Thursday, June 28, 2012

20/20 Looked at Low Carb 10 Years Ago

It's incredible to think that this video from the TV magazine show 20/20 featured Taubes' then fairly revolutionary thinking on carbohydrates.  It was on July 7th, 2002, that his New York Times article, "What if it's all a big fat lie?" was published.  I remember reading afterwards that it was disastrous for bread sales.

Towards the end, Barbara Walters mentions that the Atkins Diet is a radical departure from conventional eating, and mentions that one can only eat "very little" in the way of vegetables.  I don't know where this is coming from, because Atkins most definitely emphasizes large quantities of non-starchy vegetables every day - more, in fact, than most people eat on the Standard American Diet.

I also don't feel that the way we eat is very extreme.   Many days, our meals resemble traditional homecooked meals, just without the bread, potatoes, rice or pasta.  And we skip the low-fat options too, so there's always a fair amount of cheese in the house, as well as cream and butter.

Be that as it may, I'm not a big fan of the Atkins diet.  To me, it allows too much prepared food and baked goods, which detracts from the whole food approach that I believe in.  However, I know it has worked for millions of people.  What do you think?  Take a look at the video and see for yourself:

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