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If we are to believe the recent stories in the news, then
according to the news papers, radio and TV stations, the low carb diet is dead
and now the GI diet reigns supreme.
Let’s just take a look at a few of the stories that have been
around of late.
Firstly, the company that sells Atkins food and snack
products has closed in the UK. The news reports cite poor sales due to people
not buying because the diet was bad.
Then you have the Advertising Authority demanding that Atkins
products must not make claims that the Low carb diet promotes a healthy
lifestyle.
Well, let’s have a look at these in a wider context. The
company that sells the Atkins food products in the UK indeed went into
receivership because it was not making enough money. And we can probably
attribute that to a lack of sales. But that is not in any way indicative that
the diet is bad. What it does demonstrate, however, is that people following the
low carb regimes did not want to buy the products that’s for sure.
The reasons for this are manifold, but here are just a few
suggestion: Many of the products were very similar to the conventional
nut-n-grain bar thingies that people on standard diets eat. People we asked
said that the price was too high. Why pay through the nose for something when
you get more satisfaction and better lowcarbiness with a selection from the
supermarket deli counter? The UK market is substantially different from the
North American market. While UK consumers do purchase a lot of convenience food
and snacks, they are not yet quite as keen buyers as, say, the US consumers.
The last thing is probably where the UK market was underestimated. British
buyers are without a doubt much more conservative to the point of being
downright cautious about new things. It’s enough to adopt a radical and some
might say, unconventional diet, but buying all those snack things is just a step
or two too far. An integral part of the problem is the use of net-carbs in order
to justify the lowcarbiness of the products. In simple terms, this offers the
assumption that not all carbs are equal and that some foods are absorbed by the
body more than others. It follows, apparently, some can even be ignored in the
carb count. And according to the powers that be the consensus is that “Net
carbs are THE way forward in the next part of the low–carb revolution”
Well, when you have the sage wisdom of old Dr A and many
other proponents of low carb living, declaring a carb is a carb is a carb; it
rubs one up the wrong way to follow any other line. In fact, doesn’t the net
carb stance seem a lot like the GI Glycomic Index position? It would appear
that the net carb promoters have in fact shot themselves in the foot. They
have, after all, strongly promoted the GI diet by default. Then they wonder why
products don’t sell and people adopt an alternative – when that’s the very thing
they have been encouraging.
One wonders on just what evidence the Advertising Authority
decided that the low carb diet did not promote a healthy lifestyle. It appears
from the news reports that the main reason it gave was that the low carb regime
“conflicted with UK Government advice on achieving a balanced diet, which among
other things stated that starchy foods should make up about one-third of
people's diets."
Of course, it never occurred to them that perhaps the UK
Government advice is based on dubious ‘science’ that has it’s origins in
sponsorship from grain sellers and other vested interests – food for thought
there.
Lastly, it must intrigue some people that it was Dr A who was
the target of much of the ridicule and vitriol. Most of the time these attacks
were based around the ‘facts’ that a low carb diet was not healthy and that it
could cause a lot of health problems ‘some time’ in the future.
Of course some time in the future is a great place to have
problems as you don’t have to and can’t possibly offer any proof because its ‘going to’ happen some time in the
future. That way, you can make any accusation you like about what may or may
not happen and just rest on your position as an expert because well... you
should know because you’re an expert. And this is really going to happen – some
time in the future. (the expert has prognosticated - so there).
When the odd person who happens
to have followed a low-carb regime has a heart attack or another health problem,
then this is seen as proof.
Today, many of us know people
who have had heart attacks that follow a high carb diet. I would like to offer that as proof that
following a high carb diet can cause heart attacks. After all such ‘sound
reasoning’ must work both ways. However, are the ‘dangers’ of a low carb diet
the real reason that Dr A in particular was picked upon? Probably not. After
all, there are many others who have very similar diets, but you don't see them
taken to task.
If you look at how effective a
low carb diet coupled with vitamin and mineral supplementation is, particularly
in the treatment of diabetes, heart condition and a host of other ailments that
conventional health care treats with drugs, then you couple that with how cheap
this type of diet/vitamins treatment is and that it is largely drug free - then
perhaps we might be getting near to the real itchy issues.
Maybe now you can appreciate
just how many ‘high earning toes’ the good doctor was treading on and why he was
treated the way he was.
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