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Kirsteen, it looks like your parents are already eating a low carb diet, albeit higher carb than Atkins for example. Consider what is not in their diet: Soft drinks, grain-based meals, processed foods of all kinds, etc. Also consider what their parents fed them when they were kids. It must have been different from their own adult diet. Your childhood diet was closer to their adult diet than their childhood diet. As their adult diet changed, so did your adult diet change. We're not really talking about different body chemistry here. We're really talking about the evolution of diet over 75-100 years.
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That's a really interesting point, M.. Maybe I should try to do a MyPlan comparison just to see. However, having thought a bit about it, I'm still a bit baffled..
Just to elucidate. I live in the UK, and very cheap processed foods are not such a big thing here, at least in my social group, apart from kids liking McDonalds, etc.. My siblings wouldn't be seen dead in a burger joint, or eating that type of food, lol, and they don't approve of their children eating in that sort of place either. Incidentally, all my nieces and nephews are stick thin, lol. My Dad used to buy bottles of sugary, fizzy drinks, etc. but actually all our tastes are more sophisticated, plus we were all indoctrinated against sugary stuff like that by my mother, who got interested in nutrition in her forties, so would wax lyrical about Coke: "There are 5 spoonfuls of sugar in a can of coke!" etc. etc. We'd normally drink tea, coffee, bottled water and sparkling wine for special occasions, and although my mother started me on sweetened tea and sweetened coffee, I'd cut out the sugar by my mid-teens. My Dad used to make me porridge, sprinkled in sugar, and I hated it until someone served me porridge with salt, and I realised I love porridge without all the sugar. My Dad probably still has porridge, covered in milk and sugar every morning. He also loves potatoes in any form, and eats loads of them. If we have a family salad buffet, he will eat a large portion of the more starchy foods and meats, etc and after everyone is finished eating, he will take the potato salad bowl, upend it over his plate and eat the entire remaining potato salad, followed by two bowls of my mother's trifle. I once saw him cram a full-size apple pie, which would normally serve about 8 people, into his mouth at once. I wouldn't have believed that was possible, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. My siblings and I all eat pasta, as does my dad, and we'd always make the sauces from scratch using quality meat and vegetables. Mum eats pasta too, but probably not so often. We probably all eat more cream and cheese than my parents or grandparents did. My Mum actually uses bottled pasta sauces to make chicken, and they always have stuff like bottles of ketchup and other sauces in the cupboard, whereas I don't use bottled sauces apart from pesto, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, etc. - anything cooked in my house is made from scratch. Sorry I gave the impression we don't cook with fresh stuff. I just meant we don't make ultra healthy soup to eat daily. None of us, apart from my younger sister, would ever consider buying cakes, scones, biscuits etc. to have in the house for general consumption.
When I talked about more ready meals, I meant good quality supermarket ready made meals with no additives (we're our mother's children), such as chicken marinated in lemon and coriander, chicken satay, quality meaty moussaka, curries, stir-fry vegetable mixes, ready-made salads, etc.- between 1-3 per week, or less. Plus we all eat out more, but at good food places. Maybe in my case some of the weight-gain was caused by carry-out curries with nan bread on the side (I don't like white rice). I piled on weight just after I moved house, when cooking fell down the priority list and I relied more heavily on carry-out food - mostly Indian and Thai. Then again, my dad eats take-away fish and chips, though my mother watches fat so eats them less. I also love potatoes, e.g. baked potatoes, but so does my dad. I think though, that I can gain weight on as little as about 60g carb per day. I gained weight on Weightwatchers Healthy Eating plan, even though I ate none of the sugary "treats" which they had factored in. I should have anticipated that though, because when I read the plan I though - "great! that's how I like to eat eat anyway", lol.
Both of my grandmothers baked regularly, and made jams and marmalades, my maternal grandmother ate cured ham and sliced meats along with white bread, butter, jam, pancakes, scones and cakes for "high tea" every night. During wartime rationing, my gran was ultra-popular and got extra everything, so my mum was able to make cakes and sweets like treacle toffee to supplement my gran's baking. Maybe that's why she developed such a sweet tooth. Scotland has historically had a bad reputation for eating a lot of sugar, and my gran was never slim, though she seemed to stay the same weight all her life. My paternal grandmother baked too, but probably more for visitors than herself. She made preserves, including sugary cordials and wines. She also made home-made sweets, and gave them away as gifts at Christmas. My maternal grandmother did make soup, as did my mother. And maybe that's something all my generation stopped doing. I have always made soup (or had it made for for me), but not as regularly as my mother. But the ultra healthy thick green vegetable soup my mum makes tastes too healthy to me, lol. I eat lots of different soups, but soup isn't a staple part of my diet, whereas my parents eat a couple of large bowls of soup thick with several green vegetables - often kale, spring cabbage and leek, plus lentils etc., most days for lunch. My grandmother's soup wasn't like that - hers was a traditional broth, made from bones, vegetables and barley or lentils, but she probably ate it every day of her life at lunchtime, followed by a plate of meat and two veg.
I just don't understand it.. My generation have all been workers, so we didn't have the time to do as much cooking as my mother, so we haven't made so much home-made soup, etc., and we have been inclined to do more indulgent cookery, such as creamy sauces, etc. We probably eat more dairy foods, particularly cheese. My mum would buy 1lb cheap mild cheddar or cheaper processed cheese for a family of 6 for a week. We'd buy three times that amount of extra mature cheddar and a variety of other more expensive specialist cheeses, goat's cheese, cottage cheese, etc.. and we all eat yoghurt. (Mind you, I didn't eat that much cheese, apart from cottage cheese, before I went on the Atkins diet.) I never saw cheese or yoghurt in either of my grandmother's homes. We probably all cook creamy sauces from time to time. My mother wouldn't dream of cooking with cream. She thinks it's empty calories. My parents also have better access to fresh fish, so they eat more fish. Mum and Dad eat white fish twice a week, and Mum lives on salmon, liver pate, chicken, healthy soup, vegetables and refined carbs the rest of the week. Dad eats lean red meat, potatoes and carbs rather than Mum's choice of salmon, chicken and liver. The rest of us don't have such easy access to fresh fish, and I think we probably eat dairy instead of the fish, and perhaps more pasta main meals, so you are correct about that, although Dad's daily heaped bowls of ice-cream surely contain some dairy and the two of them have a fair amount of refined carbs in their daily diet.
On reflection, maybe the biggest difference is that we have been eating more dairy to compensate for less fish, and that has led to us eating a more calorific diet. When I started the Atkins diet, I introduced far more fish into my diet by using Dr. Atkins' lists. I'd actually have said that we eat more fat, so that must be the problem.. but I lose weight on Atkins, eating far more fat and oils than before. I think the culprit might be higher calories caused by more dairy fats, combined with the carbs. So in a way, the nutritionists who blame the fats or calories are not far wrong. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that in my case, cutting out the carbs helps me to lose weight, whereas trying to cut out fats makes me ill. In my own case, however, I was always slim until I became extremely ill with an illness which affected my blood-sugar regulation, plus a disability which left me bedridden and unable to exercise.. I also ate too much chocolate at times, due to gifts from visitors to my sick bed. :/ But I still think that there is something in that home-made soup.. I have ordered kale from a local organic place, and I am boosting the greens in my diet, to check it out.
Do you think I am missing something, or is what you said still relevant to that scenario, M?