Thanks for pointing some of this stuff out Tom!

Well done. I may have to order a copy myself.

A person can pig out on all sorts of nutrient-poor and/or nutrient-rich food, thinking they are “well fed” and still be nutritionally starved if the body can’t process the necessary nutrients for good health due to a damaged or rearranged nutrient processing system. Dr. Eades has stated on his blog that fat is a necessary complement to process any fat-soluble nutrients in vegetables and thanks to the long recommended low fat diet, a lot of people may not be benefiting from eating or juicing a ton of good vegetables. And then you have to factor in that modern agra has been stripping all the nutrients from the soil those good vegetables are grown in and throwing in tons pesticides to boot and who knows what all those chemicals actually do to the availability of the nutrients in the food. Plus farmed fish and beef, fed unnatural diets. Mankind has a lot to answer for, screwing around with nature, and may be paying for it by “starving” himself of proper nutrients or literally sending them down the drain first thing in the morning….

Very good point. I’m not sure if eating lots of nutrient-poor food would prompt a thrifty-gene response in the same way that starving does, but it’s an interesting idea.

I don’t advocate a zero-carb diet, either. I eat a bit of fruit, plenty of vegetables, onions, nuts. Even if people follow the Atkins diet — and do it as described in his book — they start low and eventually work up to 60-80 grams of carbs per day.

On the fast-food diet I did in the film, I averaged around 100 grams per day.

Okay, this is weird. It looks fine on my computers (IE) but then I fired it up in Firefox and it’s stretched -but only if I click the link to the page. If I just scroll backwards to it from the home page, it’s fine. I dunno, something goofy in WordPress, I guess.

Look fine on all three of mine.

That makes perfect sense. I don’t think our bodies are designed to kill us. We have fattening mechanisms because it’s good to fatten up for the winter, for example. Trouble is, now we fatten up for the winter all year long.

Let me know when you post the review.

Based on a considerable amount of research it’s looking like the mother’s diet during pregnancy has a whole lot to do with what happens to the fetus long after birth and even into middle and old age. Babies who are malnourished (or inappropriately nourished) during their time as a growing fetus end up developing problems with obesity and heart disease later in life. According to my reading on the subject the optimal dietary steps a pregnant woman should take are to reduce consumption of refined carbohydrates during the first trimester and increase protein intake significantly during the last trimester. Why? The first trimester is when the fetus is forming many of its organs, including its pancreas. The volatile blood sugar and consequent insulin swings refined carbohydrate intake occasions in the mother are transmitted to the fetus, who then develops a pancreas filled with beta cells that are less sensitive. In other words, the fetus develops a pancreas that is prone to insulin resistance even prior to birth.

In a time when low-fat and high-carb was all the rage, this may have been enough of a trigger. But there are many other reasons. Less sunlight due to less time spent outside is a cause. So is less sleep. Another change is the rise in TV-time for kids. Television time has been causally related to insulin resistance in intervention studies (it does its effect by raising cortisol levels).

From what I have read, many Native American tribes were put on governemental food support after they couldn’t support themselves anymore, so there may have been a period long enough to trigger fetal programming. It’s true that if you have high blood sugar, this is effectively lowered by a low carb diet.

I agree that dieting is not a good idea during pregnancy. I also of course agree that low-fat dieting is never a good idea. But I see plenty of fat parents with fat kids who appear to already be insulin-resistant, and I doubt the mothers dieted during pregnancy. I believe we have a genuine problem with chronically elevated blood sugar, and the root of the problem is that we consume way more carbohydrates than most of us can handle.

The fetal programming concept is interesting. Perhaps it explains some of what’s happened to Native Americans, but perhaps not. I believe the farther back in time your ancestors began eating a particular food, the more likely you’re adapted to it. Roughly 95% of northern Europeans can tolerate lactose, but very few Asians can, as was explained in the video you linked. People whose ancestors came from the Middle East, where grains first became domesticated, are far less likely to have celiac disease than northern Europeans, etc. The Native Americans were forced to start living on wheat and sugar less than 150 years ago. I think it’s highly likely they simply can’t tolerate those foods, just as they can’t tolerate alcohol.