Scare tactics?

The popularity of low and no carbs diets has really shot up lately. The reason behind it is that they work. The results can really be seen almost immediately. From my personal experience, I can’t say anything bad about ditching carbs. I have more energy and it’s constant – no more ups and downs during the day. Furthermore, it does not matter how much sleep I got the night before, I function the same during the day on 4 hours of sleep or 8. Of course, there is an initial adjustment period – aka keto flu – but after that it’s just getting better. My immune system also got better and this flu season has totally bypassed me, unlike the previous year.

I have initially used a low carb diet to lose weight and it worked. It worked too well and I wanted to gain some back but as muscle and not fat. I was also able to achieve this with totally carb free diet and exercise. It’s still work in progress as I want another 7 kg on me. However, I can understand how hard it can be to take the plunge and stop eating carbs. They are addictive after all. The cravings, while diminishing, still persisted months into it. When you read articles saying it takes 3 days for your body to adjust, it’s not true. It takes weeks and then some. Articles like these are designed to discourage people from trying. I know people who gave up after a week or two and said that they must be genetically predisposed to eat carbs and went back into them with a vengeance. Most of the “scientific” articles about nutrition, health and diet are sponsored by large agricultural corporations that made a lot of money on cheaply manufactured food with high profit margins, like cereal. Oh, and let’s not forget tons of added sugar which fits the bill as well – cheap to make and added to everything. Then you have the CEO of Coca Cola Amatil (Australia) citing some study that showed obesity rates gone up while sugar consumption going down as a reason behind the obesity epidemic could not possibly be soft drinks. She conveniently omitted the fact that the study said that while the ratio of sugar to other foods has gone down, it does not mean that overall consumption of sugar has also gone down. The study did not specify if people just eat more of everything (which is also a real problem as portion sizes get bigger – would you like fries with your burger? upsize?).

Another study lately scares people that low carb diet will shorten their lives. There’s a couple of issues with this study. First of all, it relies on surveys of what people remember what they ate. Right, I can’t even remember what I had 2 nights ago let alone for the whole week or month. People also feel guilty about eating too much sweets and will under-report it. Secondly, the study only compares between 30 and above 65% range carbs ratio not 0 carbs but extrapolates the results to assume that the less the worse. There are many other issues with these kind of studies.

Yet another study claims that it followed subjects over a 25 years, but only checked their eating habits twice in that period and used those findings to assume that’s how they ate over the whole 25 years. It is absolutely worthless. Who would fund studies with so many holes in them that even a school aged kids would not take them seriously? The very corporations that would financially suffer if people would turn away from sugar and carbs. They must think that we are all idiots…

And the medical industry is also guilty. They are addicted to the money that sick people part with hoping for a cure. And lets face it, no sickness = no profits = no medical industry. No wonder therefore that reports to the diet advisory committees are biased. So now you have doctors claiming that coconut oil is pure poison. But no mention of the fact that now even children are getting type 2 diabetes in large numbers. I guess, sugar consumption has nothing to do with it… right…

The bottom line is that there will be a big change to where the money is going once people ditch carbs. Carbs are addictive while fat is not. Imagine if you can function all day on a some protein and a bit of fat (these days I can go without food for long periods of time without any bad side effects like headaches or feeling weak) instead of munching on carbs every couple of hours. There will be more money left in people’s pockets at the end of the day if they do not eat so often – all those muffins and donuts do add up even if they’re only a few bucks each.

So, yes, the big agra and big pharma know that if the tide turns the other way, their profits will suffer. There are 2 ways to deal with the change: embrace and diversify the business to future-proof it, or dig in and try to stop it. Seems to me that they are choosing option 2. Shame, really.