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‘Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show’ Episode 118: Whatever You Do, Don’t Call Dean Ornish A Low-Fat Vegetarian


Dr. Dean Ornish continues discussing his new book The Spectrum

Today is the fourth and final segment of my interview with low-fat diet activist Dr. Dean Ornish discussing the concepts in his new book The Spectrum: A Scientifically Proven Program to Feel Better, Live Longer, Lose Weight, and Gain Health. In case you missed any of the previous three podcasts featuring the first three parts of my interview with Dr. Ornish, then you can listen to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 right now.

In Episode 118 of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore”, Dr. Ornish and I talk about his diet philosophy where he gets rather angry at me for suggesting that his dietary recommendations are a low-fat, high-carb diet. He repeated asked me to stop characterizing his work as a “low-fat” diet and that he’s tired of compartmentalizing the dietary debate as “low-fat vs. low-carb.” I couldn’t agree more, although the totality of what he wrote in his book is overwhelmingly a low-fat, vegetarian diet. The truth hurts, Dr. Ornish!

Click on the “LISTEN NOW” link below or download Part 4 to your iPod to hear Episode 118:

icon for podpress “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore” Episode 118 [21:33m]: LISTEN NOW | Download

You’ll notice very quickly in this episode that Dr. Ornish was getting a bit testy and didn’t appreciate the questions I was asking him. It was as if he was hoping for another breeze of an interview like the one we did back in October 2006. Nope, not this time. I had to call his bluff when I believed he was wrong, although Dr. Ornish insisted that we don’t disagree on many points. That was a clever tactic he kept using, but I wasn’t buying it and neither was anyone listening.

I’ll be expounding on my post-interview thoughts in a blog post very soon, but for now let’s just say it was good to see that we at least could come together to talk about a very real difference ideas without resorting to needless name calling or disparaging remarks. You could tell at the conclusion of the interview that Dr. Ornish appreciates the work I am doing and acknowledged it as much in his closing remarks. I appreciate and respect that he sees the positive of what I do despite his disagreements with what I share.

Check out the latest info from top health experts anytime by:

1. Listening at the official web site
2. Calling (818) 688-2763 to listen via Podlinez
3. Subscribing to the RSS feed
4. Going to iTunes–Click here to subscribe!

My interview with Dr. Dean Ornish is finished now, so please share your comments in the show notes section of Part 4 in Episode 118 to compile what you think about Dr. Ornish and his new book The Spectrum. Was there anything I forgot to ask him about? What did you like best about the interview? Is there anything I could have done to make it even better? Please share your thoughts!

As I previously stated, I will be writing a blog post in the next few days with my thoughts about this Ornish interview. I certainly give him credit for being willing to speak with somebody like me because he didn’t have to talk to me at all. But he came to me requesting the interview and I was grateful for the opportunity to share about his new book and his attempt to continue forging that “common ground” with low-carbers. Although he’s still got a long way to go, it’s an important first step.

We’ll be keeping the lines of communication open for future opportunities to interview Dr. Dean Ornish and any other low-fat diet supporters who want to appear on my podcast show. Hopefully I’ve shown that we can disagree without being disagreeable and that an open and honest debate of ideas is always welcomed for better understanding of diet, health and nutrition. THANKS for listening and we’ll be back again on Monday with another episode of “The Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Show with Jimmy Moore.”

March 6th, 2008 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Category: Uncategorized
  • Dave

    Ornish’s own site on WebMD characterizes the diet as low-fat. See this link:

    http://www.webmd.com/content/pages/9/3068_9408.htm

  • Jimmy Moore

    Of course it’s a low-fat diet. Just look at the Group 1 list of foods and that’s all you see compared with Group 5 which is mostly the healthy fatty meats he believes are “least healthy.” It’s a bit disingenuous for him to get upset at me for calling a spade a spade.

  • Dave

    Yeah, and his site explicitly uses the term “low-fat” in several places.

    At least he recommends full-fat soy ;-{

  • Arlo

    I have a bunch of unsorted mp3′s of your podcasts and I was listening to the one that was a Part 1, where he asked you to ask challenging questions.

    I had to laugh… how could you ask any questions? He spoke the entire time and wouldn’t let you!

    Loves the sound of his own voice, I guess?

  • Jeff

    My aunt lost 40 lbs on a low fat diet…..gained it all back + a couple. I will stick to low carb thank you.

  • Jimmy Moore

    I lost 170 pounds on a low-fat diet in 1999, but gained it all back within four months because I was sick of how it made me feel (especially the hunger!).

  • quotidianlight

    I tried low fat a couple time but couldn’t make it a month! even as a vegetarian I ate a lot of olive oils etc because it made me feel better (kids are so smart if we leave them alone), the minute I “grew up” and learned, “fat was bad” I felt cruddy, got stressed and put on weight for the first time in my life! BTW, I became a veggie because I thought it was healthiest but I feel much better eating meat. If I became a veggie for ethical reasons I think I would have to do a lot of supplementing with various oils to feel as good as I do now. Even some of my food allergies are clearing up though the worst will probably never budge.

  • Tom Bunnell (TB)–TB

    Carbohydrate addiction seems to get lost in all this. — That and the carbohydrate addicts pushing ‘there way’ like Dr. Ornish is doing. They will fight to the death for there carbohydrates addictions. That, and with a full contingent of hundreds of millions of other carbohydrate addicts cheering them on. — We did the same thing when we were carbohydrate addicts and we didn’t know any better so we should be able to see and understand this plainly.

    There’s not a lot of choice with carbohydrate addiction. It’s either eat fat and protein with your carbohydrates or just mostly ‘protein with your carbohydrates’ or there’s ‘just carbohydrates all by themselves like the vegetarians do.

    NOW, choosing the NOT-addicted to carbohydrate approach like we are doing, and you will be forever hungry and suffering if you don’t add plenty of fat to your diet.(But fat is BAD! What to do!)

    Then there is the actual ‘ketosis factor’ with the ‘NOT-carbohydrate addicted persons’ approach to eating for life, which is what we are doing. — If we are fat, then keytosis kicks in and removes the fat even though we are eating lots of calories and protein and fat to go with it. Everybody associates ‘starvation ketosis’ with the ‘we are to fat ketosis’ which is entirely different than ‘fat removing ketosis’ but few people know that so they get these all wacky readings thinking about carbs and ‘starvation ketosis’ and then they throw in the HDL and LDL cholesterol factors and triglycerides and blood sugar factors into this hopper, along with the ‘supposedly’ GOOD carbohydrates and of course ketosis which is ‘bad’ ‘starvation ketosis’, which it isn’t but they don’t know that so they have to throw that out, and everybody ends up thoroughly confused like we are right this moment!

    No small wonder that Dr. Ornish is so completely dizzied by all this. — If he could understand ‘fat burning ketosis’ rather than ‘starvation ketosis’ and then if he could understand ‘actual’ GOOD HDL/ LDL cholesterol and ‘actual’ BAD HDL/LDL cholesterol, which is another thoroughly controversial subject in this age, then he might be able to get a grip on this. — It stands to reason that if you want to lose weight AND maintain your carbohydrate addiction that you have to cut the fat. — For we who choose to not be carbohydrate addicted, understanding the relationship between good fat and good protein and the few good carbohydrates that exist on this earth(rather than ‘all processed carbohydrates being bad’ and ‘all NOT processed or refined carbohydrates being good’.. — Not man-bred ‘sugar factory’ carbohydrates but the real, actual, GOOD, natures, carbohydrates,(the ones which there are very few of and the ones that are are so hard to find). Herein lies the key to weight loss as well as health!

  • Ulf

    The funniest thing about a low fat, high carb diet is that is in fact a high fat diet if you actually think about it!

    The carbs you don’t burn at once will be stored as body fat, so you might as well eat more fats to begin with and skip some carbs. That way, you’ll avoid high blood sugar, insulin rushes and so on.

    Fats like butter and cream provide satiety, as well as fat soluble vitamins. Carbs might be transformed into fat by the body chemistry, but since carbs use other metabolic pathways they don’t satisfy like fats. And of course you won’t get important vitamins like A and D.

    Eating loads of carbs will only make you store fat, get hungry and cranky… But you know that already.

  • Jimmy Moore

    THANKS ulf! Interesting point to ponder…you’re EXACTLY right! :)

  • Ulf

    Thanks jimmy!

    I guess it all boils down to the fact that our bodies want fats (and proteins of course, but we’re concentrating on fats now) and if we don’t get it from our diets we will manufacture what we can ourselves.

    Why else would there be systems in place to produce fats from carbs, or why would breast milk be so fatty?

    The more I learn about nutrition, the more convinced I get that natural fats are incredibly important. Good fats provide energy, essential vitamins, are antimicrobial and to top it off, they are delicious! ;)