You go to the doctor. Perhaps because you're feeling under the weather, perhaps for your annual physical -- because you've been told it's the right thing to do to
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If only there were a way to make eating low-carb, high-animal less of a first-world option - animals (and high-quality veg) are really spendy and grains are not. I often wonder how the big swaths of the world where people have been eating mostly plants for generations are not overrun with carbohydrate-linked health problems.
There's also the fact that in a post-industrial culture, people get nowhere near as much exercise as people in agrarian or industrial societies. Working on a farm or in a factory, or doing household work without the benefit of mechanical assistance, takes substantial amounts of effort. Sitting at a desk, not so much.
As far as the rapidly expanding (pardon the pun) growth of obesity and type II diabetes among youth, I think we're seeing the effects of "indoor kids" who were raised after it became a sign of bad parenting to let your kids outdoors to play, unsupervised. *That* came about because of what I call "milk-carton mania"--the moral panic in the U.S. over the abduction of children by strangers, occasioned in the 1980s by a few high-profile cases (Adam Walsh and Etan Patz, to name two). IMO that's also to blame for the increase in ADHD diagnoses among children. they can't go outside and run around to burn off excess energy so they sit in class and fidget and act out.
Yet the actual amount of obesity in the US has remained steady for decades, from what I can actually tell. I don't think there is an "obesity epidemic", and I suspect that the apparent increase of type II diabetes is A) smaller than one might think based on reporting and B) due mostly to what Hugh mentions above: improved diagnostic techniques, diagnostic creep, and medical bias.
I'm not familiar with your Egyptian example - might you say more?
Some meat is, surely. Economy of scale drives down the price of most anything; and that kind of efficiency gets us having firefights about things like "pink slime," because it is surely not the prime cuts that are driving that economy of scale.
Strangely, this is precisely why I eat a lot of the things I do - all the sustainably produced food I eat requires that all those little farmers be able to make a living at it. So I support them, I get some pretty excellent food to cook, and they continue their business. And I have decided to put my money exactly where my mouth is on this front, in no small part because I have the privilege to do so. "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" works very well for me - not least because I can afford it.
Trust me - I grew up in factory farming country. I know exactly what it's like.
I also figure that even the best hunter-gatherer societies were more successful at gathering than hunting and thus, while they ate a lot of meat when it was available, probably ate more veggies and fruits because they're easier to catch.
And the meat part was probably more often squirrel or possum than antelope or mountain goat.
As a result, I tend to eat more veggies than many people doing the LCHF thing. But it's doing what I need it to do: keep my blood glucose at normal (or near-normal levels).
You are also approaching it from a reasonable point of view, and as a permanent change.
LCHF for your purposes doesn't have as much of a hard cutoff. Part of what gives these, and most diets, a bad name is that there is so frequently an all or nothing mentality. "If I have a piece of cake, at a party, I've blown my carb intake for the day, so I might as well have ALL the carbs because I've blown the chances of ketosis attacking the fat deposits today anyway."
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As far as the rapidly expanding (pardon the pun) growth of obesity and type II diabetes among youth, I think we're seeing the effects of "indoor kids" who were raised after it became a sign of bad parenting to let your kids outdoors to play, unsupervised. *That* came about because of what I call "milk-carton mania"--the moral panic in the U.S. over the abduction of children by strangers, occasioned in the 1980s by a few high-profile cases (Adam Walsh and Etan Patz, to name two). IMO that's also to blame for the increase in ADHD diagnoses among children. they can't go outside and run around to burn off excess energy so they sit in class and fidget and act out.
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Some meat is, surely. Economy of scale drives down the price of most anything; and that kind of efficiency gets us having firefights about things like "pink slime," because it is surely not the prime cuts that are driving that economy of scale.
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(The comment has been removed)
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Trust me - I grew up in factory farming country. I know exactly what it's like.
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I also figure that even the best hunter-gatherer societies were more successful at gathering than hunting and thus, while they ate a lot of meat when it was available, probably ate more veggies and fruits because they're easier to catch.
And the meat part was probably more often squirrel or possum than antelope or mountain goat.
As a result, I tend to eat more veggies than many people doing the LCHF thing. But it's doing what I need it to do: keep my blood glucose at normal (or near-normal levels).
Reply
LCHF for your purposes doesn't have as much of a hard cutoff. Part of what gives these, and most diets, a bad name is that there is so frequently an all or nothing mentality. "If I have a piece of cake, at a party, I've blown my carb intake for the day, so I might as well have ALL the carbs because I've blown the chances of ketosis attacking the fat deposits today anyway."
Your method actually sounds... sane.
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