Have you ever tried 'Banting' ???

"I am fully persuaded that thousands of our fellow-men might profit equally by a similar course to mine; but, constitutions not being all alike, a different course of treatment may be advisable for the removal of so tormenting an affliction. I am now in that happy comfortable state that I do not hesitate to indulge in any fancy in regard to diet, but watch the consequences, and do not continue any course which adds to weight or bulk and consequent discomfort. The great charm and comfort of the system is, that its affects are palpable within a week of trial, which creates a natural stimulus to persevere for few weeks more, when the fact becomes established beyond question."

- William Banting

The chances are you probably have, although you probably know it by a different name. 'Banting' you see was once a common colloquialism for 'dieting' and in this short article I'll explain why 'low-carbing' isn't quite the fad it is made out to be, why Atkins while commercially associated with a high fat, high protein diet, was far from the originator of it, and how these diets have been helping people to lose weight and improve their health for centuries.

I recently had an intriguing encounter with a dietician. Now, let me first say that this isn't a diatribe against dieticians or any other group of professionals working to help people improve their health - good luck to them all. However, I am often surprised at how reluctant these folks are to look beyond modern nutritional dogma often citing others desires to do this as evidence of some kind of quackery, or an indictment of the fact we didn't do a dietetics degree.

Now, providing you eat a diet rich in complex carbohydrates and low in fat, you are unlikely to upset the apple (or should I say grain) cart, however, mention or even hint at an approach lower in carbohydrates with a higher protein intake and you risk incurring the wrath of the establishment, along with the inevitable associations with Atkins - a sure fire indicator that most of these folks haven't really taken the time to look into life before the food pyramid! Mention increasing fat or protein and you'll often be put down with fears of cholesterol increases or kidney damage - despite the remarkable lack of evidence to support these kind of claims.

You might be surprised to know that the high-carb, low-fat diet so often promoted is far more of a recent phenomenon than the low-carb diets that (partly due to amount of commercial offshoots) have become marginalised as 'fad-diets' that endanger your health rather than improve it. This is often the case despite the overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence to support their effectiveness. However, that is a topic for another article, so for now let's get back to perhaps the 'father of low-carb' himself - William Banting.

Banting himself was not a nutritionist or a scientist, he was in fact a retired undertaker. However, his experience and writings (the wonderfully titled Letter on Corpulence) were to become so iconic in dieting circles that his name would become synonymous in the same way as Atkins would in the 20th century. When it comes to finding solutions to these sort of problems in victorian times the medical establishment weren't too hot - vapour baths and shampooing, which while not unpleasant were singularly ineffective. These were similar guesses to the various treatments that had been used years previously for cholera, which included bleeding, having boiled water poured over you, or having various unpleasant substances inserted where the sun didn't shine.

In his sixties, Banting was in a poor state of health, weighing over 200 pounds and standing only 5 foot 5 inches, he had tried many methods to lose weight ranging from exercising more (daily rowing on the Thames) to purgatives and diuretics, with ill or no effect at best. It was the research and work of Claude Bernard that was to lead to Banting's surgeon advising him to make radical changes to his diet. Bernard was a scientist, and a damn good one at that, who was Chair of Physiology at the Sorbonne, renowned as a man of rigourous integrity in his research methods. Bernard's research had centred on diabetes and in particular liver function although his discoveries would eventually change how we viewed the impact of diet on our health. Bernard discovered that the liver can produce its own glucose and go on to store it as glycogen, a revelation that was to change perception of the importance of carbohydrates - another fact that seems forgotten by many dietetic experts these days. Banting's own physician who had heard Bernard lecture, went on to remind us that meat and dairy diets resulted in the absence of sugar from the urine of diabetics and that this diet could also result in the body starting to burn fat versus store it - a theory that was to become central to the modern bodybuilding diet from Dr Mauro Di Pasquale known as the anabolic diet. The anabolic diet centres itself also around the body making a metabolic shift to being a fat burning machine versus a carbohydrate reliant fat store, key to this are the early scientific discoveries of Claude Bernard.

Banting changed his diet, incorporating meat, fish, and game at every meal, while concurrently cutting out anything sugary or starchy. Sound familiar? Well if you have read about modern low-carb approaches then you can probably start to see similarities. Contrary to what you might have been told, Banting and just about every other carbohydrate controlling regime since advocated the eating of green vegetables in plentiful amounts (I wonder how many 'nutritional experts' who villify the Atkins diet have actually read the book????) and the eating of fruit.

Over time Banting lost 50 pounds of weight and the essence of his simple approach was to become repeated through the following years by scientists and medical researchers, many of whom published research extolling the many benefits of carbohydrate reduction, not to mention the overeating of sugars and high starch foods (the term farinaceous was often used to describe these - a word that has fallen out of favour in recent years) being central to obesity or corpulence, in society. While calorie balance was always going to be a part of any weight loss regime, it became apparent that the development of obesity and the changes in physiology that accompanied it were equally if not more important. Since Bantings letter describing his results, many scientists found that bread, sweets, beer, potatoes, and rice were the real enemies of obesity rather than eggs and meat. it is astonishing that such an established position was able to undergo such a polarisation in views through the second half of the 20th century.

Banting was to become the pioneering figure in a change of philosophy that is still with us today, even if it may not be in accordance with the mainstream recommendations. Banting himself died at the age of 81, outliving his modern day protege in Atkins who died at 72. Paradoxically, rumours appeared after his death suggesting it was down to ill-effects from his diet, although author Greg Critser who has extensively researched the area reveals that is was to be bronchitis that was the cause of his demise. A constant detraction of Atkins remains the pernicious rumours that it was a heart attack rather than a head injury that was responsible for his death. In contrast to Atkins, Banting had little or no commercial or enterprise interest, in fact donating all the profits from his by now globally renowned book to charity. Ironically, some years later, Frederick Banting, the canadian scientist who was a distant relative of William's, went on to be credited with discovering insulin, changing the lives of millions of diabetics around the world.

Long gone, but not forgotten, Banting was the original low-carb poster boy. His methods were adopted around the world by the A-list celebrities of the day, much like the modern versions were. The many approaches that have since spawned from Atkins to South Beach, The Hamptons and Scarsdale diets, and Protein Power to Fat Flush, all have their roots in the original Bantingism that changed the nutritional world permanently. However, it is worth remembering that far from hype or financial interests, Banting was motivated by a strong desire to change his health and reduce his weight, which was negatively affecting his quality of life. Clearly, we now face a greater battle against obesity than was ever present in victorian times, and equally apparent is that the polarised advice given over recent years, along with the cheapness of poor quality, nutritionally devoid, sugar rich, highly refined starches is doing little to arrest this. Perhaps the medical establishment and those dieticians in their roles as lecturers and teachers of nutrition (many of whom would not seem to practice what they preach too well) would do well to consider that there may be much of merit in those approaches they are so quick to denounce, which far from being 'fad diets' (the establishment standard dismissal of anything that opposes their own theories) are long-practised and rooted in success and results.