The documentary made by pro vegan people said that it’s not sugar that causes diabetes but rather animal proteins that block our various tubes and prevent insulin from being triggered or something. They were basically saying that eating animals + their products (eggs, cheese, dairy) and fish causes all diseases and that sugar is fine as long as calories are reasonable.

This is obviously at odds with the BSD. My experience is that carbs/sugar are what me gain weight and excess weight is the biggest risk to my health at the moment – but it does stop and make you think. You can watch free on Youtube or on netflix.

Can anyone refute the documentary’s “facts”? Anyone a BSD vegan?

I am mostly Veggie, but do Vegan meals and very occasionally will have fish. After following the principles of BSD for the last 2 years, I agree with you, Sugar/Carbs were my biggest problem. It’s all about getting a balance though, so I have recently moved to Soya Milk & Yoghurt to help with my Cholesterol levels (which has improved) & the animal cruelty side as well. But still eat Cheese & Eggs (Organic).

It works for me as I am no longer Diabetic. Balance is the key word.

I agree with BSD that balance is the key regarding fat as the BSD isn’t a high fat diet – it is a healthy fat diet.

I also agree that it was the sugar/carb combo that caused all my health problems.

There is some really interesting research from the University of Texas re: sugar and cancer which seems to suggest that sugar is even more harmful than previously realised.

Have copied this report in full:

‘Researchers at the University of Texas collected data of about 33 different types of cancer from more than 11,000 patients. They found that amounts of glucose – the form of sugar found inside your body – were particularly high in certain types of cancer.

In fact, glucose was a lot higher in squamous cell carcinoma than it was in other cancers. And squamous cell makes up as much as 30 per cent of all cancer cases of the deadliest form of cancer there is: lung cancer.

Other types of squamous cell cancer that feed off of glucose include head and neck, oesophageal, and cervical cancer.

In another separate study, researchers lowered the glucose levels of mice who had squamous cell cancer and this reduction actually put the brakes on tumour growth.

Now we all know that eating too much sugar can make you pile on the pounds and play havoc on your blood sugar levels, setting you up for diabetes and putting you at risk for heart disease.

So, if avoiding sugar can also help slow-down cancer cell growth, then these are all plenty of good reasons to cut down on the sweet stuff. ‘

Given that the easy availability of sugar – and its presence in increasing levels in the average diet over the last 50 years, how do they explain the increase in obesity and diabetes when there has not been a corresponding increase to animal protein levels in the diet of the average population?
Mike

Michael – that is a very good point. I am not sure how the documentary could possibly have got it so wrong about animal protein.

I think there’s some truth in the fact that animals and fish are getting steadily more saturated with pesticides and antibiotics and mercury and other non natural things to help mass produce them but I am not sure why this would not also apply to fruit and vegetables etc grown in the same conditions – I say this all with absolutely no science to back this up.

The fact remains that bacon is delicious and yeah I think a balanced diet is key.

The French wolf down cheese, meat, eggs and butter and are pretty slim as a nation – gut feel suggests sugar is a bigger enemy, especially for the overweight and pre-type 2s

One of the effects of sugar can be – given inadequate dental care – tooth decay. I remember reading that when the skeletons of the crew members of the Mary Rose (Henry VIII’s flagship, sank in the mid 16th century) were examined it was found the the incidence of bad tooth decay was markedly greater amongst the officer class than the common seaman – the assumption being that at the time sugar was an expensive luxury, affordable by the relatively wealthy officers, but not by the other ranks.
Mike

It is nothing but propaganda and gets almost all of its ‘science’ if you can call it that, wrong. I would have much more respect for it if it focused on the tremendous harm that factory farming is doing to the planet and our existence but they know that scaring people about personal health is far more effective than scaring people about the nebulous concept of the environment.
Cancer is so complex a matter and there are so many environmental and genetic factors at play that general fear monger it about a specific food type is typically worthless except in the rare case of established ‘poisons’ e.g. trans fats.
If it is in a tabloid paper or new improbable miracle diet (often supported by no, wrong or very poorly executed ‘science’) then it is almost certainly BS since such publications have a vested interest in click-baiting or fooling you rather than informing you. Go for the hard science, if you are interested, in respected journals but even then, science can be flawed… look at the absolute bill of goods that Ancel Keys sold to the world about the ‘heart-diet hypothesis’ and then promoted for 50 years to the absolute detriment of billions while trampling dissenting (correct) voices e.g. UK scientist Judkin who saw sugar for the poison it is decades before it became cool to believe it. Even the ‘healthy fat vs bad fat’ thing has been tuned on it’s head with the emerging science suggesting that saturated and mono-unsaturated are far healthier than poly-unsaturated processed fats.