A question that comes up frequently in my LCHF posts is this one:
"Why are the NHS not telling us the facts about diet? Why are they still pushing the low-fat, high-carbohydrate, calorie-controlled diet when it simply don't work?"
The UK now has one of the highest COVID-19 death rates on the planet, even discounting the elderly. Possibly the highest. It's well-established that people with Metabolic Syndrome are at higher risk of COVID-19 complications, and the UK has an awful lot of people with Metabolic Syndrome. Is it merely coincidence, I wonder, that the UK has been fanatically aggressive in pushing low-fat products? It is now almost impossible to find unadulterated/unmodified full-fat foods in the supermarkets. There are few other countries that have gone to such lengths to prevent its population consuming fat.
And at best, it's done us no good. Us Brits are still fat, and still chronically unhealthy. It may actually be killing us.
So here is my proposal, for the consideration of any NHS managers who may be reading.
Dear Managers,
Let's start by making one thing clear. We love the doctors and nurses who work for the NHS. It is they who make the NHS what it is. Britain pretty much invented socialized medicine, and although it's gone down the pan lately, we're still inordinately proud of what the NHS represents. And we really do love those guys who are always there, even when their equipment is substandard and their working conditions are less-than-world-class, to patch us up and send us home feeling better.
But they do waste an awful lot of their time, don't they? Endless queues of people who are overweight, prediabetic, unfit and/or with cardiovascular problems, and for whom medical science has only expensive band-aids, not solutions. Gastric bands. Stents. Statins. Orlistat. Metformin. And then there are the expensive and stressful "treatments" that follow in later years. Heart transplants. Kidney transplants. Hip replacements. Amputations. By the NHS's own estimates, about 25% of the operating budget is wasted on these things. I suspect it's considerably more.
It's common knowledge why these people are ill - and, therefore, why doctors face the Sisyphean task of getting them out of their waiting rooms (or operating rooms), clutching a prescription but with no long-term prospects of getting better. They're eating Bad Food, and they're eating Bad Food because for fifty years, they've been told to eat Bad Food by Experts. The outcome is hardly surprising.
And why are they being given bad advice? It's a bit of a mystery how this happened, but it appears the NHS has handed over responsibility for dietary advice to a shady organisation of amateurs. I won't name names. We all know who they are. The point is, it isn't doctors and scientists giving out the advice, but people whose pronouncements on healthy eating are suspiciously akin to religious beliefs. These beliefs are impervious to rational debate or facts. No amount of scientific falsification, it seems, can make them change their minds about the healthfulness of Bad Food.
Now, it would be politically ticklish to do something about this, wouldn't it? You've removed some of the scientifically-dubious claims from the NHS website - for example, that dietary fat makes you fat, or that it causes heart disease. Well done. But how on earth do you tell the public, that, for decades, they've been fed a load of hogwash by people who should never have been allowed to give advice in the first place? The ambulance-chasing lawyers would have a field day. The NHS would be laid low - possibly demolished - by compensation payouts. Nobody wants to see that happen: what would be the point? What good would be achieved?
But neither can the NHS continue down its current path. The longer it goes on, the higher the chances those lawyers are going to smell blood (and money). Somehow that oil tanker has to turn around. But how?
I think it may actually be simpler than it appears.
Just stop it already. Get out of the diet business, because it was never really a business you should have been associated with in the first place. Stand aside, and nobody else gets hurt. Take down the website pages. Delete all references to the Eatwell Guide. Pretend it never happened. Or pretend you've been hacked. It doesn't really matter: just delete the lot of it, and send the Nutritionism priesthood home on furlough.
You can replace the whole lot with one link to Health Unlocked, and when people come here feeling fat and desperate, we can tell them how damn easy it actually is. Doctors can be left alone, free from interference from unqualified fanatics ... hopefully to go back to their textbooks and figure out what healthy eating should actually look like. And Britain can get off it's well-padded knees, and stand up healthy, slim, and inordinately proud of the NHS.
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TheAwfulToad
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I can only give a personal anecdote. Before my 7 stone loss, due to following LCHF, I was suffering debilitating asthma (now essentially cured) on permanent steroids (now stopped) and progressing with increasingly expensive NHS asthma treatments (now ceased).
My past concerns about being too heavy were typically met with a photocopied calorie counting sheet and a return to a discussion about more drugs.
I have no interest in 'backseat driving' professional medics, but I see no downsides in embracing more contemporary approaches to weight-loss that work.
Diagnosed in January with raised BP, type 2 diabetes (and eventually hypothyroidism) weight 13-7, (BMI 30) had stopped exercising.
Luckily had forward thinking GP who directed me to Dr Jason Fung and therefore IF and LCHF.
I now weigh 11-7, BMI 25.5 and have lost several inches!
I’m back up my allotment and walking 2 miles x4/week. My HbA1c latest was 42 (from 52) and lipid results much improved.
I am no way strict, never went Keto to kick start. Totally cut out bread, rice, pasta (and obviously cake and crisps!) Most of my carbs are fruit...my usual breakfast with full fat Greek yogurt and pumpkin/sunflower seeds for crunch! I’m probably averaging 50-100 carbs, and I’m guessing around 1500 calories (not that I am counting!)
TBH it wasn’t that difficult a concept for me as OH has always said that he would rather trust a cow than a chemist 😂 Low fat spreads have no place in this house!
I tell my colleagues...and they just can’t get their head around eating fat...that eatwell plate does my head in 🙄
Today we had a full fried breakfast (at around 11:30), the only thing I no longer have is bread. I’ll probably just have fruit and yogurt around 7pm. I also have a daily full fat raw milk fresh raspberry yogurt.
...anyhow preaching to the converted here...but it’s so sad to see some of the newbies on HU basically starving themselves, for lack of information about eating proper food...
Well said too. I also find it painful when I log in over breakfast (enjoying my full fat yoghurt with Alpen and a splash of double cream), only to see people embarking on a masochistic starvation diet that I have to believe is likely to end in defeat (and why wouldn't it). The 'diet industry' (and the 'low fat' diet foods and supplements that hang off it) appears to rely upon people forever dieting but never reaching the end.
Where else are u posting coz as u know you're preaching to the converted here!
Wonder what happened to that National Survey (sorry can't remember exact name) which lots of us responded to and got very polite "thank you" messages then nothing to follow up... (I do appreciate individual contributions cant't be "answered" but would love to see the final report..... must look up what it was called....)
ha ... I think several of us replied to that. I guessed it was probably futile, but at least we did speak up - that is, TPTB can't say "oh, we did a public consultation but nobody had any suggestions".
Yes I will have too. When I get my 2 stone I’m going to change my flower🌸
Evening
Thanks for the post. I found reading this and everyone's replies really interesting.
I'm not following LCHF so you're not preaching to the converted for me. However I regularly hear and see others in daily diary or weigh in's singing it's praises and it sounds like it works really well.
I am completely new to healthy eating and think there is definately a diet industry that appears to benefit from others...
I like the NHS 12 week plan for the emphasis on healthy eating and increase in exercise. I also ignore some of its advice... I think being aware of calories is fine as long as you have a balanced diet and continue to enjoy different types of food - including cream etc.. (I've failed to cut out bread - sorry!)..
However - it should change its advice on the calorie counting and emphasise that people should follow the amount that is given. The amount of folk (myself included) that have had to be corrected about 1400 (a stupidly low amount for many) by kind people on here appears large. It's a waste of time for folk to have to do on this forum.
I'm also concerned about people who follow this advice and don't have support places or people to correct. Some of the posts on this forum make me think that food is a complex issue and mental health too. Incorrect advice setting people up to fail and no doubt spiral - should be changed..
Hi Violet, I hadn't even heard of LCHF before coming here. I was on low fat calorie counting for the umpteenth time in my life. This different approach has certainly made sense to me. One of the things that caused me to stop and rethink was the idea that "all calories are not equal" in that fat is processed differently by the body than carbs. I'm not expert enough to explain it myself, but it is worth reading up about to see what you think. I've stopped counting them.
Thanks for the considered response, but I'm afraid I have to disagree on the "emphasis on healthy eating" part.
I'm sure you're right that the NHS Eatwell Plate and the 12-week "plan" (I put that in quotes because it's too shambolic, long-winded and inconsistent to be an actual lifestyle plan) is an improvement on what many people eat. It's good to encourage regular exercise. But if you can pick out any sort of coherent thread in the advice, it boils down to this:
- Eat as many carbs as possible.
- Avoid fat like the plague (reason: it contains energy).
- Eat some vegetables.
- Control your portions.
Nothing wrong with eating vegetables, of course, but the rest of it is not healthy. We know it's not healthy because a combination of retail manipulation and brainwashing has ensured that everyone is now eating a high-carb low-fat diet, whether they want to or not. And they're all fat and ill. It is not logically possible that a healthy diet would make you fat and ill.
Let me elaborate on "contradictory" with a couple of examples.
1) The 12-week plan tells us to avoid sugar because it's bad for us, but insists we have to eat mountains of carbohydrates because they're good for us. These statements cannot both be true. Carbohydrates are converted rapidly to sugars - supermarket bread, for example, has a glycemic index almost the same as table sugar - so what are we supposed to do? In the same vein, there is a statement to the effect that potatoes don't count towards your "five [vegetables] a day" because they're pure energy ... but sweet potatoes do. These tubers have almost identical nutritional content and elicit the same metabolic response.
2) Carbohydrates provide high power density but low energy density: that is, they don't contain a whole lot of calories on a weight basis, but they deliver it very fast. Now, nobody needs "fast" energy unless they're athletes. But we all need a certain amount of energy (2000kCal/day, plus or minus). We're not allowed to eat fat, so discount 400kCal for protein and you're left with 1600kCal. if you want to get that from pasta, rice, bread and potatoes, that means 1.5kg of carbs (yes, really; the 4kCal/g figure which is often quoted is for dehydrated starch). Which leaves no space on your plate for vegetables. Is it any wonder only 28% of the population are eating their "five a day"?
Anyway, there is no obvious reason why we have to eat carbs, avoid fat, and count our calories. Humans have never done this, ever. No other animal does it. Why do we have to do it now? The NHS offers no sensible explanation for their assertions. The explanations that are given are demonstrably incorrect, either with reference to physics, chemistry, biology or math.
I've done a lot of other posts on the ridiculous pseudoscience that underlies "calorie counting", so I won't repeat myself
in reply to
Hi violet,
I’ve been on hundreds of diets in my life time I am now 56.
I have loads of health problems including being type 2 diabetic having to give myself injections 3 times a day.
I came on here with my eating plan in place.
Yes I’m going to eat healthy brown bread, brown pasta and rice.
When I put my next day meals in for people to see, I had a reply saying I would get rid of the bread have eggs, bacon, mushrooms can fry them in butter or coconut oil.
This changed my life, not only have I stopped the injections but my sugars are right down and I am 1lb from my 2 stone badge.
I’m not always hungry like when I was on low fat this low fat that. This is my new eating plan and it’s called low carbs, high fat. It’s not about eating tons of fat cause I don’t yes I have cream in my coffee but only twice a day. I’m happy with what I am doing and it’s working for me.🌸
You make some good points,but can I just fact check a couple of things?
"It is now almost impossible to find unadulterated/unmodified full-fat foods in the supermarkets."
This is not true. In six months of low carb, i have never failed to find the full fat version of what i was looking for at the supermarket. However, I estimate I came home empty handed previously about 1 in 3 or 4 times I tried to buy 2.2 litres of skim milk. The local supermarkets never bothered keeping the stock up.
"You've removed some of the scientifically-dubious claims from the NHS website - for example, that dietary fat makes you fat, or that it causes heart disease. "
They are still saying that, it's just not on the particular page you were looking at
I do like the oil tanker metaphor: i think that is really what's going on. With the USDA food guide, changes are kiboshed because they conflict previous guides, and changing them would cause chaos. The same applies here. CV19 has shown us how fragile our supply chains are. If we were all suddenly told to stop eating carbs and add more animal fats to our diet, we would see a similar run on the supermarkets. I don't know how we turn this ship around but it's not simple.
The USDA seems to be the real origin of this problem. Their food pyramid seems to be the basis the Eatwell plate,and similar schemes around the world promoted by health departments. But the USDA is an agriculture department, and health is not part of their remit. Their job is support agriculture, and agricultural products. It's marketing, not health advice. How the NHS came to copy it is a mystery i haven't unravelled (similarly in other anglophone countries, it's not just the NHS.)
I suppose it depends which supermarket. When I'm in the UK I shop alongside the rest of the great unwashed (simply because Waitrose is miles away - they do have better food). I challenge you to find, for example:
1) A proper Greek yoghurt (~10% fat)
2) More than one type of full-fat ordinary, natural yoghurt
3) A salad dressing that isn't "low fat" and full of chemicals
4) Any ready meal that hasn't had the fat swapped out for "modified starch" (lots of people live on these things, so it matters)
Certainly you can still get butter and cheese. It's a bit hard to make low fat versions of those But alongside one fridge section of butter, you'll see half an aisle of "low fat spreads".
As for the oil tanker: my suggestion was completely serious. Because you're right - it can't be turned around, for the reasons you said. You can't get there from here. So the NHS's best bet is to simply stop giving out advice altogether. The diet industry is awash with conmen, food-industry apologists, and a whole bunch of people who weren't smart enough to get into medical school but want to "help people" regardless. Why on earth would the NHS (which is supposed to be an apolitical organisation) want to have any association with that shower? They (or more accurately, Public Health England and NICE) should simply cut loose from the whole question of "healthy eating".
As for "why are they copying the USDA?", I think the answer is pretty clear. The world food supply is controlled almost entirely by half-a-dozen multinationals. Several of them, or their subsidiaries, have representatives on the panel which puts together the UK food recommendations (check out Zoe Harcombe's blog for a list). They're basically the same lineup that decide what goes into USDA recommendations.
Finding any processed food that doesn't have any gums etc is harder, because real food doesn't have a long shelf life. This is as close as anyone could reasonably expect, though I can't imagine why you wouldn't just buy oil and vinegar separately
4) Any ready meal that hasn't had the fat swapped out for "modified starch" (lots of people live on these things, so it matters)
There are plenty of ready meals on that page with amber and red for fat and sat fat. They probably have all sorts of nonsense in the ingredients, but not for the reason of meeting the low fat guidelines.
Just food for thought but as far as I'm aware the NHS aren't stupid and the tabacco and food industries pay monies to the NHS to cover those health related costs. Don't shoot the messenger.
People are fat because they eat too much. It’s as simple as that. I’ve found the NHS website a really useful wake up call. Cut the calories, change your eating habits and care about what you put into your body. If you want to campaign we should be campaigning against the supermarkets who push all this unhealthy food on us.
So how do you explain the many members who come through here eating next-to-nothing (1200kCal or less) who are still fat? The only possible explanation is that they're lying about what they eat.
I agree that people need to change their eating habits. Most of my posts revolve around eating proper food, even though "eating proper food" is labelled as "LCHF" by the powers-that-be.
The supermarkets are pushing unhealthy food largely because that's what people have been told is healthy.
it's very hard to change opinions ... I managed to convince a couple of friends because they'd SEEN how much I lost ..... but uphill struggle (esp at the mo coming out of lock-down when I've been eating all sorts of BAD things - alongside everyone else!
No excuse for it but start a sugar craving by accident and it takes real effort to get out of it! Because my halo is tarnished I understand/ remember how hard it can be - I'd forgotten!
Do you not wonder why people overeat? Are they greedy lazy slobs? Who don’t care about themselves? Or maybe, they have historically eaten so many carbs that they have become resistant to their appetite hormone (leptin, whose voice is suppressed by too much insulin over time, produced to process carbs), and can only hear Grehlin screaming how hungry they are and hungry for carbs. Cut the carbs. cut the insulin and after a couple of months people find they are no longer hungry, no longer want to eat the unhealthy foods, and lose lots of weight. The trouble with this understanding is that it takes away the stick to beat ourselves up with or the fuel to be judgemental about others with....
That sure wasn't true for me! I listened to the dogma and was on low fat, low calorie, starvation diet (it FELT like starvation!) for years and years, and couldn't keep weight off more than a few months.
When, ten years ago, I finally ignored the "advice" and went on high fat low carb I was able to eat as much as much as I wanted and finally lose all my weight. I'm a complete convert...as folks around here can probably tell.
It takes intellect and courage to conclude that the doctors are wrong, to go and find out how to do things right, and then to do it. For every person like you, there's another fifty who faithfully do as they're told, and continue getting sicker, fatter, and more miserable.
Of course it felt like starvation - "eating fewer calories" is starvation. It's horrible. I know it's horrible because I grew up dirt-poor and we never had enough to eat. People only do this to themselves because authority figures wherever they look are browbeating them into compliance. Left to their own devices, I'm sure most people would follow their gut instincts to a healthier diet than the Experts recommend.
I don’t believe that for one minute. I’ve never had massive meals when I was eating carbs and low fat foods, but I can eat more now on LCHF just the right foods that my body can process the right way
Same here. I don't ever remember "overeating" when I was fat. My daily routine was no breakfast; a sandwich or a pie from the van when it called around at the office; something fairly modest for lunch (again, typically a sandwich, but occasionally I'd pack some leftovers from the previous night's dinner). We'd eat a standard British dinner when I got home (pasta or similar - low fat of course!). We rarely had dessert. And yet I was still fat.
I feel so frustrated now when I see or hear (or read, on this blog) all the unhappy people trying SO HARD to shed pounds (or stones I guess :o) and making themselves unsustainably hungry and then worse, blaming themselves when they can't keep weight off.
But I know people are absolutely terrified of fat, and calories. It's really hard to break through that terror, because "experts" have been spreading that dogma since forever, and it's partly true--if you eat calories (like fat) WITH lots of carbs you will gain weight.
I also know when I start my ranting I sound like I'm nuts :o(
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