(00:00:00) Joseph piscatella, welcome back to Minnesota public Bank you dance nice to be here and Joseph piscatella is a name and voice familiar to some of you because we believe that this is possibly his third time now in the Minnesota Public Radio studio. And the first of course was to talk about his first book and now he is back to talk about. What is the third book don't eat your heart out the cookbook collaboration Joseph piscatella and his wife Bernie piscatella have put together about 400 recipes in in the Preamble section of this book Joe lays out his life story which includes the dramatic recovery. What from what could be called the American way of eating Joe had coronary bypass surgery what seven eight years ago. It'll actually be 12 years 12 years ago, July and then he went on a diet and weight reduction plan in an effort to Stave off future blockage of arteries leading to the heart and that brings us up to today and Joe piscatella is probably the frequent recipient of lots of Is on the street because he Bears a shocking resemblance to Michael Dukakis and I can imagine all sorts of Democrats walk up to you and say gosh governor and just so sorry. I don't know. I think most of them are walking away from it down. It was interesting. I did an interview at Cable News Network during the height of the campaign about cholesterol. And when I walked into The Newsroom everyone stood up and I said, I'm just so pleased you're all involved in the cholesterol issues with that of course wasn't it at all and of course you play into it a little bit by wearing a pinstripe suit white shirt and the dark red ties. So you're really kind of playing into well, we want to get to this issue so that our listeners can join in on this conversation to about diet heart disease in the United States and abroad Joe has been abroad and has talked about his work and his book abroad and will give out those telephone numbers in just a moment publisher Joe sent along just a briefest of introductions. Joseph piscatella was a successful hotel management executive in Tacoma, Washington and he was Busy concentrating on his career raising his family and then at age 32 the doctor said quote you are a heart attack statistic waiting to happen and then a week later you were in surgery for coronary bypass. And then since then Joseph piscatella has become an author now given your attention to eating less saturated fat as part of your diet, isn't it? Also the case Joe that genetic predisposition must have a lot to do with heart disease and what about your personal situation? We have operated under a little bit of an illusion in this country that this was primarily a genetic problem. You know, we've only had heart disease in this country since the end of World War II we did not have it up to that point and since the end of World War Two, I'm sure virtually all males and perhaps females as well have been asked the question has your father had a heart attack as your grandfather had a heart attack as part of an annual physical. So we've come away thinking this was genetics and what we know now according to the most recent information from Stanford University Medical School is about 15 percent of people with high cholesterol and coronary disease in this country have it because of bad genes but 85% of us have it because of of what has been handed down in terms of dietary habits smoking habits sedentary habits the way we handle stress lifestyle habits if you will and that means that we really have control over whether or not we we have we have this disease. That was a situation with me. I have no genetic history in my family. My dad is 75 years old with a cholesterol of 168. My brother's a year younger than I am with a cholesterol of 170. I historically ran a cholesterol of 250 which my doctor erroneously told me was normal. Now what he meant to say was average for an American because we run a hundred points higher than the rest of the world my cholesterol today's a hundred and sixty-eight. So your of Mediterranean heritage. Italian Italian background. Yeah, right and that's another linkage isn't it with the Governor from Massachusetts? Although he's from a little bit farther east is in the islands of Greece. And and so you're saying that in in the homeland of your father, this is not a problem as it is in America. It is not in most parts of the world. In fact, we have so much problem in this country that we tend to think it's natural I read articles about I read an article the other day about a football coach that died of a heart attack was found in a hotel room at age 42 and it said he died of natural causes. Well, that's crazy. It's ridiculous. When you look around the world. There's no disease to speak of in Africa South America Asia and southern Europe Italians. Don't die of heart attacks Italian Americans do same thing with Greeks. And of course Japanese never have the disease, but when they come to this country eat the American diet their cholesterol levels get to the same as the rest of ours and so does the rate of heart disease? So here's what the latest snow from Joseph piscatella joined by He piscatella his wife in this effort. Don't eat your heart out cookbook and the Preamble by Joe and then about 400 recipes. Now, where did these recipes come from? Well, we really made them up. We came to the conclusion after I came home from the hospital. I remember the first lunch that I had was tuna with nothing mixed into it on some kind of cardboard e bread and I said to Bernie I said, I may have survived the surgery but I'm never going to survive lunch. I mean if this is it, we're in deep trouble. So we came to the understanding that most American families prepare 8 to 10 recipes 80% of the time so our emphasis in don't eat your heart out in the other books I've done is really to educate people to how to look at their own recipes strip out the negatives and yet keep the positive taste. There's a quality of life issue here and we give them about 450 recipes to practice on and they're really mainstream recipes sure and not surprisingly. There's a pretty hefty a sampling of pasta. Recipes and then you do get back to a red meat section as sure you learn that red meat one of the problem areas, but it's heavy emphasis on Lamb Of course. Well, actually we give people a range. I don't think it's it makes much sense to take people who are used to eating a lot of red meat in their diet and tell them okay starting tomorrow, you're on bananas and tofu. That's it. That'll last about three days. And so I would rather have people understand that their you can have red meat in the diet. We look to moderate it with cuts that contain less fat cooking methods that are better and we teach a method called how to stretch the meat which is a little bit an example would be in the old days. I would take a pound of hamburger and make for hamburgers out of it today. I'll take a pound of ground round and make spaghetti sauce 48 freeze half of it use half of it. Everybody gets a flavor, but you're not od'ing on the saturated fat. Well, let's allow the listeners to join in this conversation with our studio guests Joseph piscatella author and we'll take some questions. About the diet about heart disease and all sorts of other things that Joe's prepared to talk about in the Twin Cities. You can call us at two to seven six thousand 2276 thousand listeners outside the Twin Cities area with in Minnesota. This is a toll-free number no charge for this call at one eight hundred six five to ninety. Seven hundred one 800 695 hundred with your questions for our guests Joseph piscatella. Now your family man. How many kids in the family to do kids? What did the kids think of this diet change from as you put it the Big Mac and french fries syndrome to stuff that's healthier. They were fairly young at the time about I would say about my daughter was probably seven. My son was about five and there was a radical change for them. Actually the key is if you're preparing healthy food that tastes good. You can bring the kids along with it. No problem. For example, if you want to give up Big Macs, but your alternative is baked white fish on a white plate you're in trouble, but if it is fettuccine a seafood fettuccine, for example, then you're not in big trouble and the kids will like it the one problem. My kid's dad was with skim milk. They said dad will do anything you want to do this diet, but we're not drinking blue milk. So what we did was we took one percent milk and skim milk and we continued to mix them adding more and more skim but we served it for four months in a 2% Carton and they never caught on subterfuge when all else fails try subterfuge with children and it's been known to work and it's been done will go to the telephone for our first questioner for our guests Joseph piscatella. Go ahead you're on the (00:08:41) air. Thanks have two questions, please one is I'd like to know if the effects of cholesterol and anything that a person has done in their past life is cumulative. I mean, is that something that you can you can get rid of it? Somehow it is is that they're understanding? And the other question is if you could comment on the cholesterol dangers in different kinds of shellfish, I'll hang up and listen. (00:09:05) Thanks. Yes, first off. We've always the the accumulation of cholesterol builds up over the years and the question has been is it reversible? Can you shrink the size of the blockages of the coronary arteries now, we've known that that could happen in rhesus monkeys that were tested. And so finally the National Institutes of Health has commissioned 16 studies to look at people the results of the first study from the University of Southern California is in and it shows that if you can get your total cholesterol under 180 and there are two parts. You must know there's good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. The bad cholesterol is called LDL cholesterol and that should be under a hundred and thirty the good cholesterol is called HDL and that should be under oh, it should be over 40. So basically if you can get your cholesterol under a hundred and eighty in this test, it showed that the blockages were reversed in the Around the test that's awfully good news for those of us that are carrying around blockages. And if you're an American and mail and over the age of 35, I will bet my red tie that you have at least one artery 50% block the second question dealt with shellfish. This is all new thinking we used to say do not eat shrimp Lobster any of the shellfish because it was too high in cholesterol that thinking has been totally reversed. All of the shellfish is now acceptable. In fact, I posed a question to dr. William castelli who heads the Framingham study in Framingham, Massachusetts, and I said, what about shellfish? We're getting all this new information about fish oil. What should we be doing? He said heck clams mussels oysters. Those are the vegetarians of the sea eat them all you want. So it's really come about because of two reasons one was the original cholesterol level attributed to shellfish such as shrimp which was done 30 years ago was a near they made an error they A total sterols instead and cholesterol only makes up one part of that. So you're you actually have a lower level and shellfish than we thought and the second thing is the fish oil is so beneficial and the in the research shows that if you could have seven and a half ounces of fish a week that it that it protects you from having a heart attack that includes shellfish. Yeah, the media picked up on that fish oil fed here either a few months ago a few years ago my memory evaporates here with time and with heart blockage. I'm sure but I wonder if there haven't been some significant qualifications to well there. It's it was the media and of course, you know, we're used to USA today's headlines and it's going to explain everything and it was also advertisers all of a sudden what appeared were for fish oil capsules and nobody knows what fish oil capsules do. So in fact the Heart Association University of California Berkeley and Tufts University in Boston have all said get your the data shows fish oil from fish is what is acceptable and works. We don't know what fish oil capsules. To all right back to the telephone with another question for our guest Joseph piscatella and you're on the air go ahead. Please (00:12:05) relatively healthy 60 year old, but I want to be remain healthy and and I'm starting on a diet as of today and have decided to start out with a two-day fast. Have you studied fasting at all? And would you discuss (00:12:20) that? Yeah, I don't fasting to cleanse. The body is a theory that doesn't have much there's not a lot of credible medical information in my opinion that's going to back that up. What totally fasting does in many instances is actually to reset your metabolism downward making it much much easier to gain weight on a permanent basis. I would much prefer people take a look at stripping the fat out of their diet, but not, you know not going to a total fast because I don't believe that really does the body any And there's there's a whole sky mean. I know that that will produce some reactions from some people who are really into fasting but the medical research that I've done really indicates that a moderate diet that is low in fat high in complex. Carbohydrates is far better from a cardiovascular standpoint than any kind of a fasting program. Now before we get too much farther along the line, I think everybody is clear on the fact that Joseph piscatella is an author and an advocate he is not a medical doctor. He's not a dietitian, although probably by now with all the reading and research you've done you probably approach what make qualify for training as a dietitian. Well, what I do is a little bit different my role is to communicate I go to the top people in the field for example of forwards onto of my books are written by. Dr. Denton Cooley. My books are used in over fifty five hundred hospitals in coronary education programs, but I do not do the research. I'm not I don't make No Seas or anything like that. I communicate what's there because one of the problems today is how do you take sophisticated information on cholesterol and make it meaningful for someone when he or she goes one-on-one with his or her refrigerator? And that's the key. All right. Let's go back to the telephone. Wait a minute. We have to get some more calls in before we go to the telephone and we want to do that right now by giving out the telephone number we're speaking with our guest Joseph piscatella in the studio here in st. Paul and inviting your questions and we'd like to hear from you in the Twin Cities. Give us a call at two two seven six thousand two two seven six thousand listeners outside the Twin Cities area. Give us a call toll free if you live within Minnesota one 865 to 9700 1-800-695-1418. There we go. Now we've got some business for our guests and so will bring up the next questioner. Hello. It's your turn. Go ahead, please. (00:14:51) Thank you very much. I'm in kind of a unique situation is that I'm very thin. I'm trying to gain weight and I'm wondering You have any suggestions on how to gain weight and still keep the cholesterol (00:15:01) down? Yeah, what you really want to gain is muscle rather than wait. That's what we'd like to maximize. What we really want to lose is fat rather than weight. So I could suggest a I think a couple of things to you, you know one would be a regular program particularly of aerobic exercise to help build up muscles and the other would be if you wanted to to increase the the caloric intake then you would look at the complex carbohydrates like pastas grains rice and that type of thing one of the best things you can do. However to make sure things are all in balance is perhaps counsel with a registered dietician and have he or she work out an actual menu plan for you that could take you over the course of some weeks or so months and then and then you're able to to see what your gain is back to the telephone another listener and go ahead Joseph is Joseph. Piscatella is listening. Go ahead. (00:15:52) I was wondering if your book would be a help to someone who is living alone and often doesn't have much time to cook uses the microwave a lot. (00:16:01) Yeah, I think it We get into what you can do quickly with a either with a family or with a loan. For example when I make a chicken stock myself what which if you're living alone, you'd probably buy a can of chicken soup. We teach people how to put that into the refrigerator. Let it stay for a day or two have the fat come to the surface and skim it off so you can throw the fat away and have defatted stock. Well that can be frozen in a tupperware kind of a container. Okay. Now the one person wants to have something you can defrost the soup throw in left over rice or pasta put in some fresh spinach Bingo. You've got a very tasty and nutritious meal and it's very very quick. I think the key to healthy eating and eating healthfully has to be that it tastes good. It doesn't cost a lot of money and you don't have to spend eight hours in a grocery store line and we've taken all that into consideration one of the items in the book by Joseph piscatella is a set of pages with a number of charts including sugar content in common foods and then Other page milligrams of sodium in a lot of foods including a lot of prepared and boxed foods. And of course right number of parents will be disheartened a number already are disheartened to learn that boxed macaroni and cheese mixes are fairly high in sodium and that's a favorite among kids. Well, you need to learn how to read a label because we have a tremendous amount of misconceptions. For example, 2% milk is not 2% fat. It's 38 percent fat 2% tells you what the fat ways in the carton. It has nothing to do with the way your body utilizes that milk it we utilize by calories many of the chicken and turkey hot dogs, which say they're 95% fat-free. That's only by weight by calories. They range anywhere from 50 to 80 to someone as high as 85 percent fat. So when you look at you you need to be able to and we teach people and don't eat your heart out my other book choices for a healthy heart. How do you look at a label and find out what's in the food because you talked about sugar heck one Fig Newton has five teaspoons of sugar. I mean we've got to get real on this step back to the telephone with another question and it's your turn. Go ahead, (00:18:08) please thank you. Could you tell tell me what triglycerides are where they come from where the Test results in readings that you get from your doctor where they stand in relation to the other factors lat. Well, it's (00:18:23) when you get a blood profile triglycerides are one of the blood fats that are measured in generally if you are below a hundred and fifty there's absolutely no problem. If you're between 150 and 300 then they might start to watch it and over 300 they'll be concerned with it. Now triglycerides act just as cholesterol acts to group up the coronary arteries. The arteries are very smaller about the size of a piece of cooked spaghetti. So the hose the whole is very small and triglycerides can get layered down and and block the way of the blood triglycerides are very sensitive to two things. They're sensitive to body weight. So people that lose weight end up reducing their triglycerides and they are sensitive to Sugar refined sugar in the diet. Now the American diet produces a hundred and twenty eight pounds of sugar per person a year and when you look at things like, you know, one Fig Newton five teaspoons of sugar 1 Gumdrop 2 teaspoons of sugar. A glazed donut six teaspoons of sugar in one glazed donut then you come to understand that if you're into processed foods at all, then you're into a lot of sugar and that has something to do in many people with their triglyceride level or questions for our guests Joseph piscatella, and it's your turn. Go ahead, please. No, there's not really except that when you're on a high sugar diet invariably are also on a high fat diet because we don't just eat spoonfuls of sugar. We mix it with chocolate. We mix it with other kinds of fats so that you're taking in a tremendous amount of calories because of the fat so sugar has a relationship to obesity levels in this country. And as a nation, we are 1.5 billion pounds overweight and one of the reasons we are is because we like sweet things that also contain a lot of fat, you know when you when you think about You know and something like a candy bar we tend to think about the sweet taste that's involved. But that sugar has now been blended with coconut oil and chocolate and numbers of other things in order to produce that candy bar. And it's the oil portion of it that contains the calories and then did you have a second question sir (00:20:35) back to my original question goes back something mentioned earlier you gave a figure for the so-called good and bad levels of cholesterol. I had a cholesterol test 034 months ago and the one part it was just slightly over 200. The other was something like a hundred eighty. I was told at the hundred eighty was really a significant one that the other one. I needn't pay much attention to but even at a hundred eighty sounds quite a bit higher than you usually when I've seen charts. They show a range of good poor and bad yet put yours into range of like that. (00:21:07) Well, let me let me tell you what the newest thinking is on it some of the ranges came out and and they were acceptable at the I'm although now in retrospect. We still think they're a little bit High the national goal is to have your total cholesterol be under 200. Okay, that's the total cholesterol goal. But as I said before the makeup of that total cholesterol in terms of the HDL the good cholesterol is very critical. So when you get your total cholesterol tested that only gives you one answer you also want to know how much of that is good. Okay, because it's a little bit like you can take two people they both weigh a hundred pounds, but if one is 99 pounds of fat in one pound of muscle the others 99 a muscle and one pound of fat, you've got two fundamentally different bodies and yet the total says a hundred. So when you get your total cholesterol measured you want to ask the physician. How much is HDL in males? There's a minimum there. She you should be no less than 20% hdls if you are you're at risk no matter what your level is in females its twenty two and a half percent. If you're below that you're at risk no matter where you are. I would rather have a cholesterol level of 220 and be 30% HDL. Cholesterol level of 180 and be 10% HDL back to the telephone with another listener question. And it's your turn. Go ahead. (00:22:23) Thank you. I just got a report back and it gave me a reading and HDL 3200 l and an LDL of 150 28. That's just curious what that would mean based on what you're talking about (00:22:36) this set an ELD. What was your total cholesterol number to (00:22:41) 11 H. (00:22:41) 211 is your total in? The HDL is 32? Yeah. Okay. So if you divide the to 11 into 32 to get your percentage and I don't have a calculator here in front of me and I probably can't do long division anymore. But as a percentage basis, you're going to be less than then something under a 15% would ya you're less than twenty or twenty percent minimum. Do you see that? No, I don't. Well in other words the 32 makes up less than 20% of 211. If you were going to be 20% of your total you'd have an HDL of 42, correct, right? Okay, but yours is 32. So it's below where you want to be. Now the single best way you can raise that as to be on a regular program of aerobic exercise. That's what raises HDL. That's why we look for a balance between diet and exercise. You need to take a look at perhaps and it's moderate exercise. We're not talking about the Boston Marathon. We're talking about working up to where you're able to walk 45 minutes a day for four days a week running 12 to 15 miles a week over the course of four days, which is minimal. That's all it needs to take place to have hdls be raised. I hope that answers the question for you. All right a lot of callers on the line and we'll get to the next one right now. Joseph. Piscatella is listening for your question. Go ahead. (00:24:09) Thank you. I was wondering what is the status of the egg at this point and particularly for those? Who have otherwise a low cholesterol level? Thank you. (00:24:20) The the American Heart Association says try to take in no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol in one day one egg is 250. So for the vast majority of us who need to be concerned about cholesterol. You just simply cannot have two eggs every morning and have that particularly since our eggs in other parts of the of the food that we eat. But the the problem is not the egg. The problem is the egg yolk. And if you if you look at all the ways that you can use egg whites to supplement whole eggs in all kinds of different recipes than it opens up a tremendous World Force. For example, if you look at the standard french toast recipe it took calls for four eggs beaten in milk dip in the bread and you cook it up. All right use one whole egg and three egg whites. You just cut the cholesterol in the recipe by 75% but there's no change in taste you see If you use I have a recipe in my books, it's called egg substitute. You can also buy commercially obviously and it calls for egg whites a little nonfat milk a dash of safflower oil and I put turmeric in it, which is a spice that turns it all yellow because I like my eggs yellow but with the exception of hard-boiled and sunny side up you can do anything with that egg substitute you do with whole eggs and I'm talking about scrambled eggs omelets Hangtown fries huevos rancheros Crepes pancakes. All those can be made with egg whites. And that's cholesterol-free we're speaking with Joseph piscatella who is visiting Minnesota Public Radio for about the third time. We estimate and his latest book don't eat your heart out cookbook and collaboration with his wife burning piscatella and about 400 recipes and a sticker on the front cover of the book says diet guidelines recommended by the national cholesterol education program. What's that? And who are they it's a government program. That's an offshoot of the National Institutes of Health that really has done the research in the last few years to look at the critical let Critical levels of cholesterol and what the problems are this is the group for example that is set the new guidelines. It said the goal is to be under under 200. This is the group that also has done the research that shows if you can reduce your cholesterol level by one percent. That's not one point but by 1% you reduce your risk of a heart attack by 2% and they are the group that has established the dietary guidelines that in order to lower cholesterol that's accepted by the medical community in this country. And that's what we use as our basis selling for about $15 this cookbook published by workmen Publishers based in New York City and Joe must be traveling the country. This is part of the book tour. I take it. Yes it is. Yeah, and also I do a lot of lecture work and actually I'm on my way to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend to do a lecture there and thought I would stop here because I like this area so well great. Well, we hope to get you on to Notre Dame and due course you're worried about halfway through our discussion with Joe and were taking listener questions and yours Next go ahead, (00:27:16) please thank you. I just recently read a very interesting article that was published in one of the medical journals and it had to do with an experiment done on rats where they used high levels of dietary magnesium to lower serum cholesterol levels and they found that they give very high levels of magnesium. They got absolutely dramatic decreases up to 40% in ramp. Are you aware of any studies in humans relating to high levels of magnesium in the diet? And what are your comments on that? What are your recommendations? I'll hang up lunch to answer that. (00:27:49) Okay. Thank you. I am not aware of any Indian humans at yet. We're really looking at a number of ways to lower cholesterol levels using foods and I'm at this point. I'm kind of content to sit back and let them run their experiments because we do need to do a lot of experimentation before we get into a situation where it we can apply it to the public and I'll give you an example. Oat bran was studied for a long time before it came out in the public market. And now we know that oat bran will lower cholesterol levels. However, we also need to get a little bit realistic about this because the studies that we're done at the University of Kentucky by dr. Jimmy Anderson actually use three and a half ounces of oat bran a day. Well now your basic 1/3 of a cup in the morning is 1 ounce. So and I'm talking dry. So, you know, you'd have to eat massive amounts of oat. Bran in order to get that cholesterol level down now the key is this it's not the oat bran. That's magic. It's the soluble fiber in Old brand that's magic and the same soluble fiber is found in apples and oranges and carrots. So I am a person that eats. I eat a half a cup dry of oat bran every morning. I mean I cook it up at the measurement as a half a cup dry. That's about half of what I really need. I supplement that with apples oranges and carrots. I do not supplement it by the way with commercial oat bran muffins, and there's another word for Those guys are called. It's called cake you see and because I can simply I cannot afford an extra 6 to 800 calories a day in commercially prepared oat bran muffins just in order to pick up something which I could get from apples and oranges boy 3 to 4 cups of raw oat bran each day. You'd start growing a main and need new shoes. It's three and a half ounces but it's better than a cup. Dry stand winning. Yeah. All right back to the telephone and we'll take another question. It's your turn. (00:29:44) I'm curious. Are they ready to say now that diet may be a cause of heart disease and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about epidemiologically comparing our country to other countries don't have (00:29:58) it is definitely a cause of high cholesterol, which is the cause of heart disease mean it really the disease takes place in the artery. And so it's coronary artery disease and it can be caused by cholesterol. The interesting thing is I'd mention areas in the world where this does not exist. There are other there are areas. World where it does exist and are very few the United States Canada the British Isles Northern Germany and Scandinavia. And when you look at those countries, you find a commonality in the diet in all of those areas. If you had to cut through the ethnic differences and everything else, you would find a diet that could be classified as sweet and salty fat. That's the makeup of that diet. When you look at Northern Europe, you're looking at a beer and butter culture compared with southern Europe, which is a wine and oil culture. You don't have heart attacks and Italy Spain and Greece you do have heart attacks in Northern Germany and Scandinavia, why well principally because of dairy dairy products, but the fat content of the diet as the fat content of the diet goes up so does cholesterol levels when you measure cholesterol in Japanese living in Tokyo, it's very low there on the agent typical low fat asian diet when you measure Japanese living in Honolulu who traditionally have half of an Eastern diet half of a western diet cholesterol levels are higher when you measure cholesterol levels, Japanese in Los Angeles where it is and it's a hundred percent Western diet. You have cholesterol levels consistent with the rest of the country. So it's very very much a product of diet back to the telephone and another listener question for Joseph piscatella. Go ahead, please it's your turn. (00:31:29) Yes, sir. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what I would consider truth in labeling. What's that with the government may be doing about trying to get a little bit of Truth on what the safe food products and they label it what they tell us is in it for instance an example. I'm looking at jar of peanut butter right now and says, it has 0 milligrams of cholesterol yet. It has 50 16 grams of fat and one serving and also other question is could you explain what kind of cholesterol levels partially hydrogenated oils have and (00:32:01) them the the state of labeling is not good. The thing is a labeling law was passed in 1938. And in those days they decided to use milligrams grams that type of You might know that's never been changed. Those are not common household measurements. So I don't know why we can't have truth in advertising on a cereal box. It says this cereal contains X teaspoons of sugar per serving as opposed to X grams of sucrose and other sugars or that we cannot have the fat by percentage of calories as opposed to the grams of fat. We need to have that be changed because it's like as I mentioned with a 2% milk, that's 38 percent fat a good example is this when you look at a label of say hypothetical can of pork and beans you're going to get two pieces of information one says how many calories in a serving so let's say a hundred and it also says how many grams of fat in a serving so let's say eight and that's all you're going to get. Well, what does that mean the way you understand this and I explained it in both don't eat your heart out and choices for a healthy heart is one gram of fat equals nine calories. That's a given. Okay. It's Sun comes up in the East now. We you have 8 grams of fat. They're worth nine calories apiece that 72 calories that come from fat. Well, you only had a hundred in the food if 72 come from fat at 72 percent fat with regard to the no cholesterol labeling that is applied very often to food. That is that has no cholesterol, but that is extremely high in fat. For example. There's a cheese. I live in the Seattle area. There's a cheese in my area of the country called mini col many cholesterol its claim to fame is its very low in cholesterol. All cheese is relatively low in cholesterol. This cheese is also 85 percent fat. That's the problem. You could put that sticker no cholesterol label on a bag of sand and it would be accurate back to the telephone and another listener question for Joe piscatella. Go ahead, please (00:34:01) I'm a Chinese soba food products. There are things that don't feel going to be a more important kind of foot in the filter in this (00:34:13) country. Well it No, the the Chinese and the Japanese have existed very very well on tofu as a main source of low-fat protein for years. I don't know whether or not it will catch on in this country mean it's been around for a long time. We tend to I think be more carnivorous. We like the Nash our teeth some so I have recipes that use tofu. I enjoy it myself. I certainly recommend it to people particularly when you can mix it into things like soups or chilies or that type of thing where can take on the flavor because it's pretty bland by itself. But I'm also a realist and I you know, I do not see us being on the verge of a tofu Revolution here. So I think what what so my comment is let's look at what we like to eat right now and see how we can modify those foods and I think that might be the the more realistic way to go course if some World Series championship teams becomes the tofu of Champions team Is hired by some company or some National Football League player is hired to tout the benefits of tofu. Then the picture changes or 9. Who knows what'll happen. Let's go back to the telephone with another listener question. It's your (00:35:27) turn. Yes. I have a question about the accuracy of cholesterol testing. It seems that I had some unusual results in the to cholesterol blood cholesterol tests that I had taken and I was wondering they're seeing my doctor seemed to indicate to me that there was some inconsistency to be expected and that the tests weren't that they're either there were different kinds of tests or that they weren't really what exactly you'd call (00:35:59) Reliable was this the the the finger prick method or what do they draw blood? (00:36:03) Well, you see they drew blood. Okay, (00:36:06) here's what the problem is and the government's working on it right now. There's a great deal of inconsistencies in the way different Labs measure blood and we've gotten a great deal of inconsistency from the same. Bob and so on the one hand we've been able to pinpoint where people should be that is under 200 on the other hand. We've got this system. That is so flexible in terms of numbers that they could be meaningless that's being tightened up as we as we're speaking and I believe that we're going to get more consistent results, but I think that if your results were all over the park, then it may pay for you in concert with your doctor to take two or three of these a couple of weeks apart from the same lab asking for the same procedure and seeing if you can strike something like an average that will at least let you know where you know, where am I in ballpark numbers within the next year or two. I think we're going to get a much higher degree of reliability with those numbers. Let's take another listener question for our guest Joseph piscatella. And it's your turn. Go ahead. Please (00:37:07) good afternoon. The lately so called tropical oils have come under Fire. These are palm oils and coconut oil versus Like a soybean oil. Is this a real real problem The Tropical Oil people say it's like only three percent of our total American (00:37:24) diet. Well, I I would answer it in two ways. One is there it makes up a small percentage of the total fats that we take in we have a much larger problem with cholesterol in this country as a result of fat that comes from meat and whole milk products and the relationship is that certain fats including the tropical oils? Cause your body to produce more cholesterol and that's the reason on the other hand. We see tropical oils being used in places where they need not be with the only Criterion being they're cheap. They're inexpensive. So I when you look at at coconut oil and palm oil, for example, you'd be better off eating a large sandwich you'd have less saturated fat. So the question is if we know that that certain kinds of saturated fat can help produce coronary disease in people. Why should we be using it at all The Tell-Tale? Phrase on your label is made with one or more of the following oils because they might name a good oil and then they'll name a palm oil or coconut oil and because of the cost Factor. My feeling is a manufacturer is going to use palm oil or coconut oil as often as possible beware of things, like non-dairy creamers made with coconut oil your bet you get fewer calories and less saturated fat from real cream in your coffee than you do from a non-dairy creamer. So there is some reason to get those out of the diet. I think lots of colors waiting with their questions and we'll get to the next one. It's your turn (00:38:53) my wife. I've been trying to find a fish that she would eat. I found a imitation crab with the esteemed Alaskan Whitefish. I was wondering if this is as a because of its processing type thing if this is still Good, she will eat a lot of that and also the finger finger prick method of testing yet problem how accurate that (00:39:25) is. Okay, the the finger prick testing is used just as for screening purposes so that when you see it at a mall and you can get it for $4 or something and go through I always take advantage of those because I'd like to see about where I am. It gives me a Range even if it's 10% off. I still know that if the the figure came out at 250 even with a 10% off I'm in trouble. And so and that would then lead me if I came in significantly higher than 200 on the finger prick method. I would see my physician to have him draw blood and do a full cholesterol workup with regards to the imitation crab. I don't think there's really been any studies. I don't know whether the processing of the fish into crab really reduces the fish oils the studies that have shown fish to be effective in terms of reducing the Give heart attack and the reason it's effective as it keeps your blood thin and most heart attacks are produced by blood clots. It's the same reason why many people take aspirin every other day particularly heart patients. It's to keep blood thin. So fish oil does that I don't know I couldn't recommend it to you because I haven't seen anything that says what the oil content is, I could recommend the high fat fish like tuna like salmon and virtually any fish, even the low fat fish and shellfish will work. So what's your preferred cooking oil Joy? It sounds like sunflower is fairly odd. No actually the best oil to cook with his olive oil olive oil. Yeah. That's the you have the under the polyunsaturated oils are called corn oil safflower oil some sunflower soybean those types of things and then you have a mono unsaturated oil called olive oil peanut oil and canola oil. Well olives, the only one that's been studied but right now so that's the oil of choice. But the secret is you cannot load up on healthy oils because they're just so full of calories. So the Greedy is when you when it calls for an oil, you know use a healthy oil but minimize it so I will use a little bit of olive oil in a salad dressing because I like the taste I might cook with safflower oil or canola oil because it's a more neutral thing. But when people say to me, I no longer am using butter on two pieces of bread for a sandwich. I'm now using corn oil margin on two pieces of bread. I say you've gotten half the message put corn oil margin on one piece of bread put mustard on the other make the switch to the good oil but also reduce it because a high fat diet is not only a risk for coronary disease. It is a risk for colon cancer and it is risk for breast cancer. So if you're you know, I would not tell somebody get up in the morning have a shot of olive oil you're good for the rest of the day. That doesn't make sense back to the telephone more callers with questions for our guests Joseph piscatella, and it's your turn. (00:42:02) Amazon the market advertising themselves as 95 percent fat free how safe are these to use in a low fat diet? And what is your opinion of (00:42:12) them? Yeah, they're misleading their only 5% fat by weight. You need to calculate from the nutritional label what the real fat content is I have seen them rage range anywhere from 35 to 75 percent fat when you see the turkey bullet baloney products the chicken hot dog products, all of those types of things don't assume because it says low fat or because it's chicken or it's turkey that it is low-fat. You need to make that calculation that we just talked about. And as I say I go through it on a step-by-step basis in both don't eat your heart out and choices for a healthy heart. So and it's not difficult, but that's the only way you'll find out what's really in the food. It's the same with you know, we've had a turkey Revolution here everybody's in the turkey and turkey breast without the skin is 18 percent fat a chicken breasts without the skin is Percent fat those are terrific that compares with with you know, a flank steak is 55% prime rib is 85% But when you buy ground turkey in a package, it can be 52 percent fat. It can be much higher than ground round because it isn't just turkey meat that is put through the grinder its skin. It's fat. I mean who knows it could be beaks and feet if you can get it through but but the point of it is you have to be able to look at the label and understand what's really there. Otherwise, you don't know what you're putting in your mouth. All right. It's getting pretty rough here in the studio beaks and feet going through Grinders producing all sorts of things and we have about 14 minutes remaining in the conversation with our guest Joseph piscatella. Who is the author most recently don't eat your heart out cookbook along with his wife burning piscatella. They have put this together about 400 recipes and it cost $15 at the bookstore published by workmen Publishers. And now back to the telephone for the next question. Go ahead. It's your turn. (00:43:58) Good afternoon. I understand. The saturated fats and the effect on the body and the hydrogenation process but more and more products know are using partially saturated or partially hydrogenated soybean oil cottonseed oil, etc. Etc. And I haven't been able to find much literature on the effect of the partially hydrogenation process. Can you comment on that? (00:44:21) Yeah hydrogenated and I'm glad you brought this up because one of the other callers talked about peanut butter and it skipped my mind as I went through it hydrogenated is a hardening process that increases the saturated fat so that when you're going to buy corn oil margarine by the soft tub type margarine rather than the stick because the stick has more saturated fat when you buy peanut butter don't get the priesthood get the kind where the oil floats on the top. That's better partially hydrogenated is really not so bad. Although it differs from product to product the key and looking at those products particularly in margins is that the first ingredient is a liquid unsaturated oil. And then if they want to add some partially hydrogenated they may have to in order to make the product. It's not so bad. I'm willing, you know, I don't want to split hairs on this stuff with food processors that say, you know, I've got to do this in order to make the product but I do look for the first ingredient being liquid unsaturated oils. And then I know that it's acceptable another question for our guest Joe piscatella and it's your turn. Go ahead. Hello Joe. Hello. (00:45:25) I'm an advocate of the metric system and I was a little disappointed when you suggested going back to Spoons announces. I wonder if maybe folks might take their children along and have them convert for them in the grocery stores. (00:45:40) Well, if they're if they're like most kids they'll be just converting the sugar cereals. No, I'm understanding you. That's obviously that's a point and I my book don't eat your heart out. It's going to be used in Great Britain in the heart prevention program there and we had to recalculate all the mess recipes using the metric system. And so I know how non proficient I am in that but that's actually a good suggestion. But my point is that most people do not use the metric system and we would find it a lot more reasonable. Perhaps they could do both. I don't mind seeing for example, you look at it sugar cereal and it says sucrose and other sugars and it gives it to you in Graeme. So let's say it's a one serving has 12 grams of sucrose another sugars. Well, I know and I tell them I books that 4 grams equals one teaspoon. So, you know know that if it says 12 grams 3 teaspoons in the cereal before your child puts another two on top of it. Why could we not have both why could we not have something that the children could understand and I could understand as well. Why not back to the telephone and it's your turn for a question? Go (00:46:49) ahead Joseph piscatella. Yes in your book. Don't eat your heart out cookbook. Is that does that book include the different values of different foods and products? Like how many calories certain foods have Etc? (00:47:04) Yeah. Well, we actually break it down to the things that we want to look for in terms of cholesterol fat salt and sugar. And so I give lists and indexes of for example, how much sugar you can find in a certain calorie or soft drink. I also give it for salt content of shake and bake mix all those kinds of things but I don't give one listing of here is an apple it contains so many calories it has this kind of nutritional data. There are actually quite a number of books out that do that. I'm much more concerned with the dietary principles because in changing my diet I wanted to spend less time with know. Reason more times with principles because then it seemed to be a more reasonable and long-term approach for me other when I counted the numbers I felt like I was on a diet so they that information exists in perhaps part of the formula looking for in my books, but there are certainly a number of other books that have it in more detail more questions for Joe and it's your turn. Go ahead, (00:48:09) please good afternoon or good morning. I guess it's good afternoon. You mentioned sugars earlier as a high source of calories, which you comment compare it to Natural honey that those two and then related also to other fruits or net other natural sugars. Let's say if it's an apples and oranges here. Is this kind of a (00:48:29) thing the problem. There's not a lot of calories in sugar. I think there's something like 16 for a teaspoon. It's when sugar is Blended with fat that it becomes a problem and most of the sugar we eat in this country comes in the form of fat because it is Blended into the fat in a can. I for example when you look at so I'm not so concerned about sugar from a caloric standpoint. I am concerned about sugar from the standpoint of raising triglycerides. And when you look at it that way then there is no difference between honey molasses refined sugar turbinado all of them. They're all the same this sugar that's found in fruit is basically the same except that you get so much less on a per volume basis. You can only eat so many apples to get so much sugar, but you could eat a number of teaspoons of honey. For example, you could eat a number of MMS for example to take in far more sugar and less concentrated form by the way, Joe and his book does have a dessert section which some of the desserts Joe frankly look a little Spartan if you ask me poached pears here Frozen watermelon, come on now. Well, we also have chocolate cake in the book you wanted. We also have pumpkin pie. It's a question of where you know, Where you are, but poached pears after an elegant French dinner might be very very nice on the other hand. If it is, you know, I've always counseled fresh fruit for dessert, but on my birthday, I've never gotten turned on by a peach with a candle in it. I want chocolate cake. And so we have a recipe that uses safflower oil instead of shortening and it's actually quite good. All right back to the telephone more listener questions for Joe. Piscatella. It's your turn. Go (00:50:11) ahead. Thank you. Mr. Piscatella. I had I'd like to maybe put a little fly in the ointment. I just have a general question. I'm a little leery of specialty diets in general. I believe different people react to diets differently and maybe for the most part diet guidelines are based on statistical probabilities and things of that nature. I kind of agree with with dr. Harper at University of Wisconsin who says that really the only rational approach diet is to eat a variety of foods in moderation and to savor them. Would you agree that for the General Public? Maybe this approach the for the general public that may be somewhat active this approach is (00:50:52) valid. Well, that's the exact approach that I'm doing and don't eat your heart out. We have a number of foods that are low in debt are reasonable and what we're telling people is anything in moderation is okay. I'm never saying I do not say never eat an ice cream cone. Never have an Oreo cookie. I'm simply saying that we have 51% of all the deaths in this country come from heart and blood vessel disease that's unconscionable. It is related to diet. And so we need to make some modifications to the standard diet. Our bodies were not born to process M&M's I can tell you that they were not born to process that much fat. So we need to get back to sound principles of eating and we can apply those to produce foods that also taste good and will allow us to have virtually anything in moderation. This is not a specialty diet. This don't eat your heart out really tries to put out in layman's language how a person can Nibali approach healthy eating pattern. In fact, I hate the word diet. Someone once said to me it comes from the the verb to die and I did that's not true. But but it feels like what I'm talking about is a fundamental change in an eating pattern that I think would really help us individually and certainly help us as a society with this dreaded disease about five minutes remaining in the conversation and let's go to the next caller your question, please. (00:52:10) Yes, I have two quick questions one is when he was talking about having a half a cup of brand in the morning or Oprah. And is that regular oatmeal or is it a special kind of an old brand that he has to purchase? And secondly, I know that exercise has a beneficial effect on lowering cholesterol. But what is the minimum amount of exercise that one would have to get to have that (00:52:32) benefit? Okay. The oatmeal is almost as good as oat. Bran oat bran, you can buy in the cereal section of your grocery stores and it Cooks up much like a cream of wheat or that type of thing and I use If you're just getting started on it, you might want to use a third of a cup a dry because it takes you a little while to get used to that. I have worked my way up to a half a cup dry and that's a maximum amount for me oatmeal works very well when I'm traveling as I am now, for example, most hotels do not have owed brand. So I eat oatmeal and it works very well in terms of exercise as I mentioned before the critical reason for exercise is to be able to raise the good cholesterol and we're talking about a moderate amount I brisk walk and with that's defined as being able to cover one mile in 15 minutes or less. That's anaerobic Pace if you will walk 45 minutes three to four days a week. That's a minimal amount if you can run 12 to 15 miles in the course of the week, that's a minimal amount moderate amounts of swimming cross-country skiing any of those things are done. I think that if people get used to exercising regularly, and I'm talking about perhaps on an every other day basis with something they enjoy that Last at least between 30 and 45 minutes, then you are doing the more than the minimal amount in terms of changing your cholesterol levels a few more questions remain and we have time for perhaps one or two more and that includes yours. Go ahead, please. (00:54:01) Yes, you talked a lot about the danger of eating high fat diet as it relates to heart disease, but I've heard that there are some people in the world who eat a high fat diet and you get who have lower rates of heart disease like Eskimos are some of the peoples of southern Europe. How would you explain (00:54:18) that? Okay, the Eskimos don't eat animal fat. They eat fish Fat. Nobody eats Maury review right in this regard. No one eats more fat than an Eskimo, but it is Marine fat not animal fat and that's the reason that we encourage people to have fish in their diet fish fat fish oil is actually positive for you. There are other groups the southern Europeans. Do do have higher fat than other populations, but not as fast. As United States, but again, it's basically an olive oil that they're using you don't eat a lot of red meat for example in Italy or in Greece. There's much more chicken and fish you may get a little bit of veal. And and so the the types of fat have something to do as well as the total fat content. All right, what time for one more question I think and a fairly short response and it's your turn. Go ahead, (00:55:11) please. Yes Joe. This is I'd like to ask if you're familiar with the Donald route and book the Amiga three phenomenon and the studies using flax or linseed oil which is high in linolenic acid on rat and human experiment experiments to reduce cholesterol. (00:55:32) No, I haven't seen that in detail. Although I've heard about it and I'm going to pick it up and take a look at that linseed oil. As part of a diet. Yeah, I guess I hadn't heard about that. That's news to me. All right, do we have one more? Do we have one more? I think we have just a second left for another question if we have one maybe there is no there's one more caller. All right, here's the last question. Go ahead. It's your (00:55:55) turn. Thank you very much. And you mentioned something about no, you're not familiar with the fasting. Yeah, when you want a fast that white stuff in your arteries is a is a protein and when you go on a fast your body lose on that protein and two days when do much good but I have had to go to the hospital for a CAT scan and the doctor has fasted. I'm over 60 years old 65 years old while be this in July. And they said that I had fascinated by how clear my arteries were and I think that my fasting had a fruit facet great fast after I had cared but people should learn how to faster that they don't suffer. (00:56:47) All right a testimonial for fasting Joe piscatella that concludes the the visit to st. Paul. Thank you for having me. I enjoyed this. Thanks a lot for coming by Joe. Piscatella the author of don't eat your heart out cookbook published by Workman publishing and on sale for $15 in the bookstore 1495 actually and now Joe's on his way across country to another speaking engagement and thanks to all of you for calling in and to go where I'm and Sarah Mayer for handling the telephone call traffic now, we have a moment to bring you up on some of the weather information for our region. It looks as though Jose Flight is going to get out just fine this evening by the time he has to leave because the one to three inches of snow that is being predicted for the Twin Cities is Being forecast for a bit later on today, but there is one to three inches of news stole in store for us and there's some wind associated with that to 4:00 this afternoon in the Twin Cities a 60% chance of light snow around Minnesota. Generally this afternoon cloudy and Breezy with snow spreading across the state and a warmer temperature from 15 to 25 degrees and then tonight snow continuing in the East but can tapering off in Western Minnesota with overnight lows from zero in the Northwest to 15 above in the Southeast. That's midday for today technical directors Patty Ray Rudolph and David sleep. This is Dan Olson reporting. And this is ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul partly, sunny 12 degrees. And also K NS R FM 88.9 Collegeville, st. Cloud and WSC nfm 100 point nine Cloquet Duluth superior. The time now is one o'clock.