MILAN (ITALPRESS) – The food we consume is not only a source of pleasure, but also represents our body’s fuel, the energy needed to carry out everyday activities. The composition of the diet influences metabolism, the immune system, and contributes to the prevention of important diseases, from vascular diseases to those affecting the digestive system. A balanced diet is also essential for maintaining a fit weight and for best preserving cognitive function as we age. Choosing meal composition and portion size carefully is therefore a health strategy to be followed every day with awareness. These are some of the topics discussed by Professor Giorgio Calabrese, a specialist in food science, professor of food and human nutrition at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Alexandria and at the Universities of Turin and Messina, as well as a well-known TV personality, official dietician for Juventus and consultant to the Ministry of Health, interviewed by Marco Klinger, for Medicina Top, a TV format of the Italpress news agency. “We enter the winter months, I recommend during the course of the day 5-6 small meals,” he began, “It rains, it snows depending on where we live, this means we can move less and therefore we burn less. Therefore, we need not to fill the stomach, but to fractionate by lowering insulin, which produces fat even when we don’t eat. At breakfast milk, yogurt or fresh fruit, dried fruit mid-morning, a lunch with vegetables or even better legumes, in the afternoon a coffee with cookies, in the evening at dinner some fish, meat and whatever else,” he advised regarding the eating routine for the colder months. On the intermittent fasting that is so fashionable: “In Italy until 20 years ago, breakfast was just a coffee, meaning you then had lunch at 1 p.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. All of Italy at this point should have been thin, so it’s not,” he pointed out. “Intermittent fasting is proposed in such a way that you don’t introduce gasoline inside the car, but you want to make it go the same way as if it had a full tank. It’s clear that if you don’t eat… And then, if in the meal before fasting you introduce 8000 calories, then you can do all the intermittent fasting you want, but it doesn’t work. So for me it’s more of a fad.” “Sugars are so much criminalized, but six years ago at the UN I reminded how we Italians are long-lived and we are based on the Mediterranean diet, which is made up of 60 percent carbohydrates, 20 percent fat, and 10 percent protein, with 25 percent of simple sugars then cut down to 10 percent,” he explained, debunking a false myth. “Sugars are not only not to be demonized, but to be introduced. The high-protein diet? To take out all carbohydrates and eat only protein is to put a lot of concrete in a house that rests on ground that is not overly solid,” he stressed, criticizing overly protein diets. “We sometimes have problems in life, we smoke, someone unfortunately does drugs, others get drunk. Our life, like a house, is not very stable,” Calabrese reiterated. “When from the U.S. they want to teach us to eat only protein, can I ever listen to advice from Americans who are the most obese in the world? All high-protein diets lead to kidney problems,” the professor warned, “When the kidney protests, it gets in agreement with the liver and we can have big problems. As for milk and dairy products, “I read a news story given by soybean producers. They made a crazy business, they made vegetable milk that is not milk. I fought for these products not to be called milk, but rice, almond, and soy drinks,” he recounted. “Milk contains vitamins, but why should we think it gives us cancer? It’s a fad created by people who need to sell certain plant products. Cheeses are good for patients, the elderly in particular are depleted of calcium and don’t have vitamin B, if we give dairy we help them.” Finally, a piece of advice for those who want to lose weight quickly in a natural way: “If in three days I have to lose 2-3 kg, for example I have to do a fashion show and put on the dress that doesn’t fit, then I will go ahead with vegetable soups and purees, they have a lot of potassium and they flush out the sodium, then I can eat some fruit, better if cooked,” he advised. “In this way, in two-three days I lose yes three kg, but they are liquids,” he concluded. “Then the next day I can already find myself with 2-3 kg more.
– photo taken from Top Medicine video -(ITALPRESS).
