Re: 'Polish Atkins diet'

From: Dave LCHF (LowCarbHighFat-subscribe_at_yahoogroups.com)
Date: 03/29/05 

Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:53:49 GMT

Thanks for the post. These are the macro-nutrient levels my yahoo group
believes in.

If you want to experiment with a High Fat diet, a moderated support group is
available.

 http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/LowCarbHighFat/

We now have 156 members.

The archives can be read without joining.

If you do join, Yahoo has a Daily Digest option available, where you only
get one email per day with all the posts.

Dave

"MrPepper11" <MrPepper11@go.com> wrote in message
news:1112055063.587294.57950@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Praise the lard
> The 'Polish Atkins diet' recommends eating prodigious amounts of animal
> fat. Can this possibly be good for you?
> By Monica Eng / Chicago Tribune
>
> Vinka Peschak starts each day by knocking back a full cup of heavy
> whipping cream.
>
> That's at 8 a.m.
>
> "At around 11 o'clock I take three or four egg yolks and make some kind
> of omelet with lard for breakfast," the Portage Park resident explains.
> Peschak, a native of Poland, eats her omelet with a cup of buttery
> boiled vegetables and a slender piece of almond toast slathered in more
> butter or lard.
>
> Dinner is usually a fatty piece of pork or some kind of organ meat with
> lard-cooked french fries and more butter-soaked vegetables.
>
> In the middle of the day she might have a cup of coffee, "but only with
> a lot of heavy whipping cream in it."
>
> Peschak has been eating like this for more than five years. She is
> slim, energetic, and says, "I feel wonderful, never tired and never
> hungry."
>
> She is not on Atkins. She is not on South Beach. Peschak, along with an
> estimated 2,000 Polish Chicagoans -- and 2 million folks worldwide --
> is on the Optimal Diet, a Polish eating plan that requires the
> consumption of prodigious amounts of animal fat -- preferably lard.
>
> The diet was hatched in Poland some 40 years ago by Dr. Jan
> Kwasniewski, who started developing it while working as a dietician for
> a military sanitarium in Ciechocinek, Poland. There he observed that
> many of his patients were sick, "not because of any pathogenic factors
> . . . but the result of one underlying cause -- bad nutrition,"
> according to his English language "Optimal Nutrition" book. After
> experimenting on his family and himself, Kwasniewski concluded that the
> ideal nutritional combo came from eating three grams of fat for every
> one gram of protein and half a gram of carbohydrates.
>
> After a couple of decades of refining this theory, Kwasniewski
> published his first book in Poland in 1990. But it wasn't until
> converts came forward with their stories of weight loss and recovery
> from disease in the mid-'90s that the diet really took off it its
> native land and Kwasniewski's books went into wide circulation. Today
> there are at least two magazines devoted to the Optimal lifestyle and
> Kwasniewski writes a twice weekly column for the regional Polish
> newspaper Dziennik Zachodni.
>
> It was one of these books that made it into Peschak's hands in late
> 1998, when she was having lunch with other Polish women at a Chicago
> factory. "One lady who just came back from vacation in Poland showed me
> this book she got there and it made a lot of sense to me." A few weeks
> later, Peschak started the diet.
>
> It wasn't until more than three years later, though, that Chicago would
> become the North American capital for this eating plan. That's when
> Tomasz Zielinski bought a little storefront on Milwaukee Avenue and
> opened Calma Optimal Foods. The first and only one of its kind in the
> nation, it operates as a deli, meeting center and, as of this spring, a
> restaurant for those on the lard-laden plan. Peschak serves as its
> manager.
>
> Sometimes called the Polish Atkins, the Optimal Diet severely restricts
> the intake of carbohydrates and sugars, but differs from Atkins by
> de-emphasizing protein and beefing up, or more accurately porking up,
> the fat to a level that would have even made the late Robert Atkins
> reach for his heart.
>
> 250 grams of fat per day
>
> On average, the diet recommends a whopping 250 grams of fat per day,
> about four times what the FDA recommended for the average person to
> maintain his/her weight and about 10 times the amount of saturated fat
> allowed.
>
> So despite its popularity in Poland -- Lech Walesa is reported to have
> lost 44 pounds and cured his diabetes on it recently -- the mainstream
> medical establishment there and here is skeptical.
>
> "I am very against diets like this," says Jadwiga Roguska, a practicing
> internist at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern
> University. "All high-fat diets are unhealthy in the long term and
> there is absolutely no benefit to weight reduction of this sort because
> it is threatening to health. . . . Of course, high-fat diets will give
> you the benefits of energy and weight loss, but they are just not good
> for you."
>
> Roguska based her comments on a brief overview of its principles, but
> Chicago physician Mark Sobor has seen it up close and has watched an
> increasing number of his patients in the Polish community embrace it.
>
> "Kwasniewski is pure fat," says Sobor who practices in Jefferson Park
> and is also a licensed acupuncturist. "Eat fat non-stop. Everything is
> pure fat. The more fat you can take in the better and these people are
> fanatics about it. But the thing is they're all skinny."
>
> On a recent Sunday morning at the Optimal deli/center in Portage Park,
> about 30 followers of the Kwasniewski plan gathered for a weekly
> meeting and shared their stories.
>
> There was the ginger-haired firecracker Irena Kozlowicz, 78, of Niles,
> who went on the diet five years ago after Kwasniewski came to speak at
> the Copernicus Center in 1999. At the time she was suffering from
> chronic eye problems, asthma and pain in her knees.
>
> "Now I can walk better than a young person," she chirps. "I can run up
> six floors of stairs and my grandson can't catch me. He's 17 years old.
> I meet young ladies and they are always tired and sweating, but I never
> am. I didn't need to lose weight, but I lost 8 pounds. I am 78, but I
> feel like I am 50. I thank God for the diet."
>
> Then there is Jozef Michael Ostrowski, 71, who says he has been on a
> variation of the diet his whole life.
>
> "Since the occupation of Poland my parents could only afford pork meat
> and liver and blood sausage and lard," Ostrowski says through an
> interpreter. "It is not like I was following this diet precisely but
> generally. At that time I didn't know this kind of natural food was
> good for me. I just knew that I could eat scrambled eggs with a thin
> piece of bread and lard and I would be full all day. I started eating
> regular food like McDonald's and I could not handle the pain and so I
> went back to the diet and have felt better and better every day."
>
> Chicago physician Christopher Kubik wasn't at the meeting, but in a
> phone interview he said that 4 1/2 years ago he was overweight and
> suffering from fatigue and stones in the bladder. But within a couple
> of months of embarking on this high-fat journey he saw results.
>
> No more problems
>
> "I was losing weigh gradually [he lost about 25 pounds in six weeks]
> but I felt fine. Since then, I didn't have any more problems with
> stones, my skin complexion improved and I am still feeling a lot of
> energy," says Kubik, 57, who reports that he breakfasts on fried eggs,
> bacon and string cheese seven days a week. "While I was losing the
> weight I could feel the ketones as a metallic tasted on the mouth, but
> after I reached my optimal weight, [the ketosis] stopped. Now my weight
> has remained steady at about 185, which is in the upper limit of normal
> for my height."
>
> Kubik, who also has degrees in public health and health law, says he
> does not actively promote the diet, "because it is not considered a
> standard of care and the medical community still recommends low-fat
> diets and it is not something I could support if I were sued." But if
> patients ask, "I tell them that I am on it and have seen positive
> results."
>
> Sobor has also seen a growing number of Kwasniewski converts who claim
> weight loss is only one of the benefits they've reaped.
>
> Chester Matuszewski, 46, for instance says that four years ago he was
> diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and was told there was no way he
> could be totally cured.
>
> "Every single joint imaginable in my hips, elbows, knees and hands
> hurt," the Jefferson Park resident recalled. Remembering something he
> had read in a Polish newspaper about the Optimal diet, he decided to
> check it out even though it seemed unappetizing.
>
> "For years I thought that pork is not good for you and I didn't like
> the smell, but I forced myself. . . . After two months I started to
> feel better and I didn't want to attribute it to the diet. But my
> friends also saw a difference in me and I had so much energy. Today
> after four years, I have no pain and no swelling and I am totally
> cured."
>
> Sobor hears these stories all the time, but still has his reservations.
>
> "I'm sure you've heard their claims that their joint pain is gone and
> diabetes is gone," he says. "And they say it because it's true. You can
> apparently get a lot of benefits if you decrease your carbohydrate
> intake, and stop taking in all the white flour and stop taking in all
> the refined foods because you are not stressing your body out all the
> time with all of the insulin spikes and becoming hyperglycemic and
> hypoglycemic."
>
> "But do I recommend the diet? I don't know," he says. "I don't think
> Kwasniewski is as good as Atkins or that it is something you should go
> on for a long time. Now the South Beach Diet that is a nice diet with
> more flexibility. But this Optimal diet is the most radical of the
> low-carb diets."
>
> No position from the AMA
>
> In the U.S. the Optimal Diet hasn't yet caught the attention of the
> medical establishment. The American Medical Association doesn't have a
> position on Atkins, much less Optimal. And Lisa Dorfman, spokeswoman
> for the American Dietetic Association, had not heard of it either.
>
> Still, based on a quick description of the diet, she didn't condemn it
> outright.
>
> "I can see how this would be a very attractive program, certainly in
> the senior citizen community because these are nutrient dense foods and
> seniors don't need to eat a lot of food," says Dorfman, a licensed
> nutritionist.
>
> "But for the general public I see where there could be potential
> problems. We just know that long-term high-fat diets leave one with a
> heightened risk of heart disease, stroke and hypertension. This is
> certainly not for children, teenagers or pregnant women.
>
> "But for this group of Polish seniors I think it's adorable, especially
> if it was developed by someone from the old country. As a
> psychotherapist, I can see where they must feel like you've got to be
> healthy eating this because there is a psychological connection to
> eating these foods. It's old country eating."
>
> Mmmmm ... headcheese
>
> Here's a sample daily menu from the Optimal Diet Web site
> homodiet.netfirms.com
>
> BREAKFAST
>
> Two slices of homemade headcheese loaf* with mustard
> One soft-boiled egg
> Two cheese-lard pancakes with butter
> Tea with lemon (no sugar)
>
> LUNCH
>
> Two slices of baked blood sausage fried in bacon fat
> Tea with lemon (no sugar)
>
> DINNER
>
> Broth with two egg yolks
> Hash browns
> One strip of bacon
>
> DAILY TOTAL: 254 grams of fat and 2,923 calories
>
> *This Optimal daily menu comes with a recipe for home-made headcheese,
> which requires the following ingredients: half-skinned and de-eyed
> pig's head with ears chopped into pieces, one bay leaf, a couple of
> kernels of allspice and salt and pepper to taste.
>
> Larding it on
>
> Here's what you'll find in the deli cases, coolers and shelves of Calma
> Optimal Foods:
>
> Polish specialties: flaczki (tripe soup), bigos (hunter's stew),
> borscht, Polish sausages, blintzes, even pierogi and paczki.
>
> Organ delights: pork liver pate, brain croquettes, blood sausage,
> headcheese, brain with vegetable soup and liver and tongue stew.
>
> Desserts: Jell-O-whipped cream slices; low-sugar, high-fat ice creams;
> poppy seed cakes; and low-sugar cheesecake.
>
> Dairy products, miscellaneous: heavy whipping cream, jumbo Amish eggs,
> Amish butter, nut-based breads, collagen soups, tubs of house-rendered
> lard, lard with bacon and beef tallow.
>
> In a nod to the diet's arrival in the States, there's even Optimal
> pizza, larded up with extra bacon, butter-fried mushrooms and a butter
> crust.
>