The South Beach Diet

The Danger Of Ketosis Generated By South Beach Diet Phase One

By Joel Fuhrman M.D.


A typical South Beach diet breakfast is two eggs and “lean bacon.”  Meat and cheese are allowed at every meal.  Yet Agatston claims his diet is better than Atkins because the Atkin’s diet is too high in saturated fats.  I wonder if Agatston really knows how much saturated fat is in “low fat” cheese and lean bacon?  

Lean bacon usually contains even more sodium than salt-rich regular bacon and is still high in saturated fat. Swift Premium Sizzling (lean bacon) has 3 grams of sat fat/strip and 230 mg of sodium per strip, Typical bacon contains 5 grams/ strip.  While Agatson mentions the value of eating less saturated fat, most of his menus contain over 20 grams of saturated fat daily and are also high in sodium.  These are menus very high in saturated fat, completely contrary to the recommendations of the American Heart Association.

Phase 2 is similar to the Zone or Sugar Busters as Agatson allows the addition of some fruit and beans to the diet that still gets over 60 percent of calories from animal products.   Then you may move into Phase 3 which essentially lets you eat almost anything you want, but when you start gaining weight again he instructs you to bounce back to phase 1 again.  Wow, hard to believe people fall for this.

No diet can promote consuming animal products three times a day, at every meal and claim to be healthy.  That is precisely the formula that begets 55% of our population dying of heart attacks and strokes and another 30% getting cancer. 

The world’s health experts are in agreement, in a March 2003 report from the World Health Organization compiling the evidence and opinion of the world’s foremost nutritional experts, concluded that the consumption of foods like oil, meat and cheese, the staples of the South Beach Diet, promote heart disease and cancer, and that fruits vegetables, beans, and nuts protect against premature death.  continue reading...