Judging from the breakfast served, the solution to the diabetes epidemic doesn’t seem to be at the EASD, Europe’s biggest diabetes conference.
The problem, on the other hand, seems to be everywhere.
Today at the European Nutrition Conference in Leipzig
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Those pastries are so incredibly tasty and cheap. A cheese platter would cost 10-fold.
We who follow a LCHF lifestyle still have a lot of work to do, to encourage and educate that dropping sugars/carbohydrates can be so worthwhile to improved health all round, diabetic or not.
Yes, alas cost does come into eating but it doesn't have to be the most expensive. What about some cold meats, boiled eggs. I'm with Anya "eggs and bacon" superb food for me, and a great way to start the day
All the best Jan.
I a lost for words.
It was NOT a conference that diabetics attended. So the photo was misleading. The attendees weren't interested in healthy eating, just in being able to flog their propducts. Proper food doesn't sell. How many people there were diabetics? Not many I can assure you.
The whole nutrition "thing" is still in a messy state. Just today I had the 'pleasure' of watching an interview of a nutritional scientist (a Professor, whatever that may mean). He recognized that junk-food is to be avoided (good), and then recommended to use lots of whole-grains and mufa/pufa vegetable oils. "Use less butter and less saturated fat."...
It seems the news from Sweden hasn't reached quite a lot of the professionals yet. Or it was dismissed as biased. Who knows.
There is a reason for this: these "foods" are cheap and taste (to most people) good. But why are they cheap? Contrary to real food and fat ( there was even until recently a tax on fat in Denmark - speak of people who do not understand) - grain-based products and sugar are heavily subsidized. And they are because of great lobbying done by their organizations.
These cheap (in all sense of the word) "foods" make it difficult for people with a lower income to follow a LCHF diet: zucchini noodles are more expensive than wheat noodles, spiritachi noodles even more, rice goes a long way to fill your plate... I have had countless arguments with my two adult kids who are beginning in life: it boils down to the fact that real food is unfortunately more expensive than cheap crappy carbs and people need to eat.
We are fighting an uphill battle on many fronts:
1. Cheap dangerous carbs are heavily subsidized
2. They are advertized as "health food", "protecting against cancer and heart disease - though the comparison is always done between whole grains and white flour products, never between whole grains and "no grains".
3. Because of the action and subsidies of big sugar companies and subsidized grain companies, Government agencies and professional agencies still promote a high carb diet as healthy
4. Dieticians (not well informed) give a higher carb / higher dessert diet to make diet more palatable for patients battling cancer, not realizing they are feeding the cancer, killing their patients, while they could starve it completely by severely cutting the carbs
We have the scientific evidence:
1. LCHF works better than everything for painless weight loss.
2. LCHF works better than anything to improve biochemical markers of inflammation.
3. High carbs turn on epigenetic switches of inflammation AND stimulate insulin, which in turn increases two other hormones, IGF-1 and decreases IGFBP-3. IGF-1 stimulates all cells to grow, including tumor cells. On the other hand, IGFBP-3 prevents unregulated tissue growth and its presence induces apoptosis (cellular death) in cancer cells. So insulin stimulation stimulates indiscriminate cell growth and prevents cancer cell death.
BUT it will remain relatively difficult to "sell" LCHF to many non-obese non-sick people as long as the grain and the sugar industry has the unfair advantage of government subsidies.
We must continue educating people on this extremely important subject, but we must also lobby our professional organizations (for those of us who are members of such organizations), consumers associations and Government agencies if we want those insane subsidies to stop and be transferred to real food producers (I know, I'm dreaming). And for doctors, nurses and dietitians, we must insist that breakfasts at our professional conferences provide real food for breakfast, not the crap we are offered.
It will be a tough battle: even after I provided them with excellent research showing the risk of stroke with artificial sweeteners, my medical colleagues (they should know better) continue with their addiction to soft drinks and drink an average of 4 to 6 cans per day.
It is not impossible to win, though. Let's start lobbying now.