Patrick Holford tells Sylvia Thompson the "Optimum" diet has many elements of GI but with some key differences.
Patrick Holford is one of a current set of nutritionists whose popularity and consumer appeal have made them into modern day health gurus. So fashionable is the view that "you are what you eat" that the public's appetite for nutritional advice is insatiable.
Holford regularly visits cities throughout Britain and Ireland, spreading his message of the importance of certain foods - and how one will only achieve so-called "optimum nutrition" by supplementing an already healthy diet with an array of vitamin and mineral supplements.
At a recent seminar in Dublin, Holford spread his nutritional message with the zeal of a preacher, peppering his talk with personal anecdotes and research studies. "True freedom comes from understanding the nature of the organism and working with the body. Optimum Nutrition is the science of understanding and respecting the body," he told his audience of over 200 people. "Modern man is not a naked ape but a knackered ape."
Holford is the founder of the London based Institute for Optimum Nutrition which has trained approximately 1,000 nutritionists since it was set up in 1984. He is also the author of a number of books including The Optimum Nutrition Bible (Piatkus) and most recently, The Holford Diet (Piatkus). In the latter, he explains how the Atkins Diet and the GI (Glycaemic Index) Diet don't give the full picture of how to lose weight and maintain a healthy weight for life without food cravings.
"There is absolutely no need to avoid or to massively restrict carbohydrates to lose weight, provided you are eating the low GL (Glycaemic Load) kind plus protein," he writes.
In a somewhat similar approach of the advocates of the GI diet, Holford suggests those keen to lose weight should eat no more than 40 GL of carbohydrate foods a day.
And, he offers plenty of recipes and food choices in his book to achieve this. Also, he offers a very simple method for getting a fairly good balance of protein, fat and carbohydrates in a meal by suggesting half your plate should be filled with vegetables, one quarter with the protein food (chicken, fish, etc) and one quarter with the carbohydrate food (eg rice, potatoes, pasta, etc).
A firm supporter of the value of wholefoods (low GI or GL foods, if you like) and where possible raw food, Holford proclaims that the more fruit and vegetables, oily fish, seeds and nuts we eat the better. "Sugar should be taxed. Good foods should be less expensive and bad foods more expensive," he suggests. He also argues that a number of coeliacs go undiagnosed and that dairy foods are the single most common food group which cause allergies.
A vegetarian for 27 years (he's now 46), Holford tells his audience that he eats fish three times a week and eats six eggs every week. He also claims to eat a tablespoon of ground seeds (linseed, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds) daily. He is also allergic to dairy products which might explain some of his antipathy towards them.
In the last few years, Holford - who originally trained as a psychologist - has developed his nutritional theories further by proclaiming that diet has a strong role to play in the prevention of such conditions as Alzheimer's disease and in the treatment of schizophrenia, depression and other mental health problems.
To this end, he has been involved in the establishment of the Brain Bio Centre, a British mental health project which tests mentally ill patients for food intolerances. "At present, you can go for drug therapy from a psychiatrist or talk therapy from a psychologist, but there should be a third way; looking at a person's nutrition," said Holford in a previous interview.
However, one of the biggest problems with Holford and his ilk is that the general public rarely grasp the full nutritional picture and often start by leaving out foods he declares to be detrimental to health (eg he believes that too many dairy products aren't good for us and that all dairy products should be eliminated from the diets of those diagnosed with hormonal cancers such as breast and prostate cancer) without replacing them with foods with similar nutritional content.
Holford's personal charisma and healthy looks also prove alluring to those who will willingly buy supplements as a fast-track approach to health.
Only a minority will study the finer details and get advice from trained nutritionists or dieticians on how to adapt such nutritional advice to their individual lifestyle, taking into account their particular mix of genetic and environmental risk factors.
However, that said, we can all benefit from many of Holford's general nutritional tips and here's a few to get you started - some of which you may already be familiar with: Eat less fatty meats and more fish and vegetable protein. Eat your greens. Have a clove of garlic a day. Cut back on tea and coffee. Don't add salt to your food. Limit your intake of alcohol. Reduce your stress and oh yes, if you're a smoker, quit.
Patrick Holford is giving a lecture on Optimum Nutrition, followed by a Q&A session at the Convergence Festival in Dublin on Friday, April 22nd (7.30pm) at Cultivate Centre for Sustainable Living and Learning, Temple Bar, Dublin. Admission: €20.Tickets and information: Tel 01-674-5773. E-mail: convergence@sustainable.ie Web: www.sustainable.ie/convergence/7