Page 23 - BTC Debunking the diet

Chapter 4: Banting

If you’re South African, you’ll know the beating that potatoes have taken
since the whole Tim Noakes debate began as a war on carbohydrates. In June
2018, he won his case against the Health Profession’s Council of SA.

Now our BTC Eating Plans writer is a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and as
someone who’s busy with a PhD in marketing communications, he wonders if
old Tim got together with a publicist who said to him, “Listen, marketing 101:
court controversy, and you’ll get so much publicity that it’ll turn your
personal brand into a gold mine.”

Whatever the reason, many of the diets and programmes we are discussing
here deal with a reduction in carbohydrate intake. At the moment, Banting is
the star of the show.

The Banting Diet is named after William Banting (1796-1878), a British
undertaker who was overweight but managed to lose his pounds (not the £
ones!) by engaging in a diet that was low in carbohydrates. It turns out he
based his diet on the advice of one Dr William Harvey, who in turn based HIS
advice on lectures he attended in Paris on the management of diabetes,
delivered by Claude Bernard, a French physiologist.

Coincidentally, there was also a Canadian chap by the name of Frederick
Banting (1891-1941), a distant relative of Banting the First (LOL), who co-
discovered insulin (ironic, given the connection to diabetes).

Perhaps it was the first Mr Banting’s position as an undertaker that convinced
him of the dangers of being overweight, and the importance of cutting back
on the carbs. He saw a lot of dead bodies in his time.

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This booklet © 2019, Rob Rodell, all rights reserved.