'Banting' is the new balanced diet

But after reading Professor Tim Noakes' The Real Meal Revolution and listening to him speak at the launch of Kauai's new low-carb offering on Friday, 20 June, I'm convinced that 'Banting' is the new balanced diet.

It's not just about eliminating sugar, which Prof Noakes' blatantly refers to as a drug and a killer. He also says you should avoid toxic seed oils and limit carbohydrates.

Eating too much of the white stuff can trigger diabetes, which he believes has the power to "bring down the Western World". But the Banting diet isn't just something you would do if you were overweight, had diabetes or suffered from heart disease, it's a new lifestyle and a change in mindset that you ought to get to grips with not merely as a precaution or treatment, but to extend your youth or feel younger and live longer.

Interestingly, the latest TIME Magazine's main feature is entitled, Eat Butter, which backs Prof Noakes' claims to explain why we were wrong about the fat story. And the irony is that 30 years ago (1984), the front page of the same magazine had a photo of two eggs and bacon presented in the shape of a sad face.

Prof Noakes recommends investigative journalist Nina Teicholz' The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet and highlights her recent finding that "like lions and tigers, early human populations preferred the fat and viscera of the animal over its muscle meat". According to Amazon, Teicholz' documents how the low-fat nutrition advice of the past 60 years has amounted to a vast uncontrolled experiment on the entire population, with disastrous consequences for our health:

For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner it must be because we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? What if the very foods we've been denying ourselves-the creamy cheeses, the sizzling steaks-are themselves the key to reversing the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?

Who said fast food was 'processed junk'?

It's reassuring to know that you can pop into your local Kauai without the guilt feelings that come with a Big Mac.

In partnership with The Real Meal Revolution, Kauai is adding some new Original Eating-inspired low-carb items to its menu, such as: a Madras Style Chicken Curry Bowl and Thai Green Curry Bowl with cauli-rice; a low-carb wrap base, with only 9g carbs, which you'll be able to order with any wrap on the menu from 1 October; and a low-carb smoothie that tastes like homemade strawberry yogi sip.

Aloha la Revolution!

*Further reading: I Quit Sugar and I Quit Sugar For Life by Sarah Wilson

realmealrevolution.com