Micronutrient Comparison: High fat vs. High carb; Plus: Ancient Greek Diet and Diseases

A reader emailed me asking, in his words:

"I would love to hear what your current diet includes, how you get enough vitamins/minerals on a relatively low protein/fat diet and if you have any good resources on what a traditional western diet would include."

So I thought I would do a little post on this topic.

My Current Diet

My current diet includes, ranked from highest to lowest volume:

1.  Starches:   brown rice, oatmeal, sorghum, whole corn tortillas, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, yucca root, kabocha squash, occasional white rice

2. Vegetables:  various greens, onions, carrots, radishes, celery, tomatoes, etc.

3.  Fruits:  Apples, oranges, berries, grapes, etc.

4.  Animal products:  mostly fish and shellfish (almost daily) > eggs > poultry ( a few times in the past month) > red meat (once in the past two weeks); total of 3-6 ounces daily (one egg substituting for one ounce)

5. Some soy products:  tofu and soy milk (total of a few times a week)

6. Very small amounts of olive oil and flax oil (1-3 tsp. daily)

Where Are Those Vitamins and Minerals?

Now, on to the question, how can anyone get adequate vitamins and minerals on a low protein/low fat diet?

Let's take a look at two menus I created, each about 2400 kcal, for a moderately physically active male of about 150-160 pounds, one low in animal products and fat, the other high in animal products and fat.

Here's the one low in animal products and fat, about 64/14/21 carb/pro/fat percent energy, with the micronutrient analysis; take note of the quantities of rice, potatoes, and sweet potatoes; this is the way I eat:

The menu has 100 g protein, more than enough to sustain muscular growth for anyone weighing up to 100 kg.  It exceeds all of FitDay's standard requirements for micronutrients except calcium where it reaches 86% of the 1000 mg standard.  In fact this also exceeds the requirements of most people; research has shown that the actual average requirement for calcium is only about 740 mg per day [1, 2 full text], so this menu exceeds the requirement.

Just a brief note on quantity:  In my experience, when people try low-fat diets, they don't consume anywhere near enough food to satisfy energy requirements.  They feel hungry, and they erroneously conclude that eating carbs makes them hungry, when in reality, they are hungry because they aren't eating enough quality starch.  Asians eat an average of 1/2 to 1 pound of rice (precooked weight) daily [full text], plus other grains, potatoes and other starches, with people eating lesser amounts of animal products eating the higher amount of rice.

To create the high fat menu, I took the above menu and removed all the starchy foods (brown rice, oatmeal, and potatoes), leaving in one sweet potato (the starch with the highest nutrient density), getting the carbs down to 100 g, then added bison and increased the meat and fish portions so that the total menu would supply protein equivalent to the above low-fat menu.  I kept the same non-starchy, high nutrient density vegetables and fruits as in the low-fat menu so as to minimize difference.  Then I added approximately equal portions of olive oil and butter to get the kcalorie count up to 2400, same as the other menu.  The macronutrient ratio came to 15/16/68 carb/pro/fat % energy (about the opposite carb/fat ratio to the low-fat menu).  Here's the menu and micronutrient analysis:

This menu has 200 mg less calcium than the low-fat menu, failing to meet even the new standard of ~740 mg, and fails to supply the RDA for magnesium, potassium, zinc, thiamin, and pantothenic acid.  The following table compares the two menus relative to the RDA for the listed micronutrients.  Red numbers indicate values that fall below the RDA:

Nutrient	Low-Meat, Low-Fat %RDA	High-Meat, High-Fat %RDA	Highest Level LM or HM
Vitamin A	761	839	HM
Vitamin B6	336	188	LM
Vitamin B12	254	329	HM
Vitamin C	523	458	LM
Vitamin D	262	266	=
Vitamin E	108	164	HM
Calcium	86	60	LM
Copper	386	167	LM
Iron	250	176	LM
Magnesium	175	61	LM
Manganese	543	135	LM
Niacin	160	108	LM
Pantothenic Acid	225	87	LM
Phosphorus	270	151	LM
Potassium	124	75	LM
Riboflavin	124	125	=
Selenium	137	285	HM
Thiamin	209	74	LM
Zinc	111	79	LM

1.  Despite retaining the high-nutrient density vegetables and fruits, the high-meat, high-fat, low-carb menu fails to provide the RDA for six of nineteen nutrients (32%).  This occurred while including 100 g nutrient-dense sources of carbohydrate daily.  If I cut the carbs further, the menu would get even weaker in micronutrients. Could this explain why Atkins Nutraceuticals exists?

2.  The low-meat, low-fat menu supplies the higher amount for 13 of 19 nutrients, the high-meat, high-fat menu supplies the higher amount for only 4 of 19 nutrients, and the two menus have approximately equal amounts for two nutrients.

So, I get my nutrients by eating nutrient-dense plant foods.  Even though I included some of the most nutrient-dense of plant foods in the high-fat menu, it didn't match the nutrient-density of the low-fat menu.  So I can turn the question around now and ask, how does one get adequate vitamins and minerals eating a low-carbohydrate, high-meat, high-fat diet?

Traditional Western Foods

Try reading about ancient Greek diet:

"Cereals formed the staple diet......The cereals were often served accompanied by what was generically referred to as ὄψον opson, "relish".^[26] The word initially meant anything prepared on the fire, and, by extension, anything which accompanied bread.^[27] In the classical period it came to refer to fruit and vegetables: cabbage, onions, lentils, sweet peas, chickpeas, broad beans, garden peas, grass peas, etc.^[28] They were eaten as a soup, boiled or mashed (ἔτνος etnos), seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, herbs or γάρον gáron, a fish sauce similar to Vietnamese nước mắm. According to Aristophanes,^[29] mashed beans were a favourite dish of Heracles, always represented as a glutton in comedies. Poor families ate oak acorns (βάλανοι balanoi).^[30] Raw or preserved olives were a common appetizer.^[31]

Among the ancient Greeks, the wealthy ate substantial animal products but the peasants did not. Before you follow their example, you might want to know something.  This dietary division of the classes gave ancient Greek philosophers and physicians the opportunity to observe a distinct division of health between the classes. In describing the mode of life of the citizens of The Republic, Socrates says:

"They will feed on barley-meal and flour of wheat, baking and kneading them, making noble cakes and loaves; these they will serve up on a mat of reeds or on clean leaves, themselves reclining the while upon beds strewn with yew or myrtle. And they and their children will feast, drinking of the wine which they have made, wearing garlands on their heads, and hymning the praises of the gods, in happy converse with one another. And they will take care that their families do not exceed their means; having an eye to poverty or war......of course they must have a relish-salt, and olives, and cheese, and they will boil roots and herbs such as country people prepare; for a dessert we shall give them figs, and peas, and beans; and they will roast myrtle-berries and acorns at the fire, drinking in moderation. And with such a diet they may be expected to live in peace and health to a good old age, and bequeath a similar life to their children after them."[2, 3]

Glaucon protests that this substantially plant-based diet seems fit only for pigs, that the people should have "sauces and sweets in the modern style." Socrates retorts that doing so will create a "State at fever heat" and goes on:

"Now will the city have to fill and swell with a multitude of callings which are not required by any natural want; such as the whole tribe of hunters and actors, of whom one large class have to do with forms and colours; another will be the votaries of music--poets and their attendant train of rhapsodists, players, dancers, contractors; also makers of divers kinds of articles, including women's dresses. And we shall want more servants. Will not tutors be also in request, and nurses wet and dry, tirewomen and barbers, as well as confectioners and cooks; and swineherds, too, who were not needed and therefore had no place in the former edition of our State, but are needed now?  They must not be forgotten: and there will be animals of many other kinds, if people eat them."[3]

To which Glaucon says: "Certainly."

And Socrates says:

"And living in this way we shall have much greater need of physicians than before?"

To which Glaucon says:  "Much greater."  

In other words, Plato or Socrates had already observed, more than 2000 years ago, that the rich people eating their rich diet had affluent diseases and early mortality, and the peasants eating a frugal diet could expect "health to a good old age."  

I referred to this, among other ancient writings, when I wrote "the currently popular concept of paleo diet—animal-based, relatively high in protein and fat and relatively low in carbohydrate—conflicts with empirical nutrition knowledge accumulated over the course of 5 thousand years in both Asian and Western medicine"[4].  The knowledge that humans thrive on low-fat plant-based nutrition and get sick on high-fat animal-based nutrition is not some 20th century aberration in the West; we find it expressed by the very founders of Western civilization. 

I just find it uncanny that modern mainstream Western nutrition research seems to be reaching the same general conclusions about optimal human nutrition as Plato/Socrates, traditional Chinese medicine, and traditional Ayurvedic medicine, despite coming at the question from different angles in different ages and in different populations.

The irony:  Armed with their so-called 'scientific' method, which they haughtily consider superior to any previous method of discovery, a team of modern scientists climbs the mountain of Truth and when they get to the top, they find the best ancient philosophers and physicians from East and West have been sitting there for millennia.