The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly Of Low Carb Diets?

so now summing up let’s talk about the good the bad and the ugly of low carb diets first of all the good low carb diets tend to eliminate refined carbohydrates the white flour products and the sugars like soda they eliminate many highly processed foods which are damaging to health that’s good

the bad they’re high in fat saturated fat and cholesterol they’re high in Prolog Siddons and chemical contaminants they’re low in fiber phytochemicals and antioxidants they have many potential nutrition shortfalls especially with keto diet like minerals and vitamins

and they ugly well low carbohydrate diets are high animal food diets they are both ecological e unsustainable and ethically unjustifiable

so let’s talk about ecological sustainability low carb diets essentially downplay the ecological crisis that makes eating lower on the food chain and ecological imperative if our entire population ate a low-carb diet our planet’s dwindling resources would very quickly run dry David Katz estimated that if we all ate paleo we would need 15 planet Earth’s to sustain the current population with the amount of meat that would be required

in 2016 a study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that of green by 2050 greenhouse gas gas emissions would be reduced by 29% if everybody followed the global dietary guidelines keep more fruits and vegetables and eat less meat sugar and calories they would be reduced by 70% if we all ate a vegan diet their recommendation a global shift to a plant-based

there was another study that I thought was kind of interesting that showed a typical steak and shrimp cocktail dinner would burden the atmosphere with 816 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions this is the same as what would be produced by driving a relatively fuel-efficient automobile from LA to New York City

and finally I want to end on this note we need to as human beings think about the consequences of our food choices beyond ourselves we need to think about the consequences for our fragile planet but we have got a responsibility to also think about the ethical consequences of our choices

you know when we think about it in terms of people if everyone ate plant-based the global calorie supply would be increased by an estimated 50% which could effectively wipe out hunger

for animals that’s the thing that we often don’t talk about and it to me makes no sense for us to cause incredible pain suffering and death and other living beings when it is not only unnecessary we’re destroying our own health and the health of the planet in the process we slaughter 70 billion animals every year for food most of those animals are raised in Capo’s are confined animal feeding operations probably in the United States it’s close to 90% of them now I don’t know about you this isn’t including anything from the ocean nothing from the ocean at all so this is just land animals 70 billion is almost ten times the human population every single year we raise and slaughter for our food

and you know I’m not sure how we make the distinction but when you think about is it intelligence how do we pick the animals that are going to be our food you know if we think about dogs and cats most people are repulsed by the thought of eating them but in fact pigs are smarter than dogs so it’s not intelligence pigs are the estimated intelligence of a pig is is about a three-year-old child that I remember studies being done in California that that we’re looking at the pigs ability to play a game on a computer where they used their snout to move a joystick and they said pigs they couldn’t teach dogs to play that game and they said the pigs could actually could actually not only play the game but they never made a mistake what they had to do was match two things on each side of the computer if they got it right they got a treat and they said no Pig ever made a mistake they said they tried to train a chimpanzee to do it and and the and and the the researcher actually looked at the chimpanzee and said if you were a pig you would have had this by now so these are very very intelligent animals that would live what 12 to 15 years they live six months in hell they live six months in in these little stalls that are so small they can hardly move the dust and dander in the place the smell is so reprehensible that we have to wear a gas mask to go inside their smeller’s are 200 times more sensitive than ours they go crazy in these places so they sometimes to one another’s tails off because they’re going insane and what so what do we do to prevent that we just we cut their ears off with Doc their tails we remove their genitals with no anesthetic when they’re about three weeks old and and all of this so we can eat them when they’re about six months of age and they get transported to slaughterhouses and it’s estimated that 10 to 30 percent are inappropriately stunned and are actually skinned and boiled alive these creatures are smarter than dogs you know how do we as human beings justify this I don’t get it

it’s you know in with I think the only way that we justify it is we put a halo on it because it’s tradition you know think about the things that we’ve justified under the banner of tradition for so many centuries that have been so wrong and we have to stand up and be counted when tradition is wrong we need to change it it’s up to us and so we need to be leaders in this regard this is so important

the ultimate question is this how can humans best adapt to their current environment to sustain a growing population on a shrinking planet we as human beings have a choice when we consider the consequences of our food choice not just for ourselves but beyond ourselves a plant-based diet becomes an ecological and an ethical imperative

and I think this sums it up as well as anything the keys to a long life avoid fatty meats eat your veggies and get your daily exercise and with that oh and these are some of my books my most recent one is actually the kick diabetes cookbook and because I have a minute I’ll just tell you I’m in the midst of a sequel to that book that’s more in information a larger book with a lot of information fewer recipes but about overcoming diabetes and and I will end with that just a very quick mention of a program I’m teaching at living light as well so this is a more intensive nutrition program and thank you very much for your attention

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thank you so much yeah I’m very happy to take questions of course Rita your crown of crowns fabulous slice you have left nut for a chance

and as my colleague I want to share this with you excellent slice thank you

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you

thank you very much that means a lot to me coming from you Rita who’s that not only a colleague but a fellow of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and I’m honored that you’re here thank you so much for those kind words

thank you I’ve been watching you on YouTube for about 15 months I went plant-based 15 months ago and the movie what the health got me but thank you for what you do what do you say to somebody it says oh everything in moderation what do you say to them thank you for that question

you know what I say to people who say everything in moderation is everything in moderation is is reasonable if if everything you’re eating is relatively healthy but everything in moderation if you’re eating things that are all killing you will still kill you just a little more slowly you know it’s it’s a you know I can remember and I’m meaning no disrespect but for years our national nutrition campaigns were built around the moderation message you know all foods can fit into a healthy diet there are no good foods no bad foods everything in moderation and and I remember thinking to myself here we are dying 70% of us are dying of a chronic disease and we’re trying to you know tell people that Oh deep fried pork rinds are just fine just so long as you eat them in moderation that was not the met it’s not the message people need to hear the message people need to hear is eat more vegetables eat more whole grains eat more you know eat healthy foods eat less deep fried foods eat less meat those are the messages people need to hear we need to be very careful of the moderation message even though moderation generally makes sense in your life if most of what you do is killing you it will still moderation will still kill you

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so I wanted to ask you about fasting because from your data it seems that it’s beneficial so I was wondering because I know that intermittent fasting is very big it’s probably just as big in the workout community as keto and paleo so what are your feelings I know that like it’s a bit and fasting in the gyms they always talk about like you could you know do it because you said the benefits if you stayed on a fast for like three days you get so renewal and so what are your feelings in terms of maybe doing a three day a week water fast and then eating you know vegetarian based diet for the balance of the week so for three as they would say in the gym

yeah there’s a for three there’s the five – there’s a six one there’s all kinds of ways of doing these intermittent fast some people even do them where you’re only fasting for a certain number of hours each day so twelve or fourteen or sixteen hours something like that and these have become quite popular and I think you know generally do what works for you what feels you know I mean we need to have some science base but generally the evidence is fairly strong that sort of fasting or fasting mimicking diets could be of benefit especially for people who are over consuming it reduces your level of consumption and so whatever helps you to reduce your level of consumption may be of some value

now the thing that I would be concerned about is is simply doing extended water fasting because there are a lot of risks to water fasting and I would prefer if somebody who’s doing water fasting that they do it under the supervision of a place like TrueNorth fort for example I think maybe what would be a reasonable compromise would be to do a juice fast or something where you’re just limiting your calorie pretty significantly big salads that kind of thing and doing at what they call a fasting mimicking diet which is low-calorie or just doing the overnight or maybe something not quite as three-four but maybe 5:2 and on those to do some green juices because what I’d like to see is I’d like to see your body loaded up with antioxidants during that time of reduced food intake so you just be giving yourself quite an antioxidant loose you also have to be a little conscious of preserving your muscle mass and so I think to do something that’s a limb or modified would be a reasonable compromise but definitely some some significant therapeutic advantages to using those kinds of diets for diabetes for example they can be quite powerful

yes just one quickly I don’t really know what it’s four to five to and all that is but the general criticism I’ve heard about fasting by a doctor is that it’s misguided because you need nutrients to drive the phase one phase to detox and deliver and if you don’t have it in fasting the body tends to sequester those so they’re not available for the liver detox yes so the concern is well what about all the nutrients you need to detoxify the body and that’s one of the reasons why I think especially if you’re doing it on your own that you do some of the juicing to provide or at least something to provide those nutrients especially if you’re you know incorporating sprouts and such in your juices you’ll absolutely boost those kinds of phytochemicals that are really important for the detoxification pathways but also I think with pure fasting with water fasts I think the evidence and dr. Fuhrman is a quite an expert in this area as well he’s speaking later today so you may want to ask Kim as well but we have some studies that are show some very powerful therapeutic healing with fasting and and so but my feeling is it does when it’s used you need to be really monitoring your blood levels of everything to make sure that your body can can handle it and that you go off the fast if your body’s not responding well but I’ve seen some some really dramatic improvements in in people’s health with fasting from a place like TrueNorth um

that’s see where you do four days of eating three days of fasting or the five to is five days of eating two days of fasting some people don’t completely fast they just do a very low calorie diet or a juice fast during those two days exactly

oh I guess I’m sorry we have to end but I’m going to be outside doing signing books and I’m very happy to answer any questions