The Fire is Burning

I have a burning passion to help get this important information out to everyone about the absolute necessity to eat right. I want to do what I can to help others enjoy the same benefits that I have discovered over the past four months. However, a lot of people will find it difficult to go against the mainstream health advice they may usually receive from their GP, Dietitian, Nutritionist, Personal Trainer (I used to be one of them) or their favourite health/exercise magazine.

Also, the majority of information available to the population had been incorrect in the sense that it doesn’t usually help people fix a problem for good and it has done nothing in the way of turning around the upward trend of chronic disease including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, along with obesity. If it did make a difference to those health problems then why haven’t we seen a positive change in the statistics?

One of the most frustrating things is that many health professionals are treating these problems without ever addressing the cause of the problem. This is evident in the classic treatment of type 2 diabetes. Despite type 2 diabetes being an issue of chronic high blood glucose levels (hyperglycemia) through the over consumption of glucose rich foods (sugar and carbohydrates) causing insulin resistance in the cells and/or the pancreas not being able to produce sufficient insulin, sufferers are still told to consume a diet that contains predominantly high carbohydrate foods, usually in conjunction with medication. Why feed someone foods that cause an insulin response when their body cannot properly use that function to process the glucose? They should still be able to use the function of glucagon in the process of breaking down stored glycogen and fat for energy but the current advice is still avoiding that possibility by continuing to feed the problem with a carbohydrate rich diet. They also seem oblivious to the amazing energy benefits of eating fat.

Consider this: Fat contains at least twice the amount of energy/calories than that of carbohydrate but doesn’t cause glucose and insulin spikes resulting in high blood glucose. For example, 1kg of fat will provide twice or more the energy than that of 1kg of carbohydrate. That helps to explain why our storage of carbohydrate in the body is so small and virtually restricted to the muscles and liver, whereas fat is stored all around the body and can produce energy for many hours and even days. However, it does help a lot when your body actually knows how to access it.

For any number of reasons, you may get advice from a dietitian registered with the Dietitians Association of Australia. But, did you know this association has a variety of food companies and industries that provide support to them to help fund their ‘research’? They include Campbell Arnott’s and also Nestle.

You may recognise these names because Campbell Arnott’s produce a range of canned and packet soups, along with stocks and even V8 juice under the Campbell’s banner. Meanwhile, there are a wide range of biscuits, among other things, under the Arnott’s title.

Nestle have products like, Milo, Nesquik, Kit Kat and Wonka chocolates and confectionary while also having a large number of products under different brand names. These include the large Uncle Toby’s cereal range as well as their well known oats and muesli varieties. There are a few more strings to the bows of these companies but that gives you an idea of what kind of influential players they could be as a partner to an association which should only ever have the health interests of their patients and the public at heart.

Consider this: You’ve probably seen ‘Milo’ advertised many times claiming to be an amazing drink option for kids, or anyone for that matter, to give them energy to power their day and that it contains a whole range of healthy ingredients. Guess what? It contains 46% sugar. This is an example of both the poor moral being of big food companies believing they can con people into believing their products are good for us and also the lack of integrity in the marketing guidelines they get to work by.

There are big company ‘supporters’ for various different health organisations so how can we possibly believe that there wouldn’t be bias in the information distributed by these groups? They never tell us not to eat/drink anything with sugar in it, even though they should, because that would be demonising a substance which is present in nearly every food/drink produced by some of their supporters. This now raises the question of how can you fully trust a professional who is directly associated with these types of organisations, supported by big companies, and distributing their advice? I believe this gives greater importance to doing your own research and understanding that there are also some practitioners out there, who may also be a part of those organisations, but choose to operate more independently based on their individual research and views. They’re probably going to be the ones who can provide the best independent evidence to back up their advice and will be more than happy to provide that when asked by their patients. Don’t be afraid to do your research and question any health professional because they’re still human, after all, and may need a little encouragement to get some better information to back up what they’re doing.

I have read two incredible books recently which I think everyone needs to read. They are both written by David Gillespie who is a lawyer by profession. The first book is titled ‘Sweet Poison’ and the second is ‘Big Fat Lies’.

His writing came about by getting to a point in life where he weighed approximately 120 kgs and had 4 kids already, with twins on the way. He decided he needed to finally conquer his bulge once and for all but after trying various popular diets in the past and never being able to maintain it or keep the weight off, he knew he had to find out for himself why they didn’t work and what would be the answer. This kicked off a huge investigation into a world he had never researched before but that is what he is good at. As a lawyer, throughout his career, he has had to investigate and then fully understand a wide range of different fields to be able to serve his clients properly. So, he took that ability and set upon a road to discovering the truth about food.

‘Sweet Poison’ is all about sugar and how it affects us. It talks about various functions and hormones of the body and, particularly, how sugar completely stuffs up those vital processes. Essentially, it illustrates how sugar consumption – which has increased by at least 10 times over the past 100 years – is playing a pivotal role in the increasing rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

It showcases the bio-chemical processes in the body involved in digestion, hormonal response, brain activity and suppression and interruption of these processes through the consumption of sugar. It dispels many of the myths behind what we have been told by product advertising, big food companies and industries and even by government representatives and agencies as well as what we even get told by the various medical professionals who are supposed to be helping us to lead healthy lives.

There is some terrific insight into the world of artificial sweeteners and how dangerous they appear to be. Basically, they’re chemicals that were never meant to be consumed by humans yet, somehow, they are deemed safe to put in our food. The fact that they are 100s of times sweeter than regular sugar rings alarm bells to me and there is even strong reports that will contribute just as much, if not more so, to the issues of obesity and metabolic disorders and even cancers.

Importantly, it also explains why popular forms of dieting don’t work and that the classic ‘calories in/calories out’ mentality is flawed when it comes to long-term weight loss and/or control because calories that come from different sources behave very differently in the body. It goes onto to explain why simply exercising more will not be the answer to weight loss and/or control which is something I have discovered for myself in a big way in the past few months.

All of his findings are fully referenced at the end of the book. In fact, 7% of this book (on my kindle, so I estimate about 25 pages in the paperback) lists the huge range of medical journals, clinical trials, public health information sources and many kinds of medical literature presented by professionals in a wide range of medical fields including Endocrinology, Biochemistry and Physiology, just to name a few.

Having these references so clearly listed allows for any reader to cross-check his information. This means there’s no hiding anything. He’s taking the bold leap to find the truth and ignore what he had been lead to believe by health professionals and food marketing during his battle with bodyweight and failed dieting.

He then had the tremendous advantage of having a father-in-law who is a retired doctor with the lengthy title of “Dr. Tony Morton RFD, MBBS, MS, MD, MScAppl, FANZCA (retired)”. Dr. Morton was “the only person who has read every draft of this book since it was 10 pages long, and fastidiously corrected (almost) all the split infinitives along the way”, and David went on to say, “he was a good person to make sure I didn’t get too crazy with the conclusions I was drawing and the sources I was using.”

He has a follow up to this book called ‘The Sweet Poison Quit Plan’ which helps you to negotiate the supermarket for hidden sugars in food, so not to be influenced by food marketing, and some tips for helping you quit sugar for good. He then went on to write further books focusing on the myth surrounding dietary fats and cholesterol.

‘Big Fat Lies’ tells of the complete myth surrounding the ‘dangers’ of fat consumption and how that thought process came about. It explains how there is absolutely no definitive proof that dietary intake of saturated fat and cholesterol is the cause of heart disease and heart attacks. It, also, goes on to explain how unbelievably dangerous the recently invented unsaturated fat alternatives are which come in the form of seed oils, aka vegetable oils, (namely canola, sunflower, cottonseed, soybean and rice bran oils).

He discovered that these seed oils have highly unstable chemical bonds which can become dangerously reactive to oxygen in the body causing a wide range of inflammatory effects contributing to cancers and myocardial infarction (heart attack). The problem is, seed oils have become a major ingredient in a huge variety of foods including many packaged foods, cakes and pastries, even most bread you find on the shelf.

This book explains the vital role that saturated fats and cholesterol, consumed in the form of animal fats (fatty meats for example), dairy (butter, cream, full cream milk, natural yoghurt), coconuts (oil, cream, milk), eggs, just to name a few, have in the vital processes effecting your cells and brain, among other things. He presents information from an array of studies and research which shows the inadequacies of some findings, including that of Ancels Keys and his followers, and provides the information that shows why fat is necessary for our health and what it does inside our body.

Again, his findings are fully referenced at the end of the book and his father-in-law, the retired doctor, has kept a very close eye on things.

Both of these books contain quite a bit of scientific information that has been explained in a way that even the least scientific minded of us out there are able to understand. They also illustrate the various trends we have seen over many years in the consumption of different types of food, particularly sugar and polyunsaturated seed oils, and how certain things have been marketed to us to lead us to believe they are what we should be consuming.

One overwhelming theme I took away from these books is that, unless something is shown to kill you or cause a major disease instantly or in an extremely short space of time, it will be deemed to be safe for human consumption or as the food industry and governments like to say ‘GRAS’ – generally regarded as safe. The facts shown in these books indicate that if you consume any or all of the following; sugar, artificial sweeteners, seed oils or a low fat diet, in a manner which is currently recommended to the population, you are extremely likely to encounter a chronic illness and/or cancer at some point in your life.

I can’t recommend these books highly enough and, as I read more and more books to continue building my knowledge on these topics, I look forward to bringing you further recommendations and book summaries. One book I am very much looking forward to reading is ‘Grain Brain’ by Florida based Neurologist, Dr. David Perlmutter. This book will be explaining the relationship between grain consumption and the negative effects it has on the brain. Obviously, that is quite a vague description but once I have read it, I am very keen to provide some extra detail to entice you all to pick up a copy for yourself.

Cheers,

Lincoln.

Why Are Carbs A Big Fat Problem?

The body is in a constant state of trying to regulate things, including keeping blood glucose (blood sugar) at a stable level. There are various hormones and processes which counteract one another in order to achieve this stability. As I have been discovering, what we put into our body has a great impact on each of them and can have major consequences for individual hormones or processes to the point where you can lose the function of one of them, therefore, not being able to have the counteracting effect necessary to achieve a normal state of energy or bodily functions. Then, to live, you will need medication.

There are several things that affect the blood glucose level but some are more effective than others at maintaining stability. Avoiding spikes in your blood glucose is essential in maintaining consistent energy. This starts with eating the right foods which allow for a steady flow of energy for long periods of time and provide essential nutrients, in conjunction with your body being able to use stored energy later on, in the form of glycogen in the muscles and liver, as well as fat from around the body, to keep the flow of energy going.

Because carbohydrates come in many different forms, including fruit and vegetables, grains and grain products (bread, pasta, flour, rice, oats, quinoa, etc.), sugar and sweetened products, etc. it is important to remember that different items will have different effects in the body. Manufacturing and refining to produce a product can strip away much of a food’s nutrients making it have a longer shelf life or taste a certain way but it will usually mean it is digested quicker – therefore, it turns into glucose (sugar) in the body much quicker, causing spikes in blood glucose and, consequently, spikes in insulin – it upsets the normal metabolic functions and doesn’t allow for appropriate satiety or nutrients that your body needs.

In basic terms, what happens when you eat?

Ø  Food will be digested in the stomach and the necessary amount will be converted to glucose to become our energy source. However, carbohydrates only get converted to glucose but more on that below.

Ø   That glucose is then released into the bloodstream via the small intestine and travels through the pancreas.

Ø  The level of glucose present in the blood is assessed and the pancreas adds the necessary amount of insulin before the blood is distributed around the body.

Ø  The blood is sent to all parts of the body to feed glucose to cells for them to function.

Ø  The insulin is released from the blood, attaches to the cells and opens the cells to allow the glucose to go in.

Ø  When the cells are full, some excess glucose can be stored as ‘glycogen’ in the muscles and the liver. If there is no room for more storage as glycogen, the insulin will attach to fat cells to allow more of the excess glucose to be stored as fat.

Ø  The point of doing all this is to ensure vital cells can function firstly and also return your blood glucose level to a normal state. Therefore, insulin is used to rid the blood of the glucose which is causing it to be too high.

Also, when you eat and this process is taking place, the body has a hormone called ‘Leptin’ which is stimulated by eating and is there to tell us when we’re full and don’t need any more food. However, it has been discovered that sugar will suppress this hormone and its ability to provide the feeling of satiety. When you eat the right, nutrient dense foods your body will function correctly, allowing you to avoid the big dip in energy after the insulin has done its work because that process will take longer. The right foods will provide a slower release of energy into the blood with lower concentrations of glucose being present. 

Storing excess glucose as fat is very common in the general population because so many people have a high content of carbohydrate rich foods in their diet. Carbohydrates only really have the ability to be turned into glucose once digested and then go through the above process. Other nutrient dense whole foods such as meat and fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, fruits and vegetables contain other essential nutrients in the form of protein, goods fats, vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and fibre. These all serve purpose to various essential functions in the body. For example, protein is necessary for the repair and maintenance of muscle mass, while vitamins and minerals support many areas, not the least being the immune system.

Cereals, bread, pasta, items made from flour, other grains, sugar filled products, etc. all predominantly contain carbohydrates, particularly, the very common, highly processed, refined versions of those products which have been stripped of much of the essential nutrients they previously may have had. So, these types of foods don’t really serve any other function apart from being converted to glucose initially and eventually into fat because they simply have nothing else to do and they are not getting used anytime soon. Unfortunately, just exercising more is not the answer but I will address this separately in the future.

Of course, fruits and vegetables contain carbohydrates too but they are natural and unrefined and, as mentioned above, they contain many other essential nutrients. Basically, this is where your carbohydrates should come from because they will provide the other essential nutrients you require, allowing for a slower release of glucose into the bloodstream. However, it is important to remember that fruit does contain sugar and generally is quicker to digest. That is why only a couple of pieces per day are needed. If you eat a wide variety of colourful vegetables over three meals each day, an absence of fruit shouldn’t be an issue because your nutritional needs will be met by the vegetables.

Consider this; a red capsicum has over 4 times the amount of Vitamin C found in an orange while also having approximately 45% less sugar. Food is by far the greatest form of preventative medicine if you learn what is best, so, ditch those orange flavoured Vitamin C supplements when you feel a cold coming on and start munching on a capsicum.

Glucose being stored as fat is not a bad thing, to a degree, as the body is able to use it later when the blood glucose level is beginning to fall below normal. So, instead of eating again to receive more glucose from food, the following happens:- 

Ø  The pancreas detects the blood glucose level beginning to drop below its ideal level. 

Ø  It then produces a hormone with an opposite effect to insulin. This hormone is known as Glucagon. 

Ø  Glucagon allows the release of stored energy from liver and muscle glycogen and then from fat around the body.

Ø  The body is now producing its own energy in a steady flow to maintain a normal blood glucose level as opposed to when you eat sugar or refined carbohydrates which spikes blood sugar very quickly and then requires excessive insulin to bring it back down.

Ø  While this is happening, the hormone ‘Ghrelin’ is activated, which signals to the brain to begin looking for your next meal. Ghrelin is the cause of a rumbling stomach when you’re hungry.

Ø  Your body will continue to breakdown fat and even protein to maintain this process until you eat again in order to keep the brain and other organs functioning and/or alive.

Having high levels of insulin is not a natural state and we have not evolved to deal with huge spikes of the hormone. The excess carbohydrates and sugar hinder the brain and the appetite regulatory functions making you want to eat again too soon partly due to the insulin so quickly ridding the blood of so much glucose. This is where the big dip in energy comes in and all of a sudden you have a mad urge to eat again. Because you eat again too soon, your body hasn’t reached its point of needing to use glucagon to access the stored energy and fat. 

Over long periods where the pancreas continually produces high amounts of insulin to combat the high ingestion of carbohydrates and sugar which produce high blood glucose, the body’s cells can become resistant to the insulin’s constant attempts to keep pushing glucose into them. This is known as ‘insulin resistance’ which can then cause chronic ‘hyperglycemia’ (high blood glucose). This can, also, be accompanied by the pancreas being exhausted of its ability to continually produce high levels of insulin. It may then reduce its production, therefore, not producing enough to deal with the hyperglycemia. The hyperglycemia and the inability for the body to reduce it through its natural processes means the presence of type 2 diabetes. As you can see, the body needs the ability to use glucagon so the pancreas – which is a much smaller organ than most – can have a break doing the same thing over and over.

It is important to understand how many foods out there are manufactured and refined. It’s not too hard to notice these foods when you walk around the supermarket. Obviously, the fresh produce areas contain vegetables, fruit, nuts, eggs and meats in their natural form. Then you have refrigerated areas with dairy products where you may need to read a few labels to see if they are still very near to their natural state or not. For example, pure cream is just that. The ingredients list will read something like ‘pasteurised cream’ and that’s it. Other creams will contain extra things like vegetable gum, possibly a sweetener of some kind and/or other fillers.

Yoghurt is another great example. Natural Greek yoghurt has milk, cream and cultures. Other types, particularly flavoured yoghurts, will have those ingredients plus a sweetner like fruit juice concentrate or fruit flavouring through the use of fruit syrups or purees and some have preservatives.

Cow’s milk is pretty straight forward. Your standard full cream milk has been homogenised and pasteurised but you can buy some alternative milks such as lactose free, soy milk, almond milk, rice milk which can be a little more manufactured. Not all brands are but that’s why it is important to check the labels carefully because there is a good chance that they may contain additives and/or sweeteners which you want to avoid.

As for standard carbohydrate foods, it doesn’t matter if they’re Low GI, Wholegrain, Gluten Free or some other term trying to say that it is good for you, just check the ingredients list. Here are the ingredients of Helga’s Soy and Linseed bread as found on the Coles website:-

Ingredients:

Wheat Flour, Water, Toasted Kibbled Soy (10%), Linseed (5%), Yeast, Wheat Germ, Wheat Gluten, Iodised Salt, Vinegar, Vegetable Oil, Soy Flour, Vegetable Emulsifiers (481, 471, 472e), Mineral Salt (Calcium Carbonate), Rye Flour, Vitamins (Thiamin, Folic Acid).

Preservatives galore and a bunch of stuff that we don’t need and shouldn’t eat. This is an issue across the majority of packaged products that have been labeled and advertised as healthy.

I’m hoping that you are beginning to get a picture as to why there is such a problem with obesity and type 2 diabetes, for a start. People are eating foods (sugar and refined carbohydrates) which suppress their normal hormonal and metabolic functions and eating them far too often because their appetite hormones don’t work properly making them want to eat more and often. This means they never get to a state for their body to require glucagon to be produced by the pancreas and start drawing out stored energy from glycogen and fat. It also causes a constant state of high blood glucose levels and excessive insulin secretion.

This barely scratches the surface of these issues but let me leave you with this important point about fat baring in mind what I mentioned in my post ‘Where Did It All Go Wrong?’ about where the idea of fat being bad for us came from.

There has never been a study that proves dietary fat causes heart disease. In fact, there have been numerous large scale, long term studies performed looking to prove/disprove this point and there has always been a conclusion to these studies that there was no correlation between fat consumption and heart disease. It is a myth and the world has been lied to. However, some studies have found that those who consumed less dietary fat had higher rates of heart disease.

I look forward to providing more of this information in the future.

Cheers,

Lincoln.

Please note that I have gained my information from a variety of sources which I have aimed to condense for the purposes of this piece. They are as follows:-

‘Sweet Poison’ by David Gillespie.

‘Big Fat Lies’ by David Gillespie.

‘Toxic Oil’ by David Gillespie.

‘Challenging Beliefs: Memoirs of a Career’ by Professor Tim Noakes. I also, take information from presentations I have watched on YouTube by Professor Noakes about this topic.

‘That Sugar Film’ a documentary presented by Damon Gameau.

Dr. Jason Fung is a Nephrologist – kidney specialist – based in Toronto, Canada. Please see his work and presentations via the website Intensive Dietary Management.

Dr. Robert Lustiq is an American pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco where he is a professor of clinical pediatrics and has a presentation on YouTube called ‘Sugar: The Bitter Truth’.