Tuesday, October 8, 2013

NF:CANN part two

A continuation from yesterday....

TWO THIRDS of Americans, and almost as large a proportion of Brits i understand, are at least OVERWEIGHT.  Now, there IS reason to believe that the very classification of "overweightness" and obesity are ridiculously defined.  However, that doesn't negate the fact that, when we look around us, we see evidence of dietary misfeasance all over the place.

Look at the pot-bellies, look at the obvious bloat, look at the unhealthy skin, look at the skinny-fat limbs, look at the pasty faces, look at the proportions that scream "badly unbalanced hormones."  Whether one is technically overweight or not, food-caused ill health is ubiquitous.

"...I'll explain what happens when the brain encounters common ingredients like wheat, fructose (the natural sugar found in fruit), and certain fats, proving that an extremely low-carbohydrate but high-fat diet is ideal (we're talking no more than 60 grams a day -- the amount in a serving of fruit)."

Perlmutter goes on to tell his audience that they'll be shocked to hear his recommendations, especially those who are on a statin for high cholesterol.  From his tone and his inclusion of this kind of statement, i think we can safely conclude that "Grain Brain" is directed at the kind of audience who MIIIIGHT just think that a "serving" of fruit is in fact the thing you find in a restaurant with poppyseed dressing on it, and NOT the "one medium apple" that Madame d'Harvarde interpreted it to mean.

For the TWO THIRDS of our population (a clear majority) who are overweight, and the additional ones who are unhealthy but thin, i don't think there can be MUCH doubt that decreasing their carb intake AND INCREASING THE GOOD FATS LIKE COCONUT OIL and DECREASING OMEGA-6s would be health-enhancing, don't you?  Funny, but that's what this guy is endorsing....

So although i would not recommend this book to most of the blog-readers with whom i trade comments, here and on the other websites i frequent, i DO think it holds value for people who have tried to work with Convention Wisdom only to find that it lets them down.  I think the average person, who probably gets her/his nutritional information from tv commercials and magazine articles, would be well-served by listening to Perlmutter's suggestions.  Sixty grams of carbs as a limit would take a LOT of sugar and other garbage out of most people's diets.

If you're a nutrition nerd already, don't bother reading it -- but if someone you know is a caregiver to a person in the early stages of dementia, it MIGHT just be a good gift idea.


6 comments:

  1. Yes, many of us 'bloggers' do now recognise the benefits of a low carb high fat diet and the wealth of health benefits it brings. Still a lot more work to be done though....

    All the best Jan

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    1. I love it that people like you, Jan, who don't NEED to treat a medical condition with a low-carbohydrate diet do so anyway, and help spread the word on its wholesome qualities! :-) it's a wonderful lesson that the "hard to persevere with" myth is nonsense!

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  2. What people eat is often so ridiculous, that I sometimes suspect many just need not a clear-cut low-carbohydrate diet from the beginning, but an understanding, that eggs are better for their breakfast than an oatmeal, that apple juice is the same nutritionally as a coca-cola, that a bread(wholegrain or white) is not an irreplaceable part of their diet, that eating broccoli for lunch doesn't cancel eating doughnut two hours earlier. May be it is the reason why the Wheat Belly had such huge impact? It simplified the message and appealed to emotions while using a simple strategy..It got grilled a lot by several well-educated bloggers and commenters (and by the recently removed from your blog-roll blogger)

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    1. i suspect a lot of people COULD eat more carbs NOW if they hadn't spent the last three decades messing up their metabolisms with wheat, fructose and omega-6s....

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  3. At McDonald's yesterday (where I ordered a bunless burger, because I'm working 12-hour days), the woman behind me ordered a coffee with ten sugars. She used a cane, and couldn't see the coin she cropped next to her foot.

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    1. sad but true! so many people are suffering because they WANT to eat carbs so much they latch onto the liars who tell them sugar/bread/whatever are "fine in moderation".... :-(

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