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Author Topic:   More on Diet and Carbohydrates
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 46 of 243 (751207)
03-01-2015 9:03 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by caffeine
03-01-2015 4:48 AM


Re: Not all about carbohydrates
caffeine writes:
Americans' consumption of carbohydrates and rates of obesity both increased dramatically in concert. The currently ongoing change of emphasis from low-fat to low-carbohydrate diets is a direct reaction to this fact. There's no doubt here.
On the contrary, there seems to be considerable doubt.
Given what you say next, I think what you really meant to say here is not that there's any doubt about the concurrent increases in carbohydrate consumption and obesity, but that things are more detailed and nuanced than that. And of course you're right, and of course I'd love to delve beneath the surface details. Moving on to what you say next:
It seems you are correct that carbohydrate consumption was increasing while the obesity rate was increasing, but that was hardly the only change going on. Sugar consumption increased dramatically;...
Your can't say that increasing sugar consumption was a different change from increasing carbohydrate consumption because sugar is a carbohydrate. Increasing sugar consumption led directly to an increase in the proportion of consumed carbohydrates that were refined.
...the types of carbohydrates changed - ...
The proportions in the mix of carbohydrate types changed, not the types.
...with a huge increase in consumption of refined carbohydrates;
Yes, absolutely. It's worth noting that carbohydrates include not just sugar but also many grain products like pasta and breads. You might think that sugar is the most refined of all carbohydrates, and it certainly is in a technical sense, but it doesn't have the highest glycemic index (a measure of the bodies reaction to carbohydrates). The glycemic index of sugar is 68, but that of white bread is higher at 70.
...the proportion of fibre in the diet went down; and probably most significantly, the total caloric intake went up.
Yes, also true.
Along with rising carbohydrate and sugar consumption, Americans have also eaten a lot more fat since the 70s (and more protein).
They've eaten more fat, not "a lot more fat". Fat consumption was rising modestly, but carbohydrate consumption in general was increasing dramatically by around 40%, as your chart shows:
From 1970 fat consumption rose very modestly by maybe 10-15%, not taking off until the 1990's when doubts about dietary fat advice began taking hold:
So though total caloric consumption, including both fat and carbohydrates, increased during the latter half of the 20th century, carbohydrate consumption increased much more dramatically. The proportion of fat in the diet declined even though fat consumption in absolute terms increased. Most importantly, the proportion comprised of refined carbohydrates increased most dramatically.
The bars underneath track fibre consumption. That, as you can see, has plummeted, and this is probably a big part of the problem. Did government advice ever really consist of 'stop eating whole grains and consume a lot more refined corn syrup?'
No, of course not. Government and many health organizations advised minimizing sugar consumption, sugar being the most refined of carbohydrates. That's something they got right. What their advice was missing was that the negative impact of sugar and other refined carbohydrates goes way beyond just the extra calories. In terms of their advice, people drinking too much soda, especially after the advent of HFCS, should be expected to know they're consuming too many calories, but not that they're negatively impacting their health by increasing their risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Consuming the same number of grams of complex carbohydrates as there are refined carbohydrates in a soda carries with it none of the same health risks.
Since fiber plays a significant role in mitigating the negative impacts of carbohydrates (most measurably in terms of reducing glucose spikes), your surmise that the decline in fiber consumption played a significant role in the obesity and diabetes epidemic is strongly supported by the evidence. All low-carb diets include the advice to try to maximize the presence of fiber in any carbohydrates consumed, often referred to as complex carbohydrates.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Minor clarification.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by caffeine, posted 03-01-2015 4:48 AM caffeine has not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 47 of 243 (751222)
03-01-2015 12:06 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Percy
02-28-2015 11:16 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
You just want to blame the government for your problems.
Even if everyone whose health was going to shit was religiously following the government's dietary guidelines, it still isn't the government's fault.
But we don't even have that. You can't even show that people were following the government's guidelines, and numerous alternative causes of America's health problems have been mentioned by myself and by others.
I hope I'm not wasting my time, but here goes nothing:
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:
Between 1986 and 2000, the prevalence of severe obesity (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2) quadrupled from one in two hundred Americans to one in fifty.
...
Fast food chains and restaurants have experienced improved sales with larger portion sizes. Research cited by the Center for Disease Control estimates restaurant meal sizes to be four times larger than they were in the 1950s.
Of course, the government's guidelines recommend increased carbohydrates and decreased fats in the diet, yet people have been increasing caloric intake from pretty much every source, and certainly have not decreased the amount of fat in their diet:
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:
Food consumption has increased with time. For example, annual per capita consumption of cheese was 4 pounds (1.8 kg) in 1909; 32 pounds (15 kg) in 2000; the average person consumed 389 grams (13.7 oz) of carbohydrates daily in 1970; 490 grams (17 oz) in 2000; 41 pounds (19 kg) of fats and oils in 1909; 79 pounds (36 kg) in 2000. In 1977, 18% of an average person's food was consumed outside the home; in 1996, this had risen to 32%.
The type of carbohydrates matters; people eat too many processed carbohydrates and sugars and not enough of the whole-grain carbohydrates recommended:
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:
One of the other two studies was conducted by Boston Children's Hospital who examined two groups of adolescents. The group which was encouraged to consume water or light sodas for a year gained 0.68 kilograms (1.5 lb). The other group, which consumed sugary drinks, gained 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb). The third study was conducted by Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Netherlands. They studied 641 children ages four to eleven over 18 months. They were split into two groups. One group drank sweet and fruity drinks and the other group drank the same drink with sugarless sweeteners. The group that drank the drink that had sugarless sweeteners gained 6.39 kilograms (14.1 lb) on average compared to 7.36 kilograms (16.2 lb) on average by the other group.
quote:
"Profiling Food Consumption in America" (PDF) from USDA Factbook:
However, most people's diets fall well short of the recommended minimum three daily servings of whole grain products. The mean daily intake of foods made from whole grains was one serving in USDA's 1996 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals. According to the survey, only 7 percent of Americans ate the recommended three or more servings of whole-grain foods a day (p. 19).
It's kind of hard to blame the government's guidelines when nobody's been following them.
But it's not just diet, as I've mentioned. These numbers are telling:
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:

About 65% of Americans are overweight (including obesity) and about 30% are downright obese.
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:
More than 60% of U.S. adults do not exercise as recommended, and approximately 25% of U.S adults are not active at all.
I don't think the government recommended avoiding exercise.
Keep in mind I didn't blame only the government. I think we just believe differently about whether the responsibility for bad advice lies with those who give it or those who follow it. The government and certain organizations represented their dietary advice as deriving from the best scientific research available, and that wasn't true. Such hubris shouldn't be given a free pass.
Your emphasis on government culpability ignores the real problem: increased consumption of calories overall, decreased quality of the calories consumed, and inadequate physical activity. On that second point, note the following:
quote:
Wikipedia on Obesity in the U.S.:
Around one third of children aged 4 to 19 eat fast food every day in the U.S.
...
In a 2010 report by the Rudd Center for Food Policy it was noted that less than 1% of children's meals combinations met nutrition standards recommended by experts.
With eating and lifestyle habits like we see in Americaso far from the government's guidelines on healthy eating and recommended levels of daily physical activitythe hubris is not government's, but belongs to those who want to blame the government for Americans' poor health.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Percy, posted 02-28-2015 11:16 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 12:38 PM Jon has replied
 Message 58 by Percy, posted 03-02-2015 8:12 AM Jon has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 48 of 243 (751223)
03-01-2015 12:32 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by Percy
02-28-2015 11:16 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
he government and certain organizations represented their dietary advice as deriving from the best scientific research available, and that wasn't true. Such hubris shouldn't be given a free pass.
That does not sound much like hubris. At worst it sounds like those organizations were wrong.
I think the weak point in your presentation so far is that you cannot show that people who actually followed government advice are unhealthy. In general, Americans eat too much of just about every food category except spinach and as a class are just as fat as anyone would expect. I don't see any indication of a mystery class of unhealthy people that we can blame government advice on.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Percy, posted 02-28-2015 11:16 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 51 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 2:06 PM NoNukes has replied
 Message 59 by Percy, posted 03-02-2015 8:24 AM NoNukes has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 49 of 243 (751224)
03-01-2015 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by Jon
03-01-2015 12:06 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Even if everyone whose health was going to shit was religiously following the government's dietary guidelines, it still isn't the government's fault.
I would disagree with this a bit. If the sole problem were visible things like being obese, then yes we do get some feedback that our diet is at fault. But if our diet is actually bad for our cardiovascular system without some visible sign, then that is directly caused by the bad advice.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 12:06 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 1:22 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 50 of 243 (751226)
03-01-2015 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by NoNukes
03-01-2015 12:38 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
I would disagree with this a bit. If the sole problem were visible things like being obese, then yes we do get some feedback that our diet is at fault. But if our diet is actually bad for our cardiovascular system without some visible sign, then that is directly caused by the bad advice.
People can monitor their blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
And if monitoring these things is not possible, then one must really ask how it is the people giving advice know it is good and take that into consideration before following the advice.
But I think you and I are in agreement that regardless of how good the government's advice was, no one has really been following it, and so it is ridiculous to blame the government for the diet-related health problem that has ballooned in the U.S. in the last several decades.
Blaming the food pyramid really takes focus from where it should be: on amount of food eaten, quality of food eaten, and level of daily physical activity.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 12:38 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 3:26 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 51 of 243 (751230)
03-01-2015 2:06 PM
Reply to: Message 48 by NoNukes
03-01-2015 12:32 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Did you see the link in the OP? It definitely argues that the low-fat diet recommended by the USDA is less effective at maintaining overall health than a diet lower in carbohydrates and higher in fat.
quote:
"A Call for a Low-Carb Diet that Embraces Fat" from New York Times:
By the end of the yearlong trial, people in the low-carbohydrate group had lost about eight pounds more on average than those in the low-fat group. They had significantly greater reductions in body fat than the low-fat group, and improvements in lean muscle mass even though neither group changed their levels of physical activity.
While the low-fat group did lose weight, they appeared to lose more muscle than fat.
...
In the end, people in the low-carbohydrate group saw markers of inflammation and triglycerides a type of fat that circulates in the blood plunge. Their HDL, the so-called good cholesterol, rose more sharply than it did for people in the low-fat group.
Blood pressure, total cholesterol and LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, stayed about the same for people in each group.
Nonetheless, those on the low-carbohydrate diet ultimately did so well that they managed to lower their Framingham risk scores, which calculate the likelihood of a heart attack within the next 10 years. The low-fat group on average had no improvement in their scores.
This suggests that the USDA's guidelines were possibly wrong or their idea of 'balance' was at least off regarding the portion of carbs to non-carbs involved in a healthy diet. Of course, it should be pointed out that there is no mention of overall caloric intake of the two groups.
I find the final comment in the article humorous, because it demonstrates just how poorly most people understand the guidelines:
quote:
"A Call for a Low-Carb Diet that Embraces Fat" from New York Times:
The average person may not pay much attention to the federal dietary guidelines, but their influence can be seen, for example, in school lunch programs, which is why many schools forbid whole milk but serve their students fat-free chocolate milk loaded with sugar, Dr. Mozaffarian said.
Sugars are also to be avoided according to the guidelines, so the replacement of fats with sugars doesn't actually meet the USDA guidelines.
So yeah, the guidelines don't actually appear to be the best, but no one's following them anyway, so it doesn't really matter.
Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 12:32 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 53 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 3:31 PM Jon has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 52 of 243 (751243)
03-01-2015 3:26 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Jon
03-01-2015 1:22 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
They can monitor, but the feedback that would tie such information to diet is not very strong.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 1:22 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 53 of 243 (751244)
03-01-2015 3:31 PM
Reply to: Message 51 by Jon
03-01-2015 2:06 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
"Did you see the link in the OP"
I saw it. I don't see the impact on what I posted.
"No mention of caloric intake"
And yet we are still reaching conclusions about weight loss? Quite bizarre.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 51 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 2:06 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 4:15 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 54 of 243 (751245)
03-01-2015 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 53 by NoNukes
03-01-2015 3:31 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
"Did you see the link in the OP"
I saw it. I don't see the impact on what I posted.
I am sorry that you cannot see that.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 53 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 3:31 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 4:41 PM Jon has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 55 of 243 (751247)
03-01-2015 4:41 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Jon
03-01-2015 4:15 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
I am sorry that you cannot see that.
In the face of this rather dubious comment, let me be more explicit. There is no impact between the OP's statement that " low-fat diet recommended by the USDA is less effective at maintaining overall health than a diet lower in carbohydrates and higher in fat" and my comment.
My comment was that just being wrong does not constitute hubris. You come along with a statement that says that the government advice was wrong. Well, that was exactly what I assumed was the case when I made my comment.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 4:15 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 4:59 PM NoNukes has replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 56 of 243 (751249)
03-01-2015 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 55 by NoNukes
03-01-2015 4:41 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
My reply wasn't aimed at your hubris comment. But I think we might be talking past each other.
So I'll leave it at that.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 55 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 4:41 PM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 57 by NoNukes, posted 03-02-2015 7:11 AM Jon has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 57 of 243 (751281)
03-02-2015 7:11 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by Jon
03-01-2015 4:59 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
was not aimed at your hubris comment
Your comment had no aim at all. The rest of my post was material you agreed with and for which the quote from the OP was even less relevant.

Je Suis Charlie
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 4:59 PM Jon has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 58 of 243 (751283)
03-02-2015 8:12 AM
Reply to: Message 47 by Jon
03-01-2015 12:06 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Jon writes:
You just want to blame the government for your problems.
You could only reasonably say this about someone with a habit for blaming the government, and what part of "Keep in mind I didn't blame only the government" didn't you understand? For example, the American Heart Association is big into low fat advocacy (they're beginning to gradually back away from this).
And it isn't "my problems" but an issue of public health.
Even if everyone whose health was going to shit was religiously following the government's dietary guidelines, it still isn't the government's fault.
As I said, I think we disagree about whether the responsibility for bad advice lies with those who give it or those who follow it. In the case of the government's advice on diet they convened groups of experts and scientists, availed themselves of resources not available to the average person, and came up with dietary guidelines that supposedly represented the best that science had to offer. Guidelines developed in this way carry a great deal of weight, and in this case the guidelines were wrong in two critical ways: they didn't follow the science, and they were bad for health.
I hope I'm not wasting my time, but here goes nothing:
You're not wasting your time if your hope is that the material you presented will be given fair and unbiased consideration. What more could you want?
It's kind of hard to blame the government's guidelines when nobody's been following them.
It's only necessary to ask the rhetorical question that if nobody was following the government dietary guidelines about reducing dietary fat, who was buying all the reduced fat options in grocery stores? The ones that are now seeing their shelf space taken over by reduced carbohydrate options now that our understanding has evolved (and in almost coerced reaction to escape the embarrassment, the guidelines are also evolving in that direction).
Of course, the government's guidelines recommend increased carbohydrates and decreased fats in the diet, yet people have been increasing caloric intake from pretty much every source, and certainly have not decreased the amount of fat in their diet:
As I explained to Caffeine, while both fat and carbohydrate consumption increased, carbohydrate consumption increased more, causing the typical American diet to be proportionately more carbohydrates.
The type of carbohydrates matters; people eat too many processed carbohydrates and sugars and not enough of the whole-grain carbohydrates recommended:
Here's a link to the 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. You won't find any reference to whole grains. People were not ignoring the advice to eat whole grains because the advice wasn't there. Not until many, many years later.
Your emphasis on government culpability ignores the real problem: increased consumption of calories overall, decreased quality of the calories consumed, and inadequate physical activity.
These are legitimate and significant factors, and my focus on one particular aspect, dietary advice, isn't meant to imply that they are not. But overeating that emphasizes fat carries far fewer health risks in terms of obesity, diabetes and heart disease than overeating that emphasizes carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates. My focus on the dietary advice aspect is justified just in terms of the sheer irony of emphasizing carbohydrates to an increasingly obese audience. It's like telling someone to stop a car by stepping on the gas.
With eating and lifestyle habits like we see in Americaso far from the government's guidelines on healthy eating and recommended levels of daily physical activitythe hubris is not government's, but belongs to those who want to blame the government for Americans' poor health.
Keep in mind again that I didn't only blame government. My use of the term "hubris" refers to those in the scientific community who defended inadequate science and those in the dietary advice community (Dean Ornish comes to mind) who demonized those advocating low carbohydrate diets.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 47 by Jon, posted 03-01-2015 12:06 PM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 60 by Jon, posted 03-02-2015 4:49 PM Percy has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 59 of 243 (751284)
03-02-2015 8:24 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by NoNukes
03-01-2015 12:32 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
NoNukes writes:
he government and certain organizations represented their dietary advice as deriving from the best scientific research available, and that wasn't true. Such hubris shouldn't be given a free pass.
That does not sound much like hubris. At worst it sounds like those organizations were wrong.
The way scientists defended inadequate science (perhaps believing they'd eventually be shown right since it just made so much sense that eating fat makes you fat) and the way low fat diet advocates like Dean Ornish vilified those advocating low carbohydrate diets (for example, declaring that people following low carbohydrate diets were destroying their health) has all the hallmarks of hubris.
I think the weak point in your presentation so far is that you cannot show that people who actually followed government advice are unhealthy.
If you reduce fat in the diet then you have to make up the calories somewhere, and that means increased intake of carbohydrates. Those at the lowest end of the economic spectrum were particularly severely affected by the bad advice, since carbohydrates are the cheapest source of calories. Increasing carbohydrate intake, particularly refined carbohydrates, is bad for health. There can be no doubt about the connection now.
One other comment. It's easy to write "government advice" instead of the awkward "advice from government, health organizations and the diet advice community," and I'm guilty of this too, but let's not forget that it wasn't just the government giving out bad diet advice.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by NoNukes, posted 03-01-2015 12:32 PM NoNukes has not replied

  
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 60 of 243 (751383)
03-02-2015 4:49 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Percy
03-02-2015 8:12 AM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
It's only necessary to ask the rhetorical question that if nobody was following the government dietary guidelines about reducing dietary fat, who was buying all the reduced fat options in grocery stores?
That's a good question to be asking you, since you're the one making this claim. As I and other have pointed out, consumption of fats, along with everything else, has been rising for decades in the U.S.
As I explained to Caffeine, while both fat and carbohydrate consumption increased, carbohydrate consumption increased more, causing the typical American diet to be proportionately more carbohydrates.
That doesn't mean anything. The recommendations aren't just 'more of this, less of that', they set out specific amounts and proportions. For example, fats/oils are recommended to be consumed sparingly, yet, as I posted earlier in Message 47, in 2000, Americans consumed a full fifth as much fat/oil as carbohydrates. Furthermore, a serving of 15 grams of carbohydrates would give a daily intake of about 90 grams of carbohydrates if following the USDA guidelines. Even if the entire serving of grains is nothing but carbohydrates, the recommended daily intake would only be between 180 and 330 grams. Yet in 2000, Americans were consuming an average of 490 grams of carbohydrates/day.
Americans have not been following the USDA's recommended proportions nor the recommended serving sizes.
Here's a link to the 1980 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. You won't find any reference to whole grains.
The mention of whole grains is pretty hard to miss if you read the one-page section on vegetables, fruits, and grains.
quote:
"Dietary Guidelines for Americans" (PDF) from USDA (1990):
This guideline recommends that adults eat at least three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruits daily. It recommends at least six servings of grain products, such as breads, cereals, pasta, and rice, with an emphasis on whole grains (p. [10]).
They even emphasize the importance of fiber related to whole grains, which, as caffeine pointed out in Message 45, Americans have been consuming less and less of:
quote:
"Dietary Guidelines for Americans" (PDF) from USDA (1990):
Complex carbohydrates, such as starches, are in breads, cereals, pasta, rice, dry beans and peas, and other vegetables, such as potatoes and corn. Dietary fibera part of plant foodsis in whole grain breads and cereals, dry beans and peas, vegetables and fruits. It is best to eat a variety of these fiber-rich foods because they differ in the kinds of fiber they contain (p. [10]).
But overeating that emphasizes fat carries far fewer health risks in terms of obesity, diabetes and heart disease than overeating that emphasizes carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates.
But overeating isn't recommended by the USDA. It probably is better to follow a diet that lets you eat as much as you want, but that has no bearing on the USDA's guidelines, which set out specific proportions and serving sizes.
Keep in mind again that I didn't only blame government.
You're blaming the people who gave the advice for America's bad health, despite the fact that nobody followed the advice and that even if they had, it's their health and their responsibility to figure out whether the advice they're getting is good or not.
The advice-givers have almost zero culpability in the development of obesity and cardiovascular-related health problems in America during the last several decades.
Edited by Jon, : No reason given.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Percy, posted 03-02-2015 8:12 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 61 by Percy, posted 03-02-2015 6:19 PM Jon has replied

  
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