Читать книгу Freedom from the Diet Trap: Slim for Life - Jason Vale, Jason Vale - Страница 34

The problem is that we have seen people doing these things for years so we just tend to follow suit without questioning what we are doing. Calories are a great example. Calories are one of if not the most meaningless gauges for health we have ever obsessed over. Unfortunately, the ‘how many calories does that contain’ mantra is so ingrained in us, that many people find it difficult to nigh on impossible to let it go. What is a calorie anyway? Do you know? Does anyone who hasn’t studied this subject in depth know? It’s actually the amount of energy (heat) needed to raise one gram of water by one degree centigrade. In other words – we really don’t need to know. Again there is not one wild animal alive that knows how many calories are in the food they are eating for the same simple reason – they do not need to know. They don’t know the recommended daily calorie intake for a female or male version of their species either, they just seem to know what to do – how very odd. I wouldn’t mind if the amount of calories we consume is a guaranteed way of controlling obesity, but it isn’t. Between 1976 and 2000, Americans lowered their fat consumption by 11 per cent and also lowered their calorie intake by 4 per cent. Yet what has happened to the weight of that particular nation? Obesity has risen by 31 per cent in the same period, proving two major misconceptions:

A) The fat you eat doesn’t add up to fat on you, and

B) The more calories one eats doesn’t always mean more fat on you

I do realize that because we have been in the ‘calories are king’ mentality for so long there will no doubt be many people (particularly those in the nutritional field) who will be barking at the book at this moment. I did say an open mind was required for this book and that I would be challenging some strong beliefs. The point, however, is not so much to disprove the calorie theory, but to illustrate the nonsense of it all: intelligent humans staring at packets of snacks at lunch time declaring to whoever will listen its calorie content. In truth, knowing about calories, even if it were true, hasn’t got us anywhere. Other than obsession and obesity.

If you are thinking that we are better off knowing about all aspects of nutrition and calories, ask yourself why? We apparently know more about ‘nutrition’ now than ever in history, yet heart disease is still the number one killer disease in Western society and we suffer from more self inflicted diseases than any wild animal on earth.

We not only worry about this nutrition ‘stuff’ but industries have been built on our fears. We spend millions of pounds on vitamin and mineral tablets every year in the UK alone. And why are we popping pills and rattling down the street? Simply to try and counter the effects of the processed and de-natured food we are consuming. But what about the pills themselves, haven’t they also been processed in some way? Aren’t they also de-natured? I had a journalist from a famous magazine recently ask me as I was making a wonderful smoothie, ‘Is this a good replacement for vitamin pills?’ I thought she was joking, but no. It appears we are so far removed from nature that some people now think fresh fruit and veg are the ‘alternative’ to vitamin pills. I did point out that vitamin pills are indeed meant as an alternative to real nutrition, but it went completely over her head. I am not against all supplements or indeed all vitamin and mineral pills – with over farming unfortunately in twenty-first century Britain it’s often the only way to make up for the shortfall of vital minerals in our food. What I find crazy is the fact we have bastardised our food so much that we now have vitamin pills – when you think about it is kind of crazy. The danger here more than anything is that people believe as long as they get some vitamin pills down them they are free to eat crap. This is the real potential danger of such pills.