AdamFrisch wrote:
There is a reason we in the western world see crazy amounts of type 2 diabetes. It’s obvious that the low fat, high carbohydrate diet we’ve been led to believe is healthy isn’t working. They project that almost 50% of the population in the US will suffer from diabetes in just a decade. 50%!!! For a disease that’s 90% reversible by not eating sugar and carbs. It’s mind boggling.
I believe the projection that you’re referring to is mostly down to refined sugars, so soft drinks etc, and not just carb sugars. Not saying eating too much of the latter is healthy, but the obesity issue isn’t really down to that.
I’ve done well on a plant based diet.
A plant-based diet isn’t necessarily low fat though does tend to be carb rich. That said, it doesn’t always raise blood sugar. This is my glucose etc, on a plant based diet (not strict; e.g. when travelling I eat fish) although I eat almost no potatoes (we prefer sweet potatoes).
Many vegans do indeed eat really badly – especially the religious ones. We went to a “vegan dinner” in Brighton the other day. It was a joke – half of them were really obese. They eat rubbish and one of their “socials” was a regular doughnut party where they consume trade packs of doughnuts 
Vegan doughnuts, of course… Which makes it even more surprising that the vegans in the study had such good cardio data including low BP!
As regards weight loss and actually achieving it long term (so many diets work at first but people can’t stick to them) I lost 10% in 2 months, completely effortlessly, and dropped some 20/15 in BP, by cutting out meat and dairy – except when travelling, especially in some parts of Europe, or in hotels, where such food can be hard to find.
It seems readily apparent that the diabetes epidemic we see today is closely tied to obesity – consumption of highly refined and poor quality food, combined with low or negligible exercise.
I was diagnosed as Type 2 diabetic in 2008, at 67. By June 2017 I was almost pressured into taking Metformin, but was given 4 months to try to improve.
I started checking my blood sugar with a Glucomen Areo. After 2 HbA1c tests, I’m back on an annual check. Glycaemia reading never above 11, seldom above 9, mostly 6 to 8. Average 7.2. No drugs.
Highest results are preprandial, or after 10 hours with walking but no food. Drops 2 hours after breakfast.
My management is not what I thought it would be. I’m eating more sweet things than when my glycaemia was high, and avoiding exercise without food.
Whitecoat hypertension
It’s very interesting to hear about your keto experience Adam. I’m sure that it can be quite a healthy diet done well, though I’d be a bit concerned about long term effects on heart, cancer risk etc. It seems to be used mostly for weight loss which in itself is a good thing if you need that. In the end the overall judgement of any diet boils down for me to three things: (1) how nutrient dense it is (ie how much good stuff you get per calorie), (2) how little bad stuff it exposes you to (sat fat, trans fats, hormones, growth factors, pesticides, refined sugars etc) and (3) how sustainable it is. With keto I suspect it can be pretty good on 1 but possibly more questionable on 2 and 3.
I’d definitely agree with you that vegans can be extremely unhealthy eaters (beer, chips, doughnuts) and I’d never in my practice (I’m a nutritionist) recommend a vegan diet, but only a whole food plant based one. This would probably still count as ‘carbohydratist’ but whole grains, starchy roots, pulses etc are definitely not nutritionally the same as sugar. They are really some of the healthiest foods on the planet and as well as the carbs you get valuable fibre and a host of important micro nutrients.
The Western diet is terribly unhealthy and yes has left us with a tragic epidemic of obesity and diabetes but I don’t think this is because people are eating too much wholemeal bread and potatoes! Rather we get way too many calories from very nutrient poor sources, too many refined carbs and too many bad fats. The Western diet is actually a pretty high fat diet as well as a high sugar and high processed one.
Such a complicated subject but really interesting to hear what everyone finds works for them.
Carbohydrates seem to be complex. There is no doubt many of them contain a lot of fiber and nutrients. Some of them packed with goodness. But it’s also a fact that the glycemic index of most of them are very high. White bread will raise your blood sugar just as fast as a doughnut when eaten – there really isn’t much difference. Rice, potatoes and most cereal as well. The “darker” they are, the more unrefined, the slower the release. Fruits are the same – lots of minerals and goodness in them, but also tons of sugar that spike. I’ve come to believe there is no “good” sugar – in the way the body processes it is all the same. Sugar is sugar, even if it comes from an apple. Yes, you do get lots of minerals and vitamins from an apple, but you could get those from other vegetables. But fruits are not off limits on keto, just in moderation.
@Athene
Personally, I’ve fallen off the wagon pretty badly after a few work weeks traveling now with restaurant food, but the keto thing I was on for most of Jan and Feb didn’t eliminate carbs. In fact, it’s recommended to eat 20-50gr of net carbs per day. But the pyrmid was inverted – lots of healthy fats, tons of greens, moderate proteins and minimal carbohydrates. I never felt better in my life and had so much energy.
But this is such a complex issue. Look at the film below from restored footage from London in 1967. In the 7 min film I can’t spot a single overweight person. Not even the older folks look obese. Contrast that to any street scene today. What changed? They obviously ate in many ways much simpler and less nutrient rich food then we do. There was no quinoa, chia seeds or kale eating going on then, so I don’t buy the argument that we eat less nutritious food today. They probably all had toast for breakfast with sweet tea. But what didn’t they eat? They didn’t eat a lot of pre-fab food, they didn’t eat a lot of sugar and they didn’t over-eat. This is the first generation after the war, and the memories of hardship were still there – to overindulge wasn’t in the cards.
So it comes down to – do you believe that spiking insulin levels constantly is a big part of our western diseases triggering fat storage? I think it is. I also think we simply eat too much food and we eat it too often. And the wrong kind. It’s like we think we need to eat every 2 hours and snack our way through the day. We didn’t as cavemen. The romans ate once a day. Having 3 meals a day is a recent invention. Who says that’s the correct way? Evidence seems to suggest it’s not.
I digress, but somewhere between avoiding sugar and some bad carbs, eating fewer meals a day, and consuming a lot of vegetables lies the holy path to nirvana. I’m still trying to figure it out. 
There were plenty of obese adults in the 60s, and in my opinion there were many fewer fat kids in my secondary school than when I was a kid in the 40s-50s.
There’s a professor in Australia researching the evolution-based hypothesis that fresh food is what is important. Not preserved, not processed. If you’re eating long stored food, food is short, so it’s evolutionary helpful for the older organism to die.
AdamFrisch wrote:
I’m not saying eating only meat is good for you, but I think that avoiding sugar in all forms is. And the highest concentration of that comes from carbohydrates. So if you can balance vegetables, fat and protein I think that’s the way to go personally.
Agree 100%.
We really don’t need high-carb foods such as pasta, bread, chips, etc. We get enough carbs from veggies, nuts, and berries. One issue with a lot of meat is that it comes from grain-fed livestock and is high in carbs. Historically, livestock was naturally fed on mostly grass resulting in low-carb meat.
It goes way beyond just blood pressure. Sugar is bad news because it causes a spike of energy followed by a trough. The result is erratic concentration which can in fact be dangerous during a flight. The best way to ensure a stable level of performance during a long flight is to take a mixture of veggies, fat, and protein, with perhaps just a bit of carbs for short-term benefit. The classic is gorp (good old raisins and peanuts, although usually more than just that) or what in German is called “studenten futter”. Almost everything that comes in a carton box is high in sugar additives (glucose, fructose, corn starch, ….) and should be avoided like the plague.
chflyer wrote:
One issue with a lot of meat is that it comes from grain-fed livestock and is high in carbs
I don’t think it works like that. I don’t think a cow eating grain versus grass means the muscle (the bit we eat) now has high carbohydrate content (or any non-negligable carbohydrate content at all).
Grain-fed meat has very little Vitamin K2 versus grass fed. This vitamin is essential for calcium managment and bone health. Keeps calcium out of the arteries and into the bones.
