86Thousand400: Tim Noakes, The Real Meal Revolution

- Three great catastrophes that occurred in our nutritional evolution.

- 1. Mankind's own interference and the advent of agriculture

- 2. Passing of the 1977 United States Dietary Goals for Americans (USDGA) based on high-carb, low fat diet. Unchallenged, it was to become the dietary blueprint for much of the developed world. We've been feeling the effects - from obesity to diabetes to cancer - ever since.

- 3. Genetically modified foods. Resulted in fruit and vegetables with much higher sugar and carbohydrates contents than the original fruit found in nature.

- Originator of the Low Carb, High Fat movement goes to William Banting circa 1862. Morbidly obese - weight was putting pressure on his ear drums.

- "Banting diet" effective weight loss solution

- Fat, cooked well is delicious. Yet through conditioning we feel guilty!

The Carbfather

- Ancel Keys, published a study that erroneously highlighted fat's effect on cholesterol levels as being behind the risk of heart attack.

- He argued that there was a relationship between the amount of fat in the diet and heart disease. His simplistic approach concluded that by raising blood cholesterol, fat in our diet clogs our arteries and leads to heart disease.

- Deeply flawed he omitted information from 16 of the 22 countries in the study, using only the 6 countries that suited his hypothesis.

- Regardless of the weaknesses around the study, in 1977 Senator George McGovern and his Senate select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs went ahead and based their Dietary Goals for Americans (USDGA) on Key's recommendation of a high-carb, low-fat (HCLF) diet.

- It was a decision that affected us all. Ever since then, fat has been trying to rework its public image.

Fat is your friend

- Fat fuels us. The body needs fat due to the slow release of ENERGY.

- Fat does not make you fat. Carbs do.

Insulin - The Devil within

- Of the three macronutrients we eat Carbohydrate is the only one that is non-essential for survival. While fat is the preferred fuel for the body.

- When carbohydrates are ingested, our blood glucose levels rise.

- Insulin is secreted by the pancreas in response to the glucose entering the bloodstream from the gut. The body must be protected against sustained high blood glucose levels so the insulin causes the glucose, which is not used immediately for energy, to be stored by the liver and muscles as glycogen. Once the glycogen reserves are filled the excess glucose is stored as fat.

- If carbohydrate cannot be removed immediately from the body (eg burned off through exercise), it gets converted by the liver into fat and sent out to our fat tissues for storage. This is the body squirrelling away this energy source for a future Ice Age, only the Ice Age isn't coming. We're just getting fatter and hungrier.

- Insulin, your body's defence mechanism against carbs, both transforms carbs/glucose into fat and then stores it by preventing it from being used. The result? You get fat.

- The final blow to the gut: because carbohydrates are nutrient-deficient and often packaged with salt and sugar, you feel the need to eat more of them, thereby putting yourself into a near-perpetual cycle of weight gain.

- When you move off carbs, you reconfigure your appestat, the part of your brain that regulates hunger.

- Hunger regulation is governed by the bulk and nutrient density of the foods we eat.