Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes

Bolder-dash writes: The choices for the average consumer in America are not very good unfortunately. I believe this to be the single biggest cause of obesity in your country.

PD and I were commenting on the same thing a few messages back when I recommended the film Food, Inc. What's your take on fruit in general?

--Percy

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Just for your information- As a professional athlete, and someone who knows a fair bit about exercise and nutrition, I can tell you that one of the worst things you can give your body is a big glass of grape or apple juice.

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Two of my favorite. Yep, I had to give up the fruit juices also. I treat myself in the fall when the cider comes out though. That's just around the corner.

When my grandson was born, my daughter did her best to keep him away from fruit juices. It's difficult to keep grandparents (not me, I'm the good one) from doing what they please. She at least got them to water it down.

Better to eat the apple than drink the juice. Fortunately I like tomatoes and switched to tomato juice once in a while when fresh tomatoes aren't available. Even those I have to make sure they haven't added sugar. Sometimes I make my own. Always safest.

It's been over 25 years since I've had a soft drink. My problem is I'm more of a fruit eater than a vegetable eater. and the vegetables I do like are the starchy ones. I need to reboot my taste buds.

As I understand it, the body pulls calcium from the body to help metabolize or digest sugar. Hopefully I said that right. That's what I think about when I eat contraband on vacation or holidays.

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The choices for the average consumer in America are not very good unfortunately. I believe this to be the single biggest cause of obesity in your country.

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The choices are awful and eating the low carb way tends to make one stand out at group eating functions. Of course if people would worry more about their own plate and not mine, there wouldn't be a problem.

I also try to eat protein before I go somewhere where I know the food will not be the most optimum. My husband also found a protein drink he likes to use. Only has 2g of sugar and 51g of protein.

I know my mom gets annoyed about having to read labels. I figure once you find your standard lineup of "safer" foods, you don't have to read except every so often to make sure they don't change the ingredients.

I have to be careful, because I've noticed they've starting sticking coconut in some drinks and foods in health food stores. I'm allergic. Can't add that fat to my menu.

I think the idea that we who have issues with fat have been mislead in what to eat and still are. I have a time trying to keep my mother from changing her diet to fit the diet of the week in the women's magazines.

We have diverse cultures and diverse diets. One size doesn't fit all.

Well, I have a friend who was a professional rugby player. He is giant specimen of a man, tall, huge chest and arms with barely an ounce of fat on him. His normal eating habits are to eat a large bowl of only fruit for breakfast, another big bowl of fruit for lunch, and he eats only a small dinner of maybe pasta or some fish at night. He is not a fanatic about what he eats by any means, but this is just his preferred habit. He says he rarely feels hungry, could easily skip dinner, and does not seem to lack for any energy-even when he is lifting a lot of weights. He is British.

Also you perhaps know that Chinese eat a great deal more fruit than most westerners. I personally could exist on some grains, soy or almond milk, some bananas, and light servings of vegetables and I won't feel hungry or lethargic. With the amount of exercising I do, the one thing I often feel the need for is something with salt.

I often have thought about how gorillas are able to be so strong, on such a sparse diet.

So what do I personally think about fruit-well, I feel I need some, but not that much. My body quickly tells me when I don't need much more. I believe the more acidic fruits are probably best in moderation (oranges, pineapples), while the blander fruits you could probably eat all day (mild melons, dragon fruits, bananas, papayas).

If you have gone 25 years without soft drinks you have already done really really well.

I personally happen to feel that it is not really necessary to eat large amounts of green vegetables, I think a few small portions are enough. People often feel guilty for not eating enough of these, but a few small portions are enough for most people I think-unless it is just really a food you love. You can get plenty enough energy from grains-as many animals do. Lots of isolated populations of native people exist on very bland diets and do just fine.

Keep up the good work.

Also, I think tomato juice is fine and its benefits far outweigh the small disadvantage of it being in a slightly thinner form. I don't think an eaten tomato is that much different from a shredded and drunk one actually. You lose a lot more when you press an apple than when you press a tomato.

And if you do wish to drink some cider now and again, my one advice is do it on an empty stomach rather than with meals. The excess sugar is not good when mixed with other foods that needs to be digested more slowly.

Since we found grassfed beef, I figured I'll let the cattle eat the greens and I'll eat the beef.

At least I like green beans. Leafy greens only good with Catalina style dressing (I make my own without the sugar). Not much of a salad eater.

I do my best. It has been a process. Healthy so far and still working on the body shaping. I'm trying to revise my view of exercise. It was always drilled in as a means to weight loss, but that doesn't work for me. I need to look at exercise as a means to shape and maintain flexibility as I .... age.

Edited by purpledawn, : Wrong avatar

Edited by purpledawn, : Wrong avatar

Sure. As long as the cows don't mind that deal, why not.

If you want to see a consistent group of extremely fat bellied people, you should see the Russians, many of whom come to southern China beaches in droves during the winters. Their stomachs truly defy explanation as well as gravity. Their giant mass begins from just below the breastbone, all the way to their groins, in a inflated, tremendous ball like sphere, that looks like it will soon send them floating into the troposphere. I say it is because of the potatoes.

I avoid potatoes.

Hi Molbiogirl,

I have a little time, so I'm going to respond to the rest of your message.

molbiogirl writes: In conclusion, the present results show that the GI of mixed meals calculated by table values does not predict the measured GI and furthermore that carbohydrates do not play the most important role for GI in mixed breakfast meals. Our prediction models show that the GI of mixed meals is more strongly correlated either with fat and protein content, or with energy content, than with carbohydrate content alone. Furthermore, GI was not correlated with II. Flint A, et al. The use of glycaemic index tables to predict glycaemic index of composite breakfast meals, British Journal of Nutrition (2004), 91, 979–98.

First, the portions of text highlighted in red are not rebutting claims anyone is making in this thread. There is no claim that the glycemic index of foods in general or cereals in particular can be predicted from a list of ingredients. Food is much more complicated than that. The claim is that in general the higher the refined carbohydrate content the higher the insulin response.

It is well known that food in general causes an insulin response. If that were not true then diabetics would only have to inject insulin before consuming carbohydrates. No one is claiming that only carbohydrates cause an insulin response. We could save a lot of time if you would stop rebutting claims no one is making. Anyone can do what you're doing ("The sky is blue - looks like Molbiogirl's theory has a hiccup."), but what a waste of time.

Now let's get a link to the paper into the thread and I'll check out what it says: The use of glycaemic index tables to predict glycaemic index of composite breakfast meals

After taking a brief look at the paper I don't see how it has much relevance. The paper claims to have demonstrated that the glycemic index of individual foods is a poor predictor of final glycemic index when mixed with other foods. It makes sense that this would be so. In the context of cereal, dry cereal has a measured GI, and milk has a measured GI, but those GI's are a poor predictor of final GI when they're combined. And I'm sure it isn't just GI but many measures of food characteristics that can't tell you what to expect when they are mixed. This is the dilemma of those trying to control their diet.

The underlying theory is that the more a food's glucose is rapidly available or whose nutrients can be used to rapidly create glucose, the more likely it is to cause dangerous glucose and insulin spikes in the blood. The difficulty of determining which foods are most dangerous is very relevant to those trying to diet, but not at all relevant to the underlying theory.

But if you're also arguing that that is Taubes' hypothesis then you are wrong. Taubes' hypothesis is that increased intake of refined carbohydrates is responsible for the diseases of western civilization. No it isn't, Percy.

Yes it is. You seem in a bit of a rut when it comes to understanding what Taubes is actually saying, that increased consumption of refined carbohydrates is responsible for the diseases of western civilization. Here's Taubes in the preface to his book:

Taubes on page xxiii writes: ...obesity is caused by the quality of the calories, rather than the quantity, and specifically by the effect of refined and easily digestible carbohydrates on the hormonal regulation of fat storage and metabolism.

Moving on:

molbiogirl writes: The digestive system breaks food down into constituents that can be absorbed by the bloodstream, such as glucose. Insulin response is governed by many factors, but one significant factor is blood glucose levels. That's called the GI. And, as I've shown above, there is a huge disconnect between the IS and the GI. The GI is not predictive of the IS.

No one claimed that the GI is predictive of what one paper called the Insulin Score. The claim is that the greater a food's ability to cause glucose and insulin spikes, the more dangerous it is for health.

If you'd like, I can compile a list of the papers that show glucose load is not predictive of insulin levels. A list of the papers that show carb content is not predictive of IS. A list of the papers that show type of carb is not predictive of IS.

What would be the point? Maybe somewhere on the Internet someone is claiming they can predict insulin response based on a list of a food's ingredients, but no one in this thread is making that claim.

How about you show me the data that support your contention that type of carb is predictive of IS?

I never contended that the type of carb is predictive of insulin response. The claim is that in general the greater the refined carbohydrate content the greater the insulin response. Insulin secretion is a response to certain nutrients, both protein and carbohydrates among them. For blood glucose levels, the more rapidly carbohydrates can be digested into glucose in the bloodstream the greater the insulin response. If you hold other factors constant, increasing consumption of glucose (for instance, in the form of glucose tablets) will cause an increasing insulin response. I believe the same is true of protein, but meat is generally only slowly digested when compared to refined carbohydrates and so can't cause an insulin spike. However, my endocrinologist believes protein drinks can be dangerous, and my guess is that it's because the rapid availability of so much protein also has the ability to cause insulin spikes.

--Percy

Edited by Percy, : Grammar.

I am pretty sure your endocrinologist is not concerned about the protein drinks because of the insulin spikes. I think he is probably more concerned with protein poisoning or some other effects. I think you could make your own simple shakes without using protein powder that would taste a whole lot better and not doing anything suspicious to your body. Bananas, some soymilk, maybe chocolate, a whole cucumber, some peanut butter, some celery, some nut powder-any of those things can make a good shake, and you won't have much issues about sugar spikes, and they taste good-and you are eating the whole food.

I also think one can get a pretty good indication of the glycemic load of something they have eaten by simply monitoring the effects of your body right after you have eaten. If you find that about 20 minutes after you have consumed something-like a bunch of white potatoes for instance, that your head is a little fuzzy or drowsy, if your heart rate increases, and even your skin might feel a little tingly, you know that your insulin levels are see-sawing. If you pay attention to these things after a while you will start to see what causes this the most and at what time of day according to your activity level at that time. A big potato will have more effect on you in this way if you ate it right in the morning then if you did after a long jog in the afternoon-because after the long run your body is looking to refuel itself and the increased activity level will keep the insulin level more stable.

My endocrinologist expressed his opinion that protein drinks are not good for health while asking questions about my diet in an attempt to discover the reason for an abnormal blood test result. I've never consumed protein drinks myself.

I have a blood sugar test kit, the kind used by diabetics, and my blood sugar has never tested outside the normal range during a period of grogginess, usually brought on by over exercise, though some types of meals have the same effect, like Chinese food. Measurement of insulin levels isn't possible with at-home equipment.

--Percy

Well, I'm glad you've finally chosen to include the error bars!

Look at popcorn, tho. 54 +/- 9 is not 53. It is 45-63. Grapes are 82 +/- 6. That's 76-88.

(I made a mistake in my initial post, too. I said the error bars for popcorn were +/- 14. That's for the next food on the list, potato chips.)

Percy, take a look at your message #390. Popcorn was on your low IS list and grapes were on your high IS list. Popcorn is no where near the bottom and grapes are no where near the top.

When error bars overlap (or are very close), the difference between the two means is not statistically significant. (Google that if you don’t believe me.) Please note that there is significant overlap in much of the list. And grapes and popcorn are very close together.

Oranges, apples, popcorn and bread have an IS of 62-3. Are you arguing that a fructose laden orange/apple, a complex carb like popcorn, and a simple carb like bread are somehow different when they elicit an identical insulin response?

Look at what Holt calls similar.

(W)hole-meal bread and white bread had similar scores. White and brown rice had similar GSs and ISs, as did white and brown pasta.

Whole meal bread = 96 ± 12 (108)
White bread = 100 ± 0 (100)
White rice = 79 ± 12 (91)
Brown rice = 62 ± 11 (73)
White pasta = 40 ± 5 (45)
Brown pasta = 40 ± 5 (45)

The difference between breads is 108 - 100 = 8.
The difference between rices is 91 - 73 = 22.

Please note that these comparisons are between white and brown (refined and unrefined), too.

Grapes and popcorn are a lot closer than you seem to think.

And don't start in with the fiber thing.

According to Holt:

The ... fiber contents of the foods were not significantly related to the mean ISs.

Mean GSs were not significantly related to the foods' ... fiber contents.

Neither the glucose nor the insulin scores were related to fiber.

According to Jenkins:

There was, however, no relationship between glycemic index and dietary fiber or sugar content.

Surprisingly, no significant relationship was seen between glycemic index and dietary fiber.

Indeed, there was little difference between the high fiber wholemeal bread, spaghetti and brown rice and their low fiber white counterparts.

Jenkins, D et al. Glycemic index of foods: a physiological basis for carbohydrate exchange, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 34, 362-366.

Or these papers.

Ullrich IH, Albrink MJ. Lack of effect of dietary fiber on serum lipids, glucose, and insulin in healthy young men fed high starch diets. Am J Clin Nutr l982;36: 1-9.
Manhire A, et al. Unrefined carbohydrate and dietary fibre in treatment of diabetes mellitus. J Hum Nutr 198 l;35:99-lOl.
Lindsay ANA et al. High carbohydrate, high-fiber diet in children with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care 1984;7:63-7.

Look. You can go on and on about how fructose is different from glucose is different from protein is different from carbs, but the insulin score is the insulin score.

It doesn’t matter if the insulin is in response to protein or carb, fructose or glucose. Blood samples were taken 8 times over a 2 hour period. If the IS is similar then it's similar. Period. And unrefined or complex carbs have similar/identical ISes as refined or simple carbs.

Furthermore, carbs have similar/identical ISes as proteins. That's a big problem for Taubes.

On to GI & II.

Englyst abstract as quoted by Percy writes: In conclusion, the GI and II values of the cereal products investigated can be explained by the RAG and SAG contents. A high SAG content identifies low-GI foods that are rich in slowly released carbohydrates for which health benefits have been proposed.

Percy writes: GI is Glycemic Index and II is Insulinemic Index. The conclusion is stating that SAG (Slowly Available Glucose) is associated with lower a glycemic index, and RAG (Rapidly Available Glucose) is associated with a higher glycemic index.

You really ought to read something other than the abstract, Percy.

Yes. GI correlates to II. And it's a very weak correlation.

The present study confirms the relationship between GI and II values for starchy foods, although the correlation is not as strong as reported previously (Bjorck et al. 2000).

It is possible that this rather weak association, and the observation that II values were higher than GI values, could be explained by the combined insulinotropic effects of protein, fat and possibly of other undetermined properties of the foods.

Note the wording! And this wording:

Holt et al. (1997) could only explain 23 % of the variance in the insulinscore by the glycaemic score of the foods.

RAG demonstrated the strongest correlation with II, but still only explained 32 % of the variance.

Let's take another look at the Holt paper:

There were large differences in mean glycemic and insulin responses to the foods, both within and between food groups.

A difference between the GI & the IS. A large difference.

Our study was undertaken to test the hypothesis that the postprandial insulin response was not necessarily proportional to the blood glucose response and that nutrients other than carbohydrate influence the overall level of insulinemia.

Their hypothesis was that the GI & the IS are not proportional.

As hypothesized, several foods with similar GSs had disparate ISs (eg, ice cream and yogurt, brown rice and baked beans, cake and apples, and doughnuts and brown pasta).

And that's what Holt found. The GS & the IS were different.

Therefore, the glycemic response was a significant predictor of the insulin response, but it accounted for only 23% of the variability in insulinemia.

The GI is a predictor of IS, and maybe a pretty good one, but it's a 1 out of 5 shot.

Thus, we can explain only 33% of the variation of the insulin responses to the 38 foods under examination.

And carbs are not a good predictor of IS.

Furthermore, equal-carbohydrate servings of foods do not necessarily stimulate insulin secretion to the same extent. For example, isoenergetic servings of pasta and potatoes both contained (about) 50g carbohydrate, yet the IS for potatoes was three times greater than that for pasta. Similarly, porridge and yogurt, and whole-grain bread and baked beans, produced disparate ISs despite their similar carbohydrate contents.

These findings, like others, challenge the (assumption) that portions of different foods containing 10-15g carbohydrate will have equal physiologic effects andwill require equal amounts of exogenous insulin to be metabolized.

Carbs can't predict insulin response.

Let's look at another paper. The Bao paper.

Surprisingly, in the current context, carbohydrate, fiber, and protein content were found to be relatively poor predictors of the overall insulin response.

Observed insulin responses varied over a 3-fold range (from 35 ± 5 to 116 ± 26). The carbohydrate content of the meals did not predict insulin demand.

Bao, J et al. Food insulin index: physiologic basis for predicting insulin demand evoked by composite meals, Am J Clin Nutr vol. 90, no. 4 986-992

We're talking about the insulin response. RAG & SAG taken together have only a 1in 5 shot of predicting the insulin response.

Carb content, whether simple or complex, refined or unrefined, does not predict the insulin score.

French fries and bananas are the same.
Brown rice and Honeysmacks are the same.
Pasta and muesli are nearly the same.
Brown rice and potato chips are nearly the same.

Other studies have confirmed these findings.

Calrose white 67 ± 15
Calrose brown 51 ± 7
Pelde white 67 ± 11
Pelde brown 55 ± 10
Pelde (parboiled) 57 ± 6
Doongara white 40 ± 10
Doongara brown 39 ± 6
Sunbrown Quick 54 ± 6
Waxy rice 89 ± 19
Rice cakes 73 ± 12
Rice bran 23 ± 4
Brown rice pasta 72±18
Wheat pasta 52 ± 9
Rolled oats 54 ± 12
Rolled barley 64 ± 11

Brand-Miller, J et al. Rice: a high or low glycemic index food?, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 56, 1034-1036.

White rice and brown rice are nearly the same.

Look.

According to Taubes, one can eat cheese (58) but not bread (62).

One can eat beef (67) but not Special K (71).

One can eat fish (77) but not potato chips (75).

One can eat yogurt (128) but not potatoes (132).

One can eat eggs (37) but not All Bran (36).

I call bullshit.

Because you're exhibiting the same pattern as a couple years ago of citing papers that disagree with you I'm not going to look at the other papers you cited because I think I'll just find more of the same.

Ignore the cites all you want, Percy.

Doesn't change reality one whit.

Carbs do not predict insulin response. 68% of the insulin response is dictated by something other than carbs.

That is the point of the Englyst cite.

Now to the ignored papers.

Milk is insulinogenic.

The novel finding of this experiment was that skimmed milk elicited a disproportionately large insulinaemic response relative to its low glycaemic response in healthy normal subjects.

Certain amino acids (tryptophan, leucine, isoleucine and glutamine) are insulinogenic (Schmid et al. 1989). Hence, it has been hypothesized that elevated concentrations of these amino acids in milk may underlie its insulin-stimulating capabilities (Ostman et al. 2001).

(T)he the insulin scores for milk products have been reported to range from 89 to 115 (Holt et al. 1997; Ostman et al. 2001)

(A)ll dairy products (whole milk, skimmed milk, yoghurt, ice cream, cottage cheese and fermented milk products) have been shown to have potent insulinotropic properties.

Hoyt, G et al. Dissociation of the glycaemic and insulinaemic responses to whole and skimmed milk, British Journal of Nutrition (2005), 93, 175–17

Despite low glycemic indexes of 15–30, all of the milk products produced high insulinemic indexes of 90–98, which were not significantly different from the insulinemic index of the reference bread.

Milk products appear insulinotropic as judged from 3-fold to 6-fold higher insulinemic indexes than expected from the corresponding glycemic indexes.

Ostman, E et al. Inconsistency between glycemic and insulinemic responses to regular and fermented milk products, Am J Clin Nutr (2001) 74, 96 – 100.

Again. A big disconnect between the GI & IS.

And, as I mentioned earlier, a huge IS, six times what you would expect, way out of proportion to its carb content.

Cocoa is insulinogenic too. No carbs in cocoa powder!

Although the GI did not differ within each pair, the insulin index (II) of the chocolate product was always higher, by a mean of 28%, than the alternate flavored product.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that chocolate (cocoa powder), has a specific insulinotropic effect, irrespective of food source or the overall macronutrient composition of the food.

Macronutrient composition accounted for nearly all of the variation in GI among the foods, but did not explain differences in insulinemia.

Brand-Miller J, et al. Cocoa Powder Increases Postprandial Insulinemia in Lean Young Adults, The American Society for Nutritional Sciences J. Nutr. 133:3149-3152, October 2003.

Brand Miller is one of the authors of the Holt paper, btw.

Brand Miller goes on to say:

Our findings are consistent with those of other studies in healthy and diabetic individuals (2,4,8,9).

Want me to quote those papers so you can ignore those results too?

Here's another paper that shows there is a big disconnect between GI & IS.

A food that has a low GI can have a high IS. This applies to dairy and to other fatty foods. Some foods (such as meat, fish, and eggs) that contain no carbohydrate, just protein and fat (and essentially have a GI value of zero), still stimulate significant rises in blood insulin.

Oku, T et al. Consideration of the validity of glycemic index using blood glucose and insulin levels and breath hydrogen excretion in healthy subjects, International Journal of Diabetes Mellitus Volume 2, Issue 2, August 2010, Pages 88-94

And I didn't bother quoting these papers ...

Jenkins DJA, et al. Lack of effect of refining on the glycemic response to cereals. Diabetes Care 1981;4:509–13.

Liljeberg H, et al. Metabolic responses to starch in bread containing intact kernels versus milled flour. Eur J Clin Nutr 1992;46:561–75.

Heinonen L, et al. The effect of different types of Finnish bread on postprandial glucose response in diabetic patients. Hum Nutr Appl Nutr 1985;39:108–13.

Jenkins DJA, Wolever TMS, Jenkins AL, Lee R, Wong GS, Josse RG. Glycemic response to wheat products: reduced response to pasta but no effect of fiber. Diabetes Care 1983;6:155–9.

... but I would be more than happy to. But one would think the titles alone would tell you what you need to know.

Oh. What the heck! Just a taste!

The blood glucose response to feeding 50-g carbohydrate portions of white and wholemeal bread and white spaghetti was studied in a group of nine diabetic subjects. Blood glucose rises after white and wholemeal bread were identical, but the response after spaghetti was markedly reduced.

Let me boil this down so we don't talk past each other again:

1. The glucose response (GI) and the insulin response (IS) are weakly correlated. Which is a big problem for Taubes' hypothesis.

2. Carbs do not predict insulin response (IS). At best, they predict 32% of the insulin response. That leaves 68% of the insulin response unexplained.

3. Refined and unrefined carbs evoke similar, if not identical, insulin response (IS).

I was thinking about the insulin issue with protein. Since we know from experience that when we lower the refined carbs our weight goes down, the question is what does protein do differently than the refined carbs?

If both can raise the insulin levels, what is different about protein in the body than the refined carbs?

Someone made the comment that protein also raises glucagon, which counters insulin, whereas carbs just raise insulin alone.

Some food for thought. More pieces to the puzzle.

Protein, Glucagon and Insulin

The problem comes when excess carbohydrates are consumed. Once the liver and muscles have stored as much glycogen as possible (about the amount of three candy bars), the body creates another storage form, fat. Insulin tells your body not only to store new fat, but also not to release any previously stored fat. Insulin is the storage hormone.

Protein stimulates the release of glucagon, which stimulates the liver to release stored carbohydrates from its glycogen stores and from fat. Glucagon also inhibits the release of insulin. By controlling your intake of protein and spreading it throughout the day, you can constantly produce adequate amounts of glucagon.

I don't know how any of that relates to the insulin score though.

It might be worth noting that in contrast to the other paper, this was a study of a narrow food group (cereal products only), and it was done in vitro, not in vivo, in other words, in the laboratory rather than with actual people.

Um. No.

Englyst et al. (2003) correlated twenty-three cereal-based starchy foods for their GI in vivo and their rate of CHO digestion in vitro (asassessed by the content in rapidly available glucose).

Brouns, F et al. Glycaemic index methodology, Nutrition Research Reviews (2005), 18, 145–17.

Close but no cigar!