Sixty Fiver

We are probably a little more health conscious than most and seem to arrived at similar places albeit by taking different routes.

I observe what people buy at the grocery store as does my wife as she works there... it is pretty stunning to see how much crap people buy and probably have no idea that most of that low fat food they buy has some form of added sugar as without that, their hunger would not be sated.

It is pretty much a given that when manufacturers started taking the fat out of food they replaced it with sugar... and this comes as surprise to most people.

We shop around the outside of the store, buy from local producers, and do all our cooking at home.

More and more it seems that researchers are focussing on what has been going wrong over the past 40 years and the finger is pointing at sugar and too many carbs in the North American diet and not enough healthy fat. More and more nutritionists are also seeing that things like wheat and many grains cause a host of problems for people...

Whether one is vegan, vegetarian, or omnivorous you have to ensure that your fat intake is adequate and that refined foods, refined oils, and too many carbs are eliminated... this in itself will cure many ills.

According to current health guidelines we should be eating 50-145 grams of protein / day, 210-290 grams of carbohydrates, and 40-65 grams of fat. Those same guidelines also suggest that we find those healthy fats in margarine and canola oil.

So we have reduced our carb intake to 30 - 100 grams a day, generally eat 60-70 grams of protein and the caloric deficit you get from reducing carbs is made up with fats which are more nutritionally dense. For me this means I aim for 170 grams of fat per day and a good percentage of that comes from coconut oil

So my 100 grams of bacon this morning was almost 900 calories with 32 grams of fat and the cup of bulletproof coffee was 250 calories with 40 grams of fat... coconut oil usually makes up half of our daily fat intake, another 20-30 grams comes from full fat dairy / cheese, and the rest comes from tasty critters and the olive oil and butter we use on vegetables and nuts provide a mix of all three macros with a higher fat to carb ratio.

A couple of eggs a day provides about half the protein we need.

On a physiological basis... we do not require carbohydrates as our body can produce all it needs but I like my veggies and a little bit of fruit and the odd handful of organic corn tortillas with come salsa.

Our diet is far from boring... I am making pork souvlakis and greek salad for dinner tonight and will BBQ despite the frigid temperatures we have. There just won't be any potatoes or rice on the side and instead will serve up some beans with butter and basil.