Protein will kill you ...

[wabmester]

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

Its not just an "avoid fat" diet, its an "avoid fat and simple carb" diet.

There's a difference between "simple carbs" and refined/processed carbs.

For example, fructose is a simple carb, but apples and other fruits lock fructose into the fruit matrix, where it's not as easy to digest as refined sugar.

On the other hand, the starch in potatoes is considered a "complex" carb, but it is easily digested and absorbed and may cause insulin spikes. I've never seen a study on potatoes per se, but I have looked at some stats for the Irish. Ireland is the biggest consumer of potatoes in the EU, and they also have the highest incidence of heart disease in the EU. Of course, there could be other (hic!) factors at work too.

[Cool Dood]

Originally Posted by wab

...fruit matrix...

I know there's a joke in there somewhere...

[veritasophia]

Originally Posted by grumpy

I think that everyone is different and you just have to find what works for you.

That's pretty much the bottom line isn't it? There are tests that can be performed to discover what macronutrient ratio is best for you. I believe these are mainly based on genetics and how you feel after meals with different macronutrient ratios. You then eat whole, natural foods according to your "type": carb, protein, or mixed. "The metabolic typing diet" is a book on the subject. Dr. Mercola also pushes this idea: http://www.mercola.com/2003/feb/26/metabolic_typing.htm (watch the hype! Mercola likes raking in the cash)

My great grandparents on both sides were farmers. They ate tons of cheese, meat, lard, vegetables in season, and whole grain bread. All of them enjoyed good health with no chronic diseases into their late 80s, early 90s. I now eat a similar, high fat diet and I'm satisfied and feel great.

I was a vegetarian for 5 years, my health seemed to improved at first (dropped the processed crap) but then it started slipping downhill. To remedy this I tried extreme veganism for 1/2 year (raw vegan with a Carb/Protein/Fat ratio of 80/10/10), again I felt good at first but then I noticed I was often moody and depressed. I had digestion problems and I was constantly hungry (eating 3000+ calories/day). Finally switched to my current diet, the reverse happened. I felt worse at first but now I feel great, I eat fewer calories and have a sunnier disposition.

Like Grumpy said "find what works for you"

These diet discussions remind me of the spending vs. saving threads. It's all about Moderation and Balance. Whether eating, drinking or spending.

[Cool Dood]

Hey Cut-Throat........... We agreed on something

[wabmester]

Originally Posted by Cool Dood

Hey Cut-Throat........... We agreed on something*

Danger, Will Robinson!

Already mentioned in this thread, but I'll repeat: Moderation and balance doesn't seem to work. What seems to work (according to Campbell, Ornish, et al) is pretty radical diet changes that will slow and reverse the progression of chronic diseases.

[Cool Dood]

Work for what? What are you trying to achieve? Weight loss? Muscle gain? Immortality?

Balance and moderation work fine for keeping an ordinary body reasonably fit and healthy, and I'm afraid that no diet has ever provided immortality. If you're looking to prevent all kinds of serious disease, good luck with that but I suspect that diet will have a very limited impact in that regard, at least in the course of my life. Maybe things look different if you're already older than I am?

Also I have no idea who Campbell and Ornish are. Is he the soup guy?

[wabmester]

Originally Posted by Cool Dood

If you're looking to prevent all kinds of serious disease, good luck with that but I suspect that diet will have a very limited impact in that regard, at least in the course of my life. Maybe things look different if you're already older than I am?

Right, I'm on a holy quest to reduce my risks of chronic diseases now that I've hit 40 and my past behavior and diet is starting to catch up with me.* *Maybe you could elaborate on why diet is irrelevant, especially in light of this Campbell guy's long-term study that strongly suggests otherwise.

I did the moderate balanced low-fatish thing for over 20 years.* * My total cholesterol was never over 200, so all the MD's I visited (none of whom studied nutrition for more than an hour) all told me that I was in great shape.

Then I found a doc who actually did his post-doc work in nutrition.* * He said "d00d, go low-carb to get those TriG's down and HDL up -- stat!"* * That's what got me interested in this stuff.

And last week, Dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer.* * Another disease of old age.* * My chances of getting the disease are very high, especially as I get older.* *You too.* * But not the people of rural China.

So, yes, I like to do low-cost things to mitigate high risks.* *I don't like the idea of getting cancer, having a quadruple bypass operation, or dealing with various "stones" and sludge in my body as I age.

[. . . Yrs to Go]

Ummmm! Animals are tasty.

If I have to give up stuff that gives me happiness just to squeeze a few extra years into what will become a barren and joyless existence, I say pass the bacon!

Originally Posted by wab

Right, I'm on a holy quest to reduce my risks of chronic diseases now that I've hit 40 and my past behavior and diet is starting to catch up with me. Maybe you could elaborate on why diet is irrelevant, especially in light of this Campbell guy's long-term study that strongly suggests otherwise.

I did the moderate balanced low-fatish thing for over 20 years. My total cholesterol was never over 200, so all the MD's I visited (none of whom studied nutrition for more than an hour) all told me that I was in great shape.

Then I found a doc who actually did his post-doc work in nutrition. He said "d00d, go low-carb to get those TriG's down and HDL up -- stat!" That's what got me interested in this stuff.

And last week, Dad got diagnosed with prostate cancer. Another disease of old age. My chances of getting the disease are very high, especially as I get older. You too. But not the people of rural China.

So, yes, I like to do low-cost things to mitigate high risks. I don't like the idea of getting cancer, having a quadruple bypass operation, or dealing with various "stones" and sludge in my body as I age.

I agree with you on this. If you've got a family history of chronic diseases, it probably helps to do all you can to avoid them. Although any diet that claims certain foods are evil, are eventually proven untrue.

Obesity seems to be biggest risk factor of many diseases. And there are proponents of a starved calorie diet promotes longevity. Common sense Fruits and vegetables and plenty of excercise are probably the bst that you can do. I think if you can maintain your health until age 80, you're doing pretty good. After that, it's icing on the cake.

But I'm also realistic that at age 80, most of us will look at life a little differently than we do today. Remember how excited you were on Christmas Morning when you were 8 years old? I don't know of too many folks that are that excited when they're 45-50 years old on Christmas morning.

[Cool Dood]

No need to be combative, we can have different opinions.

It seems to me that by the time I'm looking at diseases of old age, it will be ten thousand times more effective to take a pill, or have the HDUltraSound treatment, or get the robots put in me or whatever, than changing what kind of bread I eat. I don't even know what kind of studies you're looking at or how diet is supposed to help me, but I wouldn't count on any diet to beat your serious diseases. Feel free to show me how diet is relevant to my life in the year 2030, when I'll be going in for my early prostate detection exam and we'll all be eating SynthoMeat.

I wouldn't follow some diet anyway -- who the hell wants to keep track of all that information every time they eat, and limit what they eat for decades on end? No thanks. Just the fact that you could compare, however tangentially, your approach to health and disease with the approach of a Chinese peasant, tells me all I want to know. Who cares if you don't get prostate cancer if you're a Chinese peasant?

Maybe Campbell or your low-carb doctor is right, maybe they're wrong. Anyway, you can find a doctor specialized in nutrition who agrees with any point of view, so why not just pick the one you like? But seriously, I haven't seen anything that shows me conclusively that one specific diet approach has proven benefits or proven risks (other than an overall moderation and balance), and even if that exists I don't believe it will mean a thing compared to what tiny robots can do by the time I need it (hey, maybe we'll be the tiny robots), and even if that's just a nerdy fantasy that never comes true then I'd still rather enjoy tasty food for decades on end followed by disease, compared to painfully watching and limiting everything I eat for my whole life.

Does that clear things up at all?

Sorry if this was a little random, I was busy doing other stuff while trying to write this....

[Zipper]

Get rid of transfats and glucose-fructose corn sweetener.

Inactivity and the 2 items above have resulted in a nation of lardasses.

[wabmester]

CT and CD, let me simply suggest that you get yourselves to a library and check out a copy of the book (called the China Study, in case you missed the original post), and then make your own call.

I can tell you that he addresses your points directly. * *He seems like a smart guy who did a careful study, and understands the mechanisms in play down to the molecular level. * *I don't have that kind of cred, but let me summarize a couple of his points:

1) Consumers are confused about the health effects of diet. * *There's lots of blame to spread around, and he does a pretty good job. * He also points out flaws in the studies that "prove" how various things are good or bad for you (the root of much of our confusion).

2) We're brainwashed to believe that drugs and modern medicine will provide a short-cut to health. * He stresses whole foods rather than the traditional reductionist approach to isolated compounds, drugs, and brute-force surgeries.

Maybe he's a quack. * Maybe this book just adds to the confusion. * I honestly don't know, but as I've said before, I think it's worth reading.

Came across this when searching for related articles.


The average lifespan for women in Okinawa is 84 (compared to 79 in American), and the island boasts a disproportionately large number of centenarians. Okinawans have low levels of chronic illness—osteoporosis, cancer, diabetes, atherosclerosis and stroke—compared to America, China and Japan, which allows them to continue to work, even in advanced years. In spite of Okinawa's horrific role in World War II, as the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific, Okinawa is a breezy, pleasant place, neither crowded nor polluted, with a strong sense of family and community and where the local people produce much of what they consume.

And what do Okinawans eat? The main meat of the diet is pork, and not the lean cuts only. Okinawan cuisine, according to gerontologist Kazuhiko Taira, "is very healthy—and very, very greasy," in a 1996 article that appeared in Health Magazine.19 And the whole pig is eaten—everything from "tails to nails." Local menus offer boiled pigs feet, entrail soup and shredded ears. Pork is cooked in a mixture of soy sauce, ginger, kelp and small amounts of sugar, then sliced and chopped up for stir fry dishes. Okinawans eat about 100 grams of meat per day—compared to 70 in Japan and just over 20 in China—and at least an equal amount of fish, for a total of about 200 grams per day, compared to 280 grams per person per day of meat and fish in America. Lard—not vegetable oil—is used in cooking.

Okinawans also eat plenty of fibrous root crops such as taro and sweet potatoes. They consume rice and noodles, but not as the main component of the diet. They eat a variety of vegetables such as carrots, white radish, cabbage and greens, both fresh and pickled. Bland tofu is part of the diet, consumed in traditional ways, but on the whole Okinawan cuisine is spicy. Pork dishes are flavored with a mixture of ginger and brown sugar, with chili oil and with "the wicked bite of bitter melon."

Weston Price did not study the peoples of Okinawa, but had he done so, he would have found one more example to support his conclusions—that whole foods, including sufficient animal foods with their fat—are needed for good health and long life, even in the Orient. In fact, the Okinawan example demonstrates the fallacy of today's politically correct message—that we should emulate the peoples of China by reducing animal products and eating more grains; rather, the Chinese would benefit by adding more strengthening animal foods to their daily fare.

[wabmester]

Originally Posted by Cut-Throat

Weston Price did not study the peoples of Okinawa, but had he done so....

Here's the thing that separates Campbell and the China Study from the *many* anecdotes in this thread.* *Campbell did the study.* *The most comprehensive study of the effects of diet on health ever done (so says the blurb, anyway).* * Read the book, then decide.

[Cool Dood]

Originally Posted by wab

CT and CD, let me simply suggest that you get yourselves to a library and check out a copy of the book (called the China Study, in case you missed the original post), and then make your own call.

Well, chances are good that I won't get around to reading a long book on a topic where even if I'm technically wrong I would consider the opportunity cost of eating "right" far too high for any health benefits. If you can show me a Wikipedia page, though...

1) Consumers are confused about the health effects of diet. There's lots of blame to spread around, and he does a pretty good job. He also points out flaws in the studies that "prove" how various things are good or bad for you (the root of much of our confusion).

Yes, I think it's pretty well established that any "conclusively proven" health effect of a diet is complete bunk.

2) We're brainwashed to believe that drugs and modern medicine will provide a short-cut to health. He stresses whole foods rather than the traditional reductionist approach to isolated compounds, drugs, and brute-force surgeries.

Why should "whole foods" provide a short-cut to health? That's pretty brute-force, and without any causal explanation, and as far as I know without any compelling statistical or other reasons to believe it.

Medicine, on the other hand, is done fairly rigorously and is continuing to evolve at an ever-faster rate. Medicine in twenty years will look nothing like medicine today. If they can do imaging down to a bazillionth of the width of a human hair and create custom molecules on-the-spot that hunt down and kill any bad guys, that makes the whole "nature's way" thing look kind of pointless, doesn't it?

If you have something shorter than a big, fat book, I'd be interested in looking it over (I still work -- the only time I have for serious reading I'll use for things that I'm really dying to read!). I'm open to new views, and generally eager to learn about new things, but so far I haven't heard of anything convincing about diets, and on top of that it'd have to be mega-convincing because I'd rather have some medical problems later on than spend my whole life not enjoying awesome food.

On that note, I'm going to see if I can find some good, delicious food.... :P

[wabmester]

Originally Posted by Cool Dood

If you have something shorter than a big, fat book, I'd be interested in looking it over

That's what I'm here for -- to give you a short-cut so you don't have to read the book, but if you don't at least read the whole thread, I can't really help you.*

The idea of whole foods is that some things work in concert.* * You know, like OUR BODIES.* * We've been trying the simpler reductionist approach for a long time, and it works great for some things, but it hasn't worked so hot on complex biological systems and their fuel sources.* *Supplements don't work.* *Drugs don't work.* *Taking arteries out of your leg and putting them in your chest doesn't address the root cause, but it'll keep you ticking for an extra year or two.

We all have short attention spans.* *We all want quick cures.* * You can avoid doing routine maintenance on your car, get it fixed when it breaks, and get a new one when it's shot.* * I don't like that approach for my body (and I can't get a new one when it's shot), so preventative maintenance appeals to me.* * If it doesn't appeal to you, then Modern Medicine is ready to make you a cyborg for a few hundred grand.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I'd heard about the okinawa thing before. Now tell me who tied their longevity (or anyones) to diet? Could it be genetic? Lifestyle? Lower pollutants?

Lotsa people want to tie stuff to diet. I'm not so sure that diet even makes it into the top 3 items that determine your overall health and lifespan.


For example, Wab's worried about his tri-g's. So far I've never seen anything conclusive that ties high triglycerides to any health or lifespan issue. Case in point; they run high in my family. My grandfather and my dad's ran over 500. My grandfather lived to his late 80's even though he was an asthmatic smoker who spread bacon fat on his toast for breakfast. My father is 72 and as healthy as a horse, even though his latest tri-g's are almost 500 and they've run to 700.

Mine are a paltry 300. I'll probably drop dead in a month due to excessively low tri-g's for my genetic makeup

[. . . Yrs to Go]

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

Lotsa people want to tie stuff to diet.* I'm not so sure that diet even makes it into the top 3 items that determine your overall health and lifespan.

Wahoo!* Pass the bacon!

Originally Posted by Cute Fuzzy Bunny

For example, Wab's worried about his tri-g's.* So far I've never seen anything conclusive that ties high triglycerides to any health or lifespan issue.

Wahoo! Pass the wine!!!!