The Baby Boomer generation is usually defined as those born between 1946 and 1964, and is now more than one-quarter of the entire U.S. population. Although Boomers rode into the world on a wave of optimism and promise, they also inherited some of the worst ills and environmental crimes of the century. In his book The Hundred-Year Lie: How Food and Medicine Are Destroying Your Health, journalist Randall Fitzgerald notes how many Baby Boomers are afflicted with diseases that used to be reserved for “old age,” from multiple sclerosis to cancer to Parkinson’s and Crohn’s disease. He describes the extent to which Baby Boomers have been duped by the myth of “better living through chemistry.”
The petrochemical era that was born along with the Baby Boomers initiated an onslaught of toxins that are exacting a heavy price on this and subsequent generations. The incidence of neural disorders has tripled in Western countries; and researchers have begun to link it to exposure to crop pesticides, synthetic chemicals, processed foods, and industrial chemicals. As Fitzgerald notes, between 1952 and 1987, the production and use of synthetic pesticides in the U.S. increased 13 times faster than before the war. From genetically modified foods to sex hormones, from industrial contaminants that pollute our air and water, to overuse of antibiotics and inoculations, seemingly inescapable toxins have besieged the bodies of Baby Boomers for decades.
Donna Gates, who suffered through her own physical challenges, believes that proper digestion is turning out to be the ultimate antidote and anti-aging strategy.
Q: Why the focus on Baby Boomers?
Donna Gates: Baby Boomers have reached a place in their life where they’re concerned about aging. They don’t want to suffer from the heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis that our parents may have thought was inevitable, but that we believe can be avoided. They’re looking for answers to how to age well, which I believe is very much tied to diet. And, of course, I’m interested in Boomers because I’m one of them.
Q: So aging isn’t the inevitable result of getting on in years?
Donna Gates: No. We age for two reasons: toxins in our cells, and nutritional deficiencies in our cells. Cells that are toxic and poorly nourished can’t live. Some people say our cells actually would never die if we didn’t kill them with our terrible lifestyle. But there are ways to clean your cells and nourish them, and then your body thrives.
Q: Do we do this by eating more whole grains, fruits and vegetables?
Donna Gates: Eating healthy foods—although I’m not big into fruits because of all the sugar, or even most grains—is important. But even if you eat the right foods, your body has to properly digest it. That’s where setting up the environment in your intestines comes in. Otherwise, undigested food becomes just another toxin. And what’s really interesting is that when you improve your gut and you prepare foods in a way that they’re easy to digest you can eat less, and not feel hungry. Reducing total calories is a proven way to extend life.
Q: Your book talks about how we don’t give enough attention to our “sour” taste buds.
Donna Gates: Our culture emphasizes foods that are salty or sweet. But sour is good for several reasons, one of which is that it dampens your craving for sugar. Sugar not only adds extra calories, it makes the body more acidic, which is the environment where yeast, infections and even cancer more easily grow. Some of the things we associate with getting older—losing our teeth and bone strength, getting gray hair—actually happen because our bodies are too acidic. I’m 64 and I only have a strand or two of gray! The other thing is that the sour foods I recommend contain friendly bacteria—what’s now being called microbiota—which is crucial for healthy digestion.
Q: You’re talking about “fermented foods,” which are a big part of the eating plan you advocate. I don’t even know exactly what those are.
Donna Gates: Every country incorporates some sort of fermented foods in their diet. Here, it’s pickles and cheeses. In Germany, sauerkraut or fermented sausages. And in Japan, tempeh fermented soybean cakes. What fermented means is that the beneficial microbiota naturally found in these foods is encouraged to proliferate, to the point where they actually change the structure of the food to make the nutrients more digestible. So you create a high vitamin-, mineral-, and enzyme-rich super food. With regular cabbage, for example, which is what sauerkraut is made from, so much passes through you undigested that you don’t get all the great vitamin C inside. But when you ferment it, your body gets hundreds of times more of that beneficial C. Fermenting vegetables also puts more healthy bacterial in our gut—especially important for Baby Boomers because, as we age, our bodies manufacture less of them.
Q: So how does a person go about fermenting vegetables?
Donna Gates: Start by shredding one or more vegetables in a food processor. Especially good ones to use are carrots, beets, cucumbers, onions, leafy greens like kale, and, of course, cabbage. Then you either add a culture starter, which gives you an even more potent amount of bacteria (get this online or in some healthfood stores), or you just take the shreds as is and pack them really tightly in a jar. You let them sit at a steady room temperature, not in the refrigerator, for a week, and they’re ready for eating. They’re incredibly healthy, of course, but I also think they’re delicious. If you find them too sour, add olive oil and some sea salt.
Q: Don’t you have to worry about spoiling, if they’re sitting out of the fridge for a week?
Donna Gates: Well, spoiled means bad bacteria got in there and took over. That’s one reason it’s good to use a culture starter, to help the good bacteria survive. You also want to keep the room at a steady temperature, around 72 degrees. I put the jars on an insulated heating pad in winter so they don’t get too cold. You can tell the difference by looking: spoiled food is black or gray. A food that’s fermented is brightly colored and beautiful.
Q: How does the eating plan that you advocate for Baby Boomers differ from the Mediterranean diet that’s always held up as the gold standard?
Donna Gates: I say the Baby Boomer Diet is “the Mediterranean diet–improved.” The vegetables, fresh fish, and olive oils that are components of the Mediterranean way of eating are components of my diet, too. But we don’t include all the breads, and we put more focus on digestion, which is where those fermented foods come in. Plus, we recommend some different oils and fats, including coconut oil, fish oil, butter and ghee, which is a clarified butter used in India that you can get in healthfood stores. We’ve been taught that butter is bad, but some butter is very good for the brain, and may prevent Alzheimer’s.
Q: So what does an ideal day’s worth of eating look like?
Donna Gates: You want to eat a small breakfast, and include lots of liquids to clear out the toxins that gather at night and make the body acidic. Lunch is the best time to have protein. The ideal is to split lunch into two parts if you can: Around 11 AM have some protein, maybe a couple of eggs, and have them scrambled with some cultured vegetables, and another vegetable on the side. At 1:30 PM have more animal protein, maybe chicken or fish, with more cultured vegetables and other vegetables. I like dinner to be a vegetarian meal: a steamed vegetable plate with quinoa or millet, which are two grains I love, or maybe vegetable stew or a hearty soup.
Q: You’re advocating big changes in how most people eat. Isn’t that tough to do?
Donna Gates: You have to do it step by step. Start with one change and get comfortable with it before trying another. For example, begin by switching the oils you’re using. Then maybe cut down and eventually eliminate sugar. It’s only over time that you’d shift to the full diet, which is about 80 percent full of plant-based organic vegetables–some of them fermented—and the rest legumes, seeds, nuts, select whole grains, and free range organic animal products.
Q: I imagine people lose weight if they eat like this.
Donna Gates: It’s meant to be a healthy and anti-aging—and delicious!—way of eating. But yes, it’s also a fantastic weight-loss diet. It’s a piece of cake to lose weight here and to keep it off forever. I think if Oprah started eating this way, she’d never have a weight problem again.
The Baby Boomer Diet: Body Ecology’s Guide to Growing Younger is available from Hay House.
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