In a society where health awareness is on an all-time high, low carb low fat recipes have become the preoccupation of most professional and non-professional cooks across the world. Interestingly, there are thousands of such recipes published across different platforms.
Before embracing them and turning the dinner table into a low-carb, low-fat affair, one needs to understand whether indeed the craze about minimizing carbohydrates and fat intake is really justified.
Well, statistics reveal that the average American’s meal is made up of 50 percent carbohydrates. Gauging by the wide spread of fast food restaurants and the fat content in foods sold therein, it is anyone’s guess that the average American also consumes a substantial amount of fats. While the carbohydrates and fat content does not mean anything alone, the alarming statistics by dieticians indicates that their inclusion in diets could be doing people more harm than good.
According to the dieticians and other health experts, obesity is spreading at a rate that could pose a health disaster to the country in coming years. While other lifestyle factors contribute to the obesity menace, food is one of the major contributing factors.
More specifically, the high fat and carbohydrate content in contemporary recipes means that the modern American consumes more calories than he or she burns.
The extra calories are stored in the body as extra fats, eventually causing obesity. Considering the sedentary lifestyles that most people lead, dieticians believe that low carb low fat recipes could hold the solution to the obesity problem.
The low carb low fat recipes are characterized by a higher intake of proteins and vitamins, while restricting carbohydrates and fats to a bare minimum. Notably, there is a difference between low carb low fat diets and low carb diets.
The latter replaces digestible carbohydrates with proteins, foods rich in vitamins and fats. The former however insists that high fat content should be avoided in most meals. Since it is not wise to completely wipe fats from diets, most low carb low fat recipes contain provisions for fats, specifically to provide up to 30 percent calories in any meal.
To most dieticians, the secret for fat inclusion in meals lies with differentiating between the good and bad fats. Bad fats are identified as trans fats, which raise bad cholesterol in the body hence increasing risks of people developing coronary heart disease. Examples of diets made from low carbohydrates low fat recipes include the abs diet, the ‘fat loss for idiots’ diet and the ‘Karl Lagerfeld diet’ among others.
To ensure that cooked food contains only the good fats, health experts recommend against the use of margarine, regular shortening, oil-based dressings, and mayonnaise. In their place, kitchens should be stocked up with the likes of safflower oil, olive oil, non-stick cooking oil and canola oil among other healthy oils.