Anyone vaguely interested in food, or vaguely uninterested, will have been exposed to Prof Tim Noakes’ publicised views about proteins, fats and carbohydrates. He recommends severe restriction of carbohydrates and advocates the use of fats, particularly saturated fats. Part of the interest of the diet is the controversy surrounding it. Dietitians are frequently labelled as haters. Many doctors are also taking a stance against the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) recommendations being made.
We decided that we should discover first-hand what advice is being dished out and decided to attend the presentation given by Prof Noakes this week. Without a doubt Prof Naokes is a charismatic speaker – and had most of the audience eating out of his hand (carb-free of course). He constructs his argument cleverly by starting with disregarding the majority of nutrition studies – “pharmaceutical industries support doctors and research”, and “90% of nutrition research is associated evidence, association does not prove causation”. More on this later.
Unfortunately, I feel most of the audience left feeling slightly overwhelmed and confused by the actual advice that was given – besides of course that bacon, liver and eggs should be staple foods from 6 months onwards. From what I could gather, he recommends a diet that is 80% fat, and that ideally carbs should be restricted to 25g (which he equates to an apple), he also recommends that we should only eat when we are hungry and only once a day.
We were also very interested in the way the Dietetics profession was described; somewhat dowdy, backward thinkers, close minded and heavily relying on the food pyramid from back in 1977. Dietitians, in his portrayal, seem stuck in high carb, low fat – and their future, according to Prof Noakes, is dead – especially once everyone has read his most recent book. It is important to note this is not an attack on Prof Noakes, we simply want to ensure that scientifically correct information is being disseminated to the public. A positive is that many people are giving their health and nutritional status some serious consideration, we need to however make sure that we provide evidence based nutrition information to the public. As Prof says, “nutrition is the most important discipline in medical science”.
It is therefore necessary to clear a few things up and give a Dietitians perspective. 140 characters on twitter is not enough space to put forward information – and nor is 1 blog. The Dietitians from Nutritional Solutions are developing a series of blogs that will be posted over the next few days which will hopefully provide some evidence-based, objective guidance and a better understanding of healthy eating.
The following are the topics that are being tackled in our blog series:
•Setting the record straight: What Dietitians actually recommend
•How to distinguish your carbs – they’re not all equal.
•Understanding scientific studies
•Sugar addiction: It’s nothing new!
•Understanding insulin resistance: Diagnostic criteria and HbA1c explained
•Some facts on fats
•Cancer and nutrition
•Facts and fiction from the Tim Noakes Talk
We are looking forward to your comments! If there are any other topics you feel need to be covered, we are happy to consider them.
Please tweet us any questions you may have with #DietDebate:
