Not low carb per se, but an article which may be of interest to ALC members.



Read the full article here: https://joinzoe.com/learn/uk-versus..._content=2-45-2

That is so sad. I believe that most US children are being raised on foods with questionable additives.

Yes! It's calorie thinking that infests nutrition and it's not properly applied science. I'm not running a steamship which doesn't care if it's coal or wood.

I've often stated things like, "nothing with an ingredients list" and the deer in the headlights looks I get is astonishing. The great divide is whether or not they cook, I've discovered. And the younger they are, the less they have ever done it.

Good post, Demi. Interesting dynamics and things people simply need to understand to survive procuring healthy foods, but many are not aware of the "hidden" ingredients. We can teach people to read ingredients all we want, but it never results in the whole story in some countries.


You hit it, WB. My pet peeve is the knee-jerk attempt to apply the laws of thermodynamics in a simplified fashion to the human metabolism. CICO is thrown around like it's the gold standard of understanding caloric consumption by humans. I've bolded the part of your statement that most resonates with me. I cook, I enjoy meal preparation and work hard to find and prepare healthy meals. My family members including my adult children are the same way. My awareness of nutrition is very different compared to those who buy stuff to heat up or buy warm stuff in paper bags to feed themselves. Cheap, convenient, and unhealthy as Hades, but it's done so routinely because in our busy world, who could be bothered to spend the time required to achieve health when the damaging messaging of "easy" and "convenient" is so abundant? Hey, it's just calories, isn't it? What do we need to know beyond that?

I am forever thankful for reading DANDR in the year before starting my family.

I was able to move away from the usual missteps, Cheerios, oatmeal and juice, in the early years to more whole foods. BUT....with one autistic child the change did not come fast enough. I noticed his speech and function jump about two years ago. The improvement was very noticable.

He was now at university and had access to ready made food. Not premade foods, but made from scratch meals and desserts. He choose meals with fish and sushi. And veggies, etc. Not a big pasta eater.

At home 95% of diet was stirfry. Real meat, usual ly beef, tons of fresh veggies, and a pile of spices. Especially cinnamon. I know, weird, right?? When he makes dinner fir the family we ask for no cinnamon.

My point is, packaged food here in US is dangerous. The "food" is NOT real food. The additives is not just one or two. On some packaging the list is very long.

Recently DH bought Walmart brand cottage cheese. TEN ingredients!!!!! Last night he bought Daisy brand, three ingredients: Skim milk, cream, salt.

Read the labels. Dont assume its real.

To sum up, Taking a few minutes to buy and prep one ingredient items and combining with spices, and herbs and clean oils is totally different.

US food industry is fake "food."

So TRUE!!

My son's girlfriend( a lovely girl ) can't cook. Not her fault. She jumps back and forth between divorced parents twice a week. Sunday night- Thursday with mom. Fri night and Saturday with dad. Both parents work. No time to teach cooking skills. Thankfully, my son cooks. A rather good cook. But they eat out 2-3 times a week!!

The CICO problem is exacerbated by the anti-saturated fat mentality. The fats in 100 calorie portions of "heart-healthy" snacks are all unsaturated industrial seed oils high in Omega 6. Along with their low-fat sugar content, they make people hungry for more, whereas 100 calories of butter are very satiating. I once took an all-day first aid class from a woman who righteously ate one 100-calorie-portion of "heart-healthy" chocolate/pretzel snacks every hour in front of us and berated us for what we brought for lunch. In my case ~450 calories of satiating & portable cheeze, nuts and water instead of 800 calories of her junkfood.

Why pay exhorbitant prices for drugs-for-life (Wegovy, etc.) that temporarily fool your body into thinking it feels satiated, when you can pay less for satiating real foods with real fat, protein and nutrients in them?

I have a British colleague who loves buying chocolates in Canada. Often the same brand as in the UK, but with more sugar (same ingredient list, different order). Whereas I prefer the British/European versions because you can actually taste the chocolate, not just bland sweetness. Luckily the sickly sweetness keeps me from eating North American candy regularly.

Exactly what I'm trying to figure. To add on, these drugs are so new, no one knows what the long-term, or even short-term, effects on health will be. Expensive, risky, and once taken, require continued adherence to avoid a "weight rebound" should one discontinue it. Almost sounds like a perfect drug design . . .

Many of these weightloss drugs cause diarrhea or prohibit metabolization of nutrients, which may not be too bad in the short-term, but for life? Dehydration and out-of-whack electrolytes are known to affect nerve and brain function.