"I think that one of the things which has struck me about LC eating is the whole raft of uncontrolled variables involved. On the average LC diet is it the drop in glucose, fructose, gluten or fibre which produces the metabolic improvements? Are the effects direct or mediated through the intestinal microbiota? What about the addition of bulk fat, mostly saturated? Or the avoidance of trans fats if LC also involves a switch to eating real food? What about the increase in both cholesterol and choline intake if you go for a high egg intake."
Amen. Thank you, Peter!
I am wary of diet models using rats as test subject. I am not really sure that rats thrive eating a high fat diet - aren't their principal diet g"grains"? Also their supposedly high fat "chow" is mostly soybean oils with some vitamins thrown in... Not a good replication of the average human diet (or is it...?)
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little, calcium tablets was seen as the end-all be-all to curing osteoporosis. Then we learned that excessive calcium is detrimental and needs to be balanced out with magnesium. Then vitamin D came along and then vitamin K becomes all the rage. Yeah... When it comes to nutrition I feel like we are three blind men feeling different parts of the same elephant. When it comes to diet I always go low carb, saturated fat, and possibly organic if I can afford it. Sometimes I think we miss the forest for the trees, and meanwhile people just sort of tune out any new nutrition advice because they are always contradicting each other.
ReplyDeletethe 20th-century mindset seems to have been that for every symptom, there's a single drug/vitamin that will fix it. this of course leads to polypharmacy.... [rolling eyes]
Deletepeople want simple answers, but the body is not simple. there's no way to treat different parts in isolation from each other.
ironically, there IS a simple answer if one isn't too "broken" -- high-nutrient real food. ...but of course most people want to eat their cake and have it too.
It is especially harder for the younger generation to adopt a low carb lifestyle as they are born into a world of go-gurt, fish sticks, Doritos and fizzy pop. It's mainstream norm to consider pop tarts as "food". I think it will be very hard to rethink the definition of "food" and embrace a low carb diet when one is constantly bombarded with nutrition advice left and right. My colleagues eat vegan butter on rice cakes in an effort to be "healthier". I try to bite my tongue when it comes to diet advice.
Deletewe all have to learn to do this ... but it's sure difficult sometimes!
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