News Diet Coming From Europe!

There’s a new diet coming at us from Europe. I haven’t read the book so I can’t really speak to the details, but it’s a variety of high protein, very low carbohydrate diet. I mean, you can hardly get serious about losing weight without at least considering insulin (which stores fat and prevents fat burning). Insulin is secreted in response to blood sugar and blood sugar ONLY comes from the carbohydrates you eat—not protein or fat. So there are a lot of these showing up!

I’m a proponent of much lower carbs than most Americans eat. I’m also a proponent of higher protein than most Americans eat. This particular diet suggests high protein and low fat (something I recommend in my e-book, “Minding the Middle Aged Middle.”)

So I bring this up because of a comment in the news article I read. Here’s a quote, by someone opposed to this diet.

“Even if you can survive it for the first few days, it’s hard to stick with it.
It’s hard on your kidneys. "

Note the bolded sentence. This particular person says eating lots of meat is hard on your kidneys. He say this as though it is fact and not subject to any question. Here’s the history on this really stupid piece of misinformation that keeps getting passed around—and oh, yes, it REALLY annoys me! Like so much of the information we are “fed!”

In 1983 some researchers discovered that higher protein in the diet resulted in more blood flow through the kidneys. Like many myths, this began with the mistaken ASSUMPTION that more blood flow was hard on the kidneys. That erroneous information has stuck in much of the popular psyche and press, including some medical people who should know better. Much research since then has demonstrated that more blood flow is not stressful on the kidneys and does no harm whatsoever. High protein is not damaging to or hard on the kidneys!

This blog, my website, my e-books are pushing against a tide of this kind of crappy information that is foisted on us. There is so much bad information out there! Some is bad science, some is misinformation by those who haven’t a clue, and some is based on economic interests. I’ll keep telling you about bad information and where you can get better information, but please, please, be wary about what shows up in the popular media. I understand how hard it is to tease out what’s really good information. But it’s worth your effort!

Best wishes!
Ellie