Bas Kast and his nutrition compass
They ate chocolate in the morning and had chips for dinner ...
BAS KAST: Yeah, I used to eat what I wanted? Unfortunately that was mostly junk food. A not so uncommon day looked like this: chocolate and milk coffee for breakfast, a pack of ham at lunchtime, coffee and a snickers in between, and then some chips for dinner, washed down with beer. This is embarrassing for me today. But then I did not think much of it. I felt fit, was never really fat, except for a swimming ring on the hip, which did not go away even with a lot of jogging.
Did you realize how extremely unhealthy you were?
Yes, yes. I've also often thought that I should eat more vegetables, sometimes tried, but not made long. Then I was jogging when I had to stop in the chest after a massive stitch. It was as if a steel hand was closing and crushing my heart. Really scary and threatening in an existential sense. You stand there, completely helpless and think: Hopefully you'll get away this time!
How did you manage what so many people fail to achieve? Really change your diet fundamentally?
Diet, the whole lifestyle, is something that you get used to and that can be very comfortable. Some prefer to take a drug mix for diabetes rather than just eating a little differently. I've stuck to my habits for so long. What brought me to action was a mixture of fear and the dawning awareness that things could not go on like this. Perhaps that was the most important component: that I had a psychological burden, was motivated from the inside out. Besides, I had just become a father for the first time and thought: Damn, how will that be in a few years? Would I become more and more a physical wreck? Would I be able to romp around with my son and play football, for example?
And how did you start?
The last impulse came from my sister. She had lost weight after giving birth to her second child and was constantly talking about a healthy diet. She jogged me off that day and looked so fit, slim and cool! I was impressed. Inspired by them, I threw away all the junk food from day to day and tried to eat only natural foods: vegetables, fruits, nuts, salads. I felt surprisingly better and fitter.
And the heartache?
Disappeared after a few months. In everyday life was more decisive for my well-being, however, was that even the headache that I used to have almost daily, were gone. By then I had almost swallowed aspirin like vitamins. Oh, and I took off, about ten pounds. The lifebelt melted away, though that was not my goal at all. My clothes became too big for me. I bought new, then with a queasy feeling, because I was not sure how long I would stay on this trip.
What did you know about healthy nutrition back then?
The usual superficial standard knowledge. Then I started researching and reading and of course was irritated by all the contradictory recommendations.
And that was the moment when you decided to go through all the important nutrition studies?
Something like that. Somehow I developed the ambition to heal myself. I chose the best studies, the latest findings. I wanted to undo what I had done to my body, to rejuvenate it with the help of knowledge. Later, in the book work, it would then more and more to provide the reader with an overview. But it soon became clear to me that it would make a book so profound.
"I wanted to undo what I had done to my body"
What was the biggest surprise in your two-year research?
There are some stubborn myths that I believed in myself that are not scientifically proven or even refuted. For example, the Kaloriendogma: It says that a calorie is a calorie, no matter what food it comes from. And closely related to the thesis: fat makes you fat. Although both are still claimed, it is not true. Or at least in practice far too short.
We know today that it does not only depend on pure energy balance. The body has a biorhythm, and so it makes a difference to the weight control, how much and what you eat in the morning or in the evening, with exactly the same amount of calories. A calorie from an omega-3 fatty acid in salmon is also processed differently by the body than a fried fries. Omega-3, for example, helps to lose weight because it inhibits inflammatory processes, which are often part of the problem in overweight.The simple physical equation: "First of all, we have to be careful to consume as many calories as we consume," is misleading because we are complex creatures.
That does not make a healthy diet easier, if you have to look now, what are the healthy fats and what the bad ...
Actually, it's pretty simple: when fat comes from plants, is it good? For example, olive oil, rapeseed oil, linseed oil, nuts or avocados, because they contain many unsaturated fatty acids, which we need for our cell membranes and our brains, for example. By contrast, animal foods often contain large amounts of saturated fatty acids that tend to boost inflammatory processes and increase "bad" LDL cholesterol? both risk factors for a heart attack. A very simple rule of thumb is therefore: more plant-based, less animal.
What about fish?
Okay, that's an exception. Fat fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel or trout contain many healthy unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids. Incidentally, I classify cheese as positive despite the saturated fatty acids. For example, mature cheese contains a rejuvenating substance called spermidine. I admit, it gets a bit more complex, but the complexity gives us more leeway.
As the?
Research shows that people react differently to the same food. That makes it more complicated on the one hand, because I first have to get to know my body and its reactions and find what suits me and what I do every day. But it also gives you a helpful selection of healthy nutritional styles. Low Fat Diet, Low Carb, Paleo Diet, Vegan or Vegetarian, Mediterranean Diet? All this can be done very well. Now you have to see what works for you, what makes you fitter and slimmer and what you like.
So there is not one, right way for everyone?
Exactly. It is a big weakness of official dietary guidelines, for example the German Nutrition Society, that they still suggest that there is only one form of healthy nutrition. Even counselors who make you feel that their diet is the only right, I think silly. This is restrictive in an unproductive way. Every body is different. We also know that from research: When diets are examined, you can see that on average, people lose maybe seven kilos in half a year. If you look at the individual data, you discover that there are also people who lose much more and vice versa, some who even increase. That's the same with every diet.
My conclusion after reading your book: eating as natural as possible next to the plants? and everything will be fine.
Yes, I sacrificed three years of my life for this complex insight (laughs). We need healthy fats, lots of vegetables, fatty fish, some fruit. And nuts. This is shown, for example, by investigations from those regions of the world where people live very long, the so-called "Blue Zones". There is this saying of the British biologist Richard Dawkins on the question of why science is better than religion: "It works, bitches." If you stick to scientific insights, you will feel better and be leaner, reduce the risk of disease and at least slow down the aging process.
Speaking of religion: food has become for many a kind of substitute religion. Is this a problem?
Also such a questionable development. Diet has become more and more of a social trait with which one wants to isolate oneself. Personally, I can not do anything with that. For example, the people of Silicon Valley, who are currently keto-dieting. This is a silly game in which I really do not want to play. But I have now become part of the problem. Recently I was called by a magazine as "food pope". I do not want to be a guru, I want to enlighten people and empower them to make their own decisions based on what they know. I do not hide the contradictions either.
Can you give an example?
Let's take the milk theme: the bulk of the research gives the green light to milk. But I'm not really convinced, because most studies were funded by the dairy industry and because milk is a growth drink? and growth always means aging. And you know that milk correlates with different cancers. I hope that I make things so transparent that the reader does not need me anymore in the end, but has become an expert himself. And that is, I believe, one of the reasons for the book's success: that readers can get a good overview of the information that can be provided and put together their own diet.
Now you have also written a cookbook. How come?
Cooking yourself is the first and decisive step towards a healthy diet. It makes you independent of the food industry, whose products make us fat and sick. I know, cooking takes time.Is not that stupid? We do not have time for cooking today, but for cooking programs! The cooking is also a lot of fun. It has almost something meditative when I enter the kitchen in the evening. I have come to love this world, this archaic-sensual world of cooking, in the last months of recipe testing. I hope the cookbook encourages one or the other in a very practical way to take his or her own health into their own hands.
"Is not that stupid? We do not have time for cooking, but for cooking."
Do you no longer have chocolate with you?
But, but only the dark with high cocoa content.
Bas Kast, 46, studied psychology and biology, worked for a long time as a journalist and published several books. In 2018 appeared "The Nutrition Compass" (320 p., 20 euros, C. Bertelsmann) and now very recent "The Food Compass - The cookbook" (224 p., 22 euros, C. Bertelsmann). You can find more information about him at www.baskast.de.
