A rash of posts from members having an attack of the munchies reminded me that I was going to post links to Hidden 's "everyday eating on LCHF" reports. Apart from being ridiculously tasty-looking, Beee's meals are 100% healthy weight-loss food.
Should any of you be feeling somewhat deprived as you contemplate your morning bowl of fat-free porridge, or catch yourself daydreaming about a proper meal, have a look at these. Maintaining a healthy weight doesn't have to be purgatory. Remember, if you can't sustain it forever, it doesn't matter how much weight you lose this week or this month.
Oats with full fat yoghurt and some berries seems a long way from being junk food. I'm not really sure what's wrong with complex carbohydrates. They are still recommended on the nhs website to some up about a third of your daily food. Has that advise changed?
I agree it's not exactly junk food, but neither is it an optimal choice for weight loss or general health. The term "Complex carbohydrates" doesn't mean anything either to a chemist or to your body - oats end up as glucose, fairly rapidly, the same as a slice of white bread or a burger bun; that elicits a large insulin response, and for most people the only cells that can respond and take up that glucose are fat cells. Over time your whole metabolism is tilted away from fat-burning. A typical bowl of porridge presents a Glycemic Load of 13-15; that's the same as a slice of plain sponge cake. For comparison, a glass of Coke, sweetened fruit juice, or a portion of fries is around 20. Scrambled eggs: zero, plus or minus.
The net result is that people who eat regular doses of "complex carbs" find it increasingly difficult to go more than a couple of hours without food, and end up carrying far more bodyfat than they need to.
If you're a healthy young adult, a bowl of porridge isn't going to do you any harm. But as we get older - especially those of us who sit in an office chair all day - eating a bowl of porridge every day isn't ideal.
And yes, the advice is changing (slowly ... in the manner of an oil tanker changing course). There was a big debate about it in Parliament very recently - it's on YouTube somewhere if you're interested. The NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme has taken on board much of the updated advice from experts. Dr David Unwin - who in some sense kicked off the whole debate in the UK - has basically become the NHS's unofficial diet guru.
The problem is that the NHS is a big organisation, and it's sometimes a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Advice leaflets are often produced by graphic designers and people with a health-supplement knowledge of nutrition, not doctors or experts on metabolic diseases. It'll get there in the end. In the meantime, as BridgeGirl said: read, consider, and make your own decisions. We don't have to do as we're told, especially if we're not getting the advertised results.
Having said all that ... my main point here was to show that healthy food is also delicious food. Some people like porridge. Each to their own, of course. But a lot of us eat it because we think we have to, and don't enjoy it very much.
Complex carbs is just the common term for polymers of sugars. We didn't study about carbohydrates in my chemistry degree, however during my PhD in food bioscience we certainly looked at the benefits of carbohydrates which we can't metabolise for the important role they play in gut bacteria health and reducing gut cancers. I think this idea that all sugars are created equal is misleading. So basically are you saying I might as well have a bowl of sucrose for breakfast as its the same as my porridge? And ignoring the other benefits that you get from eating a mix of carbohydrates.
I enjoy everything I eat, including porriage and will continue to view it as healthy and not on par with "junk food".
>> Complex carbs is just the common term for polymers of sugars
I suppose so. But it's a very imprecise term - does it, for example, include glycogen, synthetically-modified starches, or dextrins? - and it has no useful physiological meaning. A nutritionist will use the phrase to describe both white rice and a slice of rye bread, even though they have somewhat different effects on the body. As you said, indigestible and resistant starches are also "complex carbs", but they're treated completely differently by your gut.
>> So basically are you saying I might as well have a bowl of sucrose for breakfast as its the same as my porridge?
No, of course not. In fact one of the things I regularly rail against is the nutritionist's habit of boiling everything down to carbs, fat, and protein. I'm aware that the Glycemic Load concept has its limitations. And I'm not saying carbs are evil.
I'm really just pointing out that a starch-heavy meal inevitably causes a large blood-sugar excursion which your body must bring under control. If your aggregate capacity for sinking a large metabolic power flow is inadequate - which is the case for many sedentary older people - then you're going to experience the repeated effects of glucose toxicity during the overshoot. Your body will adapt its control response around this, of course, but it can only do so up to a point. When the required adaptation has no mathematical solution, you're in trouble.
If you like porridge, then fair enough. I'm not going to tell you what you should or shouldn't enjoy. But a lot of people don't (they eat it because they think it's uber-healthy) and they'd be better off eating something different. That's particularly true if they have impaired carbohydrate metabolism (prediabetes) or they're finding it hard to lose weight. The problem is that they're discouraged from doing so. My aim here was merely to flag up some tasty possibilities.
Is there any way these posts can be shared on the weightloss site HappyBee? I love to try new foid ideas but don't really want to join the LCHF forum? Are they diet doctor recipies? If so yes, I love them already!!!
Thank you for posting them and sharing good eating practice.
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Does the NHS know what it's talking about? 
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Advent Treats Challenge - Wednesday, 2nd December
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