The
First Low Carb Book Is Nearly 150 Years Old
Introduction
For three decades we have been told that for our health and to lose
weight we all should eat a diet based on carbohydrate foods: breads, pasta,
fruit and vegetables, and low in fat.
Over the period there has been such a dramatic increase in obesity and
related diseases that recently there has been a strong backlash: cut out
foods high in carbohydrates and eat a lot more fat. In the 1990s and increasingly
over the past year, this latest 'fad' diet has taken the world by storm.
There seems to be a general belief that the rash of low-carbohydrate,
high-fat diets are 'new' or 'revolutionary' in some way. Popular books
certainly give that impression. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I started eating a low-carbohydrate diet in 1962 when a doctor advised
me that this the best way to lose weight.
You may also think that these 'new' low-carbohydrate regimes have been
pioneered by far-seeing and learned medical men. Again, this is incorrect.
The truth is that we would probably never have heard of diets where people
could lose weight eating that most calorific of foods, fat, if it had not
been for a 19th century English carpenter by the name of William Banting.
 |
| William Banting
(1796-1878) |
Being overweight has affected a small proportion of the population for
centuries but clinical obesity was relatively rare until the 20th century.
Indeed obesity remained at a fairly stable low level until about 1980.
Then its incidence began to increase dramatically.
By 1992 one in every ten people in Britain was overweight; a mere five
years later that figure had almost doubled. In the USA it is even worse:
by 1991 one in three adults was overweight. That was an increase of eight
percent of the population over just one decade despite the fact that Americans
spend a massive $33 billion a year on 'slimming'.
It may be hard to believe, but this has occurred in the face of increasing
knowledge, awareness, and education about obesity, nutrition and exercise.
It has happened despite the fact that calorie intake has gone down by twenty
percent over the past ten years and exercise clubs have mushroomed.
More people are cutting calories now than ever before in their history
yet more of them are becoming overweight. There is now a pandemic of increasing
weight across the industrialized world.
But it needn't be like that, for nearly 150 years ago one man changed
thinking on diet completely.
It all started with a small booklet entitled Letter on Corpulence Addressed
to the Public, not written by a dietician or a doctor, but by an undertaker
named William Banting. It became one of the most famous books on obesity
ever written. First published in 1863, it went into many editions and continued
to be published long after the author's death. The book was revolutionary
and it should have changed western medical thinking on diet for weight
loss forever.
William Banting was well-regarded in 19th century society. He was a
fine carpenter, and undertaker to the rich and famous. None of Banting's
family on either parent's side had any tendency to obesity. However, when
he was in his thirties, William started to become overweight.
He consulted an eminent surgeon, a kind personal friend, who recommended
increased "bodily exertion before any ordinary daily labors began". Banting
had a heavy boat and lived near the river so he took up rowing the boat
for two hours a day. All this did for him, however, was to give him a prodigious
appetite. He put on weight and was advised to stop. So much for exercise!
He was advised that he could remedy his obesity by moderate and light
food. But wasn't really told what was intended by this. He says he brought
his system into a low, impoverished state without reducing his weight,
which caused many obnoxious boils to appear and two rather formidable carbuncles.
He went into hospital and was ably operated upon - but also fed into increased
obesity.
Banting went into hospital twenty times in as many years for weight
reduction. He tried swimming, walking, riding and taking the sea air. He
drank "gallons of physic and liquor potassae", took the spa waters at Leamington,
Cheltenham and Harrogate, and tried low-calorie, starvation diets; he took
Turkish baths at a rate of up to three a week for a year but lost only
6 pounds in all that time, and had less and less energy.
He was assured by one physician, whom he calls "one of the ablest physicians
in the land", that putting weight on was perfectly natural; that he, himself,
had put on a pound for every year of manhood and he was not surprised by
Banting's condition - he merely advised "more exercise, vapor baths and
shampooing and medicine".
Banting tried every form of slimming treatment the medical profession
could devise but it was all in vain. Eventually, discouraged and disillusioned
- and still very fat - he gave up.
By 1862, at the age of 66, William Banting weighed 202 lbs and he was
only 5 ft 5 ins tall. Banting says that although he was of no great weight
or size, still, he says:
"I could not stoop to tie my shoes, so to speak, nor to attend to the
little offices humanity requires without considerable pain and difficulty
which only the corpulent can understand, I have been compelled to go downstairs
slowly backward to save the jar of increased weight on the knee and ankle
joints and have been obliged to puff and blow over every slight exertion,
particularly that of going upstairs."
He also had an umbilical rupture, and other bodily ailments.
On top of this he found that his sight was failing and he was becoming
increasingly deaf.
Because of this last problem, he consulted an aural specialist who made
light of his case, sponged his ears out - and blistered the outer ear -
without the slightest benefit and without enquiring into his other ailments.
Banting was not satisfied: he left in a worse plight than when he went
to the specialist.
Eventually, in August of 1862 Banting consulted a noted Fellow of the
Royal College of Surgeons: an ear, nose and throat specialist, Dr. William
Harvey. It was an historic meeting.
Dr. Harvey had recently returned from a symposium in Paris where he
had heard Dr Claude Bernard, a renowned physiologist, talk of a new theory
about the part the liver played in the disease of diabetes. Bernard believed
that the liver, as well as secreting bile, also secreted a sugar-like substance
that it made from elements of the blood passing through it. This started
Harvey's thinking about the roles of the various food elements in diabetes
and he began a major course of research into the whole question of the
way in which fats, sugars and starches affected the body.
When Dr. Harvey met Banting, he was interested as much by Banting's
obesity as by his deafness, for he recognised that the one was the cause
of the other. So Harvey put Banting on a diet. By Christmas, Banting was
down to 184 lbs and, by the following August, 156 lbs.
Banting's diet to that date had followed this pattern:
-
Breakfast: bread and milk for breakfast, or a pint of tea with plenty of
milk and sugar, and buttered toast (this was before the invention of breakfast
cereals but it is actually very similar to the modern cereal breakfast);
-
Dinner: meat, beer, bread and pastry for dinner;
-
Tea: a meal similar to breakfast;
-
Supper: generally a fruit tart or bread and milk.
Banting says he had little comfort and far less sound sleep.
Harvey's advice to him was to give up bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer
and potatoes. These, he told Banting, contained starch and saccharine matter
tending to create fat and were to be avoided altogether. The word 'saccharine'
meant sugar.
When told what he could not eat, Banting's immediate thought was that
he had very little left to live on. Harvey soon showed him that really
there was ample and Banting was only too happy to give the plan a fair
trial. Within a very few days, he says, he derived immense benefit from
it: the plan leading to an excellent night's rest with six to eight hours'
sleep per night.
For each meal, Harvey allowed Banting:
-
up to six ounces of bacon, beef, mutton, venison, kidneys, fish or any
form of poultry or game;
-
the 'fruit of any pudding' - he was denied the pastry
-
any vegetable except potato;
-
and at dinner, two or three glasses of good claret, sherry or Madeira.
-
Banting could drink tea without milk or sugar.
Champagne, port and beer were forbidden and he could eat only one ounce
of toast.
On this diet Banting lost nearly 1 lb per week from August 1862 to August
1863. In his own words he said:
"I can confidently state that quantity of diet may safely be
left to the natural appetite; and that it is quality only which is essential
to abate and cure corpulence. . . . These important desiderata have been
attained by the most easy and comfortable means . . . by a system of diet,
that formerly I should have thought dangerously generous."
After 38 weeks. Banting felt better than he had for the past 20 years.
By the end of the year, not only had his hearing been restored, he had
much more vitality and he had lost 46 lbs in weight and 12 1/4 inches off
his waist. He suffered no inconvenience whatever from the new diet, was
able to come downstairs forward naturally with perfect ease, go upstairs
and take exercise freely without the slightest inconvenience, could perform
every necessary office for himself, the umbilical rupture was greatly ameliorated
and gave him no anxiety, his sight was restored, his hearing improved,
his other bodily ailments were ameliorated and passed into the matter of
history.
Banting was delighted. He would have gone through hell to achieve all
this but it had not been necessary. Indeed the diet allowed so much food,
and it was so easy to maintain, that Banting said of it:
"I can conscientiously assert I never lived so well as under
the new plan of dietary, which I should have formerly thought a dangerous,
extravagant trespass upon health."
He says that this present dietary table is far superior to what he was
eating before:
"more luxurious and liberal, independent of its blessed effect,
but when it is proved to be more healthful, the comparisons are simply
ridiculous."
"I am very much better both bodily and mentally and pleased to believe
that I hold the reins of health and comfort in my own hands."
"It is simply miraculous and I am thankful to Almighty Providence for
directing me through an extraordinary chance to the care of a man who worked
such a change in so short a time."
It is quite obvious from these comments that Banting didn't need the strength
of willpower that today's slimmer needs; that he found his weight-loss
diet very easy to maintain.
He wish that the medical profession would acquaint themselves with the
cure for obesity so that so many men would not descend into early graves,
as he believed many did, from apoplexy, and would not endure on Earth so
much bodily and mental infirmity.
Banting was so pleased with his progress that on top of Harvey's fees,
he gave the doctor £50 to be distributed amongst Harvey's favorite
hospitals. Although, despite this, he still felt deeply obligated in a
way that he could never hope to repay.
But in 1868, Banting published a prospectus and started a fund to found
and endow a new institution for the service of humanity - the Middlesex
County Convalescent Hospital.
It was to be for those working-class people who could not afford to
convalesce but had to return to work to make ends meet thus allowing no
time to get over their hospital ordeal and so succumbed to relapses.
There was a small home at Walton on Thames which, although small, was,
he thought, possibly sufficient for the purpose. Banting estimated that
£12,000 per year was needed to run it.
Banting put up £500, his son £100 and two other members
of his family a further £50; with other patrons he raised a total
of £5,000.
Banting charged nothing for the first two editions of his book - he
didn't want the accused of doing it merely for profit. He had printed 1,000
copies of the first edition and he gave them away.
The second edition numbered 1,500 which he also gave away although they
cost him 6d each. Copies of the third edition, still in 1863, were sold
at 1/- each.
When Banting's booklet, in which he described the diet and its amazing
results was published, it was so contrary to the established doctrine that
it set up a howl of protest among members of the medical profession. The
'Banting Diet' became the center of a bitter controversy and Banting's
papers and book were ridiculed and distorted. No one could deny that the
diet worked, but as a layman had published it, and medical men were anxious
that their position in society should not be undermined, they felt bound
to attack it. Banting's paper was criticized solely on the grounds that
it was 'unscientific'.
Later, Dr. Harvey had a problem too. He had an effective treatment for
obesity but not a convincing theory to explain it. As he was a medical
man, and so easier for the other members of his profession to attack, he
came in for a great deal of ridicule until, in the end, his practice began
to suffer.
However, the public was impressed. Many desperate, overweight people
tried the diet and found that it worked. Like it or not, the medical profession
could not ignore it. Its obvious success meant that the Banting Diet had
to be explained somehow.
To the rescue from Stuttgart came a Dr. Felix Niemeyer. He managed to
make the new diet acceptable with a total shift in its philosophy. At that
time, the theory was that carbohydrates and fat burned together in the
lungs to produce heat. The two were called 'respiratory foods'.
After examining Banting's paper, Niemeyer came up with an answer to
the doctors' problem. All doctors knew that protein was not fattening,
only the respiratory foods - fats and carbohydrates. He, therefore, interpreted
'meat' to mean only lean meat with the fat trimmed off and this subtle
change solved the problem. The Banting Diet became a high protein diet
with both carbohydrate and fat restricted. This altered diet became enshrined
in history and still forms the basis of slimming diets today.
Banting's descriptions of the diet are quite clear, however. Other than
the prohibition against butter and pork, nowhere is there any instruction
to remove the fat from meat and there is no restriction on the way food
was cooked or on the total quantity of food which may be taken. Only carbohydrate
- sugars and starches - are restricted. The reason that butter and pork
were denied him was that it was thought at this time that they too contained
starch.
Banting, who lived in physical comfort and remained at a normal weight
until his death in 1878 at the age of 81, always maintained that Dr. Niemeyer's
altered diet was far inferior to the one that had so changed his life.
The Banting diet is confirmed
Banting's Letter on Corpulence traveled widely. In the 1890s, an American
doctor, Helen Densmore, modeled diets on Banting. She tells how she and
her patients lost an average 10-15 lbs (4.5-6.8 kg) in the first month
on the diet and then 6-8 lbs (2.7-3.6 kg) in subsequent months 'by a diet
from which bread, cereals and starchy food were excluded'. Her advice to
would-be slimmers was: 'One pound of beef or mutton or fish per day with
a moderate amount of the non-starchy vegetables given above [tomatoes,
lettuce, string beans, spinach and such] will be found ample for any obese
person of sedentary habits'.
Dr. Densmore was scathing of those others of her profession who derided
Banting's diet. She says of them: 'Those very specialists who are at this
time prospering greatly by the reduction of obesity and who are indebted
to Mr. Banting for all their prosperity are loud, nevertheless, in their
condemnation of the Banting method'.
Real-life tests
In 1906, Dr. Vilhjalmur Stefansson, a young Harvard anthropology teacher
who later became a world-famous explorer and anthropologist, revolutionized
polar exploration by crossing the Arctic alone and living off the land
with the Eskimos. It was not quite what had been planned. Stefansson had
gone on ahead of the Leffingwell-Mikkelson Expedition and had missed a
planned rendezvous at Herschel Island. He was left to spend an Arctic winter
with the Eskimos eating a diet composed only of meat and fish. Unlike the
diet he had been brought up on, it contained no plant material whatsoever.
It was a golden opportunity for the young scientist to conduct an experiment
into the effects of an Eskimo diet on a European unaccustomed to it. The
usual Eskimo meal consisted of briefly stewed fish washed down with water.
It was so different from what he was used to that at first Stefansson was
repelled by it.
To try to make the fish more palatable, he tried broiling it. This resulted
in his becoming weak and dizzy, with other symptoms of malnutrition. Stefansson
reasoned that with such a restricted diet the body had to have not just
the fish but the other nutrients that had been leached out into the water.
And so he tried harder. Eventually he became so accustomed to the primitive
diet that, by the time he left the Eskimos, Stefansson managed as well
as them. On this regime, Stefansson remained in perfect health and did
not get fat.
The experience had a profound effect on Stefansson. Like Banting before
him, he became interested in the possibilities of diets high in proteins
and fats and low in carbohydrates. It seemed to him that a balanced diet
in which there was relatively little meat, 'balanced' by larger amounts
of potatoes, bread, rice and other starchy foods followed by sweet desserts
and sugared coffee might be balanced in the wrong direction. And so, like
Banting, Stefansson questioned the established ideas on diet. Unfortunately,
he had no more success than Banting. Although he became famous and his
position as an anthropologist was unassailable, still no one took any notice
of his ideas on nutrition.
Some years after his first experience with the Eskimos, Dr. Stefansson
returned to the Arctic with a colleague, Dr. Karsten Anderson, to carry
out research for the American Museum of Natural History. They were supplied
with every necessity including a year's supply of 'civilised' food.
This they declined, electing instead to live off the land. In the end,
the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two
men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in
the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects
from their four-year experiment. It was evident to Stefansson, as it had
been to Banting, that the body could function perfectly well, remain healthy,
vigorous and slender if it used a diet in which as much food was eaten
as the body required, only carbohydrate was restricted and the total number
of calories was ignored.
The First Clinical Dietary Trial
In 1928, Stefansson and Anderson entered Bellevue Hospital, New York
for a controlled experiment into the effects of an all-meat diet on the
body. The committee which was assembled to supervise the experiment was
one of the best qualified in medical history, consisting as it did of the
leaders of all the branches of science related to the subject.
Dr. Eugene F. DuBois, Medical Director of the Russell Sage Foundation
(subsequently chief physician at the New York Hospital, and Professor of
Physiology at Cornell University Medical College) directed the experiment.
The study was designed to find the answers to five questions about which
there was some debate:
1. Does the withholding of vegetable foods cause scurvy?
2. Will an all-meat diet cause other deficiency diseases?
3. Will it cause mineral deficiencies, of calcium in particular?
4. Will it have a harmful effect on the heart, blood vessels or kidneys?
5. Will it promote the growth of harmful bacteria in the gut?
The results of the year-long trial were published in 1930 in the Journal
of Biological Chemistry and showed that the answer to all of the questions
was: no. There were no deficiency problems; the two men remained perfectly
healthy; their bowels remained normal, except that their stools were smaller
and did not smell. The absence of starchy and sugary carbohydrates from
their diet appeared to have only good effects.
Once again, Stefansson discovered that he felt better and was healthier
on a diet that restricted carbohydrates. Only when fats were restricted
did he suffer any problems. During this experiment his intake had varied
between 2,000 and 3,100 calories per day and he derived, by choice, an
average of eighty percent of his energy from animal fat and the other twenty
percent from protein.
One interesting finding from a heart disease perspective was that Stefansson's
blood cholesterol level fell by 1.3 mmol/l while on the all-meat diet,
rising again at the end of the study when he resumed a 'normal' diet.
But the published results had little effect on the people trying to
lose weight in 1930. A diet that allowed as much meat as one could eat
and also allowed a large proportion of fat must contain lots of calories.
To the average slimmer, lots of calories meant putting on weight.
The evidence mounts
In 1933, a clinical study carried out at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh
studied the effects of low- and high-calorie diets, ranging from 800 to
2,700 kcals.
Average daily losses:
-
high carb/low fat diet - 49g [like a modern slimming diet]
-
high carb/low protein - 122g
-
low carb/high protein - 183g
-
low carbohydrate/high fat - 205g
Drs Lyon and Dunlop pointed out that:
'The most striking feature of the table is that the losses
appear to be inversely proportionate to the carbohydrate content of the
food. Where the carbohydrate intake is low the rate of loss in weight is
greater and conversely.'
In other words, the less carbohydrate was eaten, the greater was the amount
of weight lost.
In 1955 Dr Albert Pennington in the USA also found that: 'weight loss
appeared to be inversely related to the amount of glycogenic materials
in the diet. Carbohydrate is 100 per cent, protein 58 per cent and fat
10 per cent glycogenic.' (In other words, the more a food increased insulin
production, the less weight was lost - and in this respect, to lose weight,
again carbohydrate was worst and fat best.)
Pennington continued: 'The recommended diet is a calorically unrestricted
one, very low in carbohydrate, high in fat and moderate in protein. Neither
fat nor protein is restricted, however.'
Pennington's diet was so successful that it was reported in Holiday
magazine, where it became known as 'The Holiday Diet'.
Professor Alan Kekwick and Dr Gaston Pawan had similar results: In a
trial at the Middlesex Hospital, London, overweight patients:
-
lost the most weight on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet
-
lost the least weight on a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet
-
Lost weight even at 2,600 calories a day - but only on a high-fat diet.
In 1959, Dr John Yudkin, Professor of Nutrition and Dietetics, Queen Elizabeth
Hospital, University of London, confirmed Kekwick and Pawan's findings
when he showed that a diet with unlimited protein and fat, but with little
or no carbohydrate was far more effective in causing weight loss than a
calorie-controlled, low-fat diet.
During the 1950s, another British physician, Dr Richard Mackarness,
found that the low-carb, high-fat diet was so successful with his overweight
patients that he wrote a book that was in print for nearly twenty years
- a feat almost unheard of in the slimming book industry. It was Dr Mackarness
who introduced this concept to me in 1962 and so dramatically changed the
lives of my family and me. In the forty years since, none of my family
has been overweight, although we were before that date.
As time passed and praising the value of fat became politically incorrect,
it became more difficult to get such trials published. Nevertheless, it
did happen occasionally.
Published in the year 2000, a prospective study was conducted to evaluate
the effect of a low carbohydrate, high-protein/fat diet in achieving short-term
weight loss. Researchers at the Center for Health Services Research in
Primary Care, Durham, North Carolina, reported data from a six-month study
that included fifty-one individuals who were overweight, but otherwise
healthy.
The subjects received nutritional supplements and attended bi-weekly
group meetings, where they received dietary counseling on consuming a low-carbohydrate,
high-protein/fat diet. After six months, they had lost, on average, more
than ten percent of their weight and (remember this for later) their total
cholesterol dropped by an average 10.5 mg/dl (0.27 mmol/l).
Twenty patients chose to continue the diet after the first six months,
and after twelve months, their mean weight loss was 10.9 percent and their
total cholesterol had decreased by 14.1 mg/dl (0.37 mmol/l).
Dr William S. Yancy, M.D. admitted that:
'This study of overweight individuals showed that a low carbohydrate,
high-protein/fat diet can lead to significant weight loss at one year of
treatment.'
All these recommendations and evidence could have saved a great deal of
grief, trauma and ill-health if two other doctors had been listened to
in 1994. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Professor Susan Wooley
and Dr David Gardner highlighted the role of the professional in people's
increasing weight. They said:
'The failure of fat people to achieve a goal they seem to want
- and to want above all else - must now be admitted for what it is: a failure
not of those people but of the methods of treatment that are used.'
In other words, blaming the overweight for their problem and telling them
they are eating too much and must cut down, is simply not good enough.
It is the dieticians' advice and the treatment offered that are wrong.
Wooley and Garner concluded:
'We should stop offering ineffective treatments aimed at weight
loss. Researchers who think they have invented a better mousetrap should
test it in controlled research before setting out their bait for the entire
population. Only by admitting that our treatments do not work - and showing
that we mean it by refraining from offering them - can we begin to undo
a century of recruiting fat people for failure.'
But of course there is a 'better mousetrap'. William Banting wrote of it
nearly a century and a half ago.
Weight
Loss - Holistic Natural and Healthy Solutions to Weight Problems - part
1
Fats That Make You
Thin
It may go against all you've been taught, but the right kind of fats
are your friends when it comes to weight loss. Good fats provide
satiety and stabilize blood sugar levels, helping you feel full and satisfied
for hours instead of minutes. These healthy fats can even boost the body's
metabolic rate and, since fat is metabolized slowly, decrease the rate
at which carbohydrates are released into your system. It's just a matter
of knowing which fats are good for you and how to get them into your diet.
Flaxoil to help lose weight
"Adding
flaxseed oil to your foods, or taken with a meal, creates a feeling of
satiation (feeling of fullness and satisfaction following a meal). The
essential fats in flaxseed oil cause the stomach to retain food for a longer
period of time as compared to no-fat or low-fat foods. The addition of
Flax Oil to food results in a gradual release of nutritients into the small
intestine. The physiological effect is a slow, sustained rise in blood
sugar, then a prolonged plateau of blood sugar. Ultimately, the blood sugar
undergoes a slow and gradual drop. You will experience a corresponding
feeling of prolonged energy, stamina and satisfaction with no immediate
hunger pangs following the meal. The net result is that you feel fuller,
longer and, actually eat fewer calories in the long run than if you would
have chosen a no-fat or low-fat diet."
Eat
Fat, Lose Weight : The Right Fats Can Make You Thin for Life
It may go against all you've been taught, but trust me: Fat is your
friend when it comes to weight loss. It is my belief that most weight gain
is more related to this nation's over-consumption of fat-free carbohydrates
than a result of too much fat. And while we're over-consuming carbs, we're
suffering from a nutritional deficiency. Yes, believe it. We're not getting
enough good fat. Good fats provide satiety and stabilize blood sugar levels,
helping you feel full and satisfied for hours instead of minutes. These
healthy fats can even boost the body's metabolic rate and, since fat is
metabolized slowly, decrease the rate at which carbohydrates are released
into your system. It's just a matter of knowing which fats are good for
you and how to get them into your diet. "Adding flaxseed oil to your foods,
or taken with a meal, creates a feeling of satiation (feeling of fullness
and satisfaction following a meal). The essential fats in flaxseed oil
cause the stomach to retain food for a longer period of time as compared
to no-fat or low-fat foods. The addition of Flax Oil to food results in
a gradual release of nutritients into the small intestine. The physiological
effect is a slow, sustained rise in blood sugar, then a prolonged plateau
of blood sugar. Ultimately, the blood sugar undergoes a slow and gradual
drop. You will experience a corresponding feeling of prolonged energy,
stamina and satisfaction with no immediate hunger pangs following the meal.
The net result is that you feel fuller, longer and, actually eat fewer
calories in the long run than if you would have chosen a no-fat or low-fat
diet." learn more
Available
natural herbal weight loss products and and more information.
Listen
to FREE Educational Audio Interview on Weight Loss, with Truman Berst,
Master Herbalist
Fats
That Heal, Fats That Kill : The Complete Guide to Fats, Oils, Cholesterol
and Human Health
Udo's book is an answer to health and nutrition issues present in developed
countries today. His comprehensive presentation of what exactly happens
at the moleculear level with foods that we (inhabitants of developed countries)
typically consume puts a unique perspective on what our bodies need. His
detailed treatment of trans-fats, essential fatty acids, and other fats
and oils makes perfect sense from when it comes to analyzing the claims
of the thousands of diet proposals one finds in print and on line. His
is a common sense approach, with the premise we are what we "eat, drink,
and breath." The acknowledgement that nutritional deficiencies related
to consuming "white grain, white sugar, and white fat" is enough to stop
and make anyone think about what they are actually putting into their bodies,
and what the effects are. With the rise of diabetes and other disease related
food consumption on the increase, the warning is stated clearly. Having
had grandparents, who ate in a way paralleling Udo's recommendations, that
live well into their 90s with minimal health issues, acts as a "proof of
concept" for me. I don't want to sound pushy by saying that everyone should
be reading this, but give it a try and draw your own conclusions.
This book should be required reading in every high school health class.
Why? For way too long, even those who are health conscious with the best
intentions have made critical mistakes in choosing our fats and oils. For
example, for years I purchased unrefined oils of "macrobiotic quality",
packaged in a clear bottle and used them at high heat...a critical mistake!
Read this book and find out why!!
Even worse are those who are consuming fats that are "illness by prescription"--and
don't know it. Learn the truth, corroborated with good science, get informed,
use the information.
This book is THE quintessential one on making one of the most vital
decisions in your daily cuisine. Erasmus has a gift of taking the complex
and making it an easy read. More importantly, one can, after reading this
book, use the information to reach for your maximum health potential.
If you have a desire to be as healthy as your genetics will allow, then
do not skip this book---it is as critical as anything you do, including
check-ups and medical tests. Many studies have demonstrated a very close
association between consumption of unsaturated oils and the incidence of
cancer. learn more
The
Guilt Free Organic Chocolate Treat! Delicious, healthy organic
chocolate with 11 nutritious herbs from the rain forest.
Coconut
and Pine Nut Oils: Healthy Choices For Weight Reduction One
of the remarkable things about coconut oil is that it can help you lose
weight. Yes, there is a dietary fat that can actually help you take off
unwanted pounds. Coconut oil can quite literally be called a low-fat fat.
Raymond Peat, Ph.D. - "The anti-obesity effect of coconut oil
is clear in all of the animal studies, and in my friends who eat it regularly."
Mary G. Enig, Ph.D - "Coconut oil has a unique role in the diet
as an important physiologically functional food. The health and nutritional
benefits that can be derived from consuming coconut oil have been recognized
in many parts of the world for centuries. A review of the diet/heart disease
literature relevant to coconut oil clearly indicates that coconut oil is
at worst neutral with respect to atherogenicity of fats and oils and, in
fact, is likely to be a beneficial oil for prevention and treatment of
some heart disease. Additionally, coconut oil provides a source of antimicrobial
lipid for individuals with compromised immune systems and is a nonpromoting
fat with respect to chemical carcinogenesis."
Traditionally, polyunsaturated oils such as soybean
oil have been used for livestock feed because they cause the animals
to gain weight. These oils are made up of what is known as long chain fatty
acids--the kind of fatty acids that promote weight gain. (4)
Coconut
oil, on the other hand, is a saturated fat made up primarily of medium
chain fatty acids. Also known as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), medium
chain fatty acids are known to increase metabolism and promote weight loss.
Coconut oil can also raise basal body temperatures while increasing metabolism.
This is good news for people who suffer with low thyroid function. There
have been scores of testimonies to this effect.
One happy individual writes:
"I am just now jumping on the coconut oil bandwagon (about three weeks
now) and I’m really starting to feel GREAT! I have suffered from severe
migraines for the past 25 years, the last 15 becoming increasingly severe,
coinciding with the addition of soy and the” low-fat mentality” to my diet.
Nothing helped! I should be experiencing my pre-menstrual migraine by now
and instead I feel like I could climb Mt. Everest! Also I wondered if it
decreased the waist to hip ratio because mine has gone from 7.2 all my
life to 7 (or something like that). I think I had the sluggish thyroid
too, with a low body temperature of between 96 and 96.8. Now it’s starting
to climb for the first time in years. " V. Potter
Learn
more about the health benefits of coconut oil
100%
pure coconut oil
Miracle
of Coconut oil: Hypothyroidism and slow metabolism A gain in weight
could be the result of hypothyroidism and slow metabolism. t is a known
fact that the fatty acid chains in coconut oil, known as medium chain fatty
acids (MCFAs) or medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), offer wonderful health
benefits and are no where found more abundantly in nature outside coconut
oil. Coconut oil offers much promise today to sufferers of hypothyroidism
and slow metabolism. For the hypothyroid
sufferer the MCTs rev up the body's sluggish metabolism and promote
weight loss as well. There are many side effects of a sluggish thyroid
gland and the resulting slower metabolism. First of all, it effects
your energy level greatly, and with a slower metabolism and subsequent
reduction in activity (and energy) there is often unwanted weight gain.
Citri-Shape®
HCA (Hydroxycitric Acid) Formula
Citri-Shape is a unique weight-loss product developed by a major pharmaceutical
company in the 1980's. It has also been studied in other research laboratories.
The active ingredient in Citri-Shape is hydroxycitric acid (HCA), a natural
extract from the dried rind of Garcina Cambogia, a small reddish fruit
used for cooking, curries and medicinal purposes in India.
Numerous scientific studies have shown that HCA curbs appetite, reduces
food intake, inhibits liopgenesis (the process by which your body produces
fat) and lowers fat and cholesterol storage levels. All this without the
adverse side effects caused by prescription drugs.
How Does HCA Work?
HCA exerts its anti-obesity effects through its inhibition of an enzyme
called ATP Citrate Lyase, which plays a critical role in energy storage,
and in turn, affects your appetite. The appetite comes from feedback signals
between your stomach and brain that make you feel hungry. When you eat,
your food is reduced to the simple sugar glucose, which is then converted
into energy to keep you alive and healthy. When your calorie intake exceeds
your body's energy needs, the excess glucose is converted into glycogen,
which is stored in your liver and muscles for future conversion into energy
as needed.
Weight gain occurs after your body's limited capacity for glycogen storage
is reached. At this point, glucose from excessive caloric intake is converted
into Acetyl Coenzyme A via a metabolic pathway involving ATP-Citrate Lyase
and then into lipid (fat) molecules, which are stored in fat cells throughout
your body. HCA inhibits this process by binding tightly to ATP-Citrate
Lyase to reduce the production of Acetyl Coenzyme A, which reduces your
body's production of fat and cholesterol. HCA also increases the ability
of your liver and muscles to synthesize and store glycogen, which, in turn
suppresses your appetite and cravings for food.
Weight Loss Effects of HCA are Dose Dependent
When Albino Wistar rats were fed a high-fat diet (with or without HCA)
for 15 days by scientists at the Central Food Technological Research Institute
in Mysore, India, they observed that the inclusion of HCA in the diet resulted
in significant reductions in food intake, body weight, body fat, and serum
triglyceride levels, as well as a significant decrease in the feed efficiency
ratio. (Ntr Res, 8:209-212: 1988).
The doses of HCA used in this study ranged from 0.5 to 2.0 grams per
100 grams of food. With the greater amount of HCA used, the greater the
weight loss exhibited by the experimental animals. The scientists concluded
that the direct effects of HCA on food intake, body weight and food efficiency
ratio was "supported by the fact that the magnitude of the changes in these
parameters were found to be dose dependent."
HCA Induces Weight Loss in Humans
Trials of HCA at the University of South Carolina and the University
of Arizona showed that HCA has no adverse side effects. A double-blind
study in 1991 by Dr. Anthony Conte, of Hilton Head, South Carolina, studied
22 obese volunteers, using the combination of HCA, chromium and a caloric
restricted diet. He found that over a two-month period, subjects who took
the HCA/chromium combination, lost an average of 11 pounds, compared to
an average loss of only 4 pounds in control subjects. (The Bariatrician,
Summer, 1993, p. 17-19).
Click
here to learn more (scroll down to the WEIGHT MANAGEMENT section and
click on the items listed)
A new lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) forced the release of piles of government documents clearly showing
the correlation between the chemical substances put into our food and the
obesity epidemic in America. learn more: Stop
Poisoning Yourself and Lose Weight!
Negative
calorie foods are foods, which use more calories to digest than the calories
the foods actually contain! Calories from these foods are much harder for
the body to breakdown and process. The body has to work harder in order
to extract calories from these foods. This gives these foods a tremendous
natural fat-burning advantage.
"The
Weight Loss eBook. Negative Calorie Foods and Recipes." eBook
gives a list of these negative calorie foods with their nutrition values,
and how to incorporate these foods into your daily diet. It gives you TWO
Diet Programs along with over 75 recipes of a wide variety of desserts,
soups, salads, vegetables, pickles, sauces, etc. consisting of negative
calorie food ingredients. The dozens of delicious, mouth-watering, and
nutrition-packed recipes with natural negative calorie food ingredients
in right combination will allow you to rejuvenate your metabolism, supercharging
its ability to burn off fat. You will be surprised how your diet, metabolism,
and figure will improve. The eBook will tell you:
Why do people get fat?
Tips for calorie intake
Trips for calorie burning
List of negative calorie foods
Recipes with negative calorie foods
Do you have lower metabolism?
How to increase your metabolism?
and much more
Tips to boost
your metabolism
Natural Weight Loss part 1 
What
Every Parent Should Know BEFORE Their Childen Are Vaccinated! Why
are a growing number of parents and health care professionals around the
world questioning vaccination? The controversy stems from the thousands
of deaths and permanent disabilities attributed to vaccination annually,
as well as the many published medical studies, government statistics, congressional
testimonies, and other credible sources that directly contradict commonly
held assumptions about vaccine safety and effectiveness.
More pictures of vaccine damage available to view at the
CDC
website
"Bart Classen, a Maryland physician, published data showing
that diabetes rates rose significantly in New Zealand following a massive
hepatitis B vaccine campaign in young children, and that diabetes rates
also went up sharply in Finland after three new childhood vaccines were
introduced." Nicholas
Regush ABCNEWS.com
In fall 1997, two influential professional magazines featured articles
asking the question: Has the decrease of infectious diseases in childhood
through the mass use of vaccines been replaced with an increase in chronic
diseases such as diabetes and asthma? The Economist, a prestigious international
magazine read by world leaders in government, business and public policy,
and Science News, a magazine read by both health care professionals and
the general public, explored the reported links between vaccines and chronic
diseases in their November 22, 1997 issues. Learn
more about vaccine and diabetes connection --- asthma and
vaccine connection --- SIDS and autism and vaccine connection
--- "Shaken Baby Syndrome": the vaccination link
Congressman is calling for criminal penalties for any government
agency that knew about the dangers of thimerosal in vaccines and did nothing
to protect American children.
Congressman Dan Burton (R-Indiana)
during Congressional Hearing: "You mean to tell me that since 1929, we've
been using Thimerosal, and the only test that you know of is from
1929, and every one of those people had mennigitis, and they all died?"
For nearly an hour, Burton repeatedly asked FDA and CDC officials what
they knew and when they knew it. (Thimerosal contains a related mercury
compound called ethyl mercury. Mercury is a toxic metal that can cause
immune, sensory, neurological, motor, and behavioral dysfunctions.)
Please get informed!Enter the vaccine information
site
Homeopathy
can be used successfully to prevent and treat smallpox, measles,
whooping
cough, chickenpox, and other ailments.
Would you allow big brother to enforce vaccinations on your kids? Government
Enforced Vaccinations
Vaccination Tracking Registry - Government programs
that limit your choices -and your rights- in health care when it comes
to mandatory vaccination. These mandates last for 40 or so years
and they're impossible to repeal. Also, learn about Legal Requirements
and Exemptions
Are Vaccines Damaging Our Pets?
Routine Vaccination:
Is it really safe and effective? Most recently, an article
appeared in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association
entitled "Are We Vaccinating Too Much?"
Lose
Weight Naturally and Effortlessly Part
2 of 2 Part 1
Optimum
Nutrition and Natural Health for Animals:
Holistic
Health for Horses,
for
dogs,
for Pet Birds,
for 
Ferrets
and for Cats
Natural
Health for Women:
Do you have a question or need guidance? Patricia Wilson volunteers her time to provide guidance and support in your quest to find relevant information. She
can be reached at 206-222-1619 or 281-581-2424 (USA) or
