I was looking at yet another video posted by a friend on Facebook showing a “Healthy alternative to pulled pork.” The video showed a hip, young, and handsome man shred a mushroom (good!) and then add some spices and vegetable oil to it and then put it into a frying pan with even more vegetable oil. After sauteeing it for a bit, he added BBQ sauce to it (filled with sugar) and then put it on bread (grains) with some good veggies (onion and cucumber slices). He then slathered some more sauce of some sort on it.

This is definitely vegetarian, but not necessarily healthy. I know plenty of people who are vegetarians who are overweight, and when they try to tell me about how healthy their diet is, I ask them about their weight. I figure if they’re bold enough to tell me about their diet when I didn’t ask about it, then all questions are on the table. They tell me that it’s a sign of how healthy their diet is that they weigh so much. They tell me it shows that vegetarians aren’t always thin and sickly: “Those are Vegans.”

Hmmm.

When I posit that it may have to do with the grains and the large amount of fruits with high carbs, I am told that carbs are good for you, that the body and brain use them for energy, that they are necessary for good health, etc. I usually just smile and nod and change the subject because I am non-confrontational about nutrition, especially when discussing it with people who have no interest in actually hearing what I have to say. That’s fine; like I always say, I don’t judge them. Some of these people are very good friends, and I like them a lot. I don’t have to agree with them all the time, nor do I need to harangue them with nutrition info.

Back to the video: it’s stuff like this that adds to the bad information and ultimately, to the obesity epidemic we are currently experiencing. People thinking that eating anything on bread with condiments filled with sugar can somehow be healthy is the root of the problem. I’m not saying everyone should go Paleo, Keto, or do the Adkins diet, but as more and more science is showing, low-carb/high-fat diets are definitely healthier and many of the weight-related health maladies we face can be directly impacted by adopting a LCHF diet.

I should start making my own videos for truly healthy foods. We will see how motivated I am for that.