Why Tom Brady’s Diet Is Absolutely Absurd
Tom Brady doesn’t eat fruit,
nightshades, or olive oil. A Ph.D. nutritionist explains why that makes no
sense
IMAGE BY GETTY IMAGES
·
·
·
·
·
·
·
Tom Brady’s diet is making
headlines after his personal chef toldBoston.com the
details of what he eats. Brady is apparently so diligent about nutrition that
he avoids white sugar, white flour, iodized salt, eggplant, tomatoes, and fruit.
I love Touchdown Tommy. I’m a
generational Patriots fan. But as a nutrition Ph.D., I was embarrassed to read
about his diet.
Here’s the
thing: Brady’s diet and training is managed by a man named Alex Guerrero, who
is not a nutritionist or a doctor. Guerrero did, however, get in trouble with
the Federal Trade Commission for pretending to be a doctor on TV while trying
to sell a greens supplement that “cured terminal cancer.”
Tom’s chef,
Allen Campbell, is also not a nutrition expert. He did take a Certificate
Program in Plant-Based nutrition offered by eCornell and taught by Dr. T. Colin
Campbell, PhD, earlier this year.
The whole
situation is a great example of something I have seen for years: Just because
you have a lot of money and influence doesn’t mean you get good health and
medical advice.
Unfortunately,
Brady’s diet is full of buzzwords, not science. According to Allen Campbell,
Brady avoids tomatoes because of the inflammation they cause. That makes
literally zero sense.
Tomatoes are the
richest source of lycopene, a powerful antioxidant. A 2012 study published
in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research showed that a
meal containing tomatoes reduced levels of inflammation and oxidation following
the meal.
There’s another
component of his diet that really caught my eye: He doesn’t eat fruit.
Avoiding fruit
has become especially trendy lately, particularly among CrossFitters.
The Boston.com
article doesn’t say why Brady shuns fruit, but the fear typically comes from
the fact that fruit is high in the sugar fructose.
Some people
mistakenly think that fructose is bad for you because of an outdated
understanding of how fructose works in your body.
Fructose is
metabolized differently from glucose, which goes into your bloodstream after
you digest it. Fructose goes to your liver.
From there, it
was thought to be converted into fat and then released into your bloodstream,
potentially increasing your risk of heart disease and insulin resistance.
Researchers have
tested this theory on multiple occasions and found that when you eat fruit,
even a lot of it, these hypothesized negative effects are not seen.
In the report on
Brady’s diet, he seems very concerned with inflammation and oxidation. So it
actually seems silly to cut out fruit, which is a major source of antioxidants
and nutrients that can help fight those two things.
In the end,
Brady’s diet works: The man is a lean, fit, professional athlete and four-time
Super Bowl champion.
But his diet
doesn’t work because it is “local” or because it is completely void of eggplant
and grapes, or because his chef never cooks with olive oil (only coconut oil).
It works because
it is low in added sugar, high in vegetables, and moderate in lean protein, and
he's militantly consistent with it.
That’s the
reason ANY diet can work.
These are the
same principals that nutritionists have known and advocated for decades. Sorry,
Tom: Your abstinence from apples is probably for naught.
Editor's
Note: A former version of this article suggested that The China Study manipulated
data, which was a regretful choice of words. No data was manipulated,
although nutritionists can interpret the results of the study differently.
No comments:
Post a Comment