Pork (bacon)

by | Jan 10, 2013 | Food Choices, High Protein Diet, Low carb diet | 0 comments

This a recent post on forum.lowcrber.org that I have commented on about meat products

StuartB Wrote:

I was reading the site “Perfect Health Diet,” which is a title to be loathed, where the author, Paul Jaminet, said that eating pork causes cancer, MS, fatty liver disease, and obsessive reading of Animal Farm. Because I’m impressionable, even at my age, I immediately thought I should give up bacon, because I have a fatty liver. This depresses me somewhat, as there are few things I love more in this world now than eating my morning bacon.  He said that studies show that regular pork is worse than cured pork. Apparently, because of the way pigs are kept in industrial farming (not able to move around) and what they are fed (grains) that these hogs are swimming with Omega 6, which I found out only yesterday are bad!  We eat the pig and lots of this Omega 6 is transferred into us, unless of course you have a free-range source. What do you other carnivores think about this pork bashing?

My Response:

In respect to factory farmed meat, I’m quite inclined, unusually, to agree with Mr. Jaminet. From many of the studies I have read, the type and quality of the food given to factory reared animals is appalling. When you add in to that the fact that they are almost daily marinated in hormones, plus there is a high proportion of GMO in their food. It probably is no surprise to you that I never now eat anything other than naturally reared meat. 

More specifically, onto the subject of bacon, one of the things that many people overlook is that bacon from pastured pigs contains a healthy amount of saturated, as well as mono saturated fat. Now, most of these fats consist of oleic acid which is the type so valued in olive oil, but also, it contains a healthy amount of palmitoleic acid which as you may, or may not know, has antimicrobial properties. It also contains so very healthy fat soluble vitamin D and a superior type of vitamin E which acts as an antioxidant. Now, I spend a lot of my time in France which means that I have easy access to traditionally reared and cured pork, bacon and other meats from the countryside around me. The good thing is these traditional ways of growing or producing pork and other meats have also transferred across the pond and you can find them in the States, in Australia, in New Zealand and in the UK. In fact, anywhere where good, old- fashioned animal husbandry and dedication to quality still remain impart of the farming population.

One thing I have found, though through eating naturally-reared meat products, is not only do they taste better, but it’s almost as if your body acknowledges their high and nutritional value and you find, you don’t need as much of it to be satisfied. So, while it may be a little bit more expensive, in the long run, it can work out to be the same cost or maybe even a bit cheaper to enjoy naturally grown, nutritious and delicious food.

Hope that helps,

Mark

I’m Starting Again

by | Jan 9, 2013 | Food Choices, High Protein Diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

This is a post on fattoskinny.net that I have commented on regarding weight loss

Itsoversugar’s post:

I’ve tried FTS before and did not stay on it for long. Here I am, many, many months later, basically the same weight I was before. I’m ready to do something about it now. Every year I make a resolution to lose weight. I’m not going to do that this time. What I really want to do is gain health. And if weight loss results in getting healthier, then I’ll be pleased.

I’m going out to do a grocery hall in just a bit, so I have some healthy foods to eat. Right now, I’m eating an egg, fried in butter and topped with a little cheese to hold me over until my errands are done.  I’ll post my menu for the day when I get back.  I’m so excited to be back!!

***************

This was my answer:

That’s a really great shopping list you got there, practically not a carbohydrate in sight, well, apart from the Kool Aid and the sugar for the family.

I used to have a problem getting good meat and so forth until I tried some of the mail-order meat producers especially the ones that produce the grass-fed beef and other naturally raised animals for the table. I found that their quality of meat is far superior to that I could find locally and because I could buy it in bulk, it turned out to be cheaper as well and oftentimes carriage was free or included in the price.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Eating More Dairy to Lose Fat

by | May 26, 2012 | High Fat Diet, High Protein Diet, Milk Products | 0 comments

Cheese, Cream, more cheese, in fact everything and anything dairy can be found on many lowcarb plates.

We would be lost without it.

But, as this article shows, eating dairy is more than just a way to cut down on carbs…

Eating high calcium, higher fat dairy foods, have been a long term stable tenant of the low-carb way of eating, and for good reason – it works – as part of a healthy low carb regime.

Now, a recent study conducted in Denmark has observed that the more calcium you eat in your diet the less body fat you will have, and therefore the less you will weigh.  This points to the fact that not only is dairy a high-energy food, it could be that dairy itself can help you absorb less fat.

Professor Arne Astrup, Head of Human Nutrition at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Denmark, undertook a study to prove this fact.

In the study, a group of volunteers spent one week eating a diet that was high in calcium, typically more than 2000milligrams of calcium a day; and week 2 was on a low calcium diet, where they were eating around about 500milligrams of calcium a day.

These diets were designed so that they had the identical amount of calories and crucially, they also had the same fat content each week.

The known science led the researchers to expect that the higher calcium diet would indeed cause the body to absorb less fat than on the lower calcium diet.

However, the results that actually came out were even better than expected, in fact on the higher calcium diet tests on the subjects excretions showed that they passed through twice as much fat as they did on the lower calcium diet.

Putting that another way, on the higher calcium diet they absorbed only half the amount of fat than they did on the lower calcium diet.

What this means for low-carbers is that when you eat dairy products, not all of their calories count.

But of course, that still doesn’t give you an excuse to binge out on cheese!

Protein is More Satisfying.

by | May 25, 2012 | Cravings, High Protein Diet, Sensible Eating, Snacks | 0 comments

Low carbers have known the simple truth for many years that a meal rich in protein will help you last between meals without getting an attack of the munchies.

Why have the scientists taken so long to catch up?

I’ve long maintained that higher protein foods are always going to be the most filling. Mainly because they take longer for the body to digest, therefore remain in the stomach and intestines that little bit longer, meaning our bodies aren’t signalling us saying “hey, we’re hungry – give us more food!”

And to a certain extent – now- science is starting to back that up.

I’ve long maintained that higher protein foods are always going to be the most filling. Mainly because they take longer for the body to digest, therefore remain in the stomach and intestines that little bit longer, meaning our bodies aren’t signalling us saying “hey, we’re hungry – give us more food!”

And to a certain extent, science does back that up.

If you look over the research papers that have been carried out, certainly over the last ten years, they clearly show that 8 out of 10 people ate less after a protein-rich meal than they did after a meal that was low in protein.

Some time ago, the BBC  carried out a test to prove whether this was so or not. What they did was to take 3 volunteers who worked long hours, and were used to snacking on the job.

What they wanted to do was to see if they could give them a meal that would set them up for the long day ahead, so that they wouldn’t need to snack whilst working on their shifts. They fed each of the volunteers a meal that had the same calorific value but whose contents varied in the proportion of fat, protein and carbohydrates – one being high in fat, one high in protein and one high in carbohydrates.

After the meal, they were kept under close observation, to make sure that they couldn’t sneak any crafty snacks. After a four hour period, they were each given pizza slices to eat, and carefully observed as they tucked into the richly-deserved reward.

The one who ate the most was the one who had the initial meal that was high in carbohydrates. The quantity he ate was closely matched by the one whose diet was high in fat. The person who ate the smallest amount during the lunch-break was the one who had had the protein rich meal.

It was a very simple test, but it did rather prove the fact that if you don’t want to get hunger pains between meals, then make sure your meals are high in protein.

It’s as simple as that.

Benefit of Higher Protein Diet and Execise

by | May 2, 2012 | Exercise, Fat Loss, High Protein Diet, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Everyone knows that a good weight-loss program combines diet and exercise, However, a University of Illinois study reports that exercise is much more effective when it’s coupled with a protein-rich diet.

There’s an additive, interactive effect when a protein-rich diet is combined with exercise. The two work together to correct body composition; dieters lose more weight, and they lose fat, not muscle,” said Donald Layman, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition.

A higher-carbohydrate, lower-protein diet based on the USDA food guide pyramid actually reduced the effectiveness of exercise, Layman sai

Forty-eight adult women participated in Layman’s 4-month study, published in the August 2005 issue of the Journal of Nutrition. One group ate a protein-rich diet designed to contain specific levels of leucine, one of the essential amino acids. A second group consumed a diet based on the food guide pyramid, which contained higher amounts of carbohydrates.

Both groups consumed the same number of calories, but the first group substituted high-quality protein foods, such as meats, dairy, eggs, and nuts, for foods high in carbohydrates, such as breads, rice, cereal, pasta, and potatoes.

“Both diets work because, when you restrict calories, you lose weight. But the people on the higher-protein diet lost more weight. Some people refer to this as the metabolic advantage of a protein-rich diet,” said Layman.

The study included two levels of exercise. “For one group, we recommended that they add walking to their lives. They usually walked two to three times a week, less than 100 minutes of added exercise,” the researcher said.

The other group was required to engage in five 30-minute walking sessions and two 30-minute weightlifting sessions per week. In both groups of dieters, the required exercise program helped spare lean muscle tissue and target fat loss. But, in the protein-rich, high-exercise group, Layman noted a statistically significant effect. That group lost even more weight, and almost 100 percent of the weight loss was fat, Layman said. In the high-carbohydrate, high-exercise group, as much as 25 to 30 percent of the weight lost was muscle.

While this protein-rich diet works for everyone, it seems to be even more effective for people who have high triglyceride levels and carry excess weight in their midsection–a combination of health problems known as Syndrome X.

“The protein-rich diet dramatically lowered triglycerides and had a statistically significant effect on trunk fat, both risk factors associated with heart disease,” he said. “Exercise helped dieters lose an even greater percentage of body fat from the abdominal area.”

The protein-rich diet works so well because it contains a high level of the amino acid leucine. Leucine, working together with insulin, helps stimulate protein synthesis in muscle. “The diet works because the extra protein reduces muscle loss while the low-carbohydrate component gives you low insulin, allowing you to burn fat,” he said.

“We believe a diet based on the food guide pyramid actually does not provide enough leucine for adults to maintain healthy muscles. The average American diet contains 4 or 5 grams of leucine, but to get the metabolic effects we’re seeing, you need 9 or 10 grams,” he noted.

To achieve that leucine level, the researcher recommended adding dairy, meat, and eggs, all high-quality proteins, to the diet. According to Layman, losing weight doesn’t have to mean relying on supplements to fill in nutritional gaps in your diet. “If you use a high-quality protein approach to your diet, you can actually improve the overall quality of your diet while losing weight,” he said.

My comment on that…

Layman’s diet for the study was lower in fat and called for more fruits and vegetables than say the Atkins diet but other diets such as Barry Sears Zone Diet and the South Beach Diet are much closer to the target regime the dieters in the study followed.

What is telling though is the fact that none of the USDA food pyramid have been shown scientifically not to be adequate and that by following the USDA recommended dietary proportions you are actually decreasing the effectiveness of the diet and exercise.

How is that for vindication of the low carb diet?

While the study was carried out using female participants, there are excellent indications that similar results would be obtained for men. Particularly when you realise that most men carry their excess weight around the mid section in the infamous beer belly.

Note too, that the high carb group lost muscle mass while in the high protein group the losses were almost entirely FAT.

Other researchers involved in the study are Ellen Evans, Jamie I. Baum, Jennifer Seyler, Donna J. Erickson, and Richard A. Boileau, all of the University of Illinois. The study was funded by the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research (C-FAR), the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Beef Board, and Kraft Foods.

Phyllis Picklesimer

University of Illanois