So, anyone coming here espousing the concept has to encompass dumping ALL carbohydrate (outside of course kale and berries). This is critical for any T2 diabetics, no question. And if significant obesity is the problem, then LCHF is the solution.
But, I am uneasy.
Why?
Because I am pushing 70 and when I was growing up fat people were rare, now they are the norm.
Back then it was meat and two veg.
Yes. potato, cabbage and bacon. Even Shredded Wheat (I was raised on Shredded Wheat)
So what's gone wrong?
In my opinion, it's the message.
Don't eat animal fats.
Simple as that.
That's where we are today and the reason I keep posting here.
Written by
MikePollard
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I don’t think all this low fat advice has done anything for the population apart from increase its sugar intake. The move away from real food doesn’t help either.
Don’t forget we were more active back then too. I lived on the edges of the school catchment area and can count on one hand (as far as I can recall) the number of times I was taken to or collected from school in the car and that’s from 5-16. I see neighbours getting into their car to go to the shop a 5min walk away!
It's a funny one. Having read countless books, articles and academic papers on the subject, I don't feel any the wiser on questions like "what causes heart disease?"
As you said, meat and two veg worked out just fine. Heart disease was fairly high back in the day, but diabetes and obesity were unheard-of. There were none of these weird diseases like Hashimoto's and IBS. So it can't be as simple as "carbs are evil".
My guess (and it's only a guess) is this: it's a bit of everything. It's lack of animals fats. It's too much vegetable oil and margarine. It's a sedentary lifestyle. It's the crap in packets and jars that help us "save time". It's subsidized grains. It's snacks and soft drinks. It's stress. Everything.
The nutritionists, by an extraordinary feat of incompetence that surely deserves some sort of award, have hit on the one diet that humans can't cope with, and held it up as a paragon of healthfulness. Government conspires with them to layer on some unhelpful lifestyle factors, and voila.
Re animal fats, in the past livestock would have had a more natural diet, cattle would be grass-fed or largely grass-fed, and sheep probably 100% grass-fed. But some decades ago, I'm guessing around the 1965-1975 things changed and grain-feeding cattle became the norm. Even when cattle are grass-fed (in the UK), they are usually (like 99%) finished on grain for the last 3-4 months before slaughter. According to Australian research, this short period of "finishing" destroys most of the benefit of them being grass-fed, so you might as well be eating feed-lot beef.
Not only that but the cattle have changed as well as those that do well on grain are selected for breeding. Those that do well on grass are different cattle, and you see very few of them around. Even Angus are totally different, they were small, and finished easily on grass, now they are huge and need feeding.
I recently had few years of eating large amounts of very fatty, 100% grass-fed/grass-finished beef, way before I went keto, and my cholesterol figures, according to my doc, improved each year. We don't farm any more, so can't continue having 100% grass-fed beef unfortunately, the taste is soooo good.
Looking back, I stopped eating beef in about 1970 (i'm touching 70 now) because I didn't like the taste. It wasn't till I raise my own beef 100% on grass and tasted it, that I realised that it wasn't me that had changed, it was the beef.
Back in the old days as well, the beef would have been FAR more fatty, and we've have eaten the fat as well. Bet that fat had a proper balance of omega-3/6's and whatever, hence my good blood results.
So I'm not sure it's just fat or not fat, it's maybe what's in the fat and the breeding of the beasts maybe, a bit like fruit being nothing like it was 40 years ago, much more sugar nowadays.
Fascinating to read your response. I’ve often wondered about the impact of the way livestock are fed/reared these days. Thank you for posting your thoughts.
I've read about this sort of thing elsewhere. When I'm in the UK I hardly ever eat supermarket beef because it tastes revolting. God only knows what they do to the poor animals.
I've also tasted genuine pasture-raised (not grain-finished) beef and it is indeed a completely different product. It tastes, in fact, like beef, and yes it does have a significant amount of fat in it.
Hidden : did your doctor have any comment on the nature of your diet, your cholesterol results, and your healthful state? It does, after all, completely contradict the idea that animal fat->high cholesterol->heart disease.
No, I didn't tell my doctor as I didn't want to get into discussion. As a farmer you tend to keep your head down. When the doctor kept telling me that my cholesterol was improving each year, I said I was eating loads of fish, but I wasn't. I did however tell a young doctor member of my family who was very interested.
No, we don't farm any more, fully retired and it's great.
We still only eat grass-fed beef, just about once a week, but I can tell from the taste that it's not usually totally grass-fed and grass-finished. Been having Wagyu lately, really yummy and VERY fatty.
So not really entirely relevant to this thread but I have recently bought some free range eggs from Asda. The yolks are really light in colour when compared to equivalent eggs from other supermarkets. So makes me wonder what these free range hens are being fed too?
I think free range is somewhat open to interpretation. If the hens are truly free range they will eat grass and that makes the yolk a deep yellow, which is of course is more nutritious.
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