Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Living the Low Carb Life, Chapter 1

The History and Origins of Low-Carb Diets

book coverThis was a fun chapter. Jonny Bowden talks about the history of low-carbohydrate diets, from William Banting and Dr. William Harvey all the way to Dr. Barry Sears (The Zone). We find low-carb diets did not start with Dr. Robert Atkins in 1972, but actually with Mr. Banting's publication of Letter on Corpulence in 1864. So low-carb has been around much longer than the low fat dogma that has only been popular the last 30 years. The concept of the calorie wasn't even discovered until between 1890 and 1900 by a man with the name of Wilbur Atwater.

Mr. Bowden goes through all this and more, touching on each of the major players in diet from 1864 onward. Many of the people named I had never heard of before. There's so much more to this low-carb lifestyle than one man in New York in the 70s!

Very good chapter and I highly recommend it. I'm now reading chapter 2 and will summarize it when I finish. So far I'm liking it. Very good book!

Picture courtesy Sterling Publications.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

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From the Broad Meadow.

Alexandre said...

The low carb life is the best, the only type of life that you want to live now days if you want to be a healthy person.