection. The much-maligned Dr. Wakefield's research has now been confirmed by several independent studies (look at Dr. Bob Sears' "the Vaccine Book" for details: children with Autism do have inflammation in their intestines. And there does seem to be a correlation between some vaccines and this inflammation. In a child whose gut flora has already been compromised - read: immune system has been weakened - a further onslaught of a vaccine may prove to be the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back}.

So Eat Fermented Food, made at home preferably. Stop over sanitizing yourself and your surroundings. How many under-sanitized third world countries do you know that have the overwhelming number of allergies that this country does? Educate yourself about vaccines, check your child's gut health before you vaccinate anyway. Use ear oil for ear infections, or see a chiropractor. Re-think the antibiotics. Why kill more of the good stuff yourself? Embrace the dust. Next time you are in India, remember how you lived as a child, dirty and disease-free. Symbiosis exists in our own body - love your bacteria. 

Ayurveda, Vegetarianism and the Weston Price/GAPS diet

Ever since I decided to take my son on the GAPS diet to heal Autism, I have been torn by the apparent conflict with Ayurvedic principles.  The GAPS diet calls for animal fat to be the basis of healing – including lard, ghee, butter, and fatty portions of meat. The GAPS book by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride (Dr. NCM henceforth) goes to the extent of claiming that vegetarian diets are dangerous. While this statement alone should have pushed me off the book given that I come from a lineage that has eaten a lacto vegetarian diet for several hundred years (at a minimum), I stuck to it because the rest of the book made so much sense.

There are several arguments associated with the Weston A Price Foundation (WAPF) reasoning against a vegetarian diet. Some of them are based on Dr. Price’s tour of the world visiting native cultures and determining that all healthy cultures were those that consumed a traditional diet. However WAPF completely ignores the completely vegetarian populations of India, spanning several regions, each with its own flavor of vegetarianism [1].

There are several blog posts both for and against WAPF’s reasoning. My aim here is to simply present the points that strike me as WAPF’s biggest arsenal against vegetarian diets being healthy.

Low fat

The primary term associated with vegetarian diets is “low-fat”. In the GAPS community, this is almost a swear word. The concept of “low-fat” vegetarian diets might have originated with Dr. Dean Ornish [2] but this was likely in response to a increasingly processed way of eating which did rely on a lot of animal foods (processed again). There are no traditional vegetarian diets in India that try to be low-fat. Oil is used liberally in “tadkas”, where mustard (and other seeds and spices) are burst open in oil at its smoking point to release trace essential oils.

Vegetable Oils

Also the American vegetarian diet (a response to the factory-farmed processed meat industry) relies extensively on processed food. Most people aren’t familiar with a traditional way of cooking vegetables only without meat, and it is easier for them to eat out. Now processed foods will use cheap oils such as solvent extracted canola oil, soy oil made from GMO soy beans, etc. which contain primarily polyunsaturated fats that are not stable at high heats but are used at high temperatures anyway.

Traditional Indian vegetarian diets rely on ghee, sesame, coconut, or mustard oil, depending on the local crop. These oils are stable at relatively high temperatures, and were of course traditionally cold-pressed.

Protein, Iron and Vitamin deficiencies

Any diet that has survived a millennium cannot be anything but balanced. A population that is chronically deficient will by trial and error eventually switch to a balanced diet. Having said that, vegetarian sources of protein iron and B-vitamins are well known and we are not even talking about SOY here. Protein intake is very dependent on climatic and soil conditions and on the nature of local vegetation available. In that context, a traditional vegetarian diet usually evolves to include all essential nutrients in some form or other.

However there are no exclusive vegetarian diets in the Himalayan regions on India where vegetables are scarce in winter, and even the Kashmiri Brahmins eat meat (there are among the only Brahmins in India to do so, though some other Brahmins will eat fish – also rare).

Fermentation is a known source of probiotics and B-vitamins, and most regions in India eat some sort of fermented food in moderation. Lentils are eaten in abundance, typically with a ghee “tadka” to reduce the gassiness or Vata. In fact meat when eaten is eaten usually once a week, either as a treat or as a medicine.

Vegetarian diets today

Most of the comparison in the GAPS or Weston Price community seems to rely on a traditional meat eating diet versus a processed vegetarian diet (3). Some of  it sparingly refers to high heart disease among vegetarian Indians (3) without accounting for the onslaught of pesticides, hormones, and processing in current Indian food (courtesy the Green and White revolutions). This is inherently unfair.

Is a processed vegetarian diet better than a processed meat diet? Probably, because meat can bio-accumulate toxins. This also accounts for the popularity of the Ornish and MacDougall Diets.

Is a traditional diet better than a processed diet (whether veg or non-veg)? Of course!

Is a traditional vegetarian diet better than a traditional non-vegetarian diet? The answer is I don’t know. Physically, perhaps there is no difference. This is where I lean on Ayurveda, literally “the science of life”, the oldest system of traditional medicine. Meat is only considered a medicine, and that too only by some Vaidyas. Meat is said to increase Rajas and Tamas (or passion and inertia, as opposed to a calm, collected, intuitive stable nature or Sattva). This is now the realm of the mind, which eventually becomes the realm of the body. Yes, the body has to be addressed before the mind. But once there is health, per Ayurvedic principles, a wholesome traditional fresh vegetarian diet is most suitable for everybody.

Is a traditional vegetarian calmer than a traditional non-vegetarian? We really have very little data, except that historically India has not invaded any other country (though there have been internal invasions between kingdoms), and that India has always amalgamated all intruders to form a well-mixed accepting society, perhaps among the most truly secular in the world.  All I can say that you have to experiment on yourself to see if you are calmer when you don’t eat meat (but eat a balanced traditional vegetarian meal).

We know that every revered (or enlightened) saint (Buddhist or Hindu or Jain) has espoused vegetarianism and the doctrine of non-violence. And in eastern religions, it is generally believed that spiritual progress is difficult through a meat-eating diet.

I think there is some meat to the Sattvic theory (pun intended) and the doctrine of non-violence. But a vegetarian diet that is primarily non-organic, sourced from distant lands, based on processed foods and refined oils has violence embedded in the damage done to the ecosystem and to oneself.

And I will stick to the GAPS diet to see if it heals my son mostly because I haven't found a compelling alternative diet for Autism. But I will also attempt to go back to a sattvic vegetarian diet once he heals.

References:

1. An article by John Robbins: http://www.vegsource.com/news/2009/11/reflections-on-the-weston-a-price-foundation.html
2. “The 3 Season Diet” by John Douillard.
   http://www.amazon.com/The-3-Season-Diet-Intended-Cravings/dp/0609805436/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331703428&sr=8-1
3. http://www.westonaprice.org/vegetarianism-and-plant-foods/myths-of-vegetarianism#7

On Target!

What a beautiful ad!

Inclusion without the fuss. Just casually, just as it should be. Some are same, some are different, who cares? We are all kids...

Target, you just converted a anti-chain snob back to you.

Vegan Reflections

Note: After this post, and after being vegan for 2 years, I did - out of convenience and complacence - back-transition into a vegetarian lifestyle. I try to cook vegan for a good part, though I am not strict about it anymore. I think vegans are very brave, creative, and committed, and would advice other vegans to not follow my lead.

I have noticed that trying to be vegan motivates me to cook more often - perhaps some constraints help bring out the creativity. What's the fun in cooking if you have no restrictions, right? I would like to give a special mention to earthvegan.blogspot.com for one of the most amazing vegan blogs that I have read (and perhaps the only Indian one). Thanks, Earth Vegan, for motivating me.

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I turned vegan in January 2003. Being vegan and Indian is probably easier than it is for most people except when it comes to desserts! And there is the fact that in India, vegetarianism is more well understood than anywhere else (even lacto vegetarianism), but I doubt people know of or would sympathize with a species that does not drink milk.

There a few daily and monthly challenges when one becomes vegan. One of them is the sudden quandary one is placed in at breakfast. What to eat, especially if one's favorite dish has been Egg Bhurji. There had been numerous days in college when I had missed my first lecture because I needed that extra time to savor my Bhurji. I still award the dish the capital letters it deserves.

The second is when your hostess starts serving dessert; sample this: "Sorry, I don't eat kheer, no sorry, not gulab jamun either, not roshogulla please . Oh, I know you are Bengali, I don't meant to offend you, I just... I just... er.. do you have kheer made with soymilk? Oh Soymilk is milk of soy beans. No No, soybeans don't give milk when pregnant, they are just blended with water to make what is called soymilk. Oh YEAH! I can have sooji ka halwa... uh.. (in a whisper) did you put ghee? " By now, both my hostess and I are in tears.

The third and most irritating challenge is sending back the waiter at the restaurant your friends have taken you to, to ask the cook about each dish "Does it have dairy? Does it have eggs?" "Sorry, Ma'am we have NOTHING without eggs and dairy, except green salad" . And then.... you fall to the realm of ghaas-poos again

Again there are advantages. You get to fill a page about your vegan exploits when you have no other material about yourself to write home about. You become the center of attention in most places, and so what if most people think you are weird, at least no one is indifferent to you.

And of course, I can look every cow and hen in its eyes. But then again, doing that had once incited a cow into thinking I was challenging it and I was running down the streets of Madras with horns pointed at my butt. Thankfully, I consider myself stronger than a hen, and am ready for other similar challenges with hens and roosters in the future. So much for equal rights.

Last but not the least, I warn those with Bengali connections, life can get very difficult. My mother-in-law (with the implicit consent of my husband of course) warned me, that I could be vegan all I liked, as long as I ate fish when I visited Calcutta!

Disclaimer: The last paragraph (and several of the others, except the first) are entirely a figment of my imagination. My in-laws are great and very supportive people, and I actually love fish.