Low-Carb Diets

Another well-designed study shows its benefits.

[Update a while later]

Here‘s the original NYT piece.

[Afternoon update]

On an email list, I responded to a friend who was interested, but disgusted by eating fat (doesn’t like butter on anything except potatoes, cuts it off steak, etc.)

I’m not big on just eating fat per se myself, but I now take fat I cut off and render it (tallow for beef, lard for pork, schmaltz for chicken) and add it to other things (like a can of “fat-free” baked beans yesterday), or fry eggs or other things in it. For instance, when you cook bacon, you’re actually rendering the lard (the bacon grease). When I render beef suet I get what I call “beef bacon,” tasty bits of crunchy protein, along with the tallow. I’ve quit using seed or vegetable oil for deep frying and switched to lard or tallow (the latter is what used to make McDonalds fries taste good, until they got mau maued into switching to other oils, and it made a lot of economic sense given that they own cattle ranches and generate so much of it in cooking the burgers). Also, eat crispy chicken skin (the chicken version of bacon). There are a lot of non-disgusting ways to increase your fat intake, while improving food taste/mouth feel.

I’d like to start a social media campaign to get McDonalds to go back to tallow for fries (yes, I know that potatoes are problematic, but if you’re going to eat them, at least fry them in a delicious and healthy fat). It might even knock down the prices.

10 thoughts on “Low-Carb Diets”

  1. It must all be in my head that switching to a Paleo diet made me lose 20 pounds. I mean, 155 pounds and middle-aged? It can’t be that the recommended diet of the USDA is wrong. Food Pyramid, double-plus good!

  2. At the suggestion of my daughter (who is in med school), I cut starch out of my diet at the end of July (and also increased my level of physical activity). My weight has declined steadily since then, down 14 pounds so far, and I’ve barely felt hungry.

      1. I went from minimal activity to walking 10K+ steps per day. I think that had some effect.

        BTW, the Fitbit is an excellent motivational device.

        I will admit, any diet where you can go to a restaurant and eat a 16 oz. ribeye is a good diet. 🙂

  3. I’ve just started reading Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions. It’s a very useful analysis of food science and has recipes. It makes me very glad I never gave up butter.

  4. Although it’s portrayed as “Eat Fat!”, that isn’t actually the central message.

    It’s “Stop being scared to death of fat.” Switching from milk (which has significant fat) to orange juice (which does not) was touted as healthier for what, sixty years now?

    Switching from ice cream to fat-free yoghurts.

    No one brewing palatable koumiss that I’m aware of though.

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