The Enlightened Diet

Reprinted with permission of Spirituality & Health.

When I lecture about optimal eating, the question I'm asked most frequently is about the diet du jour. Many want to know what's best: Is it the zone? Eat right for your type? What do I think about Ornish (high carbohydrate/low fat) vs. Atkins (high protein/high fat)? Which do I choose?

The simple answer is that I don't choose. Rather, I believe we're asking the wrong question, so we're getting the wrong answer - and ongoing weight gain. Let me explain. Given that American children, teens, and adults are more overweight than ever before (80 percent of adults over 25 are either obese or overweight, up from 58 percent in 1983) it's natural that when we think about nutrition, we focus on weight and fat, both in food and our bodies. We go on diets, analyze and obsess about food, turn to it as an enemy or friend, eat too much, eat too little, worry about it, avoid it, crave it, revere it, or believe that a particular nutrient will magically melt the pounds. Yet despite all of our conscientious attention to food and the incredible advances we've made in nutritional science, not only are our waistlines continuing to increase, so, too, are most food-linked ailments. From high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes, to cancer, osteoarthritis, and depression, excess pounds are an ever-rising threat to our health and well-being. So we're left wondering, what's gone wrong?

I've been pondering this question since graduate school in the eighties when I worked as the nutrition specialist with pioneering physician Dean Ornish, M.D. and colleagues, who demonstrated that lifestyle changes - stress management (yoga and meditation), a no-fat-added plant-based diet, group support, and exercise - may reduce risk factors linked to heart disease, such as high cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, and being overweight. However, even with such incredible insights about diet, lifestyle and health, as our waistlines and other food-related ailments continued to increase, I began to realize that the biological and technical examination of nutrients - measuring and analyzing calories, fats, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and minerals - are just one part of the food and nutrition story; that food is a four-part gift that nourishes not only physical health, but also our spiritual, emotional, and social well-being.

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