Cold Potatoes and Granny’s Scotch Broth- Obesity Cure

Imagine if we could cure obesity & Type 2 diabetes just by re-heating cold potatoes or having a warming bowlful of Scotch broth or indeed any other traditional soup or stew. What about Potato Starch cheese bread? Can these innocuous foods be Superfoods and help to cure obesity? Can it be this simple?  Apparently so!

It turns out that we are not overweight because we are lazy or greedy. We are not consuming too many calories. What is really important is the type of food that we eat and the impact it has on our blood sugar levels and on our liver.

Apparently carbohydrates in leftovers, soups and stews turn into resistant starch during the cooling process. When we eat Resistant starch, it is not metabolized in the small intestine which means it does not create a blood sugar hike. Instead it goes to the large intestine where our gut bacteria use it as a food and this creates a chemical called Butyrate which helps our livers to detox from fat.

Our bodies are in balance – homeostasis- when we have 1tsp, 4-5g of glucose in our bodies at any one time. If we eat a food which contains sugar or turns to sugar quickly such as pasta, our body releases insulin to bring us back into balance. Insulin takes the excess sugar and stores it as fat. Weight gain is actually a function of the insulin hormone.

In a recent talk, Dr Robert Lustig- What is Metabolic Syndrome?  advised that to find the cure for obesity, we have to look at the root cause. According to the latest scientific studies, obesity has it’s origins in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Fatty liver disease leads to insulin resistance and it is this increased insulin that drives weight gain and type 2 diabetes. So what causes fat on our livers and how can we reverse this?

According to Lustig, the 4 main drivers of fat in our livers are:

  1. Fructose: Fructose actually makes sense as historically, the Romans used to eat Foie Gras of pork. To achieve the fatty liver, pigs were fed with figs. Today, to create Duck Foie Gras etc, the animals are fed with high fructose corn syrup. Note that normal sugar is actually made up of 50% fructose and 50% glucose.
  2. Oxidised Seed Oils Oxidised seed oils such as Sunflower, Colza, Rapeseed, Soybean etc are processed under heat or chemicals to extract the oil. This oil is further used in processed foods or in fried foods which causes even more chemicals which are toxic to the liver.
  3. Poor quality protein: Poor quality protein, is from sources which are fed on corn to accelerate the fattening process or from animals which are pumped full of hormones and anti-biotics. These chemicals in turn are creating issues in our our own bodies.
  4. Alcohol: Fatty liver disease is happening in children who don’t generally consume alcohol

So, to reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes, we need to reverse fatty liver disease. To do this, the solution is to avoid the 4 elements which are causing the issue.  N.B. This is not just what we consider as junk fast food. If you look at the labels on most packaged cakes, biscuits, chocolates, crisps, snacks, you will find sugar and seed oils.

The occasional piece of fruit is not harmful, it is the excess concentrated fructose which we find in juices, yoghurts and smoothies which are not healthy options.

Even if you have a doubt about the science, what is the harm of trying out the theories. In the end, the solution is to eat real food. NOSH ROCKS – be your most amazing self with food!

 

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