The FastDay Forum

[Debs]

Hopefully someone can enlighten me on this as it intrigues both of us. The Italians for example eat a diet VERY high in carbs, i.e. heaps of bread, pasta. No low carb days there! Lots of olive oil, veg etc.; traditionally they have a very low rate of heart disease, although they can still be overweight.
Are there benefits for them just from having a high olive oil usage?

Just wondering........Carorees, would be interested in your take on this@Carorees

[carorees]

There has been a lot of debate about this in the lab some months ago.

In general, if you eat a high carb diet then the unsaturated fats are v important to reduce risk. If you lower your carbs you can eat more saturated fat safely. Also, in cultures where carbs are staple foods but there is a low incidence of heart disease you tend to find that the total carb intake is relatively low compared with the UK and US etc. They don't tend to eat so much sugar for a start. Also in studies on the Mediterranean diet, carbs have not been particularly recommended...it was veg, nuts, olive oil, tomatoes and red wine that they focused on.

Here are a couple of articles by Peter Attia that are worth reading:
http://eatingacademy.com/books-and-arti ... rt-disease
http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/how- ... bohydrates

The Mediterranean diet also includes a lot of fish.