Plus 14 oz. of produce, all per day, and fish four times a week. Cuts
heart disease, extends your life.

The Polymeal diet. See
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7123048

and

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=340254

Seems that eating these items every day reduces heart disease risk by
some huge percentage, and will increase the life expectancy of a 50
year old American by some 5 years. Male or female!

Summary:

1) Eat fish four times a week;
2) Drink 4-5 oz. of wine a day;
3) Eat 100g (3-4 oz.) of dark chocolate a day;
4) Eat 400g (14 oz.) of fruits and vegetables a day;
5) Eat 2.7g (a pinch) of garlic a day;
6) Eat 68g (2-3 oz.) of almonds a day.

I went out and bought chocolate today, and have made up Christmas bags
for a family dinner tomorrow, with a bottle of red wine, a head of
garlic, a giant dark chocolate bar, a tin of sardines, and an orange,
plus the info on the diet, tucked into each bag.

A chef in the Guardian (UK) suggests a menu: "watercress soup, grilled
fillet of mackerel with a tagine of winter root vegetables, chickpeas,
toasted almonds and roasted garlic, followed by chocolate mousse"

I have a lovely flourless chocolate cake recipe with almonds, and I'd
serve a bouillabaisse, with rouille (garlic mayonaisse) and a salad,
for a hypothetical Polymeal menu. Wine with the fish of course, maybe
Bonny Doon's Cigar Volant pinot grigio?

Excuse me while I make sure I've eaten enough chocolate today. Maybe I
didn't have enough red wine at dinner, either...

PS chocolate has anti-oxidants, too, don't you know.

Meanwhile, the breast cancer book I have says that drinking 6-9 glasses
of wine per week increases your risk of breast cancer. So the book
concludes - only drink wine once a year, for New Year's. How do they
figure this? Before I got breast cancer, I averaged about a glass of
wine a month maybe. My surgeons, top docs at top research hospital
breast center, agree that if I like red wine I should drink it. Post-op
I drank nothing for 6 or 8 weeks, since I was taking all those
painkillers. Now in chemo I certainly don't feel like drinking for a
good ten days after infusion, leaving another 10 days in which I can.
So now what? Wine or no wine? I am opting for a little. Moderation is
the key in all things. I am not sure I will go for a glass a day,
however. That puts me in the supposed range for risk.

Leila

(Leila) wrote:
> Summary:
> 1) Eat fish four times a week;
> 2) Drink 4-5 oz. of wine a day;

I don't drink alcohol, but dug around a bit and found that purple grape
juice has the same compounds from grape skins and seeds as wine, so it's
"almost" as beneficial.

> 3) Eat 100g (3-4 oz.) of dark chocolate a day;

This is actually the hardest part for me - that's a BIG bar of dark
chocolate, and I tend to buy high cocoa content organic fair-trade
stuff like Green & Black's, which isn't particularly cheap, so I've
grown accustomed to eating it a little bit at a time over several
days. Eating 100g in one day will be a challenge.

> 4) Eat 400g (14 oz.) of fruits and vegetables a day;
> 5) Eat 2.7g (a pinch) of garlic a day;
> 6) Eat 68g (2-3 oz.) of almonds a day.

Oh, the horror of having to eat all these foods I already like!

-Dan

--
http://ChocoLocate.com/ - The Chocolate Lovers' Page, established 1994.

Figuring out the various studies that come out on the health effects of
this and that food is practically impossible. There are also many
contradicting studies. A lot of that has to do with the methodology of
comperative studies.

Generally, what they do is to solicit a group of people to participate
and then over a period of time they feed half of them with say cabbage
and the other half ("the control group") don't eat cabbage. Then after
a period of time they measure either the incidents of heart deasease or
some auxilliary factor (blood pressure, etc.) and using statistical
sampling theory conclude that there is a significant difference in the
two populations.

Obviously the conclusiveness of such studies will be all over the place
and you probably want to see more than one study before you stop eating
cabbage or load up on sauerkraut. Many factors can influence the
outcome of a study and not all of those can be controlled.

In addition, statistical sampling theory does come with its own
limitations on conclusiveness. Namely there will always be some
non-zero probability that the result was strictly random. Most studies
keep this probability under 5% but in calculating the significance of
the study, any researcher will have to use a number of assumptions that
may or may not be correct. There are well known examples of meaningless
statistically conclusive data such as the fact that the length of the
right and left foot are not statistically correlated.

Finally, many of these studies are sponsored by manufacturers of this
and that and even if the study was done by a third party research unit,
you still have to wonder.

(Fifo) wrote:
> Figuring out the various studies that come out on the health effects of
> this and that food is practically impossible. There are also many
> contradicting studies. A lot of that has to do with the methodology of
> comperative studies.
>
> Generally, what they do is to solicit a group of people to participate
> and then over a period of time they feed half of them with say cabbage
> and the other half ("the control group") don't eat cabbage. Then after
> a period of time they measure either the incidents of heart deasease or
> some auxilliary factor (blood pressure, etc.) and using statistical
> sampling theory conclude that there is a significant difference in the
> two populations.
>
> Obviously the conclusiveness of such studies will be all over the place
> and you probably want to see more than one study before you stop eating
> cabbage or load up on sauerkraut. Many factors can influence the
> outcome of a study and not all of those can be controlled.
>
> In addition, statistical sampling theory does come with its own
> limitations on conclusiveness. Namely there will always be some
> non-zero probability that the result was strictly random. Most studies
> keep this probability under 5% but in calculating the significance of
> the study, any researcher will have to use a number of assumptions that
> may or may not be correct. There are well known examples of meaningless
> statistically conclusive data such as the fact that the length of the
> right and left foot are not statistically correlated.
>
> Finally, many of these studies are sponsored by manufacturers of this
> and that and even if the study was done by a third party research unit,
> you still have to wonder.
>

Did you (or do you) have anything to say about _this particular study_?

--
http://ChocoLocate.com/ - The Chocolate Lovers' Page, established 1994.

Dan Birchall wrote:
> Did you (or do you) have anything to say about _this particular
study_?
>


I am sorry. I was planning on sharing my personal drinking and eating
habits with the world (like you did) but it simply slipped my mind.

(Fifo) wrote:
>
> Dan Birchall wrote:
> > Did you (or do you) have anything to say about _this particular
> > study_?
>
> I am sorry. I was planning on sharing my personal drinking and eating
> habits with the world (like you did) but it simply slipped my mind.

Sorry, I meant my question sincerely. I'm curious to what extent the
things you said about studies in general are (to your knowledge) true
of this particular one.

(Of course, this one was more a review of the existing literature than
a new research project.)

--
http://ChocoLocate.com/ - The Chocolate Lovers' Page, established 1994.

Dan Birchall wrote:
> (Fifo) wrote:
> >
> > Dan Birchall wrote:
> > > Did you (or do you) have anything to say about _this particular
> > > study_?
> >
> > I am sorry. I was planning on sharing my personal drinking and
eating
> > habits with the world (like you did) but it simply slipped my
mind.
>
> Sorry, I meant my question sincerely. I'm curious to what extent the

> things you said about studies in general are (to your knowledge) true
> of this particular one.
>

I amd sorry too - I thought you were trying to police the content. I
was just trying to explain why Leila was seeing contradictory surveys
with respect to the effects of wine. It also struck me that I have seen
contradictions with respect to the effects of chocolate. Not so much in
terms of the benefits of the ingredients as much as whether the amounts
contained in chocolate and whether those can actually have any effect.
Personally I beleive that there is enough evidence that if something
makes you happy, happiness is good for your health so it is good too.
Of course some substances excluded.

(Fifo) wrote:
> I was just trying to explain why Leila was seeing contradictory surveys
> with respect to the effects of wine.

Ugh, indeed! Those are particularly amusing (in a sad way) over time.
They begin by leaping to tremendously silly conclusions:

"People who drink a little wine are healthier, so wine is good for you."
"People who drink a lot of wine are less healthy, so wine is bad for you."

And then of course over years and years (and, I might note, a lot of
research funding... I simply must get an advanced degree so people will
throw money at me to proclaim obvious things they eventually narrow it
down and determine that... oh, what was the last one I saw? One glass of
wine every other day, I think they were saying. Which of course is still
a generalization and not optimal for some people.

Same with chocolate, I suppose. Though at least they're having the sense
to point out that anything in chocolate that might be good for you is more
likely to be in the good brands of dark chocolate, and not in some horrid
brand you can find at 7-eleven

> Personally I beleive that there is enough evidence that if something
> makes you happy, happiness is good for your health so it is good too.

That is a good mindset to have.

--
http://ChocoLocate.com/ - The Chocolate Lovers' Page, established 1994.