How Beans Can Change Your Life: A Revolutionary Method for Health, Weight and Blood Sugar Management

By Lars-Erik Litsfedt and Patrik Olsson

A revolutionary approach to health, weight and blood sugar!

Take part in this thrilling journey and discover how you can actually eat more and get a healthier life. The book includes delicious recipes with beans as well as examples of highly effective yet less time consuming training.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9789188429674

Book preview

Medicine

Introduction

Perhaps you have heard of medical studies that have been interrupted prematurely. Perhaps because the medicine you try to prove is very dangerous to those who take it. It would be contrary to good ethics to continue and be almost criminal to wisely and willingly expose subjects to the damage caused by them. Or, a study can be interrupted because the effect is so positive and clear that it would be wrong not to let people access the medicine right away. This could mean saving lives by putting the medicine on the market early. An example is a US study published in 2003 in which colon cancer patients compared efficacious pills on one group and acetylsalicylic acid (like Aspirin) on the other group. The effect was so positive of the acetylsalicylic acid that the study was prematurely terminated.

It’s a bit of what’s applicable to this book as well. A few years ago, Per Wikholm, co-author of, among others, the book, The Ideology and the Money behind the Dietary Advice, began to be interested in something called resistant starch. Apparently, resistant starch could keep down blood sugar. I thought he must have gone totally crazy. Starch is among the last to eat because starch turns into glucose that increases blood sugar and insulin levels in the body. Then you get fat and sick. How would he get that together? The concept resistant starch (RS) sounded like an invention of someone who wanted to invent a cool new diet. An abbreviation to put among everyone else…

It turned out, however, that there is indeed a certain kind of starch, or a kind of fiber if you will, that passes through the digestive process all the way down to the large intestine, without the body is making the starch into sugar. It’s otherwise common for starch, to turn into sugar (glucose).

If we take an ordinary potato as an example, it consists for the most part of two kinds of starch, amylopectin and amylose. The amylopectin is broken up when it is cooked – the potatoes become soft and edible. This means that our own enzymes in the body get access to break down the potatoes to the fuel named glucose. Amylos, on the other hand, is more compact and will not break down from your enzymes. Instead, it goes all the way undamaged to the large intestine where bacteria take care of the breaking down by starting a fermentation. The result of this is that, among other things, butyric acid is formed. We will get into more detail about that later. If you cool the potatoes, the structures are closing back, so a larger percentage of the starch makes it to the large intestine. That way the enzymes can’t make any breaking down of that starch.

Formerly the most discussions were about potato flour which contains very large proportions of resistant starch. To consume potato flour, the easiest way is to mix it down into a glass of water, stir it well and then quickly drink it. Subsequent to that, you are allowed to say Gah! .Potato flour tastes, however, not just more than an ordinary paperhanger’s paste fortunately, but it can feel strange at first to drink this sediment. The effect, according to many, was in any case that the blood sugar remained at a lower level than if the resistant starch was consumed. Potato flour is definitely good as food for intestinal bacteria, but in this book, we also want to promote more regular food that also works and is definitely tastier – such as beans of various kinds.

Since the potato flour-hype my co-writer Patrik Olsson has experimented and achieved such great results that the message had to get out. Certainly, we could have awaited more actual studies, but then, it could take decades, and we do not want to wait for that. Instead, we do like with the Aspirin and share our results prematurely without knowing exactly what is happening in the body. What we do know is that good things are happening. This is by the way not so unique. The most common diabetes medicine, Metformin, is also not known in detail what it does, but it works and that’s the main thing. By contrast, the resistant starch method seems to be, well, as effective as Metformin. Those studies I just mentioned, which we would not wait for, are unlikely to be implemented anyway. Why? Since this method cannot be patented, there is no will from those who usually do research. It is probably more likely that drug manufacturers choose to counteract this method from becoming known. It may very well take market shares from regular drugs. Patrik has been able to drastically reduce his insulin. It’s now not even a tenth of the insulin it used to be when he ate as he should.

When I in 2005 published my first book Fettskrämd (Scared of Fat) I asked at an internet site if they wanted to tell their readers about my book. The site was about diabetes and its treatment and I figured in my virgin view of diabetes treatments that they should clap their hands in joy when they heard about my book. The book described the surprising results that could be obtained if you only did the contrary to what the dieticians said. Strangely enough, they would not write about my book. I didn’t understand. Didn’t they want diabetics to feel good? The book was just about getting diabetics healthier. I had a preface by Professor Lars Werkö, the grand old man of Swedish medicine in the 20th century. I also had an additional preface by diabetes doctor Jörgen Vesti Nielsen, known for a study on diabetics who had tested a mild form of low-carbohydrate diet. Did they not believe me? They hadn’t even read the book.

When I dug down in the site a little more, I discovered that it was run by a company selling equipment and medicines for diabetics. Clearly, they did not want the diabetics to get healthier. I thought, during my naïve period of life, that they would want diabetics to be healthy. But it’s not that easy. Fairly sick is the best. Not healthy and not dead. The health status should be in a medium mode. To eat good food for a disease could make the patient be tangent to real health. That is not a popular state seen from a pharmaceutical manufacturer’s view.

Whatever the manufacturers think, we mean we have now found something that we think may be of use to and benefit to many. Of course, we are prepared for mud throwing, but that can be a proof that we found something that manufacturers don’t like.

What one must remember when reading this book is that all people are made the same. Quite the same, anyway. Or maybe you should say that all people are a little different anyway? What do I mean by this? Well, one (1) model does not suit everyone, but it can still fit many.

To know if it works, you of course have to try it out. If you have problems with high blood sugar and/or too much weight to carry, it might be a good idea to take on the contents of this book. To many it can be the beginning of a new, healthier life. There are amazing examples of it. Maybe you can also become one? It has also been shown that even those who are healthy and with normal weight can shape their body to the extent that a six pack can be seen.

I’m aware that much of what is written in this book might be considered almost crazy. If I read this book a couple of years ago, I would have put a twisting forefinger to my temple while rolling my eyes. But you must be open for new knowledge. I have written books about LCHF for more than a decade and it may be easy to get stuck in what you think are the final facts. It’s called prestige and it’s dangerous if it’s about health. I know professors in this industry who really must have a hard time keeping up their reputations. How would it look if, after decades, you acknowledge that you have given erroneous dietary advice? Sent people into sickness and premature death? It is understandable, yet low, to get stuck in old ideas as modern research and experience show they are incorrect. Luckily, their night’s sleep is not our problem. .

What makes the content of this book unique is that Patrik and his girlfriend have tested their blood sugar continuously. It is not about a blood sugar test, for example, two hours after the meal, but they have been able to see live how the blood sugar curves have been changing. It is to my knowledge the first time such a thing is reported in connection with different types of foods with probiotics and resistant starch. Exciting? Yes.

A few words about the work of the book itself: We have organized it so that it’s me, Lars-Erik, who has done the actual writing of the book. Patrik has done a lot of input and I’ve filled up with what I think I can complement. If there has been a misunderstanding that ended up in the text, it’s entirely my fault. If it says I and it does not appear otherwise, that’s a thought from me.

Now we start.

Lars-Erik

Patrik’s own words about his story

Childhood

The year was 1978, the same year as Björn Borg took his third Wimbledon victory in a row. That is now a long time ago. I was four years old and I got type 1 diabetes that year. This meant that from time to time I had to get insulin via syringes because my own insulin production was too small. The diabetes diagnosis is nothing I remember other than that all my food would be weighed and that I always was hungry. Of course, I also remember the syringes.

A strong memory I have from my childhood is when I was participating in an overnight adventure. I was six years old and I was for the first time going to sleep over without my parents being there. It was a big day when I came to my grandmother and grandfather. I had to promise that I should take my insulin myself - and I did. At that time, you should pull the insulin into a single-use syringe with a coarse needle. It was important that there would be no air in the syringe. I still remember today that I called my mother and yelled that I had done it - I had taken my insulin myself! All involved could breathe freely. That joy and happiness are still in me to this day. It was big. It’s actually my best memory from my young years, how strange it may be - to give yourself a syringe.

During childhood, I encountered both minor and major problems. A memory from preschool is when we were on a field trip to a bakery. We were served soda and cakes. Since I could not eat what they had served, I was allowed to sit in the room next door and wait until everyone had finished.

A dramatic event was when my parents one night woke up by a knocking sound in the wall. I had gone into coma during the night. It was because I had received too much insulin, so my blood sugar had become too low. While waiting for an ambulance, my father held me in his arms and when I lay there he thought I stopped breathing. That I was dead. This story I have been told by my father and these are to me strong stories and memories that I carry with me.

Throughout my career as a diabetic, of course, it has been lots of painful