Hungry Planet - Bhutan

For today's detailed diet study I chose this Bhutanese family from Hungry Planet.

Hungry Planet - India

This is an example of a typical Indian vegetarian diet of a family living in Ujjain (Central India), from the book Hungry Planet. (My previous post about Japan.)

Hungry Planet - Japan

These two pictures are from the book Hungry Planet - What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. This is really a wonderful book where you can see the type and amount of food consumed by families in different countries of the world.

My Meeting with an Expert in Biochemistry and Nutrition

On 5th March 2013, I had a meeting at the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium (SBIC) with a wonderful man, Professor Kishore Bhakoo, PhD, Head of Translational Molecular Imaging Group, he is also Lead for Biological Chemistry, Metabolism and Nutrition at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (NTU), Singapore.

Nutrient Density

This presentation by Mathieu Lalonde, PhD gives an insight into the nutrient density of different food groups. The conclusion is very surprising:

Traditional Diets and Dental Health (Switzerland)

After reading this article about the relative absence of tooth decay in hunter-gatherers, I immediately thought of the work of  Weston Price about dental health.

Does Calorie Counting Work?

Here is an interesting blog post by Dr Andreas Eenfeldt: Why Calorie Counters are Confused?

Vegetarians and Hunter-Gatherers

I would like to add a few things to my earlier posts about vegetarians and India.

Diseases of Civilization - A Few Important Names

The observation that western diseases appeared shortly after sugar and refined carbohydrates became part of a diet, is quite common. If it was an isolated case, I would say "OK, there must be something else going on". But it seems to be true all around the world.

Diseases of Civilization - Japan

Japan is often cited as a proof that a high carbohydrate diet is the solution to avoid chronic diseases. I think it is a misguided belief.

In the 1950s, Ancel Keys considered his hypothesis (dietary fat causes heart disease) confirmed by the example of Japan, where people ate a low-fat diet, had low cholesterol levels, and had very little incidence of heart disease. It is true. It is also true, that at that time, sugar consumption was also very low and carbohydrates (brown rice, millet, buckwheat, etc) were not processed. So, we could also say that the low incidence of heart disease was a result of the lack of sugar and refined carbohydrates in their diet. Of course, Keys paid no attention to sugar consumption.