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
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Some people mistakenly think that fructose is bad for you because of an outdated understanding of how fructose works in your body.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