An SOS-free diet is a whole food plant-based diet that allows no added sugar, vegetable oils, or added salt. More people than ever are turning to an SOS-free diet to reverse chronic illness and regain their health. It is a stricter version of a whole food plant-based diet.
What You Can and Can’t Eat
An SOS-free diet might sound restrictive, but it is possibly the healthiest diet you can eat. An SOS-free menu allows foods like:
- Vegetables
- Whole grains including oats, rice, and quinoa
- Beans, legumes, and lentils
- Potatoes, all varieties
- Fruits
- Nuts and seeds
With an SOS-free diet, you eliminate all animal foods, all vegetable and seed oils, added sugar, and added salt. The foods that will be removed are:
- All meat, pork, and poultry
- All dairy including milk, cheese, and anything made with dairy products
- Eggs
- All vegetable and seed oils including olive and coconut oil
- Refined sugars and high fructose corn syrup
Even though refined sugar is eliminated, some sugar substitutes are fine. If you like something sweet, you might enjoy a sugar alternative such as Superlose from a company called LevelUp.
Reversing Disease and Chronic Illnesses
Eating an SOS-free plant-based diet can reverse numerous diseases and chronic conditions. This way of eating is not brand new or some fad diet.
In 1983, Dr. John McDougall came out with the first of many books describing the health benefits with this way of eating and how it can reverse disease.
The list of chronic illnesses an SOS-free diet can reverse includes illnesses such as:
- Atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries
- Heart disease
- Type 2 diabetes
- Hypertension
- High cholesterol
- Obesity
- Arthritis
- And other health issues
An SOS-free whole food plant-based diet can also prevent cancer.
A study compared the blood of two groups of people. One group ate a plant-based diet for a year, and the other group ate a standard American diet. The blood of the plant-based group was eight times more powerful at killing cancer cells than those that ate the standard American diet.
Why No Added Refined Sugar?
Americans eat about 152 pounds of refined sugar per year. And those are nothing but empty calories, which leads to weight gain.
Too much sugar increases inflammation in the body, which contributes to numerous chronic health issues. Sugar can also raise blood pressure, fatty liver disease, and contributes to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.
Are Oils Unhealthy?
The SOS-free diet teaches that all vegetable and seed oils are unhealthy, and this includes olive oil and coconut oil. These oils are basically just fat and have no nutritional value. Fat and oil have more than twice the calories per gram than either carbohydrates or protein does. And this leads to weight gain and obesity.
Oil damages the endothelial cells of the arteries and blood vessels. The endothelial cells are responsible for the production of nitric oxide, which is necessary to properly dilate our blood vessels and the proper flow of blood.
Fat also leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. As one doctor put it, fat is the fire that causes type 2 diabetes, and sugar is the wind that fans the flames.
The Dangers of Salt
Too much salt causes the body to hold on to more water, which causes the heart to work harder. As time goes on, this increased force can raise blood pressure, causing damage to the blood vessels. This increases the risk of heart attack, heart failure, and stroke.
A good rule of thumb is to avoid packaged foods that have more sodium than calories per serving. For example, if a package or canned food has 200 milligrams of sodium per serving and 100 calories per serving, you should avoid it.
Macronutrients of an SOS-Free Diet
A common macronutrient ratio for optimum health is 80% complex carbs, 10% protein, and 10% calories from fat. If you take prescriptions and eat an SOS-free diet, your doctor could even lower or drop your medications.
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