It's the insulin, stupid.

I'm convinced that the root of many of our diet problems is having a hangover from a life we no longer live: that is, being farmers who till the soil manually, stuke wheat, weed large gardens, manually clean farmhouses, clean horses, tote feed buckets....you get the picture. You burned your calories off.

We were just on holiday and met a number of Europeans who were travelling on the train through Canada with us, who were horrified at the size of both the meals and their fellow travellers. While the portion sizes on the train are far from what you'd get at a local restaurant chain, having 3 gourmet meals a day is too much. As is the plain old North American diet, which can be several large bowls of cereal (sugar laden), orange juice (sugar laden) toast with jam, (sugar laden...), then lunch, which can be just as bad. Then supper. Also beer, wine, liquor or Coke. It's the aftereffect of high carb/glucose diets that is making us fat.

For me, the new motto is, "It's the insulin, stupid."

And in a farmer's garden, lots of potatoes were grown. It was a staple. It filled you up. That is fine for people who never eat too much and stay slim the majority of their lives. But if you get overweight, your body works against you. If you combine bread, potatoes, beer and a sweet dessert, you've got the recipe for a constant state of high insulin in the blood stream, hunger from the highs and lows of glucose, a state of inflammation and the pathway to chronic disease. It would be better to eat eggs, ham, meat, salad, steak and broccoli. You'd feel full and wouldn't need those desserts. The beer is a different story.

Our metabolism is such that an influx of glucose into the blood stream requires a big insulin push, whereupon fat is stored. Fewer carbs, less fat storage. It's that simple. Every complicated article and textbook I read boils it down to stimulating less insulin. Insulin has such a complex effect on our bodies. Many of its effects aren't well understood even yet, with all our advanced research capability.

Losing weight is a complicated array of processes, but by not carb loading, you don't facilitate fat storage. And while saturated fat continues to be considered a problem, eating lean protein, lots of plant materials (low sugar fruits and vegetables) and small amounts of "good" fats like olive oil and omega 3 fats, and getting some exercise to reduce insulin resistance is the way to lose weight.

Think about it. Lions in the wild are carnivores, eat few carbs, and still grow.

The low-fat message has confused North Americans, and they started eating just about anything that was labelled low fat. Dont get me started on the food industry and how well its done because of this lack of interest in the realities of human metabolism. it all drives me crazy!