Give And Intake ‘Mcdougall Program’ Brings New Meaning To Sacrificial Diet Plans

Another day, another diet.

This week, it’s “The McDougall Program,” touted as a health and diet plan that can help you lose weight, feel better, lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, decrease your need for medication and avoid surgery.

All it takes is a little more exercise, a lot less fat and - oh, yes - eliminating all animal products from your diet, including seafood, dairy products and eggs. While you’re at it, give up coffee and booze, too.

Dr. Robert McDougall, who will present his ideas on nutrition and health at a free seminar in Spokane on Saturday, is a medical doctor, author and radio-TV host. He began developing his dietary plan after concluding that Western medicine was failing to explore the links between diet and health. His first book, “The McDougall Plan,” was published in 1983, well before the current infatuation with less fat in the American diet.

His second book, “The McDougall Program” (Plume), expanded that advice into a lifelong program intended to help its followers lose weight and improve their health.

McDougall blames the typical meaty, fatty Western diet for a wide range of diseases and disorders, from arthritis to diabetes to constipation to cancer. The main points of his program include:

A diet high in starch, vegetables and fruit, and extremely low in fat.

No consumption of vegetable oil (including olive oil), white rice or white flour, refined cereals, chocolate, coconut, coffee, tea, colas and animal products, including eggs and dairy products.

Daily exercise, typically beginning with walking.

The general thrust of McDougall’s advice - to eat less fat and more vegetable products, and to exercise more - is now almost universally accepted. But some nutrition experts disagree with the details, and say that his program - especially a recommendation to limit fat to less than 10 percent of total calories - is so extreme that most people would have trouble following it.

“People have to be given a plan that enhances their health without diminishing the enjoyment of eating,” says Sheah Rarback, an assistant professor at the University of Miami School of Medicine and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “For many people, achieving a diet that low in fat would be very difficult. Ten percent (of calories from fat) is probably unattainable and unnecessary for the majority of people.”

Rarback and other mainstream dietitians also disagree with any approach that unilaterally bans foods that people like: meat and dairy products, for example.

“On all these types of diets, people eventually get bored and drop off,” Rarback says. “We keep looking for a quick fix.”

McDougall agrees that his program could be considered extreme, but he says that’s one of the reasons why it works.

“On the surface, it’s the strictest dietary program you’ll run into,” he said in a telephone interview this week. “But it’s easier for people to change behavior if they have clear boundaries … the only reason I’ve survived for 20 years in this business is because people stay on this program for life, because they feel so good about it.”

Many nutritionists also strongly disagree with McDougall’s recommendation to avoid dairy products, especially in light of growing concern about osteoporosis - bone loss.

“The problem in our country is insufficient calcium intake,” says Rarback. “It would be very difficult for most people to achieve adequate calcium intake without dairy products, especially for postmenopausal women.”

“People just think they can eat a few leafy greens to get enough calcium, but in reality you’d have to eat buckets full,” says Linda Mendoza, a registered dietitian and nutritional consultant for the Washington State Dairy Council.

Connie Weaver, the head of Purdue University’s department of food and nutrition, says that to obtain the amount of calcium in an 8-ounce glass of milk, you would need to eat five 1-cup servings of broccoli, or 13 servings of beans, or 2.3 servings of bok choy, or 3.5 servings of kale.

McDougall argues, however, that milk and calcium supplements have little to do with bone health. He says the main problem is a U.S. diet that’s too high in animal protein, stripping calcium from the body. “This whole business of calcium was dreamed up by the dairy industry to get people to buy their products,” he says.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by A. Heitner