Oh my. If you read my blog often then you know how I feel about Romanian food, and that every time I come home it is the same discussion over and over again about the shopping and cooking. This time I have been cooking my own food, as I dislike Romanian food, and got ill last time I was at home after eating shit loads of it against my will. Yesterday however we had friends over, and I decided to behave and not make such a fuss about the food. The dinner can be best described as: large amounts of fat, a lot of meat and refined carbohydrates. Everything, including the bread, was dripping of fat/oil, except for the steamed vegetables I suspect was made to shut me up he he. If you ever go to Romania you will notice that fat and sugar are the two most used ingredients, and all carbohydrate sources are refined to the point that they just scream hemorrhoids (yes, a diet low in fiber will give you problems such as small little friends called ‘Hermes’. I only ate a little; I am not a big fan of bingeing on social occasions (or ever). Afterwards I went to the gym, and felt like a million bucks after a 2 hour workout ( 1 hour dancing).
The city famous for its provocative health campaigns, goes from asking “are you pouring on the fat” to asking restaurants to cut down on the salt. Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control Program at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wants people to cut down on salt. As nearly 80% of a person’s total sodium intake comes from pre-packaged foods and restaurant meals the best way would be to get restaurants to hold the salt. The goal is to get a 25% salt reduction over five years in packaged and restaurant foods. While some restaurants remain skeptic when it comes to the deadline, the 2006 no trans-fat campaign was considered a success three years after the launch.
Today the New York City health department just released a commercial to accompany the poster ‘are you pouring on the pounds?’ shown to the left. The video has had a stomach turning effect. Whilst it still remains too early to state for sure whether these measures have had the desired effect (making people cut back on sugary drinks), it sure has gotten some attention. A can of soda a day can add up to a whopping 10 pounds a year, of fat that is, according to the commercial and the New York City health department. More than 2 million New Yorkers drink at least one sugar-sweetened beverage each day according to a survey from 2007, and more than half of the New York population is overweight. An estimated USA health care cost of $344 billion by 2018 seems like is enough to scare any government into airing nauseating commercials.
The producers of the famous cereals such as Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms, General Mills, assure critics that they will reduce sugar content to single digits (per serve) in their cereals. A study earlier this year caught world wide attention as it was revealed that the least healthy cereals were marketed directly to children. 1/5 of the commercials targeted at children were for high sugar and fat items. The change in sugar content comes not long after the American Heart Association published their new guidelines on record low sugar intake recommendations.
The police in Peru admitted embarrassed on Tuesday that the story about the human fat sellers was based on a legend . The crime investigator Eusebio Felix was put on leave as it was made public that the story was based on the legend about the killers Pishtacos that killed travelers and extracted their fat by hanging them above candles. The fixation on fat has a long tradition in that region of Peru, as fat (excess body fat) was a sign of prosperity. The police only found one victim, and this person is now linked to the cocaine trade. The bottled up fat is believed to be intended as a method to frighten the rivals.
In Peru last week the police claimed to have arrested a gang that has killed people, and then extracted fat from the corpses in their laboratory. The fat was then sold on the black market for 15000 dollars a liter, making the travel all the way from the remote Peruvian jungle to European cosmetic clinics.
While professionals in the field of plastic surgery doubt the alleged use (and the demand for human fat on the black marked), three of the suspects have confessed to killing five victims for their fat.
Yesterday I met Dr. Annika Dahlqvist, a person despised by my colleagues. The public cat-fight between her and various dietitians has been a media goldmine, and her low carbohydrate high fat diet has caused an uproar like no other. Wanting to meet the person behind the diet, I packed my Nikon camera with me, pen and paper ready, and got a front row seat at her lecture last night.
When I found out that no other than the much debated Dr. Annika Dahlqvist was going to address the public at the concert house today, I ran out and got a ticket immediately. There has been a media frenzy around this woman since she started promoting a LCHF (low carbohydrate high fat) a few years back. She had herself successfully lost weight and felt like she had found the answer to obesity and various health problems. Not surprisingly the dietitians and various other health care workers where not pleased, and fuelled with skepticism and anger a double sided debate started. She attacked the dietitians and the ‘government’ and the 
professors, and they likewise clawed back. Today the debate is just as lively as back in 2005, and her name is close to a curse word in a dietitian’s world.
I walked into a room filled with middle aged men and women, probably in their late fifties, and most of them where overweight. I secretly wondered how many diets, how many attempts they had, and how dearly they wished for a cure. The lights went of. The spotlights came on. A middle aged woman wearing a knitted jumper, granny-pants and sandals with socks walked out on the stage. Annika Dahlqvist had entered the stage.
When she was young and growing up in a small city up north, her mother had always fed her a diet rich in animal fat. Whenever she had tried to give them lighter versions, they would always end up cranky and hungry. They where all lean, happy and healthy. As Annika moved from home she started taking the old-type contraceptives, which at the time where high in estrogen, and she developed quite an appetite. Her boyfriend, a chef, cooked delicious sandwiches that they would enjoy at night, and she soon gained weight. She read in a medical magazine that you could only gain fat from fat one day, and so overnight she cut fat from her diet. The weight piled on, she couldn’t understand why. After that followed years of failed attempt at dieting, everything from the GI diet to the caveman diet. She started getting sick. She developed 
fibromyalgia, abdominal pain and could barely move. She was embarrassed by her weight, and her lack of will power to starve it all of. The one day her daughter told her about an experiment they ahd done at school. They had all eaten different diets, and she, even though quite lean, had lost weight on the low carbohydrate high fat diet. Annika immediately decided to try. – I have tried everything already, what do I have to loose? – She thought.
And she did loose something, her weight and her diseases. Three months down the road she was healthy, normal weight and preaching her newly found religion.
When word came out that she was recommending a diet that went against everything that the government had set up as guidelines, she was warned that she could loose her job as a doctor.” I decided to quit then and there when I read the letter”, she told us. “ Two dietitians filled a complaint against me as well, urging the government to strip me of my medical license, but after years of investigation, the establishment admitted that I was in my right to spread my story”.
She spoke passionately about her discovery, told her own story, and the story of others that had their life changed by her diet, and with almost every sentence questioned our beliefs and practices. The studies, guidelines, organizations, politics, regulations and the money that is poured into it all every year.
“We don’t need carbohydrates; we need natural fat, from animals. That is what we are made to eat. Today the government still bombard us with the myth that fat is bad for us, and they don’t even have studies to back it up with. Eating this yellow shoe cream (margarine), the devils paste, instead, with all its additives unnatural oils and processed nature. Eat natural fat instead I say, and forget about the carbohydrates.”
During the break I approached her and asked if she was fine with me taking some photos with my flash on while she was on stage. I had noticed that I was the only photographer there, and didn’t want to disturb her while on stage. “Sure, its fine” “A picture together maybe?” I asked. I sat down, the event manager balanced the camera and took a picture.
I sat down, the even manager balanced the camera and took a picture.
We talked a little, I avoided talking about the diet as I knew it would probably spark a fuelled discussion. It seemed pointless to attack her, as many had already done; I had come to meet the person behind the headlines, not to prove her wrong. She seemed somewhat intimidated by my approach, and that surprised me. The whole event seemed like a cult, and I had crashed the party.
The bell rang, it was time to head back. We shook hands again and I thanked her for her time. I hadn’t noticed the long line to get her signature, and I got angry glares as they where hushed away from the stand. I heard some of them whisper that I was one of ‘them’- probably referring to the dietitians.
It was hard not to comment on the diet, she had no ground to stand on. At the same time she did do a important job. What do we really know? I didn’t agree with her on the diet, but I rappreciated that she raised very important questions towards the whole food industry and the government. It is true that we do put our heads in the sand; few of us challenge what we are being taught. I thought to myself, this woman really believes what she is saying, and she has every right to say it out loud. I am a strong believer of freedom of speech, and I think that she is in every right to question our beliefs and practices. After all, that is a basic human right on which democracy is based on.
After the break she told the wonders of the LCHF diet. The LCHF diet could cure everything from cancer and heart disease, to perfect dental health and pregnancies for women suffering from poly ovarian cystic syndrome, and answered questions at the end. Most people wanted to know if they would be cured for various diseases, but I had a different question for her:
“ Hi. I know there has been a lively debate in the media between you and the dietitians and other professions. But what messages would you like to pass on to the dietetics students, the ones that are still in the learning process?”
“They can’t keep going on like this” she said “…giving these advice” The room was completely silent as everybody understood that there was an ‘enemy’ among them and I felt hundreds of eyes piercing in the dark. I have never been in a room full of people that hate me before, I felt like waving a white flag and say – I come in peace. I honestly just wanted to hear her side. “They have to understand that I am right” she continued, a little brash, I heard a few laughs “ and others that say the same. Because I am not the only one saying this” she said and turned away from the stage.
“Lets take one more question and then we call it a day” she muttered.
I am not going to judge her as a person. I do not know her. I admire her stamina and that she is so driven. It is extremely hard to speak your mind in a country such as Sweden. I do on the other hand think that she can raise awareness in a more constructive manner than what she has been doing, and I am furious at her attacks towards my colleagues, but they have not reacted kindly back either to be fair.
I am going to think for myself, but I will embrace the expertise and knowledge from my professors around me, but as always I will:
question everything; assume nothing- if not you won’t learn a thing.