Banting Basics
William Banting was a British undertaker who was very obese and desperately wanted to lose weight. William Harvey his doctor, put him on a radical eating plan. It was high in fat but included very few carbohydrates. Banting experienced such remarkable weight loss that he wrote an open letter to the public, the "Letter on Corpulence", which became widely distributed. As more people started following this eating
plan to lose weight, the term "banting" or to "bant" became popularised.
There is a common misconception that eating fat, especially saturated fat, is bad for you and that it is a primary cause of high blood pressure, heart disease and obesity. This is simply not true and was based on a flawed study
by Ancel Keys in 1953. Diets high in carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates and sugar are the cause of obesity, diabetes as well as other chronic illnesses.
Of the three macronutrients in our diet (protein, fat and carbohydrates), only carbohydrates are non-essential for human life. Avoiding carbohydrate has no short- or long-term effects on humans,
other than the (usually beneficial) effect of weight loss, especially in those who are the most overweight. While we need a constant supply of glucose, it can be produced by the liver from fat and protein and doesn't need to be ingested as carbohydrate in our diets. We cannot function properly for more than a few days without eating fat and without an adequate protein intake we develop protein-calorie malnutrition within a few months.
The usual refrain of anyone looking at banting for the first time is "but what about my cholesterol?"
There is much evidence to support the fact that cholesterol is not the culprit in heart disease. Cholesterol will only adhere to a 'leaking' artery wall which is damaged by inflammation – to protect you. By living on carbs and sugar those arteries remain inflamed. Sugar is the most inflammatory thing you can put into your mouth, and will continue to rob you of perfect health. Grains are turned into sugar by the body. So a high carbohydrate diet will always foster inflammation in the body, not only in the arteries but the brain, liver, digestive tract and joints.