Low carbs that pack a punch for lunch

TODAY, in the fourth part of our groundbreaking series, NHS GP Dr David Unwin explains why oils, nuts and even dairy, the kind of foods other diets avoid, are allowed in his low-carb approach; while chef and food writer Katie Caldesi offers more exclusive low-carb recipes — food to eat when you’re on the go.

Going low carb does not mean denying yourself — as this week of delicious recipes, written by the brilliant chef and food writer Katie Caldesi, exclusively for Mail readers, have shown.

And what you may be surprised to learn is that dietary fats form a key part of our low-carb approach.

Dietary fats have been demonised over the past 30 years. But, in fact, we

need some fats and oils for our bodies to function properly.

First, for example, it’s only by eating such things as butter, cheese, olive oil, avocados or egg yolks that we can get enough fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) that are essential for life.

Second, fats are what make up our sex hormones and much of the brain.

And fat can be a useful energy source. We often forget humans are like hybrid cars, we can use two fuels: fat or sugar.

A woman who weighed over 20st asked me recently: ‘Why am i always hungry when i carry around reserves of energy enough to last me months?’ What a good question!

Like her, i was always hungry, thinking about my next snack or meal — until i went low carb, aged 55.

So why was my patient hungry for biscuits all day, instead of just burning her abundant fat reserves for energy? Part of the answer is to do with the hormone insulin.

Produced by the pancreas, insulin has an important job in mopping up sugar (glucose) from your blood and keeping your blood sugar at safe levels.

When you consume sugar and lots of starchy carbs, such as bread, that break down into more sugar, the body’s priority is to keep blood sugar down.

insulin does this by shutting down your ability to burn fat. it’s only if your carb intake is low that you can start burning fat. This effect can be achieved by eating in a narrow window of the day — say 1pm to 7pm, or following a low-carb diet. Then your insulin won’t block the fatburning process.

This approach has an extra benefit for people with type 2 diabetes who have a fundamental problem burning sugar.

But what about the health risks of fats, you might well ask? This is a highly contentious area — but we can all agree about the dangers of so-called ‘trans fats’.

These are made when heat and pressure are used to solidify vegetable oils at room temperature, allowing for a longer shelf life and stabilising the flavour of the foods that they’re added to.

Trans fats are used as a substitute for butter or lard in spreads, fried food and baked goods. But they’ve now been linked to stroke, heart attacks and liver problems. For years, before we learned the truth about trans fats, i tried to convince myself that margarine was as tasty as butter and that skimmed milk in my coffee was oK.

But at the same time, as a gP, i was often disappointed to see that patients’ blood cholesterol and levels of other fats hardly improved after i advised them to do the same.

And this is where the full-fat dairy foods such as cheese, cream and milk come in — the kind of fats we’ve been told for so long to cut down on or to avoid, switching instead to low-fat alternatives in order to protect ourselves against heart disease.

i admit that when i first started with the low-carb approach, which allows you to eat some of this saturated ‘bad’ fat, i was concerned that what was gained

in improving type 2 diabetes control might have a knock-on effect on cholesterol levels. But when I introduced low carb to my patients as a way of tackling their type 2 diabetes, I was astonished by its apparent benefits for their cholesterol, too.

I’ve been monitoring more than 140 of my type 2 patients on a low-carb diet (including full-fat dairy) for an average of about two years.

In a paper published last year, I found significant improvements in their levels of cholesterol and triglyceride (another blood fat linked to heart disease) — with an 8 per cent reduction in the average cholesterol, and a large, 32 per cent (nearly a third) reduction in average triglyceride; some patients were even able to come off their statins.

There were also improvements in average blood pressure and weight, which together may seem to significantly reduce the risk of heart disease for this group of patients.

More recently, a major review of previous research, led by Dr Teuta Gjuladin-Hellon (an expert in evidencebased medicine who specialises in diabetes and endocrinology), concluded that ‘large randomised controlled trials of at least six months’ duration’ showed that low-carb diets ‘appear superior’ in improving blood fats such as cholesterol when compared with low-fat diets’, reported the journal Nutrition Reviews.

And just last year the respected U.S. cardiologist Dariush Mozaffarian (who has, among many other things, advised the American Heart Association and the World Health Organisation) published a paper.

The document concluded: ‘The present evidence suggests that wholefat dairy foods do not cause weight gain, that overall dairy consumption increases lean body mass and reduces body fat, that yoghurt consumption and probiotics reduce weight gain, that fermented dairy consumption including cheese is linked to lower cardiovascular risk, and that yoghurt, cheese, and even dairy fat may protect against type 2 diabetes.’

Of course, I am not suggesting that you now consume huge amounts of fats, not least because they are very calorific. But they can now be enjoyed in moderation, and bring joy to your diet!