Cutting through conflicting dietary advice
The news this week has probably made you feel even more confused than you already were about what you should and shouldn’t be eating. The National Obesity Forum published a report contradicting the current government healthy eating advice. The report suggested that eating fat could help weight loss and prevent type 2 diabetes, rather than making us fat and causing heart disease, which has been the assumption for many years. It also suggests we should significantly cut our carbohydrate intake. The latest Eatwell plate, produced by Public Health England earlier this year, recommends basing your diet around carbohydrates and choosing low fat foods. This advice has not changed significantly since the publication of the previous Eatwell plate in 2007, except to specify limits on sugar and to recommend wholegrain or higher fibre carbohydrates. The advice to choose low fat dairy products and spreads was not updated. In recent years, research into fat consumption and obesity has shown that despite many people following a low fat diet since the 1990s, obesity rates have continued to rise. …