Food can fix everything

By Jurriaan Kamp

Dr. Mark Hyman knows that bad food makes people sick. He has been using food as medicine for 30 years achieving spectacular results like completely reversing type 2 diabetes within a week or two. Then, one day in 2014, he realized that treating patients in his doctor’s office meant he was merely treating symptoms of a much bigger problem. The real treatment, he thought, had to start at the roots of the food chain: on the farm, in the grocery store and in the kitchen at home. His insight was the beginning of a long journey researching the food system: Why are people eating the food that makes them sick? And why is that food being produced in the first place?

The result was Food Fix, the first ‘political’ book by the bestselling ‘health’ author of The Blood Sugar Solution, Eat Fat, Get Thin and Food: What the Heck Should I Eat? In the book, Dr. Hyman argues “there is one place that nearly everything that matters in the world today converges: our food and our food system—the complex web of how we grow food, how we produce, distribute and promote it; what we eat, what we waste, and the policies that perpetuate unimaginable suffering and destruction across the globe that deplete our human, social and economic, and natural capital.” Today, food causes many problems but—according to Dr. Hyman—food can be the biggest solution too.

Food Fix was published days before the Covid19 pandemic hit. Nevertheless, the book provides possibly the best long-term response to the virus crisis, and to many other existing and future health crises. “The chronic problem is that America—and the world—is increasingly unhealthy”, says Dr. Hyman as we speak over Zoom. The problem is “driven by our diet”. He refers to the fact that 60 percent of the diet in the western world consists of processed foods. That diet increases the risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer and more. Dr. Hyman: “Our diet is inflammatory. It is frightening. 88 percent of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. That means 12 percent are healthy.”

Dr. Hyman is not surprised that the United States has become a sad leader when it comes to victims of the pandemic. Inflammatory diets “drive people to be pre-inflamed”. “When the virus hits a pre-inflamed person, it is like putting gasoline on a fire. It leads to an explosion—a cytokine storm. It is not the virus that is killing us. It is the overreaction by our immune system that is already primed by our diet.”

At the time of writing, the United States with a population of 330 million has passed the mark of 200,000 corona deaths. Dr. Hyman refers to South Korea that—with one sixth of the population of the US—has had just over 400 deaths. “Look at that country; obesity is much less of a problem; chronic disease is much less of a problem.”

America used to be different. In Food Fix, Dr. Hyman describes that he recently looked at a picture of a beach scene from the 1970s and a picture from the famous Woodstock pop festival. He writes: “I could not find a single image of anyone overweight, never mind obese, in a sea of humans.” 

So, what happened? The short answer is: In the past century, food has become an industry. A giant $15 trillion industry dominated by multinational corporations with the primary focus to generate profits for their shareholders. In 1900, 40 percent of the population of the United States lived on farms and 60 percent of the population lived in rural areas. Today, one percent of the population lives on a farm and 20 percent in rural areas. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were some seven million farms with an average size of 150 acres in the US. Today, there are less than two million farms with an average size of 450 acres. At the same time, income has shifted dramatically from farmers to corporations. In 1980, a farmer made 37 cents on $1 dollar of food he sold; today, he makes 15 cents on every dollar. The result of all this is neatly summarized in a quote from the environmental poet Wendell Berry which opens the first chapter of Food Fix: “People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are healed by the health industry, which pays no attention to food”. 

The big change occurred after World War II. The world needed more food to feed a growing population. Scientists discovered that the chemicals that were developed to bomb and kill people in the war, could also be used to kill insects and pests on agricultural lands. “Pesticides and fertilizers were basically byproducts of the war”, says Dr. Hyman. Agriculture became very good at producing large amounts of grains—“starchy calories”. That was also the success of the much-heralded Green Revolution in the 1960s. The trend had two negative impacts. “We did not realize how bad these large amounts of starchy calories are for human health and we did not comprehend the danger of these agricultural chemicals for the environment,” he says.

Corporations by their nature are driven to find the most efficient ways to make money. Selling an apple is less profitable than selling applesauce with some added ingredients that are promoted on a fancy label. As a result, today, 60 percent of the calories in the average American diet come from, what Hyman calls, “ultraprocessed foods”. These foods contain more than 10,000 additives of which fewer than five percent have been tested for safety. The average American consumes 3 to five pounds of these additives every year.

Sugar is the worst ingredient of all. Two centuries ago, the average American ate some 6 pounds of sugar every year. In today’s terms that consumption equals a can of soda every five days. Today, a person in the US consumes 100 pounds a year or a 12-ounce soda every 7 hours. Scientists already discovered a link between sugar consumption and chronic diseases—cancer, heart disease—in the 1950s. However, food industry lobbies were able to bury these findings and instead claimed that saturated fat was the culprit of ill health. Incidentally, the food industry offered a solution to this fat problem: margarine—which, writes Dr. Hyman in Food Fix, “has likely killed millions since the development of Crisco in 1911”.

The industrial approach to food production has led to extreme specialization. Subsidy policies of the United States and the European Union determine which crops farmers grow. In the United States, apples are the only fruit or vegetable that receives significant subsidies. But most apples are grown to make juice and applesauce—processed foods that are less nutritious than the apple itself. Ninety-nine percent of the subsidies go to staple crops. Today, 60 percent of the food most people eat comes from rice, corn and wheat. With just nine more plants that percentage rises to 75. Dr. Hyman needs few words to summarize the result: “We provide our population with too many calories and not enough nutrients. We are overfed and undernourished.” That is the industrial recipe for chronic disease. 

Dr. Hyman: “Worldwide every year, 11 million people die from directly diet-related problems. That is more than from any other cause including smoking and wars. Heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s are largely diet-related illnesses.” Government guidelines are clear—at least five servings of fruit and vegetables per day. Almost 80 percent of the world population is not eating that minimum. The strange fact is that it is not even possible. “We tell people to eat more fruit and vegetables, but we do not grow them”, writes Dr. Hyman. Industrial agricultural grows the crops that feed the more money-making food processing industry.

Mark Hyman was raised in New York and went to medical school at the University of Ottawa. He trained as a family doctor in rural Idaho and worked as an emergency room doctor in Massachusetts before founding his own UltraWellness Center. Hyman is the head of strategy and innovation for the Cleveland Clinical Center for Functional Medicine. He explains the latter term as “the future of medicine”: “It is an approach that understands that the body is a dynamic system and that everything is interconnected. The focus in medicine should be on restoring health and balances not on suppressing symptoms with medications,” he says. As a thirteen-time New York Times bestselling author, his message has resonated with millions of people. Dr. Hyman is also a regular guest on television shows and a sought-after speaker. He met Hillary Clinton on a fundraiser while she was still a Senator. She connected Dr. Hyman with her husband who was recovering from quadruple bypass surgery in 2004. Former President Clinton has said “[Hyman] gave me my life back”.

Clinton learned what every patient of Dr. Hyman learns: health begins with food. “People do not understand what food is. It is not just calories or energy; it is actually information. Food provides instructions: With every bite you are regulating your gene expression, your immune system, your hormones and your gut microbiome,” he says. Bad information leads to bad biology. That is why more than 2 billion people in the world are overweight. But the problem is not just about physical disease. Dr. Hyman: “Mental health and the academic performance of children are related to our diet. We know we can cure depression through healthy diets.” He also refers to research that shows that violent crime in prisons can be reduced with 56 percent by feeding people healthy diets (and 80 percent if they took a multi-vitamin). “Even our national security is threatened by our diet because 70 percent of recruits are rejected as unfit for service”, he concludes.

Already an unsustainable one third of the entire federal budget in the United States goes to Medicare and health care. That is an alarming statistic. However, as Dr. Hyman discovered during his research for Food Fix, there is more. “I was shocked to learn that our food system is the number one cause of climate change”, he says. He learned that the combined environmental impacts of deforestation, soil erosion, factory farming, transport, refrigeration and food waste cause about 50 percent of global greenhouse emissions. 

Industrial foods hurt us twice, argues Dr. Hyman in Food Fix. They damage the environment and they are the greatest cause of human suffering, disability and disease. He sums it up: “We privatize the profits and we socialize the costs. That needs to change.” In his book, Dr. Hyman takes the example of corn. First the crop receives $2.2 billion in annual subsidies. Subsequently, the chemicals for fertilizer and pesticides used in the cultivation poison and deplete soil and water systems. Then the corn is turned into high fructose corn syrup. That sweetener—which, according to Dr. Hyman “may kill you”—is one of the major ingredients of the $68 billion food stamps program in the US feeding the poorest Americans. “Twenty percent of the revenue of Coca-Cola comes from the food stamps program “, he says. The ultimate result of the corn cultivation is obesity and chronic disease, which cost the US $3.7 trillion a year.

What is the true cost of food, Dr. Hyman asks? Soda is sold for 22 cents per eight ounce serving. Given all these ‘hidden’ expenses, the price of a can of soda should perhaps be $100, he says. Similarly, a factory-farmed burger should cost $1,000 a pound while an organic grass-fed steak would possibly be $3 a pound. 

To serve the health of people and planet, the food system needs to be turned upside down. Taxation is the most efficient instrument to create this outcome. It simply makes sense to tax foods that cause obesity and disease. In 2014, the Mexican government enacted a ten percent tax on sugary drinks and a five percent tax on junk foods. After one year, researchers found that the sales of soft drinks had fallen 12 percent. Some American cities, like New York and San Francisco have also begun to levy ‘soda taxes’.

Studies show taxes work. Dr. Hyman writes: “If the United States passed a national penny-per-ounce tax it would save $25.6 billion in health care costs and produce $12.5 billion in revenue for […] programs to address obesity.” Scientists at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University propose a flat 20 or 30 percent tax on most packaged and processed foods. The revenue of this tax should then be used to subsidize nutritious foods that reduce health care costs and that do not harm the environment. It would no longer be possible to buy a 36-ounce soda for 99 cents. At the same time, you could buy an apple—which may cost 75 cents today—for just 20 cents. 

Regulation of food marketing offers another impactful solution. In Food Fix, Dr. Hyman tells the story of Chile where more than half of all six-year-olds and three-quarters of adults are overweight and obese. The country’s health care system spends some $800 million every year on obesity-related conditions. In 2006, Chile passed a sweeping law regulating food labeling and advertising. The law bans advertising potato chips, ice cream, etcetera in schools and requires food companies to display big black warning logos on the labels for processed foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fats—much like many countries require that for tobacco products. Moreover, food companies are forced to incorporate messages about the importance of physical activity and healthy eating in their advertising. A study showed that the new label regulations reduced the consumption of soft drinks by almost 25 percent in 18 months. Children, inspired by their teachers, are pointing out food labels with the ‘bad’ black label to their parents. Researchers have concluded that regulating the labels is much more impactful than taxation.

Similar regulation has worked in other places too. The government of Quebec in Canada already banned fast-food advertising to kids in 1980. Today, the children of Quebec have the lowest obesity rate in Canada. Sweden implemented a similar ban in 1991 and the country has one of the lowest childhood obesity rates in Europe.

In many countries, school food systems offer excellent opportunities for radical improvement. In his book, Dr. Hyman describes the example of the 126 public schools in Boston. Until a few years ago, the system was a model of terrible food: prepackaged meals were delivered by trucks while drinks came from soda machines. In 2017, one entrepreneur and philanthropist launched a pilot program in four schools. The city told her that installing kitchens in all schools would cost at least $1 million. With an investment of just $65,000, the four schools got freshly prepared ‘whole foods’ breakfasts and a salad bar for lunch. The program even saved the city more than $3 per meal and has since been expanded to all public schools in Boston.

The biggest solution has to come from the way we grow food. Hyman is clear that what is needed is more than just not using chemicals as fertilizers and pesticides. Organic monocrop agriculture still very much depletes the soil and ultimately turns soil into ‘dead’ dirt. The miracle term is “regenerative agriculture” focused on continuously creating healthy soil that retains water and puts carbon back in the soil. “Soil is our ace in the hole to reverse climate change”, writes Dr. Hyman. According to experts, soil restoration may be the most low-cost solution for global warming. However, the soil that captures carbon does not only help to reverse global warming; more carbon in the soil also feeds more microbial life that makes more nutrients available to the plants—ultimately delivering more nutritious food to humans.

Regenerative agriculture restores soil by using no-till methods, cover crops that protect the soil and crop rotations that control pests. The best news is that farmers who adopt regenerative agriculture discover that their farms become much more profitable. The recent documentary Soil Carbon Cowboys shows how farmers succeeded in created 29 inches of new topsoil in 15 years time. At the start of the transformation, the soil on a farm could hold only half an inch of rain per hour. Today, the same field can hold eight inches. The farmer produces 20 percent more food than his neighbors on the same land and makes up to twenty times (!) more money. As Dr. Hyman argues, there is no better response to the “false promise of industrial farming”. 

If farmers can make more money growing better food, the free market can deliver the much-needed change. There is more good news. Dr. Hyman: “You can get a metabolic tune-up very fast. Just stop eating processed foods. If a food has a label with ingredients you cannot pronounce, it does not belong in your kitchen. An avocado does not have a label with a health claim.” Simply changing the diet towards whole foods—grains, beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits—has allowed many overweight type 2 diabetes patients to get off insulin within a week or two. 

Variety is important too. “The rainbow of colors in the plant kingdom are all medicines”, says Dr. Hyman. There are 25,000 compounds in food—from curcumin, the yellow powder from the turmeric root, to herbs like rosemary and from quercetin, an ingredient in onions, to green tea—that have a powerful impact on the immune system. The final part of a healthy diets comes from the foods that support the gut—the largest organ of the immune system—like unsweetened yoghurts, sauerkraut, and seaweed.

There are several studies showing that better diets lead to reduced health care expenses. In one experiment in Philadelphia, people delivered healthy meals to people with diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases. Over 12 months, these patients visited hospitals half as often as a control group and they stayed for 37 percent less time. Ultimately, the health care expenses of the healthy eating group plummeted more than 50 percent or $12,000 a month per patient. Dr. Hyman refers to the fact that 50 percent of all health care expenses goes to the five percent sickest patients and concludes “providing meals to the sickest provides a big return on investment”. 

In Dr. Hyman’s vision, food is at the core of any health strategy. That brings us back to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is a bit of an unfair question, I suggest, but given the choice, what is more important a successful vaccine against the virus or a better diet? Dr. Hyman: “If the vaccine would be 100 percent effective and safe, it would be an easy choice. But respiratory disease vaccines have not been that effective. They help some people, but often they do not. If I were king of the world for a day, I would eliminate the industrial food system overnight. That would immediately change everyone’s diet. I would start a regenerative agricultural system to support human health and reverse climate change. We can solve the world’s biggest problems through changing the food system.”

More information: drhyman.com, foodfixbook.com

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