This topic contains 991 replies, has 70 voices, and was last updated by Cinque 2 years, 2 months ago.
Hi Cinque,
I don’t doubt that many Aussies eat poorly but I would take with a grain of salt the 2016 CSIRO Healthy Diet Score report. I don’t eat junk food whatsoever now. No biscuits, cakes, takeaway, fizzy drinks, chocolates etc. In fact I eat very little healthy foods as I don’t need to eat that much and so when it asks for how many serves of veggies you have I put down 2. How many serves of fruit, I have one etc. How many grains (very interesting that they had common breakfast cereals down as “healthy”), I put down none etc. My health score was 60/100. Im pretty unhealthy apparently. The fact that I feel as good now as when I was in my early 20s, my BMI is 22.4 seems at odds with the CSIRO report.
I then redid the test but now put down the maximum servings which was 14 for every “healthy” food option. So 14 serves of grains per day (essentially Im eating a loaf of bread a day), 14 servings of meat, 14 servings of veggies, 14 servings of fruit, 14 servings of dairy/cheese. Now I think it would be physically impossible to eat that much and if it were possible I would probably weight 200+ kgs. To my surprise my “diet” had improved to 90/100. The report I got said I needed to eat even more servings of dairy and fat!! The fact that the test wouldn’t allow me to pick more than 14 servings seems at odds with the report??
The algorithm used by the online test seems to be fundamentally flawed, so much so that I emailed CSIRO to point this out. I got a auto reply saying that they will get back within 3 business days. Will be interesting to see if they do. I doubt it.
An interesting article Cinque. It actually resonates in some ways with the well researched diets and lifestyles of people living in the “Blue Zones”, 5 areas in the world identified by Dan Buettner in his book “The Blue Zones Solution” a National Geographical publication. In Sardinia for example where more of the worlds longest living (and healthiest males live) certain aspects of their diet pointed to their health. 15% of Sardinians diet came from protein mainly plant based and studies at the Davis School of Gerentology showed that a low protein diet results in lower levels of diabetes, Cancer and death for those under 65 yrs. Dr Michael Gregers book, “How Not To Die” also indicates a plant based diet is the most effective for health benefits and staving off Western Mortality rates. Both books worth reading if only to widen your information and understanding of a healthier lifestyle. The Fast Diet is not the only answere.
Good luck out there.
We adopted a high carbohydrate diet in 1983 and obesity has risen ten-fold and diabetes almost ten fold. I think eating a diet of mostly glucose might do that. All dietary guidance in English from 1820 – 1983 recommended low or not too many carbs and the reason for changing was heart disease, nothing to do with nutrition, obesity or diabetes. Now the heart disease nonsense has been thoroughly exposed we need to get away from advice that has been disastrous on a truly epic scale.
We don’t live in the blue-zone and explanations vary. No sugar is a good start. Vegetarians will do much better if they reduce carbs and seek out natural forms of fat that are compatible with their vegetarian choice of diet. Coconut oil, olive oil, avocados.
Gregor’s a vegetarian and his views are as independent as Coca Cola’s on sugar. No science can be allowed to intrude on a moral position, if it’s inconvenient. I recently heard meat was terrible for my health and caused cancer, so I read the paper. The vegetarians involved got mice predisposed to cancer and fed them vegetable oils, lots of sugar and carbs to fuel their appetite and some heavily processed meat. Their conclusion? meat causes cancer! Yeah, right. Scarmongering of the worst kind.
Otto Warburg won the Nobel prize in the 1930s when he discovered that cancer cells feed almost exclusively on glucose. As that’s what carbohydrates essentially are, how does it make sense to eat a diet high in something that cancer wants and gives you a major shove towards diabetes? A number of clinics in America are experimenting with ketogenic diets (very low carb) to treat cancer. PET scans find tumours by locating concentrations of glucose.
A moral position is exactly that and can be respected, but the science shouldn’t be twisted to fit.
StephenT thanks for your comments but I have to say I disagree with some of them. Yes we should view research funded by interested parties on the health effects of their products such as Coca Cola with a pinch of salt. However linking other research such as that carried out by the likes of Michael Greger, a vegetarian with such food companies is I believe the wrong approach. Food consumption and health is not clear cut. I agree with the comments made by Cinque. What is more clear is the interest of the big pharma and food companies to promote and protect their products in health terms. Dr Greger does I think say some positive things about certain food groups and much research, while not fully endorsing everything he says seems to support him. The Mediterranean diet is a case in point. Mainstream thinking pushes such a diet as being healthier based on many factors, one being the over all health benefits of peoples living in those areas. Blue Zone research seems to support a diet similar to that. The Loma Linda community in California have many residents who on average live a longer and healthier life than the rest of the USA. It is recognised that their diet and lifestyle is the major reason for this.
I think it may well be what is added to certain food sources that may be a major factor in raising the chances of “Western Diseases”, but as a lay person I do my research, seek out informed medical and dietary advice and adjust my thought process and my diet accordingly. My dairy consumption is down, no milk, no cheese from the same source, lower alcohol consumption and an increase in more plant based foods but maintaining some meat in my diet.
Good luck to you all out their.
Cinque, a complex carbohydrate that is good for a diabetic to eat? Can you name it? A complex carbohydrate is one that takes longer to break down into glucose, but the overall effect is the same. How does eating glucose help someone struggling to control their blood glucose? That’s the sort of blinkered nonsense that has led to a ten-fold rise in obesity and diabetes in the last forty years. The massively increased consumption of glucose is likely to have played a major role in the rise in cancers, as they feed on nothing else.
Advising a diabetic to eat carbohydrates, complex or not, is as scientific as blood letting. It’s worse than telling an alcoholic to drink whisky.
Couscous, your faith in vegetarian ‘science’, universities and peer review is touching and not shared by any scientist I know. The laughable nonsense, for example, churned out by Walter (low-fat) Willett at Harvard is a good example. Dr Mosley is rightly scathing in his online talk about low-fat nonsense, but good old Walter keeps publishing in those peer-reviewed journals and impressing the gullible.
The type of low-sugar and carb Mediterranean diet described by Dr Mosley is indeed way healthier than the typical western diet. Unfortunately, there is no one definition of a Mediterranean diet and it varies throughout the region. As Dr Mosley points out, it certainly doesn’t mean pasta and pitza, yet most vegetarians are heavy consumers of wheat products that raise blood glucose faster than sugar itself.
Quote: “Advising a diabetic to eat carbohydrates, complex or not, is as scientific as blood letting. It’s worse than telling an alcoholic to drink whisky.”
I will not enter in any debate, but I find interesting this:
Dr. Fuhrman’s Nutritarian Pyramid:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/learn/library/articles/57/dr-fuhrmans-nutritarian-pyramid
Dr. Fuhrman’s Diabetes Success Stories:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/lifestyle/success-stories/categories/51/diabetes
My opinion is this (quoting Dr. Fung): The toxicity lies not in the food, but in the processing.
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fibre-reduces-insulin-how-to-lose-weight-x/
And this is true not only for carbs, but also for proteins and fats. For every type of food: The toxicity lies in the processing.
Red Meat Dilemma
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/red-meat-dilemma-2-hormonal-obesity-xxvii/
Polyunsaturated Fats
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/polyunsaturated-fats-hormonal-obesity-xxxviii/
StephenT, you are making misconceived assumptions about my views and I have never heard of Walter Willett. The research I have done from several different sources seems to indicate some common food themes. The Blue Zone communities and Michael Greger show a heavy leaning towards a diet containing fruit, vegetables and legumes. Research in 1997 reviewed in the Oxford journals.org refers to research into the Med. diet recognising the various regional diets that have common components such as:- High monounsaturated/saturated fats ratio. High consumption of veg, fruit, legumes and grains. Moderate consumption of milk and diary products. Reserch published in 2004 Annals of Nutritional Metabolism recognises a shift away from the traditional Med. diet mainly in the younger generation and say it is desirable to increase consumption of Fish, veg, fruit, cereals and pulses and decrease the intake of foods containing saturated fats.
2008 research published in “Opinion of Lipidology” suggest a diet pattern rich in fruit, veg, whole grains, dairy products and unsaturated fats help to protect against mild chronic inflammation….
The common theme in all of these research articles and publications are the presence of grains, fruit and veg, legumes and unsaturated fats.
My clinical nutritionalist recommended I cut out wheat and dairy products and to improve my gut health while including unprocessed meats in my diet. It includes many of the food groups mentioned. I am not evangelical about nor do I place my faith in vegetarian science but recognise the wealth of research emerging regarding the impact of certain food groups on an individuals health. What works for me may not work for others in terms of health and well being but I do a little research and seek out help and advice from respected professionals and proven medical research.
K-Lo, vegetables range from 1 – 10% carboyhydrate. The mixed veg in my freezer are 4.4% carbs and my sprouts are 2.7% carb. These must be very complex carbs because there’s almost no carbohydrate in them and they’re absolutely fine to eat. There’s more carb in the average full-fat yoghurt. Perhaps you think yoghurt is a carb?
We overwhlemingly get our carbohydrates from bread, rice, pasta and potatoes, which are all described on this site as ‘hidden sugars’ under the title ‘White Sugar is the tip of the iceberg . . .’ Of course for most people you then have to add on sugar-laden junk.
The result in the UK of eating this diet is an average of 738 newly diagnosed cases of type 2 diabetes a day. In the 1970s doctors rarely saw a diabetic.
Adaline, Fuhrman, Ornish and Gregor are all in the same religion and quote the same rigged mouse studies if they know no real scientists are in the audience. Have you read Fung’s article? He says the main problem is the removal of natural fats in processed food. What goes in instead? Sugar and carb because of its long shelf life. I think we’ll agree that processed food should be avoided.
Couscous, most of what you quote are association studies and quite old. It’s fifth division science and sadly it’s typical of the largely backward and agenda-driven field. I’m sorry to make you aware of the famous and foolish Walter Willet, but he produces many of the daft headlines you see in newspapers by torturing a database to produce tiny and worthless associations.
Your nutritionist was spot on about wheat. Grains on the other hand belong in a simialr bracket, although wheat is the worst. Those healthy oats we hear about are 60% glucose. Oats and wheat are cultivated grasses. It’s baffling that people think we’re designed to eat grass. As for dairy, some people do well on it, but others don’t. In evolutionary terms it entered our food supply relatively recently, but well before wheat and ‘grains’. We didn’t get them until about 2,000 years ago, a blink of the eye in evolutionary terms.
As for Saturated fat, three meta-analysis (first division science) have exonerated it from any connection with heart disease, as Dr Mosley clearly knows. It was plain stupid in the 1950s, using weak association studies that ignored sugar, to blame an ancient food for a seemingly new disease (heart disease). They didn’t consider the enormouse rise in smoking in the US.
Stephen T, vegetables are indeed considered complex carbs. Not my definition.
I am an old Atkins veteran and always argued with people who called Atkins a NO Carb diet. I said not true…we eat lots of complex carbs in the form of healthy green veggies.
For the record, I do not eat sugar, oatmeal, cereal in any form, honey, etc. rice, pasta, potatoes…very little bread.
I think we are on the same page dietarily. I am simply saying that NO COMPLEX CARBS is a bit of a broad brush.
What are you implying? That all those people from Dr. Fuhrman’s Diabetes Success Stories https://www.drfuhrman.com/lifestyle/success-stories/categories/51/diabetes , are lying?
And about Paul Jaminet’s “religion” what have you to say?
The plate: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet/
The results: http://perfecthealthdiet.com/reader-results/
More liars?
At the end of the day, your diet is your personal decision. But if you want to see only LCHF, long term you may have a surprise. And not a good one.
http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2014/04/28/safe-starches-and-the-perfect-health-diet/
Forgot about this guy. 9 months (and counting) on potatoes-only-diet. Lost 50 kg. Definitely not dead from so much complex carbs and insulin. Must be a liar. 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/spudfit/photos/a.184618281573456.32823.176361779065773/1106317576070184/?type=3&theater
Fuhrman is a joke. According to him, meat and dairy are low in nutrients. He still believes fat kills us. He has to belief such nonsense to keep the religion going.
As for diabetes, Dr Mosley is correct about reducing sugar and carbohydrates. Dr David Unwin in Southport is an award winning GP whose drugs bill plummeted when his practice implemented low-carb for diabetics. The Ted talks by Dr Sarah Hallberg and Professor Wendy Pogozelski, specialists in a low-carb science and diet, are online. Hallberg’s talk has been a sensation in the diabetic world.
Couscous very well said worth repeating
“What works for me may not work for others in terms of health and well being but I do a little research and seek out help and advice from respected professionals and proven medical research.”
i’m eating more skrt and kimchi the fermented foods 4 the gut
but remember the obesity code by dr fung that 2 high of protein also turns in2 insulin so med-low protein is important if u red it if u look @ one of his plans @ the end i thought of u w/ one of the foods 🙂
oh i just finished looking @ this another point of view
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=0CuTSfMwQaw
so far fasting and keto lifestyle is lowering my A1c it is now 5.9 from the 8’s but i have a good long one coming on water and broth because i want to wipe this type 2 off my body b4 labs this late month
i thinks all this research is good but as i said 2 my cloned dr the lab test is the only true thing that just shuts everybody up
as far as i’m concerned dr atkins mosley fung have saved my life
take care
usa
Hi USA good to hear from you again. I hope you are well. I have recently started eating store bought sauerkraut to help my gut health. I know it is easy enough to make but I admit to a degree of laziness. Dr Mosleys research and acceptance of some dairy in his diet appears to be healthy in terms of certain types of body fat and show it not to be linked to heart attacks. Some researchers while not endorsing it outright as proven seem to be his point of reference. However much research shows a positive correlation between milk intake and a significant increase in the risk of Prostrate Cancer and my Nutritionalist recommends no dairy or wheat in my diet. So it seems to be a swings and roundabout scenario. By the way I had a health check at my Doctors surgery recently done by a “Health Practitioner”. At the end she gave me a folder with several print outs and made no solid recommendations re my diet and health other than I have a 16.8% chance of a heart attack in the next 10 yrs. On reading the information at home I am borderline diabetic but that risk deemed not to be serious enough for her to comment. What can I say?. I now need to make a positive weight loss effort yet again.
Good luck to you and keep us posted with your results.
Quote: “Dr Mosley talks about someone who fasted for over a year but I won’t be recommending it. Really, what nonsense.”
Quote: “Advising a diabetic to eat carbohydrates, complex or not, is as scientific as blood letting. It’s worse than telling an alcoholic to drink whisky.”
My point was to give you extreme examples to contradict your “carbs = whisky to an alcoholic” theory. And I will give you some more, and end this subject on my part.
IN DEFENSE OF LOW FAT: A CALL FOR SOME EVOLUTION OF THOUGHT
https://rawfoodsos.com/2015/10/06/in-defense-of-low-fat-a-call-for-some-evolution-of-thought-part-1/
I’m not recommending Fuhrman, or potatoes-only-diet, or other “nonsense” that you will find in the link above. But I also (after very much reading on the subject) don’t think that long term LCHF (with zero fruits, resistant starch) is the Holy Grail for diabetics.
Anyway, I do not try to convince you of anything, so I’ll stop here.
Can I take this “discussion” off on a tangent? When people say low carb what exactly do they mean? Low with respect to what? Low with respect to protein and fat intake? Low with respect to total bulk weight intake? Low with respect to fibre intake? Or is it an absolute number? 50g is low, 500g is high?
If I have 3 teaspoons of sugar and 150g of broccoli Ive had about the same amount of carbs, about 10-12g. One Im pretty convinced wont produce too many adverse health implications in me, the other probably will. So can I have a definition of what people mean when they say low carb.
Adaline, in all your entries not once have you attempted to explain how eating carbohydrates (glucose) makes sense to a diabetic. The truly dramatic improvement they make when they drastically reduce carbs shows why the official guidelines are so foolish. Most come off huge doses of drugs and their blood sugar normalises. I agree completely with Dr Mosley on this. He says:
“When we eat food, particularly food rich in carbohydrates, our blood glucose levels rise and the pancreas starts to churn out insulin. What is less commonly known is that insulin is also a fat controller. It inhibits something called lipolysis, the release of stored body fat. At the same time, it forces fat cells to take up and store fat from your blood. Insulin makes you fat. High levels lead to increased fat storage, low levels to fat depletion. (Page 61)
“Diabetes is associated with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke, impotence, going blind and losing your extremities due to poor circulation. It is also associated with brain shrinkage and dementia. Not a pretty picture.”
I don’t know anyone who recommends no fruit, but the higher sugar fruits might well be avoided or minimised.
If you’re not recommending foolish Fuhrman, why link a number of his plain dumb articles? Some of the stuff you linked, like Fung on vegetable oils and Jaminet are of a vastly different quality.
Couscous store bought 2 not alone here in pa usa it is a staple but a prefer kimchi addicted 2 it put it in my eggs meat or by itself
the weight will come off just do 1 water broth day coffee/tea and cream day kombucha day u will lose fast u r not super insulan resistantlike me plus ur a man u dont have 3 millions hormones flying around the milk thing is interesting the cool research is how cancer is going in2 remission w/ fasting and keto brain tumors etc and epilepsy so it must b doing something good yay
will keep u posted
take care
or the nobel prize winner 2016 on fasting and what it is doing
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/autophagy-cells-explained
very good articles @ the facebook i joined luv 2 c the articles
https://www.facebook.com/groups/459769974182105/permalink/640300676129033/
For me the answers are not fully in on the understanding of carbohydrates. Here’s why:
In the 1980’s Nathan Pritikin went public with the results of his widely ranging epidemiological overview of the diet-length of life overview of the literature on populations around the world. Nathan Pritikin was a polymath. He not only went through all the current literature but also historical literature back into through the 1920’s and literature on the outcomes of the great changes of diet through World War 2. He discovered there were 4 populations of people in the world who lived very long healthy lives. They all had 1 thing in common -10%protein, 10% fat, 80% complex carbohydrates. They were normal weight, did not have diabetes, heart disease, strokes etc.
Nathan Pritikin had extensive heart disease which he set out to see if he could fix using the diet composition of those 4 groups. He did it systematically and it was fully medically tested at every step. He also began an excercise regime and used stress control. Over time his blood results went back to normal, and the plaque build up in his cardiac arteries began to reduce. When he went public with the book The Pritikin Programme put forward the idea that arterial plaque could be reduced by controlling cholesterol and triglycerides. He also put forward that diabetes 2 could be reversed. He made his own cardiac situation public but did not disclose the cancer. Decades later in his senior years the cancer returned. He was hospitalised towards the end and when his organs were failing/failed and there was no hope he took his own life. His autopsy showed his cardiac arteries and elsewhere were empty of plaque. The personal work he did on himself was done in conjunction with Loma Linda University. During his life he later jdid a thorough study on diabetes and was said to be, by the foremost US researcher into diabetes at the time, to be the most knowledgable person about diabetes in the world.
In 1986 I saw Nathan Pritikin interviewed, read his book, discussed it with the local hospital dietitian, who endorsed it. I began the Pritikin Programme then. The 3 step Pritikin Programme is :
1. Food/drink – 10% protein, 10% fat preferably monounsaturated, 80% complex carbohydrates, no added sugar, no added salt, no more than 2 pieces of whole fruit per day.
2. Stress control
3. Exercise
The Loma Linda community would include people still on this programme today. The Pritikin Longevity Centre in Florida is a centre where people can live in for 1-2 weeks to be assessed, to learn and to begin the Pritikin Programme. When I began the programme a number of other people nearby also had begun it including an eye surgeon. We began a group that met monthly, and within this group there were people who had cardiac problems and diabetes. Every diabetic in that group got there blood sugar under control and normalised. The people post heart attack went on to live well into old age.
The programme I gave above is the 10% fat version – a Maintenance Programme. . There is also a Therapeutic Programme of 3% fat for those who wanted to reverse the plaque in their arteries. It requires significant commitment to do this but well worth it.
I did 6 months of the 10% version then 11 years of the 3% version. I had an angiogram recently for different reasons and my cardiac arteries are totally clear of plaque. My OH has Familial Cholesterolaemia and it did not do the same for him. However he is remarkably healthy for someone with his cardiac history. Interestingly, during that 11 yrs we were healthier in all other respects than we had ever been. Also during that time we regained our normal slim physique and needed to make sure we ate enough to not be underweight.
I still have faith in The Pritikin Programme.
Merry
Stephen,
Are you saying you’re advocating a diet comprised of zero carbohydrates and relying on fat and protein for access to energy substrate?? If that’s the case Im not sure youre going to be able to get all your micro nutrients and trace minerals from such a diet?
Ive got no problem with incorporating plant based carbs (obviously excluding sugar the starchy veggies, processed grains, and some fruits) into a diet. Cruciferous veggies with their carb content locked up in fibre are healthy for you. They feed your lower intestine gut flora. This is a good thing. I think I could easily go for a month (or longer if I wanted) on a diet of veggies and not suffer any ill effects. Not sure I could go on a diet of protein or fat for a month and feel good at the end of it? Must admit Im not really willing to try that experiment.
Protein and fats also illicit an insulin response, its just not as large when compared to some carbohydrates but it is there all the same. Try and get your hands on a study by Suzanne Holt et al. published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1997, An insulin index of foods. If youre interested Ive got the paper available, just not sure how to forward it too you? The paper is not readily available on the web.
Different food types illicit a different response for sure. I was curious and did a simple test on myself. Prior to eating anything I measured my blood glucose, it was 4.5mmol/L. I then ate one slice of pizza and I measured every 15 minutes and the reading peaked at 8.5mmol/L and took 3 hours before it came back down to 4.5mmol/L. I then ate a bowl of raw veggie salad with a few pieces of tofu. My peak response was 6.5mmol/L and it took 2 hours to get back to my baseline 4.5mmol/L. Not a rigorous test but it does highlight that different foods produce a different BG response.
Quote: “Adaline, in all your entries not once have you attempted to explain how eating carbohydrates (glucose) makes sense to a diabetic. The truly dramatic improvement they make when they drastically reduce carbs shows why the official guidelines are so foolish. Most come off huge doses of drugs and their blood sugar normalises.”
“If you’re not recommending foolish Fuhrman, why link a number of his plain dumb articles?”
Can you please step out of your science book into the real world? I gave you the link to the pyramid to see with your eyes that their diet is high carb, and the link to the diabetes success stories, to read also with your own eyes that that high carb pyramid ALSO normalize blood sugar. And if you think that Fuhrman is “foolish”, what about the rest of real crazy statistics from the last link I gave you? Just because you don’t understand it and I can’t explain it, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Maybe eating UNPROCESSED carbs makes sense to a diabetic, the same way eating saturated fat makes sense NOW to an obese person:
Fat Phobia
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fat-phobia-hormonal-obesity-xxxiv/
Cardio-protective effect of Saturated Fats
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/cardio-protective-effect-saturated-fats-hormonal-obesity-xxxix/
But maybe the world needs another 30 years to figure it why.
Maybe not the carb is the culprit. If you’ve read Dr Fung, he ALWAYS says INSULIN, NOT carbs. But you’ve read about ALL the factors that have an impact on insulin? About animal protein, cortisol / stress, sleep deprivation. About meals number and meal timing / circadian rhythms. And much much more.
Quote Dr. Fung: “Insulin drives obesity. With the insulin index, it was realized that only 23% of the variability of insulin response depends on the glucose. In other words, how much the glucose increases only accounts for 23% of the insulin response. Even taking into account the other macronutrients fat and protein, this only accounted for another 10% of the insulin response. The vast majority of the insulin response is still unknown.”
https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-index/
23%. You want to cut an entire macronutrient (with all the micronutrients associated / vitamins and minerals) for 23% causality. No thank you. I prefer to work on the rest of 77%, and have my daily 150 grams of unprocessed carbs, with all their health benefits.
I recommend you the PHD book of Paul Jaminet, to understand why the human body NEEDS specific carbs to be in perfect health.
Hello Bigbooty, I’ve never on any occasion suggested eating a zero carbohydrate diet and I eat all the things you do, as my previous entries show. I don’t know how Adaline read that from words that weren’t written, although I should also thank her for some interesting links. I do regard the astonishing 180-degree summersault in dietary advice we performed in 1983 to be the biggest public health disaster the modern world has seen. Fat was suddenly bad and carbs, previously discouraged, were to be the basis of our diet. We’d never eaten like this in our history and it had nothing to do with nutrition or obesity; it was all misplaced advice about heart disease. At this time the rate of obesity was about 3% and diabetes was still unusual.
The fact that all diabetics who go low carb return to normal in 4 – 8 weeks is compelling evidence that carbs are a major part of a problem that was rare in, say, 1970. Yet our wonderful NHS describes diabetes as ‘progressive’. It is if you listen to their advice. The diet of most obese people are carb-fest insulin drivers. Yes, there’s usually plenty of junk too. Merryme’s point about Pritikin is interesting, but I think adherence would be a major problem for most people. I think discussions of the blue-zone are academic for the west, although my Japanese friends find it amusing.
I think low-carb is the way to go for most people. The lack of hunger makes fasting easy for me and the combination means very-low insulin and thirteen heart biomarkers all head rapidly in the right direct, as Jeff Volek has shown, and as Dr Mark Porter recently reported in The Times. Quite how low in carb is debatable, but most define it as 5 – 10% carbs, but I know Jaminet goes up to 30%. Even that upper limit would be a major improvement for most people. The blockheads at Public Health England are still telling us to eat vegetable oils, margarine, low-fat foods and a diet “basing meals on potatoes, bread, rice, pasta or other starchy carbohydrates, ideally wholegrain.”
To change tack to something more fruitful, on what things do most of us agree upon? There is a lot of combined knowledge here, so can we make a list of things to avoid that some might find useful?
My avoid list to avoid would be anything with added sugar; bread and all wheat products, including pasta; any artificial fats, including vegetable oils and margarine; low fat products. I’d add fruit juice, but don’t know if that would be controversial. All grains might have wide approval, but perhaps not everybody would agree. Finally, almost all heavily processed food. Clearly, definitions of that would vary.
Steve’s avoid list:
Added sugar
Wheat
Artificial fats
Low-fat products
Fruit Juice
Heavily processed food.
Maybe we should have an approved list, too?
Anyone interested in the change to heart bio-markers should go to minute 35.20.
OK I think for the most part we are on the same page. I just don’t call my diet low carb. Maybe low processed carb would be accurate for my diet. Without sitting down with a calculator Im guessing about 60% of my carbs come from raw veggies, the rest from legumes nuts and fruit. I also keep banging on about:
All grain based products. In the form that we have them they are not healthy. People still think bread cereals and oats are good for you. Just goes to show you how well the marketing hype has worked.
Margarine. Pure crap.
Fruit juice. Don’t get me started on fruit juice!! Not healthy. Not controversial but once again marketing hype has worked.
Low fat yogurts
Smoothies. Don’t get me started on smoothies.
I think the UK diabetes society is light years ahead of the Australian diabetes society. I think they have finally gotten off the low fat mantra and are advocating avoiding most gain based foods. As a general rule I think the health advice people are getting is still 30 years out of date compared to where health research is currently telling us. Ancel Keys has to take a lot of the blame along with the American Sugar Association. They pushed a lie that the world bought hook line and sinker.
I’m with you, Booty. Sorry to break it to you, but you’re low carb.
The Australian Diabetes Association is breathtakingly stupid or maybe they just like to keep their sponsors happy? These organisations were set up to help patients and now do the opposite. Have you heard of Gary Fettke or Jennifer Elliot?
Have you seen this research?
Hi Stephen,
No Ive not heard of Gary or Jennifer. I’ll look them up. Allow me to go on a tangent. Id PM you but this site has no capacity to send PMs. Im pretty sure I know why and it makes sense to me. The saying; you can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink, comes to mind. Ive been on here for about a year and people wanting to lose weight can be placed into three broad categories. Those that genuinely don’t know what a healthy diet is and need advice. Those that are addicted physically and/or psychologically to certain foods and lastly those that have other psychological issues which are outwardly expressed as a diet disorder. The first is very easy to deal with and essentially that is all a forum like this can really be designed to deal with. The second becomes problematic as there is no genuine feedback mechanism and you cant ask someone to commit to a course of action. And with the last there is no way this forum can ever hope to deal with those issues in a meaningful manner. I try and limit my discourse with the first group and even then its hard. 30 years of mistruths and food propaganda means that most people tend not to believe you when you say processed grain based foods are not healthy for you. That potatoes are not healthy. That fruit juice is not healthy. That smoothies are not healthy etc etc. All you can do is point them to current research. After that there really isn’t a lot you can do.
Hello Bigbooty, Garry Fettke is a surgeon in Tasmania who’s not allowed to talk about diet, because he’s so scathing about current guidelines. The process has been entirely secret. He can’t see the complaint or who made it. It’s a plain attempt to shut someone up who’s embarassing the authorities. It’s usually a bird-brain dietitian who complains because it’s easier than facing up to having spent a career making people ill. Making more people ill is better.
Jennifer Elliot is an experienced dietitian who has lost her registration for giving her diabetic patients good advice. After an outcry the governing body said it was nothing to do with the low carb advice and all about her paperwork. Okay, and the moon’s made from cheese and chutney.
You summed up the different categories well. I’ve encountered the type 2’s and 3’s you describe. The 3’s are a bit of a surprise.
Is a PM a personal message?
I’m on 3. And 2. I’ve generally appreciated the intention (of Stephen in this case) to help, but weight loss is 50% physiology, 50% psychology. So.. yeah.. it’s complicated. I’m very well informed on nutrition / weight loss physiology, but this is equal to zero when it comes to my binge eating disorder. Life.
Adaline, I hope the second 50% falls into place at some point. It’s clearly a vital half, but easy to forget (and difficult to understand) for those of us lucky enough to have a straightforward relationship with food. I wonder where these things start? But that’s probably a question for the ‘Too Difficult’ tray. Best wishes.
Thanks. I hope too.
Quote: “I wonder where these things start?”
I think that is a mechanism of self-protection that is not under our conscious control. It’s a long and complicated / sensitive discussion (which I am not able to have now), but generally speaking, I would say childhood, I would say having a hard life, and not on the last place, as a trigger: very low calories / very low carb diets.. or any form of dieting that prohibits “something” (like: you can have enough calories and healthy carbs, but you completely forbidd junk // note: if you don’t want it, it doesn’t count as “forbidden”).
Many cases are in the “all of the above” category.
Booty, maybe you’re only an associate Oz member of the low carbers. They don’t like legumes for reasons I can’t remember due to memory lapses. Raw vegetables? Blimey O’Reilly, I think you like to test yourself. What’s wrong with a bit of steam? too decadent? I thought about a water fast and quickly decided on a glass of wine.
Hi AV Adaline,
I can sort of understand 2, well at least the physiology addiction part, but cant even pretend to understand 3. Very tough and good luck with it all.
Thanks for filling me in about Gary and Jenny. I suspect there is a lot of arse covering up. Give people blatantly wrong information for the best part of 40 years tends to box you into a corner. How can you then come out and say, sorry all the information weve been telling you is wrong. Easier to knobble the unrest in the ranks.
Don’t get me wrong Im not a dietary zealot I do eat “unhealthy” foods but they are sometimes treats I have occasionally. Most of my veggies are uncooked but I also like a good veggie (and meat) curry. I eat some meat (not a lot by Australian standards though). Love cheese and nuts. Some fruit. I don’t try and place myself into any dietary pigeon hole, I find those people to be too myopic. They tend to argue that you should have 59.7% carbs and not 60.1% etc. Maybe Im myopic and haven’t realised? I don’t really go for a particular C/F/P ratio or at the very least Ive never sat down and calculated it. I don’t count calories. I find that if you eat mostly unprocessed food you tend to be able to stop eating when your full quite easily. Its Monday so today is a water fast. It takes time to build up to doing a water fast. Once you get into the routine and your body is used to it, its like riding a bike.
Booty, I don’t think people in the past tried to calculate percentages of what they ate, so I don’t think we should bother. They only had real food. My only conscious attempt is to limit rubbishy carbs and to keep my fats high and natural. I’m with what you’ve said previously about those healthy ‘wholegrains’.
There’s serious arse covering in Oz, and eleswhere, but it shows no intelligence. Trying to shut people up reminds me of the inquisition and Galileo. They should be working on the exit strategy, not defending the indefensible, but I think they can’t think beyond next month’s mortgage payment and the public don’t matter much. There’s a talk by Dr Mosley on YouTube and the ADA representative is embarrasing and just crying out for hefty shove, but Dr Mosley’s instincts don’t allow him to do it. He could have done a lot of good by being a little less polite. I like politeness but not if it endorses illness.
AV, I know when my parents were young they didn’t count calories or know what their C/F/p ratios were and they were slim and healthy. Ive been a born again healthy eater for about 2 years now. What Ive found is that since Ive reduced my processed foods to a minimum my ability to sense when Im full has really heightened. If Im not hungry I don’t eat. When Im full I stop. On certain days I will seek protein, other days I’ll be craving fats or carbs and I just cater to those needs. Its really weird how this has developed over the last two years. I think highly processed carbs and sugar screws with the body’s ability to tell us what we need to eat. Try telling people you water fast and they look at you very weird. Surely that cant be healthy is their first response. we have evolved to have two energy sources, glucose and ketone bodies (from stored fats). Why not use energy from stored fats. get that liver cranking and get it doing what nature intended to do.
Do you have the link to that Mosley ADA talk?
Booty, I’ve attached a link to the talk. The ADA representative features at 35 minutes. I’d be interested in your thoughts.
I remember being struck by a fact in one of Tim Noakes talks: the only creatures on the planet who get obese are humans and the animals humans feed. Every other creature self regulates without a problem, which we seemed to do up until about thirty years ago when our guidelines, in my view, went disastrously wrong.
I think you’re right that highly processed carbs and sugar have messed up our body signalling. It’s a glucose rollercoaster of eat, insulin response and hunger signals as our blood-sugar drops. We can’t use our stored fat as ketones because it can’t be released when our insulin is raised. And that’s most of the time in our carb-laden world. That’s the obesity and diabetes explanation for me. The ADA man would say we all suddenly got lazy and greedy in 1983. That’s the ludicrous official position that is crumbling, but too slowly.
The official advice to diabetics is scandalous, but word is getting out. A front page in The Times a few months ago reported a diabetics rebellion against official advice. I haven’t looked for a while but I believe the advice is now inching its way towards sanity because of the scale of criticism, often led by doctors. I’ve attached a link showing one prominent campaigner, Dr Rangan Chatterjee. He worked a miracle for the diabetic man shown and was criticised by dietitians! No doctor here has suffered any consequences like Dr Fettke. Maybe because the other side wouldn’t dare have a hearing where the science would be discussed. Thye seem to be able to do it behind closed doors in Australia. On the other hand, I think it would be very hard to be a sensible NHS dietitian. All the vocal dietitians (for example, Zoe Harcombe and Trudi Deakin) work outside the NHS.
My understanding is that natural fat signals satiety. I no longer eat three meals a day since I upped my natural fat intake and dropped sugar and most carbs. I’m not in your water-fast league but I can easily go 16 – 18 hours without eating.
I think our energy storage capacity is significant. It’s 80% fat and 20% carbs. That’s a big clue about what we evolved to eat and why the modern diet is making so many people fat and ill. It’s possible to consume truly stupendous quantities of carbs and be eating again within a couple of hours. That’s impossible with fat.
Stephen
Just to add my two cents worth , off the “Science articles” topic, but still relevant I think. Of course I agree re the downright dangers of current food guidelines and diabetic education (as a nurse I saw it first hand), but one other big factor is at play with the current obesity epidemic. Marketing. Big Business. The rubbish that is sold as ‘food’. Parents working full-time, too tired and time poor to spend time in their own kitchens preparing basic healthy meals for themselves and their families. Overspending on all the ‘essentials’ (latest iphones etc) and putting pressure on themselves to pay for these lifestyles.
I am showing my age here (!) but growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, our diet was so very different. Everything was home cooked, oranges were squeezed if someone had a cold, otherwise we drank water or milk, biscuits or ice-cream were a rare home made treat, soft drink a special treat at Xmas only! Even dogs were slim as they lived on table scraps… We were Catholic, so fish and chips on a Friday night were the only ‘take-away’ food that was ever bought. KFC came to Australia in early ’70’s but it was considered a rare treat!
There will never be any corporate interest in fasting – there is nothing to sell!
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