The Low-Fat House of Cards is About to Crumble

If we are lucky a heavy Bernaise sauce will bury it forever

Nutritionists and many doctors are up in arms over the recently released scientific paper, “The Carbohydrate-Insulin Model,” by David Ludwig. Dr. Ludwig is a Harvard researcher who argues there is copious evidence that calories in-calories out is an incomplete, and perhaps inaccurate, framework for weight loss.

To anyone who has dieted, especially on whole grains and fruits and veggies within a low-fat plan, this isn’t news.

You can’t live on too few calories for very long, because you will eventually throttle someone to get at their bagel and cream cheese, or push a child onto the sidewalk before running off with his ice-cream cone.

But challenging the belief that weight gain is all about eating too many calories has targeted a sacred cow — one made of soy, mostly.

The Keto Uprising

We are in the heydey of keto eating, but traditional dietitians and an army of nutrition experts are shouting down keto, a low-carb approach, at every turn. It’s the worst diet imaginable, according to a recent US News & World Report review.

Inconveniently, numerous scientific studies show the low-carb keto way leads to more weight loss than low-fat eating.

But it’s terrible for your health! You’ll grow hair on your palms and die of a heart attack when you’re sixty! No evidence supports such claims, but they continue to get recirculated on websites and within mainstream media.

So why do nutritionists love low-fat, plant based diets and hate keto? There is an easy answer: they have been trained using the USDA Dietary Guidelines, which state copious grains, vegetables, and fruits should be the mainstay of a healthy diet.

The USDA continues to demonize meat and saturated fat, despite a lack of evidence they either is unhealthy. At the same time, our government food overseers continue to push industrial seed oils like canola and safflower oil over butter.

There is zero evidence that heart disease is caused by meat, saturated fat, or butter. The USDA Dietary Guidelines have been recommending the same low-fat, veg heavy diet for 40 years. Americans have climbed aboard this anti-gravy train, and have gotten diabetes.

And gotten really fat. We are headed down the tracks for half of us to become obese by 2050. Being overweight is the normal for adults, and one out of five children (6–18 years) is obese.

In several US states, more than 1 out of 3 kids is overweight or obese.

Stop Making Sense

Why are our nutritional overloads so passionately against the idea that eating high fat, moderate protein, and low carb is healthy?

The short answer is: money. The longer answer is more complicated but it, too, comes down to money (also, ironically, known as bread). We’ve been trying for decades to get it right: just eat fewer calories, but be sure to eat plenty of grains, unlimited vegetables, and as much fruit as you want.

On top of the vast resources invested in growing corn and wheat, people love carbs. Most people do not want to hear this advice:

“Stop eating bread, ice cream, and pizza — along with all other party foods. Forever, OK?”

The keto and other low-carb diets have become popular precisely because so many Americans are fat and diabetic. They are willing to do what works to stave off serious future medical complications, and get fit again. The motivation to conquer symptoms that make life miserable is stronger than the desire to eat party foods daily.

Bread, ultimately, isn’t good for us, any more than sugar is. The glut of high-carb foods creates a toxic feedback cycle that raises insulin, stimulates appetite, and sets the stage for progressive weight gain.

This is not to say that some people can eat a plant-based diet with few animal products and remain healthy and thin. The Mediterranean diet works far better than the standard American diet. But for weight loss and diabetes, Keto is a better option because it kills carb cravings.

People who are carb-dependent can follow a Mediterranean diet and still overeat on rice, bread, potatoes, and pasta.

Keto Isn’t Controversial

In a 2003 study that directly compared a low-fat diet with a Keto diet, targeting extremely obese individuals, the difference in weight loss was stark: 12.3 pounds on average for the Keto followers, compared with 4.2 pounds. Markers for metabolic syndrome improved significantly more on the Keto diet, irrespective of weight lost.

In another study from 2003, the two diets were compared for overweight adolescents. In 12 weeks, the teenagers on the low-fat diet lost an average of 9 lbs. In the same time period, those on the Keto diet lost slightly under 22 pounds.

Studies consistently show that triglyceride levels fall more in a Keto group compared with a low-fat group, and waist-to-hip ratio decreases significantly in the Keto group while the low-fat group has either no change or a small improvement.

When low-fat advocates see these results, often the refrain goes like this: but what about long term? Is it healthy over the years? This non-sensical argument asks to accept that even though dieters lose weight and all their biomarkers improve, they aren’t really healthier.

Why We Don’t Accept Low-Carb Diets

We have multiple barriers to eating low carb, and one of the primary problems is our government — led by nutritionists and ill-informed doctors — continues to push low-fat, plant-based diets. The USDA Dietary Guidelines don’t use the Food Pyramid anymore, but they push the same principles.

The second is veganism, a non-sustainable way of eating popular in wellness culture, online, and especially among younger Americans. No civilization in the history of humankind has survived on a plant-only diet. Veganism never caught on, anywhere on earth, is because it lacks nutrients necessary to sustain human life. We as a species have always sought out meat and more importantly, animal fats.

The third is a collective, insidious carb addiction: we believe life without donuts, bagels, pasta, and pizza might not be worth living. Many people who don’t yet have diabetes, and are okay with being overweight, don’t want to change.

We are, in short, a nation of carb addicts in denial.

But as we age, as Millenials and Gen Z sprout beer bellies and develop diabetes, the Keto diet will gain more traction. There is one simple reason for its positive future trajectory: eating low-carb works.

The science is there to back it.

The carbohydrate-insulin model explains why it works, and we should be paying attention. This is a pivotal moment, the first card removed from the foundation of our nutritional house of cards.

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