I didn’t think this thread was about healthy eating, or weight maintenance, or anything practical. Just a “what if” thought experiment.
The Hay diet and its offshoots (Fit for Life, Beverly Hills Diet, Marilu Henner, etc.) say it’s okay to eat like this, just don’t eat carbs and proteins together. It’s okay to eat pancakes and hash browns and toast and maple syrup, but don’t put milk in your coffee if you do. And it’s okay to have steak and eggs and sausage, but don’t eat a tomato at the same time.
Pure bullshit, by the way.
I’m surprising myself by saying I’d give up carbs.
I adore pasta, rice, bread and potatoes, but went on a low carb diet last year, cutting carbs out almost completely for most of the week.
It’s a diet I’ve actually managed to stick to, i just plan meals carefully - salads with oily fish or eggs, generally, for lunch, then an evening meal of lean meat or fish and veggies (in all manner of spicy guises).
I allow myself a carb laden meal or two at weekends, but otherwise manage pretty well without, and no longer have that post-lunch carb slump I used to get at work.
I love meat, and would resent giving up fish - it’s delicious and very good for you. I wouldn’t approve of a diet which suggested I cut out fish.
I could ditch red meat though.
I’d prefer to dump starch over meat any day of the week. I love potatoes and rice and pasta but I need meat.
I’ve always been the happiest when I’m on the Adkins diet. I could eat nothing but meat 3 meals a day for weeks before I ever start to wish there could be more variety to my diet. I know I’ve done months of nothing but meat & cheese and a multivitamin. I lose a ton of weight and keep it off that way too. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t do well and starts getting unhappy after only two or three days with only meat. We’ve made a lifestyle change to a more Mediterranean diet and I’m only eating meat one meal a day five or six days a week but after a day or two without meat, I start getting unhappy. I don’t hate our vegetarian meals, in fact, they’re quite tasty, but I never look forward to them and if we happen to stack them back to back for dinner I start dreaming about meat even if it’s only chicken since I only get red meat like once a month now.
I’ve been a vegetarian before (though not lacto-ovo, which strikes me as silly) so I’d give up meat.
If it was up to my inner-child I would give up meat and eat carb-laden snacks all day long. In fact, that was my diet as a student. :o
In the real world, I consume a lot of animal products and try to limit my carb intake to 50g or less per day.
That’s a good point since fish (at least certain kinds) has long been considered good for you and a good alternative to red meat. I probably should have said “mammal and bird flesh” instead of meat, and fish is OK. A piece of salmon or tuna would have been good for you even in the 1980s when everyone was giving up meat and chowing on pasta and rice.
I don’t particularly want to give up either, but if I had to, I’d give up meat – both because I think it would be easier, but also because I’d be reasonably confident that there were actual benefits to it (of the humanitarian and environmental kind, not necessarily the health kind).
I gave up carbs a while back. It’s the only way I can keep from eating everything that can’t run away. I get intense cravings for sugary starchy foods when I exceed about 50 grams for a few days. I can have a high carb meal here or there, but no more than a weekend or I’ll start slipping. When I keep my carbs below 30 I never, ever feel hungry but that’s really hard to stick with. I eat meat. Ground beef, chicken breasts/thighs/occasionally pork. I rarely eat fish because neither of my daughters will touch it. I eat a lot of dairy, nuts, flax and fresh vegetables every day with my meat but I think I really need that meat to stay satiated.
I would give up carbs in a heartbeat. The only downside I can see is that I’d be spending more on food whereas giving up meat for carbs would mean me trading in something delicious. It’s hard for me to understand how people really have a craving for carbs. Carbs are the relatively bland filler that you use to bulk up a meal to save money. For the most part, what’s delicious about carbs isn’t the carbs themselves but what we put in the carbs.
Unbuttered popcorn, dry toast, plain pasta, mashed potatoes made with only water, plain white rice. They all sound disgusting and something nobody would really enjoy eating. OTOH, a ribeye steak, strips of bacon, poached eggs, roast chicken, sashimi, seared scallops. all of these are delicious with just a sprinkling of salt and nothing else.
Apart from budgetary reasons and nostalgia, it’s hard for me to see the argument for carbs.
I would have to say carbs.
i could survive on meat poultry fish beans tomatoes carrots celery onions peppers squash cabbage parsnips turnips mushrooms oranges apples pears cherries and things along those lines
Type II Diabetic here.
We’re supposed to watch our consumption of carbs, especially things like potatoes and rice, because they are so easily converted to sugars by the human body.
Mandatory choice? I’d give up carbs. I just love meat more than bread or potatoes.