Never judge a study by it's headline

Here's my thoughts on the recent study and headlines concerning moods and low-carb diets.


Low-carb diets and moods: what the headlines aren't telling you

Would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave your comments here or on examiner.

Cereal Killer Contains Scary Truths

Today I'm highlighting one of the great prizes we are giving away in our 2nd Annual Great Start Giveaway! Four lucky winners will receive a copy of this awesome book, so be sure you enter before the deadline of Feb. 1st!

Cereal Killer contains Scary Truths
Reprint from my Examiner.com column



I've certainly had my share of nightmares about cereal, Twinkies and Doritos chasing me and making me binge on them. (Admit it – you've have that dream too!) But you won’t find that kind of suspense and thrills in this amazing book by author Alan Watson. What you’ll read here is even more frightening.

This isn’t your grandfather’s cereal, or even your great-grandfather’s cereal. More than likely it’s because they didn’t eat cereal. They ate real food. Bacon. Eggs. Steak. In the last several decades we have been told that processed low-fat food products are better for us. So naturally we obliged. After all, who doesn’t want to be trim and healthy? After years and years of following what we assumed to be sound scientific advice, are we any healthier? No. In fact, we are one of the unhealthiest nations on the planet. Mr. Watson sees this problem. In Cereal Killer Alan gives us insight into how it all got started and helps us understand just what this so-called “healthy American diet” is really doing to our bodies.

People need to understand that reading the back of a cereal box for your nutritional advice is a bad idea. I’d laugh if I were actually kidding. Here’s a quote:

Keys to Healthy Living

Eating a balanced diet moderate in calories and getting exercise are keys to a healthy lifestyle. A cereal breakfast is a simple step you can take. (Their emphasis, not mine.) Research shows that people who frequently eat cereal have healthier body weights.

Then they explain % daily values.

DV’s tell you if a food group is high or low in a nutrient… Sugar does not have a DV.

And this means what… Eat sugar to your heart’s content?

Who’d like to take a stab at which cereal box this is on? Try Cookie Crisp. So according to the back of the Cookie Crisp cereal box, eating this sugar-filled processed junk for breakfast is perfectly fine. It will keep you at a healthy body weight and since there is no DV on sugar, you don’t have to limit it or consume a certain level. At the least, a statement like this is misleading.

Cereal Killer will change your way of thinking about our government backed nutrition and health guidelines.From the back of the book:

So! How are the children doing?

End of summer, 2008. A record number of American children are being diagnosed with asthma, obesity, diabetes, and bipolar disorder. Along with surging food and medical costs, Americans must come to grips with declining life expectancy – now 37th in the world…
In this explosive book, Alan Watson sheds new light now how corporate greed, government delusion, and slippery science are making our children sick and causing what the late Dr. Robert Atkins called “diabesity.”

Cereal Killer is a stinging indictment of the big cereal companies and drug industries who enjoy huge profits as Americans of all ages suffer from failed “low fat” federal nutrition guidelines and record levels of chronic disease.

After you read Cereal Killer, you will know:

Why obesity is epidemic.

Why diabetes is soaring.

Why cholesterol and saturated fat are not the cause of heart disease.

I could barely put this book down. It has great information and confirms what I think most of us have suspected for years. Health and obesity is big business in America and there are individuals and companies who’d like to keep it that way. We can fight back by staying informed and educated. Mr. Watson’s book is a great place to start and I highly recommend it.

You can learn more about this book and how to purchase it at Diet Heart Publishing or at Amazon.com.

Bet the media hasn't told you this....

I'm currently in chapter 4 of Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. This has so far been an amazing book. Some of my suspicions have been confirmed, as well as some of my worst fears. Then there are other things I didn't dare dream could have taken place, yet they have. It's just wild how little evidence and REAL scientific research went into today's dietary recommendations. It seems to be founded more on politics and a couple of researchers who were determined to make a name for themselves regardless of the long term consequences.

As I was reading this morning, I found a particular point that I felt I should share here. If you aren't currently reading this book, then you'll see why it's causing such a ruckus.

In chapter 4 Mr. Taubes gives us a backstage pass into the consensus that the dietary fat controversy was over. Low-fat was declared the winner and no one dared challenge that thinking for fear of losing their research funding. To quote the book "It was no longer about the validity of the underlying science, which was no less ambiguous than ever, but about whether Americans should be eating low-fat diets or very low-fat diets."

Here's the part that many people may never find out without reading this book: Low-fat diets were being recommended for an entire nation and had only been tested twice. That's right, twice. Once in Hungary and once in Britain, which the subjects only consisted of a few hundred middle-aged men who had already suffered heart attacks. The results of both of these trials were contradictory. Other trials since have been exclusively cholesterol-lowering diets that replaced saturated fats with unsaturated fats.

Even more surprising is the fact that lowering cholesterol to extend your life is not as beneficial as the researchers would like us to think. A UCSF study, led by Warren Browner, was funded by the Surgeon General's office. " This study concluded that cutting fat consumption in America would delay forty-two thousand deaths each year, but the average life expectancy would increase by only three or four months. To be precise, a man who might otherwise die at sixty-five could expect to live an extra month if he avoided saturated fats for his entire adult life." Amazing isn't it? To eat a low-fat diet and only extend your life for a month?!? Doesn't sell the point very well, does it. If you want to reduce your saturated fats to 8 percent of all calories it would allow you an increase of four days to two months. Makes you wanna go right out and fill the fridge with fat-free foods! Yeah. Right.

I could also go into how lowering cholesterol provides little benefit, which they knew as well. But we'll stop here for today.

So there you have it. News about low-fat diets the media will not share with you. As always, and in all things, it pays to be your own investigator and advocate.