Dana Carpender posted this message from the Nutrition and Metabolism Society on her Hold The Toast site recently. I’m delighted to see real scientists calling out the ADA for their nonsense.
As my mom found out, if your blood sugar is at or approaching diabetic levels, your doctor will probably send you to a nutritionist or dietician, who will probably tell you to eat lots of complex carbs and limit your fats. It makes zero biological sense.
I’ll be in Chicago this week. We’re celebrating our 10th anniversary by returning to the scene of the crime. (Don’t tell the paleo fanatics, but this almost certainly means I’ll be indulging in a stuffed pizza from Giordano’s — still the best pizza I’ve ever had.)
I’ll check comments when I can and perhaps write a post if anything strikes my fancy, but mostly I plan to just enjoy the time off … and take my wife to the fancy seafood restaurant where, halfway through dinner on our second date, I knew I wanted to marry her someday.
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I totally agree, it makes no sense at all. I wrote a page about the ADA meal recommendations on my website just to highlight the idiocy! I broke down the amount of carbs the ADA recommends at each meal and then compared it to several studies which show the amount of carb intake required to keep blood sugar levels under ADA recommendations. ADA meal recommendations cause blood sugar levels to be consistently OVER their own recommendations of blood sugar levels. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to miss that? I love how Dr. Eades puts it: “Diabetes is a disease of too much sugar in the blood. What rational person would tell a diabetic to eat sugar?” Apparently, rational people don’t work for the ADA. My page is here if you want to read the details. http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/american-diabetes-association.html
Good analysis.
It isn’t my paleo-ness that makes me cringe at the thought of Chicago deep dish pizza. It’s the fact that only a thin crust NY style pizza deserves the moniker “pizza”.
Have a good trip nonetheless
But it’s not same as deep dish … really.
Glad to see the ADA being called on the carpet for their delusional recommendations! The Weston A Price Foundation also called them out and it was published on The Washington Times website:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/omkara/2010/jun/25/usda-dietary-guidelines-recipe-disaster/
Congrats to you two on your 10th anniversary! Enjoy your time away!
Thank you.
@ Tom: Where did you get that picture? I scoped out the nm website and couldn’t find it.
@ Ellen: Really great article, I am sending it to some friends.
I found it on Dana Carpender’s Hold The Toast site.
Thin crust pizza > Thick crust pizza.
Q.E.D.
Stuffed is a whole ‘nuther animal. Thin crust on the bottom, a thick layer of ingredients in the middle (cheese, meat, veggies, etc.), then another thin layer on top. One or two of those, and you’re as stuffed as the pizza.
Enjoy your trip! Those who take care of their bodies can splurge guilt free every so often. Even Paleo man ate a honeycomb now and then.
Exactly. Back in the day, I ate pizza three or four times per month. Now it’s three or four times per year.
Don’t go back to the seafood restaurant. It won’t be the same
. Have a nice trip, I’ll be working on a diabetes webinar, in it I’ll take care of ADA. VBR Hans
Let us know when the webinar is available, if it’s for the public.
My wife has diabetes, and because of poor advice from doctors, struggled with her blood sugars, took way too much insulin and was hospitalized twice in one year with pancreatitis. She has never seen a dietician or nutritionist that knew the first thing about proper diet or nutrition. Even during her illnesses, they were pushing the same old “low fat, low calorie” diet. Later on her first visit to one of the most lauded endocrinologists in our area, she talked to her about gastric bypass and put her on a statin! What the H#ll is going on here?!?!
Well, since wising up and becoming more educated, watching fathead and reading some good books, we’ve been eating carb free and fat filled. For the first time in a few years she is losing signifigant weight, feeling good and using almost no insulin!
Btw, her current dietitian is about 250 lbs and also a diabetic. Wonder why?
Glad to hear she’s improving. But it’s a shame she received so much bad advice in the first place.
I joined the Metabolism Society a couple weeks ago. They are the only physician-directed organization countering the ADA’s high-carb eating advice.
Let’s hope the Metabolism Sociey wins this battle. Millions of diabetics are suffering needlessly.
Enjoy your pizza. From a paleo fanatic:)
I’ll enjoy it, then get back on the righteous path. I’m kind of glad there’s no Giordano’s in Nashville.
I stopped listening to the ADA about 2 days into my diagnosis. See, if it wasn’t the high blood sugars I got from following the diet, it definately was the fuzzy vision I had after dropping the carbs that did it.
Simply, it is all about money. The only people that really needed insulin in the past were people who were type 1 diabetics. (People who could not make insulin on thier own.) It stands to reason that the more insulin resistant you make a person who is a type 2 diabetic, the more insulin they will need. Instead of managing the disease with a prescription that costs about 4$ a month worth of pills, you eventually need to manage the disease with costly injections.
Think on that for a second. Not only is the insulin expensive, the testing strips, the machines, the needles, the packaging, the vials. All are very expensive to the consumer, and lucrative for the suppliers.
I was admonished for dropping the carbs from my diet. I was told that I “needed” carbs in order to manage the insulin. You can imagine then, after “firing” the nutritionist and doctors, how happy I am to manage my glucose level with the minimum amount of insulin. Less carbs, more exercise is the way to go.
I know people that are so resistant to insulin that they need to take 20 units of fast acting insulin (that works more rapidly than the body’s can) in order to “cover” what they want to eat. That means that they are using around 60 units of fast-acting insulin a day! 4 vials cost 90$, and a vial has a hundred units. That means that every 7 days, that person is going through 90$ worth of insulin, or around 5000$ worth of insulin a year.
When you are a diabetic, “chasing” that high also brings you a lot of “lows”, which means you are constantly checking your blood sugar to make sure you are not going into hypo shock. Add in test strips, which are 100$ for 100, and test around 12-14 times a day – and now you are tacking on another 4300 just in strips!
Diabetes is a very expensive disease, so it is no real question as to why the ADA would counsel everyone to eat more carbs. It really is just a way to fuel business. I reckon that they are akin to the tabacco companies at this point.
If you want to manage your diabetes, Dr. Bernstein is the way to go. I was super resistant to insulin when I started. After cutting the carbs, excercising more, I got my levels down to almost normal levels. All with 20 units of long-acting before bed, and 15-18 units a DAY. Tight control is key. I am not quite there yet, but I prefer my body to make its own insulin, thank you very much.
Glad to hear you’re getting it under control, Jason. And I agree, the ADA is just another trade organization.
I just wanted to add a little something. I was able to maintain my tight control in less than three months. It is achievable. I don’t follow Dr Bernsteins diet to a letter, but I do advocate real foods, and healthy carbs (from fruit and vegetables,) the paleo way. My endo was impressed, and counseled me to follow what I was doing. I happily fired my nutritionist at that point.
Congratulations on the anniversary.
A well made deep dish is great eats. A poor on is like eating burnt dough with pizza toppings.
You are in luck. Great weather for the whole week and The Taste Of Chicago is this week.
Mmmmm Food on a stick
http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/special_events/mose/taste_of_chicago.html
I wouldn’t mind trying one of those turkey legs someday.
It boggles the mind that the ADA continues to push carb consumption even though they say “the more carbs you eat the higher your blood glucose goes.”
Giordano’s = Yum = ENVY!
Enjoy!
Great for dinner, and even better the next morning … cold slice with a cup of hot coffee.
Happy Anniversary and enjoy your time in Chicago. Having moved here 7 years ago, I have managed to wean myself from Giordano’s and other deep dish places. When I do eat pizza, I usually have one piece of crust and pile all of the toppings on that to cut down on carbs and ramp up the fat. Here are a few of our favorite restaurants in the city.
Tocco’s in Bucktown
Kiefer’s (Steak House)
La Sardine (French bistro across from Harpo Studios)
Big Jones in Andersonville for breakfast/brunch
Erie Cafe. Really a steak house outside the Loop. Excellent value.
DMK for burgers
Make sure you see Milennium Park and The Bean.
It’s been 12 years since I lived in Chicago, and man, has the downtown area changed. Thanks for the suggestions. I may visit Greektown if I have time, too.
Enjoy Giordano’s! And, srsly, be careful. The Taste is in full swing.
PS: Where can I get the original version of that “PSA”?
I’m not sure. Dana Carpender posted it, and I lifted it from her site.
I’ll probably visit Giordano’s in Oak Park to avoid the Taste of Chicago traffic.
I know so many diabetics that will totally freak out if they give in to their craving and eat 5 peanut M&Ms, but think nothing of eating a sandwich on a giant bun (40 grams of carbs!) with fat free mayo, of course.
We can thank the ADA for that.
Unfortunately, many doctors, nurses and dieticians pass along these recommendations with a childlike faith. They seem to have lost their intellectual curiosity, if they ever had any.
And what’s really amazing is that the advice goes against what’s in those biochemistry books they’re supposed to read.
I’m a Type 2 Diabetic, and I’ve been pregnant twice, but lost all three babies (a singleton and a set of twins) before I made it to 6 months. The first time, I had to go to “mandatory” nutrition classes, where I was given the standard portion control, low fat, high carb nonsense. “Your body NEEDS carbs!” Yes, the nutritionist actually told me that. I wish I had known about gluconeogenesis at that time. I had to keep a food diary and log all the things I ate. My endocrinologist actually laughed when I told him how many grams of carbs they wanted me to eat, and told me that it was way too many. He based everything on my blood sugar numbers and ketone levels.
The second time, I ended up in the hospital. The nutritionist there wanted me to eat something like 150 grams of carbs per day, and ordered me to eat breakfast, a mid-morning snack, lunch, a mid-afternoon snack, dinner, and an evening snack. It was stupid beyond belief, but I had to order what she said when I called for food. I just tried to not eat everything they sent up. The quality of food was really awful, too. The nutritionist told me that I “had” to gain weight. FYI, I am overweight to start with, so my endocrinologist said I didn’t need to gain weight during the pregnancy. The stupid nutritionist actually clapped her hands when I gained a pound in one week. I was on insulin for that pregnancy, and my insulin needs went through the roof because of the diet and quality of food. It can’t have helped my situation.
It’s weird that my endocrinologist seemed to have sort of a clue, but the nutritionists were blindly recommending poison. On the other hand, the endocrinologist didn’t seem too concerned about the situation. It was sort of, “Oh, that silly nutritionist, giving my diabetic patients such bad advice! Ha, ha. Oh, well.”
When I was diagnosed with Type 2, the doctor I went to told me to go on Atkins, because “The ADA diet is bad for you. Carbs raise blood sugar, so why would you eat something that raises blood sugar?” I’m glad I got that advice first. I wish I’d followed it better and ignored the nutritionists more later.
I’m diet controlled right now, no meds, no insulin, and we’re waiting to adopt. Part of that decision came because of the diet and diabetes situation. I can’t see putting myself in the hands of more idiot doctors and nutritionists in our quest for a baby. They generally seemed clueless about everything.
I’m sorry to hear about the failed pregnancies and wish you the best for the adoption. My wife is reading Weston A. Price’s book and told me he wrote about the surge in difficult pregnancies after societies adopted a Western diet. Such a shame.
Be careful. The gun ban instituted by King Mayor has made Chicago the number one place to get shot.
You should go to the Silver Palm and try a Three Little Piggies sandwich.
If I survived L.A., I can make it for a few days in Chicago. (Oak Park/River Forest, to be exact.)
Hey Tom – enjoy your time back in Chicago as you picked the perfect weather week! Just gorgeous out right now. And my girlfriend loves Giordano’s, too.
And was it just my imagination or was that a map of Bettendorf in Fat Head? I’m from Davenport but the streets looked awfully familiar.
You’ve got a great eye for streets. Yup, I lived in Bettendorf until I was 10.
Happy anniversary to you and your lovely wife. Have a wonderful time, and enjoy every bite of that pizza.
I will, thanks.
I am a physician who has been treating diabetics for years. I have repeatedly been selected by various magazines as a top doctor in my specialty of family practice. I have seen the benefits of low carb diets repeatedly in my patients. Their lipids improve, their blood sugars and blood pressure go down, and some have even been able to get off all their meds by following such a diet and starting an exercise program.
We need more doctors like you.
Hi, Tom–
This is priceless!
Fight fire with fire! I, too, have been in awe at the incredible buffoonery of conventional ADA dietary advice.
Typical scenario: A person I’ve helped become NON-diabetic with carbohydrate restriction gets hospitalized for some reason, e.g., rhythm disorder or pneumonia. They are fed an “ADA 1800 calorie diet” during their stay. Blood sugars? Flagrant diabetic range.
The American Diabetes Diet without a doubt CAUSES diabetes.
We need to clone you, Dr. Mary Vernon, Drs. Eades & Eades, etc., so you can take over the medical world.
I think I stuck this here before, but given the subject matter, it bears repeating. Too much of thier money comes from drug companies.
I’d like to have that “We don’t get it either” as a poster
http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/2008-revenues-received-by-ada.pdf
An organization receiving those donations probably isn’t interested in curing diabetes through diet.
Tom & Chareva,
Happy 10th Anniversary during your Chicago visit!
I was in Wrigleyville the night the Blackhawks earned their way into the playoffs, and then went to White Castle to help celebrate.
From one friend to another, stick with the Giordano’s pizza.
Oh yeah, it’s Giordano’s all the way.
I just read “Cro Magnon: How the Ice Age Gave Birth to the First Modern Humans” by Brian Fagan. Those of us of European ancestry are descended from people who lived on the tundra during an ice age lasting over 100,000 years. During the late Ice Age, writes Fagan on p. 157, “Wild plants and fruit were unimportant in landscapes where growing seasons were extremely short. Judging from a study of modern Alaskan caribou hunters, most people probably consumed no more than a cupful or so of plant food every year.” (As most of us know, carbohydrate comes from plants.)
This is what gets me. Even if you don’t know anything about how different nutrients affect you, you can read a book on prehistoric diets (the basics of which don’t seem to be disputed by serious people) and see how people lived in difficult climates. We got along without grains or year-round fruit or yogurt for hundreds of thousands of years…suddenly, we need this stuff?
I’m afraid a lot of dieticians only think back a few thousand years and assume farming is our natural way of life.
Someone once pointed out that ADA should stand for Assured Diabetes Association.
I used to follow the advice of ADA, dieticians, food pyramid, etc. All I got was years of morbid obesity and type 2 diabetes. I now find it best to ignore their advice and do the opposite of what they recommend.
Definitely best to ignore them.
Interesting article in Tribune this morning about making “healthy choices” at Taste of Chicago. I’ve been making the healthy choice for 30 years and staying away. Nothing worse than eating and walking amongst throngs of tragically dressed Chicagoans and tourists. Many of the restaurants here are air conditioned in the summer. Who knew?
I’m guessing the “healthy choices” are the lowfat dishes?
Good visual.
You can’t be perfect all the time… pizza once every week or two, especially if its after your resistance work.
Whenever I eat stuff with PUFA + gluten + fructose I get this weird bumpy red rash on my feet.
I just feel really, really full after stuffed pizza.
This ADA organization is amazingly like a government organization, believing it can be the cure for the very illness it’s helping create and promote.
Too true. Perhaps they should tax us and get it overwith.
Ohh, Giordano’s, . Good thing I have not been to Chicago for over 20 years, athough a few years ago, before I get really serious about low carb, a friend in Chicago mailed me a half-frozen Giordano’s pizza that I just had to pop in my oven. It was as good as I remembered. There are lots of pizza places in the NY/NJ area where I live, one on almost every street corner it seems, but I can bypass those without blinking an eye. It’s only Chicago deep dish that ever won my heart. Oh well, still plugging away on my low carb and weight loss journey. Down another 12 pounds since the low carb cruise in March to reach a new low. I’ll just daydream about Giordano’s.
A few years ago, when I was still in L.A., my in-laws flew out for a birthday visit and brought a couple of those frozen Giordano’s pizzas with them. Now that’s love.
Type 1 diabetic for nearly forty years, finally getting some good control by ignoring the ADA and dropping the carbohydrates. I’ve had to use less insulin, and I’m at last losing weight. I was in hospital last fall for an infection: more carbohydrates in one meal than I usually eat in a day, and my skyrocketing blood glucose was of course blamed on the infection, not the starches.
I constantly get e-mail and snail-mail solicitations to re-join the ADA and get Diabetes Forecast magazine again. Someday I’ll probably cut loose and write a scathing letter to the editor, vowing that the ADA will never see a penny of my money again. I’m glad that someone is criticizing those incompetents in public.
You don’t need Diabetes Forecast, though, if you merely want to poke fun at ADA-style recipes. Get a copy of any recent issue of Food and Wine magazine. Most recipes are slavishly low-fat yet many are rich in carbohydrates, and some of the celebrity chefs are madly in love with agave nectar — essentially fructose syrup.
How anyone can feed a patient a load of carbohydrates and then blame the high blood sugar on anything else is beyond me.
Hope Warshaw,a nutritionist who frequently speaks for the ADA, once appeared on television and said that diabetics deserved to be able to eat the same foods as anyone else. Here is some advice from her website. It is immoral to do this to people>
“For many years people with diabetes were told to stay away from sugar, sweets and starches because they would raise blood glucose too quickly and too high. Research on this topic has accumulated over the years to prove this advice wrong. In 1994 the nutrition recommendations changed dramatically. Today sugary foods, sweets and starches are no longer verbotin for people with any type of diabetes.
What is true is that people with diabetes need to learn, like all people who try to eat healthy, to enjoy moderate amounts of sweets and sugary foods in moderation and on occasion. All sources of carbohydrate – sugary foods, sweets and starches and even fruits and vegetables – will raise blood glucose. Concentrated sources of carbohydrate, such as sugary foods and sweets can make blood glucose rise more.
The amount of sweets you can eat has everything to do with your current health and diabetes status and goals. For example a person with type 2 diabetes who is trying to lose weight and control their high triglycerides needs to keep sugary foods and sweets to a minimum due to their calorie content and impact on triglycerides. Whereas the teenager with type 1 diabetes can likely enjoy more sweets if they know how to adjust their rapid acting insulin. Learn more about how to fit sweets and sugary foods into your diabetes eating plan in my book Complete Guide to Carb Counting.
And when it comes to starches. The message today is not about avoidance. It is all about making healthy choices, such as choosing whole grain breads, cereals and starches. ”
I agree. The advice is immoral.
That would make an awesome poster! Need to put it up at the hospital I work at (some do-gooder would tear it down though).
We took a trip to Chicago once. Giordano’s is amazing!
The bread to cheese ratio is much better than regular pizza. I could pull the bottom layer of crust off and still have a big meal. Enjoy!
That middle layer, with all the meat and cheese, is at least an inch thick.
Thanks for sharing this. I went through all of this with my late stepfather. Among his other disabilities he was diabetic. His doctor, who he and my Mom adored, recommended the standard ADA high carb diet. I went round and round with them about this and never could get them to consider the possibility that the doctor was mistaken. He never did get his blood sugars stable.
When he was hospitalized my stepdad was given an “1800 calorie diabetic diet.” It was as horrific as you would imagine. Breakfast was canned fruit, oatmeal, and eggs (no doubt from a powdered mix). Sandwich and salad with sugary lowfat dressing for lunch, etc. Just regular hospital swill.
BTW I agree with the poster above regarding economic incentives for keeping people sick. It’s one of the main reasons for the ADA pushing carbs. Others are:
1. They don’t want to admit they were wrong.
2. They buy into the myth about saturated fat causing heart disease.
3. They think most people just won’t follow a low carb diet. (That is true, but some will, and shouldn’t patients be given all relevant information about their choices so they can decide for themselves what sacrifices they are willing to make?)
Indeed, let’s give the correct information at least. People can ignore it if they choose. Personally, I’d much rather give up sugar and starch than fat.
I thought of y’all here when I was in the hospital Friday evening and Saturday morning, post-breast reduction. My husband and I boggled at the food they brought me. The salad wouldn’t have been so bad, if there had been something other than fat-free ranch to put on it. I was kind of blown away, after trying it, that I used to willingly eat that shit. With this was chicken pot pie with potatoes and crust, and bread pudding. I’m not sure what the *margarine* was supposed to go on. Breakfast consisted of a tiny scoop of scrambled eggs (my husband, who does most of the egg-cooking in our house, said it was less than one small egg’s worth, and appeared to be from some sort of reconstituted mix), two strips of turkey bacon, low fat yogurt, apple juice, and COFFEE CAKE!
What is this crap that they’re trying to serve here???? The protein tended to be in minuscule portions, and there was sugar and starch all over the place. But oooohhhhh, must have low fat! Must use margarine!
Thankfully, husband went to the food court for dinner and brought back pecan-crusted chicken, pecan-crusted cauliflower, and sweet potato chips, which he shared with me. Not the absolute best, because they probably used some bread crumbs in that, but still significantly better. And soon as we got home Saturday morning, he fixed me a steak salad with blue cheese dressing.
I love my husband.
Makes you wonder if they’re serving meals designed to create long-term customers.
The PSA is a card I got from the Metabolism Society http://www.nmsociety.org/, which you should all go join right this second. I went to their May planning meeting in NYC, they were passing ‘em out.
I really seriously do want that image you posted as a pdf download or a poster. Where can we get that? I can’t find it on their website. I WILL post it at my home care office.
I went to Hopes site. Her latest post is about the new food guidelines, and she implored is to let her know what we thought.
So I did. She’s probably sorry she asked.
I’ll try to find out if there’s a way to get it as a poster.
Thank you Tom for posting this and thanks again Dana for all of your support! All of the comments are encouraging and together we can end this absurdity. Keep spreading the word on your blogs and all over the internet – thanks to all for your help in promoting truth in nutritional science. Please keep sending people to our site (www.NMSociety.org) for the science that is being ignored by the organizations people with diabetes turn to for help!
Best,
Laurie Cagnassola
Director
Nutrition & Metabolism Society
Thank you, Laurie, for the work you do. Some people have asked if that graphic is available as a poster. If it is, let us know.
Both my sons have type 2 Diabetes both got bad advice about eating carbo’s. After learning from Dr. Berstein’s
book I put both of them on low carb diet with workout routine and one of my son’s lost some weight and was
able to eliminate taking insulin shots and his blood glucose readings are excellent. My other son has now lost
over 40 pounds and his blood glucose readings are between 85 and 95 with almost no diabetes medication.
The ADA recommends 35% to 45% of your diet should be carbos that is crazy for people who do not have
diabetes but is really insane for a person who has diabetes to be eating any carbos.
Glad you figured it out. Think of all the confused parents who don’t.
Happy Anniversary! Enjoy your stay in Chicago!
I am amazed, simply amazed. My friend who has Type 2 Diabetes called this weekend and again tried to admonish me for cutting carbs out of my diet–other than those that come from fruits and vegetables and eating all the protein. I have kidney disease and decided to give up their stupid diet of “Whole grains and limit the fats and proteins” because I FELT SICK. Not just occasionally–but all the damn time. She works in a nursing home that has a lot of diabetics and diabetics with kidney disease and bases her “knowledge” off what she’s learned at work.
I told her that maybe she should try it my way–since she’s obese and diabetic with heart disease. My weight has been on a roller coaster all my life but it’s slowly coming off because of diet and lifestyle changes.
She told me she’s following her doctor’s advice but she hasn’t lost weight–her blood sugars are all over the place and she feels bad. Feels like crap most of the time. I told her she should try it my way for a month and see if there wasn’t any improvement but she won’t. Her doctor is god in her eyes…
And the heck of it is, most doctors don’t know diddly about nutrition.
I agree with you completely on this. I don’t trust the medical associations or groups on alot of things. I think they want long-term customers. Perhaps not individual doctors, but I feel the associations do.
Happy Anniversary!!! Hope both of you have a wonderful time!
Thank you, we will.
If you are paying a hospital for care, then it stands to reason that you should be able to eat whatever you want, and it should be served to you without question. If they won’t serve what you want, then you should be charged less for your stay, and then family or friends can bring you your meals. I wonder how much you are actually being charged for all that sugar and starch? It would be interesting to see a hospital bill with a breakdown of charges, including each meal. Yeah, I know, I’m dreaming.
I haven’t stayed overnight in a hospital since I had salmonella poisoning around age 20. I hope to never stay in one again, but you’re right, you should be able to eat something besides the swill they serve.
When my mother-in-law was in the hospital recently, I was looking at her room service menu. It lists carbs, but I was very confused at first, because it had french fries as 1 carb. I had to look in the corner to see that 1 carb == 15 gms carbohydrate. As far as I can tell, I’ll want to avoid anything listing a carb, and anything with a heart by it if I’m ever there. But I am glad to be able to see it in advance, so I know what they’re doing. http://www.mercydesmoines.org/PDFs/AdultRoomServiceSept2009.pdf
Strange definition of a “carb.”
I had to spend three days in hospital recently and got to choose my food every day. Breakfast was OK, they actually managed to give me my beloved Fromage Frais (high fat) and a piece of fruit. Well, the second day it was a banana, so I should have spelled it out for them…Lunch and dinner I tried once – maybe it was as good as institutional food gets, but that is still not very good. So I got my friends to bring me boiled eggs and veggies and stopped eating lunches and dinners. Three days is manageable but what happens to people who need to stay for four weeks? I shudder think.
Cathryn: setting a good example works better than anything else. Maybe your friend will think again when she sees you losing weight and maybe you can show her your bloodwork someday. That may not convince her but it may plant the seeds of doubt in her mind.
You can right click on the visual here, download it to your computer, then print it out. I did, and am sending it to some dieticians I know.
Great discussion here regarding hospital food. I was hospitalized exactly once–at age 8 to have my tonsils removed (they did that a lot back then). I do everything I possibly can to avoid going back, and hope I never do. Im sure hospitals are not inclined to offer low carb options, and even if they wanted to they probably couldn’t because any facility that gets federal funds has to follow the food pyramid. Whenever I visit friends or relatives in a hospital Im always horrified at the food. If, God forbid, I had to go to a hospital I would beg, pay, and threaten my friends to bring decent food in a couple of times a day. And heaven help the hospital employee who tries to stop me!
I see a business opportunity: smuggling decent food into hospitals.
I’ve got it hanging in my office now, but as an 8.5 by 11, the resolution isn’t too great. May the nm society will put a high resolution one on their website…