Atkins Was a Sickly Old Man - Roger Mason

Robert Atkins was the best selling diet author in history. No one sold anywhere near the amount of diet books that he did over two decades. The problem is he dropped dead of chronic congestive heart failure at only 72 from following his own advice. Absolute proof of the ketogenic insanity. This just demonstrates that to make money you just have to tell people what they want to hear. He was joined by the likes of Sears, Eades, Heller, Crayhon, Douglass, Mercola, and Steward who tell you to eat all the meat and fat you want. Just lap it up folks! Stuff it in your face. Eat all the beef, pork, butter, lard, cheese, dairy products, milk, lamb, chicken, turkey, duck, eggs and any other fatty foods you want for good health and long life. How can anyone with an I.Q. over 70 even pick up a book like that?  
 
Psychology, that's why. Emotional needs. Remember psychologist Maslows "Hierarchy of Needs"? People do whatever they can to fill their most pressing needs regardless of the consequences. Eating rich, fat laden, and high calorie foods is comforting, it makes you feel good temporarily. Fatty foods actually sedate you ("food coma"). To be fair these authors make three good points, and these three points are very important. 1) Don't eat refined carbohydrates like white flour, white bread, white pasta, white rice, degermed corn meal, and other grains with the nutrients removed. 2) Don't eat simple sugars and sweets. This includes honey, white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, fructose, corn syrup, date sugar, raw sugar, fruit juice, dried fruit, and fruit syrups. Eat a piece of whole fresh fruit once a day if you like fruit. A glass of fruit juice literally has as much sugar content as a Coke or Pepsi. 3) Don't eat hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. These are the worst fats on the face of the earth and do not exist in nature. Read your labels and you'll be shocked to see how ubiquitous these are. This means no more eating in fast food restaurants as most every-thing they serve is full of hydrogenated fats.  It is obviously a farce to advocate eating all the meat and fat you want, while avoiding brown rice, whole grain bread, polenta, oatmeal, barley soup, whole wheat pasta, buckwheat, or corn on the cob! Dr. James Kenney brings up the Pima Indians. The same Pima Indians live both in Mexico and Arizona, but now live very different lives being in two different countries. The Pimas in Mexico still live on a traditional diet of corn tortillas, beans and vegetables with very little meat and fat. They are thin, active, have, little heart or artery disease, and certainly no diabetes to speak of. They have low cholesterol and triglyceride levels and live a long time. This, ironically enough, is due to a lower standard of living in Mexico where they simply can't afford to eat at McDonalds. The Pimas in Arizona have been very influenced by the American lifestyle. They eat much more meat, dairy, and fat, are about 60 pounds heavier than their Mexican cousins.Many are sedentary due to obesity, they have epidemic heart and artery disease and lots of diabetes which starts at about the age of 40, high (over 225) cholesterol levels and die of various diseases prematurely.  
 
If Atkins, Eades, Heller, Sears, Steward et al were correct that complex carbohydrates causes diabetes none of this would be true. If the "Glycemic Index" was scientifically factual none of this would be true. Do you really believe carrots cause high blood sugar compared to white sugar? This is what the Glycemic Index claims. Isn't that asinine on the surface? You probably met a few people on the Atkins Diet who temporarily lost weight and wondered how they can stuff themselves with fat and lose weight. You can actually be tempted to try it and see if you can lose weight, too.  
 
The "trick" is that when you take all simple and complex carbohydrates out of your diet and eat meat and fat you body goes into a disease state called "ketosis". This is the root of the term "ketogenic" diet. Here is a dictionary definition of the word "ketosis" - "Pathological condition of having too much of a ketone in the body, as in diabetes, acidosis, etc. (f. ketone + osis)". This is a disease state plain and simple. One of the side effects of this is chronic bad breath since the body cannot metabolize normally.  
 
You can talk to weightlifters who have been using this trick for over 50 years. Thirty days prior to competition hey eat nothing with carbohydrates and paradoxically, cut their body fat down to as little as 5% instead of a normal level of 15 to 20%. The problem is that you will get very sick very quickly and not live very long on such a diet. On the surface they look great. This is very misleading to look at someone who looks great on the outside, but whose entire metabolism is upset inside. Older weightlifters are famous for dying early and having terrible health after the age of 40.

 The healthiest foods in the world are whole grains. Beans are another wonderful food. Both are the richest source of complex carbohydrates and fiber we have. Switch from white rice to brown rice. Switch from white bread to whole grain 100%. Switch from white pasta to whole wheat pasta. Buy 100% whole grain cold cereals for breakfast. Discover what polenta is. Buy a bag of barley and make soup. Go to a Latin grocery and try some beans you've never heard of before. Rediscover beans as a part of your diet. Complex carbohydrates are literally the staff of life. Think whole grains as the basis of your diet.