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More About Fat!!Is it a BIG FAT LIE???
(Source:-Men's Health,January,2003) Bacon-isn't as bad as you think!!As long as you cook it.One slice leaves 3gm of saturated fat(grilled with no added fat in the pan).In other words,cook it in its own fat....don't add any. Beef- 50% of the fat in beef is the healthy mono-unsaturated variety.Note that 30% of the saturated("bad") fat is made up of cell-repairing stearic acid which is important for our body.The majority of the fat in beef is the GOOD kind!!(Still trim the fat off the steak but leave a thin edge of fat on the bacon) Chicken(skin on),Pork,Steak and Eggs have very low levels of saturated fats(chicken,with the skin on for example has only 25%, the other 75% fat in chicken is unsaturated fat!!) Butter-is better for you than margarine as margarine contains dangerous trans fats.Butter is natural, margarine is chemically made. Eggs - the poor old egg has been given a battering but eggs are good for you as they are low in saturated fats. -the egg is the COMPLETE meal-it contains ALL 19 amino acids of the protein group,only 2grams of saturated fat, calcium, iron, folic acid, niacin, vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B6 and B12 and virtually no carbohydrate.There are documented cases of people eating up to 40 eggs a week and who are strong and healthy. Eggs get a bad name from the overhyped and false cholestrol scare.In 1998, The American Heart Association was forced to reverse its media position of 30 years that cholestrol and saturated fat were responsible for heart disease due to a lack of real evidence.This was a big about face! Nuts -by replacing just 530kj of carbohydrates with 28g of nuts you decrease the rate of heart disease by a whopping 30%!! Now substitute the nuts for an equivalent load of saturated fat and the risk drops by 45%.This applies to peanut butter as well. Fat is most definitely bad for your health when combined with large servings of carbs. One's carbohydrate intake should be based around broccoli,sprouts,cauliflower,carrots-all of the coloured vegetables. NOTE: a study in the 2001 British Journal of Cancer found no relationship between the consumption of fat and the incidence of colorectal cancer. In societies where meat is not a part of the diet, there is a higher incidence of gastrointestinal cancer than in the general population of those who do consume meat. Meat then, has a protective effect against these types of cancers. NOTE also:A study in The Lancet(1994) found that it is a myth that saturated fats block your arteries.In most cases the study found that it was the good fats(unsaturated)that caused most arterial blockages..................................??????? ????????????????? Why? This is why -$$$$...the vegetable oil industry and the cholestrol industry take $102 billion from the public in the form of prescribed cholestrol testing and cholestrol lowering drugs. And on milk,raw milk is much better for you than pasteurised milk because the pasteurisation process completely destroys vitamins B6 and C. Calcium absorption is also much better when raw milk is consumed.People who suffer from lactose intolerance usually find they don't suffer this ailment when they drink unpasteurised raw milk. A recent study by Professor Klaas Westerterp of Maastricht University(Holland) found that heavy physical workouts and dieting together produced no better results than dieting alone. Even when the body is freely accessing fat for energy,intense physical activity will only increase a person's ability to lose excess body fat by a maximum of 15%. Fat free diets can be very dangerous. In a study where laboratory rats were fed fat free diets, they exhibited retarded body growth,scaly skin,kidney failure and early death. Humans deprived of fat suffer joint pain,deformed nail growth,diminished immune response and severe skin problems. As mentioned above,you can eat chicken with the skin on, as only 25% of the fat in chicken is of the saturated kind! 75% consists of the "good fats". A widely held misconception states that fruit and vegetables are the major source of dietary vitamins but this is grossly untrue!! Of the 15 known vitamins known to Man, only three are exclusively derived from plant sources.(Source ![]() The remaining 12 vitamins come solely from animal products. It is interesting to note that the fruit and vegetables highest in vitamins and minerals are also those with the lowest carbohydrate content and are the least fattening.Oh and the latest on "wholemeal" bread is this:-wholemeal bread is actually made from white flour to which is added chemically treated wheat germ.Doris Grant in Your Daily Food states that the addition of chemically treated wheat germ makes the finished product twice as harmful as bread made from white flower alone!!The answer is,of course................MAKE YOUR OWN!!Then you know what's in it!! Several research teams around the country have put Low Carbohydrate Diets to the test. This is driven largely by weariness at having nothing solid to tell patients and in some cases, a desire to prove Low Carb dieters wrong. One study was even sponsored by the American Heart Association,a consistent Low Carbohydrate skeptic and critic. "All the studies show pretty convincingly that people will lose more weight on these diets and their cardiovascular risk factors, if anything, get better," says Dr. Kevin O'Brien, a University of Washington cardiologist involved with one study. Three decades of dietary gospel(fat will kill you!) are in doubt, and those questioning it include some of the most prominent names in obesity research. Less dramatic but still startling results, came from another study at the University of Cincinnati. Women on Low Carb diets lost twice as much while eating the same number of calories as the low fat dieters. "Surprised? Definitely," says Bonnie Brehm, a registered dietitian. "We really don't know what the answer is." And the weight loss was not simply dehydration, as Low Carb critics often contend, since the Cincinnati dieters also lost twice as much body fat. "It's difficult to swallow," says O'Brien, "but the data are the data, even if they go against 30 years of dogma." An Australian dietician has joined a growing list of international celebrities convinced that high-protein diets work. CSIRO senior research dietician Manny Noakes recently released the findings of a study, funded by Livestock Australia, showing protein-rich diets were a valid, safe and effective weight loss program. The study of 100 overweight Australians carried out over a 12-week period, measured the effectiveness of high protein, diets in comparison to high-carbohydrate diets. Both diets were assessed in terms of weight loss and their impact on nutrition, bones, heart disease markers and diabetes risk. "This study is significant because so little research has been done in the area," Dr Noakes said. "Diet books on the subject are centred on conjecture and recommendations are often based on hearsay," she said." At CSIRO, we're excited by these findings that demonstrate in a scientific manner that the high protein, approach to weight loss certainly offers an edge to conventional diets." The diet was also suitable for people showing symptoms of metabolic syndrome, which increased the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, Dr Noakes said. Many subjects who were on high blood pressure tablets and tablets for diabetes ended up throwing them away after a couple of months on a low carbohydrate high protein diet.Their blood pathology also improved dramatically. The actual body fat loss over the 12-week period significantly differed when comparing the two diets - a loss of 6kg in the high protein group as opposed to 3kg in the high carbohydrate group. In all the women participants, the weight loss helped to lower cholesterol and triglycerides. The study also showed a high protein, diet helped to stabilise glucose and insulin production which helps to control hunger. Dr Noakes said the study used a diet with moderately increased levels of protein at the expense of some carbohydrates, which made it a safe eating plan. One of the new studies has been conducted by Gary Foster, Drs. Samuel Klein and James Hill, the current and past presidents of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity. "I'm part of the obesity establishment," says Foster, who has published more than 50 scientific papers on the subject. "I've spent my life researching ways to treat obesity, and 100 percent of them have been low-fat and high-carb. Now I'm beginning to think, it isn't as it has appeared." His Low Carb study was intended to "show it doesn't work," yet after three months, the overweight men and women had lost an average of 19 pounds (8.55 kilograms), 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) more than people on the standard high-carb approach. The big surprise was cholesterol. The Low Carbohydrate dieters' overall profile changed for the better. Their good cholesterol rose almost 12 points. (Changes in the high-carb dieters were less dramatic. Their bad cholesterol went down slightly while their good cholesterol remained unchanged.)These blood results mirror the Australian study(above) The largest difference was in triglycerides. The Low Carbohydrate dieters' dropped 22 points!! THE MESSAGE THAT not all fats are bad is finally getting through, but health professionals here have yet to acknowledge that there may be a problem with carbohydrates. After you eat carbohydrates, they are broken down into sugar molecules and enter your bloodstream. Your pancreas then secretes insulin to shunt the sugar into your muscles and liver to give you energy for the next few hours. Some carbohydrates release their sugar faster ' than others. A glycemic index has been devised to measure the rate at which food releases sugar. The seemingly dull potato, for instance, because it is mostly starch, will spike your sugar levels at a faster rate than table sugar. The more sugar in your bloodstream, the more insulin is secreted. Sugar levels can then dip dramatically. The precipitous decline in glucose can also lead to more hunger after a carbohydrate-rich meal and thus to overeating and obesity. "We all need to limit our consumption of grains, even wholegrains," says US nutritionist Shari Liehnrman. Wholegrains may not only make you gain weight, but also may have other downsides. Fibre-rich grains contain phytate, which blocks the absorption of minerals, including zinc, iron and calcium. "There is justification for concern about recommending diets including large amounts of unrefined cereals or minimally refined cereals," says Texas University Professor Harold Sandstead, who has studied the role of phytate. Certainly, there seems to be a case for being more discriminating in our consumption of carbohydrates by choosing those with good vitamin, mineral and fibre content and a low-glycemic index than simply following the advice to "eat plenty of". In our epidemiological studies, we have found that a high intake of starch from refined grains and potatoes is associated with a high risk of type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease. Most breakfast cereals by the way, turn immediatly to sugar! Harvard University researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that the "results of studies between dietary fat and coronary disease had been inconsistent". Their own study of 80,000 women over 14 years failed to show any significant associations between saturated fat, cholesterol and the risk of heart disease. In any case, cholesterol may not be the villain we have been led to believe. Despite the widely held belief that low cholesterol is beneficial and the billions of dollars spent in reducing it, the cholesterol/heart disease hypothesis has more holes than your kitchen colander But what about the risk of other diseases, such as cancer, from fat intake? "Large epidemiological studies have shown little evidence that total fat consumption or intakes of specific types of fat during midlife affect the risk of breast cancer or colon cancer."(Professor Walter Willet,Harvard School of Public Health)) It is also undeniable, note students of Endocrinology 101, that mankind never evolved to eat a diet high in starches or sugars. ''Grain products and concentrated sugars were essentially absent from human nutrition until the invention of agriculture,'' Professor Willet says, ''which was only 10,000 years ago.'' This is discussed frequently in the anthropology texts but is mostly absent from the obesity literature, with the prominent exception of the low-carbohydrate-diet books. What's forgotten in the current controversy is that the low-fat dogma itself is only about 25 years old. Until the late 70's, the accepted wisdom was that fat and protein protected against overeating by making you sated, and that carbohydrates made you hungrier and fat. Man was originally designed to consume mainly, a meat/protein diet. By the 70's, you could still find articles in the journals describing high rates of obesity in Africa and the Caribbean where diets contained almost exclusively carbohydrates. The common thinking, wrote a former director of the Nutrition Division of the United Nations, was that the ideal diet, one that prevented obesity, snacking and excessive sugar consumption, was a diet ''with plenty of eggs, beef, mutton, chicken, butter and well-cooked vegetables.'' It was Ancel Keys, paradoxically, who introduced the low-fat-is-good-health dogma in the 50's with his theory that dietary fat raises cholesterol levels and gives you heart disease. Over the next two decades, however, the scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubbornly ambiguous. The case was eventually settled not by new science but by politics. It began in January 1977, when a Senate committee led by George McGovern published its ''Dietary Goals for the United States,'' advising that Americans significantly curb their fat intake to abate an epidemic of ''killer diseases'' supposedly sweeping the country. It peaked in late 1984, when the National Institutes of Health officially recommended that all Americans over the age of 2 eat less fat. By that time, fat had become ''this greasy killer'' in the memorable words of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and the model American breakfast of eggs and bacon was well on its way to becoming a bowl of Special K(sugar!) with low-fat milk, a glass of orange juice and toast, hold the butter -- a dubious feast of refined carbohydrates. In the United States, a Consumer Sub Committee of the United States Senate was convened in 1970 to assess the value,nutritionally of 60 commercial breakfast cereals. 40 of them were found to have no nutritional value at all. Robert Choate who reported on the findings of the tests showed that laboratory rats fed a diet of ground up cereal boxes mixed with milk sugar and raisins were healthier than rats fed on the cereals some of the boxes contained!! In the intervening years, the N.I.H. spent several hundred million dollars trying to demonstrate a connection between eating fat and getting heart disease and, despite what we might think, it failed. Five major studies revealed no such link. A sixth, however, costing well over $100 million alone, concluded that reducing cholesterol by drug therapy could prevent heart disease. The N.I.H. administrators then made a leap of faith. Basil Rifkind, who oversaw the relevant trials for the N.I.H., described their logic this way: they had failed to demonstrate, at great expense, that eating less fat had any health benefits. In 1982, J.P. Flatt, a University of Massachusetts biochemist, published his research demonstrating that in any normal diet it is extremely rare for the human body to convert carbohydrates into body fat. This was then misinterpreted by the media and quite a few scientists to mean that eating carbohydrates, even to excess, could not make you fat -- which is not the case, Flatt says. But the misinterpretation developed a vigorous life of its own because it resonated with the notion that fat makes you fat and carbohydrates are harmless! As a result, the major trends in American diets since the late 70's, according to the U.S.D.A. agricultural economist Judith Putnam, have been a decrease in the percentage of fat calories and a ''greatly increased consumption of carbohydrates.'' To be precise, annual grain consumption has increased almost 60 pounds per person, and caloric sweeteners (primarily high-fructose corn syrup) by 30 pounds. At the same time, we suddenly began consuming more total calories: now up to 400 more each day since the government started recommending low-fat diets. If these trends are correct, then the obesity epidemic can certainly be explained by Americans' eating more calories than ever,mainly in the form of carbohydrates. Consumption of large quantities of carbohydrate produce large quantities of insulin. This is because carbohydrates are composed of various sugar molecules, or glucose, bonded chemically. Once you have eaten a carbohydrate, even a complex carbohydrate, your body has digestive enzymes that break these chemical bonds and release the sugar molecules into the blood. Insulin springs into action when the blood sugar starts to climb too high, as it does after a carbohydrate meal. The elevated blood sugar triggers the pancreas to synthesize and release insulin into the bloodstream. This insulin first makes a pass through the liver, where it shuts down any sugar production that may still be going on, then travels on to the rest of the body, where it acts on sensors or receptors scattered across the surfaces of muscle and fat cells. These receptors, when activated by insulin, initiate a series of reactions that pump sugar (along with protein and fat) from the blood into the interior of the cells for use now or storage for later. Insulin stimulates the fat cells to take up fat and sugar from the blood and store it away as body fat, especially in the middle of the body, within the abdomen and around the vital organs. Nutritionists have accused US government health officials of issuing "groundless" warnings against low carbohydrate diets because they are influenced excessively by the farming lobby. A high-powered committee of food specialists said that official warnings were driven by farmers who wanted to protect their sales of wheat. The nutritionists told an American Senate hearing recently that the public was being "misled" over what constitutes a healthy diet. People who tend to mislead the public are Supermarkets, Weight Watchers, Gloria Marshall and the like who have a vested interest in selling carbohydrates as they make much more money from these products than protein-based foods. The hearing was called to revise official guidelines on diet. The seven-strong panel of specialists agreed that the principle of eating more protein and fewer carbohydrates - the foundation of low carbohydrate diets - would reverse the rapid increase in obesity in America and Britain. Two-thirds of Americans and half of Britons are overweight or obese. The controversy in America follows the disclosure two months ago that a British Nutrition expert(Susan Jebb)was paid $49,000 by the Farm Lobby to write a negative report on the Atkins low carbohydrate diet. The nutritionists told the hearing in Washington that "low-fat" diets were devised by people linked to the grain and potato(chip) industry in an attempt to drive weight-conscious consumers towards their products. In fact, the nutritionists said, these diets make people fatter. Low Carbohydrate Diets have also been blamed for a slump in the sales of(!) fish and chips. The National Fish Fryers' Association attacked the diet and called on the public to back traditional food. A spokesman said: "It would be an absolute tragedy to see one of the UK's most important trademarks slip into a decline because of a shortlived diet fad. Official guidelines drawn up 10 years ago by America's Department of Agriculture for use in schools and hospitals recommend six to 11 servings of carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, sugars and potatoes a day (one serving is the equivalent of one slice of bread) and very few saturated fats. Remember the food pyramid?Well the new pyramid is formed by turning the old one upside down! It is healthier for you! Senator Peter Fitzgerald, who chaired the committee, said: "Putting the Department of Agriculture in charge of dietary guidelines is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse." A previously mentioned professor of epidemiology and nutrition(Walter Willet) at the Harvard School of Public Health, who was also on on the committee added: "Looking at some of the recommendations from the Department of Agriculture gives the idea that they've forgotten that we are feeding people, not horses." Low carbohydrate diets are far closer to mankind's evolutionary diet than high carbohydrate diets. High carbohydrate staples such as cereal grains and liquid milk did not feature in the human diet to any significant degree until the onset of the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago. Some researchers believe that the shift to a grain-based diet took place far too quickly for the necessary genetic adaptations to occur. It is interesting to note that wheat and milk are the two most common allergens - no doubt a manifestation of our incomplete adaptation! Dr Stuart Lawrence Trager, the clinical assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, said that the myth that something "fat-free" was good was part of the problem and that the public needed re-educating. "People have been led to believe that all carbohydrates are good for them and that to eat an unlimited diet of them is healthy. People are told that fat is bad when it IS NOT! "They go home and eat low-fat crisps, biscuits and muffins that may have hundreds of calories and be loaded with simple sugars but have very little fat. People think they can have fizzy drinks(remember,one can of Coke has 6 teaspoons of sugar in it!!) with heaps of sugar and unlimited bread. It's a mixed message and this advice contributes to obesity." In the late 1980s, researchers began investigating the unusually low rates of heart attacks and stroke among Eskimo communities in Greenland. Until now, the explanation was thought to lie in their diet of oily fish. Yet attempts to reduce heart disease using supplements of fish oil extracts proved disappointing. The answer really seemed to lie in the fact that their low carbohydrate intake forced on the them by their environment(their diet is 70% saturated fat!!), gave them higher levels of healthy forms of cholesterol, which are proven to lower heart disease risk. It should also be kept in mind that the people of France consume more butter,cream and saturated fat than any other western population yet they display one of the lowest incidences of heart disease in the world!! People in the Bordeaux region of France, cook much of their food in saturated goose fat, yet they have an even lower incidence of heart disease than the general population of that country. With the world-wide obesity problem now claiming an estimated 2 million adult lives a year, low carbohydrate diets should at last be taken more seriously. Kindest personal regards:- RAY THE TRAVELLIN' MAN Let's Keep Music Liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!!!! |
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