I thought I’d heard it all — until I read this reader letter

I really thought I’d heard it all, until I got the following letter from a faithful Reality Health Check reader:

Dr. Fred:

I had pneumonia recently, and ended up in the hospital. One doctor saw I was eating almonds. This doctor took a look at the almonds and warned me about eating them. “I need to eat snacks sometimes,” I told him, “and my friend Dr. Fred said nuts are a good snack.” This doctor retorted that almonds have “things in them called ‘calories’!” 

I had better not tell you what I said. It wasn’t very nice. But this doc said calories are dangerous and I should avoid them—especially fat calories.

I have been indulging myself with almonds ever since. LOL.

Thanks very much for the information I get from your newsletters! And I live in Australia, where macadamia nuts (and oil) are in plentiful supply. Come visit—the weather’s great!

Regards – T.V.

First of all, congratulations to you, “T.V.” Your reaction to this doctor was priceless, and hysterically funny. And I’m thrilled that you ignored his so-called “advice.” But his comments were even more stupid than what I normally expect from the mainstream medical community. And attitudes like his are exactly what is wrong with medicine today.

So, with that in mind, here’s an important reminder:

A calorie isn’t just a calorie.

As I’ve said before, your metabolism system doesn’t convert all calories to body fat with the same level of efficiency.  It takes the body 5 to 10 times more energy to digest high-protein foods (like nuts) than high-starch foods (like pretzels). And guess what? All that excess energy (i.e. calories) you have left over after digesting the starchy food gets converted into body fat.

This process—how the body uses food for energy, glucose production and fat storage—is a simple tenet of high school science, much less medical school. I cannot fathom that a doctor would not know this, but clearly, far too many mainstream physicians have forgotten their basic biology.

Like T.V., I encourage you to ignore the bad nutrition advice doled out by mainstream doctors. If you want to know how you should be eating to stay healthy and vibrant, stick with me. I’ll keep giving you all the tools you need—right here in the Reality Health Check and in my monthly Logical Health Alternatives newsletter


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