We’ve entered the Twilight Zone when it comes to the multitude of diets being promoted today. Starting with the Atkins Diet followed
by the South Beach Diet, both higher in protein, lower in carbs,
but the distinction should be on quality of carbs, not singling out
one nutrient as “bad.” If you are on the Atkins Diet or South Beach
Diet simply adjust from eating low quality carbs like refined flour
and highly refined sugar products (comes in a box, or ready-to-eat)
to eating more whole food products like fresh vegetables and fruits,
yes fruits.
Apples vs. Apple Jacks – You be the Judge
I know the traditional Atkins Diet (especially in the Induction
phase) doesn’t advocate much fruit (too high sugar, so they say) but
think about that for one minute. My strong belief is that an apple
is a good food, a bowl of Apple Jacks cereal may not be on an equal
level. One is highly processed, sweetened by added white sugar and corn syrup, and one is natural, plucked from a tree and sweetened
by the sun. Which would you choose? Don’t shun fresh fruit for the sake of following your low carb diet to the letter.
Eliminating healthy, wholesome foods is not the best way to learn to
eat better, but severely cutting back on the frequency of eating
highly processed foods is. I saw a site which called it GM or MM:
God Made or Man Made. If you think of those terms when you go to
choose your foods, it starts to make more sense. No one says you
shouldn’t eat chips, or whatever strikes your fancy, but make them a
treat – and eat the GM foods more often.
Time for the Common Sense Diet
Common sense will answer the question about what to eat. If you are
on Atkins, South Beach or any variation of low carb diet, avoid
processed foods, not natural foods. Stop using “instant” breakfast,
and cook whole rolled oats for instance. Sure you might have to get
up 10 minutes earlier, oh well. You’re worth it!
You can still stay on a higher protein food plan, but this one minor
adjustment will allow you to continue with your eating plan for a
lifetime, rather than a short-time. I’d go insane if I couldn’t eat
my daily apple, banana or other fruit. I love fruit. I think there’s
a very good reason humans desire sweet foods – Vitamin C, and other
nutrients, including bioflavonoids.
Addicted to Fruit?
I heard someone complain they were “addicted to fruit” and I had to
wonder, what do they eat? The person who refuses to eat fruit
because they believe it is too high in sugar, probably does eat
cookies, crackers and sugary cereals. They might even drink
artificially flavored and sweetened drinks, but they refuse to eat a
natural food, grown from our earth? That makes no sense, if you
think about it. Did our planet develop and thrive based on processed
foods? No, of course not. They are very recent in the evolution of
our world. Very recent. In fact, we’ve had processed foods less than
200 years, while our planet is millions of years old.
With the high incidence of obesity, and our high consumption of
processed foods, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that one
causes the other. You won’t hear big industry stating that case
because our economy depends on us buying the products being produced
by the companies that employ us. You’ll never see it reported that
“scientists discovered refined flour kills,” even if it were proven
true because it doesn’t support our way of life. We need industry.
Witnessing the epidemic of food illnesses such as Mad Cow, and now
Bird Flu, I can envision a society without the mass produced meat
industry. It will come to pass – nothing but your local farm will be
allowed to sell meat because the big farm industry cannot guarantee
safety of the food supply. Meat will become much more expensive
because when they can no longer mass produce it, there is nowhere
for prices to go but up. So do we whine and cry and moan about our
misfortune or do we start to think of meat as something to savor and
enjoy like the Sunday roasts we had years ago? We never ate meat
every day then – and we weren’t so fat either. We simply didn’t eat
as much processed foods. Most of us had moms at home cooking us
dinner, making our lunches and even fixing our breakfasts.
Yes, progress marches on, but when it comes to your body, common
sense rules the day. The Common Sense Diet! Try it on for size
today.
