low carb diets -seems like everyone's on one, but I thought dieticians etc generally don't recommend them?

[GhostOfAWasp]

I am not a dietician, but I know a few and they seem to think that all the anti wheat arguments are pseudo science and carbs aren't that bad! Granted, they work, but surely cutting any food group from you diet would have the same effect? I never found it felt very healthy or sustainable long term.

Have I missed something?

I think the problem with the traditional pyramid is that there's going to have to be such a huge U turn on advice. Basically they've rammed low fat down our throats for 30 years...now they've got egg on their faces as the evidence mounts up that humans need fat, and they don't need carbs (refined at least). If Gary Taubes and all the others are right, and I suspect they are, then this is going to be a huge admission of making a big mistake.
I see my exFIL who is a Type 2 diabetic struggling to control his bloods...goes to the dietician who tells him to eat more wholemeal bread blah blah..all that's happening is his bg readings are becoming more erratic. He stayed with my exH, who tends to follow a moderate carb diet, for two weeks and his BG readings were great...

cross posted with thumbwitch, good for them, our Govt and the US seem adamant to stick to the low fat high carb and 'healthy' grains advice.

BIWI - just read your post more thoroughly - can't have you maligning Ancel Keys!! One of the most important things he said, that is routinely ignored, is that EXERCISE was critical to heart health, when combined with a lower SATURATED fat diet (he favoured the Mediterranean diet) - people just took the bits they liked from his advice and ignored the rest.

Also, and I have never been able to fully substantiate this because it's not findable on the internet (doesn't mean it doesn't exist, mind) - I saw a documentary years ago, in the 1990s, that was discussing the contributing food factors to heart disease - apparently there was some report produced in 1972 that showed the 4 factors that most affected heart disease in the UK were high dietary levels of:
saturated fat
salt
cholesterol
SUGAR
BUT the sugar people (i.e. the Tates) got the sugar bit taken out of the report, presumably by threatening to withdraw funding or something, who knows.

So it's been known for decades that high refined carbs (sugar and easily digestible-starches) contribute to heart disease, via obesity, excess sugars being converted to fat in the body etc., but apparently politics were allowed to hide that from people for years, which allowed the diet food industry to create 98% fat free but laden with extra carbs for edibility foods.

we as a species evolved to eat protein, fat and natural carbs in fruit and veg. Grains were only introduced about 10,000 years ago which is not a long time in evolutionary terms. Our bodies have not evolved to process grains in any form or legumes for that matter and that is why we have the problems with obesity. Cultures who eat no grains or refined carbs do not have the same illnesses as we do, e.g diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer etc. All these illnesses and diseases have only become apparent since the introduction of grains into our diet.

Grains also contain antinutrients which bind to other nutrients preventing them from being absorbed by our bodies.

By eating low carb you eat natural foods that your body was designed to eat and that it can process.

You wouldn't feed a dog or cat on a vegetarian diet nor would you feed a horse meat. You feed them a species appropriate diet. Low carb is a species appropriate diet for Homo Sapiens.

thumbwitch From the information I have read lately (paleo) the science behind sat fat and cholestrol contributing to heart diesease has been disproved also. From what I gather it is the combination of sat fat and high carbs that then lead to clogged arteries and heart disease, not sat fat and cholestrol on their own.

Also the imbalance of omega 6 to omega 3 in our bodies and diet are also a contrubutary factor. We tend to have a much higher intake of omega6 than omega3 due to the pushing of polyunsaturated veg oils. The ratio should be ideally 1:1 which can be achieved by eating more natural sat fat and less veg oil.

Ah no, cholesterol in the diet was debunked ages ago. It's since been shown that the less cholesterol you eat, the more the body produces - but I was talking about what the report in 1972 said.

I used to have reactive hyperglycemia. I went to my doctor and everything. I had a rummage around online to see if I could do anything to stop myself from coming over shaky and sweaty.

I had a look at my diet. In an attempt to stop the shakiness I tried to eat more. I thought that eating a lot at lunchtime would get me through the afternoon, but the more I ate, the shakier I would get.

Also, I was getting fatter. I went onto one of those on-line diets and as soon as I started on the smaller portion sizes I stopped getting shaky. The diet also cut down on carbs and used a lot more protein than I was used to. I was eating less and less and going for longer gaps between food with no clammy shakiness.

I used to have a big portion of cereal ("a nice big portion of cereal will get me through until lunchtime") and I'd be shaking at about 10.30. So I halved the size and then didn't need to eat again until lunchtime.

I don't eat any bread at all - I sometimes think I crave it, but if I eat it I feel like crap and my stomach bloats up. I eat meat and fish and loads of veggies and nuts and seeds - cooked with loads of butter. My BMI is 21.5, which I'm happy with.

Sorry for essay, but I just wanted to log the fact that I used to always have bags of dried fruit and biscuits on me in case of "an attack" and now that I eat few refined carbs it just doesn't happen.

Ghost - just as a matter of interest - do your dietitian friends also disbelieve in any kind of food intolerance as well? Unless it's a full on food allergy?

I'm interested because I have a wheat intolerance. It's not been diagnosed, it might be coeliac for all I know but I'm not putting myself back on wheat specifically to destroy my gut lining so that they can tell me I have a wheat intolerance - I know I do. Coming off wheat has made my life sooo much better - no more IBS, far less acid reflux (although not at the moment but different reason just now), no more bloating, no more falling asleep after my lunch (that used to almost always include wheat), no more fuzzy head, far fewer migraines - I'm never going back to it. BUt I'm sure there are people who would happily denounce my intolerance as "pseudo science" or whatever - I don't care, they can stick it where the sun don't shine, it's what works for me.

thumbwitch My DH's IBS has improved dramatically since going low carb and cutting out wheat and other grains. Surely that is not coincidence how illnesses improve when refined carbs/grains are cut.

I'm like Thumbwitch - I reckon I'm probably coeliac but there's no way I'm going to purposefully eat wheat just to get a diagnosis. I used to live with chronic flatulence and, sometimes painful, bloating. I rarely fart at all these days and when I do it's normally after eating a meal I haven't prepared myself. My asthma and psoriasis are also greatly improved since I stopped eating wheat.

Carbs have been the cause of my insominia - it had got so bad that I was going to start taking sleeping pills - low carb has given me my sleep back - without taking drugs!

I'd completely forgotten about that BettyBathroom - it used to take me an hour to get to sleep on a good night and now I get to sleep straight away.

Chandon - it's low fat, high carb that's the 'fad', actually. As I said in my other post, it's been known for many, many years that cutting consumption of carbohydrates is the safest and most effective way to lose weight. High carb has only been the mantra for a few decades - the decades in which the human race has, on the whole, got fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker. Low carb plans are simply taking us back to the food our bodies have evolved to run on.

Oh and, btw, I don't have bad breath

food for thought then...

I just cannot reprogram my mind that it's fat that's bad.

Is that from growing up in the 80s? Have I been affected by Gvt propaganda? how can we know what is really true when all research is funded and sponsored by big industry?!

No, dieticians probably don't recommend it. But they do recommend low-fat low-calorie diets so probably approve of all the crappy low-fat pretend food marketed by WW and SW etc. In which case I wouldn't take much notice.

I have done lc in the past. Lost lots of weight and kept it off. But can't afford it atm - my food bill almost doubled due to meat, dairy and fish. Nowadays I eat lots of lentils and rice and veg because it's cheap! And nice of course. Otherwise I'd give it a go again.

Orm - agree re: WW/SW. I can't take seriously any eating plan that allows unlimited consumption of Muller Light yoghurts. 13g of sugar in each - but no Evil Fat, so that's ok then - eat as many as you like!

Chandon - it is hard to get your head around the fact that dietary fat might be okay and that bread might not be doing you many favours, for example. Low carb is a leap of faith these days, when every bit of advice we're given by 'experts' essentially says less fat, more wheat. Every tv advert talks about 'healthy wholegrains' and 'low-fat deliciousness' - it's all-pervasive.

But if that message works - and we do eat less fat than ever these days - why do we now have an obesity problem? Why is diabetes costing the NHS billions every year? It's worth considering whether the dietary dogma of the late 20th century really has done us more harm than good...

13g of sugar in a muller??? jesus, no wonder I had issues when I followed SW in the past

of course variations of low/no carb can be unhealthy, I knew a vegitarian who did it and JUST ATE CHEESE, I'm not kidding, that was ALL SHE ATE (didn't like nuts etc) - she was obviously a delightfully churpy person to work with during that time and an extra for the fact that she was TTCing on that diet!

yeah low carb is expensive, but so is not being able to work because of all the crappy illnesses you can get from a diet of processed food.

I did try Rose Elliot's Vegetarian Low Carb Diet once but my god it was hard work. There's only so many eggs/so much cheese a person can eat, and having to keep carbs down to 20g a day was really restrictive. Plus there felt like there were only a handful of fruit and veg you could eat, which as a veggie is not great.

I'm really interested in the idea but want to do it in a way that doesn't feel like throwing the baby out with the bath water. I can't believe that things like lentils (with iron and all the essential amino acids), brown rice (magnesium, vitamins) and pulses like chick peas (again, iron, protein, fibre) can be bad foods to eat. I generally do cook from scratch and do avoid refined or overly processed foods, but am wondering if I could formulate my own veggie friendly diet eliminating wheat etc and incorporating good fats. But surely, if you eat carbs (in the unprocessed forms mentioned above) and a high fat diet, you're just going to get fat?

ghost it is really difficult to over eat protein, physically I mean

its very easy to over eat carbs, you can keep munching

so a high protein low carb diet makes itself calorie controlled without you having to count it

another reason why WW is so shite, I remember avoiding avocados like the plague when on WW, one avocado and you're full, ever heard of anyone over eating avocados?

take hummous, low fat hummous I will eat the whole pot and still not feel full and go looking for other food, full fat hummous - I feel satisfied after much less and don't continue snacking.

you feel satisfied with fat, some diets even include a small amount of full fat cream for that reason

Yeah, but from a vegetarian perspective, what does that look like? Can you only eat three different kind of veg and unlimited cheese? Because that's where I find it unsustainable, personally. I like veg. I like to eat out from time to time, and god only knows what you would eat in a restaurant as a low carbing vegetarian. If you have to eat less than 20g of carbs a day you just can't eat hardly any of the fruit and veg that I like and I'm sure that's not healthy...