Which diet advice is to be believed?

[TheDeadlyDonkey]

I've started reading John Briffa's Escape the Diet Trap. It makes for very interesting reading, but has made me question the usual run of the mill low fat type diet advice.
If Briffa is to be believed, low fat diets are unsustainable and can contribute to ongoing obesity issues and increasing the risk of diabetes.

I've also recently heard that if milk is to be drunk, full fat milk is better, as the majority of vitamins and minerals are in the fat.

I'm also hearing varying reports on cholesterol, and how it maybe isn't playing the dangerous role that many drs are telling us.

So, after DH's stroke (which wasn't in any way a lifestyle issue) he has been advised to be cautious and cut down on fat and use benecol spread and yoghurt drink (I have read that these aren't good for you, but can't remember where, could have been on here)

So when there is so much conflicting advice, who do you trust? What do you believe?

John Briffa's book is really convincing, quotes trials, uses scientific charts etc, and makes sense.
I myself have struggled with low fat diets, and failed more times than I care to admit.
I am in no way qualified to interpret scientific trial data (along with the majority of the population) and am growing more and more confused about the conflicting advice that is out there.

I'm not really sure what I'm expecting from this thread, but I'm interested to see what others think about this, and who you trust when it comes to diet advice?

I have a 1970's edition of E for additives
It is interesting to note how many of the entries in it are now banned ......

What do you mean ingredients are bad for you? If I make a vegetable soup with loads of different vegetables, this doesn't make it bad. Also, there is a difference between sugar and simple carbohydrates. Besides, your lunch is one of the reasons that people don't like "diet" food. You can make healthly food yummy by adding things that aren't bad for you, like garlic, herbs, and spices. In fact lots of herbs are full of vitamins. Of course some people don't like these things, but most people do not enjoy eating things that are bland and bitter, as most vegetables are. Also, eating food plain doesn't make it healthy.

I'm sorry if I've mispoken, but I've been going in and out of this thread and Xenia seems to say a lot of, but none of it seems to have much substance.

Anyways, sorry rant over.

itsonlysubterfuge

ingredients are not bad for you : home made Lasagne has quite a lot of them.
BUT
when you buy "salt and vinegar crisps" why is there "sugar" in the ingrdients?
and if you buy a "zero fat yoghurt" do you know what all of the components are and what they do?

The point that Xenia is making : and one that I will back her up on completely is

• if you do not understand why an ingredient is in a packaged food, walk away and buy a food whose ingredients you DO understand.

And that does NOT imply a lack of intelligence
I cannot tell the difference between xanthan gum and guar gum
and I know that "responsibly sourced palm oil" just means they killed all the Orang Utangs more than three years before the harvest date ....
so I try to by "ingredients" when I shop rather than "things that contain ingredients"

That isn't what she said though. She said her meal was healthly because it doesn't contain ingredients. She had salmon, by itself, rice, spinach, squash, all by itself with nothing added. As if I added some chopped garlic and tomato to my spinach it would somehow be less healthy than hers?

I had chili-cheese fries for lunch, this was not a healthy lunch, but I made it myself and know where all the ingreidents came from. There was no added sugar or artifical anything.

ah but xenia had soul for lunch one day .....

I must say I don't understand Xenia's stance on adding ingredients either. Surely, garlic and herbs are good for you? I would have thought cooking was more damaging than adding flavours so I can't get my head around why she thinks her bland but cooked food is so much better than any thing the rest of us might cook with some added garlic, herbs and spices. Unless she stick to a raw food diet of course but that isn't the impression I got.

Hats off to anyone who can easily avoid palm oil (I can't).
This thread is making me crave a huge bag of Doritos.

I have questioned xenia on the ingredients issue before. She thinks people heat up/ cook in whatever form they buy from the supermarket - no additions are applied - so she buys salmon, butternut squash and spinach and that is what she heats up/ cooks, while other people buy food which contains ingredients and those ingredients will often include artificial junk ....she has not acknowledged that lots of people buy basic foods and cook from scratch to create a dish with many ingredients - all of which are pure and natural foods.

Typical Xenia really - there is no other way except her own and her ideas do seem to be extreme.

As I say, if she is that keen on keeping everything as clean as possible, why cook it? That can do damage to the food, not all food (tomatoes for example benegit from cooking) but I don't understand why you wouldn't want to enhance your food both with flavour and in terms of nutrition.

I get what Xenia means - she prefers the food plain, but others may need to add spices etc, but it would be the difference between adding garlic, lemon, real spices, rather than adding a handy prepared sachet that also includes additives etc.

Since I started this thread, I have been eating mainly homecooked, non-processed foods, and thinking about what I am eating, and I've lost 4 pounds without really trying :o

I like an occasional can of coke zero, but have found in the last week that if I drink some, I feel starving, with a hollow aching feeling in my tummy - usually I'd eat something to take the feeling away, now I know that it's not real hunger, so I avoid drinking it now.

TheDeadlydonkey and there was another poster who was asking about evidence of the badness of chemicals and sweeteners. I 'm crap at doing links but I watched a BBC programme about them and they were testing people's eating patterns; one group on sweeteners and another not. They found that our bodies don't recognise them as food so as you said deadly you 'crave' proper food after eating them so you eat more.

There is evidence about hyperactivity in DCs too.A mum of autistic boys found them calmer and more 'normal' on a no additives and no wheat diet. That was on TV too i can't remember when though.

Xenia You're missing a health kick if you don't have olive oil or garlic, onions, ginger esp. turmeric which is fantastic (it stopped DS's cat allergies when he came to stay) We also all need extra omega 3s in our diets so I put ground linseeds and pumpkin seeds in my smoothies.

Everyone knows what I mean. Processed foods with a long ingredients list - bad. Natural unadultered food you might dig out of the ground, pick off a tree or hunt good.

Spices were added because meat was off etc to hide bad food etc. Obviousy,l if you like lots of herbs and spices and perhaps even grow your own herbs by all means use those. There are lot of good things in herbs. However my point stands and is consistent with the views of most people on the thread. We were just looking for shorthands for what is likely to be good for you and what is not.

My ideas are the same as just about everyone on the tread and most doctors - eat real food and you're okay. They are not extreme at all unless you think anyone who does not eat junk and processed food is extreme I suppose.

Yes I agree to an extent xenia but the Blood Type still is true for me; because as I said upthread I can eat the best organic home grown tomatoes and still get eczema.

ppeatfruit - thank you for that. I'm still not clear though - I understand that if someone is trying to pass off a diet coke, packet of crisps and low fat yoghurt as a meal, of course they will still be hungry and crave more food. But what is the logic against drinking diet/sweetened drinks in between healthy nutritious meals? I mean water isnt 'food' either in the sense of being nutritious. Or what is the logic behind it being OK not to have any dessert at all, but bad to have a low fat yoghurt? Surely you could still end up hungry and craving more in the first situation as much as the second...

ppeat You probably just have a food intolerance to tomatoes.

Xenia As far as spices go, they were also valued for being able to make things that were cheap and taste bad, taste good, not just meat that had gone off. What about your views on milk? How do you see flour? The point is it isn't as black and white as it seems.

Furthermore, what about taking medicine? All of that has things that have been artifically created. A long list of ingredients you can't pronounce and probably don't know what they even are. Maybe you don't take them regularly, but some people do. Should they stop because they aren't all natural? Science has come a long way and not everything man made that comes from culinary science is horrible.

I understand that eating and drinking things all the time that have artifical ingredients is not good, but just eating all natural things does not make it any healthier. The best thing to do is eat a varied diet low in saturated fats and processed sugars and learn about portion control/size.

Artifical sugars are something called "left-handed sugars" and our body can not digest them. However when you eat or drink something sweet, your body is expecting to get some calories and use it as energy, when it doesn't receive any calories you feel drained/tired and hungry because your body was expecting some calories. Does this make sense?

Also, plain low fat yogurt isn't bad for you. It's all the flavored ones that are bad for you because they have lots of sugar in them. Far better to buy plain low-fat/non-fat yogurt and add your own fruit to sweeten.

Our bodies need water to survive regardless of the nutritional content. You can live quite a while without food, you would have a much harder time surviving without water.

itsonly the problem with the high sugar drinks is that your body is not made to cope with so much sugar (9 teaspoons in a normal can of coke NINE!!!!) perverting your tastebuds so all the other 'normal' food you eat will be tasteless and you will need to put lots of salt on it to taste it. You will also crave salty foods like processed meats and cheeses and crisps etc.

Therefore you'll be more likely to become diabetic because your pancreas has to work overtime to cope with the unnatural amount of sugar and get strokes because too much salt has been shown to be one of the causes of them too.

Sorry the above post was for riverboat not itsonly

Thanks for explaining that, its only. It makes sense, but on a personal level its hard to believe because I haven't noticed those effects in myself. Maybe what your body and taste buds are used to also plays a part? As a child we had diet drinks never full sugar, low fat yoghurts never full fat, skimmed milk not full cream, margarine instead of butter...and I'd say I actively prefer the taste of all those products to the 'real' versions. So eating a piece of toast with marge doesn't make me wish it was butter or leave me hungry, drinking a diet coke doesn't seem to make me want something 'properly' sugary etc...

Whereas maybe if you are used to the 'real' products the problem comes when you try to switch to the artificial ones...

I shall be observing how I feel after a glass of squash / diet coke more closely from now on, in any case!

River - I'd never noticed it before, not until I've started consistently eating 'proper' food.

See, I think I do eat proper food. Homemade dinners and lunches with lots of fresh veg, meat and fish, brown bread, brown rice etc. I just also drink diet coke, squash, put low fat spread on my bread and have the occasional low fat fruit yoghurt. To understand if that's really having a bad effect on me I guess I'd have to basically drink only water and see if it changed my hunger levels or cravings ...and switch to real butter and full fat yoghurts?

The closer the food is to how it grew the more likely it will be good for you.

I don't have milk or flour but I am not some radical extremist on these issues - if you mostly eat whole foods you will do a lot better than processed foods. I doubt anyone would disagree with me on the thread

If most of someone's diet is good then they are more than half way there. The trouble is that is not the case for most people. They start at breakfast with a load of processed stuff, jams, bread with sugar added, cereals packed with sugars and then move on to coffees, diet drinks, then the lunch will probably be pretty processed bread at the office, cakes in the afternoon etc etc on and on.

I'm trying to make huge changes to my very carb based diet.

This morning I had porridge and a satsuma, snack was yoghurt (Greek full fat) and half a banana, just had a small amount of pasta with tuna, a teaspoon of yoghurt instead of mayo and a salad -cucumber, tomato, snap peas, carrot, celery, pepper.

About 1/4 of a small plate was pasta, 1/4 tuna, half salad.

This is going in the right direction isn't it? Real veg and such like. Tea I've found a chicken and cous cousrecipe that looks like real food ingredients.

I've realised I've so lost track of normal (snacks of cheese and crackers many times a day, digestives, extra bowl of cereal, off packet of crisps, second helpings. . .) I actually need help rebalancing.

Just to add I'm not 'low carbing (obviously!), I just meant I was snacking on too much cereal, bread etc. I want to eat healthily and less and trying to figure out what that means. I'd like to eat more real and whole food but its a complete culture change!

Is supermarket wholemeal bread ok? Is any bread? I'd like to make healthier choices and do prefer grainy or wholemeal breads. I thought the amount of sugar was tiny to make the yeast work or something?

TwasBrillig you'll feel better for cutting out as much wheat as you can I do! I eat rye bread and ryvita's and pumpernickel (which is an acquired taste but even DH likes it he's sooo much calmer,slimmer and less exhausted when he cuts out wheat completely.

(Sainsbos do a pure rye and the big Waitroses' do a good selection of non wheat breads like spelt and Kamut which are ancient grains and easier to digest (whole wheat stops my digestion dead TMI sorry)!