Diet and Health

Recently I was listening to a pod cast interview with Mark Sisson, the author of The Primal Blue Print and he was discussing the importance of a limited Carbohydrate diet.  Having been gluten free for three years now I was ready to step up my commitment to a grain free lifestyle.  Once you give up gluten, which was difficult for me, the move to eliminating all grains doesn't seem so daunting.

Why in God's name would anybody A) want to give up eating bread and B) eliminate all grain from their lives?  This is a good question that I can answer the same way I explained my rationale for bi-lateral hip replacement.  It comes down to necessity based on quality of life.  I feel 100% healthier not eating wheat products even though I am neither allergic to wheat nor am I celiac sprue.  Without gluten I no longer make rapid and frequent visits to the bathroom shortly after meals as a matter of course and I suffer from fewer migraines.  I eat fewer calories and the ones I do consume have more nutritional value as opposed to the carbs which are converted to glucose and later, if not burned, onto fat, so I feel leaner.  And I no longer suffer from asthma which I treated with inhaled steroids, prednisone and albuterol for forty years.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?  My body tends towards inflammation and at this stage of the game I am determined to make changes that will improve the texture of the second half of my life.  Foregoing bread is a small price to pay to feel good.

Now I want to feel better.  Much recent data has shown that the over consumption of carbohydrates (OCC) is caustic to your system and contributes to systemic inflammation.  OCC is linked to Metabolic syndrome (if you don't know what that is click on the link) and many of the diseases that afflict wealthy post industrial nations.  Thanks to OCC and the use of high fructose corn syrup in particular in processed foods and beverages we are poisoning ourselves.  The dietary advice of the government and the medical-pharmaceutical complex have emphasized a reliance on grains in our diets because they are the "healthy" alternative to "evil" fats when consuming calories.  This backwards and selective science based approach to nutrition is directly correlated to the explosion of obesity, type two diabetes and heart disease.

If you are looking for a good read about diet and health pick up Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories to learn more about the science and politics behind nutrition or The Big Fat Surprise by   investigative journalist Nina Teicholz, who chronicles the history behind the cholesterol theory and its role in heart disease.  Her book is really a sociological study of how bureaucracies and the egotistical bullies (Ancel Keys) who run them control information by negating contradictory and inconvenient facts at the expense of those they are supposedly trying to help.  I am not a conspiracy theorist and I have benefited tremendously from modern medicine but money/power often trump truth in government and industry and medicine has often demonstrated some of the most egregious examples of this.  Lest we forget the ostracism Semmelweiss and Lister received from fellow practitioners for promoting antiseptic procedures.

Back to diet: a low carb diet (between 100-150 calories per day) and a Ketogenic diet (about 50 carb calories per day) can be beneficial.  In ketogenic diets you decrease your intake of carbs to such an extent that you remove glucose from your body's fuel supply, so that ketones take on the role of the primary energy source.  Ketones are the product of your liver metabolizing fats.  They burn cleaner than glucose, are less inflammatory to the system and any excess is excreted in the urine unlike glucose overproduction which is stored as fat.  Of course there are health risks associated with this diet, which you can read about, but there are risks in any diet and in comparison to the high carb diet we have accepted as gospel it is much healthier and has fewer adverse effects.  Several branches of medicine are currently conducting studies concerning the benefits of a ketogenesis which include beneficial outcomes in: Alzheimers, Parkinsons, Epilepsy (proven effective), depression, migraines and cancer.  Many people who maintain a ketogenic diet report sleeping better, having more energy and focus, less arthritic pain and an elimination or reduction in food cravings.  You lose weight on these diets, your HDL (good) cholesterol rises as do your good LDLs (yes there are good and bad subcategories within your "bad" cholesterols - actually LDLs and HDLs are really transport mechanisms of cholesterol - they are not cholesterol) and you consume fewer calories in general which is associated with longevity.

This diet, of course, means that you have to eat more fat, which many object to because for the past 50 years that has been a big no no.  Fortunately the tide is beginning to change and we no longer have to deprive ourselves of fat while feeding our hunger and cravings with carbs.  This is a complex subject and requires research to understand but the data can not be ignored.

This is my third day on a low carb diet and I feel great.  I will fall off the wagon on Thanksgiving but I am determined to ride the low carb train through the holiday parties and into the new year. 
Low carb diets will make you healthier and by inverting the USDA food pyramid you will find happiness in formerly forbidden fat.