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High
Carbs, Low Carbs, We have the intelligence to journey to the moon, and walk on it. We've figured out how to split the atom and harness the resulting energy. We've had the smarts to build a telescope that has allowed us to view galaxies billions of light years away. Is it likely that we don't know what the natural diet of human beings is? Pick any other animal on the planet, from the tiniest insect to the largest mammal, and you'll discover that we know exactly what they're supposed to eat. So it's hard to imagine that we don't know what we're supposed to eat. Could it be that the diet we're designed to consume is a complete mystery to us? From watching the tons of TV commercials and articles on social media, you'd think we finally discovered that we're supposed to eat low carbs and high protein. Wow, it took us until 2019 to figure it out! Well, everything you're seeing about this nowadays can't be further from the truth. The ads tell you what the food companies want you to eat, not what you're designed to eat. They want you to chow down on chicken, bacon, beef, ice cream, cheese, low-carb beer, low-carb cereal, low-carb cookies, and the list goes on and on. Besides appearing all over the TV and your supermarket, what else do these things have in common? They're not foods designed for human consumption. We're designed for high carbs and low protein, not the other way around, as your TV would have you believe. And the same is true for the "keto" diets that are high fat and low carbs. Yes, the body can use fat for fuel, but it's BODY fat that it's meant to use during lean times when our primary food source is hard to find, not fat from food. Yes, it CAN use fat from food as fuel, but at a cost that keto dieters will discover at some point, just like the Atkins dieters did. But there are carbs, and there are carbs. Yes, two types! The carbs we're designed to eat are called simple carbs, as in fruits and veggies (although veggies don't have many). The carbs we're not designed to eat are called complex carbs, as in breads, pastas, rice, and junk food. Want proof? Pick a food item. If it's created from more than one thing, break it down into its individual components and put it to the edible test: Can you make a meal of each one of the components, as it appears in nature, and enjoy the experience. Let's start with simple carbs: a piece of fruit. No individual components to break down, and Mmmm, yummy. Now take bread or pasta. Can you make an enjoyable meal of wheat? Yeast? No. Conclusion: Just because we figured out a way to take an inedible grain and turn it into something we can eat without gagging, doesn't mean it's what we're supposed to eat. And if it's not food fit for human consumption, which one of the three possible effects on the human body will it probably have?
I haven't found anything that has no effect either way, so it's either a health enhancing thing or a health damaging thing (even if it takes years or decade). Take three guesses which category grains occupy. And if you're avoiding carbs (the body's fuel of choice), you have to get your calories from somewhere, so your daily intake of fat and protein increases to make sure you get enough. And it's too much fat and protein that accounts for the epidemic of degenerative disease we have today, not too many carbs. Yes, too many complex carbs and empty carb foods are unhealthy (we're designed to run on simple carbs from nutritious food), but substituting fat and protein for carbs is a recipe for disaster, and it doesn't matter if it takes 40 years to land you in the hospital, does it? I'm both amused and amazed when I hear nutritionists arguing about carbs. One insisting that fruits are simple carbs, and one adamant that fruits are complex carbs. One nutrition expert stating that we're designed to eat complex carbs, and another saying that it's simple carbs we're designed for. Why is there so much misinformation, and worse, disinformation (info presented as truth that's known to be false by the entity providing it)? If nutritionists are confused about nutrition, and well-intentioned vegan health educators are miseducated, and whole industries disseminate false info, how can you, the consumer, expect to get truthful nutritional information that's truly in your beset interest? Knowing what I know about nutrition, I am appalled by what I see on TV and social media. Food companies taking advantage of people's taste buds, drug companies taking advantage of your fear of disease and your dislike of symptoms, and weight loss companies taking advantage of your desire to be slim… all for the sake of profit, at the expense of your health. But you can't blame businesses for caring about profit; it's not their responsibility to care about your health, it's yours (it's their responsibility to maximize profit). And taking the latest medication because some suggestive TV ad said to ask a doctor about it, or eating the way the news reporter said you should, is likely to be in someone else's best interest, not yours. And miseducated vegan educators and alternative health practitioners make matters worse because we think they are a more accurate source of info than mainstream sources. What can you do about it? Start off by adopting the old adage: Let the Buyer Beware. Next, educate yourself. Yes, in a perfect world, you could depend on professionals to give you info that was truly in your best interest. But take it from me, in this world, the food, drug, medical, and health care industries are motivated by self-interest and financial gain (I'm not talking about the people you have direct contact with, I'm referring to the people who make the rules, set the party lines, and influence the curriculums... the ones making six figure incomes). And miseducated or biased plant-based educators can have you following different but equally inaccurate info. So yes, take a class, but more than one. Buy some books (that can't be found in stores like Barnes & Noble), and for your sake, think for yourself, and as a researcher, not a student. And thank heavens for the Internet; use it before it becomes "sanitized for your protection", but remember that it contains both accurate and inaccurate diet and health info. Start with the other articles on this website. Yes, they will drop your jaw. Yes, they will challenge your long-standing beliefs. But if you truly care about your health, you'll read on. It's been said, the truth shall set you free, but only if you know what the truth is. P.S. I was just treated to a video about the "brain needs sugar myth" (BTW, it's not a myth), and the amount of inaccurate and misleading info in this video was astonishing. There were so many spurious statements, I don't know where to begin. Here are a few highlights... "If this was true [that the brain needs glucose] how do you explain all the people who cut out glucose from the diet, and they do fine." This shows me that he is either very ignorant of the facts (maybe because of confirmation bias because of what he WANTS to believe), or because he knows full well that a high fat diet is far more popular with people than a low fat high carb diet, and he wants to be popular (there are many practitioners who promote a high fat diet for this reason). But the (real) science supports a high carb low fat diet. Yes, you can find studies that support the opposite, and I'll just say, "follow the money". The literature is replete with "loaded" studies that are commissioned to prove something that some industry wants proven. And BTW, the body can make carbs out of fat, but at a cost. "Burning fat is healthier than burning sugar" He's got to be kidding with this one. The process of turning fat into carbs is a "messy" one. The process of turning protein into carbs is even messier (and is the clinical definition of starvation). I normally fuel my body with simple carbs from fruit. I feel great when I do that. "When your body runs on sugar and you become insulin resistant..." You become insulin resistant from too much fat in the diet, not from too many carbs (simple carbs). I want him to explain how people with Type 2 diabetes ("insulin resistant diabetes") who change their diet to a high simple carb low fat diet are able to get off diabetes meds and have stable blood sugar levels in the proper range. This very compelling evidence flies in the face of what he is saying. And to say that "running your body on ketones is much more efficient for the brain" is simply ludicrous. I can't tell if he is so miseducated that he honestly believes this, or if he is pandering to people because he knows it's what they want to hear (making him a much more popular chiropractor than those who promote a truly healthy diet that is unfortunately low in fat). Yes, you can lose weight with a "keto" diet, but you can also lose your health over time because you're not eating the diet humans are designed to eat. Don't believe me or the author of the above statements. Do your due diligence, and do it applying the ethos of science: open questioning, no authorities, no biases or personal preferences, honesty, transparency, and reliance on evidence.
Additional reading:
The Atkins "Nightmare"
Diet
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