You don’t have to put up with poor health. You don’t need to walk around all day with a headache, feeling tired, miserable or just plain shouse. You don’t have to suffer from itchiness, constipation, a crook guts or a fat guts. You don’t have to become diabetic or hypertensive.
Listed below are some of the books that are worth purchasing if you want to eat to nourish the cells of your body and maintain an ideal weight.
I subscribe to the view that there are two ways to gauge whether you’re eating wisely.
The first is to stand in front of the mirror, in the buff and take a good hard look at yourself. Let it all hang out AVI. What do you look like? If you’re as lean as a greyhound, fit as a trout and toey as a Roman sandal, then you must be doing something right.
If you’re not it’s time to take a grip on yourself and recognise that what works for other people might work for you.
The second way is to ask yourself ‘How do I feel’. Have you got stacks of energy and vitality or do you spend most of your life feeling shidhouse – tired, headaches, crook guts, low libido, anxious, itchiness …?
There are hundreds of diet plans around the world. They all work for some people. There are a lot now that are starting to point in the same direction, getting you focused on good food, rather than junk For a definition of junk food, click through to the Hourglass Diet website.
To save you some time, effort and expense I’ve produced a recommended list of books that are well researched and provide down to earth, easy to digest information.
In the main, the list represents a general approach to eating which favours a balanced intake of fat, protein and carbohydrate, in particular steering clear of the high density flour and sugar-based garbohydrates. (You can’t live 97% fat free without becoming crook, arthritic and depressed.)
If you’d like to see my own model for healthy eating, check out the hour glass diet here soon.
The best proof will be in the eating. Once you’ve absorbed the various philosophies, put one or more of them into action. If it works, you’ll be able to puff your chest out with pride. If it doesn’t try something else.
The nutritional technologists believe they have a mortgage on diet information. That’s bunkum. Some of the most useful observations haven’t come from food technologists at all, in fact most of the nutrition technologists in the western world are employed in companies where, on the one hand they’re spending their time dreaming up new ways to combine fat, flour and sugar into junk food, and, on the other, they’re spending their time dreaming up ways to suck people into buying it.
The dieticians aren’t much better. In Australia, the website of one of the associations for dieticians will connect you to some of the largest manufacturers of junk food around – the dairy industry, Kelloggs, Goodman Fielder and Nestles.
Thoughtful regular folks, and practitioners of natural medicine, have, through observation and experience appeared to have got the jump on the professional nutritional groups who are still in the stalls feeding on their selective-evidence-based dogmas, washed down with copious quantities of milk.
John Miller
Protein Power
Michael Eades
When you find the DIET BIBLE I suggest you insert this as one of the gospels.
Marx said that new developments come from a blend of theory and practice. In Protein Power, the Eades seem to have just about the right mix of both.
Actually the name, ‘Protein Power’ belies the importance of this book in making the connection between insulin levels and poor health generally.
The Eades discuss the biochemical roles of hormones in the metabolic process to demonstrate why low-fat, high-carb programs don’t always result in weight loss and present a convincing case for their high-protein, low-carb alternative.
The key is preventing overproduction of insulin, which itself “controls the storage of fat” and is triggered by the ingestion of carbohydrates.
It says something about the sheltered workshops of academe that the clinical observations of thoughtful and well read general practitioners seems to have become the most reliable, easy to digest source of advice on how to eat wisely. This is what the Eades have, in spades.
According to the Eades, the epidemic in obesity and adult onset diabetes is triggered by overeating the high density garbohydrates – the cereal-based, manufactured food products, on their own, or mixed with sugar. They provide compelling evidence that this is so.
What your doctor doesn’t know about nutritional medicine may be killing you
Ray Strand
It’s a strange state of affairs, that after all their training, doctors are unable to diagnose dietary insufficiency. Vets are much better at it and their patients can’t even tell them how they feel? Practitioners of natural and traditional Chinese medicine also have a much better handle on the causes of many common body system dysfunctions and the relation the dysfunction has to either a deficiency or excess of certain nutrients.
Medical practitioner, Ray Strand’s wife was crook with chronic fatigue. He was unable to diagnose the cause of the problem and the prescriptions he doled out weren’t making her better. (Sound familiar?) She kept getting worse.
It was a friend of his wife who suggested a nutritional supplement, and after a short time, health was restored and the rest, as they say, is history. Friend ‘1’ doctor ‘nil’.
Strand put on his thinking cap and, as a result has produced a book and spends his time giving lectures on the vitamins and minerals we need to be taking to reduce oxidative stress in our bodies. It’s his belief that it’s oxidative stress that’s causing many body system dysfunctions. It’s something you ought to bone up on. I read somewhere else that a toxic body (from all the poisons we ingest) and a body that’s too acidic may also be the cause of many dysfunctions. I think that’s probably right too.
This is one of the best books I read in 2005. A lady at a seminar suggested I buy it. I’m glad I did and I encourage you to rush out and buy it as well.
The dieticians and doctors think this is all baloney, holding sacred the position that if you eat the perfect diet you’ll get enough vitamins and minerals food to keep you in good health. Well that’s bunkum and you know it’s bunkum. I’ll prove it to you.
- Hands up all those who eat the perfect diet.
- Hands up all those who think their food contains all; the essential nutrients in just the right amounts to keep them healthy.
Buy this book. It will put you on the right track to keeping yourself fit and healthy.
Eat Drink And Be Healthy
Walter Willett
This book marks a watershed for the nutrition profession. Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health is one of the first academics to come out and say that the Diet Pyramid, so widely promoted by the nutrition societies of the world, is a limp and useless tool.
The backlash from the Diet Pyramid approach to eating has seen people not eating enough of the right fats and replacing what fat they do eat with high density, cereal-based carbohydrates. The result, an epidemic of obesity, depression, headaches, irritable bowel, tiredness, high blood pressure and all manner of body system dysfunctions.
Being from such an authoritative source you’ll find this a good read.
The Zone Diet
Barry Sears
‘The further I am from the Zone, the fatter I become. The further I move away from the Zone, the more likely I am to become ill. The further I move away from the Zone, the poorer the quality of my life.’
Thus speaks Sears.
This is an authoritative book, a companion volume to Protein Power and Beyond Pritikin (Sears and Gittleman worked together on various publishing projects.) A biotechnologist, Sears puts together a set of compelling reasons for eating a diet much lower in carbohydrate than the Diet Pyramidists recommend.
He’s famous for tipping a bucket on the theory that it’s an excess of fat that’s making people fat. Instead he pointed the finger at carbohydrates. An excess of carbohydrate that can’t be stored in either the muscles or the liver is turned into fat. When CHO enters the blood stream, too fast, the pancreas responds by secreting high levels of insulin. Whole that brings the blood-sugar level down, it also tells the body to store fat and keep it stored.
So eat more bread and pasta and in Sears’ words you’ll end up like Porky Pig.
He’s famous for letting the world know about eicosanoids, their power in the body and how to eat to stimulate them.
If you want to get back closer to your ideal weight and feel better, you’ve got to have a copy of this book on your kitchen bench.
Body For Life
Bill Phillips
This book bridges the gap between what physical educators on the one hand and naturopaths on the other can do for you.
The first will give you an exercise program that includes both aerobic and strength components, designed in a way to burn fat.
The second will get you to cut down on the high density garbohydrates.
Marketed as a 12 week program, it’s one that has worked for thousands of people around the world. You only have to read the reviews in Amazon to see the staggering effect its had.
You’ll need a spot of discipline, but it’s worth it. Highly recommended program for people who want to get fit and healthy.
Eight Week Cholesterol Cure
Robert Kowalski
Robert Kowalski’s died in September 2009 at the age of 65 but his personal story is legendary. By the age of forty-one, he had suffered a heart attack and had undergone two coronary bypass surgeries. A traditional dietary approach to lowering his cholesterol failed dismally, and faced with the unpleasant alternative of a lifetime on medication, he created a program that proved astonishingly effective for him — and legions of others worldwide who use it.
This edition of the 8 week Cholesterol Cure contains new information about risk factors, exercise, and supplements, “The New 8-Week Cholesterol Cure” is even more powerful in fighting heart disease.
It includes:
- The facts about homocysteine and the deadly cholesterol Lp(a)
- A diet that jump starts cholesterol reduction
- The heart-healthy secrets of niacin, other B vitamins, and safe supplements
- The latest findings on exercise
- New cholesterol-testing methods
- New heart-healthy products…and more!
The Blood Pressure Cure
Robert Kowalski
‘The book is exceptional in its clarity and depth. I would recommend it to anyone with a tendency to hypertension’ – Charles Keenan Jr., M.D., Associate Professor of Family Practice, UCLA. ‘
‘Hypertension is an important member of the quartet of risk factors for cardiovascular disease – the other three are elevated cholesterol levels, diabetes, and cigarette smoking. Robert Kowalski endeavors to bring all these risk factors under control without resorting to medications. This book presents simple answers to the questions that arise when people take charge of their own health in partnership with their physician’ – Calvin Ezrin, M.D., author of Your Fat Can Make You Thin.
‘The Blood Pressure Cure offers a comprehensive, nutritionally sound, and easily accessible guide to lowering one’s blood pressure safely and effectively’ – Kristen Caron, M.A., M.F.T., author of The Everyday Meal Planner for Type 2 Diabetes.
‘Robert Kowalski is now doing for blood pressure what he did for cholesterol in his previous books – he is revolutionizing the way we think about the non-pharmaceutical treatment of this important risk factor for heart disease. This well-written, concise book is a must-read for every person suffering from or treating high blood pressure’ – Paul Dougherty, M.D., Professor of Medicine, UCLA.
Robert Kowalski, the bestselling author of The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure, presents a clinically proven program that draws on the very latest research on high blood pressure causes, development, and treatment. With the most up-to-date information on herbs, supplements, diet, physical activity, and more, this commonsense, easy-to-follow program can help you lower your blood pressure so that you can decrease your risk of heart attack and stroke-and increase your chances of living a long and healthy life.
The Type 2 Diabetes Diet Book
Calvin Ezrin and Robert Kowalski
Proved to be remarkably effective for both Type II diabetics and non-diabetic people with chronic weight problems, the Insulin Control Diet – based on low-carbohydrate and low-caloric intake – allows patients to decrease insulin production and convert stored fat into fuel.
In this new edition, Dr. Calvin Ezrin provides updated ADA recommendations and a complete section of revised recipes and meal plans.
Liver Cleansing Diet
Sandra Cabot
This book has helped a lot of people back into better health. It starts off with Dr Cabot serving up a back-hander to her medical industry colleagues: ‘… with modern medicine we have become side-tracked into treating the symptoms of disease and not the causes.’
Having said that she goes on to say that excessive weight is a symptom of liver dysfunction and not solely due to the number of calories you eat.
This book is based on her clinical observation of 30,000 customers. The key observation – ‘to restore good health one must ALWAYS consider the state of the liver.’ Whilst that’s not a particularly new revelation, (the Chinese probably new that 3000 years ago), it’s something most people and their doctors overlook. You’d think by now that kids wouldn’t be let loose out of school without knowing some of this basic body system health stuff!
There’s a list of common conditions as long as your arm that are cleared up by a liver cleansing diet – high blood pressure, headaches, gall bladder dysfunction, fatigue (ordinary and chronic), crook guts, and anything affecting the immune system.
Spare a thought for all the women who are having their bodies mutilated and their gall bladders ripped out of their abdominal cavity when, by adhering to a liver cleansing diet they could fix it up themselves – for free! And isn’t it sad that having the gall bladder ripped out doesn’t fix the condition that caused it to become inflamed in the first place. (If you’ve got a crook gall bladder go on the internet and find out how to do a gall bladder cleanse. Your naturopath will be able to advise you.)
This is good, old fashioned, common sense; eat the foods that don’t put pressure on your liver and your health will improve dramatically. The basis of the diet, lots of vegetables and fruit, lots of juice and some of the legendry nutraceuticals and herbals.
There are a few Sandra Cabot books around – all of them worth getting.
Eat Right For Your Blood Type
Peter D’Adamo
If my naturopath hadn’t directed me to this book and if I hadn’t started to eat the way D’Adamo suggests, if I hadn’t heard so many success stories from people who had started to eat the D’Adamo way I’d have said this was a bit of nonsense. I don’t believe it is.
No self-respecting dietician or medical practitioner would suggest you read it. The CSIRO expert thinks it’s nonsense! So does the Australian Allergy Association. They give it a right royal bagging. In fact they bag everything that doesn’t conform to their narrow, selective-evidence-based perspective so I take their recommendation with a very large pinch of salt.
Want to lose weight? Want to feel better? Give it a go. It’s the feeling better that will probably sway you in the long run. My 91 year old Auntie May (who passed away in 2010) was on it. She swore by it. I asked her how it had affected her and she just spread open her arms and said ‘Look at me. It saved my life and that of my daughter in law.’ And she did, indeed with a radiant complexion look a treat.
At 91 she still drove like Fangio and when you talk to her on the phone sounded like a 40 year old. I haven’t driven with many 91 year olds who’d double declutch when going round a corner.
The D’Adamo thesis is that the evolution of the blood types coincided with changes in diet over thousands of years. Different blood groups are more compatible with some foods than others. In D’Adamo’s words
‘Today, as we look back on this remarkable evolutionary revolution, it is clear that our ancestors had unique biological blueprints that complimented their environments.’
What I found out for myself is that I’m incompatible with wheat-based foods. All the bread and pasta diet did for me was give me headaches, incredible tiredness, high blood pressure and a ranging Candida infection.
I say, suck it and see. If it works it works. If it doesn’t, mark it up to experience and continue on in your quest to find the way of eating that has you feeling absolutely fantastic.
So, it could be all baloney, but if it works it works. You don’t have to know why.
Dr Atkins Diet Revolution
Robert Atkins
This book did indeed start a revolution, much as Pritikin did before him. After 20 years the academic dieticians still haven’t cottoned on to what it’s all about.
The thesis is simple. if you want to lose weight eat low glycemic index food – not low as in the normal GI recommendations (anything with a GI less than 55) , but really low – less than 30.
You start off the diet with minimal carbohydrate – just a few low energy density vegetables. You can have as much fat and protein as you like.
To the diet purists this doesn’t sound right, and yet thousands of Atkins’ eaters have proven that it is, for them. It targets insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. Restrict the intake of carbohydrate and you restrict the production of insulin. The less insulin in your system, the smaller the likelihood that you’ll start storing CHO as fat.
I personally don’t take the view that on an Atkin’s type diet you have to stuff yourself with fat. Just take it as it comes with the normal meat, fish and chicken meals that you eat.
The fat police can’t understand this. How can you get thin without eating carbohydrates. Only one way to find out; go on the AStkins diet for a few weeks and see what happens.
This is another book written by someone sitting at the coal face not in an ivory tower, someone who sees hundreds of people come in and out the door, all suffering from the same complaints – most stimulated by high insulinaemia. It says a lot for clinical observation and trial and error. It says a lot for patient and thoughtful recording of what works and what doesn’t.
Before you knock it, give it a go. Do it for a couple of weeks. If your dietician says it’s load of nonsense, get a second opinion, go to a naturopath. They’ve got a better appreciation of what’s good for you and what’s not. You’ll feel better and wonder why you every stuffed yourself to overflowing with bread and pasta.
Once you’ve retrained yourself to eat better and as you get back closer to your ideal weight you can dribble more of the vegetables and fruit back into your diet. Then you’ll be eating from the top of the Hourglass.
The No Grain Diet
Joseph Mercola
Joseph Mercola runs one of the most widely read electronic health sites in the world. Just go to www.mercola.com and see for yourself.
You’d be amazed at the number of people who have an intolerance to grains, particularly wheat. They’re get tired, they’re overweight, they get headaches and their blood pressure goes up. If you fit into any of these categories go without wheat flour for a couple of weeks and see what happens – no bread, no biscuits, no cake. You won’t die. On the contrary, you might feel a heap better.
The key to the diet is eliminating the garbohydrates – no flour and sugar. How hard is that?
Mercola’s main point is that refined grains are addictive and doing you harm. The diet is similar to the others I recommend – quality protein and vegetables, with limited fruit and no garbohydrates (yep, that’s ‘g’ not a ‘c’.)
One Amazon reviewer recommended another text ‘Going against the Grain’ by Melissa Dianne Smith
To get the full run down go straight to Mercola’s website and read all about it for yourself. Subscribe to his newsletter, it’s one of the best.
Carbohydrate Addicts Diet
Rachael Heller and Richard Heller
The Heller’s say that 80% of over weight people have carbohydrate addiction. The dieticians say that 80% of people who are over weight have a fat addiction and tell them to eat more bread and pasta. Who’s right?
The book is based on the Heller’s research with thousands of people who found that when they could stem their craving for high density carbohydrates they could start on the road back to their ideal weight.
Until the cravings could be controlled the weight would yo yo up and down. Willpower inevitably gave way to won’t power. The problem, a biological craving for CHO.
The solution a simple diet regime where you restrict the high density CHO for two meals out of every three. It means eating very low GI food for those two meals, ie GI less than 30.
This is worth looking at. It makes sense and I believe it’s worth while spending a few weeks eating the way the Hellers suggest.
Fit For Life
Harvey and Marilyn Diamond
This book has been around for a donkey’s ages. The experts say that the science that it’s based on is bunkum.
However, it’s stood the test of time and works for people who subscribe to the theory expounded by the Diamonds – eat only fruit before lunch time.
They’re big on natural foods – ‘To maintain your life and add to your life, it is best to predominate your diet with those foods that are full of life. Incidentally the word vegetable comes from the word ‘vegetus’, which means full of life!
The book has a reasoned outline of the nature of food combining and eating to a natural diurnal rhythm which goes like this
– noon to 8pm, eating and digestion.
– 8pm – 4am, absorption and use
– 4am – noon, elimination of body wastes and food debris.
They recommend a 70% high water content diet, which means vegetables and fruit. They recommend eating only fruit or fruit juice until noon and then salad and vegetables with every meal thereafter. There’s not a lot of room for junk in this diet.
If you look at the Amazon testimonials, a lot of people lost weight and felt better on this eating regime. There must be something in it! It stands to reason though; if all you ate for a few weeks were fruit and vegetables you’d be jumping out of your skin. Intuitively we know this.
The Diamonds simply love dairy foods, pigs ribs: – ‘aside from flesh food, nothing will sabotage a successful, healthy weight loss plan more quickly than eating dairy products’.
Let’s Get Well
Adele Davis
This book’s a real gem; an oldie but a goodie. If you want to know how to eat right, buy this book. It’s the best “no fad” nutrition advice for everyday living around.
Davis worked out years ago, from research dating back to the beginning of the last century what people needed to eat to keep themselves and their children healthy.
It’s a tragedy that much of the knowledge she compiled has been lost to the modern medical and diet professions.
Sadly the book is out of print, but if you go to Amazon you’ll be able pick up a second hand copy. Read the reviews there.
CSIRO Total Well-Being Diet
Manny Noakes
Mutton Dressed Up As Lamb
This beautifully presented recipe book, masquerading as the CSIRO Total Well-being Diet, was published late in 2005, and since then has taken Australia by storm. Hundreds of thousands of people have rushed out and bought it, saving the CSIRO from the clutches of KordaMentha and Co.
A few chest-puffing dieticians and doctors bagged it because it suggests you can have a few decent serves of meat a week instead of the National Dietary Guidelines recommended dose of a few thimble fulls. However, it’s more likely that the National Guidelines are out of whack, rather than the Total Wellbeing Diet.
Let’s make no bones about it, if you stick with this diet you’ll lose weight and feel great.
In fact if you stick with any diet that strips out the junk you’ll lose weight. And stripping out junk is what Manny and her mates have done.
Junk food
In actual fact, I think the CSIRO scientists have been a bit naughty, attributing the success of the diet to the increased intake of protein when in actual fact what they’ve done is cleaned out most of the bread and pasta, and all of the biscuits, cake, muesli bars, high sugar content breakfast biscuits, nuts, donuts, lamingtons, chips, chocolate, buns, chips, dips, ice-cream, juice and cool drinks, candy, liquorice, flavoured milk … Anyone who does that will be looking like a greyhound at the end of six months.
Keeping it off is the problem, as Nestles, Arnotts, Smiths, Coca Cola, Kelloggs, Cadburys, Nestle and their barking dogs, the supermarkets, petrol stations and news agencies go out of their way tempt you into going back to your junk food way of eating.
Before the Kelloggification and Cocacolonization of this country, before it became fat, weak and depressed, the standard evening meal was meat and three veg. The CSIRO food technologists thought this sounded pretty right, dusted the concept down, dressed it up and then tried it out on a hundred muffin-topped female subjects. They liked it. They lost the weight they’d found and felt better, the hallmarks of a good diet.
So, if you’re a South Australian, live in Toorak, drive a Volvo, work sitting down, wear a tweed skirt and a twin set, shop at Demasius and spend the summer holidaying at Chiton Rocks, this is the diet for you.
On the other hand, if you live in Angle Park, wear tracky dacks and ugg boots, drive a 1975 Belmont and shop at Arndale, I suggest if you want to lose weight, go the the child’s serve and leave the chips and gravy off your next plateful of cutlets and coleslaw.
Junk science
So what’s it all about. Well for starters it’s based on junk research, meaning its research that didn’t need to be done again because it’s been done to death a thousand times over. Either the scientific memory in this country is very short or academic information searching skills deficient. It’s an over-indulgent exercise on the part of the blue-eyed cod, salmon and barramundi eating dieticians down on Kintore Avenue.
The world is awash with studies, already done that point clearly in the direction we’re being led in this book. There is no doubt in my mind that the principles of the diet are sound, but that’s not the point. This is re-invention of a wheel that’s been rolling for close on 100 years. The team at the CSIRO could have recommended people get the Zone Diet, or the walk-around-your-Hills-Hoist diet, or buy a Women’s Weekly recipe book at their local checkout and left it at that. The plates of food presented in the Weekly look much like those in the CSIRO book – good food, well presented, not a biscuit, chip or block of chocolate in sight.
This is the CSIRO minnow selling a couple of million dollars worth of books, trying to compete with companies like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig who have yearly incomes in the hundreds of millions of dollars. These organisations, along with a host of reputable fat loss organisations have already done the research and the hard yards in getting satisfied customers back on the straight and narrow. This is research that didn’t need to be done. The CSIRO could have just directed people to these organisations and left it at that.
You’ll notice though that the book doesn’t contain a suggested reading list of books they recommend. It doesn’t contain a list of the organisations they recommend you go to for support while you’re losing fat off your body. If they’d done that they would increased the usefulness of the advice and dramatically reduced the cost of providing it.
There must be more important original research to be done, research that is helpful to people who want to eat wisely, have lots of energy and vitality and maintain an ideal weight; – how to satisfy the inner hunger without fattening yourself up, how to tame the Candida dragon, how to lower insulin levels and how to overcome your addiction to flour and sugar would seem to be the most urgent. In this country we’ve got a discipline problem; but you’ll be holding your breath for a long time waiting for the definitive research study into over-coming that.
Lay off junk food and fat drips off people irregardless of how much they tinker with the percentage of protein. You’ll see in the book that the people who went on the lower carbohydrate diet also lost weight, though not quite as much as the higher protein eaters. Just get rid of junk, walk around the Hills Hoist and you’ll lose weight. QED.
A deficiency in this book is the lack of explanation as to why junk foods aren’t in the diet – that would have been the real test of the diet, increase the protein but keep the junk in. In fact it’s short on explanation generally. Plus it is always good to have a definition of junk food handy to guide readers.
So what sets this diet apart (p.12)? Well it’s hard to work that one out from what the authors have to say. What could have been spelt out in big letters was that this was a diet low on refined carbohydrates and sugar, and stripped of junk food.
The authors have backed away from saying that. Instead they say that it is ‘not a very low carb diet.’ Well that’s not strictly true. They’ve stripped out most of the high density carbohydrates – flour and sugar – that people are addicted to and replaced them with low-energy-density vegetables and fruit.
All they can say is that ‘What sets the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet apart is that it has been tested on hundreds of people since 1997 and is more than just a weight-loss strategy; it is a protein plus, low fat eating plan that can help you lose weight and keep it off.’
Well, hello!; there are a million diets in bookshops and on the internet that do the same thing. And it patronises all the diets that have been trialed on thousands of people over many years, not by scientists but by people who found a way to lose weight and wanted to share it with others.
With respect to the down-playing of the low carb issue, the Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults recommends an intake of between 8 and 24 slices of bread a day (I know, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.) The success of the CSIRO diet is it’s restriction of the two white powders – flour and sugar, and the encouragement of people to eat more animal flesh.
If you get people to increase their protein intake and lower their intake of flour and sugar they’ll lose weight, due principally to the fact that it takes more energy to digest the protein than is in the protein. Plus it’s the stimulation of the production of insulin by the two white powders that in turn stimulates the production of fat. That’s Nutrition 101 science and it’s been around for about 100 years.
If you stop people loading themselves up on bread, pasta and sugar they’ll lose weight. If you get them to stop buying anything on the inside shelves of supermarkets they’ll lose weight.
(If you really want to seriously lose weight, eat meat and tomatoes, and nothing else for a month. I’ve seen it done and the people didn’t die. They looked like a million dollars.)
Tripe
A serious criticism is that it’s a jaundiced account of the ordinary fare that ordinary people ought to be encouraged to eat. There’s no mutton in this diet, just lamb, and it’s obviously not the diet that’s going to appeal to big booffy blokes who were brought up on brain patties and drool over a thought of plate of tripe, steak and kidney, or lambs fry and onions. This is middle class women’s food; there’s little in it for the working class. All the subjects were women. All but a couple of photos in the book are Sigrid and Olivia look-alikes.
On another serious note, the offal meats have just about been stripped out of our diets thanks to diets like this one and our health is suffering. Most women turn their nose up at a good lambs fry and gag at the thought of tripe and onions. Because of that, we’re not getting the essential nutrients that offal provides. We’re starving on full stomachs. You’ll have to wait a long time before you’ll get lambs fry back on your supermarket shelves. It’s gone.
There are only two places you’ll get a good lambs fry in Canberra, the Lachlan cafe on Brisbane Avenue, and occasionally at the Southern Cross Club.
Eat like a sparrow
It will be exceptionally hard for a lot of people to exist on the breakfasts that are suggested; 200gms of yoghurt, a handful of breakfast biscuits (‘Fibre Plus’) and an apple. How can you do a decent days work on that. There’s no bubble and squeak here, not a decent cooked breakfast in sight; that’s gone, thanks to the fat police.
Another point is that according to Barry Sears in the Zone Diet there are good reasons to keep the ratios of fat, protein and carbohydrate pretty constant for all meals. In this one I can’t see much fat in the breakfast, or protein for that matter either. Maybe I’m missing something, and again, I’ll stand corrected.
It continues to amaze me the dieticians refuse to encourage people to eat the same sort of meal for breakfast as they eat for tea – instead the recommendation is the usual communion-wafer-sized slice of toast, a piece of fruit, a couple of tea spoons of yoghurt and some expensive, refined cereal-based biscuits. (If you want to know how the breakfast confectionary makers are taking you for a ride click here.) It’s not much better than a bushman’s breakfast! I find it hard to imagine why people are being encouraged to eat biscuits for breakfast. And where’s the porridge? That’s been thrown out too.
When it comes to breakfast there are three schools of thought:
- one that says you need vegetables and fruit before lunch
- another that this is the chance to get some high fibre cereal; and fruit into your body and
- another that says eat the same sort of meal for breakfast as you do for tea.
Whatever you believe is right, I suspect that breakfast ought to contain at least 25% of daily energy needs.
Eat like a king for breakfast they used to say. This diet is eat like a sparrow for breakfast – and then sneak down for a muffin and flat white at 9.30!
The usual suspects are lined up for lunch, with sandwiches coming in as the predominant choice. In our culture bread is a convenience food. It would have been good to see more of the non-bread lunch alternatives – particularly last night’s left-overs. It’s only a lack of imagination and laziness that has us choose the sandwich over something more substantial. You wouldn’t have a sandwich for tea so why have it for lunch?
The side show
The Glycemic Index had to be given a run. Give this diet a big tick because it is definitely low GI because of the lack of emphasis on bread, rice and pasta. Meat, fish and chicken have a GI of 0.
The GI will always be a side show while the low GI bar is set at 55. This diet encourages you to eat at a much, much lower GI that that. It’s one of the secrets of its success. Want to know more about Glycemia?
The authors have come in for a drubbing about the sponsorship of the research by the meat industry. Interestingly though, the sponsorship by the dairy industry hasn’t attracted the same sort of criticism, despite wide-spread knowledge (outside nutrition circles) about the undesirability of humans drinking bovine milk and the calcium from that source not being in the most readily absorbable form. We’re currently in the grip of an epidemic of irritable bowels, stimulated in large part by over consumption of milk and wheat flour. This debate isn’t pursued by the authors.
Cracking the fat code
Have you noticed that the less fat people are supposedly eating the fatter they’re becoming. This is because they usually substitute fat for flour and sugar.
As I said earlier, I suspect there is not enough fat in the CSIRO diet. Everything is ‘low fat’, even the milk which is already low in fat (around 5%) before they turn it into lower fat milk. The meat is all trimmed of fat, the chicken of skin. (Am I the only person who loves the skin on the chicken?)
People need fat in their diet or they become depressed and arthritic; another epidemic. I doubt that this diet contains the 26% of energy from fat as outlined in one of the tables. I may be wrong and I’ll stand to be corrected, but I can’t see much fat around.
Satisfying the inner hunger
Like most diets, this one doesn’t talk about why people have become overweight. My slant on this is that you can’t satisfy the inner hunger by eating. If you restrict people’s access to the food that’s satisfying the inner hunger and don’t deal with and separate the inner hunger from the food, as likely as not, in a couple of months time all the fat will have come back on again.
It takes a monumental amount of discipline to keep starving yourself of the foods to which you have become addicted. A section on what to do about this would have been a useful addition to the book.
Any diet that doesn’t also address this core issue relating to the satisfaction of the inner hunger sells it’s customers short. It’s easy to dash off a few recipes – tell people to stop eating junk. It’s a much tougher assignment cranking up a personal development program that digs down deep into the subconscious and unlocks the potential people have to eat to nourish the cells of their body without fattening themselves up in the process.
Books and programs addressing this issue are around but because scientists from different disciplines don’t talk to each other, you’ll have to go to the psychology section for that one. Find out what’s causing you to eat to excess and fix that. Then the food will look after itself.
It stretches the imagination to call this a total well-being diet. To be called a ‘Total Wellbeing Diet’ without addressing the issue of personal development and life circumstances leaves a big void in the book. Let’s face it, its a recipe book in which the concept of wellbeing is trivialized by reducing it to eating and exercising.
A section could also have been written exposing the junk food industry, particularly that section whose products line the inner shelves of super markets and who use play school presenters to seduce children into the high flour and sugar way of eating. However, when some of them sponsor the various nutrition professional associations and get a tick from the heart charities that’s probably asking a bit too much.
The flick program
(As an aside, go to the website of your favourite food tick program. If it’s food that comes in a cardboard box, plastic bag or a bottle, I’d give it the flick. Click here if you want to donate money.
The exercise prescription
The exercise section is glib. It’s not scientific. The recipe for exercise is particularly under done. However, it’s the exercise recipe that may well invalidate the science that’s supposedly underpins the success of the weight-loss program.
Did everyone in the study do the same amount of exercise? If it was me and I was in a study to see how much weight I could lose I’d exercise like buggery. We could also expect that the fattest people would lose the most weight because the heavier you are, more energy you use up whenever you move, regardless of whether or not it is an exercise training session.
Selective evidence
The other piece of poor form is the list of references, – very selective, in that all of them have one thing in common, the name of the lead author of the book.
The thing about the science of dieting is that for every bit of research suggesting one way of eating is better than another, there are a dozen, if not hundreds saying you’d be better off doing something else. In the end you have to sift through all the stuff and do your own research on your own body. Lew Hoad said, never change a winning serve. Once you find an eating program that works for you, stick to it.
Fitness and Diet (FAD)
Have you ever noticed all the fad diets around? No-one ever owns up to producing a fad diet, but every one who writes one criticizes every other diet as being a fad diet.
A semi-final word; if you go on a diet – any diet – you’ll lose weight. If you maintain a bit of discipline and don’t eat too much junk, and in the spirit of the CSIRO diet restrict your calorie intake, lay off the garbohydrates (yep that’s a ‘g’ not a ‘c’) and eat more protein, you’ll lose weight. If you exercise you might lose it a bit quicker.
That’s science folks; year 10 science!
Toorak delight
This book has been a delight to review. I loved thumbing through the pages and drooled over pictures of juienne sprigs of coriander, rocket (correction, arugula) chopped rosemary, baby capers, chopped, flat-leafed (italian) parsley, bunches of baby bok choy, goats cheese and watercress. This is real Aussie tucker!
What’s good about the book is the way the meals are dressed up and photographed, though the Women’s Weekly produces something similar every month. A mate of mine says he’d got the book and though the menu’s are putting a dent in the housekeeping, they’re easy to follow to the point where he’s racking up huge numbers of brown points. He said some of them look like the meals dished up in flash restaurants and not on your kitchen table, plus you can fill yourself up without overdosing on bread, and spuds.
If you live in Toorak, Kensington or Beaumont, rush out and buy a copy, for yourself (if you’re a woman) or your wife (if you’re a bloke.) It will cost you $29.95 at the aerodrome and $18 at Big W. If you buy it from the Health and Fitness Bookstore, which I highly recommend you do, it will cost you around $40, plus postage. You’ll get thin and I’ll get rich!
If you live in Angle Park, Kilburn or Wingfield buy the Women’s Weekly or join Weight Watchers where, through trial, error and observation of millions of people world-wide they worked this one out 30 years ago.