Who knew cereal was so bad for you? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who knew cereal was so bad for you?

#21

Post by anm8tr » Mon, Jun 27, 2011, 9:13 PM UTC

aninteger wrote: post #8

neonscribe wrote: post #6

Kashi GoLean: 1 cup/52g, 140kcal, 1g fat, 30g carb, 10g fiber, 6g sugars, 13g protein.

I like Kashi, but the problem is that the healthy cereals come in much smaller boxes and are much more expensive.

It's funny to me that we think nothing of stopping at the gas station and buying a diet coke for two bucks... But when we need to decide between healthy food and crap food all of the sudden that two dollars means so much. Oh How well we have been conditioned by advertising.

Re: Who knew cereal was so bad for you?

#22

Post by ghshephard » Mon, Jun 27, 2011, 9:14 PM UTC

bhousel wrote: post #16

ghshephard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a nutritional or metabolic difference between eating a refined cereal ("Corn Flakes", "Special K") vs eating a cereal with "sugar" added ("Fruit Loops", "Captain Crunch") Once it hits your digestive system and the respective enzymes (starting in your mouth), they all start to break down to monosaccharides pretty quickly. The problem with these refined carbs is they (A) Don't come a…

I have only mild hypoglycemia, but I can tell you that my body processes all of those foods a bit differently. The studies you're looking for are related to glycemic index, I think..

Presuming the Glycemic Index of White Flour Bread is the same as White toast:

Glycemic Index Value: (from http://www.gilisting.com/glycemic-index)

  Corn Flakes:  82
  Froot Loops™:   69
  White Flour Bread: 71

Re: Who knew cereal was so bad for you?

#23

Post by ghshephard » Mon, Jun 27, 2011, 9:17 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #19

ghshephard wrote: post #12

In the 1930s to 1950s, anything starchy was bad for you (Ask your grandmother) - In the 1950s - 1980s fat became the new evil. Then it was cholesterol, and saturated Fats. Then Transfatty Acids. For a small period of time there was a niche rebellion against all things carbs, and now it looks like we're coming back against refined sugars (or all things refined white) After reading a bit of anti-carb propaganda (Taubes…

Regarding your indexing issue, have you tried SOLR (Lucene powered)? I ran the Blaze VMWare appliance [1], and it worked great for small collection of text-based pdfs. [1] http://susegallery.com/a/Kr7Ayv/blaze-appliance-for-solr

I installed, SOLR, of course, but then ran into the challenge of figuring out how to automatically feed in the PDFs. I'll take a look at the Blaze implementation - perhaps they've packaged all the components and cookbooked the installation process. Thanks very much for the pointer.

Re: Who knew cereal was so bad for you?

#24

Post by ghshephard » Mon, Jun 27, 2011, 9:32 PM UTC

VMG wrote: post #15

ghshephard wrote: post #12

In the 1930s to 1950s, anything starchy was bad for you (Ask your grandmother) - In the 1950s - 1980s fat became the new evil. Then it was cholesterol, and saturated Fats. Then Transfatty Acids. For a small period of time there was a niche rebellion against all things carbs, and now it looks like we're coming back against refined sugars (or all things refined white) After reading a bit of anti-carb propaganda (Taubes…

Do you intend to write up your interpretation once you are done?

So, the challenge, of course, is that there isn't really any correct answers here. Basically, the deeper you go, the more complex you realize things are. A great science writer like Taubes can write an very respectable and carefully footnoted tome (Good Calories, Bad Calories) describing how dangerous carbs are, but then people can come up with counter-examples of asians who have a predominantly white rice diet who live a long, lean, and healthy life. So then he pivots a little, and now it's _refined_ carbohydrates, in particular the sugars and refined flours that are so common in western diets.

It's a little like summarizing "What is the best way to program" - there isn't any one way. A Sr. Developer has lifetime's experience of tools, languages, methodologies, design patterns, and passion that allows them to make a decision on how to approach a problem given a broad pool of knowledge.

Likewise a Dietitian has a whole host of experience, knowledge, tools, and approaches that may be appropriate for different circumstances. Bodybuilders eat plenty of carbohydrates in their off season to bulk up and put on muscle, switch to low-carb to drop fat as they cut, until they get close to their show date, at which point they start adding carbs back to their diet to gain muscle pump. Same person, same profession, same macro-nutrient - different approach.

It's really about understanding the multitudes of mechanisms than it is about any unified interpretation. As much as I love reading Gary Taubes work (and I do!) - I think he has a tendency to make things a little more simple than they really are.

Sorry, no silver bullet. :-)

Re: Who knew cereal was so bad for you?

#25

Post by bhousel » Mon, Jun 27, 2011, 10:03 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #22

bhousel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have only mild hypoglycemia, but I can tell you that my body processes all of those foods a bit differently. The studies you're looking for are related to glycemic index, I think..

Presuming the Glycemic Index of White Flour Bread is the same as White toast: Glycemic Index Value: (from http://www.gilisting.com/glycemic-index ) Corn Flakes: 82 Froot Loops™: 69 White Flour Bread: 71

Yes, those sound about right. I try not to eat any of those things.

Glycemic Index is really complicated because it can be affected by what else you eat with the food (like putting milk on cereal), or how you prepare the food (some people think toasting bread can lower the GI).

You're right that "how much sugar per serving" is an oversimplification - I just use that as a starting point because most nutrition labels don't list GI. And even if they did, the number isn't really meaningful except in the context of everything else in your meal, and whatever else is going on in your body that day.