It seems to be an unarguable point among the Paleo and Zero-Carb crowd that the Diseases of Civilization surfaced around the time that processed foods became the "normal" way to eat. And while low-carb folks, for the most part, haven't really wrapped their minds around that idea yet, irregardless of the fact that Taubes devoted an entire chapter to the idea, I don't think too many doctors have figured that out yet either. A few...sure. But most of them just tend to go along with the flow.
Course, what are they supposed to think when your tests all come back in normal range? What are they supposed to tell you? That you're sick? That you're treading on dangerous ground? That you're heading for a degenerative cliff that you seem to be particularly blind to?
Hardly.
Which is why we have a personal responsibility to ditch the herd mentality and take ahold of our own health. Because let's face it. We can't expect doctors to know everything. We can't expect them to be able to see inside of our bodies with ex-ray vision, and know exactly what is going on. They're just doing the best they can with the information and hypothesises they have chosen to embrace. If they haven't personally experienced otherwise, the best you can expect from them is to subscribe to the common standard of thought.
So here I sit. My thyroid is in great shape. My liver and kidney functions are normal. My gallbladder and bladder issues have been fixed. My Alc came back at 5.2%. My heart monitor function test was normal, my stress test was great, and my arteries are in excellent shape. In fact, my doc was soooo impressed with my test results this past year that she couldn't get over how healthy I am. "You don't have diabetes," she said. "You don't even have pre-diabetes. I can't believe how healthy you are."
Hmmmm. Am I?????
I'm not so sure. I'm still obsese. I have had, or still have many of the Diseases of Civilization. So what's the problem? Why are we so quick to give up? To declare ourselves healthy when we're still carrying a boat load of fat around our midsection?
Sometimes, it seems that the more civilized we have become, the more we accept disease as a normal state of being. It's normal for your eye sight to fail at age 40. It's normal for your blood sugars to go a bit wonky when you enter into pre-menopause. It's normal for your bones to ache and creak as you get older.
And it's normal to stall half-way to your goal weight on low-carb.
Is it?
Is it really?
I come from a family of extremely poor means. So I was mostly raised vegetarian. And even though we technically ate very few processed foods, I was still consuming a diet that was very high in carbs, with very little protein. Very little nutrition. Lots of homemade, white and wheat bread. Lots of potatoes. Lots of pasta. Lots of white rice. Lots of cold cereal. So my body has undergone and endured decades upon decades of malnutrition and stress. Decades upon decades of abuse.
Even after I left home, my then husband was a flat-out junk food addict. Basically, except for meat, if it didn't come in a box or some type of packaging, if it didn't come from a fast-food joint or a fancy steakhouse, he wouldn't eat it. Not until I was officially diagnosed with pre-diabetes, by a prior doctor in California -- several years ago.
So the frustrating thing is...I don't know how much physical damage we can even hope to reverse. How many physical ills and food related diseases do we have to accept and endure, due to our prior years of ignorance? All those years of walking around with unknown elevated blood sugars and insulin? How much is flat out irreversable, no matter what we do?
Do we really HAVE to settle for less?
The carbohydrate hypothesis that Taubes presents is a new idea. Maybe not new to us, in the low-carb community, but new to those who have always believed that low-fat, high-carb is the healthy way to go. Which means that some of those yet to be born might not have to endure and suffer the same physical trials that we have. The same misdiagnoseses. The same lack of knowledge. The same food addictions.
But then again...all of those indigenous folks Taubes investigated and talks about, fell into the mud pit of disease pretty quickly once they were exposed to those delicious, European foodstuffs. No way did they want to go back. Any more than most of society today wants to do what it takes to correct their metabolic, degenerative issues.
So while I don't know if it's too late for some of us, to honest-to-goodness gain good health, one thing I can be sure of -- processed foods are here to stay.
