I want to welcome our 1st guest blogger: RICHAN
Richan has been following our blog and has brought great insight and motivation to Whole Food Mommies. She is right on when it comes to nutrition and feeding her extremely healthy 2 year olds.
Thanks for the AWESOME blog Richan!
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Butter is better than an APPLE? Hmmm I think not
I have been following Whole Food Mommies blog for about 8 months now. I know and admire the women who write this blog and want to thank them for the help they have given me on my journey towards eating more nutritious and healthy food.
This past month as I was looking through my February 2011 Reader’s Digest I happened upon the feature article of the month, “Eat This, Lose Weight”. The article is an interview of Gary Taubes, a science journalist given by Lisa Davis. I first just skimmed the article to see if it was worth reading and was shocked by the summary page of “5 ways to get started”, guidelines given by Eric Westman, MD.
Here is a summary of the 5 ways:
- There is no need to limit fat, basically from bacon to butter eat as much as you want
- Eat less than 20 net carbs a day (net carbs are total carbs minus fiber), so no pasta, bread or rice
- No starchy veggies and ONLY 4 cups of leafy greens and ONLY 2 cups of broccoli, cauliflower green peppers, etc
- NO FRUIT!! Or fruit juice or sweets. Though sugar free sweets and diet soda are okay
- Eat as much protein and fat as you want, just stop eating when you are full
I think I may have been in the dark with diet articles like this for the past year or so since I have been only reading books and articles that advocate plant based diets. But really, who in their right mind would say that butter is better for you than an apple? I know this low carb diet stuff has been out there for years but I didn’t think anyone was still doing it. I wanted to write a letter to Reader’s Digest to complain that they are being socially irresponsible by printing such rubbish. Before I did so I thought I would read the entire article.
He did have a couple of good points
- There is more to being overweight than calories in/calories out
- Restricting calories is ineffective, since it is the type of calorie that matters
- Stay away from refined carbohydrates
- And that is about all that I agreed with
His other points
- Exercising isn’t necessary for losing weight
- High fat is better for your heart
- If low on energy when starting the plan, just add a little salt (seriously it said that)
He also said that we need to eat what humans evolved to eat and refined grains and sugars are not part of that.
And to that I say, didn’t the first humans eat fruit and starchy vegetables too? And I am pretty sure that the hunters and gathers didn’t eat cheese and butter. His logic there is completely flawed.
I think initially he was on the right path; losing weight is more than counting and restricting your calories, and that we need to be careful with refined carbs. And that is what we learn with a more plant based diet. Articles like this one make me so grateful that I know the best way to feed me and my family. I don’t always do the best but I try and it will make a difference. Slowly but surely I believe our society will come around and that articles like this will be laughed at for how bizarre they are.
As for now, I am off to write my complaint letter to Reader’s Digest.
~Richan
Source: WFM 1-10