Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000199
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00:01 Eating is such a fun time of the day that most people
00:04 feel that they haven't even lived through a day 00:06 if they haven't eaten. 00:08 If you enjoy eating, then you probably enjoy planning for it. 00:12 We're going to be talking about planning 00:14 for meals in this program... We hope you will 00:16 join us for it. 00:37 Welcome to "Help Yourself to Health" 00:39 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 00:43 and now, here's your host, Dr. Thrash 00:47 Now, you can begin your planning by 00:50 planning a beautiful table. 00:52 Planning for meals should be such a fun time that 00:57 you make a part of the planning for the meal that of 01:00 planning for a beautiful table. 01:02 And so, I recommend that you take a nice walk, 01:05 get some flowers, wild flowers ... even just some greenery 01:09 can go far toward dressing up your table... 01:12 Sometimes some berries, sometimes a pine cone 01:16 These can be such fun things to gather and to arrange 01:20 on the table and children love to engage in this 01:23 kind of activity. 01:25 I always considered the hardest part of getting 01:28 a meal on the table being that of planning the menu. 01:31 Sometimes I would think... "What can I have, 01:35 I'm totally baffled" I'll think of something... 01:39 No, we had that last week. 01:40 Then I'll think of something else... 01:42 No, I don't care for that this time. 01:45 And pretty soon, the entire planning and preparing time 01:53 has gone by, and then I'd simply open something frozen, 01:56 or something canned and put it on the table quickly 01:59 just out of, sort of, desperation... but 02:02 with a good type of planning, you can come out 02:06 almost always with a very good meal. 02:09 So, we'd like to talk with you some about 02:11 just planning for a normal family... What do you do? 02:15 #1... If you will get the kind of cuisine that you like 02:20 then do the best you can in that cuisine, 02:24 you will do the very best. 02:26 What do I mean by cuisine? 02:28 Well, it's whether you're going to have a Mexican type of 02:31 diet, or you're going to have an Asian type of diet, 02:35 or an American, or an Italian, or a German... 02:38 There are many different kinds of cuisines, 02:41 and you may choose to blend them all. 02:43 You may have a German-type on Monday, 02:46 and an Italian-type on Tuesday, an Asian type of Wednesday, 02:49 and, if you like Italian that much, then another time, 02:53 and another Mexican... so that throughout a week, 02:56 you can have MANY different kinds of cuisines. 03:00 ...All of them very nice for your family. 03:04 Bear in mind that there are certain health problems 03:07 or financial issues in any family that may make it so that 03:12 that particular family will need to have certain considerations 03:16 in the making of a menu. 03:19 So, as we plan for the family, one of the first things is... 03:24 Are there children? 03:26 Now, Dr. Donald Miller will talk with you some 03:29 about how to make a menu for a growing family. 03:34 A family that is on the way up in so far as 03:39 numbers are concerned... Dr. Miller 03:40 Okay, one of the things that's very important in menu planning 03:44 is shopping planning. 03:45 It's not just going to your cabinets and finding out 03:48 what you're going to prepare for what you have on hand 03:51 Preparing a meal begins a week in advance, or a day in advance 03:56 When you go and do that shopping, there are many 03:58 problems that we have in our society today 04:01 that are a result of the food that we're eating 04:05 I want to talk first about precocious puberty 04:09 ...The child that's growing too quickly. 04:12 Basically, a child who grows too quickly, 04:15 you could almost see that they're going to be growing 04:17 too quickly, by looking at the parents because 04:19 normally, a child that's in that family... 04:22 the parents are eating food that also accelerates their growth 04:25 And, of course, they start to grow out board, 04:28 but the child starts to grow inside. 04:30 The things start to grow inside them that's 04:33 going to cause major problems... 04:35 And so, what we need to do is make sure that the 04:37 parents are getting back to the very basics of 04:39 their dietary needs. 04:40 And I'm sure you hear Dr. Thrash and myself saying 04:44 this many, many times, but when we're looking at our diets 04:46 We're looking at fruits, vegetables, whole grains, 04:49 nuts and seeds. 04:51 If we use those foods, we're going to find that we 04:54 have a far better growth pattern... for not only 04:57 the children, but for the adults. 04:59 Now... to go one step beyond, those simple things of food 05:04 it's how we prepare those pieces of food. 05:07 We should prepare them as simply as possible. 05:10 I think the day of the recipe books, and all these fancy 05:14 recipes might be going a little bit beyond where we need to go. 05:18 We should prepare simple food. 05:20 We'll be talking about simple foods a little bit later. 05:22 But we should learn how to eat our foods without a 05:25 whole lot of things added to them. 05:27 The things that are going to promote precocious development 05:31 are things like the animal products, 05:33 and so they should be out of a child's system; 05:35 out of their lifestyles. 05:36 And people say, "Well, WHERE are they going to get 05:38 their protein... Where are they going to get their calcium? 05:40 Where are they going to get all these different things 05:42 ...that's not a problem. 05:43 I know many vegetarians who have been vegetarians 05:46 their entire lives... who have not suffered at all because of 05:49 their dietary choices. 05:50 BUT, I've seen many other people who've been omnivores 05:54 eating EVERYTHING that crawled, flew, or whatever it did 05:56 ...And I see them having many problems when they're 05:59 into their later years. 06:01 And so I recommend a child to be raised on the most 06:04 simple food... They may not grow as fast 06:07 as their counterparts down the street but they WILL grow 06:10 as MUCH as their counterparts down the street, 06:12 just a little bit later. 06:13 I have no problems with seeing a child who is 06:16 maybe even a little bit on the thin side. 06:18 I much rather have a child... I WAS one of those children 06:20 very much on the thin side my whole life... still am! 06:24 But, because I was thin then, I am thin now. 06:28 A child who is a little bit more rotund when they're young, 06:33 are going to be more rotund when they're older. 06:35 We need to take care of ourselves. 06:37 Staying away from the animal products... 06:38 Staying away from the HIGHLY refined carbohydrate foods 06:42 Basically, I usually say, anything that comes in a 06:44 bag or a box are things probably not 06:47 the best foods in the world. 06:48 Now I'm not saying to eliminate all of these things, 06:50 but READ the labels carefully. 06:52 I've become a label-reader. 06:54 I read everything on the label, and if there's anything 06:57 in there that's a question to me, I leave it off. 07:00 And, you're going to find that animal products sometimes 07:03 come under strange names. 07:04 When you look at your bread, have you ever wondered what 07:07 mono and diglycerides are? 07:08 Mono and diglycerides... unless they say from 07:11 vegetable sources, is either lard or tallow... 07:15 fat from an animal... 07:16 And so I put that right back up on the shelf. 07:19 Be a careful label-reader. 07:21 So, no animal products, lower your refined carbohydrates... 07:25 As a matter of fact, you can lower them down to zero 07:27 if you want to. 07:28 Staying away from high fat diets, and a lot of the foods 07:32 are sold with lots of fat in them for one reason... 07:35 They sell better because, for some reason, 07:37 it makes them taste better. 07:38 Stay away from the high fat diets. 07:40 You stay away from these simple things. 07:42 Now this was just 3 things you stay away from, 07:44 5 things that you do... 07:46 fruits, vegetables, whole grains nuts and seeds... 07:49 You will find that your child will grow at the rate in which 07:53 humans are supposed to grow. 07:55 You think about an animal... 07:56 Think about a baby cow... 07:57 When the baby cow was born, a little calf... 07:59 The MILK that its mother produces is made to make 08:03 that baby calf double its birth weight in 47 days. 08:08 A human doesn't do that. 08:10 A human doesn't double their birth weight for 6 months. 08:13 We need to slow it down, because if we take 08:15 in the products that are causing an acceleration in growth 08:18 in another organism, another creature, 08:21 it will do the same thing in a human. 08:22 Now granted, if you give a baby cow's milk 08:26 in infancy, they're not going to double their birth weight 08:29 in 47 days, but you're going to do some damage, 08:33 and you're going to cause a foundation to be laid 08:37 for accelerated puberty, and that's something you don't 08:40 want to meet on down the line. 08:41 I'd much rather have my child to be young 08:44 as long as possible... Dr. Thrash 08:46 Yes, very small when the time to be small occurs 08:51 Don't worry about whether your child is going to eventually 08:54 grow up... they will. 08:55 They may even surpass where they would have grown 08:58 if they had not had a totally vegetarian diet. 09:03 Today, a fully plant-based diet is getting more and more 09:09 in the news, especially when such very famous 09:13 lifestyle centers as Dean Ornish's Lifestyle Center 09:18 is promoting principally a plant-based diet. 09:22 A little dairy products and egg whites are allowed 09:27 in the diet, but not very much. 09:29 And yet, this kind of diet is quite adequate to maintain 09:35 people into advanced old age. 09:37 Now, with the developing family, there may be some things 09:43 in the life of the family, or the health of the family 09:47 that you're aware that you want to try to avoid 09:49 in your children. 09:50 High blood fats is one of those. 09:53 Blood fats are cholesterol, triglycerides, and certain 09:58 other blood fats that we don't usually test for in 10:01 clinical laboratories... 10:02 But the cholesterol is of several fractions... 10:06 The LDL is the so-called bad cholesterol, 10:09 but it actually isn't as bad as some of the others. 10:12 The IDL and the VLDL... 10:15 Those are even more damaging than the LDL 10:18 Then the one that's not damaging is the HDL 10:22 and that one can be raised in the blood to 10:26 very good advantage. 10:27 It acts as a transport vehicle for the other types of 10:32 cholesterol, and takes them out of the body... 10:35 or takes them to the liver so that they can be processed 10:38 and made into something that can be excreted into 10:42 the gastrointestinal tract. 10:44 So what can you do to make the HDL go up? 10:48 One thing is to do exercise. 10:51 Another is to eat very lightly. 10:56 And another is to fast occasionally. 10:59 As one fasts, that brings the HDL cholesterol up. 11:04 So, these things are helpful as you understand about how 11:09 to plan the menu. 11:11 Now, if your children are older, when it is discovered that 11:15 they or you have a high blood cholesterol, or other 11:21 high fats, then you get the children, and sit down together 11:26 Show them the research that you have found, 11:30 and what their blood levels of these blood fats are 11:34 And you enlist their help in fashioning a menu 11:39 ...fashioning a diet plan that will make it so that 11:42 nobody in the family has a high blood cholesterol, 11:46 or triglycerides, so that they can be the most healthy possible 11:50 So what makes triglycerides go up? 11:53 Well the thing that we can know about that, is that it's 11:57 refined carbohydrates. 11:59 What are refined carbohydrates? 12:01 Generally, the white things. 12:02 White four, white rice, white sugar... 12:05 And in the South we would say, white lightning, or alcohol. 12:11 So all of these can make the triglyceride level go up. 12:16 The triglyceride level can stay up for a LONG time. 12:20 Cholesterol will often come right down when you 12:22 start treating it... 12:23 But triglycerides may take much longer. 12:26 People who are prone to have diabetes in the family... 12:29 they ALSO are very likely to get high triglyceride levels. 12:33 So right away, you talk with your children, and say to them, 12:37 "We can have very delightful meals if we eliminate 12:42 desserts, and instead of desserts, we will have 12:45 this or that. 12:46 And then talk about some alternatives... 12:49 such as sweet fruits, or the sweet fruits made into ice cream 12:56 ...those can be very nice desserts! 12:58 And even if you have to invest into some piece of equipment 13:01 like a nice rotary-type juicer, such as the Champion Juicer 13:06 If you need to invest in that to help the family to tolerate 13:11 the diet changes, feel free to do that. 13:14 In the long run, you will spend a lot less money on a piece of 13:19 kitchen equipment, than you do on being sick in some way. 13:24 Now we talk about triglycerides fairly easily. 13:30 What can we do to make the cholesterol go down? 13:33 Well the major thing in making the cholesterol go down 13:38 is a totally plant-based diet. 13:41 We find that to be the most favorable one to bring the 13:44 cholesterol down, and often it will come down in a matter of 13:48 just seems almost like days that the cholesterol 13:52 was very high, and then comes down quite low. 13:54 It's very satisfying to physicians to see this kind of 13:58 change occur. 14:00 So, sit down with the children, usually after they have just 14:04 had a FULL meal... 14:05 Don't sit down with your children and tell them we're 14:07 not going to be having this anymore, or that favorite food 14:11 anymore... if they are hungry. 14:14 Wait until they're well-fed, and they will be 14:17 much more cooperative for lifestyle changes, 14:21 and especially diet changes. 14:23 Now, we talk about overweight so much, that when somebody 14:28 has a problem of being underweight, 14:30 it's almost refreshing. 14:32 I like to talk about how to make a diet that 14:36 can help a person to GAIN weight. 14:38 So, Dr. Don Miller is going to talk with you about that. 14:41 Dr. Miller, what can you tell us that can... 14:43 Ah, you look as if you could have that kind of diet yourself! 14:47 It does, indeed, look like that. 14:50 Maybe you could tell us what you eat... 14:52 and to try to gain weight, 14:54 or maybe you don't try to gain weight? 14:55 Well, you know, it's one of those things. 14:57 I grew up thin... I mean, real thin. 15:00 And I rued the fact that I was thin for most of my years 15:04 until I got to the point in my life where we... 15:07 basically, we see people meeting what we call 15:10 "the middle-age spread" 15:12 And as I saw all my peers spreading out, 15:15 and me staying the way I am, 15:17 I said, "It was not so bad to be so thin" 15:19 Now, you know, it may look like, it's pretty bad 15:23 to be as skinny as you are? 15:24 I've always been this way, 15:26 and I was a distance runner as a young man. 15:29 I liked running marathons. 15:31 I was a good, very good, distance runner, 15:33 and distance runners are thin. 15:36 And so, I really have no problem with it... 15:38 But there are a few things that we can do to help to gain 15:41 some weight, and there are times when I'd like to gain 15:43 weight, and I can tell you some of the things that I have done. 15:46 But I want to go to the blackboard and show you 15:49 a special thing that might help you when you're thinking about 15:52 how in the world are we going to gain weight. 15:55 I'm going to write 3 words on the board... 16:01 Don't Eat Fast As simple as that... 16:13 Don't eat fast! 16:14 If you want to gain weight, Don't Eat Fast 16:22 Many people who have a problem with weight 16:24 they eat too fast, 16:26 they don't have good digestion. 16:28 Basically, the food passes through the body without 16:30 dropping off all the nutrients... 16:31 So we need to slow down when we eat. 16:34 We need to learn to chew our food well. 16:37 We need to take our time when we eat. 16:39 I know when I was a young man working in certain factories 16:42 ...working my way through school, 16:43 factories that have a half an hour to eat lunch 16:46 I wonder how someone does this. 16:47 Now, you're going to find that you have 2 types of people 16:50 One type has a propensity to grow large, 16:54 and one type has a tendency to be thin. 16:57 And, that type of a dietary, that fast lunch, 17:00 is going to make the one bigger, and the one smaller. 17:02 It seems like a strange thing. 17:03 It seems unfair to somebody in there, 17:05 but that's what's going to happen. 17:07 We need to take time and eat our food slowly, 17:10 chew our food well, and eat our foods in an atmosphere 17:17 of calmness. 17:18 When we get this agitation around the table, 17:20 you have incomplete digestion... 17:22 And a person who has a tendency to be thin, 17:24 will not gain any weight for that very reason. 17:27 Now, while I'm at the board, I'll show you one more thing 17:29 If you want to lose weight, we do one more thing here... 17:34 We add a comma here... don't eat, fast 17:40 That's what we should be doing. 17:41 If a person wants to lose weight, they should leave off 17:45 some meals, spend some time away from the table. 17:47 ...that's the best thing in the world to do. 17:49 So, don't eat fast if you want to gain weight; 17:54 don't eat, fast if you want to lose weight. 17:57 Some good suggestions. 17:58 Other things you can do. 17:59 I know that a few years ago, my weight got down 18:02 pretty far, and so I was trying to figure out... 18:04 What in the world can I do to gain some weight? 18:06 And so I went to Dr. Thrash, and I went to her husband 18:08 at the time, and I said... 18:10 As a matter of fact, I didn't have to go to them, 18:12 they looked at me... I was down to 119 pounds. 18:14 And, I didn't know what to do, 18:17 and so Dr. Calvin said, "You need to start eating some 18:21 good, essentially fatty acids. " 18:23 So he had me go out to the store, and buy some 18:25 evening primrose oil capsules. 18:29 And I would take them, and I would put them in my mouth 18:31 and I'd just bite them, suck the oil out, 18:33 and then spit out that nasty capsule. 18:35 And I found that that little bit of essential fatty acids 18:40 was very good to help me with my weight-gaining process. 18:43 Another thing I needed to do is to do some more 18:45 physical activity. 18:46 We find that many times, when we start to get older, 18:49 we get involved in our work... 18:51 We're desk-type jockeys. 18:53 And again, for some people, who are sedentary, 18:55 they get larger... 18:56 Other people who are sedentary, they get smaller. 18:59 I find that those who tend to be smaller, 19:02 need to exercise more. 19:04 And the best time to exercise... 19:06 if you want to put on the most muscle mass, 19:08 the month of the year is the month of July. 19:10 It's interesting, they've done some studies to show that 19:13 the more exercise, and the more sunshine we're exposed to, 19:16 the greater our growth of muscle mass. 19:19 And so, if you want to really gain some weight, 19:21 get out there and do some good physical exercise. 19:24 Now, that means you're not going to find it inside a 19:27 spa, or inside one of these gyms... 19:29 Go outside and do something out of doors. 19:31 I remember when I was a young man, 19:33 I liked to get exercise. 19:35 I was living out in the Mojave Desert... not much to do 19:38 And so, on Sunday mornings, we had a lot of oleander trees 19:42 around my house. 19:43 I would dig DEEP holes in the desert, 19:45 and then bury all the leaves, and cover them back up. 19:47 I just enjoyed digging the holes! 19:49 Digging the holes in the sunshine, 19:51 I found that my mass of muscles started getting 19:55 larger and larger... so this is very good. 19:57 We need to have just a peaceful surroundings around our bodies 20:02 You know, TENSION, can cause you to lose weight. 20:04 Well, if I get really tense... 20:05 as a matter of fact, that was my problem 20:07 when I was down at 119, I was going through a very 20:10 tumultuous time in my life with a lot of emotional problems 20:14 When I got rid of that problem, my weight came back on 20:17 like a flood, and now I'm back up where I like to be. 20:20 And so, again, if you have a problem, 20:25 and you are underweight, look at the alternatives. 20:29 Now, there are 2 alternatives, being a weight that you'd 20:31 like to be... but almost always, 20:33 the other side of the coin is going to be much overweight 20:36 I will settle for underweight any day, over overweight. 20:39 We find that people who are underweight, 20:42 seem to live longer, even in those who are at maybe 20:45 even their ideal weight. 20:46 Less weight seems to be life-preserving... 20:49 And so, get yourself a life-preserver! 20:51 Eat a little bit less, put the fork away a little bit sooner 20:54 Spend your time chewing your food. 20:56 Eat the right amounts of food, 20:58 and you're going to find that your body will 20:59 just fill out to where it's supposed to be. 21:01 Good counsel. 21:02 Now concerning overweight, the menus should be planned 21:08 for families who have a tendency to get overweight. 21:11 There are certain families that have that. 21:13 You will see that the father is overweight, 21:15 the mother is overweight... 21:16 You can be certain that the children, 21:18 unless special measures are taken, 21:20 will also be overweight. 21:22 So, what can we do to prevent that? 21:24 One thing is... plan the menu correctly. 21:26 Start with the times of day, and the number of meals 21:32 that will be served. 21:33 If the children are going to school, 21:35 you'll have to do some planning around that 21:38 If the husband has an out-of-the-home job, 21:41 you'll have to do some planning around that. 21:43 But, I always planned, although my children went to 21:47 school at a different time than my husband went to work, 21:49 or that I went to work... 21:51 I always planned the breakfast time so that 21:54 we could all be together then at least. 21:57 Lunchtime, we sometimes were, and sometimes weren't 22:01 together at lunchtime. 22:03 And because my family was one of those that tends to get 22:06 overweight, we planned no supper at all. 22:10 If you're overweight, it's very clear you don't need supper 22:13 You only need the 2 meals a day that are the most 22:16 physiologic for a human being. 22:18 All animals have a meal period. 22:22 For us, it's 2 meals a day. 22:25 For snakes, I think it's about 22:27 once every 30 days, depending on the snake. 22:29 Some of these big ones may not 22:30 even need to feed that frequently... 22:33 But, at any rate, for humans, it's 2 meals a day 22:36 that's the ideal with no supper... 22:38 rather than 2 meals a day in which there is no breakfast. 22:46 Now, you will notice that in planning a meal 22:51 for the overweight, you also need to be careful 22:54 that you do not have the high fat foods that are so common 23:01 in our population today making us overweight. 23:06 Highly salted foods will also make us get overweight. 23:09 So I'd like to encourage that as you make the menu that 23:16 you're careful about the types of free fats that you use. 23:20 If you use any at all, it should be something like Pam to 23:25 simply spray a baking dish, so that the food 23:31 would not stick to it. 23:33 Now in addition to that, plan some time after the meal 23:39 for a little walk. 23:40 The sooner after the meal that a person walks, 23:43 or takes some kind of exercise, 23:45 the greater the likelihood that the person will burn 23:49 the extra calories at that time, 23:53 or calories that they wish to get rid of. 23:57 Furthermore, a good long period for people who 24:00 want to lose weight is very good, start off slowly 24:04 but after about 30 minutes, then you start 24:06 getting much faster again. 24:10 So much for overweight... 24:12 there are other problems in the home, or in the family that 24:15 may need to be addressed. 24:17 And one of those is... a family prone to arthritis. 24:22 And so, I've asked Dr. Miller if he will talk with you a bit 24:25 about what kind of diet you can plan for arthritis. 24:30 We find that arthritis is often an inflammatory response 24:35 of an allergy to some type of food... 24:38 And so basically, the best thing to do is 24:40 find out what is in our dietary that's causing us to have 24:43 this problem with arthritis. 24:46 Now the things that I have studied... 24:49 One of the main allergens that will cause 24:51 an arthritic condition is the foods that are called the 24:54 nightshade group. 24:56 These are potatoes, the white potatoes; tomatoes, 25:00 eggplants, peppers, tobacco, and there are some 25:04 wild nightshades growing in the fields 25:06 that the cows will eat, and so, therefore, it will pass on the 25:10 nightshades through the milk. 25:11 And so what's the best thing to do here is 25:13 find out... Are we sensitive to the nightshade group? 25:17 If you're sensitive, then the whole dietary needs to be 25:21 planned around... getting away from these foods. 25:22 If we grow up... and I've been in many countries 25:24 where they eat a certain dietary and anything outside of that 25:29 small area of their normal menus they don't even want to eat it. 25:35 If we can train our families from the youngest years 25:38 to eat down a certain path, that's the best way. 25:41 There are other things that are known to be 25:45 allergenic to the body that will cause arthritic-like conditions 25:49 Pork is one, wheat is another, eggs, citrus... 25:55 An allergenic food does not have to be a BAD food, 25:59 it just has to be bad for YOU. 26:00 And if that's the problem, 26:02 you learn to stay away from that particular food. 26:05 And you need to become a good menu-planner, 26:09 and a good recipe-reader, and 26:12 an ingredient-reader when you go to the store 26:14 because there are many thickening agents... 26:15 They use potatoes to thicken many things. 26:17 They use red peppers to color many things. 26:21 So you have to look at the ingredients to make sure 26:25 that you're not getting something in that dietary... 26:29 because the smallest amount of these types of items 26:32 can give you the inflammatory reaction in an arthritic joint 26:36 And so you need to stay away from those things. 26:38 We find that 12 raw pecans a day are quite good for arthritis 26:42 ...so you might want to move in that direction. 26:44 But exercise is good for arthritis. 26:47 Drinking plenty of water is good for arthritis. 26:49 And I will mention this, they find that many children 26:53 become susceptible to arthritis as a result of immunizations 26:59 and so, we need to be very careful with immunizations. 27:02 And also, high protein diets lead to more arthritis. 27:07 And so, getting into a simple dietary, 27:09 staying away from the nightshades as an experiment 27:12 you might find that you're going to maybe avoid 27:15 that whole problem in the family. 27:17 Well I hope these things about how to plan a menu 27:21 will make the menu not be so difficult as I once 27:25 thought that it was. 27:26 I like to make a whole month's menus at one time 27:30 for the family, so that I can vary everything 27:34 not only from day-to-day, but from week-to-week 27:37 or even from one month to the next. 27:39 So with these very simple things that we have discussed, 27:42 you should be able to make a NICE menu for the family 27:47 that they will like, and that you will enjoy making. 27:51 It isn't difficult to plan a menu. |
Revised 2014-12-17