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From "An Analytical System of Clinical Nutrition"
by Dr. Guy R. Schenker

Myth #2: "I know I don't eat enough fruit -- and if I did I'd be a lot healthier."
This may be as hard for you to accept as it is for your patients, but the facts are these: Fruit is not particularly healthful. Fruit is a concentrated source of sugar, potassium, carboxylates, and of acids. This combination is damaging to many of the fundamental NUTRI-SPEC imbalances, and, it can wreak havoc with both the physical and emotional health of any patient who has difficulty regulating blood sugar levels.
 

Furthermore, believe it or not, fruit is not "natural." In fact, there is not, nor has there ever been, any such thing in nature remotely resembling the fruits you see displayed in the supermarket. With the possible exception of dates, figs, and perhaps bananas, all the fruits we consume are man-made hybrids developed over the last few centuries. Humankind in its natural state has no prior experience with these foods. Even the grapes of antiquity were a tart grape used primarily for wine making, not eating.
 

There is increasing evidence that the sugar in fruit is not only harmful due to its gross quantity, but that there are devastating health consequences attributable to the type of sugar in fruit. Fructose is far and away the most pernicious type of sugar. (9) Fructose is found in many fruits and its content is particularly high in raisins, grapes, prunes, plums, figs, dates, cherries, pears, bananas, berries, apples and watermelon. (It is also extremely high in honey, and constitutes 50% of ordinary sugar (sucrose), and more than 50% of corn syrup.) Virtually all other fruits are also high in fructose because they are high in the disaccharide sucrose, which is 50% fructose.
 

Fructose contributes far more than any other sugar to a pathological aging process called glycation. (10) Glycation is the reaction of sugar with protein and the subsequent oxidative damage of the sugar-protein complex. This oxidative damage is particularly evident as the non-enzymatic cross linking of collagen.
 

How does this premature aging of collagen show up in terms of clinical conditions? The tissues most affected are the vascular system (cardio-vascular disease), the renal capillaries (hypertension and kidney failure), the skin (wrinkles), the joints (degenerative arthritis), and the retinal capillaries.
 

More and more research points to the oxidative damage associated with fructose glycation as being just as significant in the development of degenerative diseases as is the oxidative damage associated with the peroxidation of fats. (11,12)
 

It may be that … An apple a day
Keeps the doctor away,
But dare to eat two
And it’s wrinkles for you!

We are not finished bashing fructose (“fruit sugar”) yet. Of all sugars it is fructose which causes the most severe stimulation of excess insulin response, and triggers the entire chain reaction that leads to all the degenerative diseases associated with poor glycemic control. These include cardiovascular disease, hypoglycemia (and all its physical and emotional ramifications), diabetes (and all its associated pathologies), and chronic fatigue.(13,14) So, in summary, fruit is unnatural and unhealthy. Does that mean that no one should ever eat any fruit? No, certainly not. Everyone has their own individual tolerance for fruit. If a person is extremely parasympathetic or glucogenic, they should avoid fruit completely and eat it only at their own peril. Those people who have a relatively balanced body chemistry can generally get away with indulging in fruit without much in the way of complications, as long as they do not over do it.
 

Myth #3: THE JUICE MAN COMETH.
Every eight years or so it seems, fruit and vegetable juicers enjoy a resurgence in popularity. Usually this is the result of a high-powered marketing endeavor by some upstart juicer manufacturer. Such occurred again recently. Apparently all the excitement was caused by a company who personified their promotional efforts in the character, "The Juice Man."
  
From time to time patients will come to you proudly and gleefully announcing they have purchased a juicer and can't wait to enjoy all the healthful benefits certain to be forthcoming. Though it may break your heart to do so, you have to give them a strong enough dose of objective reality to take the wind out of their sails, as such is needed to prevent them from self-destructing. 
  
Much of what was said above regarding fruit applies equally well to juices, only more so. Juices have an even greater concentration of pernicious substances devastating to many of the fundamental metabolic imbalances, as well as to a person's ability to regulate blood and brain sugar levels. There is absolutely nothing natural in consuming such large concentrations of these substances.

Myth #4: "Red meat is bad, so we've switched to almost exclusively fish and poultry." What is all the fuss about the color of a piece of meat? The commonly perceived differences between red meat and white meat are without substance.
  
You may be surprised if you look at a table of food composition to find that red meat is not appreciably higher in fat than either fish or poultry. Neither is fish nor poultry higher in any vital nutrients than red meat. Quite the contrary, red meat is actually a much better source of some very important nutrients that are hard to get elsewhere (such as certain B vitamins and adenine). The only remaining perceived negative about red meat is its slightly higher cholesterol content, but we have already shattered that myth above.
  
There is no problem with eating meat, but there is a problem with the meat (and fish and poultry) we eat. 
  
There are three potential sources of problems when eating meat:
  
1. The meat is over-cooked
2. The meat is processed and thus contains nitrites, monosodium glutamate and all manner of other chemical garbage.
3. The meat contains polyunsaturated fat.
  
A brief explanation of each of these three points: First, cooking meat de-natures the proteins. The temperatures used in cooking (and microwaving) cause the nitrogen to be split off from the protein, thus totally destroying the amino acid. The essential amino acid methionine is particularly heat labile. Two other important amino acids which are largely destroyed at cooking temperatures are glutamine and taurine. These amino acids are critical to so many metabolic processes.  
  
The bad news associated with cooking does not stop with protein destruction. The other thing that happens when you cook meat is that the fatty acids are split off into free fatty acids. The fatty acids are then further de-natured by undergoing cys-trans isomerism, such that the natural cys isomer of the fatty acid is converted into the unnatural deadly trans isomer. This change in the fatty acid structure of the meat creates a tremendous amount of free radical oxidative tissue destruction in the body.
  
You must advise your patients to decrease the cooking time of their meat.
  
The second potential problem that comes from meat is that a lot of meat has been adulterated by the food processing industry and includes particularly the toxic nitrites and monosodium glutamate. These could be a discussion that would take up an entire chapter. Suffice it to say for now that everyone is better off to minimize the amount of sausage, bacon, luncheon meats, and canned meats that they eat. Stick to fresh, natural meat.
  
The third and final consideration with respect to meat has to do with the type of fat in meat. The common wisdom of our day (which we can show is a lot of bunk) would have us avoid meat because it is high in saturated fat. We at NUTRI-SPEC know that quite the opposite is true. That is the number reason why we should eat meat. It is saturated fats that are healthful and polyunsaturated fats that are deadly.
  
It turns out, however, that the fat in meat is a problem precisely because so much of it is polyunsaturated. Polyunsaturated fats in meat? Yes. As you probably know, Agri Business raises meat, fish and poultry by force feeding animals to fatten them in a hurry. And, their feed consists largely of soy and corn. Soy and corn are loaded with soy oil and corn oil. So as a result, much of the fat in meat and poultry (as much as 30% or more) consists of rotten deadly polyunsaturated corn and soy oil – precisely the oils that we must strictly avoid.
 

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