No Flour, No Sugar

I can’t recall exactly where I heard about the fad diet proposed by Dr. Peter Gott. His plan is simple: eliminate all milled grains and added sugars from your diet, and safely lose 1-2 lbs every week. For added bonus, be sure to exercise and watch your portions. Presto! Weight loss!

Now, dieting and weight loss are not really subjects I know anything about. What little I do know is that when the Romgi and I started eating more fresh foods, cutting down the amount of processed foods we ate, and trying to get a good balance of nutrients, we felt great. Sadly, we didn’t keep it up very long, but while we did, eating was fun — and so was cooking. There seemed to be more options for what we could eat, because there are thousands upon thousands of recipes that use basics like chicken, spinach, herbs, etc. Salads are a great side dish, a light dessert once a week is heavenly, and life in general is getting better and better.

So I ask you. Why would you eliminate flour from your diet? Maybe it’s just me, but I really don’t think flour is the bad guy here. Personally, I love bread. Krista gets extra rolls from her catering job and I eat six at a time. Yeah, I know, that isn’t moderation. But think for a minute. Isn’t the key to every successful diet finding the right combination of exercise, smaller portions, and healthy food? People have been eating milled grains for centuries, right, and they’ve been ok so far! The bigger problem is that as Americans we have little or no self-control; sure, trying to eliminate all flour and sugar from your diet will test your self-control, but I fully believe that it is much healthier to form eating habits that seek for balance. “No flour, no sugar” is an extreme, and I don’t particularly like extremes (except for some gospel ones: All people will be resurrected, for example).

That about finishes my tirade. I’m going to go eat some pizza now.

Oh, and here’s the link to Dr. Gott’s revolutionary book.

People are DUMB.

Superultramega dumb. And most of them should probably be smacked upside the head, just once. Maybe twice. Then would they be less dumb?

Actually, I doubt it. People are always going to be dumb.

Stupid Friday. Blah.

Dumb. No.

The BYU Daily Universe, I think, is widely regarded as containing some of the most ridiculous viewpoints one can find at colleges in the U.S. Today there was a piece by guest writer Whitney Young, a freshman from Kansas. Whitney complains that men and women should not have to pay equal amounts for their dining plan at the Cannon Center — because everyone knows that men eat like pigs, and women need fewer calories.

Without arguing the scientific evidence Whitney uses to back up her claim, I’d like to point out to her that her proposal to add $100 to each male dining plan while subtracting $100 from each female dining plan is nothing short of ludicrous. I think she fails to understand that her money pays for the freedom to eat as much food as she wants at the Cannon Center — or as little. If all she wants for breakfast is “a piece of wheat toast and a bowl of fruit,” maybe she’d be better off buying a toaster and loaf of bread from the Twilight Zone. It seems more like she is failing to take full advantage of what she’s paying for, rather than that her fellow freshmen are eating her money at every meal.

What do you think? Is her suggestion feasible? Practical? Reasonable?