Reflections on humans held captive in a carbohydrate culture

When refined carbohydrates are everywhere, how can we help the millions who are being held captive, against their knowledge, by an endorphin-releasing, addictive substance that is making them fat and ill?
I have been thinking about that question a lot, ever since returning from the Low Carb USA conference in San Diego at the end of July.
The conference itself was a fabulous four days, full of cutting edge presentations by leading low-carb experts like Jeff Volek, Dr. Steve Phinney, Dr. Georgia Ede, Dr. Jeffrey Gerber, Miriam Kalamian, Dave Feldman and many more, including Diet Doctor’s Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt. We heard a number of times, particularly in speeches by Dr. Robert Cywse and by addictions researcher Nicole Avena, how addictive carbohydrates really are.
It was my first time, in my three plus years of ketogenic eating, that I’ve attended a world-class event devoted to the low carb (even no carb) way of life. It was invigorating and inspiring. The presentations were informative, detailed and motivating. The Q&A sessions after each speech featured thoughtful, applicable queries. Many of these presentations will be featured as videos on Diet Doctor in the months ahead.
For me, however, one of the most inspiring and motivating parts was simply meeting and talking with other attendees whose lives have been transformed, sometimes even saved, from finding the low carb ketogenic way of life.
Everyone had a story. Often it was a moving and dramatic transformation from ill health and disability to new-found vigor and wellness. I heard about adult epilepsy finally under control, hundreds of pounds lost, diabetes reversed, migraines eased or gone, depression lifted, even cancers held in remission. Some of these people will be featured in upcoming posts here at the Diet Doctor site.
A recurring theme, among all I talked to, was the overwhelming feeling of being set free, being liberated from the shackles of poor health and poor diet after years of captivity. Freedom from the siren call of carbs. It was freedom from feelings of guilt and shame over the weight they had tried for decades to lose. It was the freedom from feeling ill, tired and achy, of suddenly having energy and the desire to move and dance. It was freedom from feeling unjustly blamed by their doctors and others in their lives that they were simply making poor choices, or were too lazy or not trying hard enough. Now they knew that addictive carbohydrates had been unwittingly making them sick for years. They could see that now so clearly. Now they were free.
It was a joyful, inspiring, supportive mingling. At the end of the four days we parted with the hugs of true connections and friendships made.
And then, with a number of hours ahead of me before my plane back to Canada, I decided to visit the world famous, award-winning San Diego Zoo. The zoo pays the utmost attention to creating for each species its optimal environment and diet. For their pandas and other animals that live on bamboo, for example, they grow 67 different bamboo taxa. Their astonishing collection of birds each have their nutritional needs researched and a diet created that mimics what it would consume most closely in the wild. The carnivores, like their 18 Sumatran tigers, get fed shank bones or rabbit carcasses stuffed with beef heart.
All the animals looked remarkably healthy, happy and well-cared for, existing on the food they were evolved to eat in an environment that mimicked their natural habitat.
Not so the humans — thousands of them visiting the zoo on this hot July day. Many looked miserable, exhausted, chaffing under the hot sun. Three out of four, alas, were overweight or obese. Children, adolescents, adult men and women, seniors.
All around, however, were food kiosks selling huge containers of soft drinks, ice cream, corn dogs, hot dogs, pizza, french fries, kettle corn and much more. Sweet smells lingered and taunted on the breeze. Many people munched on carb snacks or sipped from huge containers of sugary drinks as they watched the animals eat their specially-tailored optimal diets designed for their specific needs.
It was the humans who were captive in an unhealthy environment, caught in a carbohydrate-addictive culture that they did not know yet was a cage that was making them sick, fat and exhausted. It was heart breaking to see. As Kristie Sullivan noted so eloquently last year in a post called Carb Trouble, “how do you start a conversation?” with a stranger to let them know that all the carbs in their life are what is likely causing their ill health and weight gain. You simply can’t start the conversation. They must hear it from a trusted source, like a doctor, friend or family, or from a ground-swell movement that has them see, with their own eyes for the first time, the bars and chains of their carb cage.
It was deeply upsetting. But I came home redoubled in my commitment to help spread the word as far and as wide as possible through Diet Doctor, to help make low carb simple and understandable to all.
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If the San Diego zoo researched human nutritional needs as carefully as they do those of their animals, then set up a kiosk selling human-optimised foods and advertised it as such, would humans come and buy and eat/drink their wares? Only one way to find out.
Started on July 8 at 247, today 226. Can't complain
cravings and binge.
My conclusion is they must be sad, lonely people that troll in order to seek reaction ...oh dear !
I or am certainly not adverse to debate ...but it should be informed ...based on science not commonly held fallacies that have been proven egregious time and time again by real solid research ...
Ric
Even that is not enough, the sugar addiction is too strong.
Only people with strong mind can overcome this addiction.
Perhaps they are sugar industry trolls, paid to spread doubt and confusion in our community.
Doesn't make sense for people to be paid up members of DietDr if they don't follow the LCHF lifestyle.
Thankful for this website as I share it with hundreds of my clients everyday
Change is going to take a lot of people being successful with keto/LCHF. There is a growing trend to support it. I find the trend encouraging having found keto years ago and having seen it grow. Truth and results and happiness will win out over vested interests in the end.
In today’s world, carbs are available 24/7 and virtually on any corner. The latest scandal in fast food showed the use of carbs to make fake “real” chicken. It made the chicken more addictive than the actual meat
We don’t need to fatten up for winter anymore, we don’t need to load up on carbs. We need very little of it just the way nutritionists used to say we need little protein if we load up on carbs. No one has ever said abolish carbs but society has accepted the unhealthy volume of carbs as healthy but it’s just not true. I hope this has helped to understand more clearly.
By the way my doctor suggested I go on a keto diet for my diabetes. She is no “guru” and I was free to say no. I’m a scientist who has taught at university level so I investigated it thoroughly before trying it.
Since eliminating all sugar and starch six months ago, and only eating the Brussels sprouts and broccoli and meat and fish and eggs and grass-fed butter and such, I have lost 40lbs of fat according to my Dexa scan. My nagging joint aches are gone, and now when I go to the gym I feel energized, not wrecked. My triglycerides are down, my resting heart rate is 60, and I've cut my high blood pressure medication in half. I monitored my glucose and ketones with a blood meter, and was usually around a .4-.7 on the ketone strips. So not extreme Keto by any means. Sometimes I ate eggs and avocado for breakfast, and sometimes I waited until lunch.
I can't believe the transformation that has happened in my life. I don't feel deprived at all, and I no longer crave the junk---burgers and pizza and such. Since we started eating this way, my 21 year old son has lost 30lbs of fat, and my wife has lost 15. We are all so much more excited about the future, and the only thing I wish is that everyone could feel the difference that getting insulin under control can make in your life. We didn't eat 'strict' Keto, just a good low-carb, medium protein, healthy fat diet that anyone can do. I have a weakness for homemade salsa and chips that I refused to give up, so I didn't! (Same for the street tacos once a week!)
To the nay-sayers I would just suggest that they give low-carb a try for a month and just see if it makes a difference. I will never go back to eating that way again. Peace to all of you and enjoy the journey.
I'm not saying doing keto does not work. It absolutely does. But so may eating (for example) a moderate amount of low GI carbohydrate foods. So may getting some exercise as well, with a healthy diet. So does fasting in conjunction with a healthy diet. The foods we eat are nothing we evolved to eat and we have evolved to eat carbohydrate (we are a carbon based life-form remember), protein and lipids. But we didn't evolve to where we are eating the garbage you call food nowadays. ALL the carbohydrate foods, fruits, grains etc bare NO resemblance to the heritage/original forms. Look at a wild raspberry and then look at the artificial version in a shop. They have been bred to be huge and sweet. Changing your diet from garbage to nutritious and healthy can be done many ways.
Do LCHF if you are overweight or aren't fully active and exercising regularly. If your energy expenditure isn't high you'll need the extra help of cutting out nearly all the carbs to maintain your weight or weight loss. Alternatively, do more regular and longer fasting periods which will naturally limit your calorie intake. Despite what we know about the relationship between insulin and carbs, glucose/fructose etc., calories are still an important factor to weight loss.
If you are at your healthy weight and active, doing weight or cardio training, playing sport or walking on a regular basis, LCHF isn't necessary. Just cut down on the simple carbs and eat a balanced whole food diet with periods of IF to keep everything running nicely. That is all you need.
The food pyramid is kind of OK if you are already at a healthy weight and do the exercise, which is why it still has a lot of support from doctors everywhere. The one correction would be to move the grains and cereals much nearer the top, the bottom row should be all vegetables.
For people that are overweight or battling type-2 diabetes then yes the food pyramid is not going to help you lose weight and needs to look very different to make it the LCHF way. But the fact is, the LCHF way of life isn't necessary for everyone if you are already at your healthy weight, eat whole foods and exercise or do periods of fasting, or both.
Once I hit my target weight after 12 months of keto, I've spent the last 6 months on a whole food diet with much higher carb intake, regular exercise and IF and I haven't gained a pound. LCHF is for one lifestyle and personal set of circumstances. The balanced diet with exercise that everyone has been banging on about for years, is for another.
The one takeaway that I have from my experiences on this site and with keto is that everyone, regardless of lifestyle, would benefit from doing IF in some form. It really does help with maintaining weight or kick starting weight loss and with health generally.
But when that difference is caused by ignorance of lack of knowledge the truth will always win so don’t let it get you down
My hope for them as well as everyone else is that they will break the cycle, I will keep advocating; and if I never convince another person, I know there are at least 2 lives that are saved and will continue to enjoy a healthy, satiating, and correctly tailored diet.
at my results, never mind the 45lbs weight loss or good/bad cholesterol etc.......
I''m off my Diabetic meds.
My Doctor is looking into this and will beging "saving" lives. I have 2 friends who are now doing keto.
Blood pressure back to normal along with 25lbs weight loss in 6 weeks and my other friend was a total
mess with many "numbers" out of wack. (HDL A1C and all that blood testing stuff)
after 5 months he's back to normal and loss 55lbs.
So not a study, by no means................and what is there to debate?!?! Just sayin'
:))
Time and again I see people visit the cafe, then walk part of the reserve carrying their snacks and "energy drinks", then return to the cafe before doing the other half (one way is about 5 km and the other about 3). They are often rotund. So sadly are some of the children.
Meanwhile I eat a thickly buttered oatcake with smoked salmon for breakfast and a cup or two of coffee - just enough to tell my liver and pancreas my throat hasn't been cut - then spend the rest of the day living off stored energy from my previous day's meal(s). I can walk the entire reserve without snacks and routinely go 6 - 8 hours and sometimes up to 14 before I get hungry and need to eat again.
In my high carb low fat days I used to resemble those other people.
So carb it up!!!
Many of us have read, listened, studied and experienced the science of burning ketones as our main fuel before glucose.
I’ve been struggling with an autoimmune since I was 38. Today at 58, I’m in the BEST physical condition of my life.
I chose ketones.