John Nicholson, author of The Meat Fix: How A Lifetime of Healthy Eating Nearly Killed Me, received a letter from the NHS the other day, which got him thinking about exactly how we can retune our attitudes towards healthy eating...
So there I was, sitting in my office, listening to obscure rock albums from the 1970s by Rick Derringer when the postman arrives with an armful of stuff. Naturally, most of it is junk mail trying to get me to order pizza's from Domino’s or a walk-in bath; I'm not sure if those two things are related. Anyway, in amongst the rubbish is a large envelope from the local NHS inviting me to take part in a research project into diabetes. I didn't know they cared. Turns out, they don't.
As usual with these types of documents they're incredibly patronizing and assume you have brain damage. Why isn't there a box you can tick in order to receive the sentient adult version of this stuff instead of the one written in big purple crayon for people who can't find their arse with either hand?
Anyway, it turns out they're trying to unearth a lot of undiagnosed diabetics. Which is all well and good were it not for the dietary advice it gives to the public to tackle obesity-caused type 2 diabetes.
It says you must eat a healthy diet, but defines that as one low in fat. It is obsessed with fat to the exclusion of all other foods. It tells you to read food labels and to watch out for hidden fat. Fat makes you fat is the clear driving philosophy.
This is simply untrue but this is not yet the worst of it. Given the nature of diabetes – a condition of too much glucose in your blood – surely it would make more sense to tell people not to eat foods which put that glucose into your blood? I mean, you don't need to have a degree in biology to understand that do you? So what puts glucose in your blood? Sugar and carbohydrates do it very well, thank you. That'll be bread, pasta, or anything with flour, potatoes or high sugar fruits in. Cut those out and the amount of glucose your insulin has to deal with will be markedly reduced. Mine is always between 4.9 and 6.6, depending on where in the food eating cycle I am. Not too low, not too high. But not recommended by the NHS.
Never mind all this bollocks about low fat diets, how about recommending one free of sugar and low in carbs? Is there even a suggestion that this would be a good idea? Is there bollocks! Now, diabetes.org.uk recommends a low carb approach to managing your diabetes. They are the biggest British diabetes charity, not some underground subversive quack. Yet, somehow, this is ignored on the NHS information.
This is typical of the official healthy eating advice. It is still stuck on the idea that diets should be based on carbs and not fat, seemingly oblivious or uncaring of the fact that since this became their orthodoxy in the mid 80s, type 2 diabetes and obesity has ballooned. They would like to blame this solely on indolence and gluttony but the truth is this; a diet based on good quality animal fat from grass fed animals will feed you better, and satiate your appetite better, than one based on starch. I know this. I am living proof of it. Remember, I was the dude who ate brown and wholegrain everything and the only fat I ate for 25 years was super healthy vegetable oils. Or so I thought.
So why did I get so fat? Why was I so sick? Why did I lose so much weight and body fat when I stopped eating grains and high load carbs and changed to a diet based on meat and fat? This isn't because I was so damn clever, it's because it's how my, and doubtless most people's, bodies are designed to work. Had I not changed to this new fantastic regime, I would almost certainly have developed type 2 diabetes and the NHS could not have told me to change my diet to a healthy one because I was already eating a healthy diet by their standards. What would they have said? Shut up and take the pills Johnny, in all probability.
This isn't difficult science. Got a problem with glucose? Stop eating glucose. So why don't they tell us that? Is it down right stupidity or is it a conspiracy to preserve the status quo of the food processing and pharmaceutical industries? I don't know but it is a bloody disgrace and I should know; trust me, I'm not a doctor.