Re: Dieting

While I agree a Paleo based diet is a good idea I don't think we have to be to obsessive about what we eat. The Swedes seem to be doing very well with a more simple and relaxed lower carbohydrate higher fat approach. Providing most of the foods come as basic raw ingredients which you prepare yourself at home then it should be fine providing their is virtually no refined grains or omega 6 seed/grain oils and the meat is mostly free range grass fed.
I think Green Tea drinking goes back almost as far as dairy so I'd be reluctant to give up dairy or tea drinking or my red wine.

The big changes in diet/lifestyle that have precipitated the obesity crisis have occurred over my lifetime so it's the changes in food over the last 50years or so that most concern me.

Re: Dieting

But the way they make Lurpak spreadable is by reducing the amount of proper butter (down to 47%) and whisking in water and vegetable oil (22%),

there is absolutely no evidence that saturated fat has anything to do with heart disease.
Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease

Image from Wholehealth source US Omega-6 and Omega-3 Fat Consumption over the Last Century

If we look at what has been happening over the last 50 yrs and more we see the astronomic rise in SOY oil. compared to a drop in saturated fat consumption.

It is simply ludicrous to blame the food items that have bee reduced for the increased rise in disease. It the newly introduced foods like the presence of soy oil in what is supposed to be butter that is the root of the problem. That is where the INFLAMMATION is coming from, It's not the fault of the butter but the marg. Making your butter as bad for you as margarine isn't going to help. It's only going to make matters worse.

Re: Dieting

This is all interesting and the more I read the more I understand. White flour, white sugar and marge was my mums diet during the war years. While her sons were given the butter, meat and cheese and bacon.

Mum died of the symptoms of diabetes. She had gone into ketosis due to a poor diet and not taking her medication. She had been an obese lady but because she had left her diabetes untreated shrunk from 16stones to 7stones.

I am using butter, dripping and lard.

I am fascinated by your diet Azz I had never heard of it before. Did you begin to eat this way to lose weight or just because you decided it was what you wanted?

Re: Dieting

But bear in mind that sugar was rationed during the war, AND the problems with flour have come since the changes to Wheat production (the type of wheat is different and so is the amount of mineral content so it's more allergenic and more inflammatory since the 1980's) and the use of the Chorleywood breadmaking process.

I don't want to distract from your loss but I do want to clear up the role of KETOSIS which is an entirely natural state that we should all experience every night if we sleep properly and KETOACIDOSIS which is the dangerous condition that diabetics can experience if they do not properly control blood glucose/insulin levels.
The links go to a relatively clear explanation of the difference.

So do I but I also don't eat refined carbohydrates or sugar/high fructose corn syrup. Your body cannot burn fat as fuel while you are also consume foods that metabolise down to glucose. The glucose has to be disposed of first so the fat gets sent to storage. The less carbohydrate consumed and/or the slower the carbohydrate is broken down, the more likely it is the calories stored in fat cells will come into circulation as a fuel source.

It's true that fat intake through a meal ensure the secretion of the satiety hormones apply the brakes to food consumption and make us feel full and satisfied and less likely to keep eating or eat between meals, but we also have to distinguish between eating to appetite but not eating all you possibly can. So while it's true people generally consume less when eating a higher fat lower carbohydrate diet we shouldn't give the impression that eating low carb/high fat is license to eat gluttonously.

Coconut oil is another Traditional fat that contains the same medium chain triglycerides (MCT) that are found in butter and breast milk, these are burnt as readily as glucose, and form an alternative fuel source that helps the brains of people with dementia function more normally.

Re: Dieting

I think I understand about ketosis. Dr Atkins says that in his first book he referred to ketosis, when he should have written about ketosis/lipolysis. He says the Atkins approach stimulates the process of lipolysis. Ketosis occurs when you are taking in a low level of carbs from the food you eat. This is perfectly normal and a natural function of the body and should not be confused with diabetic ketoacidosis which insulin deficient people having out of control blood sugar levels. I didn't make my self clear, I do apologise but this is a learning process which I am enjoying greatly.

It's true that sugar was on ration but somehow people in the countryside could always get some particularly people on farms.

Wow am I to understand that white flour has not been really bad until the eighties with the sliced white loaf I presume?

I like the sound of coconut oil, I use coconut milk and coconut cream in cooking which is very tasty . In the Caribbean people didn't use anything else but coconut oil until the shops started offering different cooking oils and talking about coconut oil being bad.

When I lived in the Caribbean for three years in the eighties I was amazed at the amount of sugar that was consumed, fizzy drinks and sugar cakes were a lunch time special for school kids. Everyone seemed to have a 'sweet tooth' meaning at least three spoonfulls of sugar in any drink.

With the amount of physical work that most people did each day this obviously wasn't too much of a problem until western foods became popular and people stopped working the land and went into offices. Now there is so many obese people many with diabetes.

Re: Dieting

Mainly the varieties of wheat they used to breed the dwarf wheat varieties came from those most prone to cause celiac disease. The breeders were looking for yield and resistance to herbicide/pesticides not whether people became allergic to wheat or gluten sensitive. Hence we now have escalating levels of celiac and gluten sensitivity. In fact if MOST PEOPLE had a MONTH totally wheat free (that means cooking everything from totally scratch and no ready made sauces etc) they would find they lost weight AND when they went back to the wheat they may notice they didn't feel so great.
But as well as wheat becoming more allergenic the new dwarf wheats have become less nutritious. The concentrations of zinc, iron, copper and magnesium remained stable between 1845 and the mid 1960s, but since then have decreased significantly, which coincided with the introduction of semi-dwarf, high-yielding cultivars.

The main problem with the Chorleywood bread making process is that is uses more yeast for faster rising and so more yeast is left in the bread. The older slower rising process, when bakers used to work through the night, relied on using up all the yeast. Yeast tends to promote the growth of pathogenic gut flora. What happens is the wheat gliadens cause inflammation, that brings blood to the skin surface and the iron in the blood, promotes the growth of pathogenic gut flora. It's these pathogenic type gut flora that extract more calories from the foods we consume. Hence we get fatter. If we ate a less inflammatory diet more omega 3 type foods, we would have good gut flora that thrive in less inflammatory situations and these promote omega 3 status and also allow more unabsorbed calories to pass out of our systems.

Re: Dieting

My understanding is that the biggest problem with white bread in the past was the bleaching chemicals/process they started to use (and I think it was in the 80's) which was dangerous. This has now been banned and risk of ill health from the refining process has been eliminated. I believe white bread is quite safe to consume these days. From a good nutrition point of view I agree that whole grains are best and the less refining of most products consumed the better. It is not easy to replace like for like what has been taken away.
Coeliac disease is an inability of the body to process gluten in food. People with coeliac disease will have problems digesting any sort of food containing gluten, white or brown or speckled.
Many people have adopted the idea of gluten intolerance and it has become fashionable to immediately attribute a lot of gut and digestive problems to a gluten intolerance and also other consitituents of food to a dietary intolerance. That is why I believe the prevalence of people with a supposed "gluten intolerance" is higher than in the past - True coeliac disease is a miserable condition - it's not the odd bout of stomach ache, bloat and loose stools. Coeliacs do not usually get fat, quite the reverse.

Re: Dieting

Perhaps your understanding of the dangers of wheat would improve if you followed Dr Davis's Wheat Belly blog for a while or perhaps read his book
Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health
or maybe even watched one of his video interviews or a presentation like this
Wheat: The UNhealthy Whole Grain-Part 1

Wheat Unhealthy Whole Grain 2

Re: Dieting

While we have been eating a low carb diet my husband has been talking about a big bowl of chilli with rustic bread. I always make my own bread. You know what goes into it and you can add lots of seeds to make it interesting.

There also seems to be an awful lot of people suffering from IBS Irritable bowel syndrome. Is this also something brought about by allergies?

Re: Dieting

Sorry Ted - I won't be reading anything with a title "wheat belly". As I said before people with a diagnosis of being coeliac are not usually fat. We humans are omnivores - we have evolved to - and it is correct IMO - to take nutrients from wide a range of foodstuffs. When man first took to agriculture his Belly (how I hate that word) did not swell up because he ate grains.