Paleo and the Environment | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

The Paleo diet is about as popular as it is controversial at the moment. Based on the concept that the best diet is the one our bodies were ‘designed for’, its basic rule of thumb is eat what our Palaeolithic ancestors would have eaten. That means no grains, breads, or processed foods, and a diet rich in red meat, fruit and nuts, which would have been readily accessible to hunter-gatherers.

It’s not an easy diet to stick to, not least because of the confusing rules about what constitutes pre-agricultural food, but those who manage it claim to experience substantial weight loss and multiple health benefits too, including curing skin conditions and improving sleep patterns.

But is there more to think about than just whether you can maintain the diet? Some diet choices involve moral decisions as well as health ones.

Paleo encourages a high meat content, but is it sustainable? Ten thousand years ago, there were maybe only 5 million people on the planet, not so many mouths to feed. But even so, there are some who think that many animals were hunted to extinction. It’s been suggested that the rise of agriculture came about to fill a need as other sources of food became more scarce due to over-hunting.

On today’s overcrowded planet, there are constant worries about the sustainability of meat farming. Already, we struggle to provide enough meat to fulfil the demand. As the population continues to grow, supply will shrink. That’s likely to push prices up and encourage producers to cut corners the way we saw with the horse meat scandal. Animal welfare will likely suffer. So is it good timing to encourage more people to switch to a diet that relies so heavily on meat? Won’t that just strain the market even further?

What about the environmental effects? Livestock are responsible for huge amounts of greenhouse-gas emissions. Not only because of their own bodily emissions, which produce methane and nitrous oxide, but because of the fuel required in every aspect of raising and slaughtering them. Your carbon footprint from eating a pound of beef has been compared to driving 45 miles, as opposed to only 1 mile for eating a pound of whole wheat.

Pound for pound, beef production requires at least ten times as much water as wheat production, and calorie for calorie, it uses almost twenty times as much energy. That’s reflected in the cost, for sure, but of course it also has a lasting effect on the planet.

Of course, you can be vegetarian on a Paleo diet, it doesn’t have to involve meat. But that makes it even more restrictive than it already is. But increasingly these days, scientists and producers are looking at ways to address the environmental effects of meat. We have witnessed the first artificial beefburger, admittedly to fairly mixed reviews, but it’s still early days in the research. It’s a real possibility that the future could bring genuinely tasty artificial meat.

Others are looking into alternatives to traditional meats – locusts and other insects provide a high protein content with much lower environmental effect involved in the farming. We may struggle in the West with the thought of this, but they are already commonly eaten in many parts of the world, and can apparently taste delicious.  Find the right way to present them, and they could ease the burden on the meat market. Plus, they would certainly fit within the ethos of a Paleo diet in a way perhaps artificial meat might not.

So while enthusing about the benefits of the diet, should Paleo advocates also be encouraging more sustainable farming techniques, and debating the uptake of insect farming as well as livestock?

It’s certainly something to think about, and reminds us that diet choices are about more than just calorie levels and allergies.

Like the rest of the Western world, we’re not quite ready at Total Diet Food to serve insects, but whatever your diet choice, be it Paleo or vegetarian, or vegetarian Paleo, we can serve all your dietary needs, freshly cooked and delivered to your door.

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook

Paleo and the Environment | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

An example high protein, Paleo plan | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

An example high protein, Paleo plan

Sep 28, 2014
Posted by: Ben

 A Paleo example plan.

Today’s example TDF food plan is for a hard training male client in his early thirties. He is looking to gain lean muscle but wishes to do it by being on a form of paleo diet.

A 2700 Calorie Plan

Breakfast

Mixed Fruit Salad with Paleo Granola

Morning Snack 

Apple and Hazelnuts

Lunch

Grilled Tuna Steak Salad

Afternoon Snack

Hummus with Raw Vegetable Crudités

Dinner

Free Range Chicken Breast in Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Sauce served with Roasted Root Vegetables and Curly Kale

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 86269360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

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#diet, #dietdelivery, #food, #health, #eatclean #fitness

An example high protein, Paleo plan | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

Stevia - The Answer to Soda's Bad Image? | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

Sodas are fast becoming the ultimate crime for dieters. So much so that Coca Cola has been forced to develop a new drink which targets more health conscious drinkers. But what’s all the fuss about? Aren’t diet sodas already targeting those people? And is the new drink any better?

Regular sodas are now recognised to have dangerously high levels of sugar. Recent studies have tended to agree that sugar is addictive, and foods with high sugar content can lead to overeating, energy slumps, obesity and diabetes.

We’ve known for a while that sugary drinks would rot our teeth, and so there’s been a market for diet sodas for some time already. But it turns out that diet drinks may not be such a good substitute after all. The University of Texas published a study in 2011 that followed 475 people over 10 years. They found that people who drank diet sodas still had a 70% increase in waist circumference compared with those who didn’t drink soda.

The sweeteners themselves have also been linked to diabetes, and it was shown last year that diet soda drinkers suffer the same long term health problems as normal soda drinkers – weight gain, diabetes, cardiovascular disease. If there are fewer calories, then surely swapping regular for diet while keeping everything else the same should guarantee you lose weight?

The problem is that people don’t keep everything else the same. It’s too easy to think you’ve saved calories, and allow yourself a treat somewhere else. But probably the bigger effect comes from confusing your body. You’ve drunk something very sweet, so your body expects a sugar rush. But there’s no sugar, so it doesn’t happen. Then your body craves sugar, and you feel compelled to eat something else to get that rush.

On top of that, artificial sweeteners trigger insulin, which sends your body into fat storage mode and causes weight gain. And while it’s not a proved causal link, soda drinkers display a greater tendency towards depression, and the effect is stronger in diet soda drinkers than regular ones.

So the diet soda revolution hasn’t really panned out. But that’s not sending people back to regular sodas. It’s a trend that is mirroring our reduction in salt intake – initially slow to follow advice, we’ve now seen a 15% reduction in salt consumption over the last decade. Similarly, UK surveys report that we are now drinking fewer carbonated drinks than just six months ago.

The message is getting through, and so it’s getting through to the soda companies by way of reduced sales. And that’s why Coca Cola is releasing its new green label drink. It comes with a third less calories compared to the regular drink, by using a natural sweetener called stevia. That may allay the fears associated with artificial sweeteners, but it still means 89 calories in a single can. And it still contains 22g of sugar per can, which is hardly low.

By putting a green label on it, and calling it Life, Coca Cola are trying to brand it a healthy alternative at a time when soda is seriously in the crossfire on health grounds. But it’s not the answer. Sure, in small amounts, as long as you watch what you eat and drink, there’s no harm in enjoying a little soda every now and then. But if you’re trying to cut down, a simpler and better alternative is just to drink water. That has no artificial sweeteners and no sugar either. You can always add a slice of fruit to give it some flavour, and use sparkling water if you like the fizz.

As always, then, the advice is to read the label. The marketing says one thing, but the label tells a different story.

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook

Stevia - The Answer to Soda's Bad Image? | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

Diet Studies – Who to Trust? | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

Every week there’s another scientific study telling us something new (or old) about our diets. They often seem to contradict each other, not to mention the various fad diets that are constantly shifting emphasis from one food group to another.

So how do you know whether that article you’ve just read is true? It’s in a trustworthy paper, and it’s quoting all sorts of qualified professionals, but it’s saying the opposite of the one you read last week.

Let’s take a look at one of the recent studies just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. 148  men and women were studied over 12 months. Half were asked to cut down on carbohydrates in their diet (eg white breads, sugar, processed foods). And the other half were asked to cut down on saturated fats (eg meat, whole milk, butter). Other than that, there were no calorie limits, although both groups reported eating 500-700 fewer calories per day on their new diet.

After 12 months, the low-carb group had lost an average 5.4kg, while the low-fat group had lost an average of only 1.8kg. The low-carb group also showed a greater reduction in cholesterol and body fat, as well as a higher proportion of lean muscle mass.

It sounds pretty conclusive. But studies like this rely on self-reporting, which is notoriously unreliable. In describing this study, The Guardian reports that 80% of participants stuck to their diets for the whole year, but look at the report and you see that “82% of the low-fat group and 79% of the low-carb group completed the intervention”. That doesn’t mean they stuck to the diet, just that they carried on handing in their reports. They were probably being paid to take part in the survey, so if they didn’t complete their reports, they wouldn’t get paid. But does having an authority figure assessing the results of your dieting make you more or less likely to be honest about how well you’ve stuck to it? How would we know if the carb group have sneakily indulged in a little extra fat now and then?

The number of people in the study is also far too low to come to any solid conclusion. With only 148 people, of whom about 20% dropped out, that’s a tiny number to rely on, when so many other factors could be at play. Since the participants were randomised, they came from all walks of life. That means they can’t be separated for things like lifestyle, wealth, cooking habits, education, nutritional knowledge or any number of other differences in their lives.

And that’s the problem with dietary studies. They can only give us vague indications of possible effects. It’s impossible to do a properly controlled study, because it would require bringing up large numbers of people in confinement from birth to old age, controlling every aspect of their entire lives just to study one tiny difference in treatment between groups. It’s obviously completely inhumane, but to be able to rule out lifestyle factors, you have to at least use much larger sample groups.

This is often done by conflating studies together and finding an average figure for the results. Indeed, just days after this study, an amalgamation study was completed of 48 different trials looking at different diet types. This study concluded that over 12 months, there was no significant difference between a low-fat or low-carb diet. The problem with amalgamated studies is that they take studies which may have been done under different circumstances with different levels of control, and treat them the same.

There’s no satisfactory answer, really. The studies do have value, and over time may be able to gradually account for the variables, but we need to be aware of their shortcomings and understand why they don’t provide a final answer yet.

In the meantime, what are you supposed to do about your diet? Well, as the BBC reported recently, any diet works, as long as you stick to it, so experiment a bit until you find the one that you feel most comfortable on. Of course, that advice was based on a study!

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook

Diet Studies – Who to Trust? | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

YES to Scottish Foods | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

So the Scots have narrowly voted to stay part of the UK, and you want to celebrate by throwing a Scottish themed dinner party. But hang on – isn’t Scottish food all about deep-fried everything, a heart attack waiting to happen?

Certainly, the Scots have a strong national identity. We’re familiar with the kilts, the Highland Games, the bagpipes and so on, but when it comes to food, the stereotype may be unfair on our Gaelic neighbours.

A deep-fried Mars bar is a surprisingly tasty dessert, but certainly not part of a healthy diet, and the greater mystery over the Scottish cheeseburger is not how they get the cheese inside the burger, but why they thought it was wise to batter it as well.

But look a little harder and Scotland has a fine tradition of healthy foods, and a thriving farming and export community.

For many people, every day begins the Scottish way already. Porridge and other oat based cereals are probably one of Scotland’s greatest contributions to the healthy diet. Its complex carbohydrates mean it gets digested slowly, releasing energy throughout the morning, so you’re less likely to snack before lunch. Plus, it’s got iron, phosphorus and calcium, as well as vitamin A which boosts your immune system.

If you’re not a fan of porridge, you may opt for another staple of the Scottish breakfast table – smoked kippers. They have a reputation as an old fashioned Victorian English breakfast, but are enjoying somewhat of a revival lately, possibly in part thanks to the debate over independence. Although the British capital of kipper production is the Isle of Man, they are still farmed in large numbers in several areas of Scotland, and exported internationally. Technically, any fish can be called a kipper that has gone through the kippering process, although of course they are usually smoked herring. They are chock full of health benefits, from Omega-3 fatty acids to protein, only 125 calories per fillet, and quick and easy to prepare.

If you do need that mid-morning snack, you could do a lot worse than nibble on an oatcake or two. They’re free from artificial additives, and great for slow-releasing energy. They’re a good source of vitamins B and E as well as iron and fibre. And they’re totally adaptable – top them with fruit or veg, hummus, sliced meat, pretty much anything you fancy.

When it comes to a more substantial Scottish meal, the one everyone thinks of is haggis. Traditionally served with neeps and tatties, this is a surprisingly healthy meal. Haggis is made up of sheeps liver, heart and lungs, so not one for the vegetarians. But liver is the main component, and that’s high in vitamins A, B12 and copper as well as plenty of other nutrients. Lung also contains vitamin C, iron and protein among other nutrients. However, liver and lung are also relatively high cholesterol foods, so haggis should only be an occasional treat.

For anyone on a Paleo diet, Aberdeen Angus steak is certainly one of the more desired cuts. And Scottish seafood is a huge export industry. From salmon to trout, lobster to langoustine and oysters, many people choose Scottish for quality and taste. Scottish lobsters are used worldwide even in Michelin starred restaurants. And of course, seafood in all its varieties is a very healthy and tasty option.

It’s true that there are few vegetarian options associated with typical Scottish cuisine. But Scottish farming certainly produces and exports include plenty of other foods that aren’t exclusively Scottish. Raspberries, strawberries, milk, eggs and cheese are all competitive on the international market.

So that’s your meal sorted. Now you might want a little tipple before bed. Whisky is fat free and low carb, so if you’re going to have a drink, there’s not many better. Plus, it contains anti-oxidants and has been linked to lower instances of heart disease, strokes, cancer and dementia.

So let’s forget the old stereotypes and embrace the healthy Scottish diet. They’re still part of the Union, and we can celebrate that with some traditional Scottish food and drink without clogging up the arteries.

Whatever you want your diet to be, we can help. Everything is aimed at your weight target and personal tastes, so give us a call to discuss your needs.

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook

YES to Scottish Foods | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

A TDF macro matched plan for a highly active personal trainer. | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

A TDF macro matched plan for a highly active personal trainer. | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

A TDF macro matched plan for a highly active personal trainer. 

Although most clients don't need axact macros matched, some athletes do like to measure their fat, protein and carb intake exactly. We can happily cook and deliver this type of specific food plan.

A 2371.6 Calorie Plan 209.8g Protein 269g Carb 38.8g Fat

Slimming Clubs and the Support Network | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service

Jenny has just weighed in with an impressive 2 stone weight loss over the last 2 months. She’s been awarded “Slimmer of the Week” for the 3rdconsecutive week. She has a stream of fellow group members come and congratulate her after the meeting, and ask her for her tips on how they can match her success. Then she goes home and her family tell her she’s amazing.

Jenny (not real) is a typical Slimming World success. Slimming World has been around since 1969, and claims to produce sustainable weight loss without needing to count calories or give up any food types. At its core is group support with regular meetings held around the country. And while they’re nothing new, slimming clubs are big business at the moment – Slimming World is currently the biggest trending search within Weight Loss on Google. Weight Watchers is perhaps the best known of these slimming clubs, which also doesn’t count calories, though it does use a points system to monitor what you eat.

So do they really work? With so many fad diets around at the moment telling you the right way to lose weight, do you really need to pay money to join a group? What do people get out of it?

Certainly, there are plenty of success stories like Jenny. A glance at the websites for any of these clubs will quickly reveal stories of people whose lives have been turned around and who are much happier and confident as a result. They’re often prefaced by comments about being initially sceptical but pleasantly surprised. After all, for those who’ve never done it, it can seem like a strange world. Isn’t it all a bit like an AA meeting? A little bit shameful?

Well, actually the great strength of these clubs is the social and support network they provide. Dieting, like exercise, can be a lonely business. When you monitor yourself, there’s no-one there to help you over the hurdles, and equally no-one (but yourself) to let down. It’s easy to cheat because no-one sees. But as part of a group, you naturally have more motivation to achieve noticeable results. You won’t get frowned on for bad behaviour – these groups are all about positive reinforcement, which has been shown in many psychological studies to be much more effective than punishment in changing behaviour.

Jenny has just had a whole heap of reinforcement. Not only has she seen the results of her dieting in the numbers on the scale, but she has received an award for her work, she has felt the pride of being congratulated by the rest of the group, she has been elevated to the status of guru by those same people who now want her advice, and she has felt an extra bubble of love from her family who share in her pride. All of this gives her a genuine psychological high. She’s going to feel extra motivated to continue after that, and moments of temptation or hunger are more easily dealt with in the expectation of receiving more gratification at the next meeting.

She’s also found new friends at the meetings. She feels extra confidence from looking and feeling better, but also from suddenly having a whole extra social circle to mix in. She’s meeting up with people outside of the group and because their relationship is based on support and reinforcement, she feels more positive generally.

Even those who choose not to join groups will often sign up to forums and online support networks, or else have the benefit of a personal trainer or nutritionist who provide that service for them. So it’s clear that there is so much more to a successful diet than just watching what you eat.

Indeed, since 2007 the NHS has made it policy to refer people to commercial slimming clubs. The alternative was for the GP to offer nutritional advice, but several recent studies have suggested that commercial clubs can achieve as much as double the weight loss compared to those who relied on the GP’s advice.

Yet there are those who are not convinced. These studies don’t take into account whether the weight loss is maintained long-term. In fact, Dr Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine at Oxford University, looked at the figures for Weight Watchers over 5 years. He found that after 2 years only 20% of those who had shown success had managed to maintain their new weight; after 5 years that figure was only 16%.

Richard Samber, former finance director of Weight Watchers from 1968-1993, has suggested that Weight Watchers relies on that failure: "It's successful because the other 84% have to come back and do it again. That's where your business comes from".

Cynical or just an honest appraisal of a successful business model?  It seems like it’s not so much the diet that you’re paying for as the support network. The news only last week was telling us that the type of diet that works is the one you stick to. And it’s clear that sticking to a diet relies on the right support and reward system. Whether you get that from a group, a forum or your friends and family doesn’t matter, just don’t try and do it on your own.

Wherever you get your support, and whichever diet you choose, we can provide the food, all freshly prepared and delivered to your door to your own specifications. That takes a lot of the temptation out of your way since you don’t even need to do the shopping.

Contact us 7 days per week on 020 8626 9360 between 9.00am and 21.00pm or via www.totaldietfood.com

Get our daily menus plus other food and diet based insights on our website here or via Twitter and Facebook

Slimming Clubs and the Support Network | Total Diet Food - London's Fresh and Personalised Diet Delivery Service