10 replies to this topic

[The Ripper]

I'm having a hard time thinking of meals that could tick the boxes required to be good for long-term health and longevity. By that I mean low in AGEs, low in methionine/protein, low to no sugar, low to no salt or sodium, not inflammatory. If I'm missing more please tell me!

Unless I stick to a diet of entirely vegetable smoothies and rice/pea protein I just don't see how this can be followed without serious compromise.

Would anyone here care to share some of the meals they cook regularly that would satisfy some of the aforementioned criteria?

Are there websites that cover this? Perhaps a book? Any help is appreciated!

[Darryl]

Pick your battles.

 

Personally I think whole grain pasta with marinara is just fine, although some would take issue with the amount of salt in processed pasta sauces. Likewise bulghur salads (ala tabouli), Indian lentil dals, or the Mesoamerican staple of maize tortillas & beans. All of these have few AGEs, moderate glycemic indexes, and low-moderate methionine, and can be prepared with attention to salt and fat content. 

 

• Avoiding AGEs? Don't fry or roast, particularly foods with both proteins & sugars. Wet and low-temparature cooking (stewing, steaming) is ideal.
• Moderating methionine? Avoid animal protein and high soy intake.
• Want a lower glycemic index? Avoid baked goods, roasted potatoes, and white rice: choose whole grains, whole grain pastas, and legumes instead.
• Avoiding sugar? Skip dessert and sugar sweetened beverages. Choose fruit with the highest polyphenol/calorie ratio: berries, citrus
• Avoiding sodium? This one is tough, unless one cooks every meal from scratch. My take is the evidence against salt (in hypertension, hemmorhagic stroke, gastric cancer) is also generally evidence against a high sodium/potassium ratio. Eat plenty of greens, wet-cooked tubers, whole grain products, and legumes, choose processed foods with an eye to sodium, and moderate use of condiments and the Na/K ratio will be much closer to the pre-industrial diet.

 

Nearly every culture south of the line Paris-Tokyo has some traditional vegetarian or near-vegetarian foods that tick all the boxes (North, and the potato/bread/dairy/meat pattern dominates). Few are as ideal as the traditional Okinawan diet of sweet potatos, greens, turmeric tea and fish for seasoning, but even the Okinawans grew tired of sweet potatoes every meal.

 

There are two cookbooks from the TrueNorth clinic that attempt to tick every box you mention (including sodium), and Alan Goldhamer's longer presentations give a sense of his stance. I don't think they'd work as well in my locale, without the access to year-round very fresh produce from the California Central Valley. I've also accepted the fact that any meal plan that I can prepare easily enjoy will include a fair amount of salt.

 

The Health Promoting Cookbook: Simple, Guilt-Free, Vegetarian Recipes, by Alan Goldhamer

Bravo!: Health Promoting Meals from the TrueNorth Health Kitchen, by Ramses Bravo

 

 

 

 

Edited by Darryl, 28 October 2014 - 03:25 PM.

[timar]

Great advice from Darryl, I fully agree with it. It shows that to consider these points in the diet isn't really as hard as some may think, although everyone has to decide for himself how far he is willing to go. Most often the benefit-effort-relation follows the law diminishing returns.* You'll get a lot of benefit, for example, by cutting fast food, soda and fried junk (and it's excess of AGEs, rancid omega-6, refined carbs and animal protein) out of your diet. You'll get a much more modest benefit by cutting all broiled or sautéed food from your diet, as long as you don't eat it in great quantities. You may get a tiny additional benefit by going "raw vegan" but that may as well backfire as you can easily miss important nutrients on such a diet.

 

Some recommended reading, more or less closely related:

 

1. General dietary advice (neither promoting veganism nor fad diets)

• David Katz: Disease-Proof
• Walter Willet: Eat, Drink and Be Healthy
• Andrew Weil: Eating Well for Optimum Health

2. Traditional pro-longevity dietary patterns

• Dan Buettner: Blue Zones
• Bradley and Craig Wilcox: The Okinawa Program
• Daphne Miller: The Jungle Effect

3. Practical cooking advice and recipes

• Helen Vlassara: The AGEless way
• Rebecca Katz: Longevity Kitchen
• Nancy H. Jenkins: The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook

 

*With the notable exception of caloric or methionine restriction - well, at least theoretically.

Edited by timar, 29 October 2014 - 08:32 PM.

[scottknl]

Vegetable Soup, fruit/berries, nuts, salads are the non-breakfast staples of my vegan CRON diet.

Breakfast is a mix of oatmeal, nuts, beans, cocoa, flaxseed, raisins and goji along with a couple of chinese herbs.

I treat breakfast with special attention so that I get a good start every day.

[James1]

I hope you don't mind me piggybacking here but are there any thoughts as far as methionine restriction for elderly folks when there was a recent study showing that moderate to high protein consumption may actually be beneficial for this group.  With increased protein consumption there is going to naturally come an increase in methionine but should they still focus on choosing protein sources low in methionine? In other words, consume more nuts, beans, grains, etc. while still looking to minimize animal protein.

[scottknl]

I think for the elderly, reducing food intake to an appropriate amount of calories (within the context of a balanced diet) with increased protein is the best you can do.  The time for them to do methionine restriction or calorie restriction has pretty much passed them by and the damage has already been done.  The best you can do is unload their systems from having to process excess amounts of food and hope their bodies will repair as much of their own damage as possible.   

[The Ripper]

Thank you to everyone who posted! I'm going to get started on reading that stuff immediately. This really helped me a lot

[Mind]

"Less is more" when it comes to food and longevity. Don't stress out over minute details of your diet as this might shorten your life. Eat a "balanced" diet, but exercise and try to stay on the lighter side of BMI.

[Thew]

Great advice from @Darryl.
I usually eat pasta, bread, fruits and vegetables (mostly vegetable soups).
@Mind is also correct. Just a balance diet with no stress at all. Exercise is very important too.

[Maecenas]

    Can somebody explain me how does the concept of glycemic load works? If, say, the glycemic load of 100 g of apples is 6, and the GL of 50 g of cooked spaghetti is 6 and they have the exact amount of calories, why is spaghetti considered  to be a food with high GL and apples with low, if they contain the same amount of calories for the same amount of carbs? It also seems GI diets are designed for an exteremly low consumption of carbohydrates as most sources recommend GL of no more than 100-120 a day.            

   Another question I wanted to ask is about the healthy quantity of fruits in a diet as I eat lots of them (at least 1, sometime more than 2 kilos a day). Why does fructose seems to have such a bad reputation on this forum? I know that it can theoretically promote glycation but as far as I am aware, it has been proven for a processed fructose, not for its natural form as presented in whole fruits.

Edited by Maecenas, 11 November 2014 - 08:20 AM.

[Michael]

    Can somebody explain me how does the concept of glycemic load works? If, say, the glycemic load of 100 g of apples is 6, and the GL of 50 g of cooked spaghetti is 6 and they have the exact amount of calories, why is spaghetti considered  to be a food with high GL and apples with low, if they contain the same amount of calories for the same amount of carbs? It also seems GI diets are designed for an exteremly low consumption of carbohydrates as most sources recommend GL of no more than 100-120 a day.           

In the real world, you have to look at serving size. Look at 100 g of apples and 50 g of cooked spaghetti. Consider whether you're actually going to consume them isocalorically . 50 g of cooked pasta isn't even an official USDA serving size of ½ cup (70g); in practice, their research shows that the average American restaurant portion is 2 C (467 Cal). One medium apple is 182 g and 94.5 Cal; 467 Cal of apples is nearly five of them.

 

A comparison of nutrient density also informs, although not strictly related to GI or GL.