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This is a piece about LCHF, Paleo and Nutrition.
LCHF - Low Carb High Fat is a style of diet that promotes low carbohydrate intakes. At under 20g/carbs/day this is also known as a ketogenic diet. A moderate LCHF diet is 20-50g/carbs/day and a liberal LCHF diet is 50-100g/carbs/day. An abundance of natural fats, fish and seafood, cheese, meat, eggs is promoted. Foods to AVOID are fruit (like bananas), discretionary foods (donuts, sweets, alcohol, soft drinks etc), pasta, potato, bread and rice.
Despite being a highly restrictive diet, there are online communities who defend this diet aggressively.
PALEO - as described by it’s spokesperson Pete Evans, is meat and 3 veg and “The Paleo Way is literally the most natural dietary approach on earth, and the one most likely to support optimum physical and emotional health for the best quality of life.”
The Paleo way states: “A healthy diet incorporates well sourced, organic and whole, unprocessed foods such as fresh vegetables and leafy greens, grass-fed meat, pasture raised free-range poultry and wild-caught fish.”
What does one give up for Paleo? According to the paleoway website: “The first thing you’ll say goodbye to on the Paleo Way is refined sugars, vegetable oils, alcohol, and caffeine. You’re removing grains, legumes, and dairy (with the possible exception of butter, depending on your immune tolerance).”
There are a list of expensive “swaps” one can make - grain flours to coconut flour or almond meal/ vegetable oil to coconut oil, dairy products to nut or coconut milk/cream etc.
Despite being a highly restrictive diet, there are online communities who defend this diet and Paleo Pete aggressively (not to mention block thousands of people from Chef Pete Evan’s FB page).
I’m sure I’m doing no justice to these two diets or lifestyles, however this info is straight from two of their most popular sites - diet doctor and the paleo way.
As a nutritionist, and a nurse of 25 years with 10 years in addiction, it’s fair to say I’ve been exposed to a lot of lifestyle choices, illnesses, death, cancer, genetically predisposed conditions, poverty, malnutrition, obesity, mental health issues and eating disorders.
I’m not paid out by Big Anything (feel free to message me for bank details though as it would be awesome to generate some income from the nutrition work I do!!)
Promoting a balanced, non-restrictive, healthy approach to food and nutrition is my passion. Encouraging people to eat more veggies, and eat less discretionary foods form the cornerstones of my nutrition work. BUT WAIT!!!!! These things seem to share a common ground with Paleo and LCHF.
The one thing I can’t understand is how Paleo and LCHF have joined forces. There, I’ve said it. It makes absolutely no sense.
The “us and them” attitude created by Paleo and LCHF to take any opportunity to undermine what they call “conventional medical advice” absolutely boggles my mind.
It would make sense if I recommended to my patients (and I say patients/clients) as they are non-paying members of the community seeking healthcare that they eat Maccas 3 times a day or live off discretionary food. But do I, and other health professionals do this? I can answer for myself and anyone else is welcome to chime in, but the answer is a resounding NO.
I work with clients to encourage vegetable intake, to reduce serving sizes of processed carbohydrates, to follow a rule of thumb that half their plate is salad or non-starchy veg, a quarter is a good source of protein and the other quarter contains a small serve of their choice of carbs. Amidst the mix of foods on this plate, there is fat, carbs and proteins. Macronutrients that make up the food we eat. But we don’t eat just macronutrients, we eat food. And eating a variety of foods contains a variety of macro and micro nutrients (think vitamins, minerals, antioxidants etc).
Having a plate that is filled with colour. Eating foods that taste good to the person eating them. Simple meals that are affordable and accessible and non-time consuming. These are the strategies I use.
I am so over the US and THEM created by the high level trolling of LCHF and Paleo.
The Australian Dietary Guidelines (NOTE: guidelines) provide GUIDELINES for healthy eating. They recommend limiting discretionary (junk foods), eating lots of veggies (5 serves a day), eating 2 serves of fruit a day, incorporating dairy, legumes, grains and your choice of protein. When food is consumed in proportion, the need for restrictive eating is eliminated and a sustainable “lifestyle” is created.
For all those who have found Paleo and LCHF to have worked for them, that’s awesome, but frankly in my opinion the need to sarcastically place opinions and endless links to journal articles without any discussion over any nutrition site is just trolling.
By the way, I had an awesome breakfast today. It actually hit 5 serves of veg and 2 serves of fruit in one go. (See the pic below). Shock horror - there were 86g of carbs there. It was loaded with fibre and seasonal ingredients sourced locally, and inexpensive to make.
LESS THAN 7% of Australians meet the recommended guidelines for 5 serves of veg and 2 of fruit per day!!!!
To quote the Australian Bureau of Statistics: “In 2014-15, 49.8% of Australians aged 18 years and over met the guidelines for recommended daily serves of fruit (2 or more serves), while 7.0% met the guidelines for serves of vegetables (5-6 or more serves for men depending on age, and 5 or more for women). Only one in twenty (5.1%) adults met both guidelines. These rates were similar to 2011-12 (48.5%, 6.1% and 4.2% respectively).”
So rather than the ongoing discourse of “my diet is better than yours”, let’s work from the common ground of EAT MORE VEGGIES and EAT LESS DISCRETIONARY FOOD?!!
