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Low fat or high fat diet? How to use NLP to find the right diet for you.

How do you know that high fat foods are bad for you?

In this article we use the NLP Peace Mapping Model to explore the idea that fat makes you fat, that a low fat diet is good for health, and that, saturated fat is bad for you.

(By Abby Eagle) Since the 1980's the media and health industry have hammered the idea into the mind of the public that saturated fat is bad for health. Should we just accept that as a fact or should we question it? What if you took their advice and then found out twenty years later that they were wrong? What if their advice had a negative impact upon your health and the health of your family? How would feel?

Wouldn't it make sense to question what you see on television, what you read in the newspapers, and what you hear from your doctor, naturopath, teacher and even your best friends?

In this article I am going to show you how to discover what is true and what is not true. How do we do that? We start by asking NLP Meta Model questions. Let's start with the statement that, "Fat makes you fat".

Fat makes you fat!

Some of the NLP Meta Model questions that we might ask are:

• What do you mean by fat?
• What type of fat? Fat from what source? Animal or plant?
• Which fat specifically are we talking about? Are we talking about saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, polyunsaturated fat, omega 3,6 or 9, or trans fats?
• How much fat?

Then we might ask:

• How do you know that fat makes you fat?
• Where is the evidence?
• According to whom? Who says that fat makes you fat?
• Does everyone say that? What do others say?

So let's say we find an article that states that fat makes you fat. We bring in the NLP Peace Mapping Model and ask questions that begin to map out the topic. We ask:

• Who wrote the article?
• What is the author's qualifications?
• What is the author's model of the world? What is their nationality, religion, ethnicity? What is their diet? Are they a meat eater, vegetarian or vegan?
• What is their background? Who do they work for?
• Did they get paid for writing the article? If so, then by whom?
• If the article quotes research then who funded the research?
• Who stands to gain from making the the statement that fat makes you fat?
• Who stands to lose from the statement that fat does not make you fat?

Then we look for a counter example.

We ask, was there ever a time when fat did not make people fat. So now we look to anecdotal evidence and we find that people on high fat diets are sometimes thinner than those on low fat diets. - It all depends upon the type of fat.

But the example that I enjoy the most is from an article in a Weston A Price Foundation Newsletter back around 2000 and it goes something like this:

Farmer Jo wanted to fatten his cows for market and he had heard that fat makes you fat so he looked around for a source of cheap fat. Coconut oil at that time was cheap so he added coconut oil to the cow's diet and guess what happened?

The cows got lean and frisky and had heaps of energy. Unlike some of our scientists, farmer Jo was smart. He could see that fat did not make his cows fat so then he looked around for something else. Soy was cheap so he fed the cows up on soy and guess what?

The cows got really fat and became sluggish. And what have the health professionals been telling us to do? Avoid fat and eat soy!

A low fat diet is good for your health!

To challenge this statement we start by asking:

• What fats specifically are we talking about?
• Fats from what source? Animal, plant or other?
• Are all fats the same? For example, is saturated fat from coconut oil the same as fat from beef? Is omega 3 fat from salmon the same as omega 3 from chia seeds? It might be but until we ask the question we can never know for sure.

How was the fat produced?

If we are talking about olive oil, nut, seed and legume oils then how was the fat extracted? Has the oil been heated? Are the fats denatured by heat, and if so at what temperature? Have chemicals been used? Are the fats sensitive to light? Are the fats sensitive to friction in the extraction process? What is the difference between oil in the original plant and what you buy in a bottle? How has the oil been stored? Is it stored in refrigeration or on the shelf? How old is the oil? Is the oil rancid?

If we talk about animal fats some of the questions we might ask are how was the fat rendered? At what temperature? Were chemicals used? What is difference between the fat that you cut off the meat and what you buy at the supermarket?

You might have the best quality vegetable oil but as soon as you heat it then the heat sensitive polyunsaturated fraction will turn rancid. In addition omega 6 oils have been shown to cause inflammation in the body.

So when people on the politically correct junk food diet limit their fat intake their health should improve, at least in the short term. But does that mean that a low fat diet is better or is it a statement about the quality of the diet?

And last but not least, "Who stands to benefit from selling you a low fat diet?"

Saturated fat is bad for you!

It seems most people believe that saturated fat is bad for health yet is this a fact or fallacy? So now we ask NLP Meta Model questions to challenge that statement mapping out the conversation using the NLP Peace Mapping Model.

• Who says that saturated fat is bad for you?
• Who says that saturated fats clog the arteries? Who came up with the term, 'artery clogging saturated fats'?
• Who says that a diet low in saturated fat is good for your health?
• Who says that saturated fat causes heart disease?
• Who funded the research?
• Who stands to gain from the belief that saturated fat is bad for you?
• Who stands to lose from the belief that saturated fat is good for health?

We typically hear saturated fat and cholesterol mentioned in the same breath. But who stands to gain from lowering your blood cholesterol levels? What are statin drugs worth to the pharmaceutical industry? What does your doctor get paid every time you get your cholesterol levels checked? What does the pharmacist earn each time he sells you the drugs? Does this sound like big business to you?

Who else stands to gain from getting you on a low saturated fat diet? The answers that come to my mind are:

• The medical industry.
• The pharmaceutical industry.
• The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• The seed oil industry particularly American and Canadian. Canola, safflower, cottonseed, sunflower and oil from soy.
• Manufacturers of low fat products.

Maybe a question to keep in mind is, "Is your health care professional more interested in your health or their personal income?" And on that point have you ever been in the staff room at a Pharmacy (Drug Store)? You will probably see posters and sales charts offering incentives to the staff to sell more of a particular drug in order to gain bonuses. So if the Doctor or Pharmacist recommends a particular drug is that in the interest of your health or their hip pocket?

What is not right about this picture?

Referring to the NLP Peace Mapping Model we see that at some point we need to step back and look at the picture as a dispassionate observer. We have the medical profession giving us advice and yet heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, and other Western degenerative diseases continue to increase. Researchers have noted that when healthy Asians move to the USA within ten years or so their health degenerates to match that of the average American. And yet the American medical industry tells us that traditional diets are bad - except for one particular region of the Mediterranean - and that we all need to switch to the American diet. So what is the real problem?

It seems that as the American fast food franchises spread throughout the world, Western health problems soon follow. In recent years obesity has become a problem in China and rather than going back to their traditional diet some Chinese are using Western bariatric and lap band surgery as a solution. What is not right about this picture?

It seems to indicate a lack of awareness that the problem of obesity for the Chinese has resulted from moving from a traditional Chinese diet to an American type diet. All it takes to understand this is to track back in time to when obesity was not a problem. Identify the diet at the time and revert back to that diet.

How do we do that? We ask, "Has there ever been a time when obesity was not a problem? Has there ever been a time when your society did not suffer from the diseases of degeneration?" Once we identify the time and place then we research the diet and life style of the people at that time... but... and I hear the, "But". But that would not be progress. How would we sell our junk food? No, we can't go back we have to keep moving forwards - but towards what?

What is not being talked about in the media?

Most people would have heard about the Mediterranean Diet and how we should avoid animal fats and embrace olive oil. If you search the Internet you will find thousands of pages where people refer to the Mediterranean diet as if it is gospel truth yet what are some of the questions that these people have failed to ask?

1. Does the Mediterranean Diet refer to the entire Mediterranean region or to one small area? If it only refers to one small area then how big is that area? If it refers to one small area then is it not deceptive to call it after the entire Mediterranean region which has a diversity of diets?

2. What is the diet of the people in the Mediterranean region from France to the Middle East to North Africa?

3. What did Ancel Keys and supporters of the Mediterranean diet fail to mention?

This is a strange question but now we ask questions like, "What else did people in the Mediterranean region eat?" And we keep asking that question again and again. For example, whenever I meet a good looking well built man or woman I ask them what they ate as a child, and what their parents ate. One time I asked a young Brazilian woman what she ate as a child. She gave me a list of politically correct foods and then I probed and asked, "What else did you eat?" She sort of shrugged and looked away, so I asked the question again, "What else did you eat?" She looked a bit embarrassed and said, "We had organ meat like liver, kidneys and tongue."

On another occasion I asked a Japanese man from Okinawa Japan what he ate as a child, and as well as the politically correct foods he also told me about organ meat.

If you do a little Internet research and check out the diet of the people in the Mediterranean region you will find groups that cook in lard and butter, and use olive oil as a dressing - they don't heat the olive oil - and they also eat organ meat - which is the opposite of what the main stream media have been telling us.

Now it's your turn.

In this article I have made a number of generalisations, and I have not given any references for my sources of information because it does not matter whether the information that I have given is true or not.

What I have attempted to do is to show you how to use the NLP Peace Mapping Model and the NLP Meta Model to think in such a way that it stimulates your imagination to ask questions that get you to the heart of the matter - such that you find the truth for yourself!

On that note I'd like to invite you to join me in challenging everything for the truth - so the next time your doctor, naturopath, teacher or best friends tells you something may I suggest that you ask a relevant Meta Model question and then watch what happens?

Your contribution to this article is welcomed so please take a moment to leave your comments below. And if you are interested in NLP Coaching then please contact Abby Eagle using the contact form on this page.

Copyright © Abby Eagle

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