Q&A with Grant Schofield
How Not to Get Cancer When Eating Out
Grant Schofield, professor of Public Health at AUT and director of the University’s Human Potential Centre, has focused on preventing the diseases of modern times over his career and written about the ultimate low-carb healthy-fat lifestyle in his books, What The Fat and What The Fast.
What’s the main thing to look out for when eating out and ordering things cooked in fat?
Be prepared to ask what is in the food and to have anything removed. If you don’t want sugar and carbs tell them – you are the one paying. If they cannot deal with that then eat out somewhere else. Low carb/keto is not new now.
We’ve heard diabetes is now being dubbed “the processed food disease”, what’s your take on this?
That’s a good way of thinking about it. Processed food of all sorts – refined seed oils, refined carbs, sugar – all cause insulin resistance and then hyperinsulinemia, which causes diabetes. If we stuck with the ‘low human interference’ factor, then we’d have much less diabetes as a society.
Some argue against eating high fat. Can eating too many fats cause problems in your body?
High fat with high carbs is a problem, it comes down to calories. In a low-carb healthy-fat diet the metabolic (hormonal) signalling form insulin and leptin will function properly, and you will stop eating when full. So low carb/keto is a licence to ‘eat until full’ and to stop there. It’s not a free for all on the fat.
Would you say intermittent fasting is a good way to assist with rebuilding cells and keeping cancer at bay?
Yes. The metabolic environment (glucose, insulin, IGF-1, inflammation) are all associated with increased odds of getting cancer in the first place, and in the second instance, reducing survival rate. Any diet which can reduce all of these markers is likely to be preventive in cancer.