A blogger (who’s also a medical doctor*) decided to give Professor Tim Noakes’ “banting” eating style a try, to challenge her own ideas about food and weight. Most importantly, she wanted to see whether cash-strapped South Africans could actually afford to eat this way, or whether it’s only possible for the small percentage of people living on a fillet steak and Norwegian salmon budget.
In short, here’s what she found out about the effects of banting: Her cravings for sweet things disappeared, she no longer had dips in energy after eating, and she managed to lose 1.7kg!
The Budget
The second part of the challenge was to see how far R150 per week would go on proper banting food – let’s see how she did:
Weekly shopping list:
- 2kg chicken pieces (R44.99)
- 24 eggs (27.99)
- 1 litre long-life, full-cream milk (R8.99)
- 500g butter (R29.99)
- 24 teabags (R4.99)
- 1 packet (5 small) sweet potatoes (R12.99)
- 1 large unpeeled cabbage (10.99)
- 2 onions (R4.52)
- 3 green chillies (R1.02)
- 1 small clove of garlic (R2.38)
According to the blogger: “Regardless of diet choice, surviving on R150 a week is difficult and requires planning, innovation and consciousness about wastage. I used to throw out food past its sell-by date or that wasn’t looking as fresh as when I bought it. Now I re-use tea bags and keep potato peels for meals and snacks”.
So, it turns out that the LCHF eating plan doesn’t have to be all Norwegian salmon and fillet steak.
It’s important to note that the diet above was only a short experiment, and isn’t a fully balanced diet. Yellow vegetables which contain essential keratin are missing, as are oily fish like pilchards, dark green leafy vegetables and sources of vitamin C.
* Doctor’s name withheld upon request.
Source: iol.co.za