“HOSPITAL FOOD IS CRAP AND IT’S KILLING MY PATIENTS – AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT!” Dr Gary Fettke No Fructose
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I do HOPE the media have the guts and compassion to tackle this story as they have the power to create awareness and change and ask the health minister why they continue to feed rubbish to patients in hospital? We are ready to work with them on creating a menu plan to help that would be affordable to implement (any hospitals wanting to take this on please contact Gary or myself). We will be launching a major public campaign next year and will be asking for all your help (over half a million on here already!)
CALL TO ACTION – If you are a doctor, surgeon, nurse, naturopath, dietitian or nutritionist then please tag, comment and share with your tribe of professionals.
Today we are joined by Dr Gary Fettke – a brilliant man on a mission to save lives and is not afraid to stand strong (we have a bit in common with that…love you brother xo)
Gary wears several hats from Orthopaedic Surgeon to cancer survivor to now nutritionist. He is the guy chopping ‘up and off’ diabetic feet in Northern Tasmania and is actively involved in trying to change hospital food options!
He and his team have recently opened up the Diabetes & Health Research Centre which provides the Low Carb Healthy Fat dietary advice. Opposite to that of the Diabetes Australia, the Heart Foundation and the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA). He has 3 fully qualified ladies on the team that have come to him as they could not work under the ‘guidelines’. Our senior dietitian is a full member of the DAA and working on evidence based options. The centre has been going for just over 3 months and is the first of its type in Australia. Our Skype service is being taken up around Australia and New Zealand.
As Gary points out, ‘Traditional’ medical education takes a long time to get to the people. Idea – proof – 10 years for the medical profession to take it up and then 10 – 15 years for the population to understand.
He also points out that Paleo /LCHF is reversing that. The population are working out that food is behind a lot of modern illness. They are working out that Just Eating Real Food (JERF) improves your health (and weight) and are now going back to the medical profession and questioning them about Paleo/LCHF. This is prompting more research. This phenomenon is clearly underway in Launceston with more people attending the LCHF seminar than Sydney and Melbourne combined. We have more doctors coming on board here all the time. There is evolutionary proof that Paleo/LCHF works, otherwise we would not be here. There is a lot of recent science that is now putting that together. There is flawed science around supporting the concept of processed food.
It is my great pleasure to hand you over to Dr Gary to share his story for you all, and I have to say it is the brave individuals like Gary that inspire and motivate me to be the best I can….thanks mate, now, go knock their socks off!
By Dr Gary Fettke
Hospital food is crap and it’s killing my patients – and what to do about it!
Pete Evans and I are on the same journey. Let’s get back to eating real food now, and not wait for governments and bureaucracy to meander along that path. That will be just too late.
Our pregnant mothers are obese, our babies are sick, our children are allergic, our cancer rates are soaring, mental health problems are skyrocketing and the vast majority of chronic diseases are out of control. Our health systems here and across the world, developed and developing, are struggling and succumbing.
We have a lifelong exposure to inflammation and it is making us sick and our modern food diet is responsible.
The combination and amount of sugar, refined carbohydrates and polyunsaturated seed oils create inflammation in every cell membrane in the body and that inflammation is probably there at the origins of life, in our growing embryos and our growing children. It is a lifelong exposure and we are no longer dying old – we are dying sick.
I do my foreign aid work and with the introduction of western food there follows the problems of western modern disease. The common link across the planet is processed food. That ends up being sugar, refined carbohydrate and polyunsaturated seed oils. Throw in a bucket load of chemicals and there we have it – modern disease on a platter.
We have to look at the bigger picture from a different perspective on the big picture. And we need to do that right now.
The whole ‘nutrition’ thing never made sense to me – low fat, calorie counting, pushing ourselves to exercise more and more. How can you ‘eat healthy’ when everything is processed, it just doesn’t make sense. More and more people are realising this hypocrisy. There is a growing momentum about eating real food.
This has led to my stand against our institutionalised guidelines on nutrition. A low fat and high carbohydrate diet just doesn’t make sense.
The concept of a Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat (LCHF) lifestyle choice works and does make sense. It is based on the way we evolved on this planet. It is about eating local, seasonal and natural ‘Real Food’. The health benefits are so obvious and I feel it’s important to share that information with my patients.
I have fought against my food cravings for nearly 5 decades, and now I have control. I understand the ‘why’ of hunger and the ‘how’ of taking back control of my eating and ‘now’ of my health. It’s time to do the right thing and pay it forward.
For all of those people who are trying to lose weight and gain better control of their health, then LCHF is a more natural way of living, it is about taking back control and it’s about doing it without buying supplements. The concept of JERF (Just Eat Real Food) is going viral.
I cop some criticism that I am an Orthopaedic Surgeon and what would I know about nutrition. I am a doctor first and that requires a sound understanding of nutrition. Every day I treat patients with the complications of their lifestyle related diseases. Nutrition is behind virtually all of these. Rather than tell people to just go away and lose weight I have been looking at this topic for over 40 years.
I have been advising patients about their weight and lifestyle choices for my entire professional career. I have taken some strong stands on this in the past and had to defend my position on many occasions.
I have refused to do major elective surgery on smokers for more than 20 years. That is now ‘accepted’ by society for the known increased risks associated with smoking – but 20 years ago I was seen as a renegade. I would prefer to consider myself as an ‘early adopter’.
For nearly 10 years I have been refusing to do elective joint replacement, and particularly knee replacement on patients that are too heavy (BMI > 35). I have presented on that topic nationally to Orthopaedic Surgeons and told them what I think about ‘them’. The literature is fairly compelling backing my position on this stance.
I was a fat kid, before it was the norm. My mother had me on diet after diet as a child. I was not obese by today’s standards but I struggled with my weight control. Teenage years allowed me some control with sport 7 days a week (and I now have arthritic hips).
Tragically for a 16 year old, my mother died of cancer which drove me down a reckless path for some time but it also led me to venting my frustrations in sport and ultimately choosing a career path of medicine and then Orthopaedic Surgery.
I met Belinda early on as a medical student and she puts in to words my/our story far better than me. http://bphotography.net.au/dont-shoot-the-messenger/
I developed my patient hand out in 2012. So many people wanted more information about nutrition and then the education website www.NoFructose.com was born. Social media was thrust upon me by my wife Belinda as a method of communicating my message to a wider audience.
Social media platforms are powerful tools for promoting a message to interested people. It is a way of getting around the establishment. Waiting for the government and an inert medical profession to change guidelines that have roots in vested interest will take an eternity. The internet is allowing the individual to question the origin of information and if it does not make sense, then it probably does not make sense!
There is a real need for individualised advice on how to turn your health around via nutrition. I have been fortunate to now work with a dedicated group of women who have that same sense of urgency and have founded the Nutrition for Life – Diabetes & Health Research Centre here in Launceston. www.DiabetesHealthCentre.com.au It is the first of its kind in Australia offering specific Low Carb Healthy Fat (LCHF) dietary advice by fully qualified staff.
The ability to help our local community and provide an outreach service across Australia via Skype has been one of our primary aims.
Most of our clients are looking to improve their health and weight issues but an increasing number of Diabetic patients are working out that the ONLY way to manage their diabetes, their glucose intolerance, is to restrict their carbohydrate. That means LCHF. That means better control of blood glucose and less medication. That means less complications. It just makes sense. It is the right thing to do.
I get goose bumps every time I see a Diabetic patient whop ‘gets it’, understanding the concept and seeing the benefit of cutting back on their carbohydrate intake and increasing the alternative fuel source of healthy fats.
We have limited health resources in Australia and around the world. We need to use them wisely and reconsider the options. Medicine is incredibly reactive and we are wasting money and resources chasing the complications of lifestyle related disease. Going back to look at our nutrition and educating people of its importance is the only way forward. It is the only cost effective option but it requires institutional change. I can’t wait for that and this revolution led by the people and spreading by the internet and social media is having an effect.
Our hospitals and health systems need to change direction. They need to set an example of ‘best practice’ rather than just treating the complications of lifestyle related disease. Hospital food is one of my big concerns.
I have been working to try and change the hospital food environment. Like the schools, we need to set an example for the population. Leading by example is good leadership. The hospital system fails to do that.
Hospital food is sugar and carbohydrate laden and cooked in seed oils. Ridiculous portions of sugar laden food and drink are being encouraged and junk food is being sold in kiosks, cafeterias, vending machines and on the wards under the guise of ‘fund raising’. It sets the worst case example of how not to eat if we are trying to improve our health.
The hospitals will respond to you, the people, writing in and putting in constructive complaints about the food. You can request LCHF in hospital and then complain when it is not available.
You can request and be given Halal or Kosher food in hospital based on non-scientific religious grounds. The same goes with Vegan and Vegetarian options, again non-scientific. Try asking for Low Carb options and you are seen as an alien. Try and point out the science and the administration don’t listen. It is frustrating to the point of despair.
The way forward is to make a noise, rally the people and start asking questions when you have to go to hospital.
Put in your requests for Low Carb Healthy Fat foods and explain your reasons why. If they do not cater for you then write a letter to the hospital administration. They just love letters like that. We can make a change but it requires lots of individual stories. Pete Evans and I are just two voices trying to make a difference.
When you see the benefits up close for so many people it is impossible to not keep going. That’s why so many of us are on this journey. Come along for the best ride of your new ‘healthy’ life.
The pen is mightier than the sword. The word is mightier than the scalpel.
Dr Gary Fettke has a say at www.NoFructose.com, is on Facebook at Gary Fettke No Fructose, Twitter on FructoseNo and Instagram @thegaryscience.
If you need 1 on 1 LCHF nutritional advice from the fully qualified ‘Nutrition for Life’ team then contact them at www.DiabetesHealthCentre.com.au or via Skype at the website.
Well said Gary! We love you mate, Gary also has released a wonder filled book titled “Inversion” which really gives you a different perspective on life…recommended reading!
FOR INTRO
Dr Gary Fettke
M.B.,B.S.(University NSW), F.R.A.C.S.(Orthopaedic Surgery), F.A.Orth.A.
Gary is an Orthopaedic Surgeon actively practising in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. He is amongst other things, trying to improve hospital food. If more people attending hospital requested Low Carbohydrate Healthy Fat (LCHF) options, then the hospital system will respond.
It just requires everyone going to hospital to ‘put pen to paper’. Start writing… please.
Gary is confronted on a daily basis with the bone and joint complications of obesity, diabetes and lifestyle related disease. His research has led him to develop the ‘Nutritional Model of Modern Disease’ based around the concept of the combined effects of sugar, refined carbohydrate and polyunsaturated seed oils.
A ‘Nutritional’ Model of Inflammation and Modern Disease
Gary has created the website www.NoFructose.com and has lectured nationally and internationally on the topic.
He is one of 12 speakers at the upcoming World Summit in Cape Town, South Africa by Professor Tim Noakes. Gary is the only Australian doctor invited to speak and will be covering the topics of Cancer and Modern Disease. https://www.lowcarbhighfatexperts.com/home.html
2014 saw the founding of the Diabetes & Health Research Centre in Launceston. It is the first of its type for Australia. The team of Dietitians and Nutritionists promote an individualised lifestyle programme of Low Carbohydrate and Healthy Fat (LCHF) eating. LCHF is closely aligned with a Paleo lifestyle.
The team work with people either directly or by Skype consultation and are having success stories every day, as you would expect with LCHF being promoted. www.DiabetesHealthCentre.com.au
He has a longstanding interest in the preventative aspects of health outcome and particularly before operating on patients.