Quote:
|
First, his notion that early man ate a high fat, low carbohydrate diet is not based on any evidence. True, early man did kill and eat animals (or, as some researchers think, he scavenged the spoiled meat that meat-eating animals had left behind), so meat was part of the diet, but it is impossible to know what proportion it was. It's clear that our teeth are designed to eat both meat and vegetables and that apes and monkeys also eat a mixed diet. Analysis of the contents of the stomach of the Ice Man, who died 5,000 years ago, establish that he had been eating grains. We know from history and from the Bible that milk, honey, and bread were eaten in quantity back in the days of the pharaohs. In the Bible, bread is the most important food. Jesus asked us to pray for our daily bread, not for our daily steak.
|
2000 years, 5000 years is not early man...2000-5000 years is nothing evolution wise. You need to look muhc further back to the days before the advent of agriculture.
Quote:
|
Weight is measured as BMI, Body Mass Index, and the higher the number, the greater the weight per height. A BMI of under 18.5 is considered underweight, while a BMI of 25 or above is considered overweight. Ironically, the Inuit (Eskimos), the people with the nearly all-meat diet who inspired the notion that eating meat could keep you thin, are among the heaviest. Looking at these diets, it seems that the total calories is probably more important than their source, with the Evenki being the only strong exception. Leonard points out that the Evenki diet is low in fat (20% fat vs. USA 35%).
|
A BMI below 20 is underweight. A BMI below 18.5 is Anorexic. At least get that right. "Ther heaviest" ??? Their average BMI is 24 according to his chart, which is lower than the average American who eats a diet of 77% plant products. I wonder why. The lowest BMIs on his chart are unhealthy. 18 and 19 are considered underweight by medical standards. I would dare to say that anything below 23 is too thin. 24 BMI (Inuit) is a perfectly healthy weight...neither too fat nor too thin.
Quote:
|
If it were somehow strangely necessary for all mankind to eat Dr. Atkins' diet, most of the people on the earth would have to starve, as it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Half the people on earth have an income of less than two dollars a day and could not afford a heavy meat diet.
|
He is perpetuating the misconception that animals must be be fed a diet of grain. In fact, grain is what makes domesticated animals so unnaturally fatty. letting animals range feed would reduce the amount of saturated fat in their meat...If he is so convinced (as seen later in his article) that saturated fat is bad...why does he insist animals must be fed grain ??? Range fed animals require no grain, can be raised on land that is unusable for grain production, and are generally lower in overall fat and higher in the unsaturated fats. If anything this shows that we should stop feeding animals grain.
Quote:
|
Refined sugar was introduced into Europe during the Middle Ages, and it was one of the few items taxed by the US government before 1802...Honey has been a prized sweet for thousands of years, but the amount consumed even by honey lovers is small. White flour was first produced by the Romans, and its use has actually declined during this century, although there has been a smaller increase since 1970. White rice has been the customary rice of China since the time of Confucius, about 500 BC. It has thus been the standard food in Asia for about 2,500 years, although US comsumption has never been high. No one, except Atkins, would include milk in this category. Its use is ancient. Potatoes are an Amerindian food and have been heavily used as food by other peoples for hundreds of years.
|
A drop in the bucket. Refined Table Sugar is a few hundred years old. Honey is the only refined sugar that existed in caveman days and to quote Cordain's Paleo Diet you had to outrun bees to get it. Obviously it wasn't used too often by the cavemen.
Do we know anything about the health of Romans and Egyptians ??? For all we know they may have been fat and prone to heart disease. Again 2000 years is a drop in the bucket. Milk wasn't consumed by cavemen. "Ancient" is more recent...you should be looking at "Pre-historic." Potatoes were used by one tribe of South American indians for 5,000 years...While that is also a drop in the bucket, I should point out that potatoes were not introduced outside that tiny area in the Andes until Spanish explorers brought them back to Europe in the 16th century. It wasn't until the end of the 18th century that most Europeans began eating potatoes.
Quote:
|
Fourth, Atkins claims that people in the US have become more susceptable to diabetes due to overweight people marrying overweight people within this century. It is true that some people are at greater risk than others due to their greater tendency to gain weight or to acquire diabetes, and it's also true that some populations are more susceptable as well, but these developed over many generations. The weight crisis in the US has occurred within a single lifespan and thus could not be much affected by breeding.
|
That must be in his last book...Becuase I have the 2002 edition and it doesn't say that.
Quote:
|
Fifth, Dr. Atkins is effective at looking through medical research and finding a few studies that seem to support his claims. However, he completely ignores or dismisses the notion that saturated fats are dangerous. Atkins claims that the medical community supports a low-fat diet because of the financial support of the junk food producers, but he fails to provide any evidence of such support. In fact, all or nearly all nutritionists recommend eating whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit rather than eating processed foods. And like him, they consider junk foods and the trans-fatty acids (hydrogenate fats) found in processed foods harmful. It's ironic that Atkins accuses the researchers of being influenced by money, as he makes large amounts of money from the people who read his books, buy his pills, and use his services. His income is so great, in fact, that he has his own CEO (see the right panel).
|
So, Atkins has made some money...He's made nowhere near as much as the Low-Fat people. And, unlike them, his money goes back into the Atkins Center where they help people. Low-Fat dollars go into corporations pockets. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Quote:
|
Sixth, one claim that Atkins makes is that his diet is good for the heart. In fact, he spends a great many pages talking about this, saying that he developed the diet because he is a cardiologist and because his diet helps those with heart problems. Actually, saturated fat, which is a heavy component of his meat-heavy diet, causes heart disease. When Dr. Atkins developed his own heart problems, he kept the information secret from the public, and only a heart attack in a public place caused this information to be released. His agents said that his heart problems should not be publicized because they are a purely personal matter; however, I think that anyone who claims to be an example of his own diet should be completely honest about his condition.
|
Why don't they start by being honest...Dr. Atkins' heart problem was proven to be the result of an infection...not his diet. This page would falsely lead one to believe that it was because he ate alot of fat. This is completely misleading.
More to come...
|