The Swedish Revolution

This is an entertaining analysis of the Swedish LCHF-movement from a sociological perspective:

Science as Culture: Food Fight! The Swedish Low-Carb/High Fat (LCHF) Movement and the Turning of Science Popularisation Against the Scientists

As the authors have no real interest in the scientific debate (just accepting the “consensus” view) they unfortunately miss the larger picture. I.e. the words “paradigm shift” are never mentioned.

If you wonder why this blog hasn’t been updated as often as usual in the last weeks the answer is that it’s just crazy in Sweden now. The interest in LCHF diets has never been bigger.

Just in the last weeks I’ve been called in to debate it on TV four times (pictured above). Between that, working as a doctor, updating my main Swedish blog, lecturing, writing a new book and taking care of my 5 months old daughter, the time has a tendency to run out!

But all that’s fine. I really think there’s a revolution going on. Swedes in general aren’t afraid of eating natural fat anymore.

Fat is back. Here’s the good news from the market research blog of Euromonitor:

Welcome Back Fat: The Booming Low-Carb Trend in Scandinavia

The biggest paper in Sweden reports that during the last four years sales of low fat margerine in Sweden has plummeted by more than 50 percent. Meanwhile sales of full fat dairy is going up like crazy.

Good times.

Swedish and Danish bread sales hit by changing consumer habits, says analyst

Unbelievable times in Sweden right now, low carb has never been this popular. Lara Dolson may be right:

Is Sweden Leading Other Countries to Give up Carbs?

Just this week these three things happened:

• The biggest news show reported on a new survey ordered by the government agency behind the official low fat guidelines. It showed that three percent of Swedes thought that eating large amounts of fat was good for your health. Another 29 percent did not think that fat should be avoided any more. So one in three Swedes like fat now! The old fear of fat is melting away.

• We had a debate on LCHF on the biggest TV-channel, featuring me and a celebrity eating LCHF. It went well.

• One of the biggest papers in Sweden has a 100 page supplement this weekend called “All about LCHF”.

It’s crazy. I haven’t even mentioned yet that the highest medical authority in Sweden, the National Board of Health, late last year started recommending a “modest” low carb diet for diabetics. More on that later!

We’ve even had a butter shortage recently. And low carb books are currently outselling all other health books by far. Low carb is winning in Sweden.

During the last weeks me and my brother have been working hard updating the design of my Swedish blog. It has around 25 000 visits a day now, showing the massive popularity of LCHF in my home country.

If you’re curious you can have a look at the Swedish blog translated by Google. Once we’re done it’s time for a similar update to this blog.

How’s it going with the Norwegian butter shortage situation? This recent offer from a Norwegian paper might be a clue:

Buy a new Audi R8 for 2 million Norwegian crowns ($360K) and you get a pound of butter for free.

LCHF saw a “spike in searches” on Google during 2011, according to a press release from Google Sweden. I think 2012 will see even more interest, as a number of high profile books on the subject are released.

As the obsolete fear of fat fades away the future looks ever brighter. Who wouldn’t want to eat as much real good food as they want, while losing weight and regaining health?

I love the satirical humor on The Colbert Report. And the ever-rising popularity of LCHF in Scandinavia is a good thing too. Combine the two and we get a perfect TV moment.

Can’t see the video above in your location? Here’s a short part of it on YouTube.