Your analysis of all the world’s dietary trends – once and for all
It is extraordinarily thought-provoking how many different dietary trends have emerged in the wake of the processed, carbohydrate-enriched, low-fat normal.
If you look at the most common forms of diet through the blood sugar glasses, you will find at one end of the spectrum the rich Danish normal with six blood sugar increases from six carbohydrate-rich meals to the slightly sugar intolerant one. The same diet results in zero blood sugar increases for the sugar tolerant for whom the dietary guidelines were originally created. Today, a minority are sugar-tolerant, and therefore it makes really good sense when many adults look around for alternative dietary principles.
If you want a stable blood sugar every day, you can wisely put together your diet depending on how fast you are to remove excess sugar from the blood again. If you are sugar tolerant (insulin sensitive), you are quick to remove excess sugar from the blood and can live by the official Danish dietary advice – or whatever you prefer. If you are sugar intolerant (insulin resistant), you are slower to remove excess sugar from the blood, and then it makes sense to find a diet that stabilizes blood sugar by delivering less sugar to the blood – and by starting biological processes that restore insulin sensitivity.
Most young, healthy and active people are sugar tolerant as we become insulin resistant with age, diet, declining muscle mass, increasing fat mass – and much more, which you can read about in The Truth About Sugar.
Therefore, it makes really good sense to look at different dietary trends with blood sugar and sugar tolerance-eyes.
Before we look at the diets themselves, we divide all foods into two directions, namely carbohydrate content and degree of refinement. For blood sugar, it really matters how much carbohydrate there is in the food, but it actually means even more whether the carbohydrates are wrapped in the plant cell’s original fiber wall or whether the carbohydrates are refined (unpacked from the plant) and ready to take the trip directly into the blood.
Below you see my BIOLOGICAL LOGIC squares, which reflect carbohydrate supplements and degree of refining. In the lower left corner is the basic diet with unrefined, whole foods with low carbohydrate content (green box). Here is everything we need as adults. Above the green box is a yellow box with unprocessed carbohydrate-rich foods, and these are good energy supplements for those who need to grow and some of the adults who exercise a lot, or just feel best with ‘carbohydrate supplements’ (the insulin sensitive). The two boxes on the right consist of refined foods. It has nothing to do with ‘real food’, but you can easily choose it as a means of enjoyment, if it is something you really like.
With the BIOLOGICAL LOGIC squares in mind, you can read my short analysis of a number of diets below.
After reading my analysis, you can analyze all the diets of the future according to the same principle.
KETO (or ketogenic diet) is a diet where one spends all day in ketosis. This means that you do not get blood sugar rises, and that the cells’ fuel comes primarily from fat and ketone bodies. Many people experience a rapid weight loss on this diet. The weight loss is partly due to the fact that you get a natural appetite regulation restored, and partly because the fat burning is running at full speed, simply because there is not much insulin and sugar in the blood to slow it down. Many also say that KETO provides peace of mind in the body and the ketogenic diet is used as a treatment for several serious diseases of the nervous system.
With this form of diet, the diet comes exclusively from the green BIOLOGICAL LOGIC square.
There are many variations of ketogenic dietary principles and the adept expert Jane Faerber has with her KETO books put this diet form on the map. KETO contains approximately the same amount of protein as the official Danish dietary guidelines, but you consume a maximum of 20-50 grams of carbohydrate a day and eat your fill in fat. The diet is often rich in meat, but there are also vegetarian recipes out there.
The ketogenic diet (with an extra serving of coleslaw) is very similar to the dish I recommend for adults.
LCHF – low-carb-high-fat (or diet with fewer carbohydrates and more fat than in the traditional Danish bread-rich diet) is the same principle as KETO. However, LCHF is more scalable as there are no clear guidelines for the amount of carbohydrates in the meal. In principle, this means that you cut sugar, cereals and bread (as well as possibly fruit and potatoes) out of the everyday diet. LCHF covers several healthy and unhealthy currents. ‘Low carb’ does not say anything about where the few carbohydrates should come from – whether they are refined, or whether they are securely wrapped in fiber in a cabbage cell.
A vegetable-rich, unprocessed LCHF is highly recommended. Again, I cannot fail to recommend Jane Faerber’s glorious everyday recipes.
Stone Age diet or paleo is a dietary principle that has got a little funny misunderstanding tied in the tail of a really good concept. Many people think it is ridiculous to have to live like in the Stone Age – and that you did not live like that in the Stone Age. I basically do not care about historical quirks, because the Stone Age diet is excellent because none of the raw materials are industrially processed and because no sugar and flour have been added. The ‘non-biological’ topics of debate can easily be left out, unless you want to take part in a worldwide trend that is ridiculing the way others eat. In Denmark, we are so lucky that the Stone Age diet was launched by a former Michelin-starred chef, Thomas Rode. This means that there is control over the taste experiences when you throw yourself over this unprocessed variation of LCHF. And as a loving response to those who look a little skewed to the name of this diet, the unprocessed ingredients are now often united under the term ‘real food’. It is, in my opinion, a fine manifestation of the fact that it is the processing and carbohydrate enrichment in the normal that we need to be wary of.
Anti-inflammatory diet is a variant which is named after its biological effect rather than the nutrient content. The diet can easily belong to LCHF, and the general feature is that the food is not industrially processed and that there is a high content of natural foods with very unsaturated fats (eg nuts, almonds, seeds). This diet does not ban good grain products.
All of the diets I have mentioned have one thing in common: There is no added refined carbohydrate or carbohydrate supplement. And actually, it’s pretty amazing that there have been so many dietary trends to compensate for the carbohydrate-enriched normal that I call HCLF below.
HCLF – or high-carb-low-fat is the traditional Danish diet that is reflected in the current official Danish dietary guidelines. Of course, you can live a super healthy life with lots of carbs and less fat. You can even lose weight from it, because if you have a high glucose tolerance, it does not increase blood sugar, and as long as you take care of your calorie consumption, it is super. If you have become sugar intolerant (like the majority over 35), this diet can maintain the condition and mean that you have too much insulin and sugar in your blood most of the day. You do not benefit from that. And it can mean that it becomes really difficult to keep the weight off or lose unwanted overweight.
The super healthy carbohydrate sources are many, but there are also countless ways to crash and roll all the way down the ski slope with this diet. It just requires you to slacken your attention for a moment. Too many low fat products are probably low in fat, but at the same time they are filled to the brim with sugar and starch to bring flavor and texture back to the product. So in the best calorie-reducing sense, producers get to create fully processed foods with 100 percent bioavailability of energy and with a good chance of turning well and thoroughly to the sweet taste.
When you read in the National Diet Handbook, you see that the normal HCLF settles in the top yellow BIOLOGICAL LOGIC square above, while protein, fat and vegetable sources appear as accessories from the green square. In daily diet suggestions from the same national diet handbook, desserts from the red square above appear more frequently than fresh coarse vegetables such as cabbage, and I hope that this will soon be changed.
During the elimination of the totalitarian calorie-centric view of health, a saying has emerged, together with a number of the mentioned dietary trends: “I do not eat carbohydrates”. It is insanely important that our diet trends are followed with knowledge, because it should not just be “carbohydrates” that cut out. If you want to cut down on carbohydrates, it should primarily be the carbohydrate-enriched foods (the two squares on the right) that disappear, and then occasionally also the carbohydrate-rich foods such as grains, fruits and potatoes (the top yellow square). The ‘carbohydrates’, ie the carbohydrates from vegetables (green square), I think no one should save on, because they are the ones that ensure the health-promoting intestinal flora, which is actually our most important health ally.
And while there is absolutely nothing wrong with experimenting with different healthy diets and seeing when you are at your best, you know my recommendation: Familiarize yourself with your biology first so you understand your body’s reactions. For it is insanely satisfying to have influence and to take the health matter into one’s own hands.
If you have become interested in becoming even more comfortable with your body and your food, you can get more knowledge, in my book ‘The Truth About Sugar’ or in my SugarSmart lecture, which you can experience live – or online just when it suits you.
