2nd of the 5 Worst Pieces Of Nutrition Advice

Nutrition is an inexact science.  There have been a number of flip flops over the years as certain foods fall in or out of favor.  We are hopefully getting closer to the nutritional truth.  Unfortunately, there are many individuals in the field that hold onto antiquated theories. 

The top 5 contenders for the worst diet advice in history will be examined this week.

The second of the five worst pieces of nutritional advice:

Everyone Should Eat A Low-Fat, High-Carb Diet, Even Diabetics - Healthy fats are essential for human existence.  Every cell membrane in our bodies contain fat.  The advice to eat a low-fat diet was never based on solid science. It was originally based on a few poorly conducted observational studies, animal experiments and misguided political decisions.

There was no evidence that saturated fat caused heart disease at the time (and still isn’t).  Some scientists were convinced that fat was harmful and that a low-fat diet would prevent heart disease. This has been the official position of the governments and mainstream health organizations around the world for decades. At the same time, rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed.

Since then, many massive studies have been conducted on the low-fat diet.  The biggest and most expensive diet study in history, The Women’s Health Initiative, randomized 48,835 women into groups. One group ate a low-fat diet, the other group continued eating the standard Western diet. After 7.5-8 years, there was only a 0.4 kg (1 pound!) difference in weight and there was no reduction in heart disease or cancer.

Many other studies have led to the same conclusion, the diet that is still being recommended by the mainstream simply does not work. The truth is, the low-fat diet is a miserable failure. Almost every time it is pitted against another type of diet in a study; it loses.

Although low-fat diets may be okay for healthy people, they are a complete disaster for people with obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes. Several studies show that low-fat diets can adversely affect some of the key risk factors for metabolic syndrome and heart disease. They can raise triglycerides, lower HDL and increase small, dense LDL particles.

Healthy fats are essential for good health.  The culprits are unhealthy trans-fats, which should be limited or eliminated from the American diet. 

It is also important to meat and fish from animals that eat what they should eat in nature.  That is what they were meant to consume.  For example, grass fed beef is much healthier than corn fed beef.  Grass fed beef has much more omega 3 fats and much less omega 6 fats than the corn fed beef.

For More Information:

http://www.hungryforchange.tv/article/the-5-worst-pieces-of-nutrition-advice