No-Bologna Facts
- There’s never been a single study that proves saturated fat causes heart disease.
- As heart-disease rates were skyrocketing in the mid-1900s, consumption of animal fat was going down, not up. Consumption of vegetable oils, however, was going up dramatically.
- Half of all heart-attack victims have normal or low cholesterol. Autopsies performed on heart-attack victims routinely reveal plaque-filled arteries in people whose cholesterol was low (as low as 115 in one case).
- Asian Indians - half of whom are vegetarians - have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the entire world. Yup, that fatty meat will kill you, all right.
- When Morgan Spurlock tells you that a McDonald’s salad supplies almost a day’s allowance of fat, he’s basing that statement on the FDA’s low-fat/high-carbohydrate dietary guidelines, which in turn are based on … absolutely nothing. There’s no science behind those guidelines; they were simply made up by a congressional committee.
- Kids who were diagnosed as suffering from ADD have been successfully treated by re-introducing natural saturated fats into their diets. Your brain is made largely of fat.
- Many epileptics have reduced or eliminated seizures by adopting a diet low in sugar and starch and high in saturated animal fats.
- Despite everything you’ve heard about saturated fat being linked to cancer, that link is statistically weak. However, there is a strong link between sugar and cancer. In Europe, doctors tell patients, “Sugar feeds cancer.”
- Being fat is not, in and of itself, bad for your health. The behaviors that can make you fat - eating excess sugar and starch, not getting any exercise - can also ruin your health, and that’s why being fat is associated with bad health. But it’s entirely possible to be fat and healthy. It’s also possible to be thin while developing Type II diabetes and heart disease.
- Saturated fat and cholesterol help produce testosterone. When men limit their saturated fat, their testosterone level drops. So, regardless of what a famous vegan chef believes, saturated fat does not impair sexual performance.
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I must admit I was skeptical, until I watched your film. I had been a Supersize Me fan…but that was when I was McDougalling (high-carb, low fat-vegan diet, *yuck*). I was constantly:
1. tired
2. sick
3. irritable
4. fat
5. tired
6. did I mention tired?
Six months ago my wife was checking out diets, b/c McDougall wasn’t doing her any good recovering from pregnancy, and she stumbled on Weston A. Price. Well, I haven’t felt so good since I was a kid! I’m kinda pissed that I missed out on butter and meat etc for 9 years! Not to mention I developed lactose intolerance in 1996 and hadn’t had milk until now, it has to be grass-fed and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized otherwise I get sick, but hey, it’s great!
I want to thank you for putting together this documentary. It explained to me why I’ve always been heavy despite the low-fat diets. I’ve always been a bread fiend and I used to eat cereal like a liberal increasing taxes.
Keep up the good work. I’d love to see a follow-up to Fat Head w/ some of the information you weren’t able to get in due to time constraints. You mentioned a miniseries. Well, why not?
Your experience with low-fat diets pretty much matches mine. Isn’t it liberating to realize you can eat the fats you crave and actually become healthier?
Sure is! Not to mention my teenage libido has returned! Heh heh heh! Ooh, should I be saying that on here?
You’re allowed.
Check out this morning’s National Propaganda Radio (NPR) story on school lunches. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/10/school_lunches_need_a_nutritio.html
Ohmigosh, look at that plate! Bread, corn, and lowfat (sugary) chocolate milk. Talk about a sugar rush …
Well Hi again Tom,
I left a couple messages about 6 months ago when I first discovered your movie.
One of your replies was ” Just how think what you’ll look like and feel like six months from now.”
Well as I said it has been 6 months since I started low carbing.
105kg down to 85kg and now going into a maintenence phase as I am at my 2nd goal weight a full 2 months ahead of schedule. I am aiming for about 80kg as a final goal/maintain weight but I am in no hurry.
What do I look like now? Well I dont look like an overweight ex-rugby player anymore, I am much leaner, muscles definition is showing up nicely, my point there is the muscle has remained and the fat has gone.
In my last post I was exercising every other day with high intensity resistance training, this lasted about 6 weeks and although I saw few changes in body composition I sure did feel the difference, however I stopped the training after losing enthusiasm for not seeing any physical results (hidden from view under the fat).
Also at about the same time I discovered some pretty credible names citing that weight loss had little to do with exercise, so I decided to actually put that theory to the test.
I have not exercised for 90% of my low carb journey and it still worked for me, however in my case I do have a very active physical job which should help keep my general fitness levels up anyway? Climbing ladders, crawling through roof spaces, working at a good pace, combined with mental challenges for each new job every few hours I seem to get a pretty good workout.
How do I feel?
I feel much better about myself, self esteem most importantly. Physically most things are easier, I dont breathe as hard when walking up a hill, I can lift myself into a roof attic without much thought, I can now go and buy a pair of jeans that actually fit properly!!!
Mentally I am sharper as well, in fact lately I have been working on a few projects in my spare time and I am having trouble with insomnia a few times a week because I cant seem to switch off, especially when I have a problem to solve, and I then I also start worrying about how bad I am going to feel with only 3 hours sleep and a full day of work on, but strangley I get through with little trouble.
When that had happened pre-lowcarb, I would feel like I had had a damn good drinking session the night before with a mind numbing hangover.
So Tom, thankyou once again for making Fathead, it has changed my life.
Sincerely
RobH
You just made my day, Rob. I’m delighted to hear about the many improvements in your quality of life. Thanks for letting me know.
I was reading the Wikipedia page about the “french paradox”, and when I saw this statement backed up by a reference:
“Although a systematic review of dietary studies found strong evidence of the causative effects of saturated fats on coronary heart disease risk”
I decided to follow that link. What it lead to was a relatively recent Canadian meta-study of 600 cohort studies and randomized trials, and the findings are remarkable, since they confirm in a systematic and methodologically proven manner that there is no established causal link between saturated fat and heart disease risk. This should of course be ground-breaking news since 95% of the Western population believes the bologna. To sum up, their main findings is that a “Mediterranean” diet rich in whole, real food, vegetables and nuts decreases the risk but junk carbs and trans fats increase the risk, significantly. But of course this is ignored by the mainstream media and people keep eating “heart healthy” foods like Cocoa Puffs with skim milk…
Full text: http://www.dcscience.net/mente-aim-2009.pdf
Article from Medical News Today: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145891.php
Most members of the media probably only read the comment section. The study data showed a strong link between trans fats and heart disease, and little or no link between saturated fats or total fat intake and heart disease. It’s right there in the numbers. But here’s what the authors wrote in the comments:
“The general consensus from the evidence currently available is that a reduced consumption of saturated and trans–fatty acids and a higher intake of fruits and vegetables, polyunsaturated fatty acids including omega-3 fatty acids, and whole grains are likely beneficial.”
They just went ahead and lumped saturated fats in with trans fats. Translation: we want to keep our grants.
Palm Oil, an oil high in saturated fat, was removed from foods years ago. Now, there’s research showing that a variant of it not only stops, but actually reverses arteriosclerosis. This is quite amazing since most big pharma medicine can at best keep it from progressing.
http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/natural_health/article01//indexn2_html?pdate=081009&ptitle=Ancient%20but%20potent%20healing%20power%20of%20palm%20oil
Hi Tom-I am in NZ and wote to you way back when FAT HEAD viewed here…A type 1 diabetic, chubby on a low fat diet- with high colesterol on Lipex with few ideas left on how to improve things -getting fatter every year……I didnt understand
that was back in April—–Low carb I am12 kgs lighter- insulin needs are down from 27 units per day to 10-12 units
i am coming up 50 but have never felt so alive!!!!!……..Took myself off Lipex -yeah! Took control………
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU…….from my happy heathy heart !!!
Kindest regards
sue
Thank you for letting me know.
How do you explain Japan? They are mostly vegetarian, and rarely eat red meat and diabetes and heart disease is rare there.
The Japanese actually eat a lot of pork and fish and, despite the rice, consume fewer carbs than the average American … thanks to our donuts, sugar-coated cereals, sodas, bagels, chips, fries, bread, noodles, ice cream, etc.
Their average cholesterol has gone up quite a bit in recent decades, but the rate of heart disease has gone down. For a long time, however, their rate of stroke was much higher than ours.
New Years day 2010 freedom and liberation at hand ! I’ ve been a 20 cup a day coffee and sugar man , can drop that knowing I can eat most other things , Tom you da man, RobH a real inspiration .
It’s not that poor folks are stupid, it’s just that we can’t afford to buy prime beef ribs and still pay our university fees.
But that’s all right now, we saw the latest showing of your documentary in New Zealand and it’s given us another excuse to eat lamb flaps - other than the fact that, you know, it’s the cheapest cut of meat when you have a soaring student loan.
(If you’ve never heard of lamb flaps, I don’t blame you. That’s the part that is so ridiculously saturated with fat that it has to be completely removed before the meat is marketable outside the country as “Lean 100% Pure New Zealand Lamb”. They then sell all that fat for dirt cheap to all us empty wallets and stuffed brains.)
Lamb flaps — I’ll have to ask for those, now that we’re buying our meat from local farmers.
I have seen the movie three times and even though I am not over weight I am very interested in eating healthy. I am still confused at times though with what is or is not healthy. Is olive oil products the same as vegetable oil products? Which items have trans fats as opposed to saturated fats? I know that some people who have spent a life time worried about their food will know but for people like myself it would be great to have a sample menu for the week made up complete with recipes. I reckon that would sell heaps of books and be easier to follow.
Olive oil is a natural oil. You can squeeze olives to get the oil. Humans have been consuming olive oil for ages, and it’s good for us. The problematic oils are those that require industrial processing … corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, etc. Those are full of omega 6 fats, go rancid easily, oxidize easily, and cause inflammation. Avoid anything that says “hydrogenated” or “partially hydogenated” on the label.
The Protein Power books and the 6 Week Cure for the Middle Age Middle, written by Drs. Mike and Mary Dan Eades, have lots of recipes.
Fathead is amazing. I’m grateful that some one put this information in such an easy to understand media. And not only made it easy to understand, but made it funny and entertaining as well.
People don’t realize the HUGE impact that hormones play on your body. Fat forms the basis of many endocrine functions in addition to testosterone. But the importance of having healthy test levels cannot be underestimated and goes well beyond just sexual libido. It also plays a role in fat mobilization, body composition, recovery, maintenance and ability to put on lean mass, the prevention of osteo, etc.
And with women it’s also an important hormone, not only because of the great benefits already outlined, but because testosterone also turns into estrogen.
All true. Too bad more health “experts” don’t get it.
Just saw the documentary on Sky in New Zealand. What a mind-changing programme! I have a raised cholesterol level, so have always believed the standard diet - having been warned off avocadoes even (but never followed that advice!) The trouble is that I am vegetarian (by choice) so my choices of foods will be more limited, but will give the low-carbs, fat foods a go.
It’s a bit more a challenge for vegetarians, but it can be done. Saturated fat is an important nutrient, so if you don’t consume butter or eggs, I hope you at least get some coconut oil.
Like other of your comments, my wife and I saw Fat Head on New Zealand TV. Sheeese…what an eye opener. And it makes complete sense.
I used to be a porridge and breakfast cereal freak and getting older and fatter. I was ‘watching’ my fat intake but completely ignoring starch.
My energy is higher now that I’m eating more greens and no (or less) pasta, potatoes, bread and rice. It’s only been a month but in four weeks I have cut out (most carbs) and lost 2KG. My friends haven’t seen your film, and think I’m nuts.
Thanks for the work you’re doing.
Rhys Coffin
Auckland
Some of my friends think I’m nuts too. They mention that after they’re done complaining about hard it is to keep their weight down.
Saw the film here in NZ and - wow!
I have had heart surgery aged 38 (for an aortic dissection and a bicuspid valve) and having survived that (nearly nine hours of surgery as an emergency!) am on Lipex and trying to loose weight.
I now know for a fact that carbs do not suit my metabolism - if I eat lots of bread (which I love) and pasta (ditto) and potatoes (ditto) then I put weight on like crazy.
I can’t cut those things out (I just get hungry if I do!) but I have reduced them (2 slices of wholemeal bread per day, small amount of pots or pasta with dinner) and upped things like meat and cheese.
Weight dropping, I feel better etc etc. I just wish a “no carb” version of bread existed!
Even had a 1/4 lb cheeseburger the other day - and got a funny look for dismantling it and eating only the middle, leaving the bread!
Keep it up - good work.
Sorry to hear you had heart trouble at such a young age, but here’s to your future health. Cutting back on the carbs will only help.
Tom,
You mention on here that kids who were diagnosed with ADD were successfully treated when natural saturated fats were introduced into their diets, because the brain largely consists of fat. I would like to know a little more about this.
What specific type of saturated fat did these kids start eating?
Was this part of a study/experiment?
Also, I have read that the main constituent of the human brain is Omega 3 - specifically an omega 3 derivative called DHA. Omega 3s are polyunsaturated. They aren’t saturated at all. Doesnt the human brain mainly consist of omega 3 DHA? Please explain this.
Can’t find my original links — my hard drive blew a few months ago and I lost quite a few — but here are some articles:
http://stephanie-on-health.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html
http://www.fabresearch.org/view_item.aspx?item_id=1027
I also can’t find anything on the specific makeup of fats in the brain, but of course we know much of the body’s cholesterol is in the brain. Natural fats such as butter, lard and tallow (perhaps “saturated” isn’t the proper word, since much of the fat them isn’t saturated) contain a much better balance of omega 3 to omega 6 than most vegetable oils, which are too high in omega 6.
The brain-fat connection is mentioned in these articles:
http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/fats.html
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12728744
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/omega-3-000316.htm
The first one, specifically talks about the importance of Omega 3 DHA, especially in growing children and infants. It also talks about balancing the intake of Omega 6 to Omega 3 - as well as the neurological harm in consuming tras fats from processed foods.
Thanks for the links. DHA is yet another reason to eat grass-fed meats, which we do. The girls also like sardines … can’t say I care for them myself.
Have watched the documentary “Fathead” on Sky (NZ) twice as well as taping it and showing it to as many of my friends as I can.
I have always been a believer in natural fats like butter. I never eat margarine. There were times when I tried to eat low-fat, like the Pritiken diet, but never gave up things like butter and nuts and cheese. Have also (like many others) tried the eat fat get thin diet, which we were scared off with the threat of big bad saturated fats.
Years ago I read Adele Davis’s books, and she talks of cutting down on carbohydrate foods to lose weight.
Thanks to Fathead we now know why it was so hard to lose weight on a high carb-low fat diet.
Glad you enjoyed the film, thanks.
Gotta say, I loved the documentary.
But, I have to disagree about something you said in October of 2009:
Most members of the media probably only read the comment section. The study data showed a strong link between trans fats and heart disease, and little or no link between saturated fats or total fat intake and heart disease. It’s right there in the numbers. But here’s what the authors wrote in the comments:
“The general consensus from the evidence currently available is that a reduced consumption of saturated and trans–fatty acids and a higher intake of fruits and vegetables, polyunsaturated fatty acids including omega-3 fatty acids, and whole grains are likely beneficial.”
They just went ahead and lumped saturated fats in with trans fats. Translation: we want to keep our grants.
What was said in the quotes is true, but the media doesn’t just get their info from the comments section. If that were true, then they would have noticed that it said “the general consensus,” and also noticed the following:
Our implementation of the Bradford Hill criteria identified strong evidence that a causal association exists between CHD and intake of vegetables, nuts, monounsaturated fatty acids, foods with a high glycemic index, trans–fatty acids, and overall diet quality or dietary patterns.
If the media got their information from the comments section, they would be reporting that saturated fats are not related to CHD. Instead, the problem lies in the fact that they pick and choose what they want to report, instead of just reporting the truth.
Sorry, I also meant to add that directly after making the “general consensus” statement, they went on to say:
“This is reflected in the revised Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 from the US Departments of Health and Human Services and Agriculture.24 However, little direct evidence from RCTs supports these recommendations.”
The authors of the study disagree with the “general consensus.” It’s the media that are picking and choosing what to report.
I just wanted to point out that it’s not the report that’s leading us astray. Nor is it the media reporting the findings of the study. The problem is that the media are reporting a disagreement the authors have with conventional wisdom as findings of the research.
As the famous saying used to be on all those Wendy’s commercials….
“WHERE’S THE BEEF?”
i look forward to seeing the documentary in whole part. i discovered you on youtube. great work!
We’re on Amazon, also on Netflix if you’re a member.
I also think that the more all this TRUTH comes out and people look at the history of how all this came to be. Junk-Science, committees of FDA ruling on some bogus food pyramid, the scam of Nutritionism and manipulating foods and nutrients into fake frankenstein food and all these oils abused in a lab to become a trans-fat, pesticides and chemicals by Monsanto…. and how the govt and FDA and approval of all this goes on while we get sick and fat and tired and sick and fat and tired and……..
the question comes out that maybe arent they just intentionally trying to kill us?
…because true logic says that all this manipulation of food just isnt natural and distorted food=distorted bodies and distorted health
I don’t think they quite want to kill us because then they’d lose customers. But I don’t think they care if we’re healthy or not.
The following links are abstracts from medical journals showing reversal of heart disease among very sick heart disease patients following plant based diets and is backed up with angiogram x-rays showing actual reversal of the disease.
http://www.heartattackproof.com/resolving_cade.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1973470
Where in the medical literature have there been studies that have shown similar results without patients consuming a diet that is heavily plant based?
“We’ve never had a heart attack in Framingham in 35 years in anyone who had a cholesterol level under 150…Three-quarters of the people who live on the face of this Earth never have a heart attack. They live in Asia, Africa, and South America, and their cholesterols are all around 150.” Dr. William Castelli, Medical Director of the Framingham Cardiovascular Institute in Massachusetts; Harvard Medical School
This shows that heart attacks occur very rarely among people with total cholesterol levels under a truly low level of 150. Why has there only been “one case” of somebody having a heart attack with plaque filled arteries with a cholesterol level of 115? How frequent do people have heart attacks with cholesterol levels under 115?
Here is an interesting article on the Atkins diet and cholesterol levels:
http://drfuhrman.com/library/article2.aspx
The next link has a review of some of the work produced by the Weston Price Foundation and refers to actual studies in the medical literature showing the RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SATURATED FAT AND HEART DISEASE as well as other diseases.
http://drfuhrman.com/members/Newsletters/JF_July_06_WebVersion.pdf
Fuhrman’s an idiot who cherry-picks a few observational studies. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition just did a metastudy — meaning they select only the controlled clinical studies that meet the criteria for clinical studies (controlling variables, etc.) Their conclusions: no relationship between saturated fat and heart disease. No surprise, since Americans 100 years ago ate four times as much butter, far more lard and pork, etc., but had a mere fraction of the heart disease we have today, which only went up when we started consuming processed vegetable oils and way more sugar.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_94941.html
You won’t find large academic studies of people who’ve reversed heart disease following a low-carb diet because nobody has wanted to fund one. Those studies cost millions. Medical journals are also hesistant to publish studies that go against the prevailing wisdom. Check the quote in this blog entry:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/07/how-about-that-score.html
However, several doctors, including Dr. William Davis (just heard him give a speech last week) have reversed heart disease in their own patients by prescribing low-carb diets. Dr. Chris Gardner at Stanford (a vegetarian himself) put people on three different diets and reported — reluctantly, by his own admission — that people on the Atkins diet showed the most improvement in lipid profiles, better than people on the Ornish diet.
Dwight Eisenhower’s cholesterol was 165 when he had his first heart attack. It was lower when he had his second. People with cholesterol below 160 have HIGHER mortality rate overall. They are, to give just one example, more likely to die of cancer and strokes.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1417777/
http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/cholesterol_myth_4.html
http://www.trit.us/moderndiseases/benefits_cholest.html
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.org.uk/overall-death.html
In the Framingham study, people whose cholesterol dropped as they aged were more likely to die prematurely. Trying to push your cholesterol down as you get older is stupid.
Dr. Malcom Kendrick has tracked cholesterol rates and heart disease rates among various populations and found zero correlation. The French have high cholesterol but low rates of heart disease. The Australian aborgines have the lowest cholesterol in the world, but also one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8SSCNaaDcE
All that being said, if you want to live on a plant-based diet and push your cholesterol down to 150, knock yourself out.
I recently watched Fathead- pretty interesting stuff. Made fried chicken for dinner, bought whole milk and need to figure out how to safely dispose
of my margarine in favor of butter…
I’ve never been one to worry about diets,etc (love my mayo and sour cream..)
Not quite ready to give up a bunch of carbs yet (bread-yum), but will make for an interesting science experiment this summer checking out blood sugar after eating various things.
Question for you- my son and I are 2 of those naturally skinny people, and both of us generally NEVER get hungry… since eating more fats (and I’m talking only less than 2 weeks), both of us have been getting hungry, do you think that there is a connection there?
My son has shocked me by wanting to eat (after eggs cooked in butter for breakfast) an hour before lunch- unheard of! Usually I have to make him eat hours late, even if he’s not hungry .
In some people, the body apparently produces insulin to match what has been the usual level of carbs. Without those carbs, the insulin intended to process them can make you hungrier by lowering blood sugar. You’ll adjust. But if you’re hungry, eat.
As my wife’s father discovered, being thin isn’t a protection against developing type 2 diabetes from too many carbs.
Hi, really liked your film! Just wondering about lentils and beans. Does it make a difference if the carbs are slowly digested because of a prodigious amount of fiber?
Slower absorption is better from the standpoint of not running up your blood sugar. However, some people, myself included, don’t digest legumes well. Always listen to your body; if you feel lousy after eating them, avoid them.
i was just wondering, is saturated fat and cholesterol inversely proportional?
if so, why is it that when you eat a lot of eggs your cholesterol levels go up (though return to normal after sometime)
i will try this little experiment on my own but i will not gorge myself with fast food, but rather, meat, red, bloody, tasty meat
No, they’re not inversely proportional.
Hey, loved your film! Its a real eye opener, but I’m slightly confused. The biggest problem you had was with Super size me, right? But what about other documentaries, such as ‘Killer at large”? How do they fit into all of it? According the ‘killer at large’ documentary most of America’s politician’s are ‘owned’ or work for fast food, or junk food, companies, so I have a hard time believing its bologna, when its clearly critising the government. Also the documentary got in touch with obesity researchers who mentioned that their are multiple issues contributing to obesity- not just the ones you’ve mentioned… GAH!!! I’m lost!
Big Food definitely has pull among politicans. But my point is that blaming McDonald’s for obesity is ridiculous when people can simply choose not to eat there. I blame the low-fat, high-carb advice handed down by government far more than anything McDonald’s has done.
Opps forgot to mention, isn’t there also reason to believe that Morgan’s body would react differently to a high carb diet? He had mentioned that he rarely went out with his family, and his mother cooked every night- wouldn’t it be safe to assume that he would have a dramatic weight gain when his body was adjusted to a different life style then yours? His rules were also choosen to mirror what is believed to be an averaged American’s life- you were still living with amount of exercise you normally do. I still agree with your documentary, but I’m- as I said before- lost.
Two things about those rules of his: 1) They don’t reflect anything like the average American’s life. Who eats three meals per day at McDonald’s. In his own film, he showed that most of their customers eat there a couple of times per week. 2) He didn’t even bother to follow his own rules. The math doesn’t add up. He ate far more than his rules would’ve permitted.
Hi, watched the documentary today. Very nice work.
I would just like to contradict a point made on your website about Asian Indian. (I live in India). you say that Indians are normally vegetarian (very true because even if we eat meat its mostly chicken, fish, goat and that too once or twice a week). But the point that heart attacks are prevalent in India??! I m not able to swallow it because its very rare to hear about it here.
Next point that i would like to make is that in India yoga is again gaining popularity (thanks to Baba Ramdev) and many people have benefited from the vegetarian diets recommended in yoga. (and thats 100% true). Check the following link : http://www.divyayoga.com/
I would be grateful if u clarified my doubts.
“India has the highest incidence of heart related diseases in the world and the number of those affected is likely to double in the coming years, a leading cardiologist said on Wednesday.”
http://tiny.cc/hkrdd
“New research published in The Lancet finds that India will bear 60% of the world’s heart disease burden in the next two years …”
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/105302.php
Karen Barnaby, Chef, Vancouver, B.C., Canada has a book and a blog Low Carb Gourmet (after discovering the values of low carb for her own health and weight)
Do you have more information relating to this comment?
“Many epileptics have reduced or eliminated seizures by adopting a diet low in sugar and starch and high in saturated animal fats.”
I have had seizures and actually made the observation on my own that whenever I was feeling kind of chunky and put myself on a low fat, no candy etc diet, I would get what they call temporal lobe seizure, or “aura”, quite frequently. In my case I get an insane feeling of deja vu and feel quite scared, often in others they predict a seizure is about to begin. When I added fat back into my diet it would stop. This happened quite a few times before I noticed the connection, and then started doing some research on it. I found that long before pills were ever invented, and with children with uncontrollable epilepsy they prescribed a high fat diet called ketogenic diet. I added fat back into my diet. However, not to the extent of the ketogenic diet which can have a diet of up to 80% fat. In my case, I just have to not avoid fat. And for the past two years I have had no seizures. The reason I am posting this is maybe you can help raise awareness for epileptics out there to help them either reduce or get rid of horrible side effect causing medications, and just eat naturally, which would also just help them feel better in general and be healthier anyways. In the studies mentioned in this link, I am guessing there is not very much adult data to compare with because the majority of them are scared to eat so much saturated fat which would raise their cholesterol. Even my doctor was scared of me eating a regular fat diet because it would raise my cholesterol.
http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/treatment_ketogenic_diet
Unfortunately, many doctors are still afraid of saturated fats.
http://www.webmd.com/epilepsy/ketogenic-diet-for-epilepsy
I haven’t seen the documentary, I’ve just heard about it, but I’ve read what’s written here on this site. You’re amalgamating a lot of material written by lots of people but I’m not sure what your credentials are in terms of your suggesting major lifestyle changes. Do you have a medical degree or a degree in food science or nutrition? Saturated fats contribute to higher cholesterol levels. I’ve heard this from every doctor I’ve ever spoken to about it. I rarely read any articles in the media about diet because they are rarely written by true professionals in the field of health so I rely on my own doctors. Whole milk contains more cholesterol than skim milk ergo ingesting more cholesterol is not good for your body. Some fats are necessary and important for living, but meats and dairy products should be eaten in moderation, not as the basis for your diet. This is true for carbs, too. Eating fast food often will make most people gain weight and that’s not a good thing, which is the point of Super Size Me. I live in the American south where fried foods, obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol and early death go hand in hand in hand. Some saturated fat isn’t bad for you, but you’re not going to convince me that eating a lot of lard isn’t going to kill me.
Fried food isn’t fried in lard anymore. It’s fried in soybean oil or canola oil. A hundred years ago, Americans consumed four times as much lard and butter as today. Is it your impression that they were fat and dropping dead of heart disease back then? Or what about the French and Swiss, who eat far more butter and cream than Americans do, yet also have far lower rates of heart disease?
You’ve bought into the theory that cholesterol causes heart disease. Check out any of the books we recommend, or follow some of the links under the Recommended Reading sidebar, then see if you still believe that.
Interesting.. although I knew most of this already. My dietician advises me to eat fatty, slow-energy releasing foods instead of quick-energy releasing foods high in carbs because of my hypoglycemia. My family also prepares everything in olive oil and we eat a lot of avocado, nuts and fatty fish. I don’t know our exact cholesterol rates but according to the doctor they are ‘perfect’, but I have no idea what this means in the light of your theories.
I’m also not sure about animal fats being healthy per se.. do you have any examples of studies that prove vegetarians who eat well-balanced meals are less healthy? I know fat is good for the brain but can it be taken from other sources than animal fat too?
I guess it all depends on the kind of fat you eat.. eating at MacDonalds sure doesn’t provide healthy kinds of fat nor does it contain any useful nutricients. And of course there is a lot of sugar and artificial bad stuff crammed into it.. it’s scary. I think back in the days people were healthier because they ate natural, wholesome products instead of artificial processed stuff and usually got a lot more physical activity.
Anyway, let’s not forget to eat our veggies. ‘Cause those are important too.
That’s a rare dietician. I’m not aware of any long-term clinical studies comparing the health of vegetarians and non-vegetarians who otherwise avoid junk foods such as sugar and white flour. The observational studies are iffy because vegetarians are a self-selected group. People who try vegetarianism and end up feeling lousy give it up and therefore aren’t counted as vegetarians … I’m one of those.
Does it make sense to try to lower triglicerides and pattern b ldl, or is the point of the movie to forget about monitoring cholesterol?
Conventional wisdom says that eating whole grains and fiber helps to lower pattern b ldl, while preventing digestive cancers… does this have any scientific merit, or are the high carbs in grains/fiber outweigh any potential benefits?
What about juicing fruits/vegetables? Juicing beets for example, my favorite, will spike your blood sugar, so it should it be avoided or is there a place for it in a no carb diet?
What you’re aiming for is higher HDL and lower triglycerides. You can achieve that by eliminating sugars and refined starches while eating more natural fats. Forget about whole grains lowering pattern b LDL — that’s only in comparison with refined grains. And all grains contain lectins, which cause inflammation in many people.
I personally wouldn’t juice anything if the result is a glass of something sweet. You’ve removed the fiber that slows the release of glucose into the blood. You can measure for yourself: get a glucose monitor, make your juice, then test your glucose an hour later. If it’s over 120, you’re spiking your blood sugar.
I found your film from following a link on a libertarian site that I frequent, and I absolutely loved it! While admittedly I did originally download it, I went and ordered several copies to send to friends and family and for myself. Hopefully, they will recommend it to their friends and family as well. It’s such an important documentary to get out there in circulation. I really hope it takes off so you can retire to some fancy northern village of insanely rich people, because unlike Michael Moore, you absolutely deserve it!
My boyfriend and I started eating like what is recommended in several of the books you have listed on this site, which I bought and read after watching your documentary. I have to say, we are definitely feeling the benefits! Who knew that fats and cholesterol were so healthy.
Alas, a lot of my friends don’t have time for science. However, your documentary is so funny that those to whom I have shown it had no problem sitting through the whole thing. What a wonderful piece of work. Thank you so much for spreading the word through your documentary!
I appreciate the compliments. I set out to make it funny, hoping that would draw people who don’t normally watch documentaries.
Thanks! So assuming no gluten allergies, are high fiber cereals or fiber supplements a bad thing?
They can be. The lectins in grains are a real problem for some people. They can cause leaky gut syndrome, which in turn can lead to a vareity of auto-immune disorders. Wheat, for example, gives me arthritis.
Thank you for all your great work. I’ve told everyone that they can talk to me about my food choices AFTER they watch your documentary and read Good Calories, Bad Calories.
My question is a slightly personal one: are your kids fully paleo? I remember reading somewhere that certain levels of glucose are necessary for a growing brain, but from the vids your kids are obviously smart cookies… err.. almonds. Any unusual low-carb health concerns on the small child front?
No, they’re not fully paleo, and neither am I since I eat raw-milk cheese and grass-fed butter. The girls also drink milk. We don’t keep cereal in the house, but they ask for a sandwich now and then, so we give it to them. My wife puts sweet potatoes in her stews or serves them as a side dish sometimes (although those probably are paleo). We keep their sugar intake very low, but don’t want to be food Nazis either, so they can have a treat now and then.
“…at risk of heart disease because of a genetic mutation that affects one in 25 people in India.”
“The research, published in January in the journal Nature Genetics, explains how a genetic mutation affecting four per cent of Indians and one per cent of the world’s population, leads to a formation of an abnormal protein.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/02/india.heart.disease/index.html
FYI for anyone freaking out at the notion of eating lard: Get up off your lazy butt and go look up the nutrition info, either at the USDA nutritional database or at the grocery store, since a few of them still sell the stuff. Be sure you read the label for NON-hydrogenated lard; for some reason I can’t fathom, sometimes they try to turn it into Crisco.
Seriously, lard has less saturated fat in it than butter does.
One tablespoon of butter is about 14.2g total. Fat content is 11.52g. Saturated fat is 7.294g.
One tablespoon of lard is slightly less grams than one T of butter so I plugged in 14.2g. I got back 14.2g of fat and 5.566g total saturated fat.
The slight difference between the fat content of butter and the fat content of an equivalent amount of lard is probably due to the presence of solids in the butter, whereas lard is just pure body fat from a pig.
Also, by the way, most of the fat left over in the lard after you fraction the saturated off is about 6.4g of monounsaturated. You know, the kind of fat you find in olive oil.
It’s difficult for me to find non-hydrogenated store-bought lard (although I do save bacon grease, filtered through a coffee filter and refrigerated), but when I first bought it a couple years ago I noticed I could spoon it out of the tub even though it was fully refrigerated. I thought that was odd until I read the label.
Then I wondered how the hell we’ve let the experts snooker us for so many years about how “saturated” lard is.
How much did you get paid by the fat peddlers to make this hornswaggle?
Nothing … which is a few billion less than the grain-pushers and vegetable-oil salesman gave to push the grains-are-good theory.
My friend made me a copy of your movie and so far I’ve enjoyed it very much (watching it in parts during my bus commute). Do you have a spot on your site anywhere to accept donations or some kind of contribution? Or would you rather someone order a copy through amazon? I’d rather compensate the creator rather than the distribution channel but I’ll leave that up to you.
On another note, I remember reading how eating low carbs can lead to headaches and low glycogen levels in your muscles. As someone who’s very active I find it hard to give up my carbs. I’ve read articles at Mark’s Daily Apple concerning the Paleo diet but then read bike training articles (link below) saying high carbs is the way to go.
After reading this article: http://outside.away.com/magazine/200105/200105body1.html
I’m a little torn on improving my training.
At the moment I’m sort of meshing several ideals. I try to eat natural unprocessed foods but I’m also eating grains. Almost all my grain sources are whole grain. Also, as far as I’m concerned fruits and vegetables are still awesome foods.
If you’ve conditioned your body to burn carbohydrates preferentially for fuel, you will feel tired without them until you adjust. Keep in mind that paleo humans and what I’d call modern paleo humans — the Plains Indians, the Inuits — led very active lifestyles without relying on grains or other dense sources of carbohydrates. If you’re a competitive cyclist you may need more starch for fuel, but I’d suggest getting it from unprocessed foods like sweet potatoes instead of grains. Grains can cause inflammation, leaky gut syndrome, and all kinds of other problems.
I should probably put a donate button on the blog sometime. Check back when you can and we’ll happily accept a donation if you’re in the mood.
Alright, found the donate button
I finished watching the movie this morning and thoroughly enjoyed it. A lot of what was said at the end made sense to me (IE eating well but still not losing weight). I might try a one month experiment to see if I can do this and how my body will react. It will be tough, I love my sweets very much.
I may have missed this but towards the end you said you ate nothing but meat and fat for a month and your cholesterol went down. I forget if you mentioned if you lost weight or not. Did you continue to lose weight? Do you have some kind of log of the food you ate for that month? I’m curious on the amount of calories you consumed.
I didn’t count calories that month since it was an experiment to see if all that fat would raise my cholesterol. I lost another two pounds, though.
You inspired me to put up a donate button. Thanks.
Hey,
I’m a vegan, but not a radically PETA-loving vegan, and I just wanted to say thank you for this documentary. I just wanted to say that I completely agree that radical veganism is continuing to infringe our freedom of speech and liberties, but the real problem is ignorance. Many vegans I know are too gullible, they believe that everything they buy that’s organic is healthy and that everything vegan is good for you. Alot of them know how to count calories but they completely ignore macro nutrients. The one thing I hate the most about veganism is their obsession with using sugar. They might not use regular sugar because “white sugar is bad” but instead they’re using the vegan HFCS alternative, agave nectar. They completely disregard the detrimental effects of HFCS and any syrup, and they continue to use these sweeteners sparingly, enough to cause them fructose malabsorption. Almost every study conducted on vegans prove that there is no benefit of the diet in preventing any disease, in fact, many risks for diseases went up in vegans. But overall, if you compare a vegan diet with a omnivore diet, there isn’t a huge difference. Both diet can be abused but I still believe that a vegan diet can be healthy. I’m not a vegan because I believe I’m superior like PETA and most activists. You’ll never find me liberating animals from farms into the wild or protesting animal cruelty. I’m only a vegan because I live in a food desert and I can’t find decent milk or meat that was grown with care. Sustainability is important to me and that’s just a personal choice. With that said, I don’t eat any fancy foods found in some health store but instead I grow everything I eat. I’m glad that you brought up the issue of inflammation and insulin resistance because, as you mentioned, they are the root causes of most diseases. The easiest way to fight off inflammation is to eat anti-inflammatory foods which are mostly vegetables. Personally, I believe that anti-inflammatory foods only exist to balance out inflammatory foods such as meat. The only problem I have with meat is the conventional farming and the processing which takes away alot of the quality in the meat. It’s true that our bodies require meat, for many reasons, especially highly absorbable protein, b-12 and heme iron. Another issue with sugar is that artificial sweeteners are not doing us any good but are mostly harming our bodies. Our brains know the difference between artificial sweeteners and the real deal. As you mentioned, a good diet is a diet that is balanced between the foods that our ancestors would recognize so pretty much a paleo diet. This includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and meat/dairy. That also includes saturated fats from meats, dairy and good vegetable oils such as palm kernel and coconut. The main reason why I wanted to post this comment is because I wanted to prove that not every vegan out there is some crazy activist who is trying to take away your liberties. I have no problem with McDonalds or any other fast-food chain but I do admit to believing that they could do the environment a few favors and make their foods a bit more nutritious but I’m not going to stop anyone from eating their food. I do think that you discredited the center for science in the public interest a bit too much because I actually think that they’re trying to be in the public’s best interest. I’m just thankful for their efforts to get foods labeled with nutritional information.
Once again, thank you so much for this great documentary and for trying to improve the overall health of the public.
Thank you for the positive comments. I agree with you about factory-farmed meat. Feed cattle grass, as Nature intended, and the meat is not only NOT detrimental to health, it’s health-enhancing. Put animals back in pastures, and we can avoid the cruelty and and the destruction of the soil that most of are against, whether we’re vegetarians or not.
I would appreciate a response to this e-address.(You may also print your response on your blog site) Dr.Atkins, prime mover in a low carb, no-restricted fat diet, died of atherosclerotic-related disease, and upon autopsy was found to have diffuse, severe atherosclerosis. In view of your proposal of no saturated-fat restrictions, how do you explain his atery disease? I, am a physician, a heart-bypass patient, and have been strictly avoiding saturated fats, as well as transfats for several years. Prior to my initial “acute coronary syndrome” event(which thankfully left no gross, measurable myocardial injury) I had been on Dr. Adkins’ regimen for several months. It did result in weight loss, but I am convinced that it hastened and worsened my atherosclerotic progression.
For Pete’s sake, you idiot, he died after slipping on the ice and banging his head on a curb. Look it up. Rumors that he died of heart disease were started by vegan nut-jobs who hated the guy.
Considering the improvements in my own cholesterol numbers and overall health when I embraced natural saturated fats and gave up sugar and starch instead, good luck trying to convince me saturated fat is harmful. Saying you avoid saturated fat and trans fat is like saying you avoid water and moonshine. They make look the same, but they’re not.
There are cultures all over the world where people consume far more saturated fat than we do, but have much lower rates of heart disease. But they don’t eat sugar and white flour.
And did you happen to see any of the recent studies concluding that the Atkins diet leads to better cardiovascular markers than low-fat diets? Google Gary Foster low fat low carb.
Hey, I have a question. WHAT THE HELL DO I EAT ? I am a vegetarian. I have been trying to loose a little bit of weight around 10-15 lbs. My fridge is stacked with foods filled with high CABRS. For example bread, naan ( Indian roti of a sort has 45 grams of carbs out of an 80 gram serving ), I eat a lot of cereal aswell ( Kashi cereal ). A lot of what I eat is carbs, what do I start eating to lessen my carb diet ? Can someone please recommend some foods ? Also, I thought complex carbs were good such as multi grain bread ?
I don’t eat any grains, except on rare occasions. Grains are not good foods. Whole grains may be better in some ways than white flour, but that doesn’t make them good.
As for what to eat, I guess it depends on why you’re a vegetarian. If it’s for religious or ethical reasons, I’d urge to you read The Vegetarian Myth (Lierre Keith) and see if those ethical beliefs hold up. If you’re determined not to eat meat or eggs or fish, I’d try to pick foods with the most protein content and the fewest carbs.
If you’re a vegetarian for health reasons, I’d urge to you do some reading to see if those beliefs hold up as well. The Primal Blueprint (Mark Sisson), Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (Weston Price) or Primal Body, Primal Mind (Nora Gedgaudas) would be informative, as would The Vegetarian Myth.