Today I was watching this pretty interesting show in the afternoon. It was on Channel Newsasia and was called "Frontline".

It's an American investigative news programme and today's topic was "The Low Fat, Low Carb Debate".

Essentially, it's about watching what you eat, how what you eat affects you, and how all those gimmicky diet programmes are not really good for health.

Some pretty interesting facts too, some of which are:

1) Eating potatoes makes you hungry.

Potatoes actually contain refined starch, which is rapidly digested by the stomach and almost immediately released as glucose into the bloodstream. This creates a "sugar rush" which stimulates the pancreas to release insulin. The insulin makes the liver convert all the extra sugar into another form for storage. This makes the sugar level in the bloostream plummet, thereby stimulating hunger.

So, in effect, you feel hungry much faster than with other slow-digesting foods, say meat or vegetables.

2) Low fat foods are not healthy at all!

Food consists of 4 components: protein, fat, carbohydrates and water. These 4 components are present in varying amounts in any type of food.

The reporter in the series went to see a food science expert at Cordell University to ascertain what exactly goes into low-fat food. The results were quite unexpected.

The food scientist did a little demonstration by inviting him into their laboratory to make low-fat ice cream. As he poured all the ingredients into a giant mixer, he elaborated on what he was throwing into the mix.

Apparently, low-fat ice cream IS low fat, cos they use less cream. However, they substitute it with extra sugar instead. Hence, the resulting sugar calories more than make up for the calories lost through using less cream.

So, in essence, low fat foods have the same number of calories as normal foods, or sometimes even more!

And as for the ice cream that the food scientist let the reporter taste. Well, it tasted exactly the same as normal ice cream.:p

3) Diet programmes are questionable

The programme investigated the The Atkins diet in particular.

The Atkins diet essentially encourages people to eat only meat, dairy products and vegetables. It encourages people not to take in carbohydrates at all, in the form of rice, noodles, potatoes, bread etc.

It was found, though, that the doctor who founded and actively uses the diet, had a history of heart disease.

His widow insisted the heart disease was due to other factors, but then again, there is an entire dieting programme empire at stake.

At the end of the day, the programme concluded that to maintain a healthy body, it was essential that there be a lifestyle change. In short, watching food portions and having lots and lots of exercise!

Ah well... off to the gym people!