Ruins my carb allowance.


I love apples. The nutritional value is undisputed. The low calories 80cal for a medium apple is attractive. The fibre is useful.

An apple a day keeps the Dr. away..... except the good Dr. Atkins.

I diligently abstained from all fruit during induction and in OWL I have added back Raspberries, Strawberries and Blackberries.

Yesterday I had an apple. 18 carbs in a few juicy munches.


My puzzle is ....is it better to have the carbs in a low calorie delivery vehicle (i.e. an apple). Are all carbs equal or are some more equal than others? If I had the apple instead of a piece of cheese? and my calorie intake went down how confused is my body?

I need a teacher to give my apple to, who can tell me whether I am embarking on a slippery slope.

Before you ask no it did not turn pink..Dammit

When I was in OWL----I have actually ate apples occasionally. What I do is slice them up and pour some cream and cinnamon on it. Now Im not sure how many would reccommend this however I found I LOVED the taste, provided me with fiber and vitamins and as long as I wasnt eating this more than once a week I still lost weight. As for the cheese apple thingy...... Remember calories dont count nearly as much as carbs do on Atkins. Maybe I was able to handle the apple cause of a low metabolic resistance where as others it might cause problems for them. It for the individual to try.

I've got a little homework for you rust.

Go to the carb counter and look at all the nutrition counts for 1 medium apple. Then, have a look at 10 oz. raw spinach.

What do you find?

It is better to have an apple or whatever with low-glycemic delivery. Something that causes the least insulin spike.

You're new to LC and have to be careful. An indulgence here, a little bit there can quickly lead to every day and then you're falling down the slippery slope.

That being said, men can get away with a lot more than women on this WOE. If you want to eat apples and stuff, do it carefully by incorporating certain things into your plan and watching how you react.

Karen

Thanks Karen,

Had to watch TV before my homework. Wil hand in assignment tomorrow. LOL

Now I know why Popeye did not eat apples!

The advice is well taken. I am in that experimenting mode to see what effect different foods have. Also trying to find my critical carb point. This is actually more difficult than I thought because cause and effect are not immediate.

That's a great mode to be in rust. Be fearless and analytical! I think fear actually works against you in this WOE!

Why don't you report your homework findings so the rest of the "class" can see what an A+++ looks like?

Karen

rust, good for you to continue your experimenting/tweaking with such a sense of discovery and a sense of humor!

I've found (early on, when Zoning) that certain carbs, though they'll keep me out of ketosis, don't trigger cravings at all...lentils, garbanzos, a boiled small red potato. The easiest test seemed to be, for me, this: if a carb really didn't appeal in the first place, it's a safe carb for me! It's the ones I miss that are the dangerous ones. don't it just figger.

I found your test about the carb's that gave you trouble before ( the dangerous ones) are the ones that you have to watch out for. It made perfect sense to me it was truely a light bulb moment. I never thought of it that way before. It is true if I try to incorparate peanut butter and jam (even the 50 fifty brand) I lose my control.
Thanks for these words of wisdom. Everyone is different, so what sets off me may not set off someone else. For me it has always been peanut butter and jam.
Good luck rustpot. I was a research assistant for many years, the analytical way is a great approach. It's nice to see someone willing to take chances.
It's great to hear all the wonderful ideas that surface here. Everyone has experienced so much and is willing to share so freely.
Group therapy at it's best.
Look forward to your homework assignment.
Yours Truely Jo-Ann

jo-ann, I'm so glad to have helped (thanks for saying so, too--it's nice to know when our posts set off that light bulb for others)

It works exatly the same for me. If I really, really like something, or if I think about it in a salacious kind of way, I've had to learn after much "trial and error" to avoid it.

If having to omit a certain food from your WOE makes you panic, it could be a trouble food.

Karen

Still working on spinach. I have started the boiling process and will begin counting the nutrients once I have assembled all the conical flasks and got my bunsen burner going.


In the meantime I have discovered that Spinach is highly sensitive to exogenous ethylene.

Accelerated yellowing will result from low levels of ethylene during distribution and short-term storage. Therefore you are not meant to mix loads such as apples, melons and tomatoes with spinach.

Just remember when you next go to the supermaket.

Now what did I do with my chemistry set?

You lent it to me!



And never mix liver and onions with bananas. I singed my eyebrows on that experiment.

Karen

I guess you all must really love all of the counting and time spent trying to figure out what to eat and what not to eat...Frankly, I don't understand it, but that is what makes the world go around, doesn't it? However, I do enjoy reading about the health benefits of LC eating, so maybe you guys aren't that different than me, after all...or is it the other way around? I eat all of the apples I want. All of the nuts I want. All of the meat, fowl, fish I want. Even a banana, or two, from time to time. All the seeds I want. All the berries, and even quite a few grapes. I stay in mild ketosis and lose weight...about a half pound a week, or thereabouts. Not fast. Not spectacular. But, steady, enjoyable and constant. I will never ever go back to eating dairy (high in harmful lectins), grains (lectins), polyunsaturated oils (extremely high in lectins), potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, or egg plant because the last four are nightshades (datura-read Carlos Castenada) and have poisons in them that also contribute to weight gain and other bad things. Beans and legumes are high in lectins(not cooked out), and alkaloids (deadly poisons-mostly cooked out) and cause us to get stuck in our weight loss with weight gain, sometimes...especially soy (ooooo, bad!) and Limas and Favas and Kidney beans. Studies have shown that Kidneys caused all kinds of problems for people along with soy and its' by-products (found in almost all processed foods...either that or wheat gluten, a sludge-maker in the lower intestine). None of them is good for us. Grains are not "natural." They were invented by Man with the advent of agriculture and are very high in harmful lectins which sludge up our digestive tracts and cause us to gain weight and probably are the cause of so many autoimmune diseases that exist today, and didn't exist in the days before agriculture such as diabetes arthritis (all forms), lupus, MS, weight gain, etc. Live and let live, but, gosh! It seems like so much work! Whatever turns your doorknob. Whatever takes you through the door to better health. Power to the LC!!!

Captxray

I think you could start a multitude of thread lines with your post.

You are right in that "whatever turns your doorknob" to healthy food and eating is the way to go and it is fascinating and fun too to see how many different routes there are to success and a healthy life style.

You have stated the foods that you steer away from and it is the experience of what works that counts.

However If we were to go with every piece of evidence or suggested "harmfull" food, there would be very little left to eat, or conversely the majority of the world population would have died out by now.

For example, to say lectins are harmful is a sweeping statement as they are absolutely necessary for digestion. There has been some association with some lectins with some blood types but it would appear that what is "harmful" to one blood type could be beneficial to another. Even the harm is at the extremely mild level and hardly poisonous.

You are also correct that Tomatoes, Potatoes, together with Aubergines, Peppers and Chillies, are members of the Solanaceae family of plants, which numbers approximately 2800 species throughout the world.

The Solanaceae also includes the nightshades, from woody to deadly. The deadly nightshade (belladonna) berry does indeed look like a small, black tomato. We all know it is poisonous and contains hallucinogenic alkaloids, nicotine and atrophine.

Because of the solanaceae family relationship it is well known that some chinese medical and holistic practitioners recommend that potatoes and tomatoes should not be eaten. But again the Irish and the Italians still seem to be with us.

Tobacco is also in the family. Now that really is a killer.

I don't eat potatoes because of the carb level but if you were in Ireland at the turn of the century it was vital to live. 500grams of cooked new potatoes gave you your daily requirement of vitamin C and niacin, and boiling does not kill off the vitamins. The potatoe blight and subsequent famine was a natural disaster.

So it really is all about perspective, personal experience and taking things with a pinch of salt. OOPS sorry that is not allowed either

Well, Rusty, I can see that you are no uninformed "dieter." You know your stuff...maybe much better than I do. This is great! I love a good discussion and a challenge to my tired brain. I love to see ways that others are meeting the challenge of their weight/health problems. I also agree that most of the world population would be dead, if it weren't for agriculture. And, many more species of larger animals would be extinct...but not necessarily the smaller ones as agriculture is probably responsible for the extinction of more species than just about any other source, ie. pesticides, land clearing, destruction of forests, getting rid of "pest" animals, etc. This is one of the arguments I use with militant Vegans who don't believe in eating animals because its "cruel." Vegetarians are responsible for more animal deaths, by far...but, that's another discussion which I'm sure could get quite heated.

You're right, again about lectins! However, there are "good" lectins and "bad" lectins. Grains, dairy, nightshades, and tubers have good and bad lectins...a few more bad than good. Also, grains are loaded with phytates that are very bad for us. Now, again, not all phytates are bad. The ones in leafy green veggies are not harmful. However, the ones in grains deplete our bodies of calcium, magnesium, phosphorous and many other nutrients absolutely essential to growth, good health, and longevity. Lectins in milk products (not all) are very harmful to humans...unless we are talking about the lectins in human milk. However, adult humans are not designed to have the lectins in milk. Mother's milk is for kids, silly rabbit!

I disagree that the bad lectins and phytates don't cause much harm. It is cumulative. That is why so many autoimmune disorders don't show up until later in life...like many older people's lactose intolerance, diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, etc. Others, like lupus and MS, attack the system much earlier. Of course, not everybody will get these diseases. Some are more resistant than others. However, even weight gain and obesity are now thought to possibly be autoimmune disorders by some researchers. I've read D'Adamo's book on blood type diets. In fact, I follow it to make sure I stay within the bounds of my blood type's optimum foods (incidentally, I am a type O, which is well-suited for LC).

Recent studies on Irish and Italians seems to indicate that there might be a problem with their diet that causes such a high incidence of a number of autoimmune disorders...could it be potatoes and nightshades? The jury is still out, but it is thought that maybe this is the case. One fo the "healthy herbal teas" that people drink is made from the little black fruit of the gimson weed...a deadly datura, used by Don Juan in Carlos Castenada's books to bring on some very interesting hallucinations, in combination with peyote cactus buttons.

One of the things that happened almost as soon as people got into agriculture is that the average life expectancy for adults went down by about a third. Autoimmune disorders came into being. Women began having babies about once/year instead of about once every three years. The population exploded. More people were being born and cities diveloped, then nations, and warfare came along...to keep the population under control (if you look at it from a purely "scientific point of view"). This is, of course, very simplistic. But, there were now, more people being born, more people on the earth, but with a lower life expectency. Some scientists are now postulating that the actual "addictive" qualities of grains, milk, and some other agricultural foods, such as beer and alcohol-containing grain drinks was another reason for their continued use, even though they are ultimately detrimental to our health. These foods give a very small "high" when consumed, much like cigarettes, only milder, that cause us to "crave" them over time. I love this discussion. Awaiting your repliy (ies)