The Carb-Sane Asylum

You're kidding, right? What?  This is a serious question?  Why yes it is! I've got some things to say -- hopefully in the next week or so -- about Tim Noakes running afoul of the Health Professions Council in his country for advocating a woman wean her child onto a LCHF diet.  But I had a Twitter exchange of my own the past couple of days, in which I basically encouraged folks to hijack the  # WeSupportTimNoakes hashtag.  This is being started to, well, support Noakes against his percieved persecution.  Said Twitter exchange took me to a podcast page with a sidebar image showing the Facebook post screenshot below, and leading me to this podcast:   Alcohol and the LCHF Diet: Can you drink when Banting? For Real?? No ... not the Onion website!   [it's a mighty good thing I didn't have an adult beverage in hand when I came across this!]

Part I Fattening Things: (It's been a little while, sorry) ... Before continuing (and completing) this discussion, let me preface this post by saying that there is no single food or macronutrient that is inherently fattening in and of itself.  For any food -- let's say pizza because that is blamed quite often -- you can find obese people that are not big fans, and you can find bean poles who basically live off of the stuff (and wash it down with Coke).   But I do believe certain foods have demonstrated themselves to be problematic for a large enough proportion of the population so as to be designated:   potentially fattening . Try as some may to rationalize against it, the bottom line is that if you eat too much of anything, the body's long term storage facility for that is fat tissue.   Your most potentially fattening foods, therefore, are: Those (generally fat + carb combos) highly palatable foods that are easy to eat a lot of in and of themselves...

I have to give credit where credit is due. In his zeal to dismiss the role of calories in weight (fat) gain or loss, Ian Lane makes a pretty good case for why alcohol is not likely to be the carbon source for accumulated fat .  In doing so, however, he accidentally all but exonerates the lowly carbohydrate.  I don't think he meant to do that ...  The particular post in question was the subject of a couple of blog posts recently, see here and here .   It would appear that it has now been officially (in the title line) "revised" to eliminate all of the overt scientific inaccuracies, and focuses on ethanol, which makes it easier to direct readers of this post to just the part in question!  Ian writes: The molecule I'd like to highlight, which, from my perspective, cannot realistically be stored as body fat, is ethyl alcohol , or ethanol . (That’s not to say that ethanol can’t possibly aid in fat accumulation somehow — see below — rather, the calories in etha...

I'm going to have at this abomination that is sweeping the nation faster than Wheat Belly and Fructose Alarmism combined, or so it seems.  But Grain Brain promises to be a classic from first blush.  Yes ... I just got my "hands" on a Kindle copy. Here's a risk assessment quiz (Kindle Locations 210-227) ... note that if your answer is "sometimes" you are instructed to answer True. 1. I eat bread (any kind). TRUE/ FALSE     2. I drink fruit juice (any kind). TRUE/ FALSE     3. I have more than one serving of fruit a day. TRUE/ FALSE     4. I choose agave over sugar. TRUE/ FALSE 5. I get out of breath on my daily walk. TRUE/ FALSE     6. My cholesterol is below 150. TRUE/ FALSE     7. I have diabetes. TRUE/ FALSE     8. I am overweight. TRUE/ FALSE     9. I eat rice or pasta (any kind). TRUE/ FALSE 10. I drink milk. TRUE/ FALSE