Trudi Deakin low carb high fat post, a comment on a comment that was posted today.

"I don't know anyone who eats a low fat high carb diet. It's virtually impossible to drop your fat intake below say 20% without some serious planning in this society and who the hell in the general public is doing that? The well off may spend their days eating expensive cuts of wild birds and game and lean meat and chicken breasts and fresh fish at every meal but most ordinary people are consuming loads of fat because thats integral to the food they can afford, mince beef, sausages, pies, pizzas, eggs, burgers, cheese, ready meals, fish and chips, cornish pasties sausage rolls etc. , god knows what in the way of chocolate, cakes,puddings etc. are you seriously saying the obesity epidemic is due to people cutting fat out of their diet, if they replaced most of that fat with veg and fruit instead of sugar what do you think would happen, apart from the fact they would be on a low fat diet?"

This comment raises some interesting points. I reckon most people are eating a fair amount of fats, maybe more than they realise. But they are also eating one hell of a lot of refined carbs/sugar. People are eating lots of "healthy" low fat foods such as desserts and yoghurt's very often with a very high added sugar content. Very often reading "low fat" on a product means high sugar. The question arises what sort of fats are people eating. In many countries products are laced with trans fats, which are a long term known health hazard. These fats are often used in margarine, factory made cakes and biscuits etc. You also have HFCS being put into just about every food and fizzy drink in some parts of the world. In recent times people are drinking huge amounts of concentrated orange juice etc, again we see a very high fructose intake.

To conclude, most people are not eating a high healthy fats diet, the bulk of their foods are highly processed carbohydrates, very often mixed with very un-healthy fats. Many are eating too much food together with minimal physical activity. I have never said anyone can eat whatever they like in terms of calories, whatever foods they eat, and lose or maintain a healthy weight.

That being said, a calorie is not just a calorie, for people who suffer from metabolic problems, the source of calories plays a huge roll in health outcomes. It is my opinion the combination of a high fat, a high, highly processed carb diet, is the worst possible and has contributed greatly to the epidemics of obesity and its often linked type two diabetes.

Eddie