by: Dr. Tara Barker


Low Carb and Low Fat Diets - A Scam?!

If anyone knows anything about fitness, it’s that a low fat diet is
the healthiest way to avoid serious diseases, right? Maybe wrong.

In many instances quality research has shown just the opposite…that
a low fat diet, sometimes even a vegetarian diet, can be harmful to
your health. Although vegetarian and low-fat diets have been proven
to reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, they have not
demonstrated significant reductions in deaths from any disease.

The Low-Fat Approach
Popular diets of today encouraging low-fat approaches, such as the
diets of Dr. Pritkin, Dr. Ornish, Macrobiotics, and Weight Watchers,
are generally effective with weight-loss and reduction in blood
fats. The low-fat approach has even been proven to overcome serious
illness successfully.

But the majority of dieters find these plans difficult to stick
with. And most research trials have not shown these diets effective
in decreasing death rates from diseases in general, long-term.

Fats in a meal make you feel more ‘full’. They slow the time it
takes for your stomach to empty, thus ensuring you will not feel
hungry too soon.

Generally, high-carb, low-fat meals have the opposite effect. The
stomach empties quicker and insulin levels increase following the
meal. This means you may be hungry sooner than you’d like.

Research shows the higher insulin levels of a low-fat, high-carb
diet may predispose you to adult onset diabetes, hypoglycemia, and
even heart disease.

The Low-Carb Approach
These diets claim that limiting carbs, like sugars, grains, fruits,
and some vegetables, is the solution. The Atkins Diet, South Beach
Diet, and even the Zone Diet all suggest if you cut out the carbs or
have a balance of fat/carbs/protein in every meal, you will
experience weight loss and better health. Many dedicated dieters
find this to be true.

Although a low-carb diet can cause weight loss, the goal of any
program should be life long radiant health. It is still up for
debate if this approach leads to any significant health advantages.
It is possible to hasten heart disease, arthritis, cancer, and aging
with a diet too high in the wrong fats and too low in essential
nutrients from various fruits and veggies.

Many health care professionals find it difficult to prescribe to
either of the above theories. If there is no definitive answer in
either direction that is indisputable, then there must be a middle
ground.

A Healthy Solution for Everyone
It is difficult to imagine that reducing intake of the wonderful
fruits and vegetables that keep people well is the way to a healthy
future. Research will back this up. The average American already
ingests too little fiber, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and
other factors present in whole, unprocessed fruits and vegetables.

In much of our history, it was rare to have many of the diseases we
live with today. Most people in native cultures eating diets
dictated by availability experienced vibrant health. Their death was
caused by accidents, bacterial or viral diseases, or by old age.
Very few died of our number one killers: cardiovascular disease and
cancer.

People did not begin to experience heart disease and cancer in such
great numbers until the advent of our more modern diet and lifestyle
customs.

These “advances” included:
• growing and eating more grains
• discovering how to ‘refine’ and ‘preserve’ foods to extend
shelf-life
• consuming sugar and ‘simple‘ carbohydrates
• pasteurizing and homogenizing dairy products

With the human tampering of food overall health took an undeniable
turn for the worse.

Almost exclusively we now eat, even in so called ‘healthy‘ or
‘organic‘ foods, the following: refined products, products with
added sugar, preservatives, additives, petroleum products, animal
products laden with antibiotics and hormones, and animals that are
fed diets that they would never eat in the wild (wild cattle do not
eat other cattle, poultry by-products, or even grains; cattle eat
grass).

Native cultures worldwide, before being indoctrinated with more
westernized food choices, eat remarkably similar diets.

Since many food products spoil without refrigeration or freezing,
most people fermented their foods. This supplies necessary probiotic
bacteria, which many people supplement with today since we eat
natural fermented foods so infrequently.

Whether or not they inhabited the same regions, most people ate a
wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and animal products in season.
Very few societies tip the scales by eating mostly animal products
(Inuit cultures) or mostly vegetarian (a few tribes in Africa and
South America).

The similarities that bind the historical human diet together are:
• A diet based on fresh or fermented whole, unrefined foods
• A diet high in essential fatty acids with an omega 6 to omega 3
ratio of 4:1 (current US diets have a ratio of 16:1)
• A diet where spirituality around food is more meaningful than the
material
• A diet with 10 times the level of fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E,
K)
• A diet lower in total calories overall

Wisdom passed down through the ages says that a varied diet with
foods found abundant in nature is best. In almost all cultures this
means a diet, as available, of fresh or dried wild meats and fish,
fermented cheeses, fresh whole or fermented milk, butter, eggs,
fresh, dried, or fermented fruits, fresh or fermented vegetables,
whole grains (these were fermented normally, even if dried), some
beans, and water or fermented beverages to drink.

It is interesting to note that instead of eating fresh foods or
those naturally fermented, we chose to cook or destroy what could
spoil in our foods then add additives and preservatives. Are these
‘foods’ as digestible? Do they supply the same nutrients? Does the
magic number of carbohydrates versus fats or proteins really matter?
What if the answer lies in ancient wisdom and thousands of years of
knowledge?

Something to think about.



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