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Carbohydrates - Food of the Devil?

That’s not the same as saying we (as the collective population) don’t need it.
 
mmh.

So if we can agree that more and more people are finding themselves with illnesses that we didn't have in such numbers previously.

AND we all can say that our parents, grandparents ate xyz and lived to be a hundred.

( isn't that the old argument about smokers..and does anyone still believe smoking to be healthy ? )

Then surely something has changed in between those two times. ?

we can ignore the issues, ( after all it's your kids.). and just go on and make the decision YOU think are sensible.
and hope you do a good job.

Or we can maybe look and see that

yes, foods have changed,
the quantities have changed
the way we eat has changed.

it's either that Or more and more people are just getting 'unlucky' to get diabetes, etc
 
bulkbiker said:
Not essential in the slightest as all the people who eat virtually zero carb here prove every single day..



Old wives tale..
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There are a lot of people that eat a lot of carbs that find they are essential for what they do. Advocating the cutting out of them altogether might be sensible from the treatment point of view, well in fact is as I am proof of that but that doesn’t mean that the entire populous needs to cut them out of their diet, that is stretching LCHF a bit too far. There is room for the purist keto thinking but only for certain circumstances.

The dietary solution to everyone’s needs is not keto. Only to some.
 
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To be fair I haven’t heard anyone assert that keto is for everyone. There’s quite a difference between advocating a dietary strategy and telling other people they must do the same. Not sure why so many folk keep making this mental leap from one to the other.

I do believe that the ancestral human diet was massively lower in carbohydrate than that which the population largely consumes now, and most anthropologists seem to hold the same view. Low[er] carb eating would doubtless benefit a lot of people, and most certainly the estimated 50-60% who have metabolic syndrome to one degree or the other.
 
I was going to try and post the mother in laws food spread for New Years Eve 2018/19 but it is too large a file. It is mainly fish, meat and rice. With some fruit and cake. The ratios are stacked in heavily in favour of the fish and meat. I will try and upload it later.
 

I can live with that statement.
 
We use the term 'non Diabetic' frequently and I spmetimes wonder how long it will be before we can't use it. In some communities around the world (esp the island countries) Insulin Resistant Diabetes has become the norm.

No one is advocating a Ketogenic diet or even a LCHF diet for the human population of this planet rather, I think, a move away from highly refined, highly processed foodstuffs. They are not only very low in nutrition but have proved to be harmful to many of us. And as for the 'need' for carbohydrates with regard to grains Ivor put it well in one recent podcast, going back thousands of years grains were 'starvation foods' only to be eaten in the absense of more nutritious foods e.g animals.
 
Great post @Guzzler

I liken it to we CAN eat carbs.
And use them all up.

But THEN as we age
( AND bearing in mind the AMOUNT of carbs we eat during the day
AND the fact how many of the processed food are stuffed with extra sugars etc .)

check out any ready meals for carbs and ingredients that would be more at home in a laboratory

We start to lose some of that ability to process them as efficiently.
And the carbs unused are left sloshing around inside of us, and then with nowhere to go, turn to viciseral fat.

THAT loss of efficiency increases, until we struggle and are awash with glucose, and then get diagnosed T2D.

So yeah, we can eat carbs, everyone can,

I just don't believe we should do it in the amounts we currently do

For far too many, it has or will cause major issues

How many of us, could have avoided type two diagnosis, if our food choices over the years had offered less carbs, less messed about stuffed with sneaky sugars,
And all of the above then labelled HEALTHY

I for one would rather I did NOT have T2D.
 

So true. Kendrick says that 30-40 years ago T2 was a disease of the over 65s. We now hear of people in this country being diagnosed in their thirties or occasionally younger, in the States children are being diagnosed with T2 and with fatty liver. Scary stuff.
 
The way we live has changed. Full stop. Our bodies are designed to live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Evolution is a slow process and modern medicine removes the 'survival of the fittest' equation. We eat more and move less. We drive cars and watch too much TV. Both parents have to work to make ends meet. Most kids toys need batteries! We are victims of consumerism. We are too short-sighted to see the devasting effect our choices have - that goes for the inventors, the producers, the marketers and the consumers. We could, but we never stopped to ask if we should.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. As an overweight, car driving, TV watching, working Mum of 2 boys - as the first T2 in our family history of people who smoked, drank, ate lots of bread and potatoes (because they were cheap!) and still lived into their nineties, it has given me some food for thought. Low-carb thoughts
 

Jim, I agree that the general population would be better off eating fewer carbs. When you think of how many carbs the average person eats, it must surely be in the region of 500 plus easily, especially when you factor in things like crisps/cakes/sausage rolls and so on,on top of the rest. I think the issue is that there is a massive difference between eating 500 carbs and eating 100 carbs a day. It's just that some people on this forum (and there is nothing wrong with this of course) choose to eat no carbs or as good as and sometimes view those who eat a 100 carbs in the same category as those who eat 500. It's not that people 'tell' others what they should be doing, it's more the inference and the faint disappointment displayed when someone mentions porridge.
 

I was listening to Ivor Cummins the other day and he said there’s been a case of a 3 year old being diagnosed type 2. Not sure of the details but that’s scary regardless.
 

While I agree in principle with what you have said I would just like to pick up on a couple of things. Becoming overweight is a symptom of Insulin Resistant Diabetes not a cause and it is a symptom that not all Pre Ds or T2s experience. As to living a more sedentary lifestyle, again, not all fall into that category. One of the common denominators of our condition is the kind of foods that we all (used to) think were normal, healthy foods and the modern western foodstuffs are sometimes quite addictive lending to greater portion sizes and frequency so it follows that it is the very foods themselves that have the greatest influence.
 
KK123 said:
It's not that people 'tell' others what they should be doing, it's more the inference and the faint disappointment displayed when someone mentions porridge.
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Nearly as bad as the inference that people shouldn’t speak freely with their own views for fear of offending those who choose a different path

As always it swings both ways. I believe it’s all just a matter of personal perspective, and sometimes even misinterpreting help as judgement.
 
Jim Lahey said:
I was listening to Ivor Cummins the other day and he said there’s been a case of a 3 year old being diagnosed type 2. Not sure of the details but that’s scary regardless.
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Aye, he mentioned the child a few months ago in a podcast he guested on, then saying the child was two and a half years old. It makes one wonder how long the poor child will live and to hope that the parents are up for a lifetime of monitoring. It'svery sad.
 
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