I call this site “Life after Carbs” because, of course, there were carbs in my diet at one time — bucket-loads of carbs, for years on end — and I’m sure that’s true for everyone reading this. In our culture, and in the vast majority of cultures around the world, you don’t start out eating a low-carb diet. Even the Inuit have flour and sugar, and diabetes and heart-disease.
Like most Americans of my generation, I once believed that carbs were my friend and that saturated fat was my enemy. It was a mind-set deeply held.
I remember an Easter Sunday early in our marriage. Anita and I were living in southern Indiana while I was in graduate school. We didn’t have time to drive home to Michigan for the holiday, so Anita set about cooking a special dinner for the two of us. The main dishes were to be leg-of-lamb and garlic-cheese scalloped potatoes.
The scalloped potatoes nearly end our marriage.
cheese, eggs, fish, hot dogs, observational study, red meat, type-2 diabetes
Is red meat guilty by association? Some at Harvard think so
In Critiques, Food, News & Commentary on August 14, 2011 at 7:21 pmIn late June 2011, the HSPH published a study singling out potatoes as a particularly fattening food, especially in the form of french fries. Having sworn off fries forever as part of my low-carb way of eating, I applauded the brilliance of the findings. I also liked the general conclusion that all calories are not equal when it comes to packing on pounds.
Now I’m wondering what could have caused a nose-dive in the quality of HSPH’s research in under two months.
Last week, a team from the HSPH published an epidemiological study claiming an association between the consumption of red and processed meats and the development of type-2 diabetes (Pan et al. Red meat consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Note: this link is to the abstract. The article itself is behind a pay wall.). News agencies pounced on the study, pouring out numerous rehashes of the HSPH press release, some suggesting a causal link exists between eating meat and becoming diabetic. Read the rest of this entry »