So I had the Today Show on this morning and they had a feature on Tom Brady and his “TB12” fitness and diet plan for staying at his high level of competitiveness while being chronologically ancient for a QB.
I had heard a little bit about his highly restrictive diet, and they went a bit more into it than I had known. In short, the sensible part of the diet seems to be:
A lot of plant-based foods
No processed foods
No white sugar
No alcohol
Only small amounts of lean meat
The seemingly not-so-sensible parts:
No dairy
No gluten
No nightshades (tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes)
No mushrooms (fungus bad?)
No olive oil in cooking- only raw olive oil
A lot of the foods on the restricted list, like dairy and nightshades, are there because Brady thinks they’re inflammatory. I had heard the thing about nightshades being inflammatory before, but there’s no science to back this up, as I understand. And foods like peppers and tomatoes actually have a lot of antioxidants and anti-inflammatory qualities. Hell, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes are a large part of my diet, especially since my 15 year old hates cruciferous veggies but he doesn’t mind bell peppers, and likes spicy foods. So I make a lot of spicy gumbo-type meals with the veggie Holy Trinity of green pepper, onion and celery, plus tomatoes (I prefer Creole over Cajun style).
I guess if I have a main question, it’s, could there be any substance to avoiding nightshades for better health? Nightshades are such a large part of my and my family’s diet I can’t imagine cutting them out altogether. Potatoes maybe, but not peppers and tomatoes. And mushrooms too-- I love mushrooms and use them in stir-fries and stuff all the time.
Link that has a pretty good explanation of the Tom Brady Diet:
Brady seems to be pretty healthy, and there’s nothing that looks like a problem in his diet. In his case, looking at the results, I’d say quite sensible.
Well, yes it’s a healthy diet for what it is, and clearly it’s working for him, but what I’m wondering is whether it’s unnecessarily restrictive based on unscientific beliefs. Such as, the aforementioned avoidance of nightshade veggies.
The architect of Tom Brady’s diet is his trainer Alex Guerrero:
In 2005, Guerrero was sanctioned by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for falsely presenting himself as a doctor and claiming to be able to cure cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, and Parkinson’s disease using a dietary supplement called “Supreme Greens”.
What does that mean? Is it unhealthy to have a diet without tomatoes in it? Are there other foods that must be eaten because if you don’t it will be complete bunk?
@TriPolar, you’re missing the point. It’s not a question of whether a diet lacking tomatoes is unhealthy; it’s not unhealthy. It’s a question of whether his avoidance of tomatoes and other nightshade veggies, as well as other dietary items like dairy because they are inflammatory, has any basis in science whatsoever. Or whether that belief is, as @Telemark says, complete bunk.
He (or more accurately, his quack “doctor” friend) is against tomatoes because of their acidity, and how it impacts your body’s ability to heal or some such thing. There are valid reasons to avoid acidic foods depending on your particular medical needs, but the blanket ban on them from your diet isn’t supported by any science. That’s the problem with the whole TB plan, it’s something that can work because in general it’s sensible advice. But any specific advice is random and the reasons claimed for the advice is pure hokum.
The basic plan is eat sensibly, exercise for strength and pliability, and don’t go overboard on anything. You can achieve that and still eat tomatoes.
That may be part of it, but I thought it was also the fact that tomatoes, as well as peppers and tomatoes, are part of the nightshade family Solanaceae, and supposedly still contain enough toxicity in the edible parts of the plants to cause inflammation. Enough to cause issues like exacerbating symptoms of arthritis, which I have. But there is no research to support this belief, just anecdotal evidence that have no more basis in fact than the “MSG causes migraines and other health problems” belief.
For many Americans, it is certainly potentially unhealthy to exclude wholesome items from your diet for bullshit reasons. Tom Brady, who is wealthy, can afford to buy whatever he needs (be they alternate foods or supplements) even if it costs more. Tom Brady, who is a wealthy professional athlete, has a great many people constantly monitoring all aspects of his health.
The average American would be hard-pressed to follow a diet that is most of the way to vegan but also excludes several cheap and nutritious plants. It would not only be expensive, but you’d have to be very careful about making sure you’re getting all important RDAs.
As is so often the case with rich people, what is good for them isn’t necessarily good for the rest of the world.
Thanks for the correction. I haven’t delved too deeply into the woo of the TB12 plan, but I’ve read enough medical reviews to know that many of the rules in the plan aren’t supported by evidence.
All nice statements, but there is nothing wrong with excluding tomatoes from your diet. It really doesn’t matter why he is doing it, any more than the reasons anybody has for the fad diet they follow or just the one they make up themselves. Eating unhealthy substances or omitting fundamental sources of nutrition is ‘bunk’, almost everything else lies in that grey area of dietary advice somewhere between fact and fiction.
@TriPolar, I really think you’re still missing the point here. Nobody is arguing there is anything inherently wrong with excluding tomatoes from one’s diet. At least, not me. The question is, is there anything wrong with including tomatoes (and the other diet items Brady excludes) in one’s diet?
As the OP, I’m specifically asking because I very much enjoy tomatoes, peppers and potatoes (not to mention cheese), and I very much would not want to permanently exclude them from my diet. But I have heard stuff about possible inflammation that exacerbates conditions like arthritis, and as someone who has arthritis, I was curious to see what dopers thought about that.
I’m not missing any point. I doubt there is any good reason to exclude tomatoes from your, my, or Tom’s diet. That doesn’t make not eating tomatoes ‘bunk’. There’s nothing more to it than that.