Two Bits – 25 March 2016

When I started running in the 80s there was very little information available on training methods. I recall one book in the Ballito library by the New Zealand coach, Arthur Lydiard, and perhaps one other, but they were limited.
Then along came Dr Tim Noakes of UCT with his brilliant book Lore of Running, which became the runner’s Bible. He had distilled the wisdom of running greats from Arthur Newton to Bruce Fordyce and others, into a wealth of useable advice from training and nutrition to choosing shoes and  mental preparation for endurance sport.
Hot topics at the time were the practice of eating loads of pasta, or ‘çarboloading’, and of getting in enough fluids. ‘Drink early and drink often’ became a mantra promoted to the running community.
Well, what a surprise to discover that those two beliefs, in particular, were bunk. I recently finished Noakes’ biography, Challenging Beliefs, and seldom has a book been more accurately titled.
Scientists, he says, are not very good at admitting they were wrong. Bad science led to belief in the myths of dehydration and heat exhaustion, and a concoction developed for an American football team became the first sports drink. Gatorade fuelled today’s multi-billion dollar sports drink industry which, Noakes believes, is based on nothing less than a marketing scam.
This gigantic scam was the cause of runners becoming ‘waterlogged’ and of a dozen or more deaths. The right advice is that runners should only drink when they are thirsty.
“There was almost a wave of panic in pre-race publicity and in the media about the dangers of dehydration. No one had yet stumbled on the possibility that this was probably an orchestrated campaign to make drinking-water redundant and to increase the profits of the sports-drink industry.”
Noakes was very unpopular amongst other scientists when he started telling runners to drink less. But eventually science proved him right and that success, coupled with a thick skin, emboldened him to take on a few more sacred cows.
Over the last 30 years or longer, I think you will agree, our lives have been ruled by the ‘fat is bad for you, eat only low-fat’ mantra. Eat margarine instead of butter, drink low-fat milk, eat only lean meats and on and on.
More bad science, says Noakes. A flawed study caused the belief that fat was bad. Food manufacturers decreased fat levels but replaced it with sugar. People loved the taste and bought more. So the manufacturers put in more sugar . . .
“Sugar, not fat, is the single most toxic ingredient of the modern diet,” he states vehemently.
“The single greatest change in dietary patterns over the last 150 years is not that humans are eating more calories or more fat calories – it is that we are eating ten times as much sugar as our great-great-grandparents, few of whom suffered as we do from obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.”
It was a Durban doctor in the 50s who noticed an increase in diabetes amongst Zulus and Indians who had moved to the city – and dramatically increased their sugar intake. Some doctors agreed, but their views were rubbished by the sugar and allied industries. Sugar was sweet, and so was life.
“A key problem with sugar is that it is a highly addictive substance . . . in the same league as nicotine and cocaine.”
Which leads us to Banting. I don’t know about you, but when I hear people with a glassy-eyed stare telling me to stop eating everything nice and scrape by on fat and vegetables, I make a cross with my fingers and back away. “Get away from me, Satan!”
But I have tried an experiment on myself, a sort of ‘half-bant’. After eating too much at Christmas, I decided to stop eating bread and to avoid anything with added sugar. I have an irritating boep that no amount of exercise would reduce. It has been growing steadily over ten years or so and with my build, made me look like a pregnant toothbrush. Not my ideal self-image.
I grew up eating homemade kuhne bread – made from coarsely crushed whole wheat flour that put hairs on your chest and scoured out your gut, not this limp-wristed, fine-grained stuff that passes for bread today. So I have replaced wheat bread with 100% rye. Quite easy once you get into it. If you get the munchies, have a slice of rye and sugar-free peanut butter.
Finding foods without added sugar is another matter altogether. Your eyes bulge out when you start reading labels. Everything has it by the spoonfuls. Given that your daily sugar intake should be no more than three teaspoonfuls, it is frightening that a tin of soft drink has no less than eight teaspoonfuls of sugar, and lite (ha, ha) sports drink has four. Custard, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, yoghurt – everything has added processed sugar.
I reckon Julie Andrews singing “A Spoonful of Sugar makes the Medicine go Down” was Hollywood’s biggest single contribution to the sugar industry.
The result of my experiment has been a loss of nearly seven kilograms in ten weeks, and counting! I’m not hungry, I have no desire to sneak choccies, though I did have a little garlic bread the other day ‘cos it looked yummy. No harm done.
I’m not a card-carrying member of the open-toed sandals and hairy armpits brigade and I won’t bend your ear about Banting, so no need to avoid me in public. I don’t even think I’ll ever go the full Banting route, as I like fruit, rice and potatoes too much, but it is interesting what a slight change of diet can achieve. And without pain.
The sugar tax imposed in the latest budget, ostensibly to combat obesity, just may encourage a reduction in the sugar content of foods. However I think it is going to take a lot more – mainly a concerted effort by the scientists and medical people – to convince a nation to adopt healthier eating habits.
Is Noakes right? Whether he is or isn’t will be proven in the long run by science. In the meantime, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
* * *
A dietician was giving a lecture to several community nurses from the Umhlali area.
‘The rubbish we put into our stomachs should have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is terrible. Fizzy drinks attack your stomach lining. Chinese food is loaded with msg. Also, there is one food that is incredibly dangerous and we all have, or will, eat it at some time in our lives.
“Now, is anyone here able to tell me what food it is that causes the most grief and suffering for years after eating it?’
A 65-year-old nursing sister sitting in the front row stood up and said, ‘Wedding cake.’