Recently, I have spoken to many people about how sugar and carbohydrate
is the major cause of Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, Fatty Liver
Disease, hunger/tiredness – even though you just ate 2 hours ago – and a
general lack of energy or fluctuating energy levels. Also, if you have ever had
trouble to lose or control your weight without starving yourself or by
cutting/counting calories, it is the sugar and carbohydrates holding you back.
Unfortunately, we have been brainwashed and mislead for
approximately the past 50 years by governments, government agencies and major
industries. What I have just said in the first paragraph would be making some,
possibly most, people cringe with thoughts of ‘that’s not right, carbohydrates
are the one of the most important things to eat.’ That’s definitely what I
thought until about 4 months ago. I will gladly admit now that I had it VERY
wrong but so did nearly everyone except those who truly knew how carbohydrates,
including sugar, worked in our body. However, for the past 50 years or so,
there’s even some cases from well before that too, anyone who has challenged
the ‘healthy’ diet guidelines produced by various government health
organisations and big industries, like the agriculture industry and sports
drink companies, has had major campaigns against them to discredit and demonise
them.
I have been wrong for the past 11 years, since first entering
the health industry. It has been the standard advice since the 1970’s that a ‘healthy
diet’ consisted of approximately 60 – 70% of our daily energy coming from the
category of carbohydrates which was made up of grains and grain products
(bread, pasta, rice, oats, etc.). Then, about 10 – 15% from certain fats and 20
– 25% from certain, lean proteins. Throw in your 5 vegetables and 2 pieces of
fruit each day and you’ll be healthy for life. That was the advice I was given
during my year of TAFE study in 2004. Because this is what I was taught by my
teacher, I believed it must be all scientifically correct and anyone who thinks
otherwise would be wrong.
I remember seeing a TV advertisement, probably about 5 years
ago, for one of the evening current affair shows, I think it was ‘Today
Tonight’, that was mentioning a story about a man who had achieved amazing
weight loss results on a high fat diet. My immediate thought was that it was
ridiculous because, even if he has lost a heap of weight, a high fat diet will
be completely ruining him internally. I figured he would have severe issues
with clogged arteries and all the other things we were lead to believe about
consuming too much fat. Surely, his cholesterol would be through the roof too.
Needless to say, I didn’t watch the show to find out why it worked.
No one can be blamed for following this advice because it’s
what all the main government organisations or associations were preaching since
the 70’s. But how did this come about? Surely it’s because science is always
making new discoveries and improving things, right? Not quite. You see, there
are some horribly dodgy things that happened for this to become the accepted
‘healthy’ advice.
These dodgy events are explained in a book called ‘The Big
Fat Surprise’ written by American investigative journalist, Nina Teicholz. Although,
I have not read her book, I have watched a couple of videos on YouTube where
she summarises her discoveries and her book has been highly recommended by
Professor Tim Noakes for the nature of her findings. From this, I will briefly explain
how this high carbohydrate movement was produced.
In the USA, during the 1950s, it was discovered there had
been a dramatic rise in death from heart disease and heart attacks since about
World War 1. So, they wanted to know why and were looking for scientists to
provide the answers. This is where a scientist, by the name of Ancel Keys, a Pathologist
from the University of Minnesota, steps in with his hypothesis that saturated
fat consumption raises blood cholesterol, clogs arteries and causes heart
disease and heart attacks. This was known as ‘The Diet Heart Hypothesis’. He
did a famous study called the ‘Seven Countries Study’ where he researched the
food consumption of seven different countries and noted their rates of heart
disease. He came to the conclusion that those who had a high rate of saturated
fat consumption had higher rates of heart disease.
At first, even the WHO – the World Health Organisation (WHO),
not the band – along with other medical and scientific communities, were highly
skeptical of this theory which set Keys back somewhat, but he kept persisting
with his theory. Eventually, Keys got himself a position on the Nutrition
Committee board for the American Heart Association (AHA). This allowed him to
persuade the committee that his hypothesis was correct and, in 1961, the AHA
issued their first ever anti-saturated fat advice which involved advising to
dramatically reduce meat consumption along with full fat dairy, cheese and eggs.
Keys became very famous and was featured in TIME magazine for his work.
Over the next 20 years, people needed to know what to eat
when they weren’t supposed to consume meat, eggs and dairy. Firstly, the United
States Senators were convinced that Americans had to reduce their saturated fat
consumption. Then, the US government found a way to work with the agricultural
industry and make billions of dollars by the production of grains – wheat,
corn, oats, barley, etc. – which had seen a massive surge of production and
mass production capabilities over the previous 100 years since the Agricultural
Revolution. This meant that the United States Dietary Association (USDA) was
influenced by the money and power of this movement and came up with the advice
that the American diet should now consist of mainly ‘healthy’ grains which, of
course, are carbohydrate dense products that contain little to no other
essential nutrients. President Richard Nixon was a major influence in this
movement, basically, using this topic to appear to care about the health of the
people. Eventually, the famous ‘Food Pyramid’ was produced by the USDA to help
people understand how to form a complete ‘healthy’ diet.
Unfortunately, it seems that what influences people in the
most powerful country in the world has a complete flow on effect to at least
the rest of the developed world and some developing countries too. One of the
hugely detrimental results of this low fat/high carbohydrate movement was the
mass introduction of low fat food items that were packed with sugar from cane
or they used the new product in abundance, derived from corn – high-fructose
corn syrup – which is sweeter. The companies making these products needed
something to put taste back in their food because removing the fat made it
taste horrible. This has driven the corn trade in America to become one of the
biggest food production industries.
So what was wrong with this turn of events? Basically, Ancel
Keys manipulated his findings of the ‘Seven Countries Study’. As it turns out,
he actually used 22 different countries in his study but there were 15
countries which didn’t support his hypothesis, so he decided to dispose of that
data and just keep what was useful for proving his theory. Therefore, it
appears Ancel Keys was a fraud and he, along with governments, government
agencies and big industries have caused the skyrocketing rates of obesity, type
2 diabetes, heart disease and fatty liver disease, among other things, with no
regard for the health of their citizens. Subsequently, pharmaceutical companies
have made billions of dollars from producing drugs to treat these diseases
which are just another industry that will try to convince you that the high
carbohydrate guidelines are correct.
Millions of people worldwide could have avoided suffering
through sickness and living on medication if these parties genuinely cared for
the lives of others instead of their bottom line.
I look forward to telling you more about the effects of a
high carbohydrate diet in the near future. I have seen some amazing changes in
myself within just 2 months of transitioning to a low carbohydrate lifestyle
and I hope I can help others to understand how it could be the best thing you
ever do for your health.
Cheers,
Lincoln.
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