A Luscious, Rejuvenating Approach to Food


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After a two-year, 24,000-mile voyage aboard a 71-foot sailboat, Graham Kerr was stunned by a mutiny in his own kitchen.

Kerr, who gained fame as television’s "Galloping Gourmet" in the 1960s, his wife, Treena, and their three children had willingly forsaken his delectable but high-fat meals after they discovered that rich foods aggravated seasickness. But they revolted against the famed chef’s improvised low-fat cuisine as soon as they docked for the final time in 1974.

So while Kerr clung to his newly found low-fat lifestyle, his family eagerly returned to typical high-fat favorites like cheese, eggs, and sausages. The result? Seven years later, Treena suffered a stroke and a heart attack.

"When the family rebelled, I think if I had said, ‘Look, we’ll recreate the table so that we eat healthy food but get it in a way that you’ll like it,’ what happened to Treena wouldn’t necessarily have occurred," says Kerr, now in his sixties and the author of Graham Kerr’s Best.

Although she fully recovered, Treena was still at high risk for recurrent strokes and heart attacks because she was overweight and her total cholesterol hovered near 350 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl). So in 1982, she agreed to change her diet. Since then, the couple has stuck to a low-fat lifestyle that consists mainly of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Treena eats no more than 2 ounces of fish, poultry, or red meat daily. Graham’s diet allows him to have slightly more, but never more than 6 ounces. By 1995, when she was in her early sixties, Treena had lost 15 pounds; dropped her total cholesterol to 220 mg/dl raised her high-density lipoproteins (HDLs), the so-called good cholesterol; and slashed her low-density lipoproteins (LDLs), the "bad cholesterol."

"She’s done very well," Kerr says. "I think there is no question that you can do wonderful things if you adopt low-fat eating."

In fact, more and more doctors are convinced that eating excessive amounts of fat is second only to smoking as a health threat. A growing arsenal of powerful evidence is also proving that cutting way back on dietary fat at any age can prevent or reverse heart disease, short-circuit strokes, and stifle the growth of many cancers, says Michael Klaper, M.D., director of the Institute of Nutrition Education and Research in Manhattan Beach, California.

How Bad Can Fat Be?

Americans love fat. So much that we eat the fat equivalent of six sticks of butter each week. But doing that month after month, year after year, takes its toll.

Of the estimated 13.5 million Americans alive today with a history of heart attack, angina, or both, about 50 percent are age 60 and older. Overall, heart disease and strokes annually kill more than 40 percent of all people who die in the United States. Of the eight controllable risk factors for those two diseases, five—elevated cholesterol and triglycerides, high blood pressure, diabetes, and excessive weight—have been linked to high-fat eating, says Hans Diehl, Dr.H.Sc., director of the Coronary Health Improvement Project, a lifestyle intervention program based in Loma Linda, California, that has helped more than 15,000 people worldwide reduce their risk of heart disease.

Eighty-three percent of the people who die of heart attack, which can be attributed in part to diet, are age 65 or older.

Heart disease, particularly due to atherosclerosis—hardening of the arteries caused by fatty buildups in the circulatory system—can at least double your risk of stroke, says Ralph L. Sacco, M.D., director of the North Manhattan Stroke Study at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, an ongoing project examining stroke incidence among 260,000 people living in racially diverse neighborhoods in New York City.

The risk of ischemic stroke, the most common type caused by blood clots that block arteries supplying blood to the brain, may be even higher if you also have heart disease. French researchers who examined 250 men and women in their sixties and seventies found that those who had deposits of fatty plaque narrowing their aortic arches, the main artery leading out of the heart, were up to nine times more likely to have ischemic strokes than those who didn’t have such buildups.

"If you have plaque there, more than likely you’re going to have it in the arteries leading to or inside the brain, too," Dr. Sacco says.

. . . And Then There’s Cancer

Dietary fat also may have a role in up to 40 percent of cancers in men and 60 percent of those that affect women, says Moshe Shike, M.D., director of clinical nutrition at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and co-author of Cancer Free.

Research shows that men in their sixties and seventies who continue to eat lots of red meat are at 2 to 3 times greater risk for colon cancer. They also are more likely to develop rectal cancer and 2.6 times more likely to have prostate cancer than men who limit dietary animal fats. Women older than age 60 who load up on red meat are 2.5 times more likely to develop colon cancer.

Scientists also are learning more about the role of fat in the development of breast cancer. Researchers at the University of Hawaii, for instance, compared the eating habits of 272 postmenopausal women who were being treated for breast cancer with 296 women who lived in the same area but who were cancer-free. They found that overweight women who ate a lot of foods high in saturated fat like sausage, processed cold cuts, beef, lamb, and whole-milk dairy food were at greater risk for breast cancer.

"We know that saturated fats have an impact on hormone levels in the body, and we think that has a role in promoting breast cancer," says Cheryl Ritenbaugh, Ph.D., head of nutrition research at the Arizona Cancer Center in Tucson.

Eating fat also might increase your risk of lung cancer even if you don’t smoke, says Michael Alavanja, Ph.D., senior scientist at the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland. In his study of 429 female nonsmokers ranging up to age 84, Dr. Alavanja concluded that those who ate the most saturated fat were six times more likely to have lung cancer than those who consumed the least amount of that fat.

"At least seven studies worldwide have shown an effect of saturated fat on lung cancer," Dr. Alavanja says. "It’s not conclusive, but the evidence is pointing toward the fact that fat increases the risk of lung cancer among smokers and nonsmokers."

But the truth is that none of these things need to happen to you. You could help prevent and possibly subdue almost every one of these diseases if you did just one thing: Slash the fat.

"It’s very clear that our diet is totally devastating us," Dr. Diehl says. "We know that if we cut the fat content and ate a more plant food-centered diet, we could drastically cut our risk for most cancers, heart disease, and stroke."

From the "Disease Free" Book