In 1977 America changed its health advice. In a nutshell (or, more likely, an ADA approved Mars bar): Eat more starchy foods, eat more carbohydrates, saturated fats are bad. If that sounds [...]]]> I cannot believe I’m about to link to the Huffington Post, but this article really gets to the meat of the so-called obesity epidemic.

In 1977 America changed its health advice. In a nutshell (or, more likely, an ADA approved Mars bar): Eat more starchy foods, eat more carbohydrates, saturated fats are bad. If that sounds like pretty good advice to you, then you don’t know enough about what you are putting into your mouth.

Your grandparents were raised in a generation aware that God’s supermarket was better than man’s. Saturated fat was a vital part of their diet. For them, obesity was not a common health problem. They were not suffering malnutrition in the fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K). Remarkably, you, dear Western reader, probably are.

The 2010 Dietary recommendations are very much simply “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” It is total insanity.

I think the biggest danger out there is the foods with a health halo – too many people, even supposedly smart Whole Foods shoppers – fall for the idea that processed foods, if it fits their particular orthorexia, are healthy. Evaporated cane juice and agave nectar are *still* sugar. You might as well feed your kids HFCS for all the difference it makes. Most fat-reduced dairy products are full of additives that, let’s face it, you don’t even KNOW WHAT THEY ARE! But if Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods is selling it, you trust them that is must be OK.

Don’t even get me started on the gluten-free junk food revolution. It’s going to be the next giant money maker for the processed food industry.

I think I need one of those “bang head here” signs on the wall today.

The first step to [...]]]> One of the big excuses that I see people make when it comes to eating “clean”, whether that’s paleo or an elimination or rotation diet is that they can’t afford to buy organic food or grass-fed meat. Somehow, they think that if they can’t do that, they can’t do the program.

The first step to getting better meat is cutting antibiotics and hormones. This is not necessarily organic, but it’s one heck of a lot better. Watch for sales on the natural or organic meats. Figure out when your grocery store marks down stuff in the meat case – mine usually does it on Tuesday. Cook it or freeze it immediately, and you’ll save some money.

If you can’t manage naturally produced or organic, buy the lean cuts and add healthy fats yourself. Much of the toxins are accumulated in fat, and in CAFO meat, the fat has a lot of Omega-6, which is not something anyone needs more of in their diet. Buy a crock pot, and learn to use marinades to tenderize and flavor your meat.

In some cases, it’s really not necessary to buy organic at all, and even if you can’t afford *any* organic veggies or fruits, you’re better off with conventional foods than using money as an excuse for eating a lousy diet.

Some foods *are* likely to be contaminated, and you will get a benefit from buying organic. You might find that frozen versions of organic foods are cheaper and will not make much difference in the eating. If you’re throwing berries in a shake or smoothie, why buy fresh at all? If you’re cooking your dark leafy veggies anyway, buy them frozen. Organic carrots are just pennies more than conventional where I shop – literally 1 cent per pound more.

Watch for sales, and try to buy in season. Squash tend to be really expensive when they are out of season, as are fresh tomatoes. Try to buy first and plan your meals based on what you’ve got. I’ve found that farmer’s markets are not always cheaper, but the food is always fresher. Learn when your favorite foods are available and buy them then.

To most of you, I’m sure this seems like common sense, but I think people who are resisting change just don’t think things through.

Speaking of farmer’s markets, they are a great place to buy eggs. Small-scale production of eggs is fairly easy, so you can buy them in many places. What you want are chickens that actually eat what they want – generally referred to as pastured since the free-range term has become a bit poisoned. “Vegetarian fed” is not better. Chickens are omnivores, and they pick over dirt to find bugs. All chickens are supplemented with grain, but whether that grain is organic or not is not that big of a deal. Ask the folks selling their eggs where their chickens live and if they are allowed free access to grass. I typically pay $3 per dozen for non-organic feed, naturally raised chickens that spend their days on pasture. I’ve heard that if you demand organic feed, the eggs cost twice that in the DC area farmer’s markets.

If you can’t find local eggs, get the Omega-3 eggs that are raised without hormones or antibiotics. The color of the shell does not matter – that’s just about the chicken breed – and white is almost always cheaper. White, naturally raised (not organic) Omega-3 eggs go for $2.50 – $3 in my area. In the winter, that’s what I buy. In a temperate climate, chickens just don’t lay much in the dark, cold months.

Processed foods are expensive. Once you give those up, you’ll have more money for foods that don’t even need an ingredients label.

Within what I can only describe a mean-spirited and pointlessly rude blog post from Matt Stone, there’s one interesting nugget of possible truth:

“…remember that prolonged dieting (this one, [...]]]> I’ve been seeing reasoned debate about the effect of long-term low-carb diets for a while now, but this last week, things kind of exploded into a yelling fest.

Within what I can only describe a mean-spirited and pointlessly rude blog post from Matt Stone, there’s one interesting nugget of possible truth:

“…remember that prolonged dieting (this one, low-fat, low-calorie, or a combination) tends to shut down thyroid function. This is usually not a problem with the thyroid gland (therefore blood tests are likely to be normal) but with the liver, which fails to convert T4 into the more active thyroid principle, T3. The diagnosis is made on clinical ground with the presence of fatigue, sluggishness, dry skin, coarse or falling hair, an elevation in cholesterol, or a low body temperature. I ask my patients to take four temperature readings daily before the three meals and near bedtime. If the average of all these temperatures, taken for at least three days, is below 97.8 degrees F (36.5 C), that is usually low enough to point to this form of thyroid problem; lower readings than that are even more convincing. It may be appropriate for those of you who fit these criteria to be prescribed thyroid by your doctor, and if so, a natural form of the hormone, which contains T3, is far superior to the most popular form of prescription thyroid, synthetic T4.”

-Robert C. Atkins

Google books says it comes from The Complete Dr. Atkins. Since I don’t own that, and I’ve never read it, that would explain why I’ve never seen this quote.

Jimmy Moore responded in the comment section of Matt’s site as well as on one of his blogs. Richard Nikoley of Free The Animal leapt to Jimmy’s defense. Matt has also previously said disparaging things about Richard.

My concern about all of this is that vital information might be missed. A lot of former low carbers or current paleo dieters *do* seem to have thyroid or metabolic issues of some kind.

Jenny, who runs diabetes update, talked about why low-carb stopped working for her. The whole piece is worth reading, but here’s the introduction:

The enthusiasm for the low carb diet as a weight loss diet arises in the first few weeks and months when most people experience dramatic weight loss.

What rarely gets mentioned–especially in the miracle weight loss books–is that very few low carb dieters ever get to their weight loss goal, especially those who start out with a lot of weight to lose.

I am enthusiastic about the power of carb restriction to lower blood sugar to normal or near normal levels. I am not as enthusiastic about low carbohydrate dieting as the solution to tough weight loss problems.

Because even the online low carb community tends to believe that people who stall out are “not doing the diet right” and respond to stall posts with that assumption, most people who do stall out long term leave the discussion boards, leaving only those who have succeeded to greet the newbies.

I’d like to point out that “not doing it right” is *exactly* what the purveyors of conventional wisdom spew at fat people trying to lose weight. If eating less and exercise is not working, then clearly, you aren’t doing it right. Or you’re lying about what you’re eating and your workout schedule. I think these amount to the same thing, but “you aren’t doing it right” is a lot nicer than “you’re a liar”.

I’ve seen many of the same complaints on BBSes like Low Carb Friends and Active Low-Carbers and even on Atkins Diet Bulletin Board. People will complain (almost exclusively women, though this may be a function of the boards themselves rather than an indication that all the people having the problem are women) that they can’t lose weight unless they cut calories to 1,400 or even lower, and generally, they do this by eating very low carb because they aren’t (as) hungry that way. This does not seem to get them anywhere either, and most low carb books I’ve read (and I’ve read a lot of them) indicate that counting calories is a bad idea. While they admit that it’s possible to eat too much, they recommend you don’t count calories, but because almost everyone tracks their carbs in something like Fitday, they always know what the calorie count is.

Atkins says that if you have a lot of weight to lose, it’s OK to stay on induction a long time. So, people stay on induction a long time because, in their minds, they have a lot of weight to lose. At some point, their weight loss becomes negligible. They either add a lot of cardio at this point, or get very strict about what they are eating. The Atkins book says that after induction, you should be adding carbs back at the rate of 5g per week until you don’t lose weight any more, then back off a little. There’s a “carb ladder” that indicates the order. The ADBB folks who have made goal by following the instructions in the book always push for this, but I think it scares people to think they will stop losing weight, gain weight or even go on a carb binge, so they don’t do it.

In Lyle McDonald’s The Ketogenic Diet he has a section on hypothyroid and euthyroid stress syndrome that contains this sentence: “The decrease in T3 due to hypothyroidism must be contrasted to the decrease seen during dieting or carbohydrate restriction.” Basically, that the decrease in T3 is a known issue with ketogenic diets (Atkins is a ketogenic diet).

Any diet of sufficient length and restriction will slow the metabolism. It seems to take longer on a low-carb diet than a straight-up low-calorie diet, and it’s possible that alternate day diets or calorie cycling might be an even better option, but I think what a lot of low-carbers (Atkins and lwo-carb Paleo Dieters alike) are experiencing is an evolutionary adaptation that makes complete sense once you see it from the right angle. I think that it handily explains the idea of the Atkins “One Golden Shot”.

In my next blog post, I’ll try to give the right angle.

The way I see people talking about the GI of foods seems to indicate [...]]]> While I want to make it clear that I’m not denying the importance of insulin, I think that the importance of the GI of foods is nowhere near as useful to non-diabetics as it’s made out to be.

The way I see people talking about the GI of foods seems to indicate that they think a low GI gives them a free pass. What really ticks me off in particular is agave syrup. A food having a low GI can mean either that it’s digested slowly because it contains fiber, fat or protein. It can also mean, as it does in the case of agave syrup, that it’s almost entirely fructose. Fructose is metabolised in the liver and turned into fatty acids (raising your cholesterol and, more importantly, your triglycerides). Your body then uses it as energy or stores it as fat. Glucose is hits your bloodstream more directly and raises blood sugar. Your body either uses it or turns it in to fat to store for later.

Either way, it winds up as fat attached to your backside.

You’re better off considering the actual carbohydrate and caloric content (though you don’t have to count fiber) than you are the glycemic index. Coca-Cola has a GI of 63 (medium), and Cantaloupe has a GI of 65. Which one is better for you? Coke has 33g of sugar in a 12oz can. One-quarter of a cantaloupe has 16g of sugar, yet Cantaloupe’s GI is a little higher than Coke’s. Which is more fattening?

Let’s pretend you don’t care about your waistline. This is from a 2005 paper called “Fructose, insulin resistance, and metabolic dyslipidemia”.

These metabolic disturbances appear to underlie the induction of insulin resistance commonly observed with high fructose feeding in both humans and animal models. Fructose-induced insulin resistant states are commonly characterized by a profound metabolic dyslipidemia, which appears to result from hepatic and intestinal overproduction of atherogenic lipoprotein particles. Thus, emerging evidence from recent epidemiological and biochemical studies clearly suggests that the high dietary intake of fructose has rapidly become an important causative factor in the development of the metabolic syndrome.

Not generic “sugar” but specifically fructose: the sugar that doesn’t raise GI too much. It still messes you up. This is from the same paper:

Fructose is readily absorbed and rapidly metabolized by human liver. For thousands of years humans consumed fructose amounting to 16–20 grams per day, largely from fresh fruits. Westernization of diets has resulted in significant increases in added fructose, leading to typical daily consumptions amounting to 85–100 grams of fructose per day. The exposure of the liver to such large quantities of fructose leads to rapid stimulation of lipogenesis and TG [triglyceride] accumulation, which in turn contributes to reduced insulin sensitivity and hepatic insulin resistance/glucose intolerance.

So, no help there. Honey and Agave Syrup both have about 60 calories per tablespoon. Agave is mostly fructose, and honey about half fructose and half glucose. Table sugar actually has fewer calories per tablespoon (48), and it’s all sucrose. Maple syrup is mostly sucrose with a tiny amount of fructose and a little glucose and has 52 calories per tablespoon.

What matters with sweeteners is how much of them you use. They are 99-100% sugar, so it’s really just a matter of which one you like best. There’s nothing special about any new-fangled sweetener like agave syrup or brown rice syrup (GI 25). A low GI is not going to save you from any one of the calories from sugar that it contains, and high-fructose sweeteners might be even worse than other sugars.

And, my final point: You shouldn’t cut yourself a break on Agave syrup. People seem to think it’s more natural, but that’s just not so. It can’t compete with maple syrup or honey on that score.

“If fructose were natural, I would be able to go out to corn field and get a bucket of sweetener. I can go to a beehive and get honey that I can eat without processing it. I can go to an apple tree and pick an apple and eat it. I cannot go out into a cornfield, squeeze corn, and get fructose syrup, and I cannot go into an agave field, and get the product sold on retail shelves, as agave syrup. Falsely labeled agave fructose and high fructose corn syrup are both products of advanced chemistry and extensive food processing technology.”

Later in the same article:

“The simple answer tends to be the correct one. There is no land of milk and agave. Milk comes from goats, cows, humans, etc., and honey comes from bees. What I want people to understand is that mislabeling a sweetener like agave syrup is about money and profit, to the real determent of your health. The unethical factor is that the natural health food business has gone to great lengths in the case of agave to defraud consumers, by deceiving and lying to those who are trying to seek better health. There is something ethically worse about a company pretending to sell something all natural to people seeking health, than a mainstream company not pretending that their food is healthier. For example, nobody selling fast and junk foods is advocating it is health food. When you are in a natural health food store, you expect to pay extra money for something that is good for you. We have con artists here, pretending to deliver better health at a higher cost, when in reality it is equal to, or much worse than the many other sweeteners or harmful junk food. People are expecting to receive health, and are intentionally being defrauded for profit.”

Caveat emptor!

(Both quotes above are from Russ Bianchi, Managing Director and CEO of Adept Solutions, Inc., a global food and beverage development company.)

This is from a margarine commercial well-known to those in my age group. We can see where telling everyone [...]]]> I am suspicious of all zero calorie sweeteners, even stevia. I think they promote an endless cycle of sugar cravings in a lot of people, but what it really boils down to is this:

This is from a margarine commercial well-known to those in my age group. We can see where telling everyone to eat margarine got us, so I’m not going into the trans-fat travesty here.

I think most of us have heard that aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet) is bad stuff. Some doctors even claim it’s inappropriate for diabetics because it messes with blood sugar, but mostly, we hear about it being bad for our brains or causing cancer or whatever. Most of the websites talking about this seem a bit nutty, but there was talk in the summer that the FDA might ban it.

There are also studies that show sucralose (Splenda) might be bad for you, and I’m sure we all remember the very public saccharin (SugarTwin, Sweet N Low) scare.

Agave nectar is NOT a zero calorie sweetener. Some people seem to have the idea that it’s magical stuff. The only actual claim made is that it’s lower on the glycemic index than other sugars, but it has the same caloric value as honey (about 60 per Tablespoon). Agave nectar is mostly fructose, which is why it’s supposedly better for diabetics (and thus it’s G.I. rating). My guess is that most people who are so into agave nectar would not buy “artificial” diabetic products, many of which are sweetened with refined fructose. Agave nectar IS refined fructose.

Anyway, moving on.

You’ve probably only heard great things about stevia because, like agave nectar, it’s billed as “all natural.” I’m not going to refute that claim since I don’t have issues with it. I do have issues with it’s effects, and I happen to think its taste leaves a lot to be desired. Taste is hard to refute, but I don’t think this is:

An intra-arterial catheter was inserted into the rats after 5 weeks, and conscious rats were subjected to arterial glucose tolerance test (2.0 g kg 1) during week 6. Stevioside had an antihyperglycemic effect (incremental area under the glucose response curve [IAUC]): 985 20 (stevioside) versus 1,575 21 (control) mmol/L 180 minutes, (P less than .05), it enhanced the first-phase insulin response (IAUC: 343 33 [stevioside] v 136 24 [control] U/mL insulin 30 minutes, P < .05) and concomitantly suppressed the glucagon levels (total AUC: 2,026 234 [stevioside] v 3,535 282 [control] pg/mL 180 minutes, P < .05).

It causes a release of insulin. This is a drug-like effect. If you’re not consuming sugar – let’s say you’re sweetening your black coffee with stevia – do you really want insulin released? Is that I good idea? I sure would not want to use this in green tea or coffee if I’m trying to, say, do an intermittent fast. It also may lower blood pressure, which may also not be a good thing.

The moral of the story here is that There’s No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. You’ll pay for it one way or another, and the best thing to do is to get used to the actual taste of foods. If it’s Christmas, your birthday or Thanksgiving and you’re not a diabetic who will have serious problems from ingesting sugar, just eat the real thing. If you really want a soda, just have the real item. High-fructose corn syrup is more natural than any of the artificial sweeteners, and studies keep popping up that diet soda does NOT help people lose weight or stay thin anyway.

Along with colleague Ken Williams and principal investigator Michael Stern, M.D., Fowler examined the association between consumption of diet and regular soft drinks and weight gain in 622 non-overweight adults. The researchers measured each participant’s Body Mass Index (BMI) and individual soft drink consumption at the beginning of the study, and the participants returned for follow-up measurements seven or eight years later.

After adjusting for age, gender and ethnicity, the investigators found that regular soft drinks were not significantly associated with the development of obesity, but diet soft drinks were.

“Preliminary analysis of the data showed that for every can or bottle of diet soda that a normal weight person drank per day, there was a 65 percent increase in the risk of becoming overweight and a 41 percent increase in the risk of becoming obese for every can or bottle consumed,” Fowler noted.

If none of that suits, there’s always fruit. A ripe bananas is very sweet, and it’s always in season at the grocery store. If you really need a sugar hit, raisins, dates and dried figs all contain a lot of tasty, tasty sugar in the form mother nature intended.