Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Low Carb Recipes Actually Taste Great!

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Low Carb Recipes Actually Taste Great!


Many people are beginning diets that encourage low carb recipes these days. But, what are low carb recipes? What things can and cannot be made into a low carb recipe? Following your diets strict guidelines is important, but using the Internet as a tool will help you. For instance, you may do a search for quick recipes and come up with many low carb options. There are many different diets to choose from that have low carb rules. But, many recipes may also be able to be changed into low carb by making simple changes. Meat recipes are probably the most oblivious choice including chicken as it is such a healthy option in most cases. But, what about other choices? Cookie recipes may be the most difficult to find, but choices for sweets will be found. What about a special occasion? Yes, you can easily find easy gourmet recipes as well. Make in advance crockpot recipes? Yes, those too will be found with a little devoted looking.

The best option in finding these hard to find recipes would be too look on your low carb diet's website. You can also do a search for the exact thing or just a category using the Internet. Whatever means you choose, you will find many options to low carb recipes out there. Low carb recipes need to be healthy as well as follow the guidelines specified in your diet's plan. So, it is safe to say, that you will need to research what items you may and may not eat when following these diets by looking through the materials you have purchased or visiting the websites sponsored by those diets. Questions to asked and get answered include knowing the difference between good carbs and bad carbs. Dietitians recommend eating complex carbs because these are full of fiber, phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals. Other carbs are ones, usually the ones to avoid are simple carbs which contain lots of sugar! There are more things to ask about your diet as well such as the different phases or just how to live a low carb life.

Once you know the information you need to choose which low carb recipes you are allowed or those that you are restricted from, changing your favorite recipes into low carb gets easier. Chicken and other meat recipes will be the easiest to switch maybe with very little effort. In certain diets, you are allowed to eat more vegetables, but are restricted on which ones. So instead of having a baked potato with your dinner, you have a baked sweet potato instead. The sweet potato has less of the "bad carbs" then the sweet potato. Maybe instead of fries at your favorite restaurant, you get a salad. When it comes to making things at home, you need recipes that contain good carbs in the correct amounts for your diet.

A crock pot meal may contain a meat choice and fresh veggies, but leave out the potatoes or noodles. There are many choice you will need to make when looking for low carb recipes, but overall, it will be easy to find ones that will fit your taste buds. The most important things to understand are the rules of your low carb diet or lifestyle. Knowing which carbs you can and cannot eat, is the entire battle!

About The Author

Mike Yeager Publisher

http://www.a1-recipes-4u.com/; mjy610@hotmail.com

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Low Carbohydrate Diet Revolution -- A History

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Diet Articles

Low Carbohydrate Diet Revolution -- A History


Most people think of the Atkins diet when they hear the phrase low-carb. Indeed, Dr. Robert C. Atkins is the author of a number of low carbohydrate ketogenic diet books. The first one was published in 1972, and his pioneering efforts revolutionized the dieting world we see today. For everything that you hear; however, Dr. Atkins did not create low-carb dieting.

William Banting published pamphlets in the 1860s extolling the health benefits of the low carbohydrate diet he was put on by his medical advisor, Mr. William Harvey, F.R.C.S. The basic tenet of his diet was to consume as little as possible bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, and potatoes due to his belief that these contained starch and saccharine matter, which tended to create fat. Mr. Banting found that his indigestion disappeared, his umbilical rupture was cured, he lost 50 lbs, his sight and hearing were surprising for a man in his 70s, he slept better at night, and he basically felt in better health than he had for the previous 26 years of his life. Mr. Banting revolutionized dieting in his time, and he received thousands of letters from readers thanking him and telling him how his low carbohydrate diet had changed their lives for the better.

The Johns Hopkins University and Mayo Clinic devised a diet to treat epilepsy in the 1920s. The diet requires high fat consumption and a low intake of carbohydrates in order to induce ketosis. They studied how the diet worked with children who were unsuccessful in treating their epilepsy with medication, and they found that 55 percent of the original patients remained on the diet and 27 percent had a greater than 90 percent decrease in their seizures. There were some children who had no seizures for two years while on the diet, and they appeared to be cured of the epilepsy even after stopping their low-carb ketogenic diet.

Walter Lyons Bloom and Gordon Azar did a study in 1963 comparing carbohydrate restrictive diets to fasting diets. They concluded that eating a diet adequate in calories, protein and fat, but deficient in carbohydrate, resulted in weight loss similar to that of fasting patients.

The first truly popular low-carb diet was popularized in the book The Doctors Quick Weight Loss Diet by Dr. Irwin Maxwell Stillman in 1967, and the low carbohydrate revolution began. The diet consisted primarily of protein sources like meat, fowl, fish and eggs while curtailing the consumption of carbohydrates to close to nothing. The book sold 2.5 million copies from 1967-69 and large numbers of people lost a lot of weight on this controlled carbohydrate diet.

Dr. Robert C. Atkins opened his practice as a cardiologist in New York City in 1960. When he was in his 30s and overweight, he ran across a 1963 article by Bloom and Azar. Their article said you do not have to go hungry to lose weight; instead, you can lose weight by cutting back on carbohydrates. This convinced Dr. Atkins to try the diet, and to his amazement it worked very well. After his success with the diet, he began recommending it to his patients and found that not only did they lose weight; other health problems they were fighting with either had greatly improved symptoms or went away completely. These included high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, heartburn, diabetes, acid reflux, and arthritis. The vast majority of his patients also reported that they slept better, had more energy, got sick less often, and basically felt better overall.

Dr. Atkins published his original book, Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, in 1972; however, the revolution was off to a slow start. His low carbohydrate diet countervailed what had been taught in the mainstream medical institutions and was attacked by the likes of nutritionists, dieticians, physicians, and the Journal of the American Medical Association; however, other doctors were also now aware of the connection between carbohydrates, disease and obesity.

In 1983 Dr. Richard Bernstein, a type 1 diabetic since the age of nine, opened his highly controversial clinic to treat diabetics with a very strict low carbohydrate approach to the disease. Bernsteins ideas were ridiculed at first by the medical establishment, but the low-carb revolution picked up steam.

In 1992, Dr. Richard Heller wrote his first diet program called The Carbohydrates Addicts Program for Success: Taking Control of Your Life and Your Weight, which blamed high carbohydrate consumption for the increased obesity being found throughout the USA. He found a fast growing audience for his ideas as the revolution continued to grow.

The first edition of Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution was published in 1992, and another came in 1999. These two editions sold over 10 million copies and the editions combined to become one of the 50 top selling books of all time.

The year 1999 was a breakthrough year for low-carb practitioners and the low-carb revolution steamed full speed ahead. Dr. Richard Bernstein published his book Diabetes Solution, and it was an instant hit selling upwards of a million copies. Today the latest 2003 Edition has a preface by none other than the president of the American Diabetic Society, quite a victory for a man who when he first preached his controlled carbohydrate approach to the disease was regarded as a crackpot and eccentric by the American Medical Association.

Also in 1999, Dr. Richard Heller teamed up with his wife, Dr. Rachel Heller and Dr. Frederic Vagnini to publish The Carbohydrate Addict's Healthy Heart Program: Break Your Carbo-Insulin Connection to Heart Disease, a newer version of his first book that documented very clearly the relationship between high carbohydrate consumption and the plethora of Syndrome X diseases as well as, of course, obesity. This book and several related ones by this group of authors sold and continue to sell millions of copies.

One low-carb diet; however, was much more successful and popular with the public than the others; that was Dr. Robert Atkins diet. Literally millions of people succeeded in losing weight and improving their overall health by following the programs put forth in Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.

Dr. Atkins nutritional approach spread primarily by word of mouth as people successful on the diet introduced it to others. The medical establishment was stubbornly against the Atkins approach and tried their best to discredit it. The debate over the Atkins nutritional plan grew into a roar as millions tried and succeeded losing weight and improving their health while the experts claimed it was wrong and could not be done. The real testament as to the validity of Dr. Atkins program is that while a large majority of the medical & nutritional establishment claimed his diet was just plain wrong, the number of people following the program continued to grow at a faster and faster pace as successful individuals motivated and encouraged their friends and others to try the Atkins Nutritional Plan.

As more and more people found the diet worked for them, other successful low carbohydrate diets quickly followed such as The Zone, Sugar Busters!, The No-Grain Diet, and The South Beach Diet, to name a few.

The revolution took off at amazing speed when Dr. Atkins published an updated version of his book, Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, in 2002. The new edition incorporated slight changes in his program based on his last 30 years of research. This edition of his book was soon followed by a plethora of published research findings validating the weight loss and health benefits of a low carbohydrate diet. Some people in the groups that previously attacked his diet were now considering the possibility that low carbohydrate consumption was a safe, effective way to lose weight and eat for life.

Now millions of people are doing Atkins, and the revolution has skyrocketed. Companies have begun putting out a myriad of low carbohydrate foods, which have quite literally flown off the shelves. More and more restaurants are providing low carbohydrate menus or net carbohydrate counts on their existing menu items. Even fast food companies have jumped on the bandwagon with low carbohydrate hamburgers, wraps, and breakfast bowls.

What the future holds for low carbohydrate diets is anyones guess. They have entered the mainstream, and the results of current research will certainly have a major impact on the continued acceptance of low carbohydrate diets. I am certain that Mr. Banting would be pleased to see the low-carb revolutionized world of today.

Elleth Faewen and Frank Arnade, co-authors, both began the Atkins diet in 2003, and they made low-carbohydrate dieting a way of life. They provide support for those interested in low-carb dieting at http://www.lowcarbbulletinboard.com

Elleth Faewen also provides support for women at http://www.babytalkzone.com, an Internet company dedicated to helping women who are trying to conceive, pregnant, or adopting.

Frank Arnade has an MBA and now runs his own business selling high quality herb ingredients at http://www.vitalysis.com, an Internet company dedicated to providing the best quality ingredients and excellent customer service.

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