I'll start off by saying that I'm Indian, born and raised in the states, and have solved a load of problems through altering my diet/lifestyle. In particular, I've reversed my hair loss, and cured my anxiety.
I was inspired by this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3v54ir/indian_nutritional_problems_analyzed/
Much of that post is true, some of it is false.
In particular, saturated fat does not cause cardiovascular disease. This is something you see repeated very often on the western internet.
The cause of cholesterol plaques is subclinical hypothyroidism; thyroid hormones metabolize cholesterol into steroid hormones. The cause of the hypothyroidism is the ubiquity of polyunsaturated fats (PUFAs) in the modern diet, which directly inhibit oxidative metabolism, and encourage inefficient glycolysis.
Several years ago, I began taking omega 3 pills, and a few months afterward I started getting hair loss, as well as liver spots forming on my hairline. I also became very light sensitive, and needed sunglasses everywhere. I chanced upon the following article:
http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/fishoil.shtml
It addressed both the liver spots (lipofuscin) and the light sensitization problems I'd been having, so I decided that the author knew something about omega 3s that most others did not.
I started reading the rest of Peat's work, and would occasionally give one of his guidelines a try, and I would only see drastic improvement every time I did. I highly recommend reading and understanding the articles, and experimenting to see what changes work best for you.
Problems with the Indian diet:
- High in PUFA oils (antimetabolic)
- High in legumes and other fermentable fibrous vegetables (promote bacterial growth, which produces endotoxin, which elevates estrogen)
- Vegetarian (missing key nutrients like zinc, selenium, B vitamins, adequate protein, gelatin)
Things that have personally helped a lot:
- Ceasing consumption of all fermentable fibers. Basically, I don't eat anything that gives me any amount of gas. The only vegetables I eat are bamboo shoots and raw carrots. I eat mushrooms as well.
- Vitamin K2. This vitamin is needed for proper calcium deposition. When I took it, my jaw got wider, my hair grew back, my facial hair got softer, and my anxiety disappeared. Highly recommend.
- Taking a big shit every day. Your fecal matter contains toxins excreted through the bile, as well as toxins produced by enteric bacteria. The faster you can get feces out of your large intestine, the better.
- Coffee helps a lot with taking big shits very regularly, and is healthful otherwise.
- Raw carrots are very good at relieving anxiety, because they are antibacterial, and thus indirectly anti-estrogenic. Also a good source of fiber which cannot be fermented (because it is antibacterial)
- Gelatinous soups/broths, made from pig feet, chicken feet, lamb bones, etc.
- Avoiding all PUFA. This means avoiding ALL oils except for coconut oil, palm oil, and olive oil. Almost 100% of restaurant food and street food is cooked in PUFA oil, so functionally this means a lot of eating at home. This also means avoiding foods that contain these oils as major constituents (most nuts, avocados, etc.: check if you're unsure)
What I might eat and do in a day:
- Coffee in the morning, with sugar and cream
- Defecate
- Eggs and orange juice for breakfast (protein should be eaten with sugar)
- Rasmalai (ricotta cheese/milk/saffron/cardamom with plenty of sugar)
- 1 mg Vitamin K2, 1000 IU Vitamin D, depending on when I last took these, and how I feel at the moment. I don't supplement daily, and I depend on butter for Vitamin A.
- Ripe bananas
- Steak cooked in butter, with rosemary/thyme/white wine