The latest panic surrounding the COVID-19 virus, commonly known as corona virus has reached new heights of hilarity, although this seems to be turning into more of a tragedy and a farce.
Towards the end of February 2020 there were a few posts on social media showing journalists taking all the food off of shelves in a supermarket and taking photos of the empty shelves with some pretty wild stories of panic in the streets. This was a great way of exposing how ridiculous the situation was getting.Within a few days though, enterprising journalists were doing just that. Pictures and stories of empty shelves became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the pictures that made me laugh were the bread shelves being empty (used to happen daily in Thailand), reports of rice and pasta selling out, lots of other creative takes on the facts. Not surprisingly with all those carbs being bought up there was also a toilet paper shortage. Wrong on so many levels, but this is what we have trained ourselves to do. If your lives haven't got a problem, it seems you need to make one (after living in Thailand for 4 years and not having to use toilet paper until I returned to the 'dry' cubicles of a 'developed' world I am aware of another self-inflicted problem).
So, here comes my LCHF spin. One of the photos I saw showed fridges empty of milk but full of butter and cheese (well, it was 'plastic' cheese so I can kind of understand that). On the empty rice and pasta shelves were lots of bottles of oil. It looked to me like the carb addicts had prepped for their insulin highs.
Being 'keto adapted' means that your body has become better at using ketones for a fuel source. Without going into the whole AMPK thing and fatty acid oxidation, just know that fat has twice as many calories as carbs or protein. It's also part the reason why the hunters in paleolithic times (and even in some remote tribes today) would eat the fats of animals and leave the meat and potatoes, so to speak, for the women who were holding the fort back in the village.
The scare at the moment seems to be of the inevitable. Nobody wants to catch this virus. The reality seems that pretty much everyone will get it in some form. It could probably be something like herpes virus that we all get at some stage and the body just has individual symptoms. Maybe not the best example if you are looking at death rates, but still valid to show the predicted spread. The death rate from those infected is pretty small, although it is still there.
If our immune systems can fight the virus, we don't need to find a 'cure'. Those with weak immune systems will benefit greatly from a specific cure. Although countries such as Thailand managed to create innovative ways to stop the virus causing death, a specific 'cure' has not been marketed as I write this. A mixture of drugs has been shown to contain and stop the virus from causing death. The other factors we need to look at are the body's own immune system that has kept us safe as we have evolved. Something that might help this is being keto adapted. Meaning your body runs on fats for fuel rather than just constantly trying to burn sugars.
This article from a few months ago shows how keto could help fight the flu.
To knock yourself out of ketosis you need to eat a high amount of carbs again (rice and pasta). This can also suppress the immune system (this article is not going into the effects of autophagy and AMPK/mTor systems). Carbs offer a very short term food spike, in times of famine we will naturally go into fat burning mode. Those who are already adapted to keto and fasting will find it a more pleasant experience than those who have been living on insulin highs for most of their lives.
This could be a great time to start learning to live on less meals and more densely nutrient food. Learning to feed our gut biome and create a good relationship between ourselves and the food we eat is also important. Try time restricted eating to see if you can break the addiction to food. Most importantly try to stay calm in the face of adversity, take precautions but try not to succumb to mindless panic. Oh, and it might be time to invest in a bidet of some sort.
Stay Healthy!
Alana Harris
Towards the end of February 2020 there were a few posts on social media showing journalists taking all the food off of shelves in a supermarket and taking photos of the empty shelves with some pretty wild stories of panic in the streets. This was a great way of exposing how ridiculous the situation was getting.Within a few days though, enterprising journalists were doing just that. Pictures and stories of empty shelves became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
One of the pictures that made me laugh were the bread shelves being empty (used to happen daily in Thailand), reports of rice and pasta selling out, lots of other creative takes on the facts. Not surprisingly with all those carbs being bought up there was also a toilet paper shortage. Wrong on so many levels, but this is what we have trained ourselves to do. If your lives haven't got a problem, it seems you need to make one (after living in Thailand for 4 years and not having to use toilet paper until I returned to the 'dry' cubicles of a 'developed' world I am aware of another self-inflicted problem).
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| Lots of chesse... |
So, here comes my LCHF spin. One of the photos I saw showed fridges empty of milk but full of butter and cheese (well, it was 'plastic' cheese so I can kind of understand that). On the empty rice and pasta shelves were lots of bottles of oil. It looked to me like the carb addicts had prepped for their insulin highs.
Being 'keto adapted' means that your body has become better at using ketones for a fuel source. Without going into the whole AMPK thing and fatty acid oxidation, just know that fat has twice as many calories as carbs or protein. It's also part the reason why the hunters in paleolithic times (and even in some remote tribes today) would eat the fats of animals and leave the meat and potatoes, so to speak, for the women who were holding the fort back in the village.
The scare at the moment seems to be of the inevitable. Nobody wants to catch this virus. The reality seems that pretty much everyone will get it in some form. It could probably be something like herpes virus that we all get at some stage and the body just has individual symptoms. Maybe not the best example if you are looking at death rates, but still valid to show the predicted spread. The death rate from those infected is pretty small, although it is still there.
If our immune systems can fight the virus, we don't need to find a 'cure'. Those with weak immune systems will benefit greatly from a specific cure. Although countries such as Thailand managed to create innovative ways to stop the virus causing death, a specific 'cure' has not been marketed as I write this. A mixture of drugs has been shown to contain and stop the virus from causing death. The other factors we need to look at are the body's own immune system that has kept us safe as we have evolved. Something that might help this is being keto adapted. Meaning your body runs on fats for fuel rather than just constantly trying to burn sugars.
This article from a few months ago shows how keto could help fight the flu.
To knock yourself out of ketosis you need to eat a high amount of carbs again (rice and pasta). This can also suppress the immune system (this article is not going into the effects of autophagy and AMPK/mTor systems). Carbs offer a very short term food spike, in times of famine we will naturally go into fat burning mode. Those who are already adapted to keto and fasting will find it a more pleasant experience than those who have been living on insulin highs for most of their lives.
This could be a great time to start learning to live on less meals and more densely nutrient food. Learning to feed our gut biome and create a good relationship between ourselves and the food we eat is also important. Try time restricted eating to see if you can break the addiction to food. Most importantly try to stay calm in the face of adversity, take precautions but try not to succumb to mindless panic. Oh, and it might be time to invest in a bidet of some sort.
Stay Healthy!
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