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How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

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Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#31

Post by jseliger »

simonsarris wrote: post #13
deveren wrote: post #2

Good question and answer at the end of the article. Fat is not what's making Americans fat. It's the prevalence of carbohydrates in our diets, and overeating of the same. I was in KY last week interviewing my great aunt who is 108 years old. Do you think she never ate bacon, beef, etc? Haha, their diets would be today's poster child for meatlovers. They didn't eat too much sugar, or carbs, but more importantly they n…

When my friends ask about nutrition, explaining fat is the very first thing I try to do. Eating fat does not necessarily make you fat, nor is it in itself a bad at all. Many fats are among the best things for your brain and heart. At the same time, fat-free foods can quite easily be bullshit. A pound of sugar is fat-free, after all, but has an insane calorific value. (110 per oz) Sugar is 100% total carbs. A ounce of…

This is one reason I find Michael Pollan's work so interesting, like "Unhappy Meals": http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.... (advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.") and In Defense of Food: http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto/dp/01431... .

His basic point is that "food science" doesn't know very much, is heavily politicized, and that we don't really know on a deep level how food, food-like substances, supplements, and so forth work. The war on "fat," as you note, doesn't make much sense because it counts the "fat" from a Big Mac and the "fat" from almonds the same way, which makes little sense. It counts the "sugar" from strawberries and Pepsi the same way. This is, to put it lightly, stupid, and it makes people stupid, since most people hear marketing slogans or public service announcements or whatever and follow those.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#32

Post by mdemare »

aantix wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that felt like he was holding the Afghanistan people up as a model of health because they lack fat? Their life expectancy is a mere ~44 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ). Neighboring Pakistan is 66 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ).

You cannot take life expectancy at birth as a model for how healthy adults are. That statistic is massively distorted by infant mortality (which is an astounding 13.3% for Afghanistan).

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#33

Post by wmboy »

ryanfitz wrote: post #21
wmboy wrote: post #11

Once we realize that obesity is (by and large) a modern lifestyle disease caused by needless stress and a diet consisting of mostly fake food perhaps we'll return to eating a whole food diet consisting of real food? e.g. margarine (which has color added to it to make it look yellow, otherwise it'd be gray) is NOT a healthy alternative to butter.

the paleo diet is a growing diet/lifestyle based on eating real foods. If anything else its very interesting to read about. http://freetheanimal.com/ancestral-life-way is a great blog for anyone interested.

The Paleo diet is interesting but is not the be all and end all.

Check out http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/ , http://www.marksdailyapple.com/ and http://www.westonaprice.org/ for more viewpoints.

The general consensus though is to avoid processed foods and stick to whole foods. A big one is to eat animal fat instead of industrially produced vegetable and seed oils.

Also, limit carbohydrate intake (ideally eating only fruit and vegetables).

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#34

Post by steadicat »

deveren wrote: post #2

Good question and answer at the end of the article. Fat is not what's making Americans fat. It's the prevalence of carbohydrates in our diets, and overeating of the same. I was in KY last week interviewing my great aunt who is 108 years old. Do you think she never ate bacon, beef, etc? Haha, their diets would be today's poster child for meatlovers. They didn't eat too much sugar, or carbs, but more importantly they n…

It's not just any carbohydrate, it's fructose, if you believe Dr. Robert M. Lustig: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

That explains why mediterranean and asian diets, which are high on carbs but low on sugar (or artificial fructose), don't cause nearly as much obesity.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#35

Post by hyperbovine »

sp332 wrote: post #27
aantix wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that felt like he was holding the Afghanistan people up as a model of health because they lack fat? Their life expectancy is a mere ~44 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ). Neighboring Pakistan is 66 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ).

Reminds me of a cartoon with a caveman thinking, "Something's just not right - our air is clean, our water is pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic and free-range, and yet nobody lives past 30." :)

http://imgur.com/RcMCl

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#37

Post by 3am »

viggity wrote: post #30

I've been overweight my entire life, and honestly, I blame the Surgeon General in the 1980s for telling my mom that feeding me low fat foods (which end up being high carb foods) will make me skinny. Everyone believed this cargo cult "science" and it has had a devastating impact for hundreds of millions of people.

I'm overweight and I blame myself for eating too much and not getting enough exercise.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#38

Post by jchrisa »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #8
mikecarlucci wrote: post #3

It's scary that KFC and processed food is now equated with "Western diet." Michael Pollan says it best: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

He also has qualifiers on what "food" is, most of which are reasonable; stuff you can pronounce, stuff that your great-great grandmother would recognize as food (put away the chemistry set!)

my rubric is, if they sell it at the gas station, it's not food.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#39

Post by jmatt »

shasta wrote: post #17
aantix wrote: post #10

Am I the only one that felt like he was holding the Afghanistan people up as a model of health because they lack fat? Their life expectancy is a mere ~44 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ). Neighboring Pakistan is 66 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ).

It would be more interesting to limit the comparison to those who die of causes other than, say, gunshot wounds. It would also be interesting to see a comparison of health, rather than just length of life.

According to the WHO information it appears that deaths due to intentional injuries are relatively low in comparison to most other forms of disease and illness in Afghanistan:

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimate...

Even when looking at Males 15-59. Though it should be noted these numbers are from 2004. Additionally, I really have no sense of how accurate these numbers are.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#40

Post by graywh »

evgen wrote: post #25
mikecarlucci wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know what you mean. My great-grandparents lived well into their 90s and some of the stuff they ate was "terrible" but it was all cooked from home. Meats and sweets

Wow. My great-grandfather died when he was 35 and was apparently also an prolific eater of meats and sweets of the age. I guess it was the meats and sweets that killed him. See, I can use useless anecdote too... Your great-grandparents may have lived well into their 90s, but they are the outliers on the curve of lifespans for people born at the same time as them. Most of the variance at this extreme end of the spectr…

This is an important point. Don't be fooled when the outliers are the only ones left.
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