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Author Topic:   More on Diet and Carbohydrates
Jon
Inactive Member


Message 106 of 243 (751776)
03-05-2015 3:45 PM
Reply to: Message 105 by Percy
03-05-2015 3:22 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
I don't think there's any point in us continuing this conversation in the circles we've been going.
You wanna blame the government? Blame the government.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by Percy, posted 03-05-2015 3:22 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 108 by Percy, posted 03-05-2015 8:19 PM Jon has seen this message but not replied

  
xongsmith
Member
Posts: 2578
From: massachusetts US
Joined: 01-01-2009
Member Rating: 6.8


Message 107 of 243 (751779)
03-05-2015 3:52 PM


Remarkable to find a thread with Percy & Faith on the same side.
I almost can hear an orchestra....

- xongsmith, 5.7d

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 108 of 243 (751793)
03-05-2015 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Jon
03-05-2015 3:45 PM


Re: Recommendations of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee
Jon writes:
You wanna blame the government? Blame the government.
As I've explained several times, I don't want to blame the government. I want responsibility for the problem assigned where it properly belongs, because responsibility for the solution likely lies in the same place. The government bestowed legitimacy upon the inadequate science that blamed fat for the increasing rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease, and it can take it away.
There is one interesting irony to note, however. The government's decades long role in convincing the public that fat was responsible for America's worsening health was very significant, but its role in correcting that impression may be much less. Back when Atkins was first pushing the low-carb diet the science wasn't conclusive and he was hammered, but there's been a lot of research since then, and the science is more and more clearly implicating the true cause: carbohydrates. With the science now painting so clear a picture the government's position may be less relevant. Even though, as Faith has noted, the current guidelines still demonize fat, low-carb offerings are surging in grocery stores. I'm not expecting much change in the 2015 guidelines, but maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

This message is a reply to:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 109 of 243 (751795)
03-05-2015 9:22 PM


Will the advice against dietary cholesterol finally bite the dust?
Government advice against cholesterol is responsible for products like this:
But it's been known for some time that dietary cholesterol is broken down and digested and not absorbed into the bloodstream. Cholesterol in the body is produced by the body and doesn't come from dietary cholesterol.
The possibility exists that the 2015 version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans may finally drop the advice against dietary cholesterol: Panel suggests that dietary guidelines stop warning about cholesterol in food
An excerpt:
quote:
A summary of the committee’s December 2014 meeting says Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption. Translation: You don’t need to worry about cholesterol in your food.
Why not? There’s a growing consensus among nutrition scientists that cholesterol in food has little effect on the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream. And that’s the cholesterol that matters.
AbE:
I like this excerpt even better:
quote:
Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, told USA Today It’s the right decision. We got the dietary guidelines wrong.
Well, yes, you did, and not just about cholesterol.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : AbE.

Replies to this message:
 Message 110 by Faith, posted 03-06-2015 6:41 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 112 by nwr, posted 03-06-2015 7:52 PM Percy has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 110 of 243 (751808)
03-06-2015 6:41 AM
Reply to: Message 109 by Percy
03-05-2015 9:22 PM


Re: Will the advice against dietary cholesterol finally bite the dust?
Dropping the recommendations against cholesterol would be great. There is nothing more unappetizing than those fake eggs, which they also served us scrambled in rehab, so that there were some mornings I couldn't eat anything on the tray what with the squishy white bread, the margarine, the low-fat high-carb milk, the sugary juice and the nauseating fake eggs. Of course I was starving so I did eat some of it anyway. Then one morning somebody slipped up in the kitchen and sent us real eggs. My roommate and I were beside ourselves with joy and gratitude and I even sent the kitchen a thank-you note. Didn't affect the next meal offering though, sad to say.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by Percy, posted 03-05-2015 9:22 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 111 of 243 (751904)
03-06-2015 7:22 PM


kind of a rambling overview
Looking for information that might keep this topic alive for a while, just because I'm interested in it, I found lots of "alternative nutrition" sites that oppose the USDA guidelines while pushing their own favorite nutrition agendas and diets. It's all interesting I think but I wanted to find something more comprehensive. THIS SITE maybe comes closest as it discusses the last official set of USDA guidelines (2010) fairly thoroughly.
It starts out with an anecdote about a woman who claimed to have been following the guidelines very closely but still gaining weight and being unhealthy. Which implies that even closely following them does NOT promote good health after all.
Some nutritionists, like diet guru Mercola, get into conspiracy thinking about the USDA, claiming the guidelines exist to promote profits rather than health. This article I've linked does say that the USDA has the task of promoting agricultural products, which can create a conflict of interest, without getting into a conspiracy theory, but that they also step on the toes of the industry in their recommendations too, such as when they recommend against major agribusiness products such as beef, dairy and eggs.
Far better we get our information from less politically influenced sources, but the problem is that the USDA IS the source of diet information that gets disseminated to the population at large. Maybe they should just admit their conflict of interest and stop issuing their guidelines altogether.
The more I read what's out there, though, the harder it is to understand how anyone (Jon?) could not be aware of the artificial diet standards we've all been trying to follow for years to one degree or another, the demonizing of animal and dairy fats and cholesterol in particular, the proliferation of low fat products in the markets and the continuing health problems that are clearly linked to diet.
Anyway I think there's a lot in that article that could be chewed on in this discussion.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 114 by Jon, posted 03-06-2015 10:50 PM Faith has replied

  
nwr
Member
Posts: 6408
From: Geneva, Illinois
Joined: 08-08-2005
Member Rating: 5.1


Message 112 of 243 (751910)
03-06-2015 7:52 PM
Reply to: Message 109 by Percy
03-05-2015 9:22 PM


Re: Will the advice against dietary cholesterol finally bite the dust?
Government advice against cholesterol is responsible for products like this:
According to Wikipedia
quote:
Egg Beaters was introduced in 1972 and originally sold frozen as "Fleischmann's Egg Beaters".
Which government advice are you referring to?

Fundamentalism - the anti-American, anti-Christian branch of American Christianity

This message is a reply to:
 Message 109 by Percy, posted 03-05-2015 9:22 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Percy, posted 03-06-2015 9:15 PM nwr has seen this message but not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 113 of 243 (751931)
03-06-2015 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 112 by nwr
03-06-2015 7:52 PM


Re: Will the advice against dietary cholesterol finally bite the dust?
nwr writes:
Which government advice are you referring to?
I'm not sure why you're asking. Is it because you think the government didn't give out diet advice before the first detailed USDA guidelines in 1980?
If you're interested in more detail just let me know and I'll dig it out for, but for now just let me provide this short and insufficiently detailed excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Ancel Keys.
quote:
After observing in southern Italy the highest concentration of centenarians in the world, Keys hypothesized that a Mediterranean-style diet low in animal fat protected against heart disease and that a diet high in animal fats led to heart disease. The results of what later became known as the Seven Countries Study appeared to show that serum cholesterol was strongly related to coronary heart disease mortality both at the population and at the individual level. As a result, in 1956 representatives of the American Heart Association appeared on television to inform people that a diet which included large amounts of butter, lard, eggs, and beef would lead to coronary heart disease. This resulted in the American government recommending that people adopt a low-fat diet in order to prevent heart disease.
In case it isn't obvious after reading this, Keys' research marks the origin of the "fat is bad" dietary advice.
I don't know how old you are, but back in the 1950's and 1960's, just like today, the results of research and government studies and advisory groups were occasionally reported in the media. By the time Egg Beaters was introduced there had already been more than a decade of warnings about dietary cholesterol from various groups, including the American Heart Association and the government. Naturally after all this time I remember nothing specific, but I do clearly remember how conscious everyone was of the warnings about cholesterol.
Research from as far back as the 1930s showed that dietary cholesterol has little influence on blood cholesterol, and the government has had many opportunities over the decades to make things right, but they never did. There are some positive indications that this year the government might finally make things right with the upcoming 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 114 of 243 (751954)
03-06-2015 10:50 PM
Reply to: Message 111 by Faith
03-06-2015 7:22 PM


Re: kind of a rambling overview
I know my name was only brought up in one paragraph, but I'm gonna respond to a little more of your post...
It starts out with an anecdote about a woman who claimed to have been following the guidelines very closely but still gaining weight and being unhealthy. Which implies that even closely following them does NOT promote good health after all.
Unfortunately anecdotes don't count for a whole lot. The study discussed in the OP's link makes it pretty clear that following the guidelines leads to weight loss. I have time this weekend, so I will try to actually read through your link and perhaps post a reply.
Some nutritionists, like diet guru Mercola, get into conspiracy thinking about the USDA, claiming the guidelines exist to promote profits rather than health. This article I've linked does say that the USDA has the task of promoting agricultural products, which can create a conflict of interest, without getting into a conspiracy theory, but that they also step on the toes of the industry in their recommendations too, such as when they recommend against major agribusiness products such as beef, dairy and eggs.
Indeed, it is difficult to see how the USDA's dietary guidelines have ever been aimed at increasing agricultural profits. To begin with, all food starts out as an agricultural something or another, so it isn't really like the USDA can promote agricultural food products over non-agricultural food products.
Also, as you mention, the USDA's guidelines promote some products and shun others. Perhaps tracing money around will show who pulls the USDA's strings, but I'd imagine that their advice given about nutrition is mostly done as an honest effort to promote good health, etc.
The more I read what's out there, though, the harder it is to understand how anyone (Jon?) could not be aware of the artificial diet standards we've all been trying to follow for years to one degree or another, the demonizing of animal and dairy fats and cholesterol in particular, the proliferation of low fat products in the markets and the continuing health problems that are clearly linked to diet.
There are many health problems linked to diet, sure. But the questions are how much is linked to the diet and to which diet are the problems mostly linked.
I think, and I believe any reasonable person will realize that the evidence makes it clear, that the problem rests largely with the McDiet,1 not the USDA diet, and that likely half the cause involves an increase in sedentarism.
Tackling this would do so much more for promoting health in this country than bashing the USDA.
__________
1 By which I mean diets high in calories from junk food, fast food, convenience food, processed food, and high in calories in general.

Love your enemies!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 111 by Faith, posted 03-06-2015 7:22 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by Faith, posted 03-06-2015 11:23 PM Jon has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 115 of 243 (751956)
03-06-2015 11:23 PM
Reply to: Message 114 by Jon
03-06-2015 10:50 PM


Re: kind of a rambling overview
Well, the anecdote is about a real named person, but although I think it interesting that she did try to follow the guidelines and kept gaining weight, I'm not primarily interested in the health questions myself, and was willing to concede that you could be healthy if you followed the guidelines strictly.
That may not be true after all, but I'm more interested in the fact that an artificial diet has been pushed on us for decades that does have questionable effects on health, and I'm still very surprised that anyone could have lived through those decades or any part of them without noticing this influence.
I'm also not primarily interested in the source of the influence though it certainly seems the USDA recommendations must have played a huge part in that. But they got their information from other sources to begin with, such as Ancel Keys' studies as Percy pointed out. Could be that diet has very little part in the health of the southern Italian centenarians Keys took for his standard, nor half as much influence on anybody's health as these nutrition people think. Stress factors could be a big part, or simple genetic inheritance. Food must be SOME influence, certainly, but then the investigators can miss the factors involved there too, noticing the fats or lack of them and missing the carbs or lack of them and so on.
Just the fact that the USDA does represent agriculture suggests they should stop trying to tell us what to eat even if they are trying to be honest.
How much health is affected by the USDA recommendations is less interesting to me than how you could not have noticed the influence of these dietary commandments, whatever their source, over the last few decades. I mean it's pervasive, Jon, and it's still out there.
On the health question, you could be right that it's the fast foods that are the main culprits as far as American health problems go, but that would be hard to pin down as long as these other factors are so influential as well. We do now know that cholesterol is not and never was a problem, yet that was a biggie on the guidelines, which kept millions of people from eggs, which are good for us, and from dairy fats, the lack of which makee dairy high in carbs which we know causes blood sugar spikes which we know can bring about diabetes, and from animal fats, the lack of which promotes hunger that promotes carb eating that also promotes diabetes. I mean we know all this now, and I don't know where you've been but the nutritional advice that brought this about is rampant in the US whether you want to lay it at the door of the USDA or some other source.
They made a lot of us feel we were being irresponsible if we ate food we actually liked, that we now know is NOT bad for us and may even be necessary to our health. That's maybe what I hold against them the most. If you weren't affected by this you must have been living on the moon. And I don't care who's at fault, the USDA or whoever, it's a crime against the people of the USA.
Yes, I'd like to see some comments on other parts of that article.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 114 by Jon, posted 03-06-2015 10:50 PM Jon has not replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 116 of 243 (751968)
03-07-2015 10:20 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by Faith
03-06-2015 11:23 PM


Re: kind of a rambling overview
Well, the anecdote is about a real named person, but although I think it interesting that she did try to follow the guidelines and kept gaining weight
The problem with the anecdote is that every diet I've ever heard of has the same poor success rates at achieving significant long term results. Telling us a story about a single person who failed, particularly a story where the details are lacking, is not going to be very convincing.

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 115 by Faith, posted 03-06-2015 11:23 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 117 of 243 (751969)
03-07-2015 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by NoNukes
03-07-2015 10:20 AM


Re: kind of a rambling overview
Yes, and I really didn't make much of the anecdote, I just think it's interesting and PROBABLY reflects the biggest problems with this low fat regime we've been subjected to for so long. And the claim is that when she reduced the carbs, increased the vegetables and allowed herself to eat more meat and fats that she did lose the weight and did keep it off, and I'm inclined to believe that she does represent the solution in doing this. BUT, again, I'm not making much of it and we can ignore it if you like.
Am I remembering correctly that like Jon you too haven't been particularly aware of a pervasive national concern to avoid animal fats over the last five or six decades?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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Jon
Inactive Member


Message 118 of 243 (751976)
03-07-2015 11:44 AM


Anatomy of a Low-Carb Diet
It might be helpful, for the sake of comparison, to get some links to typical or preferred low-carb diets.
Do Faith, Percy, or anyone else, have any particular low-carb diets that they would like brought into the discussion?

Love your enemies!

Replies to this message:
 Message 119 by Faith, posted 03-07-2015 12:02 PM Jon has replied
 Message 120 by Percy, posted 03-07-2015 12:04 PM Jon has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 119 of 243 (751977)
03-07-2015 12:02 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Jon
03-07-2015 11:44 AM


The pervasiveness of the low fat diet
It's OK with me to think about the low carb diets at some point if you like, but before we do would you please confirm the impression that you aren't aware of what seems to Percy and me to be the rampant insistence on avoiding animal fats and cholesterol in our diets, and the symptomatic proliferation of "low fat" offerings, from every conceivable angle of our experience, in the stores and restaurants and all over the media for decades? This has been such a huge part of my own experience and of everybody in my life that I don't know what to make of such a claim.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Jon, posted 03-07-2015 11:44 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 126 by Jon, posted 03-07-2015 4:05 PM Faith has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22392
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 120 of 243 (751979)
03-07-2015 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 118 by Jon
03-07-2015 11:44 AM


Re: Anatomy of a Low-Carb Diet
Jon writes:
Do Faith, Percy, or anyone else, have any particular low-carb diets that they would like brought into the discussion?
I have no specific low-carb diet to enter into the discussion. My own personal recommendations:
  • Avoid refined carbohydrates. This includes anything containing sugar, but also white rice, pasta, white bread, potatoes, etc.
  • Don't trust labeling about whole grains. The American food industry successfully lobbied for a weakening of the labeling standards a number of years ago after they encountered consumer resistance to their whole-grained products. If you've found a tasty whole-grained bread then it very likely isn't really a whole-grained bread. Same with whole-grained pasta. Many whole-grained products today are not much different in terms of calories, carbohydrates and fiber from their refined grained counterparts, and they usually contain more sugar or syrup.
  • If you must consume refined carbohydrates, make sure they aren't combined with fat. Examples of refined carbohydrate/fat combinations to avoid are Chinese fried rice, and potatoes with butter or sour cream.
  • My own personal ad hoc rule: if it tastes good, it's fattening.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Jon, posted 03-07-2015 11:44 AM Jon has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 121 by NoNukes, posted 03-07-2015 12:10 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied
 Message 122 by Coyote, posted 03-07-2015 12:44 PM Percy has replied
 Message 134 by Jon, posted 03-08-2015 7:30 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
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