What is Dr Floyd Chilton's diet?

Answer 1

The modern American food supply gets much of the criticism it deserves as Dr. Chilton decries the products of factory farming and feedlot livestock management, including farmed fish, of course. Further, with our food cheap, plentiful, and routinely shipped coast to coast, Americans no longer eat locally or seasonally. "We are all feeding from a poisoned trough," declares Dr. Chilton, but unfortunately he wastes this apt and excellent metaphor when we finally arrive at the details of his "Solution" and "Prevention" diets. The chapter "Getting Started" lays out the foundations of how we'll be eating on the Chilton Diets. Here we are prepped to understand that all margarines used are 70 percent vegetable oil, but with no trans fats. The only fats sanctioned besides margarine are "lite" mayonnaise, canola, cooking spray or "butter-flavored granules." Occasionally olive oil is allowed. Egg substitutes or egg whites, 2 percent milk cheeses and 1 percent milk are the typical dairy products allowed. All juices are unsweetened, or may be artificially sweetened. Artificially sweetened coffee, tea and diet sodas may be used as desired. Welcome back to the poisoned trough! Or as Dr. Chilton now calls it, "your anti-inflammatory arsenal." These are "ordinary American table foods. You don't have to learn to love some grain you've never heard of before…[or] mail order any bizarre ingredients." No, but you will be turning again and again to new-fangled factory concoctions that somehow have escaped Dr. Chilton's scrutiny as possible culprits in the cause of epidemic poor health in modern America. Let's just take a brief look at some of the ingredients that regularly appear on the weekly menus. Trans-fat free margarine is hardly any better than the old variety; with oxidized vegetable oils (usually canola or soy) and the usual brew of chemical constituents. According to Joseph Mercola, these products may legally declare themselves "trans fat free" as long as each serving size contains less than 500 milligrams of transfat, and since servings are purposely sized small, it's easy to end up consuming many servings per day. Water, high-fructose corn syrup, soy oil and more chemicals make up "no-cholesterol" mayonnaise. (By the way, don't be taken in by Spectrum's organic extra virgin olive oil mayonnaise--the first ingredient is soy oil.) In Dr. Chilton's book, there is no discussion about the effects of oxidized, rancid polyunsaturated vegetable fats and the cell damage they create, or the disruption they cause in healthy prostaglandin production and therefore their role in inflammatory disease. Breakfasts on the weekly menus are all lowfat, except for the borage oil capsule that is always prescribed. Typical fare is a whole wheat waffle (packaged) with blueberries, margarine and non-fat yogurt; another morning one sits down to a cup of multi-grain Cheerios with a cup of 1 percent milk, 4 dried apricots halves and a half grapefruit, or a half-cup of liquid egg substitute is served with one ounce of Canadian bacon, two slices of whole wheat bread, margarine and Tomato Juice. Lunches usually involve a fat-reduced meat (skinless chicken or 95 percent lean ground beef) cooked with no fat and salads dressed with "lowfat Ranch or Italian dressing"--more packaged oxidized oils. Dinner often highlights the wild fish that is a cornerstone to the dietary strategy, but it is prepared with canola oil or cooking spray, and sometimes olive oil. Whole wheat pasta or dinner rolls usually appear, with margarine, of course. Desserts are infrequent, but include horrors such as Sugar-Free Waldorf Gelatin Salad featuring Aspartame-loaded, chemically flavored and colored gelatin. Ignoring his earlier comments on locally available seasonal produce, one often finds asparagus and corn, peas and tomatoes, or blueberries and strawberries in the same meal, but by this point, it hardly matters. Dr. Chilton claims that sufferers have seen positive results in as little as a week on his diet. I can only imagine this possible because of the frequent borage oil supplementation and the regular inclusion of wild fish, and especially fish roe, which he recommends but for which there are no recipes or menu selections. Otherwise, the diets seem to be a recipe for chronic nutrient deficiencies with their absolute exclusion of animal fats such as butter or cream, and downright dangerous because of the fake, fabricated fats and heavy chemical load, perhaps especially of aspartame. Dr. Chilton makes no mention of alternatives to the factory farmed animal products he condemns, even though the availability of grassfed animal products is growing steadily. This is likely because saturated fats remain the enemy, and especially as found in nutritious foods such as organ meats. For those whose inflammatory disease may be unknowingly accompanied or instigated by gluten sensitivity, these diets will only worsen their conditions with their heavy reliance on the new, "whole" grain (and therefore high-phytate) versions of everything from bagels to macaroni. While diet can indeed often be the answer for many health problems, one that "prescribes" certain nutrients as though they were drugs without examining the context of the complete diet in relation to the individual is doomed to fail. "I'm not the healthiest eater in the world," admits Dr. Chilton, "and I don't think you have to be, either." Thanks, doc. Katherine Czapp