Food - breatharians may claim it isn’t needed, but for the overwhelming majority of us, there’s no denying that food is a critical part of life. Unfortunately, what we should eat to be healthy is a seemingly constant debate resulting in ever changing diet books and programs.
Trying to dissect the volumes of volumes of information is incredibly difficult for the average person. What makes it even more difficult for us is that none of the information is consistent and it seems that even the experts get everything wrong. If they can’t figure out what we should eat, then what’s a guy looking for a healthy diet supposed to do?
The answer is research, and lots of it. Over the last little while I’ve been reading all that I can on nutrition, attempting to not get stuck in the fads and one solution fits all kind of mentality. It’s difficult trying to make heads or tails of nutrition, but I’ve come across some great stuff that I thought I’d share.
While there are more and more “fad” diets coming out with books and all sorts of highly marketed material aimed primarily at sucking dieters dry of their hard earned cash, many of the more recent diet programs are incredibly closely related and for the most part, they follow similar principles. Atkins, Zone, Paleo, Glucose Revolution, South Beach and countless more diets all basically revolve around the idea of low carbs. While some of them such as Zone and South Beach mask the low carb idea around insulin or glycemic indecies, ultimately they paint refined, high density carbs as evil and prescribe significant amounts of protein and fat as a crucial part of the diet.
When once, low-fat foods were all the craze, we’re now entering the age of the low-carb diets. At least from a marketing point of view this definitly seems to be the case. Historically, however, it’s actually far from true. The Paleo diet, which promotes low carbs and eating like our ancestors, suggests that chronic illnesses were mostly unheard of pre-bread (loose summary). By going back to a diet similar to our paleolithic fore-fathers and eating lots of meat and consuming lots of veggies as our sole source of carbohydrates, Paleo proponents suggest that we can not only get lean but likely enjoy a disease free life. If, evolutionarily speaking, low-carb diets went hand in hand with woolly mammoths, it’s likely that the low-carb thing pre-dates civilization.
But even in modern day, the idea of restricting refined carbohydrates for health isn’t “new”. William Banting wrote a book in 1863 about the marvels of going low carb after spending years attempting to lose weight unsuccessfully. Unfortunately, like many low-carb proponents in following years, a lack of data and the inconsistencies with the time’s emperical “knowledge” put the idea in a serious back seat where it generally still remains.
To this day, it is more or less commonly thought that eating fat causes fat. And eating too much meat, of course, correlates with high fat intake and should be therefore avoided. So for most people, it’s accepted that a healthy diet includes low-fat choices and fruit and veggies and grains. And for many people, a bagel from Tim Horton’s is a fine food choice as long as the topping is a low-fat cream cheese and the only way to lose weight is to go on a “binge” of low calories combined with lots of exercise. And for many people with various chronic illnesses (and perhaps their doctors as well), the notion that diet may be directly responsible for their condition is an idea not even worth entertaining. And Atkins and others like him are labelled crackpots by other professionals because, let’s be serious, there’s no possible way that eating bacon and eggs could actually lower cholesterol levels.
However, Atkins and Sears and books like “Good Calories, Bad Calories” and “Life Without Bread” and successful diet programs like the Zone Diet and the Paleo diet are challenging this “common knowledge” and revealing that for many people, what we once thought about living healthy may, in fact, be incredibly misguided and just plain wrong. Not only that, but these “renegades” in today’s modern diet crazed world are actually suggesting (and showing) that our fast food culture could be the crux of many of the chronic illnesses that plague the Western hemisphere. The bagels and Big Macs and corn flakes and Coca-Colas may be responsible for diabetes, obesity, mental illness, heart disease and chronic pain, just to name a miniscule few.
And for me, it makes sense. Bread may have triggered the dawn of modern civilization, but in our effort to reduce the work for hunters and gatherers, did we accidentally fall into a rut? If chronic illness and obesity were unheard of before our neolithic brothers discovered the miracles of high density carbs, then carbs should at least be a prime suspect for the cause of modern illnesses, right?
Regardless, I’ve been enjoying a Zone life for some time now (attempting anyway). While not always strict about my diet, I find that keeping an eye on my breads and carbs does allow me to live more energetically, keeps me lean and keeps my otherwise turbulent blood sugar levels rather straight and narrow (boo hypoglycemia). So for me, it’s a no brainer. I just wish that other people would also do the research and at least humour the possibility that their diet may be the cause of many of their headaches… literally. (I also wish beer wasn’t so carb rich)
For more information, I suggest taking a look at the various links I’ve listed below:
- ZoneDiet.com
- Introduction to the Paleolithic diet
- The Paleolithic Diet Page
- ABC News Excerpt: ‘Good Calories, Bad Calories
- Insulin, Diet, Disease and Athletes
- Glycemic Index
- Atkins diet and low carb diet resources
- ‘Stone Age’ Diet Study - Science Daily
- International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics
No Comments, Comment or Ping
Reply to “Food, food, food”