Is your cooking oil making you sick?

Posted on March 15th, 2013

My mate David Gillespie has a new book out: Toxic Oil: Why Vegetable Oil Will Kill You and How to Save Yourself. David and I have chatted before (you can find that conversation here) about the central premise of this new book: that “vegetable oils” (or seed oils) are bad and saturated fats are what we should be eating. Which, of course, is the opposite of what we’ve been told by nutritionist and government bodies for the past 60 years or so. Which is, of course, the period in which “modern diseases” such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune disease have been on the rampant rise. Draw breath.

Image via Shutterstock.com

Image via Shutterstock.com

But in today’s chat we’re going to keep it to (mostly) practicalities: which oils to eat, which foods to avoid at the supermarket and some smart food swaps to make.

Listen in:

For those wondering whether to invest the time in our ramble, here’s a taste of what we cover:

* What oils to use for deep frying, for pan frying and for roasting.

* The clever rule of thumb for making sure you’re not oxidising yourself: everything you eat should contain less Read more

yes, I eat fruit. and, no, I’m not misleading Australia.

Posted on January 18th, 2013

You might have caught last night’s A Current Affair segment on the telly about sugar? I popped up as a sugar-quitting expert, along with my mate David Gillespie. However, I was used mostly as a voice of extremeness via some quotes I’ve made to ACA journalists previously, repackaged in rather extracted form. In particular, I was presented as being anti-fruit. You can catch the clip here.

Image by stephaniegonot

Image by stephaniegonot

A few people today have got outraged on my behalf (fired up that my quotes seemed to be placed out of context), or just outraged that I would diss fruit. I don’t tend to get upset by these kind of things. ACA presented an interesting take on the subject. And besides, how splendid! I now have a great opportunity to clear things up nice and crystal-like.

1. I eat fruit. One of the ACA grabs sees me listing the high-fructose fruits, as requested by the journalist at the time (during an interview a while back). I recommend eating the low-fructose fruits where possible: kiwi, berries, grapefruit and so on. If you’re doing my 8-week program, I advise cutting out fruit for 6 weeks. This is to break the sugar addiction and to recalibrate our bodies, just for that short period. I then, at the week-7 mark, invite everyone to reintroduce fruit and read how their bodies take to it.

2. I make the point over and over, based on the only comprehensive research I’ve found (by the American Heart Foundation):

we are only able to handle 6-9 teaspoons of sugar a day. Which is about the amount contained in 2-3 pieces of low-fructose fruit.

Many experts in this area – cardiologists, endocrinologists and nutritionists without vested interests in the sugar industry – confirm this amount as being appropriate. I personally find it’s the amount my body can handle before I start to feel the effects.

3. If fruit is your only source of fructose in a day, then 2-3 pieces of fruit is fantastic. If fruit is treated as a treat…which is how I was raised to eat it, and our parents and grandparents were raised to eat it…then bloody fantastic. But do you eat fruit as your treat? Do you eat fruit instead of chocolate or ice cream? Or as well as?

4. Know this: fruit today is MUCH sweeter than it was only two generations ago. They’re being bred this way because Read more

low carb down under

Posted on November 19th, 2012

Just a quick note to let you know I’m sharing my I Quit Sugar message at the Low Carb Down Under Sydney event this Saturday, if you’re keen to hear me harp on a little more about it all! Other speakers include David Gillespie, wholistic dentist Dr Ron Ehrlich, and Aaron MacKenzie from Origin Of Energy, who has worked with me at his studio (and serves a mean choc coconut smoothie!) There will also be a panel session, where you’ll be able to ask questions on low carb and paleo nutrition – so come prepared.

The event is being held at the Wesley Conference Centre on Pitt Street.

You can find the provisional program for Saturday below, and more information, and tickets(!) here

  1. Jimmy Moore—Update on low carb around the world
  2. David Gillespie—“Sweet Poison and Big Fat Lies”
  3. Sarah Wilson—“I Quit Sugar”
  4. Costa Georgiadis—“Product Not Produce”
  5. Dr Rod Tayler—“Doctors, Health, Weight and Carbohydrates”
  6. Dr Ron Ehrlich—“Lessons from the Past”
  7. Christine Cronau—”Saturated Fat is Good For You!”
  8. Dr Simon Thornley—“Has Dietary Research Helped Us With Our Food Choices?”
  9. Aaron McKenzie from Origin of Energy—”Combining Fitness and Nutrition”
  10. Vicki Poulter – “Why grass fed animal foods are good for the planet” (as a tribute to Bruce Ward)—“
  11. Rob Blomfield—”A farmer’s  journey to primal health”
  12. Suzanne Crawt – Paleo in Australia
  13. Panel discussion session MC’d by Jimmy Moore—ask the experts!