"Green" Coca-Cola

This is ludicrous, but not surprising.  Coca-cola is now trying to fool consumers into opting for an "organic" version of coke called Coca-Cola Life.  This article from treehugger does a good job of showing the ridiculous aspects of the venture as well as discussing the real environmental progress of the Coca-cola company in terms of "greener" bottles.  Overall, however, its still coke and its still bad for you no matter how they color it.  Of note, companies like this are still taking advantage of consumer ignorance regarding the low-calorie craze.  Low-calorie is tantamount to starvation.  You need calories to fuel your body.  Eating low-calorie, high-sugar foods is extremely unhealthy and can lead to a host of metabolic-related ailments.  The way to a healthy life is through high-calorie real food, which is low in sugar.      

For My Father, May He Rest In Peace

Last month I read an interesting article where Peter Attia, another doctor at the forefront of the LCHF movement, discusses the real causes of metabolic syndrome, of which obesity may just be a symptom.  He says that "obesity is a condition that in many cases –though not all– is predictive of increased risk for several diseases through an underlying process of metabolic dysregulation.  The diseases that cluster around this metabolic dysregulation (or metabolic syndrome)–diabetes, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and cancer– collectively account for the deaths of two out of every three Americans."  My father was one of the unlucky two-thirds.

My dad had many of the afflictions associated with metabolic syndrome. He was obese. He had diabetes. He had heart disease. I’m sure he was on his way to Alzheimer’s disease (even though he would staunchly deny it).  He had cancer… for the second time.  Even though we knew he had these diseases, his death was abrupt, which looking back on it may have been a blessing in disguise since he was just about to start radiation and chemotherapy in an effort to shrink the cancerous lump in his chest, which after his death, his doctor admitted wouldn't have saved his life.  

He had had lung cancer about ten years ago and they were able to surgically intervene by removing part of his lung.  This time, however, the lump was right on top of his pulmonary artery and it was just too dangerous to attempt surgery.  His heartbeat was becoming erratic and the doctors were in the process of trying to find the right heart medications to stabilize the rhythm.  As a result, he began to have fainting spells. This went on for a month or so until he got dizzy and fell down, broke his ankle and when he was in hospital a blood clot caused him to have a heart attack, then another heart attack, then another until he asked my mom to let him go... 

I used to argue with him over eating carbs even though he had diabetes, I even bought him a diabetic's guide to italian cooking.  He got so mad at me for "telling him how to eat" that I ended up throwing the book in the trash (in the end he fished it out and marched me down to the store to return it).  He would just cite his doctor who told him he needed to eat “some” carbs to live and that it was okay so long as it was “low gi”, etc, etc.  So, he followed the doc’s advice, his diabetes was progressing and he was well on his way to insulin shots… on top of everything else…  He was 74 and died this past November, just three weeks shy of his granddaughter’s birth.  It was a difficult time to say the least.    

Yes, my father did have a relatively long life and yes, he was a stubborn man who only quit smoking in the last few years and wouldn’t alter his diet too much (Italian American temper and diet should almost be listed as precursors for metabolic syndrome).  However, I believe it was the combination of poor food advice throughout his life (grains being the base of the food pyramid for example) and poor medical advice about diabetes control, as well as the doctor’s not knowing what to do about his heart in the end, caused his life to end just before my daughter’s life began and now they will never meet.  This is why, now more than ever, I feel I need to share his story and add it to the plethora of sad stories sprung from the fallacies of the American food and medical industry.