Health Alert 304
Eat too much carbohydrate and you’ll secrete excess insulin and get fat. So how can the Japanese eat so much rice and stay so slim?
A current trend in Japan has revealed an interesting clue in this comparison to the West… .
Recently, Japanese men and women are gaining weight and showing signs of a disease of the intestines common in the US but previously rare in Japan. Not because they are eating more, but evidently because they are eating less rice. Although rice is a grain, it has a much lower glycemic index than our major grain, wheat.
In today’s Health Alert, you’ll get a system to use to make the most of this difference between rice and wheat. It can make all the difference to your weight and your health.
For thousands of years, the Japanese have relied on rice as their main source of calories. They stay slim and have very low rates of heart disease. You’ve read about the value of the glycemic index. High GI foods spike your blood sugar and insulin and lead to weight gain. Of all the grains, rice has the lowest GI.
In the US, our top grains are corn and wheat – both very high GI foods. As you know, heart disease and obesity are two of the top health concerns in this country.
For most of the new generation of Japanese, gone are the days of fish and rice in the morning. More and more, cereals and breads make the breakfast of choice in Japan. All packaged breakfast cereals have very high GI’s –usually about twice as high as your average candy bar. And, even whole wheat bread has twice the GI of orange juice.
As the Japanese start to eat more like Americans, new diseases are on the rise. A new study shows that Crohn’s disease has risen 475% in the past twenty years.(1) Crohn’s disease inflames the small intestine and can affect the whole digestive system.
This is powerful evidence for sticking to your native diet. Every time we change it, there are consequences. Sometimes we’re not aware of the damage for decades. If you’re having trouble managing your weight, stop eating unnatural products made or processed by humankind. The biggest categories here contain processed grains. If you can eat the grain without processing like oats or rice it’s not nearly as bad and has a much lower GI.
This jives with my clinical experience that getting rid of things made from grains in your diet is the easiest way to lose body fat.
Here are a few tips to make avoiding grain products easier:
- Instead of having a bowl of cereal, try meat and eggs. As strange as it may sound, cereal will make you fat and tired. Breaking your nighttime fast with meat and eggs will give you lots of protein. This will liberalize your use of energy to start your day.
- For lunch, turn your chicken sandwich into a salad with chicken. Staying away from sandwich bread is hard at first, but you will get used to it.
- At dinner, you can eat the traditional American cuisine. How about a delicious steak with any vegetable you like? (But remember, corn is a grain.)
You can break the habit and chose low GI foods.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
(1) Kirn T. Lower Rice Consumption May Be Tied to Crohn’s Disease. Family Practice News. July 15, 2005.