Low Carb Dietary Introduction
Some of the audience out there already know my household has been doing the low-carb thing the last few months. This post will give a bit of an introduction for those new to the idea, plus the basics. Some of you may be familiar with Atkins, South Beach, and Paleo type diets, this is *similar* in that it is low-carb. I'm NOT familiar with the specifics of the other three, or any other varients, so I can't say HOW similar - but I'll tell you all the basics of THIS one at least.
The basics:
We're basing our diet on information found in a book by Gary Taubes called Why We Get Fat. The *essential* principle behind this diet is that people have evolved mainly from hunter-gatherer societies - who mainly eat meats and vegetables, with a very small - if any, for some areas - part of the diet occupied by refined grains, sugar and starches. Taubes' point is that only the last few hundred years have sugars and refined grains been a large part of anybody's diet, and, well, evolution has just not caught up yet. We're not *designed*, so to speak, to eat this stuff, so we often get sick, get overweight, or have chronic pain issues, depending on how the intolerance manifests relative to our lifestyle AND our genetic history.
Some of you may remember my heavily pimping a video called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. The principle here is similar, but expanded: both simple carbohydrates (sugar and all it's derivitives) and complex carbohydrates (starches, grains, etc.) are essentially off limits.
It's a rather lengthy list. Sugar, bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes, other refined (or even "whole") grains such as flour, fruits, juices, honey, whole or skimmed milk (but not cream...yea, I know that's weird, but look at the labels sometime - I know it boggles MY brain...) yogurt, most canned soups, dairy substitutes like almond milk (because they're often sweetened as well), ketchup and other sweet condiments, and most relishes....and that's just for starters! Avoid anything labeled "fat free" or "lite" - they often contain sugars and/or starches as well in an attempt to make it palatable.
Same with liquid medications, as strange as that may sound - they have to sweeten them with something so they're tolerable, and a lot of the over-the-counter stuff uses high fructose corn syrup or one/multiple artificial sweeteners.
So, technically, artificial sweeteners are allowed BUT (1) they also have carbs (Some are mixed with erythritol, some with glucose, some with other sweet-carb things), and (2) I don't allow them in MY house. (My recipes will reflect a LACK of artificial sweeteners as a result.)
Instead, we use clear stevia (the "clear" is more a description of the fact that it's a water-colored liquid more than anything else.) This also works well for the supertasters in the audience, as it actually still tastes SWEET, unlike the powdered variety. (Though...it will take some experimenting to see where your sweet-OMGBITTERBITTEREWWWW limit points are in your usage. Start small. Seriously. I'm not kidding about this - measure by drops.) Stevia works well in cooking as well as beverages - I use it in my tea constantly. One bottle goes about a month of usage for two people. 1 cup of flavored black tea takes 5-7 drops of stevia for me - your mileage may vary.
So, now that I've gone over the "bad stuff" on this diet, I'm sure you're going "what CAN we eat?!" It's relatively simple, really, but it CAN get repetitive. And also, depending on how high quality you like your meats, it can be expensive too. Just warning you upfront. :)
The details:
*Fats and oils: butter, bacon grease, olive oil, peanut oil, sesame oil (Basically any *NATURAL* - not hydrogenated or "trans fat" - fat source.)
* Beverages: Water (primarily), zero-carb flavored seltzers, bottled spring/mineral waters - all those unlimited, essentially - and a recommended limit of 3 cups of coffee or tea per day in some situations (Namely, for those doing this diet to lose weight, IF the weight loss is not happening - sometimes caffeine can interfere with weight loss in some people.)
* Meats: Beef/pork/chicken/fish/shellfish/eggs are all fair game. Carbohydrate count should NOT be over 1 gram per serving. Most plain - unprepared - meats will have zero carbs anyway, so that 1 pound strip steak? Is so totally on this diet. :) If you're getting meats from the deli counter, ask to see the nutrition labels - many PROCESSED meats DO have carbs (due to added sugar/honey/etc.) - especially ham!
Most processed bacon has 1 or more carbs per TWO OUNCES. That might be two strips? You'll have to hunt to find a variety that essentially doesn't have carbs if you want to have more than that at a time.
* Salad greens: 2 cups a day - if it's a leaf, it counts as a salad green
* Vegetables: 1 cup a day - low carb vegetables such as cauliflower, celery, cucumber, green beans, etc. - not high carb vegetables like carrots.
* Boullion IF needed to keep sodium up the first few weeks of this diet while your body adjusts. (I just wasn't so "skimpy" on the salt, I didn't notice any problems.)
There's a bunch of other stuff that IS allowed, but in limited quantities - things like cheese, olives, pickles and such - read the book for details, or just be seriously anal retentive on reading labels, and calculating how much carbohydrates you'll be eating in a day.
Remember that the labels list PER SERVING - which is quite often NOT the whole container of things people usually consider "one serving" - a bottle of soda, for instance, is TWO servings - but people typically go through a whole bottle at a time, not just half.
I'll start posting recipes soon, but I wanted to put the basic principles out here first so the rest would make sense to folks as time goes on.
The basics:
We're basing our diet on information found in a book by Gary Taubes called Why We Get Fat. The *essential* principle behind this diet is that people have evolved mainly from hunter-gatherer societies - who mainly eat meats and vegetables, with a very small - if any, for some areas - part of the diet occupied by refined grains, sugar and starches. Taubes' point is that only the last few hundred years have sugars and refined grains been a large part of anybody's diet, and, well, evolution has just not caught up yet. We're not *designed*, so to speak, to eat this stuff, so we often get sick, get overweight, or have chronic pain issues, depending on how the intolerance manifests relative to our lifestyle AND our genetic history.
Some of you may remember my heavily pimping a video called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. The principle here is similar, but expanded: both simple carbohydrates (sugar and all it's derivitives) and complex carbohydrates (starches, grains, etc.) are essentially off limits.
It's a rather lengthy list. Sugar, bread, cereal, pasta, potatoes, other refined (or even "whole") grains such as flour, fruits, juices, honey, whole or skimmed milk (but not cream...yea, I know that's weird, but look at the labels sometime - I know it boggles MY brain...) yogurt, most canned soups, dairy substitutes like almond milk (because they're often sweetened as well), ketchup and other sweet condiments, and most relishes....and that's just for starters! Avoid anything labeled "fat free" or "lite" - they often contain sugars and/or starches as well in an attempt to make it palatable.
Same with liquid medications, as strange as that may sound - they have to sweeten them with something so they're tolerable, and a lot of the over-the-counter stuff uses high fructose corn syrup or one/multiple artificial sweeteners.
So, technically, artificial sweeteners are allowed BUT (1) they also have carbs (Some are mixed with erythritol, some with glucose, some with other sweet-carb things), and (2) I don't allow them in MY house. (My recipes will reflect a LACK of artificial sweeteners as a result.)
Instead, we use clear stevia (the "clear" is more a description of the fact that it's a water-colored liquid more than anything else.) This also works well for the supertasters in the audience, as it actually still tastes SWEET, unlike the powdered variety. (Though...it will take some experimenting to see where your sweet-OMGBITTERBITTEREWWWW limit points are in your usage. Start small. Seriously. I'm not kidding about this - measure by drops.) Stevia works well in cooking as well as beverages - I use it in my tea constantly. One bottle goes about a month of usage for two people. 1 cup of flavored black tea takes 5-7 drops of stevia for me - your mileage may vary.
So, now that I've gone over the "bad stuff" on this diet, I'm sure you're going "what CAN we eat?!" It's relatively simple, really, but it CAN get repetitive. And also, depending on how high quality you like your meats, it can be expensive too. Just warning you upfront. :)
The details:
*Fats and oils: butter, bacon grease, olive oil, peanut oil, sesame oil (Basically any *NATURAL* - not hydrogenated or "trans fat" - fat source.)
* Beverages: Water (primarily), zero-carb flavored seltzers, bottled spring/mineral waters - all those unlimited, essentially - and a recommended limit of 3 cups of coffee or tea per day in some situations (Namely, for those doing this diet to lose weight, IF the weight loss is not happening - sometimes caffeine can interfere with weight loss in some people.)
* Meats: Beef/pork/chicken/fish/shellfish/eggs are all fair game. Carbohydrate count should NOT be over 1 gram per serving. Most plain - unprepared - meats will have zero carbs anyway, so that 1 pound strip steak? Is so totally on this diet. :) If you're getting meats from the deli counter, ask to see the nutrition labels - many PROCESSED meats DO have carbs (due to added sugar/honey/etc.) - especially ham!
Most processed bacon has 1 or more carbs per TWO OUNCES. That might be two strips? You'll have to hunt to find a variety that essentially doesn't have carbs if you want to have more than that at a time.
* Salad greens: 2 cups a day - if it's a leaf, it counts as a salad green
* Vegetables: 1 cup a day - low carb vegetables such as cauliflower, celery, cucumber, green beans, etc. - not high carb vegetables like carrots.
* Boullion IF needed to keep sodium up the first few weeks of this diet while your body adjusts. (I just wasn't so "skimpy" on the salt, I didn't notice any problems.)
There's a bunch of other stuff that IS allowed, but in limited quantities - things like cheese, olives, pickles and such - read the book for details, or just be seriously anal retentive on reading labels, and calculating how much carbohydrates you'll be eating in a day.
Remember that the labels list PER SERVING - which is quite often NOT the whole container of things people usually consider "one serving" - a bottle of soda, for instance, is TWO servings - but people typically go through a whole bottle at a time, not just half.
I'll start posting recipes soon, but I wanted to put the basic principles out here first so the rest would make sense to folks as time goes on.