"The Changing American Diet" suggests important advice for everyone

I've stated more than once on this blog that weight- especially around the middle- exacerbates reflux and affects gut health, organ health, metabolic health, and longevity in various negative ways. The Flowing Data resource called The Changing American Diet has been causing a stir in the health twittersphere, because within it lie clues to the current obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes epidemic that afflicts the western world and beyond.

In the data, you'll see two rather glaring changes in our diet. One is the increase of consumption of vegetable oils. It's been observed that high consumption of fats exacerbates reflux. It also drives up caloric values very efficiently. If you have used a calorie tracker for sufficient length of time to be begin seeing patterns, one thing that is very clear is it only takes a couple of teaspoons of oil to throw a diet off track and into the high-calorie weeds.

Try this strategy:

Only eat oils for their flavor. The next time you make pasta, use a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil to help flavor it. Or make a potent and delicious pesto out of EVOO, garlic, basil, parmagiano (the real stuff, please) and the nut of your choice. It only takes a teaspoon or two to impart incredible flavor to a dish.

On the flipside, stop using oil to cook food. get some essential nonstick pieces- at minimum, a 10" fry pan and an oven sheet. Make roast vegetables, chicken stir fry and eggs with no added fat. Use a little broth or water and a lid when making eggs- if the pan is nonstick, that's all you need. (Or, poach them!) Most vegetables can be successfully sauteed with only a little broth. Add flavorful oils, if the recipe requires it, at the end, and sparingly.

Wheat is one commodity that has always been high- but it is ever on the increase. Baked goods are the most common way industrial food sneaks vegetable oil into our diets. Even bread is a source. Here's a challenge: go to a supermarket bread section. Find two types of bread with no soybean oil. unless you look at the artisanal breads, you will find this to be a difficult task! The solution is to eat bread made the old fashioned way. Did you know baguettes have almost zero fat? Now that was a pleasant discovery!

Another not so glaring but telling datum is the continual rise of cheese consumption. Again, it's a matter of caloric density. Cheese is delicious, yes! But try using it for its own flavor. By that I mean don't use it unless the flavor is going to be a star of the dish. Parmegiano Reggiano in pesto. Brie on a baguette. Also you should check out lower fat cheeses- not modern low-fat miracles, just the cheeses that tend to be lower in fat, like real Swiss cheese.

One thing I would like to remind our GERD and LPR-suffering readers: fats are hard to digest and make the body produce extra stomach acid. Best to stick to naturally low-fat foods and eat fat sparingly and for its flavor. Here is a gastroenterologist's take on a GERD-friendly diet. Guidelines we should all be sticking to, as the GERD diet is also a great way to shed pounds.

One thing we already know, but is not reflected in this report, is the rise in our consumption of added sugars. This chart listing the source of calories in the western diet claims the two highest sources added sugars and vegetable oils/dairy fat. How to relate this back to the food groups in our diet? Check out the data about the actual foods that contribute to our calories.

The top categories are:

• grain-based desserts
• pizza
• yeast breads
• soda/energy/sports drinks
• chicken dishes. We eat a lot of chicken, people.

So it comes full circle. Now you see what we are eating most of, and that happens to be what's making us fat. I certainly wouldn't condemn healthy versions of these items, such as skinless chicken breast or whole grain artisanal bread, but that isn't how most of us eat these things.

I would reconsider your consumption of these specific foods and in particular the sources of refined oils in your diet. Think of ways to trim them down or eliminate them completely. The healthy way forward for all of us is a rejection of industrial calories and return to eating real, whole food.