Posted on 10/11/2025 1:29:24 AM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
After two decades treating heart disease, clogged arteries, and metabolic dysfunction, I began to notice a pattern. Many of my patients thought they were doing everything right — like exercising regularly and managing stress — yet they still ended up in my office with serious cardiovascular issues.
The common thread? Everyday food choices.
Some of the most harmful foods in the American diet don't come with warning labels. Instead, they're marketed as "heart smart," "plant-based," or "low-fat." But behind the buzzwords are ingredients that fuel inflammation, spike blood sugar, and quietly damage your arteries over time.
As a cardiologist, there are nine American foods you couldn't pay me to eat — not because I'm extreme, but because I've seen firsthand what they do to the human heart.
1. Sugary breakfast cereals
2. Processed deli meats
3. Soda and energy drinks
4. Deep-fried fast foods (and carnival snacks)
5. White bread and refined carbs
6. Margarine and fake butter spreads
7. Highly processed plant-based 'meats'
8. Canned soups with high sodium
9. Flavored coffee creamers
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
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My hypothesis is that a big part of it was political.
The early 70s saw the first major high sustained monetary inflation coupled with high unemployment- (something the “experts” assured us was impossible)
Virtually overnight meat, butter, milk, cheese and all the staples did a moon shot in price. At the same time the expert rumblings declared meat & eggs & butter were “bad”. Awfully convenient. Protein always costs more, and fillers like potatoes pasta and rice became the way to fill up for reasons of affordability.
Hydrogenated vegetable oils were wartime expedients, the chief proponent in terms of diet was a guy named Ancel Keys. There is still much controversy about these and similar studies. Before the advent of these ersatz replacements heart disease & heart attacks were quite rare. So was Obesity for that matter.
I don’t eat any of that. I cook all my own food. I use real cream in my coffee that contains only organic milk. I make my own organic yogurt and sweeten it how I want. I make granola with no oats. I use ground flax meal that I grind fresh for the purpose. I haven’t eaten margarine since the 1970s when somebody told me that bugs won’t eat that so why should you? I make tallow for cooking. I use butter and coconut oil as well. I eat grass fed beef. If I eat a chicken it has to be organic. Etc etc.
When I was in the hospital this year, they didn’t let me eat for a week. I had a tube in my nose. When I got out they sent me to rehab and there was not one real food on their menu. Powdered eggs and plastic bread jelly with sweetened with fake sugar. No butter only canola oil spread. I sent people to the grocery store to get me coconut water for electrolytes, and I mixed it with Kiefer and juices and protein powder. I ate only that for two weeks. I couldn’t bear the sight or the smell of the food. I talked to the nutritionist about the meal plans and they did not get it. She looked at me as if I had two heads There was not one piece of real food in their kitchen.
Nitrates. Read labels before you buy.
This is a pretty good list
My comments:
1. Sugary breakfast cereals - ANY ‘breakfast cereal’, in fact anything with carbs, including, especially, orange juice...and, ideally, simply skip breakfast, it’s an artificial creation anyway and most people skipping it wonder why they were ever eating breakfast.
2. Processed deli meats - I’d check the ingredients on a case-by-case basis, there might be some fairly good ones, and even the crappy ones are far better than other, processed, options.
3. Soda and energy drinks - I think you can get away with sugar-free drinks, in moderation, but NOTHING with anything sugar-based!
4. Deep-fried fast foods (and carnival snacks) - Definitely. For your home cooking, you can fry with the proper oils, but it’s next to impossible to know what you get once you step out the door (except at Big Fast-Food, where they will tell you, and it’s almost always bad oils).
5. White bread and refined carbs - ANY CARBS, ideally, they all have the same effect (spiking insulin until your pancreas gives up and you end up heading towards being a diabetic). It’s hard to give up all carbs, but it’s not hard to try your best.
6. Margarine and fake butter spreads - ABSOLUTELY, they are based on industrial lubricants, with colorizing. Stick with what mom used, at least when you were young.
7. Highly processed plant-based ‘meats’ - ABSOLUTELY, not even God knows what kind of crap is in those.
8. Canned soups with high sodium - My problem with canned soups is the carb levels in most of them. While high levels of sodium/salt is shown to cause one to increase the water they hold, thereby increasing blood pressure, there is evidence that people who ingest higher levels of sodium live longer, with twice the ‘recommended’ amount being the sweet spot (i.e., more that twice and your life expectancy starts to drop, but quite slowly). On the other hand, the curve is very steep in the bad direction for those who limit sodium too much.
9. Flavored coffee creamers - I agree, but I don’t know why I agree.
Overall, this guy is more than halfway to really understanding what humans and he’s in the Mainstream Media - damn, it literally scares me that they allowed him, but I expect MSN will be getting some phone calls from Big Food and Big Pharma soon as they really cannot allow this kind of information to seep into the mainstream, yet still protect their kingdoms. So, if MSM wants to maintain their advertising, we won’t see much more from this Cardiologist.
Thanks for sharing what has worked for you! I’ll look into the un doctored lifestyle!
I think hubby mentioned Dr. Bowden too, I need to look her up!
You can buy nitrate free bacon. It’s more expensive but you can buy it.
My husband makes his own beef jerky. He bought a deli slicer to be able to make it thin. He does a pound or so a week. Just salt and pepper and dehydrate. He refrigerates it. It is pretty amazing stuff!
Regards,
Aldi sells a a whole wheat white bread.
Not sure if that makes the list.
It is way better than most white bread which this guy claims is bad for you but is likely racist.
“Last week I was in the cardiac ward and the meal they served included a fake butter spread, no option for real butter.”
I’ll sum this up for you.
1. The hospital is REQUIRED by their insurance to feed you fake butter, or else they can be sued by you (or your family, obviously).
2. Malpractice Insurance companies have NO CHOICE but to feed you fake butter, or they can be sued by you for allowing real butter.
3. The Federal Government sets ‘guidelines’ that say fake butter (industrial lubricants with colorizing, by the way) is healthier for you than real butter. They CANNOT be sued.
Big Food and Big Pharma have a reverse-bribing system in place for the regulators - Do a ‘good job’ for them while at FDA...and you get a very ‘lucrative’ job from them when you retire from federal work.
“About 15 months ago I had open heart surgery, the very first meal they brought me the morning after surgery included fully caffeinated coffee, which was surprising to me.”
I’d be far more worried about what else was on that tray.
Eat out less. You’ll save money and eat better. A two-fer.
Me too. I have a theory, though, that all health and personal finance stories are meant to depress the reader.
Half a can of soup?! Not to be mean but are you a toddler?
Surviving on beef and chicken broth, Jello, OJ, and Gatorade, for 3-4 days is no fun, the last day I was in the hospital, I got a solid food breakfast, eggs, french toast, etc..
It was not specifically mentioned.
I only eat bacon as often as I can. ;-)
Truth be told, I don't eat a lot of bacon. I don't order it with sandwiches and my daily breakfast is typically two cups of coffee. I'm just not hungry in the morning and my doctor told me if your body doesn't want to eat in the morning, don't eat until you're hungry. But on the rare occasions when I eat breakfast, lots of bacon and eggs are on the plate.
“...Many of my patients thought they were doing everything right — like exercising regularly and managing stress...”
Exercising regularly and managing stress? That’s a knee slapper!
My father 80, great health, drinks one beer or glass of wine per day, usually at dinner.
Everything in moderation.
The temperance movement was adopted by the Baptists but it’s not biblical doctrine nor science. It’s church tradition.
I don’t drink, at all, but my wife does, occasionally, a beer or wine, no issues.
What I see does not line up with what you claim, for my brother, 2 close friends...
I’m not arguing that alcohol can’t be addicting and damage the body. But it can be used responsibly.
You probably have 1/2 of your adult congregation that’s overweight. I’m not being sarcastic, I mean this. If their health and well being really matters maybe focus on gluttony and how that destroys their health.
But since obesity is common, socially acceptable, we even have “fat acceptance” in this country, it’s a very unlikely topic politicians, clergy, etc. address. You’d be a bad guy, insensitive, if you address this.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/fat-acceptance
https://www.fashiongonerogue.com/plus-size-models-know/
IMHO, when religion deviated from the literal words of the Bible and begins adding their own ideas, bad things happen.
The Bible teaches us not to be a drunk. Jesus and all the Apostles, the Pope today, many of your beer brewers of the past were monks early on: https://buildingcatholicculture.com/brewing-monks-a-list-of-the-worlds-monastic-beers/
Some of these monks were brewing beer, and consuming it, about 800 years (even before that, that’s just what we can prove) before John N. Darby came around.
Many beers today are brewed no different than they were hundreds, even thousands of years ago. In fact, one of the oldest laws on the books anywhere that is still enforced is the German Reingeitsgebot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot.
You’re argument takes some exception and attempts to create a rule. There are some weird beers made to break records today and get notoriety for the brewery. They are not the norm. If you look at the alcohol content of an average beer today it’s 2-4% light beers 4-6% IPAs. What people do to make your argument is to compare the more powerful beers of today to what are called small beers in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer.
It’s bogus comparison where some light beer of the past is compared to more powerful IPAs today.
The first beers period (~5,000 years ago) were around 6%. Egypt: https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/unbeerlievable-ancient-egyptian-ale-recreated-from-5000-year-old-yeast
Weihenstephaner, they have been brewing 1,000 years nonstop and you can get their original beer still today. It’s 5.1%: https://www.weihenstephaner.de/en/our-beers/original-helles-1
But like I said, it’s “belief” and there’s no point arguing it.
“Sleeper” is Allen’s comedy about a man who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later. The following is a conversation between two Doctors examining their defrosted patient
Dr Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called “wheat germ, organic honey and tiger’s milk.”
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible
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