Diets in the News

I have been reading Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, which is in Dr. Mary Dan Eades words an "eye-opening, jaw-dropping expose" of the current state of our food industry. There is so much in the book to comment on that I hardly know where to begin. But others have gotten there before me, so here are a few new links to sites that have discussed Pollan and low-carb issues. I will try to explore some of the other issues the book brings up in future blog entries. Paleo or Low-carb is the diet to follow, but Pollan's big contribution is to examine the source of the food that makes up the diet.

The Last Atkins Dieter for January 30th and 31st talks about Pollan's article, mentioned here earlier, entitled, "Unhappy Meals," wherein he states, "Eat less meat." No, no, no. I'm sorry, but this is where he gets it wrong. Eat meat. There are so many good reasons why, but for starters here is a recent link to Dr. Michael Eades's blog on methionine (found in abundance in meat) and it's ability to reduce cancers and the general immune system boosting powers of sulphur-containing amino acids found in meat. (Carbs and fat have no sulphur.)

Which brings me to the March 6th entry at Weight of the Evidence, by Regina Wilshire in which she discusses today's news about the Atkins diet. The L.A. Times front-page article couldn't help negating the results of the study which found that low-carb Atkins dieters lost more weight than those on the Zone diet, or Dean Ornish's low-fat diet, or a diet following the U.S. nutritional guidelines called LEARN, first by saying that the subjects in the study re-gained some of their lost weight after the study was over (did they go back to their regular diets?) and by putting in a plug for the "healthful fats" found in peanut butter (!?!?!), legumes (like soybean oil, perhaps?), and vegetable oil (like corn oil?)

Again Eades has a fascinating blog entry that is linked to the methionine entry which discusses the roll of saturated fat in the process of ridding our bodies of free radicals. Look down at the bottom of the entry for March 2nd. As Julia Child used to say, "Butterrrh!" Or butter, coconut oil, and extra virgin olive oil, the trinity of healthful fats according to Dr. Mary Enig the fats expert lady.