Last week on midday, we presented to discussion of nutrition. And today we're going to bring up the topic. Once again last week. We talked about, nutrition questions with University of Minnesota extension nutrition specialist Isabel wolf today. We take a look at some of the effects that food has on us beyond the purely physical and to help explore the topic nutrition and mental and spiritual health is dr. Rudolph Ballentine e Center St. Paul Studios. Dr. Valentine is a physician psychiatrist and an expert on nutritional systems of the East and West he has written a book published earlier this year and titled diet and nutrition holistic approach is affiliated with the Himalayan International Institute at Lansdale, Pennsylvania and The Meditation Center in Minneapolis right now to begin today's discussion. Thank you, Dan a good afternoon everyone. Welcome Doctor Valentine, I guess I'd like to be an esoteric level by asking you to talk for a moment about some of the differences between Eastern and Western.systems of nutrition Well, there is one major difference in the way that nutrition is approached in the East and in the west and that is the Western nutritional science comes from the outside and Eastern the Eastern approach nutritionist From the Inside by that. I mean that most of our research in the west is based on laboratory analysis blood samples things that you can observe about a person by looking at him from the outside or the inside in the East nutrition was always regarded as a very important subject and what a person eat was considered crucial in terms of his health physical and mental but it was judged on the basis of subjective experience. In other words what I eat I decide and the effects of what I eat and determined by paying attention to what's going on inside of me. So it's a very individualistic thing in the East and the West we look at a lot of people into a lot of laboratory tests and we try Say here is the right diet are Precision in measurement is unsurpassed. But there's a great complication because we love everybody together and we end up sitting here is the right food because we made precise measurements for the right food for whom because each person is different. So Eastern techniques approaches to nutrition have their strong point, which is the individualizing personal introspective kind of judging that's very important in determining what is right for a giving person. But Western science has its strong point in the Precision of its measurements in his technology. We're trying to combine the two How how you do that? How does a person who may be concerned? Say I want to hear a number of studies the results of which indicate the nutrition and and things like cancer are really tied to quite closely together in some instances. How old is a person who is concerned about their diet to go about changing that diet without say investing a great deal of money in in the different kinds of foods or having all sorts of tests run. How do you how do you go about doing that? Well in the first place even if a person wanted to invest a lot of money and Laboratory test it probably wouldn't work what you need on a given day is different from what you needed on the previous day or what you will need. The next day. Our needs are constantly changing by virtue of what kind of work we're doing where we are the weather and so forth are emotional state many things determine what kind of food we can handle and what kind of food we need. If you did laboratory tests to try to determine your nutritional needs you'd probably have to be running in a whole battery of tests every meal time and you need a whole Bank of computers to analyze the data in and spit back to you your menu. And then you wouldn't have time for anyone to cook it because by the time they got it prepared your needs would have changed again. So it's not really practical when it comes down to what do I eat today? What do I pick up off the table? What do I get when I'm going through the cafeteria line? And this is the big gap you see in nutrition today is that there's a lot of theory in a lot of scientific research, but when the person is confronted with a cafeteria line or a supermarket shelf, he doesn't know how to translate it into practical application. And that's where the Eastern approaches to nutrition become much more sensible and practical and down-to-earth. This is misinterpreted. People think well. Oh, it's something Eastern it's weird and it must have something to do with going outer two outer space or in Torino floating off into space or something, but that's not true at all. The Eastern approaches very practical because it means that the person must learn one must learn to become sensitive to the cues from within himself that are always there to tell him. Yes. This is what you need to know you've had enough of that. You know, I really need a little bit of this or now. I'm thirsty. I'm not really hungry all or I don't need anything or whatever. How do you go about tuning into those accused tuning into those queues is part of a process or learning process that we call developing self-awareness and many things help learning how to relax learning how to be stamps learning how to turn one's attention Within just to pay attention, you know, very dramatic example recall a case where man was brought into the emergency room because he had presumably an ulcer in great pain in the abdomen and his stomach was falling up in and he had had some ulcer problems before so they were afraid he might be developing a rupture and they also that is he could be bleeding internally and he was in great distress. So he was brought in and take him to the ward and his stomach is got your tubes placed in his stomach pumped out what was found was very fascinating because it was found was not only his lunch which even had several hours earlier, but also his breakfast and not only that but dinner from the night before and lunch from the day before. Which meant that the food that he had eaten 24-36 hours earlier was still in the stomach which meant that he had not processed it which meant that he really didn't need to have eaten again at all. But he was suffering from great distress not because he hadn't also that was about to rupture but because his stomach was just crowded with food that he really didn't need now. How come he ate so much when he wasn't ready for more food because we don't pay attention to the internal choose. We pay attention to social cues and clock tattoos, and it's it's time to eat. So we seeing everybody else is eating and so we eat our it looks good. So we eat and when we consistently and persistently ignore the cues that our bodies offering us then Eventually, we begin to do some violence to to buy and we end up not necessarily on an award with our stomachs pumped but there may be more chronic and gradual detrimental effect on person. Are there some things that I could do as a as a neater to tune into those things to be more aware of other than the one thing that sticks out of my mind for most of us is a social thing is a cultural thing as social as a part of the culture and you know that we go out to eat with people we have lunch with people and saying that I'm going to have lunch with a person has implications Beyond down to eat. It's my business that sort of thing perhaps how do you suggest working within that or do you have that concept and still getting in touch with a healthier ways of eating? Well as I pointed out in the book. Nutrition, there's a whole chapter called food side and on which means learning how to Work with oneself and increase one's awareness and Consciousness through paying attention to his diet. And what food does to me when we bring people Himalayan Institute and in Honesdale for what we call combined Therapy Program meeting the real real education and reorientation to help we prepare all their meals for them specially and serve them in their room and they sit and eat alone. If it doesn't mean that we're saying everybody should eat alone and and you know, you shouldn't socialize but it does mean that people benefit from a brief. Maybe in 10 days to weeks 3 weeks are really paying attention to the food and you would be shocked it it how much people consider it a revelation when they've done is for a few days. They say, you know, I never paid attention to what I was eating before. I never paid attention to how it felt inside of me. I never realized it but I did this or I ate too fast. I didn't chew or that I drank too much liquid when I was eating a ride. I took things that I really I never really paid attention to what I was doing before. I just put something in my mouth while I'm talkin and this is very common the social aspects of eating a sort of crowd out the physiological aspects of eating one really, of course in the main reason that we're eating in the first place was to feed our bodies not to get a contractor or just a business relationship or whatever though that may be a legitimate aspect of a meal if it shouldn't completely eliminate the considerations of what I'm giving my body and whether it needs that are not so we often tell people take a few days or a week or take. Of time and eat alone and I'll go off take the side of your plate and go sit somewhere quietly relaxed attention to what you're getting too slowly. Just learn how to enjoy the food and be aware of it and feel what it's doing, you know. Eating can be so much more pleasurable for people than it is and this is a paradox in a way because a lot of people think will I eat a lot because I enjoy it but when you watch them didn't really enjoyed it all they're so busy putting it in their mouth and talkin and looking at other things that they suddenly looked down and said, oh my god, I've eaten it all and I liked it and I didn't even realize I'd eaten it. So pay attention to the food into one's body can really enhance your enjoyment of the food and the result of that often is that people eat less? They get more satisfaction from a little bit of food. If you eat a small amount and really taste it and save her enjoy it you feel satisfied. You may not have you may need more OK more. But often there is as a byproduct of paying more attention to the heating process. And that is that people actually less food, which is surprising should we eat whenever we feel hungry 4 5 6 7 times a day. What about snacks? The ideal thing is to eat when you're hungry and that means however not eating when you're not hungry. Hahaha anyone who eats to three good meals a day is unlikely to be hungry in between he may get Restless. You may get bored he may and get nervous. He may find it. He has established to have it sometimes in the past to stick something in his mouth when he's nervous. But that's not called hunger when you really when your stomach is empty. And you feel an appetite a genuine good healthy appetite. This is a rare thing you love you both forgotten what it feels like to really be genuinely hungry, you know and food smells good and it tastes good and it feels good to eat. Sometimes you get that sense on vacation when you're out doing a lot of exercise and you come in and you've been outdoors and you realize that you remember G, I had forgotten what it's like to have a real honest appetite. We should wait for that when the real honest appetite comes to eat and then the food is used in a much more constructive way by the by so I didn't answer your question is yes, we should eat when we're hungry, but we should also learn what it means to really be hungry and learn how to cultivate that honest appetite because then we can enjoy the food so much better and the food served us much better. Tell me more about how you cultivate an honest appetite. I'm thinking about about the you mentioned being on vacation and coming in and that vacation implies being relaxed perhaps and and being able to enjoy food more in your book you talk to I think about enjoying food more when you're relaxed. How can I how can people who are who lead A busy life even as you do traveling around the country still enjoy their food in that situation then you can take And relax before you eat now. I'm sort of sit down and close your eyes breathe evenly relax the muscles systematically go through a relaxation technique just take a few moments and calm down and quiet down and then you find the food is much more enjoyable. cultivating a good appetite have something to do to with setting up some regularity in your eating patterns the body is it strictly functions according to habits. We are nothing but a bundle of habits when we look at ourselves closely some of which are good and come over with your bad, but we can always create good habits that help us and one of those is is establishing some kind of Fairly regular routine of eating in the body gears itself up for food and everything's ready. The time comes you begin to feel hungry. If you didn't eat too much last time or you haven't smacked in between them the honest appetite begins to show up on time and you it's convenient to have it come when food also comes and that's mainly accomplished by having Awesome kind of schedule and I guess I frustrate people a lot when I liked your nutrition because on the one hand I tell them that you should never eat unless you're hungry and if you're hungry feet and then I say you should always eat regularly on time taking meals regularly and people feel like well I can't do both. This is a contradiction. How can I eat at regular times as if I'm only going to eat when I'm hungry, but there is a little bit of discretion that goes into that, you know, if you know what your meal times are and you know, how much food it takes to carry to the next meal. Then you just eat that much. It's not really so complicated. We're coming up on 29 minutes now past 12 noon, and I'm talking with dr. Rudolph Ballentine who is author of diet and nutrition a holistic approach a rather lengthy book about the diet nutrition and which includes a bit more than simply the do's and don'ts of of eating. I'd like to I'd like to open up our discussion now to two listeners and invite to question. If you'd like to ask doctor Ballantyne a question, you can call us at 2 to 11550 in Twin Cities area. If you live outside the Twin Cities area, but in the state of Minnesota, you can call us toll-free at one 800-652-9700. I'll give those two numbers again in the Twin Cities area to to 11550. If you live outside the Twin Cities one 800-652-9700 doctor Ballantyne talk for a minute about vegetarianism versus on there. I can't even say it. Volkswagen and vegetables you talk about that in your book. Yeah. This is a subject that people are beginning to get interested in used to be a vegetarian was some kind of freak and most people didn't really know what the word man. But nowadays, it's some it's becoming socially acceptable to be a vegetarian but often people are still concerned about the the nutritional questions related to vegetarianism. Can I get what I need on vegetarian diet and I think some A legitimate question and I don't think that we can ignore the the nutritional considerations just because we think for some reason or other that it would be a good idea to become vegetarian. I often laugh when I discuss vegetarianism with American audiences because I usually say well in America meet to become a vegetarian means you go to McDonalds instead of getting hamburger and milkshake and french fries you get a milkshake and french fries and leave off the hamburger and that's the definition of vegetarianism. Unfortunately that there's some truth in that and a lot of people leave off the meat but don't include anything in the diet to replace what the meat had been giving them and then they tend to develop a lot of cravings and they satisfy their Cravings by eating more sweets and Refined starches fried foods and so forth and they end up actually getting more and more decision and then they can get in trouble a vegetarian if it's properly design is a very healthy diet and most researchers today in the fields of heart disease and cancer and so forth are becoming increasingly convinced that the diet which prevents these diseases most effectively is a vegetarian diet. But with that qualification that the vegetarian diet should be properly balanced and designed you see that taking more sweets and taking more fat is not a good idea and what many people don't realize that is in this country today. The average person takes 65. Well 45% of his calories in in the fat. And about 25% of his calories and sugar. This means that approximately 60 and at least 60% of his calories are in tea calories in fat which bring no vitamins bring no minerals bring no protein. So if if sixty to seventy percent of your diet, I'm sorry 70 is fat and sugar. Then the other 30% of your diet has to be fantastically Rich to supply all the things that you need and in most cases it's not So if people stop eating meat and leave out of there other 30% me and they're still getting 70% of their diet is fats and oils fried things fats and oils and sugars. Then they end up short on vitamins and minerals and proteins. So it's very important to plan it out ahead of time and not to not to stop eating meat on Sunday night and go to a full vegetarian diet and such changes should not be May suddenly. Anyway, they should be made very gradually one should first eliminate red meat then you should eliminate a cut down on file and and continue with Fish And gradually eliminate fishing and work over a period of a year or so into a vegetarian diet should never be done. Suddenly. We have a listener on the line to ask a question. Go ahead doctor Ballantyne is listing for your question. This is not really a question. But rather say that I just like you to speak to because I feel that it's important is the what you're thinking about sugar and the importance of people's understanding. Sugar is not just what we think of as the white processed sugar, but that you know, honey, maple syrup all those other phone to sugar as well as fruits are also sugar products and I guess I'd like you to take a little bit to the effect of of how that sugar in our bodies effects. Well as you're well and meditation or like our centeredness and just how that energy is like so strong and our culture that it it's really needs to be like eliminated in order for us to start feeling more balanced than just going to love that effect of that on on on you know, I can actually your physical meditation and how once you started eliminating sugar from your diet really does, you know start seeming like a drug and when you take it right well in the book. Nutrition, we talked quite a bit about sugar and the different kinds of sugar. There are as you noted a number of different kinds of sweeteners. We usually criticize white sugar most emphatically because white sugar is nothing but carbohydrate nothing but sugar simple carbohydrate and this is the most purified thing that we taking our diets purified in the sense of having all the other nutrients excluded. So when we talk about naked calories that is calories that don't carry with them the vitamins minerals and proteins that are needed for metabolism sugar ranks. Probably first on the list starch is also that way if you're talkin about refine starch and cornstarch added to food to thicken, it is another refined carbohydrate that is essentially naked calories, but there's a difference between cornstarch and white sugar both are naked calories, but sugar is A simple carbohydrate and starch is a complex carbohydrate. That means that the sugar is immediately instantly absorbed and on the other hand while on the other hand the starch is broken down very gradually chipping off sugar molecule starch is just a chain of sugar molecules hook together. So when you eat starch to sugar molecules are broken off one-by-one and absorbed by the body so that you get a more steady source of fuel carbohydrate is not a bad thing to eat starch is not a bad thing to eat. Carbohydrate is the best fuel for the body, but there are different forms of carbohydrate and the worst form of carbohydrate is that which is simple already broken down? So it's absorbed very rapidly which means the body can't cope with it and come that floods the body and then it's all finished. That's what we call sugar. And then also a carbohydrate is not very suitable. If it is deficient in other nutrients, so the ideal carbohydrates should number 1 B complex carbohydrate meaning starch but it should also be accompanied by protein vitamins minerals and all the other things that are needed to burn that fuel. So here we're talking about a whole food meaning whole grains whole beans things that are rich in starch but also accompanied by protein vitamins minerals is it's a complete package is the nutritional package in a whole grain is a nutritional package refined starches not refined. Sugar is even worse. So what happens when we take sugar arm blood sugar shoots up because the body absorbs the the sugar molecules so fast and we got a rush of energy refill. I yes, that's what I was looking for. It's almost like a high but then that sugar is used up very quickly and then the blood sugar in many people not all people playing many people the blood sugar tends to drop after that and it often will plunge too low and that goes from a very high blood sugar to very low blood sugar at which point person begins to feel trembly and we can nervous and shaky, which is what we call hypoglycemia, which just means low blood sugar. Some people respond to Sugar more drastically than other some people have the ability to maintain their blood sugar at a constant level other people for many reasons allow it to plunge to low. Some of these reasons are psychological emotional. If a person who stays calm and remains balanced and centered then he can handle sugar better than someone who doesn't but if a person consistently eat sugar in large doses then he begins to undermine his ability to remain calm and stay centered because he's eating his body of minerals and vitamins and so forth and he's giving his body constant jolt eventually it will in most cases begin to break down the body will begin to break down and he will become increasingly susceptible to these attacks that we give me some friendly we call hypoglycemia, so Let the point here is not that sugar is All To Blame nor that sugar is unimportant, but that the two things work hand-in-hand a person's mental emotional state can enable him to handle a dose of sugar very well. But if he persists inconsistent leaves lots and lots of sugar then he will gradually undermine his emotional and mental balance and then he handles sugar in a worse and worst more disastrous way and then we end up with a person who is shaky and nervous and and we may say neurotic anxious whatever and may be diagnosed is hypoglycemic. Okay. Thank you. We're talkin was dr. Rudolph Valentine Valentine. Pardon me about diet and nutrition and if you'd like to ask doctor Ballantyne a question you can do so by simply calling to to 11550 in the Twin Cities area to to 11550. If you live out of state you can call us toll-free at one 800-652-9700. Listener on a line with a question. Go ahead with your question, please. Chick-fil-A And I act greatly Augmentin medication and if so why this is or I might say to remain calm and quiet and centered and become more aware of himself, which is really what medication is about. And yes, it has been almost universally saw in many cultures that the people who were going to do meditation the people who were going to cultivate more self-awareness the people who were going to be try to become calmer and more centered and Lita a more selfless and and spiritually oriented life, but those people should stay away from meat in India. For example, people think the Indians are all vegetarians that's not true. And the tradition laws that the people who were warriors the people who were political figures took meat and they took meat and they took alcohol But the people who were to devote themselves to a more spiritual life, we were supposed who who wanted to to become more aware of themselves in and develop the kind of practice that we call meditation. These people were told not to take me or alcohol for that matter. Why would this be we don't really know there's very little research done in the west that would throw any light on this question, but we can speculate a little bit and I've done that in the book. Nutrition and we trying to to just suggest why would it be some reasons why it might be that the eating meat would interfere with one's ability to be more alert and calm psychologically and we know that That meeting came into being and human race at a time when vegetable Foods were not available and we develop the capacity to eat me and handle it digested and so forth. We also of course at the same time and Anthropologist will tell us that the shape of our bodies changed at the time that we began to eat meat not only our digestive system but also our legs and arms we develop the capacity to run and we became lighter and more life. We became Hunters so we know that there is a biological link between eating meat and hunting and we know that's true in terms of the shape of the body, but it's probably true in terms of one's mental state as well. It wouldn't be surprising in other words to suggest that when a person is in evolutionarily when we were required when the human being was required to live on meat that he also needed to have the aggressiveness and the push the drive to get Hunt and kill because you couldn't eat meat unless you hunted and killed what they mean. That was pretty important, especially the males in most cases. So maybe tied into the physiology of the human being especially in the mail as the men need when eating meat to stimulate hunting impulses and killing impulses smell a number of anthropologist over the ages have suggested that in those cultures where Kurds were kept for meat and his animals were grown domestically the butcher to use as a meat source that these are the cultures where Warfare became more of a problem. We're different tribes and regions would begin to war against others for apparently no reason the idea being that if you're eating to me, but you're not hunting then you're stimulating the MVA aggressive impulses in the feelings of wanting to get out and hunt and kill but you have no channel to directed and too because every day you go out and you keep the herd When you grow the crops, but they're all those aggressive impulses that are being stimulated by the consumption of meat. So, where do they go? They maybe they go into social problems and tendency to Warfare on self-worth. Certainly. They may impede your ability or interfere with your ability to sit calmly and quietly and do meditation. There are number of father's waiting. So let's go to the next listener, please doctor Ballantyne is listening for your question. Go ahead and an objection to calling him a nutritionist because last week you had a real legitimate nutrition is done. I don't know what his credentials are, but he's feeling a book. He's got some Himalayan Institute. It's a sad kind of talk and I really appreciate you calling him a nutrition when he's really just here selling a book. Yes. This is a charge that that I've heard before that this is a fad kind of thing that we're talkin about. It's really not in fact. What we're trying to do is to go back to the roots of nutrition and the the Traditions that people have followed for hundreds and thousands of years. And when we talked about using Whole Foods using whole grains and vegetables and beans this is certainly something that's not a fad. This is the original die of man in this is you might say what we are designed to eat there been drastic changes in the diet in the last 50 years than Americans follow and a lot of that. I have detailed in the book. Nutrition. Power consumption of soft drinks in our consumption of what we call junk Foods has increased tremendously in the last few years. And this is really more of what I think should be called a fan and not the return to the original kinds of foods that man is biologically adaptive. There's another caller on the line. Go ahead with your question doctor Valentines with me if I have begun to practice yoga recently and in the process of practicing the Hatha Yoga has also become interested in the yoga Prince of principles of nutrition, which play sound very much like what you're talking about. But one question that I have has to do with I bake my own bread. All right, and I'm and I'm interested in the idea of the whole grain it so many of the recipes come by and whole grain with some of the unbleached white flour and want something. I read recently that you cannot accept the fact that you're getting something media. Quality if you take something top quality and then combine it with the 15th to say The White Flower and that you should stick only two totally whole grain breads because anything else is just that it's kind of like the principle of the of the bad driving out the good now. I'm I'm interested in your opinion on that on that whether you really agree in a weather. In fact combining baking really just takes away the good of the whole grain and this is where we do get into the extremes that we called fans people want to go from one extreme to the other and in this country. We have been in the last 50 years hundred years. We've shifted gradually to to flower which is extremely respond. We use a flower in this country that's called 60% extraction rate, which means it 40% of the weed is thrown away. In Europe friends, since they use a higher extraction rate flower which means 70 or 80 per-cent usually 80% means that they only throw 20% of the weed away, which is the course is bran and the result is that their bread has more flavor than our bread does now, you don't have to go to either extreme. You don't have to use perfectly white flour where you're throwing away a lot of the nutritional value of a queen or do you have to use a hundred percent? Whole-wheat I think something in between is preferable. There is a lot of research that's been done on grains and and weak and actually the different aspects of the the grain the different layers and bran are not all the same and some of the layers of brand are virtually devoid of any nutrients and yet they cause problems by creating gas and and so forth in the intestinal tract, so the outer layers and bran are better discarded whethan The best flower is about a 92 extraction rate where you throw away just the outer course layers of Brandon. You keep the rest of the colonel. Unfortunately, this is not available in most places people try to imitate that by adding a little bit of unbleached white flour in with the grain and that helps a little bit but that's not really the same thing. I think that maybe the day will come soon in this country when we use a higher extraction Rye flour for economic reasons. We are often throwing away a lot of the valuable part of the week. So I think that may answer your question. Okay, we have time for just one more question her and that person is on the line right now. Go ahead doctor Valentines. Play vegetarian diet were more likely to be able to go for a longer. Of time. I see this in my practice to and a lot of my ideas on nutrition are taken from watching people change their diets and seeing what happens to them when they eat a different diet and this is why I didn't get a response the lady earlier. I do consider myself a nutritionist not because I teach nutrition in college, but because I work with it in my practice and I've watched people over many years changing diets trying different kinds of diets and seen what happens to the way they function during that time and I do certainly have the feeling that people who begin to reduce the amount of meat in their diet have less trouble with headaches. They have less trouble with fatigue and they generally feel lighter and more energetic we're out of time. Dr. Rudolph Ballentine who is a nutritionist a physician and a psychiatry. Thanks very much for being with the with me today. Your book guide nutrition holistic approach. Is that available here in the Twin Cities? Yes. The book is really officially released only the 1st of September, so it's not actually officially published yet, but pre-release copies are available now, and they're available at 631 University Avenue Northeast. That's some at The Meditation Center 631 University Avenue, and then also in Hopkins. We have a center Yoga Center 901 Excelsior Avenue in Hopkins, Minnesota by September that should be available in bookstores in Minneapolis, call. Thanks very much your dad also now with a look at news headlines.