Cardiologist: 9 American foods you 'couldn't pay me to eat'—after 20 years of treating heart attacks

CNBC ^ | Oct 10, 2025 | Dr. Sanjay Bhojraj, Contributor

[Fresh Wind]

1. Sugary breakfast cereals

Also known as "healthy breakfast candy".

[Leaning Right]

> I don’t think caffeine in moderation is bad. <

I read an article by some doctor the other day about coffee. He said four cups of black coffee every day is good for you.

Here’s what Johns Hopkins has to say:

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/9-reasons-why-the-right-amount-of-coffee-is-good-for-you

[genetic homophobe]

They’ve been lying to us since Eisenhower’s heart attack. Framingham study. The truth is, there’s no such thing as bad cholesterol. High cholesterol is good. You need low triglycerides. Insulin resistance is the cause of cardiovascular disease. Eat meat. Fatty red meat, real butter, eggs with yolks and bacon. Bread, grains, cereal, oatmeal…all straight up poison. I’ve been on a carnivore diet for over two years and it has changed my life.

[telescope115]

Before I retired I would frequently bring a can of Progresso to work for lunch. Now most of the soup I eat, my wife makes from scratch or she uses low sodium chicken broth.

I met with a nurse practitioner at my GI doctor’s office yesterday. She asked about what I would drink during the day re. my caffeine intake. I replied “coffee in the morning, diet cola during the day and at dinner.”

She asked “ how long have you been drinking the diet cola?”

I said “ since I stopped drinking beer”.

“How long ago was that?”

“About 8 years ago, when I was told I had end stage liver disease”. Her eyebrows went up a little, but she didn’t say anything….

[A strike]

” Wonder how many of these 9 items in not a few years will turn out to be nutrition myths? “

Sleeper. 1973 Woody Allen

[Toespi]

My endocrinologist, a wonderful older doc practicing over fifty years, said he had patients well into their 80’s and 90’s who were high functioning. So he kept notes on them and what they attributed to their good health. There were three things that an overwhelming number of them had in common

#1 was afternoon NAPS throughout their lives
Non-smokers or those that quit early in life
Focused on staying positive

The doc also said to pay attention to genetics. If certain medical conditions were in your family like heart disease, lung issues,diabetes etc, those people needed to moderate their diets.

[Texas Fossil]

Yep.

Thanks

[Varda]

One thing I know from my cardiac experience is that cardiologists don’t know much about diet. (ie. don’t read research about it)
Dieticians don’t either, I asked for the low carb diet in the hospital and they brought me a high carb, low protein meal. I wonder what the normal option was like.

[Locomotive Breath]

You’re going to have to clue me in because, based on a couple of samples, I hate Woody Allen movies and avoided them ever since.

[sauropod]

Bomk

[trebb]

I grew up using margarine (then called “oleo”) but have used real butter for a few decades now.

[Locomotive Breath]

“I asked for the low carb diet in the hospital and they brought me a high carb, low protein meal.”

Because that’s supposed to be “heart healthy”. Doctors know nothing. Dietitians know nothing. They’re all operating off fad and superstition. And despite the fact that all of us are genetically very different they try to mandate that exactly one diet is perfect (and mandatory) for everyone.

[AF_Blue]

4. Deep-fried fast foods (and carnival snacks)

Y'all can just keep your mitts away from my deep-fried Oreos. It's not like the state fair is happening every week.

[Locomotive Breath]

The Food Pyramid originally came out of the committee of Sen George McGovern (D-SD). There's pretty good evidence that his staff was mostly vegetarian and were trying to discourage eating of meat using the smoke screen of cardiac health.

McGovern's Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs Versus the: Meat Industry on the Diet-Heart Question (1976–1977)

Without providing a detailed account of the committee’s battles, nutritionist and activist Marion Nestle has characterized the revision as one of government surrender to special interests.5 To be sure, she is partially correct. Other histories have similarly characterized the committee’s actions, but without a close examination of the debates that occurred.6 However, a careful study of the committee’s activities is needed to reveal the complexities of this confrontation.7 Through such a narrative, we have shown that the committee, whose members included Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Hubert Humphrey (D, MN), and Robert Dole (R, KS), were faced with issues they were professionally incapable of resolving: conflicts within science over the interpretation of data, questions of scientific validity, and notions of proof. Ultimately, it was a lack of scientific consensus on all these factors, and not simply political acquiescence, that allowed special interests to gain a foothold in the debate and secure a modification of the initial guidelines on meat consumption.

As it was then, and as it is now, idiot politicians making policy on things they are completely incapable of understanding but rather operating off a political agenda. See also the banning of DDT and now decades of harmful policy over global warming climate change.

[Sacajaweau]

I made a pot of Tuscan bean soup and froze 8 cartons. Real food and I control the salt. Add more pepper...seems to be one of the tricks.

[Varda]

I think you nailed it. I come from a family that gets diabetes the moment carbs hit the lips. Hubbies family doesn't get diabetes no matter what they eat.

Yet medical types recommend the same high carb diet.

BTW - we tried the Carnivore diet and the results were amazing. It stopped inflammation and arthritis in a month. I couldn't keep it up though. I now do a low carb diet.
My heart attack was caused by a pathogen. My arteries were clear. Everybody else needed to have their fat filled arteries reamed out .

[central_va]

I noticed beer is not on that list.

[wbarmy]

9. Flavored coffee creamers

Well, guess I need to go buy a grave plot.

[Jane Long]

… My second wife comes from a family of ranchers. ..

---

Why not just say “My wife”?? 🤔

[wbarmy]

There are a lot of things where certain groups, that because of their “belief” cultural or religious push certain things which aren’t really proven or science based: pork alcohol (some Baptists)...

As a Pastor, I preach against alcohol because there is really no one in this day and age who can drink the stuff produced by that industry without becoming addicted. The "alcohol" they produced in the bible years is NOT anything like what is drunk now.

And as priests of our King, Jesus, we should never be drunk so that we can always give an account for the hope that is within us.