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Looking For Work? Fix Your Teeth

Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on October 30, 2011

Bad teeth may not only have negative consequences for your health, they can cost you a job.

Many people with visibly unattractive teeth go through life avoiding eye contact with strangers for fear of having to smile back or even to make small talk. Not infrequently, when such people do talk or feel compelled to smile, they cover their mouths with their hand.

Unfortunately, in a job interview, this will not go over well. Yet, for the person with dental problems, to smile or talk would compel them to reveal something they are deeply embarrassed about – their teeth. There is an old saying that you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. And first impressions are typically based upon appearance. Your teeth, or even your breath, can either enhance or completely destroy your chances of landing that new position.

Teeth that are blackened by decay, are crooked, discolored, or even missing may not just be embarrassing – they may turn off prospective employers. Also, hiding your smile during an interview can be one of the worst things you do. A smile and a confident response project self-assurance and make a person appear likeable.

This is just one of many subtleties employers may take into account when interviewing a prospect. Teeth that are stained by coffee, tea or cigarettes may distract the interviewer from what is really important – you and your qualifications.

Likewise, coffee and cigarettes leave a smell that can be easily detected. Apart from not showing visible stains, a prospective job-seeker should also avoid certain other foods shortly before their interview. The most obvious offenders are garlic, onions, anchovies or tuna. But it is also prudent to steer clear of such lunch meats such as salami, pepperoni or pastrami before your interview. Strong cheeses, such as Roquefort, Camembert, or Bleu cheese also leave persisting odors and, similarly, should be avoided.

Women are cautioned to avoid getting lipstick on their teeth. Softer shades or lip gloss are preferable to bright red. Lipstick on your teeth can give you the appearance of being careless or hurried – which may also sink your prospects the moment you open your mouth to speak.

In today’s economy, competition for work is fierce. Applicants need every advantage they can get to land the job. Applicants’ teeth need to be as good looking as the way they dress, comb their hair, or even shine their shoes, because employers can afford to be selective with so many qualified people looking for work.

Recent research conducted in the U.S. estimates that those prospects with well-maintained teeth experience as much as a 58% higher chance of finding a job than those whose teeth are perceived as unattractive. It also seems that potential employees who have invested in dental treatment with cosmetic dentistry are regarded as more professional, congenial, and trustworthy.

Individuals seeking employment can increase their chances of getting work by taking several steps before their interview. These include getting a dental examination, completing unfinished restorative work and possibly even having cosmetic dentistry. The number of job seekers getting their teeth whitened and getting porcelain veneers placed (as a way to increase their chances of hiring success) is increasing for these very reasons. So what do you do if you can’t afford a Hollywood smile? Don’t worry, there are affordable answers.

If you need a lot of work and it is out of your reach, temporary cosmetic solutions such as a Snap-On Smile® can make a dramatic change in your appearance – very often at less than one quarter the cost of a more permanent solution. This is on the order of a functional, but temporary, smile design that snaps over your natural teeth. Once you land the job and start making an income, you can consider something more permanent!

Posted in Dr. Richard Walicki, health, oral health | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Is There Such A Thing As A Good Sugar?

Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on October 1, 2011

What if a person could reduce tooth decay by 25%?  That would be pretty good.  Don’t you think?

How about if YOU could suffer 40% fewer cavities?  Would that get your attention? 

Dentists have been tackling the tooth decay problem for decades.  There have been many theories and various approaches.  These range from focusing upon home care, to controlling dietary factors, to using chemical agents such as chlorhexidine and fluoride.

Most of us would agree – a 25% to 40% reduction in tooth decay would be desirable.  But, what if – and without too much effort – a mother could see her five year old child reduce their tooth decay by as much as 70%?  (This reduction is compared to children given a fluoride or chlorhexidine varnish.)

Simply put, that is a BIG deal.

Still other studies have shown that mothers who did this two to three times a day, starting three months after delivery and until their child was 2 years old, reduced the levels of cavity-causing bacteria in their children up to six years of age.

The secret?  The mothers were chewing xylitol gum.

What is xylitol?  It is a sugar alcohol sweetener that is naturally occurring and can be found in the fibers of various fruits and vegetables.  Most commonly, it is extracted from corn husks and birch.  It is both tooth-friendly and diabetic friendly.

What makes it so special?  Unlike sucrose, or common table sugar, xylitol, does not ferment – a process which results in acid formation that breaks down tooth enamel.  To the contrary, the organic structure of xylitol allows it to help remineralize enamel before decay has time to form.  Saliva containing xylitol is also more alkaline than saliva exposed to some other sweeteners, so is not as likely to produce decay.  Additionally it has other chemical properties that help to remineralize the teeth.   Studies conducted in Finland in the 1970s showed that people who chewed sucrose gum had nearly three decayed, missing, or filled teeth, compared to roughly one such tooth in a group chewing xylitol gum.

Xylitol also has a more specific anti-bacterial action which could also be responsible for controlling tooth decay.  It is known to inhibit the Streptococcus mutans group of bacteria, which are significant contributors to the process which results in cavities.  Because it also inhibits Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Haemophilus influenzae on nose and throat cells, it can also be used as a nasal spray.

The FDA permits xylitol to be marketed as a product which does not promote tooth decay.

Are there any risks?  While there is no known toxicity to xylitol in humans, if taken beyond a person’s individual threshold for this type of sugar alcohol, temporary gastrointestinal (GI) side-effects such as bloating, gas, and diarrhea can occur.

Generally, these effects diminish and a person’s threshold for xylitol use without the laxative or GI effect increases over time.

An important note for dog lovers:  dogs that have consumed high levels of xylitol (greater than 100 mg per kilogram of body weight) experienced drops in blood sugar that could be life-threatening.  Very high levels (500 to 1000 mg per kilogram of body weight) have also been tied to liver failure in dogs.  Xylitol does not appear to have the same effect on cats, and it has also been acknowledged as capable of reducing plaque and tartar in cats when added to their water.

Xylitol is available in toothpastes, mouthwashes, nasal spray, chocolates, jams, lollipops, and in granular form.  When used as a sugar substitute it is typically used in the same ratio as one might use table sugar.  It also tastes like sugar, but without the aftertaste associated with many other artificial sweeteners.

Where you get your xylitol may be an additional risk factor, however.  Some readers may be familiar with a recent (FDA) warning to consumers to throw out all toothpaste made in China after the agency found a poison commonly used in anti-freeze in the toothpaste it evaluated in three U.S. cities.  Unfortunately, there have been similar concerns about Chinese xylitol.

If buying from a domestic distributor, you may want to check the source of the xylitol.  Also check to make sure your “xylitol” gum isn’t mixed with aspartame, a potentially dangerous sweetener with many reported side effects including memory loss, brain lesions, and multiple sclerosis to name just a few.

So how much xylitol do you need to consume to get cavity-fighting benefits?  Most studies suggest about six grams are needed in order to get a result.  That translates to roughly twelve pieces of gum a day.

Hmmm.  Several hours in the dental chair or chew gum six times a day?  You decide.

 

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Known as the Doctor of Dental Wellness, Dr. Richard Walicki is a graduate of the Temple University School of Dentistry. Dr. Walicki is a general dentist with a focus on wellness and has maintained an active private practice in Philadelphia for over twenty years.  His mission is to help people attain practical solutions for their dental health problems through education, prevention and nutrition. Dr. Walicki is a contributor to the LiberationWellnessBlog and a supporter of real food. Additional articles of related interest can be located on his website.  A free newsletter and bonus report are also available.

Posted in blood sugar, diabetes, Dr. Richard Walicki, health, sugar, xylitol | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

A Sampling Of My Recent Gourmet Low-Carb Paleo Meals

Posted by Jimmy Moore on September 16, 2011

It’s been just under a month since Christine and I decided to give a low-carb version of Paleo a try and we’ve loved it. Armed with deliciously healthy real whole foods (including the occasional “odd bit”), we’re enjoying the incredible flavor of the foods we’re eating with the best quality of grass-fed meats, pastured eggs, wild-caught fish, organic and local veggies, healthy oils, and spices galore. I’m excited to jump in the kitchen each day to whip up a gourmet low-carb Paleo meal for my sweetheart Christine. Here’s a sampling of the kind of food we’ve been having lately:

These are all recipes I’ve made up myself, but I’m looking forward to trying two new AMAZING Paleo cookbooks soon: Paleo Comfort Foods: Homestyle Cooking in a Gluten-Free Kitchen by Charles & Julia Mayfield (with a foreword by The Paleo Solution author Robb Wolf) and Make it Paleo: Over 200 Grain Free Recipes For Any Occasion by Bill Staley & Hayley Mason (with a foreword by The Primal Blueprint author Mark Sisson). Paleo IS mainstream now and it continues to grow in popularity! I’ll keep updating you on how my low-carb version of Paleo is working. We’re certainly eating mouthwatering meals fit for a king.

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

Posted in fresh and local, grass fed beef, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Paleo | 1 Comment »

70 Paleo, Low-Carb & Health Blogs For You To Enjoy For Labor Day 2011

Posted by Jimmy Moore on September 4, 2011

Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope you are able to be off of work for it (which is ironic since it’s LABOR Day) and crank up that grill one final time this summer for a big fat low-carb steak on the barbie! I don’t know about you but I’m ready for some cooler weather and a changing of the seasons.

Speaking of change, Christine and I will be appearing on a local television program in Greenville, South Carolina on Monday morning to talk about our recent failed embryo adoption story in an effort to help others understand the subjects of infertility and the frustration of the various options for having children. Christine still has her moments, but she’s been amazing through all of this and time is slowly healing the wounds. We appreciate all the continued prayers and positive thoughts for us as we move forward.

Historically speaking, I haven’t done a post like this one today unless I’m headed for vacation. But don’t worry–I ain’t going anywhere! But my list of new and interesting Paleo, low-carb and health blogs has just ballooned in just the past month and I couldn’t wait any longer to share these whopping 70 links with you. As usual, it’s an eclectic group of blogs for you hitting all angles of diet, food, health, nutrition and life. It’s good to see what others are putting out there and you may just find yourself a new favorite among the bunch! I’ve said it many time before, but be sure to leave a comment, write an e-mail, and bookmark the page of those blogs you especially enjoyed. You really will make their day. Here’s a list of all my previous blog listings–check ‘em out here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Don’t miss these 70 new blogs for you to enjoy this Labor Day 2011:

1. LOW CARB DIETITIAN
2. PALEO SPIRIT
3. THE PRIMAL PARENT
4. LOW CARB CARNIVORE
5. KICKING CARBS TO THE CURB
6. FAT STATE
7. THE NUTRITION DEBATE
8. THE COMMON SENSE WARRIOR
9. LOW CARB WISDOM
10. PRIMALMEDED
11. EXUBERANT ANIMAL
12. TECHMEDIC
13. MASTERING THE ART OF PALEO COOKING
14. CRITICAL MAS
15. PRIMAL GRUB
16. NATURALLY ENGINEERED
17. THE PALEO CURE
18. CAVEMAN BISTRO
19. 30 DAYS OF PALEO
20. FOLLOWING MY GUT
21. JUST REAL FOOD
22. CIVILIZED CAVEMAN COOKING
23. BIG TIM’S PRIMAL JOURNEY
24. CURE FOR THE CONVENTIONAL COLD
25. THE CLAN: A PALEO GATHERING
26. COMPREHENSIVE FITNESS SOLUTIONS
27. THE CULINARY CAVEGIRL
28. PALEO SUPERHUMAN
29. IRISH PALEO GIRL
30. GIRL.MEETS.FARM
31. THE PALEO NETWORK (Australia/New Zealand)
32. PALEO PLAN
33. PRIMAL BALANCE
34. SLOW CARB FOODIE
35. THE PRIMAL CHALLENGE
36. HEALTHY, HUNGRY AND HAPPY
37. COURAGEOUS MIND
38. CAVEMAN HOME COMPANION
39. PALEO IN ALASKA
40. HUNT GATHER SAUTE
41. REDBLOG
42. QUEEN OF THE STONE AGE
43. PALEOMG
44. SWEET CHEEKS
45. BETHANY’S BLOG
46. BE WISE MONKEY
47. A LOW CARB/PALEO DIARY
48. PRIMAL PLAYMATE
49. ECLECTIC KITCHEN
50. CROSSFIT 206
51. MY PALEO WORLD
52. AN OMNIVORE’S DECISION
53. PALEOHUND
54. TO LIVE, TO LAUGH, TO LOVE
55. THE SOULFUL SPOON
56. HAZMAT PALEO
57. PRIMAL-LIBERTARIAN
58. BECKY’S KALEIDOSCOPE
59. LOW CARB DIET DIARY
60. THE COMMON ROOM
61. DELIGHTFUL TASTE BUDS
62. LABEL FREE LIFE
63. PRIMAL ORLANDO
64. CAVEMAN FOOD
65. THE CAVEWOMAN’S KITCHEN
66. THE BULLETPROOF EXECUTIVE
67. PERSONAL INFLUENCE
68. EDIBLE HEALTH
69. PIZSEZ
70. EDIBLE INTELLIGENCE

Did you like these blogs? Don’t forget to TELL THEM by leaving a comment. If you or someone you know has a low-carb, Paleo or health blog or web site that you’d like to see featured in a future blog post here at “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb,” then I’d love to know about it. E-mail me the name of the blog and the URL to livinlowcarbman@charter.net so I can add it to my next big blog update coming when my list gets to be too long like it did this time. If you’ve been successful in your weight and health eating a healthy high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet, then you should consider starting your own low-carb blog to pass the message on to a world desperate for answers. THANKS so much for reading!

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

Posted in health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Paleo | 5 Comments »

Jimmy Moore’s Adventures In ‘Odd Bits’: Cow Tongue

Posted by Jimmy Moore on September 3, 2011

It’s been almost two weeks since my wife Christine and I went full-fledged low-carb Paleo with our nutrition and I can’t say anything bad about the experience so far. Surely I’d have some cravings. Nope. But what about finding good quality food to consume? No problem between my local farm, farmer’s market and the Internet. In fact, take a gander at all the delicious and nutritious food we are consuming now!

I’ve been cooking a couple of times daily since this started and have rekindled my long lost love for experimenting with food again. It’s been a revival of my low-carb lifestyle of sorts that has been sorely needed for a long while. Christine is certainly loving all the fresh, homemade Paleo food (and doesn’t mind cleaning up the dirty dishes I pile up in the sink) and is thrilled to be walking this journey at this time.

However, if you watched that video of me showing you what is in my refrigerator, then you may have noticed a rather strange food I mentioned was lurking in there. Did you catch it? No? WATCH IT AGAIN HERE–FAST FORWARD TO THE 1:39 MARK.

Yes, you heard me right. I’ve got beef tongue. As in the tongue from a cow. It’s not just any cow, mind you–grass-fed all the way baby! But I know the first thought so many of you are having right now if you’ve never consumed tongue in your diet is “EWWWWW, gross!” Believe me, I got a lot of that from my Facebook friends. Take a look at what some of them had to say about this:

“I cannot get over that’s it is a tongue. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I have a serious mental block that prevents me from eating tongue. lol”

“Can’t get over the mental hurdle. I’d feel like I was french kissing my food :P “

“I just can’t get by the thought and would gag….lol”

“I’m for organ meats per se, I’ll eat pate like a princess, but I’m not going to look at a huge beef tongue.”

“I think I am going to pass on that dinner invitation. I remember being served tongue in grade school. I did not get to go to recess on those days cause I did not clean my plate.”

Funny? Yes! In fact, I probably would have been cracking the same kind of jokes not that long ago if I had read about one of my friends on Facebook talking about cooking up a tongue…that is, until I started being more adventurous with my food thanks to the influence over the years of The Weston A. Price Foundation and my newfound Paleo diet. The fact is the tongue of a cow is nothing more than another muscle in the body. And we already eat much of the other muscle on a cow–so why not the tongue?

Coincidentally, as I was beginning to become gung ho about trying beef tongue for the first time in nearly four decades of life, I heard from my friend Jennifer McLagan, a James Beard Award-winning author of Fat: An Appreciation Of A Misunderstood Ingredient, With Recipes which was named the “Cookbook of the Year” by the Beard Foundation in 2009 (I even had the privilege of interviewing Jennifer on my podcast in December 2008 about this awesome book). Well, she’s back in 2011 with a brand spankin’ new book that deals with–what else?–all the “odd bits” of meat that aren’t usually consumed but can be a critical part of the animals we consume. The book is called Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal and I look forward to interviewing Jennifer about this later this year.

Jennifer has a section in her book on animal tongues beginning on page 49 where she acknowledges how some people get grossed out by the thought of eating a tongue. She recalled having “ox tongue” at Christmas each year that was potted tongue meat with jelly which she admitted was “not my favorite part of Christmas dinner.” She later grew to appreciate tongue more without the jelly and on a sandwich with sharp mustard instead. Jennifer says it’s time for people to give tongue a second chance to be explored. She encourages making sandwiches, salads, or just about anything that goes with tender, melts-in-your-mouth meat. My new friends from the Ancestral Health Symposium last month named Bill Staley and Hayley Mason (authors of an upcoming new cookbook in October 2011 I’ll be sharing more about soon called Make It Paleo: Over 200 Grain Free Recipes For Any Occasion) have an awesome Beef Tongue Taco Bites recipe. The sky truly is the limit!

Other than the novelty of eating a tongue, are there any nutritional benefits to consuming tongue? Absolutely! A 3-ounce serving has 19g fat and 16g protein with zero carbs. The protein in the cow tongue specifically helps to produce vital hormones and enzymes for your body as well as build lean muscle. Cow tongue is also and excellent source of Vitamin B-12 and other B vitamins. Zinc is another valuable mineral provided by the cow tongue which is merely a bonus on top of all the delicious meat you get to enjoy. So what was my first experience with cooking and preparing a cow tongue like? I took lots of pictures so you can relive it with me.

I can’t say I wasn’t a little creeped out by what I placed on my cutting board. My local farmer who I purchased the tongue from actually had TWO tongues processed and wrapped for me (at an affordable cost of around $11) and they were frozen solid. That required me to refrigerate them so I could get one of them defrosted to cook. When they were frozen together, everything was hard as a rock. But pulling out one of the tongues after being thawed was a bit surreal. Here’s what it looked like:

OMG, this a TONGUE! After getting over the heebie jeebies of that coarse tongue and blob of what would ostensibly be the meat I’d be consuming, it wasn’t so bad. But here’s a close-up of the tongue itself where you can see the prickliness of it:

I put the tongue in my crock pot, filled it up with water to submerge the tongue, and added in some Celtic salt, fresh garlic cloves and other spices. The broth this created by the next morning after letting it cook on low overnight (about 8-9 hours) actually looked pretty good:

Pulling the tongue out of the broth and placing it in a bowl, it really wasn’t much to look at. What is that alien creature in my kitchen:

Taking a sharp knife out of my drawer, I carefully started slitting down the middle of the tongue which peeled away surprisingly easily to reveal some luscious and tender meat that had been cooking in my crock pot overnight:

Using a fork, I was able to get most of the meat gathered and put into a container for me to use in a recipe. Here’s the good stuff:

I was tempted to try to follow some recipe, but instead I took on the continued adventure of seeing what I could come up with. I mixed in some cumin, garlic, peppercorns, Celtic salt and other spices as well as some macadamia nut oil to the meat to see how it would taste. Because that combination brought a lot of heat to the dish, I attempted to temper that by adding in some fresh blueberries and country-scrambled eggs:

The meal was delicious and satisfying! All in all, my first experience with cow tongue was pretty good. Christine still hasn’t taken the plunge to eat it yet. She’s got the whole mental block that some of my Facebook friends above expressed. I wonder if I just served it to her and she didn’t know it was a tongue if she’d eat it like she would a pot roast. No doubt about it because the taste and texture is virtually identical. Oh well, if she doesn’t have any, that just means more for me. And I’ve got another beef tongue waiting to be cooked. Maybe this next one I’ll pop in the Sous Vide Supreme. We shall see.

How about you? Have you eaten a cow’s tongue before? Why or why not? If you haven’t, then what is holding you back? If you have, what were your impressions of it. I’d love to hear what you think! Share your thoughts in the comments section below. This is but the first of my adventures in “odd bits” that I’ll be blogging about. I’m not sure what I’ll take on next, but you can be certain I’ll blog about it when I do.

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

Posted in farm fresh, fresh and local, grass fed beef, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Nutrition, Paleo, real food, real foods, red meat, saturated fat, wapf, Weston A. Price Foundation | 1 Comment »

Thanks To #AHS11, I’ve Shifted My Diet To A Low-Carb Paleo Approach

Posted by Jimmy Moore on August 29, 2011

I’ve got some BIG NEWS to share below that I can’t wait to tell you about. But more on that in a moment. It’s been just over three weeks since the inaugural Ancestral Health Symposium (aka hashtag #AHS11 on Twitter) took place on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles, California on August 5-6, 2011. And I’m sure I speak for many of the 600 people who were in attendance at this glorious event when I say I’m still on Cloud 9 from it! In case you missed any of the lectures (39 of them have been posted as of writing this blog post) that were presented at #AHS11, they are now online for your viewing pleasure. And I HIGHLY recommend you watch them to learn more about what was shared there. There were some prominent low-carb speakers, including Gary Taubes, Tom Naughton, Dr. Richard Feinman, Dr. Mike Eades and Dr. Andreas Eenfelt (Who I gave up my speaking slot for so he could have a chance to talk about the LCHF movement in Sweden. Video of his lecture has not yet been posted online but he’ll be on my podcast on Thursday.) as well as many friends of low-carb living such as Nora Gedgaudas, Dr. Emily Deans and Jamie Scott, Robb Wolf, Doug McGuff, John Durant and Mark Sisson. Having interviewed a great majority of the speakers at #AHS11 on my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show” podcast over the years, it was surreal seeing them all in one place and in the flesh.

My favorite encounter with someone I’ve interviewed twice was with none other than Dr. Robert Lustig (from “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” fame) who was, in all honesty, one of my toughest challenges to get “loose” on my podcast. He’s a very formal guy when it comes to public speaking and it was on full display at #AHS11. Most people I talked to there instantly recognized me and had no trouble coming up to me to say hello. But Dr. Lustig was different. I had seen his AHS lecture and watched him speaking with various people between speaking sessions as people huddled around him. He glanced at me once like he thought he knew me, but then looked away. During lunchtime, I saw Dr. Lustig and walked up to him with the greeting, “Hey Robert!” He offered a very short “hello” and then I shared who I was. “This is Jimmy Moore.” The look on his face was priceless. He immediately changed his demeanor and tone with me stating “Hi, Mr. Moore.” He noted that he thought he recognized me earlier. We had a fabulous conversation where he said he wasn’t against a low-carb diet but that there needs to be more research done on it for him to embrace the concept. Dr. Feinman also got into some one-on-one discussions with him about carbohydrate restriction. Oh to be a fly on the wall during those chats!

Christine and I were grateful to John and Rossana Forzanti from Viva Low-Carb for providing us transportation to and from the airport as well as a fabulous dinner while were were in LA. John is a big fan of the science of low-carb living and attended #AHS11 with us. On the way from the airport to our hotel, we got into a conversation about Paleo diets and how not everyone at this conference believes low-carb and Paleo go together. “But aren’t they synonymous?” John asked. I went on to explain that there are people in the Paleo community who eat more carbohydrates than what we would consider “low-carb” and there are others who consume a WHOLE LOT MORE carbs on their Paleo diet. This falls right in line with Chris Kresser’s “Paleo template” concept which we discussed on Episode 20 of “Low-Carb Conversations with Jimmy Moore & Friends.” It was a mish-mash of all sorts of people across the Paleo spectrum at #AHS11 which made for an interesting conversation piece throughout the conference.

I did sense there was some tension between the low-carb attendees and those Paleo peeps who call for more carbohydrates in their ancestral diet. Most of the attention has been given to the squabble between Gary Taubes and Stephan Guyenet which prompted the latter to write a blog post entitled “The Carbohydrate Hypothesis of Obesity: a Critical Examination” where he attempts to dismantle the “carbohydrates raise insulin which leads to obesity” theory promoted by Taubes. You can see video of Taubes’ question to Guyenet during the Q&A session following Guyenet’s lecture here. Many in the audience felt Taubes was rude for the “you should pay attention…” comment he made at the end of his question to Guyenet. And quite honestly, it was. Taubes later apologized to Guyenet privately (probably should have been public), but the gauntlet had been lowered. Guyenet has since posted another column called “A Roadmap To Obesity” where he outlines the case for his “food reward” theory which he thinks is the underlying culprit in people getting fat. Taubes is working on a blog post of his own at GaryTaubes.com which he tells me is forthcoming soon (could be a few days…might be a few weeks) after which both he and Guyenet have agreed to come on my podcast to talk about their respective theories regarding what leads to obesity. I see this kind of open discussion as a very good thing because it allows for us to hash out all the pros and cons of what we believe and why we believe. The moment we stop trying to learn is when we become mindless robots making what we believe is true into a nutritional religious belief (Robb Wolf addressed this in his talk). And if we get the science wrong, we also become a laughingstock which doesn’t help our cause (Mat “The Kracken” Lalonde made this point during his lecture).

Honestly, though, most of the people who attended #AHS11 were under the age of 30, looked very healthy and fit, and are super-enthusiastic about this way of eating that has helped them get there. But as someone over the age of 30 (I’m turning 40 in December), once weighing in at 410 pounds but now with stellar health markers despite some extra weight, and equally gung-ho about the low-carb lifestyle and what it has done for me, I found all this inter-dietary-squabbling about the slight differences we have between us just a bit odd. Aren’t we all on the same page trying to help people who are mindlessly eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) find a pathway to improved health by making better choices in their diets? That has been a major reason why I have been active at my blog, podcasts, YouTube videos and all the other work online for over the past six years to help educate, encourage and inspire others to make this change for themselves. Must we get so caught up in the minutia of how much carbohydrate someone must eat in our diet that we forget the average Joe and Jane are downing Coca-Cola, Twinkies, McDonald’s French Fries and Doritos like they’re going out of style? None of us thinks this is healthy and yet this is the typical fare for more Americans than we probably know.

While I can appreciate (and even actively promote) an exuberant passion for sharing what you have learned in your own personal nutritional journey, it’s important to remember that we are not all the same. For some of us who aren’t as young and fit as the average #AHS11 attendee, perhaps people who are “metabolically deranged” require a more restrictive diet that is lower in carbohydrates to help them attain optimal health. This is an ongoing discussion that I am pleased to see continue as long as we keep our eyes on the big picture of what all of this means regarding the impact ancestral/Paleo/low-carb living has on public health. All of this leads me to the main point of why I’m writing this blog post. For all the so-called “controversy” of #AHS11, in the end it was a fabulous meeting that I highly recommend for anyone interested in their health. #AHS12 is already planned for August 9-11, 2012 in Boston, Massachusetts at Harvard University in association with the Harvard Food Law Society. If you missed out on #AHS11 and are kicking yourself for it, then be sure to keep your eyes peeled closely to AncestryFoundation.org for all the details about this event moving to the East Coast in 2012! Listen to my podcast interview with the creators of The Ancestral Health Symposium–Brent Pottenger and Aaron Blaisdell–coming up on Thursday, September 9, 2011.

Okay, so here’s the big news I alluded to at the beginning of this post: Christine and I have decided to try a high-fat, low-carb version of the Paleo diet. We started last Sunday, August 21, 2011 and have been enjoying it immensely so far. I’m so proud of Christine for making the choice to do this after years of dibble-dabbling with low-carb just kinda sorta. She’s never had a weight problem so it wasn’t as evident to her about why she needed to eat this way. But thanks to the heaps of inspiration coming out of #AHS11, it has caused her to shift her personal diet to a low-carb Paleo approach. And she’s even letting me train her with weights now to add some muscle to her body too. If you know my wife Christine, both of these moves are HUGE for her. It’s been a long time coming for me too since I had allowed some bad habits to creep into my low-carb lifestyle. From diet sodas to artificial sweeteners and even the “low-carb” products, I had grown lackadaisical and sloppy in my livin’ la vida low-carb journey. Although I had included some elements of Paleo into my routine (grass-fed meats, coconut oil, etc.), I’d never jumped in all the way–until now.

When I announced this on Twitter and Facebook, some people thought I had “left” low-carb (whatever that means). Uhhh, no, I haven’t departed from the diet that helped me shed triple digit weight and attain some of the most incredible health numbers of my entire life. High-fat, low-carb principles still apply with what I’m doing now. The major differences are I have decided to cut out dairy (we’ll see if it makes a difference in me), grains and vegetable oils (haven’t been consuming these anyway), no artificial sweeteners at all, choosing only grass-fed, pastured, and organic foods whenever possible, and even dabbling in some various “other” parts of the animal to try (just got me some beef tongue from my local farmer). Guess what? So far, so good. This has rekindled my love for cooking again and here’s just a sampling of the kind of dishes I’ve been serving up in the Moore household over the past week:

Using fresh garlic, spices, fresh locally-grown and raised foods, and the best quality ingredients I can find, this has been an amazing ride so far (and we can’t wait to try so many new foods in the coming months)! We cleaned out our refrigerator and cupboards so that all that’s left is Paleo-friendly (I’ll likely do a video of the food I have in my house now). Plus, I’ve needed to adjust my n=1 experiments to reflect these changes and I’ll be testing the so-called “safe” carbs as espoused by people like Paul Jaminet (his #AHS11 lecture has not yet been posted) later this year. I’m also skipping to every other month with these experiments to limit the impact on my weight and health. Since I’d already started the Atkins products with the shakes in July, I’ll do the Atkins bars in September to complete that circle. However, I don’t see that I’d eat those bars as part of my low-carb Paleo lifestyle.

So many of my readers have already been making these kind of changes in their low-carb lifestyle as I discovered in my blog survey earlier this year. A real, whole foods approach is the goal of livin’ la vida low-carb anyway. I think too many people get hung up on trying to find a “low-carb” version of cakes, cookies, pizza, bread, pasta, and other such foods that they forget to just eat real food (JERF as my buddy Sean Croxton calls it). So that’s where I am with the full support and participation of my wife right now and I look forward to seeing what if any impact this will make. I’ll let you know in the coming months what is happening. I’d love to know what you think about these changes. Feel free to leave your comments below.

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their three cats!

Posted in fresh and local, grass fed beef, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Paleo | Leave a Comment »

How Often Should I Brush My Teeth?

Posted by Dr. Richard Walicki on July 11, 2011

Sounds like a pretty basic question for a dentist, doesn’t it? In fact, I’m not really asked that question often because “everybody knows” you should brush your teeth twice a day. But should you really?

After all, you can pick up almost any tube of toothpaste and it says right there” brush twice daily, or as directed by your dentist”.

Some time ago, I started asking patients how often they brushed their teeth when they came in for their periodic cleanings. The most common answer – by far – is “twice a day.” My next question is usually, “Yes, but when during the day do you brush?” As you read this, many of you who do brush twice daily are thinking “when I get up and again before I go to bed.”

If you have experienced dental cavities, that could be part of the problem.

When I mention this to patients I usually get this sort of silent stare. It’s kind of a cross between, “well that makes no sense at all” or, “then I might as well just give up.”

Let me explain.

It starts with an understanding of what causes dental cavities. There are a few basic elements. The most obvious is that you need to have a tooth. Additionally, you need cavity-causing bacteria. Then you also need a fermentable carbohydrate. This is an important point. Carbohydrates include sugars and starches, but the process of fermentation creates acids. Once the acids form, there is another element that comes into play: time.

If we break these factors down further, it is useful to look at what we can control in the cavity-causing process. For the sake of argument, let’s assume we are starting out with a full set of teeth, so that’s not entirely in our control. Next, there is the factor of cavity-causing bacteria. We all have both good and bad bacteria in our mouths. While I could get into a discussion of promoting the good and suppressing the bad, this is also not always easily controlled.

The next two factors, however, we have a great deal of control over.

We can control what we eat. Recognition of which foods are acid forming is also useful. But I’m a realist and understand that sometimes we are just going to eat (or drink) those things anyway.

And this is where the time factor comes in.

A little analogy may be helpful here. What would you do if you spilled a strong acid on your bare skin? Chances are you would run right over to the nearest sink and try to wash it off. But what if you had a leather jacket on and didn’t notice right away? First of all, you would end up with a hole in your jacket, but eventually – with time – it would reach your skin and start to hurt.

It’s much the same with teeth. Your enamel is a protective layer that doesn’t have any feeling because it is mostly mineral and doesn’t contain any nerves. But given enough time, the acid – even a weak one – breaks through and gets to the underlying softer and more sensitive areas.

So, don’t give it time.

Change your brushing habits and do so after every meal. About a half hour after eating is ideal. If you absolutely can’t brush on occasion, chewing a sugarless gum (preferably containing xylitol) can help.

What most people do, though, is wake up and brush. Then they have breakfast and don’t brush. The acids that are formed following the meal slowly dissolve our tooth enamel. Roughly when the acids wear off, they have another meal or a snack and freshen up the acid. Few people brush after lunch, so it’s a few more hours of wearing the enamel away. Just when that acid wears off people freshen it up again with dinner. They don’t always brush after dinner either, so the acid now has even more time to work. Finally, they brush before going to bed. This cycle can, and typically does, go on for days, weeks, months and years. Given enough time, the cavity becomes large enough to require a filling.

So, if you only eat two meals a day, brushing twice a day is probably fine. But if you eat three times a day, how often should you brush? You get the idea.

The really odd thing is that I can go over this with someone thinking they get it. A couple of years later, I’ll ask: “How often do you brush your teeth?” Believe it or not, the answer is often the same as when I asked the first time. Hopefully, however, you will get it. Remember also that you can’t ignore flossing and expect to escape cavities, even if you do brush after every meal. The area between your teeth can’t be reached by the toothbrush bristles. About a third of all cavities filled by dentists occur in this location.

Nevertheless, if you follow the advice above I think you will find yourself encountering far less tooth decay over the years. Hoping it works for you as well as it has for me.

Posted in Dr. Richard Walicki, health, oral health, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

2010 Dietary Guidelines Committee Member Joanne Slavin: ‘There Is No Scientific Basis For The U.S. Dietary Guidelines’

Posted by Jimmy Moore on June 22, 2011

When the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) unleashed its long-awaited 2010 Dietary Guidelines on the American public on January 31, 2011, they were heralded that day as “a science-based roadmap” according to the USDA blog. This “science-based roadmap” has since morphed into the new high-grain, low-fat MyPlate introduced earlier this month that will be the new standard for nutrition over the next five years and no doubt will be trumpeted and parroted by nutritionists, physicians, and all the other so-called health “experts” purporting to care about the health of the American people. After all, the 2010 Dietary Guidelines were created by a respected and prestigious group of people who made up the 13-member Scientific Advisory Committee and influenced by testimony from Americans who have changed their lives through healthy nutrition. The credentials of the Committee members in the field of nutrition and health would insure that what would eventually become the 2010 Dietary Guidelines would be iron-clad and impeccable because they would be based on all the latest in scientific research, right? Wellllll, maybe not according to one of the prominent members of the Scientific Advisory Committee.

Joanne Slavin, PhD, RD, professor of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota, was the head of the Carbohydrate Committee and on the Protein sub-committee for the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee. She was invited to be one of the guest speakers at The 9th Conference on Preventative Nutrition in Tel Aviv, Israel on May 18, 2011. Perhaps Ms. Slavin felt more at liberty to express her true feelings about the final version of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines being overseas and didn’t realize that I’d have eyes and ears listening in to what she had to say. But according to my source who was in attendance to hear her speech, you could tell she had an obvious discontent with the nutritional recommendations that are now being thrust upon Americans.

There is no scientific basis for the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

Yes, you read that right! Although Slavin was a major part of the scientific panel that went into creating the nutritional recommendations that will become the standard for what constitutes a “healthy” diet for the next five years, she feels the final version was not based on that science. My source noted that she described the review process where members of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee were asked to base all of their recommendations on the scientific evidence specifically related to humans, especially intervention studies. However, there was only one problem with that according to Slavin.

There are no human intervention studies.

She explained that in the end the Committee had to rely primarily on prospective cohort studies or “expert opinion” which my source said she dismissed as inferior from a scientific point of view. My source said members of the audience were “flabbergasted” to hear such a prominent member of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Scientific Advisory Committee basically dismissing the recommendations that were revealed on January 31, 2011.

Near the end of her lecture, my source said Slavin showed a revealing slide about obesity rates since the very first Dietary Guidelines were published in 1980:

Here’s the story she shared about how she came upon this information:

A friend sent me this slide. Who can tell me when obesity starts to pick up?

My source yelled out, “1980!” Slavin continued with a wink and a nod.

Yes, exactly after the publication of the Dietary Guidelines. But we all know that nobody listens to them anyway don’t we?

At the end of her lecture, Slavin complained that after all the hard work they invested in keeping the scientific integrity of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines as sound and intact as possible, they were basically written by people at the USDA whether there was any connection between the science and the published recommendations or not. When her lecture was finished, my source said they didn’t take any questions nor did they allow any remarks from the audience.

However, he noticed during her speech that she completely ignored the human intervention studies on high-fat, low-carb diets that have shown a spontaneous decrease in food intake as was shown in the Shai study published in The New England Journal Of Medicine in 2008 (ironically, conducted in Israel) as well as many others in recent years. Plus, despite her assertions that people aren’t following the Dietary Guidelines, he noted the consumption of grains, low fat milk, and vegetable oils in the United States have all been on the rise while whole milk, butter and red meat has decreased–all of which have resulted in triple healthcare costs in America since 1980 while food costs have remained constant.

Interestingly, Slavin’s lecture and attendance at this meeting in Israel was sponsored and paid for by Uniliver which has an interesting take on the role of carbohydrates in the diet as the manufacturer of high-carb breakfast cereals. Slavin herself has said “There are many healthy eating patterns, and potatoes, pasta, white bread and rice surely fit into many of these.” Leave it to my buddy Richard Nikoley from “Free The Animal” to call a spade a spade about Slavin. You gotta wonder why she would speak ill of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines when they seem to fit with her personal worldview on nutrition.

What do you think about Professor Joanne Slavin stating quite emphatically that the 2010 Dietary Guidelines are basically a scientific sham? I have been attempting to contact her via e-mail for the past month to get her to comment further on this in an interview, but I have received no response to multiple inquiries. Feel free to share your thoughts about this interesting development with her directly at jslavin@umn.edu. And, of course, you can leave your feedback about this developing story in the comments section below. What’s going on here?

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their four crazy cats!

Posted in government, grains, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Media, Money, motivation, Nutrition, obesity | 1 Comment »

Jimmy Moore’s July 2010 Testimony Before The USDA Regarding The 2010 Dietary Guidelines

Posted by Jimmy Moore on June 15, 2011

It was nearly one year ago that I decided to make my way to Washington, DC as a citizen health activist to testify before the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) about the 2010 Dietary Guidelines that were being formulated by a group of respected scientists and governmental bureaucrats about the best diet for Americans ostensibly to consume for optimal weight and health. When the final version of those nutritional recommendations were released to the public at the end of January 2011, though, nothing much had really changed: it’s still pushing a whole grains-based high-carb, low-fat diet virtually devoid of cholesterol, salt and saturated fats while encouraging people to create a caloric balance, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, soy and vegetable oils, and increasing their physical activity. They’ve since gone one step further in an attempt to simplify the message with the recent release of the much-heralded Food Plate replace the old Food Pyramid (listen to what real low-carbers think about this). All in all, it’s just what we’d expect from a governmental group dedicated to the promotion and marketing of AGRICULTURE!

But despite the disappointing results from the 2010 Dietary Guidelines (and I have some BIG NEWS to share soon about some rather interesting comments made by one of the former members of the Scientific Advisory Board regarding these final recommendations during a recent speech), I think the large turnout of pro-low-carb, high-fat voices that testified before the USDA left quite an impression. They now know the gig is up and they cannot pretend to hide behind the notion that the Dietary Guidelines is based on ALL the latest science when they blatantly and I dare say deliberately ignore the studies showing saturated fat is not as harmful as we’ve been led to believe and that carbohydrate is a much bigger villain in obesity, diabetes, heart disease and more. The USDA minions may think “the evidence is just not there” regarding low-carb nutrition improving health, but we’ve seen the studies pouring in at breakneck speed over the past few years (including this one just released today published in the journal Cancer Research that found a low-carb diet may reduce the risk of cancer and slow tumor growth).

It was an honor standing alongside like-minded supporters such as low-carb researcher Dr. Jeff Volek from the University of Connecticut, Nutrition & Metabolism Society Founder and President Dr. Richard Feinman, doctorate nutrition student Adele Hite, Sally Fallon from The Weston A. Price Foundation, the co-author of The Silver Cloud Diet Linda Eckhardt, and many more at this very formal meeting that featured more lobbyists on behalf of special interests ranging from sugar to dairy to vegan diets (in fact, I was seated right next to the President of the pro-vegan activist group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Dr. Neal Barnard). You can read all about my experience testifying to the USDA last year which was something I won’t soon forget. I didn’t prepare any remarks and simply spoke passionately from my heart of hearts about the incredibly positive impact low-carb living has made in my life since 2004.

So why am I bringing it up nearly a year after it happened? Well, despite the promise by the USDA to provide a transcript of the oral testimonies at their web site shortly after the proceedings, I kept checking back month after month for the past year. August, September, October, November and December. Then they released the 2010 Dietary Guidelines and still no transcript in January, February, March, April and May. But in June 2011, they FINALLY decided to release the transcript of the proceedings to the public. Better late than never I suppose. You’ll slog through reading many of these comments since they were read from a script by these paid lobbyists with special interests in mind. But there are a few golden nuggets in there that’ll be worth your while to check out and enjoy, especially from the pro-low-carb people I shared above and a few others who testified.

Here’s what I actually said verbatim according to the court reporter at the USDA:




What’s funny is I was so emotionally caught up in what I was saying as I was testifying that I didn’t even remember exactly what I said. I know I didn’t even use up the full three minutes that were allotted to me, but I had my say and I was done. My intention was to show them a real person who has been negatively impacted by the information they are disseminating to the public and that they needed to consider other alternatives within the scope of making dietary recommendations for people to consider. Dr. Volek later told me that when I started speaking, every member of the USDA Committee who was present looked up from their papers and was staring at me as I testified. They heard me. They saw me. And I bet they won’t forget me and what I said anytime soon either.

Although the testimony I gave didn’t make an impact on the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, I have a distinct feeling we’re gonna see some pretty radical changes happen when the 2015 Dietary Guidelines start being debated in a couple of years with a new panel of experts that will include at least one low-carb researcher and/or practitioner on it. Call me eternally optimistic, but the growing swell of discontent with the current direction of nutrition in America combined with the continued rise in the rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and more make it virtually impossible for this bureaucratic shell game to continue on for much longer. They can’t ignore the science or the wave of testimonies that continue to be published online from people like me who have seen remarkable turnarounds in their weight and health by “not doing the things” they’ve been telling us to do for decades. We will not be ignored. And believe me, I will be back in 2015 to ask them “why” obesity, diabetes, and heart disease is still out of control despite their recommendations. This nutritional nonsense has got to stop sooner rather than later. Let the low-carb revolution continue!

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their four crazy cats!

Posted in government, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, lobbying, Nutrition, obesity, Weight Loss | Leave a Comment »

Top Low-Carb Diet Researchers Volek & Phinney Release ‘The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Living’

Posted by Jimmy Moore on June 2, 2011

What do you get when you bring together two of most brilliant minds examining the science supporting carbohydrate restriction and its beneficial impact on weight and health? It’s a dream team collaboration like nothing else that’s ever been seen in the low-carb community and something that has been sorely needed to cut through the continued nonsense that still persists in our culture regarding low-carb diets despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. For Dr. Jeff Volek (Men’s Health TNT Diet) from The University of Connecticut (one of the featured speakers on the 2012 Low-Carb Cruise) and the legendary Dr. Stephen Phinney, this has actually been a personal passion of theirs for many years to share what they’ve seen first-hand in the study participants they have observed as well as in their own personal experimentations using a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet. They are both already co-authors of the New York Times bestselling book The New Atkins For A New You released in 2010 which was geared more specifically to the general public updating the Atkins Nutritional Approach (listen to these two men share more about their work in Part 1 and Part 2 of an Atkins teleconference call in 2008) to fit more within the 21st Century.

But both Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney realize in order for a patient to be successful at implementing a healthy low-carbohydrate lifestyle change into their own daily routine, they first need a competent and educated healthcare professional who is willing to learn, understand and embrace the basic principles that make this incredible way of eating so amazingly effective as a therapeutic means for treating obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and a whole myriad of diseases. That’s why they decided to write a brand new book about it in 2011 that does just that. It’s called The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Living: An Expert Guide To Making The Life-Saving Benefits Of Carbohydrate Restriction Sustainable And Enjoyable and is arguably the most important low-carb book releasing this year!

The purpose of this book is really about three main things: giving the reader the proper historical perspective about low-carb diets, explaining why low-carb diets work the way they do in the body, and then showing actual clinical application of how low-carb diets can be used to treat patients. For the healthcare professional, the information contained within the pages of this invaluable 300-page book could radically revolutionize and transform the way they interact with patients transitioning from a pharmaceutically-based to a nutritionally-based mindset for treating chronic health issues such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and more. For the educated layperson, learning more about high-fat, low-carb diets from these top research investigators will bring about changes in their own weight and health that will then have a positive impact on their friends, family, and even their physicians. Then this book can become an outstanding book to be given to the interested healthcare professional who wants to learn more about why people get better eating a diet that includes saturated fat and is devoid of starchy and sugary carbohydrates. It’s a life cycle that I’m sure both Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney would love to see happen as this book is read, re-read, passed along, and highly recommended for people who are frustrated by the failure of the low-fat diet, something they address right away in the Introduction in their “Five Discords” section.

While obesity and diabetes has gotten increasingly worse and worse with the strong recommendations of a high-carb, low-fat diet, the evidence coming out in the world of science in recent years reveals there is no longer any controversy about low-carb diets–they “have now been resolved” as the authors put it. Now the grunt work of taking the proven science to the masses is the tricky part. It is all predicated on convincing the public that a low-fat diet is not healthy because it is too high in carbohydrate, educating why controlling the hormone insulin by restricting carbohydrates will eliminate hunger and burn stored body fat, revealing the fact that there is no scientific evidence tying saturated fat in the diet to heart disease risk, sharing the truth about what really raises saturated fat in the body (carbohydrates!), and reminding people that there is no such thing as a “one-size-fits all message” when it comes to a healthy lifestyle as the government, media and all the so-called health “experts” would have us believe. Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney are using this book to “speak up” by releasing The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Living.

The authors have taken every measure possible to insure the low-carb principles they share in this book will stand the test of time. It’s why a low carbohydrate approach is considered a lifestyle change that’s permanent and lasting–not just a diet. They have done this by examining three primary keys to making that happen: Safety, Individual Specificity, and Sustainability.

Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney have over a half-century of research/clinical experience with low-carb diets using them on a variety of study participants/patients and they are “confident that a well-formulated low carbohydrate diet offers improved low-term health and well-being” for people who struggle on high-carb diets. Therefore, the safety question hasn’t really been an issue because it’s just not a relevant factor. Plus, the whole idea of “carbohydrate intolerance” is something that’s rarely if ever discussed by mainstream conventional wisdom but it is arguably the biggest reason why people turn to low-carb diets to help them when everything else they’ve ever tried has failed. If there was a genuine problem over the safety of low-carb diets, wouldn’t we be hearing about people experiencing these complications? That ain’t happening.

Another concept that rarely gets any attention is the fact we are not robotic machines that operate in the same way. Humans are indeed unique, especially when it comes to how they respond to the foods they consume. The authors point out that anyone with obesity, metabolic syndrome, and/or diabetes already have carbohydrate intolerance and would be best fitted for a low-carb diet change. Otherwise, doing a low-fat diet is like “forcing a square peg into a round hole.” Even more interesting is the observation that even if a low-fat diet is working for you now, your tolerance level for carbohydrates will inevitably get worse and worse as you age–so eventually pretty much everyone will need to start livin’ la vida low-carb! This is why Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney state that the Dietary Guidelines from the USDA need to have “a separate path from the ‘high-carb, low-fat’ mantra.”

As for the sustainability of a low-carb lifestyle change, the authors note that this is a “complex” issue that serves as the basis for why they wrote this book to begin with. The “casual approach” (as they describe it) to eating low-carb is what gets most people who try to do it in trouble and puts them on the inevitable if not predictable pathway to failure. You can’t just cut your carbohydrates and expect to be eating what Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney would define as a low-carb diet. They detail all that is involved with creating a “well-formulated low carbohydrate diet” that will last for a lifetime within the pages of this book. As they put it, “This topic is clearly more deserving of a book than a sound bite.”

Some would say that a book about low-carb diets from a couple of low-carb researchers seems self-serving since they obviously have a vested interest in promoting a nutritional plan they’ve committed their careers to. But the authors address this by asking a simple yet poignant question:

“What is the proper response when three decades of debate about carbohydrate restriction have been largely one-sided and driven more by cultural bias than science?”

Indeed. And that’s precisely what Dr. Volek and Dr. Phinney have done with The Art And Science Of Low Carbohydrate Living making a solid case for low-carb diets just as a defense attorney would argue a case before a judge and jury. The evidence is presented with appropriate citations of key scientific studies. Plus, the authors call on three key witnesses for special guest chapters to further embolden their arguments: Dr. Eric Kossoff to share how ketogenic diets are used in controlling seizures and other brain health issues, Jacqueline Eberstein who has experience working with patients using carbohydrate-restriction alongside the late, great Dr. Robert C. Atkins in his complementary medicine clinic in New York City for three decades, and me (Jimmy Moore) providing the unique perspective as a patient who discovered and thrived (losing 180 pounds and coming off of three prescription medications) on a low-carb diet despite the objections of those in the healthcare profession. By the time you make your way through this informative and practical book, you’ll realize as the authors so succinctly state in their closing argument that “it just feels right” to be eating low-carb. The verdict? NOT GUILTY!

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Jimmy Moore is the popular blogger, podcaster and author of Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb who lost 180 pounds on the Atkins diet in 2004 and quickly established himself as a highly influential layperson in the field of health and nutrition. His wildly successful Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Blog has been educating, encouraging and inspiring readers since 2005 and his accompanying iTunes podcast The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore is one of the most listened to health broadcasts online today featuring hundreds of enchanting interviews with the leading voices in the world of diet and healthy living! Jimmy’s latest book compiling all the knowledge he has learned along his journey is called 21 Life Lessons From Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb: How The Health Low-Carb Lifestyle Changed Everything I Thought I Knew. He lives in Spartanburg, SC with his beautiful wife Christine and their four crazy cats!

Posted in diabetes, Dietary Cholesterol, health, jimmy moore, livin lavida lo-carb, Nutrition, obesity, Politics, saturated fat | Leave a Comment »

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