Do you think in general the low fat diet advice is outdated?

[ktgrok]

I agree it is probably VERY complex. 

 

I will also say that what works or is an okay diet for a normal weight person is often NOT okay for someone with a badly damaged metabolism. 

 

Telling a morbidly obese person to "just eat less" is about as useful as telling a heroin addict to just inject a bit less. 

[maize]

 

I don't. I really haven't seen compelling evidence.

 

The obese infants I've seen are being over fed.

 

In addition to being given much too large and frequent portions, many were being fed coke or milkshakes in a bottle, french fries, fish sticks, chocolate cookies. They are given a bottle or a snack every time they wanted 'something'. I do think they're eating out of boredom and emotional problems because none of their emotional needs were being met but instead high volumes of calorie dense foods were supplied.

 

I think all humans, infants included are pretty heavily programmed to eat food when it's avail.

 

Infant and child overweight is also correlated with maternal overweight & obesity, and lack of or short duration of breastfeeding.

 

 

You never met my breastfed infants. Butterballs all the way--one hit 24 lbs by 4 months. Most have been off the charts for weight for their first couple years of life.

 

They're all perfectly normal, active, healthy weight kids now.

 

What I wrote above applies to 4 of my 6. The other two, fed in just the same way with the same breast milk (and both very good and eager nursers) were normal weight slenderish babies. The only difference I can figure must be in their own specific genetic makeup.

[HS Mom in NC]

Of course there's a genetic component.  We know that some Native Americans can't eat the same foods in the same proportions that most Caucasians eat without it making them obese and diabetic very quickly.

I had a breastfed baby off the charts chunky and one fairly slim.  Both were good nursers.

[Greta]

I agree it is probably VERY complex. 

 

I will also say that what works or is an okay diet for a normal weight person is often NOT okay for someone with a badly damaged metabolism. 

 

Telling a morbidly obese person to "just eat less" is about as useful as telling a heroin addict to just inject a bit less. 

 

 

Katie, you sound like you may already be familiar with Dr. Jason Fung, but just in case, I wanted to mention that I think you would really like his book, The Obesity Code.  He also has some good YouTube videos.

 

[ktgrok]

Katie, you sound like you may already be familiar with Dr. Jason Fung, but just in case, I wanted to mention that I think you would really like his book, The Obesity Code.  He also has some good YouTube videos.

 

 

 

No, hadn't heard of him. I'll watch tomorrow. 

[happypamama]

A typical food day growing up was cereal (sugary) for breakfast. Lunch might be peanut butter and jelly on white bread with a side of potato chips. Dinner might be Hamburger Helper. A special treat might be a Little Debbie snack cake.

 

But see here, none of the junk was in excess. We only had a small bowl of cereal. There was only one small sandwich with a light smearing of peanut butter and jelly. Only a few chips. One helping of Hamburger Helper and healthier because mom used margarine and skim milk because that is healthier. And it was only one oatmeal pie snack cake.

For me, it was the little Hawaiian Punch juice boxes for lunch. They were healthy because they had calcium added, which meant I didn't need milk (which I think tastes disgusting unless it's raw)! Right? Well, not really.

 

I think decades of the low fat way of eating has really hurt people. We have epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Something is not working. Low fat foods that aren't naturally low fat often have sugar or artificial sweeteners added to them. Blech.

[MotherGoose]

But again, they must have done something to the food on top of that. Why do people want to eat so much? Why are they so hungry?

 

Back in the day tough, to be fair, there wasn't this heavy emphasis on fat free either. I have some old cookbooks and there are no low fat and fat free garbage recipes. They didn't have all the fat off meat to 1/8th of an inch. I bet boneless skinless chicken breast was either not available or quite expensive to request.

I was in Czech Republic about 10 years ago and we had choice of eating at a gas station or a McDonald's. this was in countryside. The bus load of American tourists was very intrigued by how the McDonald's had nothing but small hamburgers/cheeseburgers, and small fries and drinks, like I recall as a kid. If you wanted a soda refill, you had to pay for it. You had to pay for every pack of catsup. Kind of like America in the fifties, I would guess. I remember having to pay for soda refills.

[Guest]

No, hadn't heard of him. I'll watch tomorrow.

Jason has done a lot of good work in recent years, though he is a big therapeutic fasting proponent and that doesn't always work for people with reduced stomach capacity due to the limits on how much one can comfortably consume in a sitting. He has lots more than that and presents things very clearly, which is a big plus.

[Guest]

I grew up in the Ozarks descended from poor (country poor which is deeply poor) farmers. There is a book of photos of the founding families of my little country church. They mostly came from Germany. I'd say over half of the women are overweight and a few are obese (including my great grandmother). These were people who worked all day trying to grow food on the rocky ground of that area so they didn't starve. Obviously, they weren't consuming more calories than they were using!! Yes, today, some people are overweight because of overeating unhealthy foods but not all. And, if calories in/calories out is really the answer, does that mean there are no thin, lazy couch potatoes?

[mamaraby]

I think decades of the low fat way of eating has really hurt people. We have epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Something is not working. Low fat foods that aren't naturally low fat often have sugar or artificial sweeteners added to them. Blech.

And that would be true only if Americans ever at any point ate a low fat diet, but they haven't and they don't. Not even in the 90s. (https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/sites/default/files/nutrition_insights_uploads/insight5.pdf). The 1990 guidelines said to limit fat to no more than 30% of calories and average consumption mostly hovered in the mid 30s. Also, there was an increase in calories consumed which diluted the fat percentage so while it appeared that fat consumption went down, it mostly stayed the same.

 

If Americans actually followed the government's dietary advice then more than 11% of Americans would get 5 servinga of fruit and vegetables a day, they wouldn't be eating 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, and we wouldn't have 40% of our population *never* eating a whole grain. The "standard" diet is just about opposite of what the government recommends.

 

After years of eating whatever and thinking I was healthy plus some years as a member of the WAPF and several stints in the LCHF/paleo crowd, it was when I started basically following the government's guidelines (like, really doing it and keeping track of what I ate so I kept myself honest) that I started to lose weight in a way that I could sustain. My biometrics followed suit. I became a runner. I got active. I lost 80 some pounds. So...yeah, I still find that weight loss is easiest when I follow closer to the government's dietary advice than not.

 

Look, you want to do something different? Go therefore and do what you want. If it's something that bothers you or concerns you then it might be worth exploring in a way that doesn't involve the echo chamber. As I suspected back on page one, people have pretty much lined up exactly where they always do. So...maybe your search should extend outside the forums here which skew heavily to the LCHF end of the spectrum.

[hornblower]

And that would be true only if Americans ever at any point ate a low fat diet, but they haven't and they don't. 

 

yes, this. 

 

In one US state (Mississippi), 50% of people consume fruit less than once a day & 32.3% consume a vegetable less than once a day;  keep in mind they count potatoes as veg so odds are overwhelming the ones that do consume a veg are probably eating a french fry.

 

I mean it's appalling & yes, it starts young: 

 

"Around one-third of toddlers and preschoolers (ages 2 to 4) do not eat any fruits or vegetables in a given day, and only one-third meet the daily recommendation of one cup of fruit and 1 cup of vegetables for children ages 2 to 3 and one to one-and one-half cups for children ages 4 to 8. French fries are the most eaten vegetable by toddlers and preschoolers." 

 

http://stateofobesity.org/files/stateofobesity2016.pdf

 

I don't think we can blame the guidelines. The nutrition guidelines are good but people either can't or won't follow them.

 

 

[Laura Corin]

I've noticed this again and again, when you look at photos of everyday Americans from the 1950s, how skinny almost all of them looked.

 

I think portion control is a much bigger culprit than whether we are eating "good" foods or "bad" foods.

 

Looking at the menu from 1950s McDonalds, they only sold 7 ounce sodas (of course, with no refills), a single-patty hamburger, or if you wanted to splurge, a single-patty cheeseburger, and a single size of fries smaller than today's "small" size.

 

I'm not blaming McDonalds here, they just make it easy to compare across  decades.  I bet these portions where similar to what people were eating at home, and today's larger fast food portions are the new normal, and correspond to home-cooked portions.

 

Yes.  The UK rationing during WWII and after is similar.  It's not that the food was wildly healthy (the veg was often just carrots and maybe cabbage) but the quantities were limited.

[Laura Corin]

You never met my breastfed infants. Butterballs all the way--one hit 24 lbs by 4 months. Most have been off the charts for weight for their first couple years of life.

 

They're all perfectly normal, active, healthy weight kids now.

 

What I wrote above applies to 4 of my 6. The other two, fed in just the same way with the same breast milk (and both very good and eager nursers) were normal weight slenderish babies. The only difference I can figure must be in their own specific genetic makeup.

 

My eldest was also vast as a baby: fully breast fed.  Over the next year or two, he lost all the fat and has actually been clinically underweight ever since.  At 5'11", he has only just put on enough weight to be allowed to give blood.

 

My second was a normal weight baby and is now a slender teenager.

 

[Greta]

Jason has done a lot of good work in recent years, though he is a big therapeutic fasting proponent and that doesn't always work for people with reduced stomach capacity due to the limits on how much one can comfortably consume in a sitting. He has lots more than that and presents things very clearly, which is a big plus.

 

 

Oh, yes, that's a really good point!  I should have thought of that.  Mostly I was thinking about the way he dismantles the calories argument, and demonstrates that obesity is multi-faceted with numerous causes all interacting -- that sounds like what Katie was arguing in this thread.   :001_smile:

 

I actually don't do intermittent fasting myself (when I've tried it's triggered a migraine) but after I read his book I stopped eating all non-caloric sweeteners (I had already given up sugars years ago) and I stopped snacking between meals, and I lost 7 or 8 pounds just from that. 

[HS Mom in NC]

My porky, exclusively breastfed baby is now a size 2P, 100lb., 5'2," 20 year old. The slimmer, exclusively breastfed baby is now a size 4P, 115 lb., 5'3," 19 year old.

[SparklyUnicorn]

 

Look, you want to do something different? Go therefore and do what you want. If it's something that bothers you or concerns you then it might be worth exploring in a way that doesn't involve the echo chamber. As I suspected back on page one, people have pretty much lined up exactly where they always do. So...maybe your search should extend outside the forums here which skew heavily to the LCHF end of the spectrum.

Yes, it's finally nice to have that kind of control and have that kind of gumption.   This goes against everything I was told for years though and that part has been a little weird.

[SparklyUnicorn]

My babies were average.  They were bottle fed.  They are still average.

 

I was bottle fed.  I was underweight most of my childhood.  I dropped some pounds out of vanity in my 20s, but was not really overweight.  This is really the first time I've struggled so much.

 

 

[Bluegoat]

They also ate a TON less sugar. SO much less. And even people that aren't buying junk food and are trying to be healthy are getting large doses of sugar. Low fat yogurt is supposed to be healthy, but it has tons of sugar. Heck, I bought canned tomatoes the other day, and they had sugar in them! (and were gross!)

 

I was at Trader Joes and the granola had more sugar than the ice cream! But many people would think it was healthy. 

 

Yes, much less sugar.  But they didn't cut it out, the 50s was the era of white flour and white sugar.  It was less sneaky sugar, though.

 

But, OTOH, a lot of carbs, made with white flour.  Even a lot of middle class families were not eating meals where meat was the main focus every night, and veg were basic.  Imported fruit were not available much and were expensive.  People weren't eating a lot of bugler or quinoa.

 

Portions went up I think not just to satisfy an increased appetite, but as a marketing tool.  People thought they were getting a better deal as they had larger sizes for low prices.  And with lower food costs, that could be economical.  Over time though that affects what people see as normal.

[hornblower]

n=1 & personal anecdotes =/= science

[Bluegoat]

So, the breastfeeding theory - and I have no idea if it has any truth to it - has nothing really to do with how slim, or not, the baby is. 

 

It suggests that as adults, kids who were formula fed are statistically - that is, not every individual - less able to regulate weight well.  The theories seem to make a few suggestions as to what might cause that, though hormonal or other factors present in breast milk that could help regulate hunger seem to be the main suggestion. 

 

Whether people have thin or fat babies, or even anecdotal adults, doesn't tell us much.

[hornblower]

You never met my breastfed infants. Butterballs all the way--one hit 24 lbs by 4 months. Most have been off the charts for weight for their first couple years of life.

 

They're all perfectly normal, active, healthy weight kids now.

 

What I wrote above applies to 4 of my 6. The other two, fed in just the same way with the same breast milk (and both very good and eager nursers) were normal weight slenderish babies. The only difference I can figure must be in their own specific genetic makeup.

 

I'm an IBCLC. I've seen plenty of bf babies, fat, skinny & in between.

 

Actually, we know breastfed infants have lower rates of childhood & adult obesity so I'm not surprised about people saying I had fat breastfed baby & now they're normal healthy weight.

 

Yes, some exclusively bf babies are very large. I get concerned if they're way off charts & usually that's a cause for a metabolic screening test. It could be normal for them, or it could be a bunch of diseases. 

 

 

 

But when public health officials are talking about the epidemic of obesity in children, they're NOT talking about exclusively breastfed babies (mostly because there are so few of them, esp in the USA). They're talking about infants & toddlers being fed french fries & milkshakes and juice and coke. 

 

 

[maize]

So, the breastfeeding theory - and I have no idea if it has any truth to it - has nothing really to do with how slim, or not, the baby is.

 

It suggests that as adults, kids who were formula fed are statistically - that is, not every individual - less able to regulate weight well. The theories seem to make a few suggestions as to what might cause that, though hormonal or other factors present in breast milk that could help regulate hunger seem to be the main suggestion.

 

Whether people have thin or fat babies, or even anecdotal adults, doesn't tell us much.

Gut flora could have an impact, breast milk encourages certain types of gut flora development; I wonder if that results in persistent differences?

[Bluegoat]

Gut flora could have an impact, breast milk encourages certain types of gut flora development; I wonder if that results in persistent differences?

 

Yeah, I think it could.

 

I've heard some suggest that it might be mechanical, because of different effort required for sucking.  That seems less compelling to me, but you never know.

[hornblower]

Gut flora could have an impact, breast milk encourages certain types of gut flora development; I wonder if that results in persistent differences?

There's the micobiome hypothesis. This is a decent news article http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/breast-feeding-the-microbiome

Edited November 30, 2016 by hornblower

[LucyStoner]

but it is still voluntary to consume this stuff. Nobody has to. (ETA: unless one is so poor that one does not have other options)

The unfortunate truth is that far more people are below, at or just a little beyond the poverty line than most people think. Basically 1/2 of Americans fall into this group. While it is possible to eat healthy on a small budget, doing so often takes resources and skills many people don't have.

 

Pound for pound the cheapest calorie is sugar. We can't be that shocked when people pressed for time and money reach for the cheapest ways to fill up.

[frugalmamatx]

The unfortunate truth is that far more people are below, at or just a little beyond the poverty line than most people think. Basically 1/2 of Americans fall into this group. While it is possible to eat healthy on a small budget, doing so often takes resources and skills many people don't have.

 

Pound for pound the cheapest calorie is sugar. We can't be that shocked when people pressed for time and money reach for the cheapest ways to fill up.

 

This. Very much so. And then add in things such as food deserts {limited shopping options}, possibly limited transportation options for elderly / ill / low income / carless / etc, and it becomes drastically harder to eat healthy on a small budget. And that is IF you know how to cook AND have a functional place to cook in. Things like running water & electric / gas to cook aren't always a given if you're living in poverty. And speaking from experience it's a LOT easier to grab a TV dinner or eat out when you know you can't wash anything because your water is shut off for whatever reason {plumbing problems, past due bill, etc etc etc}. 

[LucyStoner]

I've delivered items to families in need over the years, sometimes connected with my work and other times on my own and one thing that stuck with me is many lacked kitchens. And even the ones that did might have largely non-functioning kitchens. My SIL had a landlord who would only fix anything when it was time for a section 8 inspection. My SIL rarely asked her landlord to fix pretty much anything because she assumed that she could get kicked out. So they might have one burner and be washing dishes in the bathtub. I can judge my SIL for feeding her kids little Debbie's and popcorn for breakfast or I can see the overall situation that contributed to those habits and limited choices.

 

I've mentioned that my family was homeless at times when I was a child. We experienced times where our only cooking space was a small kitchnette in a motel and other times where we were "camping" and my dad cooked what he could on a Coleman stove. But most of the time we had a kitchen that worked. That doesn't seem to be a given anymore for people at the income level I grew up on.

Edited November 30, 2016 by LucyStoner

[LucyStoner]

Also, even when people migrate out of poverty, food habits die slowly and it's all too easy to indulge because now you can eat what you want when you want.

[maize]

There's the micobiome hypothesis. This is a decent news article http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/breast-feeding-the-microbiome

The link doesn't work for me.

[hornblower]

The link doesn't work for me.

Sorry. I've been having so much trouble linking lately - it's like my browser keeps adding extra characters or something... 

 

It's called 

BREAST-FEEDING THE MICROBIOME by Ed Yong  

 

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/breast-feeding-the-microbiome

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yes, much less sugar.  But they didn't cut it out, the 50s was the era of white flour and white sugar.  It was less sneaky sugar, though.

 

But, OTOH, a lot of carbs, made with white flour.  Even a lot of middle class families were not eating meals where meat was the main focus every night, and veg were basic.  Imported fruit were not available much and were expensive.  People weren't eating a lot of bugler or quinoa.

 

Portions went up I think not just to satisfy an increased appetite, but as a marketing tool.  People thought they were getting a better deal as they had larger sizes for low prices.  And with lower food costs, that could be economical.  Over time though that affects what people see as normal.

 

Yeah the main source of carbs was Wonder (type) Bread.  Vegetables, if they had the selection they do now and the availability, I'm not aware of it.  My mother seemed to have mostly skipped the veggie section.  She bought canned for years and eventually switched over to some frozen. 

 

We didn't eat rice much.  Nobody liked it.

[Guest]

n=1 & personal anecdotes =/= science

More concerning is how much that masquerades as scientific thinking and procedure doesn't equal science either. It is shameful the amount of confirmation bias, data manipulation, and outright misrepresentation we see among even supposedly rigorous medical journals and clinical trials.

 

Relitigating the case for dietary types over and over again isn't really needed either, though. This isn't a new subject and there is actually very strong data to prove and disprove the benefit of various hypotheses, where the nuance becomes adherence and composition. The actual trend of what is 'ideal' is fairly clear and has been even back into the 20's, especially for weight loss and control. The thing is that no individual perfectly fits a data curve and there are outliers, and those outliers DO matter because they are people. What works for 70+% of the population still *doesnt* best fit 30%. And how much is confounded by genetics, food quality, and severity of the underlying dysfunction is always up for debate. Therefore, N=1 does indeed matter when your data set is *made up* of a bunch of those individually unique bodies who each have their own variation.

 

Establishing normal and pathological in humans is surprisingly tricky, and not just in the field of nutrition (that's harder because of how deep the impact is on physiology, but it doesn't stand alone). Saying all things are equal, even diet has support, quantity or purity matters most, etc, isn't actually accurate though. There are pretty clear trends among the better formulated and executed studies and several factors at play - so isolating out what is initial effect, medium and long range prognoses, and adherence over time is really important. That doesn't mean certain diets don't actually perform better - what tends to get them is the last factor of long term adherence and that is both irrelevant (the diet works so long as you stick to it) and critical data (you must stick to it) all at once.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[wapiti]

Sorry. I've been having so much trouble linking lately - it's like my browser keeps adding extra characters or something... 

 

It's called 

BREAST-FEEDING THE MICROBIOME by Ed Yong  

 

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/breast-feeding-the-microbiome

 

Thank you for this article.  It fits into a lot of my other reading about various saccharides, the immune system and molecular mimicry.  It is extremely complex and not well understood but quite fascinating.  (e.g. not long ago, I was reading about the efficacy of intravenous immunoglobulin preparations that were concentrated for those molecules having a terminal sialic acid residue rather than the usual preparation in which only some have a sialic acid residue.  I could go on all day about saccharide residues, polysaccharides, etc.  There is an autoimmune angle too.)

Edited November 30, 2016 by wapiti

[ktgrok]

Can't quote on my phone but even as not great as white flour is for you it is better than sugar. Sucrose is processed very differently in the body than glucose from starch. I also think if we ate dealing with epigenetic changes the obesity may lag a generation behind the dietary changes.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Can't quote on my phone but even as not great as white flour is for you it is better than sugar. Sucrose is processed very differently in the body than glucose from starch. I also think if we ate dealing with epigenetic changes the obesity may lag a generation behind the dietary changes.

 

I don't know...seems only slightly.

 

I rarely buy squishy store white bread.  I remember buying it and one of my kids said WOW this is great, it tastes like cake. 

 

I hated white bread growing up, but I didn't have a choice.  That's not part of the discussion really though.  LOL 

[HS Mom in NC]

One of the theories (which I think has some merit) explaining the increase in obesity, is that we're over-fed but under-nourished.  We're eating high volumes of low quality food. Most of the food consumed in modern America isn't nutrient dense in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and high quality carbs, proteins and fats.  That means we continue to get the "eat something" signal from our brains because our body wants dense nutrients, not just a full stomach of whatever you can manage to put in there. The lack of nutrients causes our body to not function at maximum capacity and that results in an array of problems over time. 

The movie Hungry for Change addresses it. It's a not a great movie and I'm not convinced that's the whole story, but I do think lack of high quality nutrition is a serious contributing factor to most people's obesity and some of our common health problems. Add to that very little exercise and it's a recipe for chronic problems eventually.

[SparklyUnicorn]

More concerning is how much that masquerades as scientific thinking and procedure doesn't equal science either. It is shameful the amount of confirmation bias, data manipulation, and outright misrepresentation we see among even supposedly rigorous medical journals and clinical trials.

 

Relitigating the case for dietary types over and over again isn't really needed either, though. This isn't a new subject and there is actually very strong data to prove and disprove the benefit of various hypotheses, where the nuance becomes adherence and composition. The actual trend of what is 'ideal' is fairly clear and has been even back into the 20's, especially for weight loss and control. The thing is that no individual perfectly fits a data curve and there are outliers, and those outliers DO matter because they are people. What works for 70+% of the population still *doesnt* best fit 30%. And how much is confounded by genetics, food quality, and severity of the underlying dysfunction is always up for debate. Therefore, N=1 does indeed matter when your data set is *made up* of a bunch of those individually unique bodies who each have their own variation.

 

Establishing normal and pathological in humans is surprisingly tricky, and not just in the field of nutrition (that's harder because of how deep the impact is on physiology, but it doesn't stand alone). Saying all things are equal, even diet has support, quantity or purity matters most, etc, isn't actually accurate though. There are pretty clear trends among the better formulated and executed studies and several factors at play - so isolating out what is initial effect, medium and long range prognoses, and adherence over time is really important. That doesn't mean certain diets don't actually perform better - what tends to get them is the last factor of long term adherence and that is both irrelevant (the diet works so long as you stick to it) and critical data (you must stick to it) all at once.

 

And if one is quoting mostly newspapers or other second/third hand sources they are dealing with possible incompetence in interpretation.  I've seen plenty of articles that called things "links and causes" when in fact no link or cause was found.  A correlation is neither of those things.

 

I read that many of the most famous studies on the fat stuff left information off that did not fit.  Why would a scientist leave that off?  Doesn't fit with some agenda?  I dunno.  

[ktgrok]

I don't know...seems only slightly.

 

I rarely buy squishy store white bread. I remember buying it and one of my kids said WOW this is great, it tastes like cake.

 

I hated white bread growing up, but I didn't have a choice. That's not part of the discussion really though. LOL

The fructose in sucrose is processed totally differently than glucose. It's more like alcohol in the body than bread. Lystig has a talk where he gets into the biochemistry.

[SparklyUnicorn]

One of the theories (which I think has some merit) explaining the increase in obesity, is that we're over-fed but under-nourished.  We're eating high volumes of low quality food. Most of the food consumed in modern America isn't nutrient dense in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and high quality carbs, proteins and fats.  That means we continue to get the "eat something" signal from our brains because our body wants dense nutrients, not just a full stomach of whatever you can manage to put in there. The lack of nutrients causes our body to not function at maximum capacity and that results in an array of problems over time. 

 

The movie Hungry for Change addresses it. It's a not a great movie and I'm not convinced that's the whole story, but I do think lack of high quality nutrition is a serious contributing factor to most people's obesity and some of our common health problems. Add to that very little exercise and it's a recipe for chronic problems eventually.

 

I read that too. 

 

That Sugar Film is a good one and (it's not super pushy on EAT LOW CARB).  That's not the point of it.  I found it eye opening.

[SparklyUnicorn]

I've delivered items to families in need over the years, sometimes connected with my work and other times on my own and one thing that stuck with me is many lacked kitchens. And even the ones that did might have largely non-functioning kitchens. My SIL had a landlord who would only fix anything when it was time for a section 8 inspection. My SIL rarely asked her landlord to fix pretty much anything because she assumed that she could get kicked out. So they might have one burner and be washing dishes in the bathtub. I can judge my SIL for feeding her kids little Debbie's and popcorn for breakfast or I can see the overall situation that contributed to those habits and limited choices.

 

I've mentioned that my family was homeless at times when I was a child. We experienced times where our only cooking space was a small kitchnette in a motel and other times where we were "camping" and my dad cooked what he could on a Coleman stove. But most of the time we had a kitchen that worked. That doesn't seem to be a given anymore for people at the income level I grew up on.

 

Some modern apartment kitchens are stupid.  I don't need a lot of space to cook really, but I once rented an apartment where I couldn't fit a regular sized frying pan in the kitchen sink to wash it.  My mother didn't have any counter space.  If she needed to chop something up she had to do it on the table we ate at which was in a room separate from the kitchen.  So no, she didn't buy fresh veggies and chop them up.   No clue if either of these things are typical, but there are a lot of weird factors for sure.

 

Our community garden is in a very poor neighborhood.  DH will often give away whatever anyone asks for.  Someone once wanted something and then came back with it saying they didn't know what to do with it.  Although to be fair my husband didn't know either and he grew up eating good food. 

[Guest]

And if one is quoting mostly newspapers or other second/third hand sources they are dealing with possible incompetence in interpretation. I've seen plenty of articles that called things "links and causes" when in fact no link or cause was found. A correlation is neither of those things.

 

I read that many of the most famous studies on the fat stuff left information off that did not fit. Why would a scientist leave that off? Doesn't fit with some agenda? I dunno.

Oh totally. Science reporting and journalism is almost useless, because you can represent and misrepresent the raw data so easily to create a headline. It's also frustratingly common. Going back to the individual study and evaluating what they were looking at specifically - was it a human model? Adequate controls and sample size? Dietary composition? Duration?

 

It's something I see so much in 'ketogenic' diet trials, where you look and it turns out it was a two week study (not long enough for adaptation), on a mouse (whose metabolism differs from our own in several important ways WRT ideal diet and nutritional profiles), being fed crap in a bag mouse chow that is compromised of table sugar, fibrous bran, and crisco in varying ratios.

 

Then some sort of big nutritional fail or success on that scale is being equated to a metabolic ward study or one with a specialized and clinically tracked group of real humans on dietary compositions of the same caloric value that evaluate their actual response to real food. Oh, and let's toss hem together as metadata and try to tell *anything* useful at all.

 

I get really mad when that denigrates plant based diets too. You can't take someone eating veggie tempura and pringles and expect the outcome to look the same as the person eating natto and sautéed kale, even if they are calorie for calorie the same. And you can't declare that diet a failure if someone won't stick to it at the six month mark, because they don't invalidate the results of the person who *can and did*.

 

And don't even get me started on sensational headlines whereby you read the referenced study and honestly think they linked to the wrong flipping paper. Sheeesh!

 

Bill and Peter are both particularly excellent in intellectually and scientifically honest evaluations of study data, and I highly recommend their blogs on that count:

http://caloriesproper.com

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/?m=1

 

Both are also very quick to admit when they have been wrong on varying points or suffered bias.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[ktgrok]

I also feel I should say I'm not a huge proponent of low carb for people with normal metabolisms. I think healthy people do just fine on a balanced diet of bread, cheese, meats, fruits, veggies, etc. 

 

I do think excesss sugar is bad for everyone. 

 

and that for SOME, who are already obese, drastic changes may be needed, and what those are may differ for different people and based on the cause of the obesity, micro biome, genetics, lifestyle, etc. 

 

So I'm not one to say "go eat those fat bombs you read about in the internet to lose weight...eat piles of butter and bacon!". But I do think telling people to eat margarine and low fat yogurt instead of butter and regular milk and yogurt is dumb, and not scientifically valid. 

 

If "less fat" means less fried chicken and potato chips, yeah, good advice. If it means low fat snack wells, white bread and jelly sandwiches, etc, no probably terrible advice. 

[ktgrok]

Thanks to this tread, and me not wanting to be a hypocrite, lol, I'm now drinking my coffee sans sugar or splenda, as I watch that video from Dr. Fung. 

 

I needed that kick in the pants after Thanksgiving. I let too much sugar creep in, and the stuff is evil. And makes my skin look like crap...I swear sugar makes me ugly and gives me dry skin. No idea why. A little, at one meal, I do fine with. But spread out over hours or days...man, it hits me hard. 

 

Which also goes back to th idea that people used to get sugar in a slice of cake after dinner, not all day long in everything they ate. 

[Bluegoat]

Yeah the main source of carbs was Wonder (type) Bread.  Vegetables, if they had the selection they do now and the availability, I'm not aware of it.  My mother seemed to have mostly skipped the veggie section.  She bought canned for years and eventually switched over to some frozen. 

 

We didn't eat rice much.  Nobody liked it.

 

No one really had much access to veg and fruit from far off.  But bananas became available around then.  If you look at old recipes, they give directions about how to peel them, and they were considered exotic, something you could use for a dinner party dessert.

[Susan in TX]

This was the recommended diet circa 1952 from Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking:

 

1. 1 quart milk for each child and 1 pint for each adult, in cooking and as a beverage.

2. 1 serving of meat, fish, poultry or cheese. Liver or other variety meat weekly.

3. 1 green (preferably leafy) or yellow vegetable raw or cooked.

4. 1 other vegetable, fresh, canned, frozen or dried (besides potato).

5. 1 serving of potato; white, sweet, or yams. (about once a week rice, macaroni, spaghetti, or noodles are used instead of potatoes.)

6. 1 egg daily if possible; otherwise at least 3 or 4 times weekly.

7. 3 to 5 tablespoons of butter, or oleomargarine fortified with vitamin A.

8. Whole grain or enriched cereal--bread, breakfast food, cake, etc.

9. 1 serving of citrus fruit, or tomatoes, or tomato juice.

10. 1 other fruit, fresh, canned, frozen or dried.

 

It appears that a typical 1950s diet included a lot more fat and a lot more animal products than the typical current american diet. Also a lot more potatoes not of the french fried variety. And based on the suggested menus included in the cookbook, no boneless, skinless chicken breast. Here are a couple of menus:

 

Breakfast: tomato juice, cornmeal mush with top milk, bacon and eggs, toast, butter, beverages

Lunch: Cream of Green Pea Soup, Broiled Sardine sandwiches, Paschal Celery, baked Apples, beverages

Dinner: Meat loaf, gravy, baked potatoes, glazed carrots, red and green salad, bread, butter, orange puff custard, beverages.

 

Breakfast: grapefruit halves, broiled bacon, eggs, apple and pineapple rolls, butter, beverages

Lunch: hot tomato bouillon, parsley butter sandwiches, beet and cheese salad, beverages

Dinner: Pork chops, mashed potatoes, buttered broccoli, lettuce and tomato salad, bread, butter, cottage pudding, lemon sauce, beverages.

 

Lots of meat, milk, eggs, butter, and potatoes. And to me it seems like a lot of food. One thing that is absent is any mention of snacks, even in the section that deals with feeding children.

 

Susan in TX

 

 

[Guest]

Thanks to this tread, and me not wanting to be a hypocrite, lol, I'm now drinking my coffee sans sugar or splenda, as I watch that video from Dr. Fung.

 

I needed that kick in the pants after Thanksgiving. I let too much sugar creep in, and the stuff is evil. And makes my skin look like crap...I swear sugar makes me ugly and gives me dry skin. No idea why. A little, at one meal, I do fine with. But spread out over hours or days...man, it hits me hard.

 

Which also goes back to th idea that people used to get sugar in a slice of cake after dinner, not all day long in everything they ate.

Agreed. It really varies depending on the dysfunction. My husband eats ice cream every night and nachos as a snack before bed. He also fasts until dinner each day and is physically active. That jerk is only slightly pudgy because of food quality and metabolism, and even a small adjustment to the quality of his intake drops weight off him in a snap. He doesn't struggle with hunger and satiety.

 

My kids eat things like oatmeal, homemade WHITE bread (that's all I have the energy to prep at the moment), and some fruit. But they also eat cottage cheese, beef, salmon, salads, raw finger veggies, and plenty of plant and animal fat. They're all in a healthy weight range.

 

If I eat the diet of either group I put on two pounds a week until I'm in morbid obesity homeostasis again, which just sucks. So my breakfast today is three hardboiled eggs, some mayo, coffee, and maybe a half cup of pumpkin. Ce la vie.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[ktgrok]

Ok, so far LOVING Dr. Fung. At the point where he's talking about ultimate versus proximate cause, and how you have to treat the ultimate cause, not proximate. (aka, not the intake of too many calories, but the REASON for too many calories). 

 

Edited to Add: I may want to kiss him. Thank you. 

Edited November 30, 2016 by ktgrok

[Guest]

Ok, so far LOVING Dr. Fung. At the point where he's talking about ultimate versus proximate cause, and how you have to treat the ultimate cause, not proximate. (aka, not the intake of too many calories, but the REASON for too many calories).

 

Edited to Add: I may want to kiss him. Thank you.

Yes, he focuses very much on etiology, and in fact the etiology of obesity is the title of his original series that brought him to web familiarity outside his renal specialty.

[Greta]

I also feel I should say I'm not a huge proponent of low carb for people with normal metabolisms. I think healthy people do just fine on a balanced diet of bread, cheese, meats, fruits, veggies, etc. 

 

I do think excesss sugar is bad for everyone. 

 

and that for SOME, who are already obese, drastic changes may be needed, and what those are may differ for different people and based on the cause of the obesity, micro biome, genetics, lifestyle, etc. 

 

So I'm not one to say "go eat those fat bombs you read about in the internet to lose weight...eat piles of butter and bacon!". But I do think telling people to eat margarine and low fat yogurt instead of butter and regular milk and yogurt is dumb, and not scientifically valid. 

 

If "less fat" means less fried chicken and potato chips, yeah, good advice. If it means low fat snack wells, white bread and jelly sandwiches, etc, no probably terrible advice. 

 

 

Liking this wasn't enough.  I just had to say that I agree with you on every point!

[ktgrok]

Yes, he focuses very much on etiology, and in fact the etiology of obesity is the title of his original series that brought him to web familiarity outside his renal specialty.

 

It's ridiculous how emotional I get over this, but seriously, I want to hug him. When people acknowledge that this isn't a matter of will power, it just means so damn much. So much. Like, tears in my eyes kind of thing. 

 

I wish people realized that when they say it's about will power, just eat less, etc they are making people feel like total losers.