Category Archives: Back in US
The Swedes Have Got It Right
Almost eight years on, and even now, when I mention to people (because they ask) that I don’t eat rice, wheat, sugar, potatoes (white stuff or brown stuff – don’t be fooled, it’s all bad with white being just a bit worse), they look at me like I have grown two heads.
It’s not like this is a whim. I have read and researched material over the years and believe – without a doubt – that a diet loaded with carbohydrates is bad, bad, BAD for you. Not just for your body but for your brain. If I need to, I can cite results, research, studies and facts, ad nauseam.
In fact, I should be looking at all the carb loaders as if they had grown two heads. All you need to do is see the awful evidence:
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How I wish more of the world would learn from Sweden!
Sweden (and yes, I mean the government) today preaches a “LCHF” diet for good health. LCHF = Low Carb, High Fat. Here’s a great article on the topic:
Sweden Becomes First Western Nation to Reject Low-fat Diet Dogma in Favor of Low-carb High-fat Nutrition
And this was not a whim either.
Sweden took this huge step forward based on the results of a commission that looked at over 16,000 studies and confirmed science that has been around for many years (but largely ignored by the rest of the world).
Here’s a quote from Professor Fredrik Nyström, one of the committee members in Sweden :
“I’ve been working with this for so long. It feels great to have this scientific report, and that the skepticism towards low-carb diets among my colleagues has disappeared during the course of the work.
When all recent scientific studies are lined up the result is indisputable: our deep-seated fear of fat is completely unfounded. You don’t get fat from fatty foods, just as you don’t get atherosclerosis from calcium or turn green from green vegetables.”
After two years of studying the issue, the Swedish expert committee published their results and conclusion in September 2013. Lucky for the Swedes, this report from the Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment is likely to be the basis for future dietary guidelines for obesity treatment within the Swedish health care system.
How about the rest of the world? Here are two choices for us –
1. The status quo – continue your normal high-carb, low-fat diet and face the consequences with your health
2. Question it and adopt a more scientific and proven method to protect your body and your brain
If you choose not to be stuck in a cave and opt for #2, I recommend that you start here, with the Swedes – read about the expert committee, their recommendation and the rationale behind it.
Once you are more or less convinced of the evidence, you might want to traverse over here: Low Carb, High Fat for Beginners. This is an excellent, excellent site!
There are other forums and resources out there but I chose to stick with the Swedes for now. They are brave and smart enough to turn all the usual suspects and wrong assumptions on their head, and lead the world towards a healthy revolution.
Finally, here’s a point made by the Diet Doctor (Swedish, of course):
It took millions of years for the human revolution to take place. But that last step below – the arrival of the modern obesity epidemic did not take millions of years. It happened barely in a blink of the eye, relatively speaking.
Get informed, click on the picture below to find out why. Surely, you are interested? Surely.
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West Coast Ahoy?
“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.” ― Edward Abbey
“It’s a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.”
― Truman Capote
He he…not sure what provoked Capote to say that. I just hope he’s not right.
As I write this, I am on my way back East from a short sojourn in sunny San Diego. It was a business trip that was extended, covering the preceding weekend with fun, family and pleasure.
Traveling in the winter, going from a damp, cold and dreary East Coast to sunny California is a dramatic and radiant shock to the system – in the nicest possible way. It doesn’t hurt either that we have close family on the West Coast. In this particular case, the family in question has a gorgeous home and a deliciously well-stocked wine cellar – likely the best any one of my family members have. So. What’s not to like?
I’ve often wondered whether I will be able to leave my homes in the East to head West eventually. This trip I decided that it’s not really a matter of IF but WHEN. I’m in no hurry and I still have much to do where I am. But from where I sit now, it appears inevitable that I will take this momentous (for me!) step someday in the future. Honestly, the draw keeps getting stronger. And every time I visit for business or pleasure, it seems like the incentives grow rather than shrink.
These, btw, have nothing to do with beautiful weather (although the United States Weather Bureau describes San Diego’s weather as the closest thing to perfect in America) or fabulous cities (we have those in the East too!).
The attraction is actually much simpler than all of that. It boils down to one thing. Family.
And that’s the first time I’ve admitted the serious thought of a future move. Even to myself.
“California is a place in which a boom mentality and a sense of Chekhovian loss meet in uneasy suspension; in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things better work here, because here, beneath the immense bleached sky,is where we run out of continent.” ― Joan Didion
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Photo credit:
“Sandiego 1 bg 071302”. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandiego_1_bg_071302.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Sandiego_1_bg_071302.jpg
By Bovlb (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons




