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What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

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Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#51

Post by oasisbob »

TheSOB88 wrote: post #48
oasisbob wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So those calories don't even get a chance to be used in their original form before they're stored as fat. Sure they do! Don't forget about glycogen.

I don't know if we're understanding each other... I'm saying that there are carbs that get transformed into fat. These calories, by definition, do not get used until the fat is released from that cell. Which could be a loooong time. You're right, glycogen is another place that carbs can go. But unless you're exercising there probably isn't a lot going there.

Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis.

If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It's a form of hysteresis.)

... painting with broad strokes because my background is in biochemistry, not nutrition.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#52

Post by pyre »

oasisbob wrote: post #51
TheSOB88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if we're understanding each other... I'm saying that there are carbs that get transformed into fat. These calories, by definition, do not get used until the fat is released from that cell. Which could be a loooong time. You're right, glycogen is another place that carbs can go. But unless you're exercising there probably isn't a lot going there.

Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It'…

I think the difference here is that glucose can be converted to glycogen, but fructose can't. Both high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are a combination of approx. 50/50 fructose/glucose (the most common HFC in use is a 55/45 split; sucrose has a chemical bond between the two sugars, but HFC doesn't). My understanding is that when most people refer to sugar, they are talking about sucrose, and not glucose in isolation; therefore, ~50% of 'sugar' can't be converted to glycogen.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#53

Post by TheSOB88 »

die_sekte wrote: post #44
acconrad wrote: post #35

Trying to include vegetables in everything? Smart. But in no way are SunChips "eat anytime" food...certainly not healthier than walnuts. You don't see a page like this ( http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=99 ) about SunChips. If you want sound nutritional advice, I would tweak the Harvard pyramid in two ways: there's nothing you can gain from whole grains that you can't gain from fruits and vegetable…

Canola oil is basically the only mainstream cooking oil with a somewhat healthy omega-3/6 ratio. Why do you think it's unhealthy?

I think it boils down to canola oil being highly processed, which makes it contain trans fats.

Would you like to know more? http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-canola-oil/

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#54

Post by TheSOB88 »

oasisbob wrote: post #51
TheSOB88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if we're understanding each other... I'm saying that there are carbs that get transformed into fat. These calories, by definition, do not get used until the fat is released from that cell. Which could be a loooong time. You're right, glycogen is another place that carbs can go. But unless you're exercising there probably isn't a lot going there.

Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It'…

By exercising, I meant exercising regularly. In my understanding, you don't make new glycogen unless your glycogen stores are down. And the body can only store about 3 pounds of glycogen from what I've read.

So what I'm saying is if you're mostly sedentary, eating a high-carb diet, your blood sugar levels will rise to the point that insulin is secreted. And then some of that blood sugar will be converted to fat, and its energy will be 'lost' - it won't be used unless blood sugar levels go down again and glucagon is released. But many people eat way too much and too often for this to happen, and they just keep on packing on the pounds. Thus, carbs causing weight gain while fat gets the blame.

I mean, think about it. All the sugar that comes into your bloodstream from, say, two bowls of cereal in the morning. You have about 3 cups of milk, 3 cups of grains. This is a pretty big amount of carbs that gets digested very quickly. Then you drive to work and sit on your bum for 4 hours. Don't you think some of that carbohydrate energy could be converted to fat before your next meal?

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#55

Post by oasisbob »

TheSOB88 wrote: post #54
oasisbob wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It'…

By exercising, I meant exercising regularly. In my understanding, you don't make new glycogen unless your glycogen stores are down. And the body can only store about 3 pounds of glycogen from what I've read. So what I'm saying is if you're mostly sedentary, eating a high-carb diet, your blood sugar levels will rise to the point that insulin is secreted. And then some of that blood sugar will be converted to fat, and…

Insulin is secreted every time you eat. It's not a bad thing, it's a very fundamental part of regulating your blood sugar. (Ask someone with type I diabetes -- it's a royal pain to control blood sugar manually.) It's released whether you're active, sedimentary, eating a healthy diet, or junk food.

When you eat breakfast in the morning, you're most certainly replenishing glycogen. While you sleep, it's the primary source of blood glucose. Your body will prefer to replenish the glycogen before beginning lipogenesis.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#56

Post by oasisbob »

pyre wrote: post #52
oasisbob wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lipogenesis is legitimate, but it's not the primary pathway for carb metabolism if you have a healthy diet. Glycogen is the primary way that blood sugar levels are regulated, and your body greatly prefers glycogenesis to lipogenesis. If you're exercising, your body doesn't build glycogen; rather, it shuts down the metabolic pathways for glycogenesis because burning glycogen while building it is very inefficient. (It'…

I think the difference here is that glucose can be converted to glycogen, but fructose can't. Both high-fructose corn syrup and sucrose are a combination of approx. 50/50 fructose/glucose (the most common HFC in use is a 55/45 split; sucrose has a chemical bond between the two sugars, but HFC doesn't). My understanding is that when most people refer to sugar, they are talking about sucrose, and not glucose in isolati…

Fructose can be metabolized to glycogen via DHAP and glyceraldehyde. IIRC, it's a limited pathway though.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#57

Post by simonsarris »

zentechen wrote: post #31

My fav: Smaller plate -> smaller portion. That should be something easy to get started for any company.

The food network did a big segment a while back on obesity and concluded that the simplest and most effective lifestyle choice you can make is using smaller plates.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#58

Post by scottyallen »

jackowayed wrote: post #11
scottyallen wrote: post #9

The vending machine isn't quite what the article makes it out to be. For starters, it's one vending machine in all of Google (as far as I know). It magically appeared one April Fool's day, and has been attributed to some of the SREs in charge of keeping web search running, but credit has never been claimed. There was a rather funny "I am spartacus" thread about the vending machine that appeared on a major email list…

Does Google have a culture of pranks/hacks? It certainly makes sense, but I've never really heard anything about it

Yes, some places more than others, though. It's not highly generally highly publicized.

That is, other than the "offical" April Fool's jokes. Googlers LOVE April Fool's day, and there's generally a solid handful of nonpublic April Fool's day jokes on campus.

But there's also just random pranks. Some I'm aware of:

- Everyone's photos on the internal people database (available on an internal website) showed up with either crazy sunglasses or mustaches. Someone, probably a vision researcher, used facial recognition to do in bulk.

- Eric's picture had a photo on the wall behind him, and the photo was very subtly swapped with a picture of Bill Gates.

- There was a long series of pranks having to do with pink plastic flamingos and the T-Rex skeleton in Mountain View that were quite funny, though I forgot the full sequence. It had to do with T-Rex being surrounded by pink flamingos, then someone changed it to flamingos attacking T-Rex, then someone else brought a giant can of "flamingo bait", and all the flamingos were lying dead around T-Rex. It unfolded over a week or two, with it changing every few days.

- I was on a team that pranked each other whenever someone went on vacation. The most memorable of which involved filling a 12'x12'x8' glass walled office from floor to ceiling with pink balloons: http://www.menalto.com/photos/miscellaneous/google/Pranks/20...

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#59

Post by rkowalick »

Afton wrote: post #47
Hisoka wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That problem stems from the source that Google chose to base their system off - the Harvard Pyramid. They wanted to be as least controversial as possible (aka popular conventions) so whole grains are viewed as healthy, and fatty foods aren't. That's the principle we've been hammered from the government and food associations since forever. Unfortunately, it's wrong, and just a little research reveals it. But people wi…

I'm very very sympathetic to this view. I eat a high-fat diet, and have for over a year. But Google is probably right to act conservatively here. Don't blame Google for following the Harvard Pyramid, blame the Harvard Pyramid. They're the ones with the responsibility to update the status quo.

You should probably look at the Harvard Pyramid before making judgments based on Google's interpretation:

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~cearley/ChemWrld/foodpyramid/H...

They recommend eating lots of healthy fats such as olive, canola, and peanut oil. They also have refined carbohydrates in the "use sparingly" category.

Re: What Google's Famous Cafeterias Can Teach Us About Health

#60

Post by TheSOB88 »

oasisbob wrote: post #55
TheSOB88 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By exercising, I meant exercising regularly. In my understanding, you don't make new glycogen unless your glycogen stores are down. And the body can only store about 3 pounds of glycogen from what I've read. So what I'm saying is if you're mostly sedentary, eating a high-carb diet, your blood sugar levels will rise to the point that insulin is secreted. And then some of that blood sugar will be converted to fat, and…

Insulin is secreted every time you eat. It's not a bad thing, it's a very fundamental part of regulating your blood sugar. (Ask someone with type I diabetes -- it's a royal pain to control blood sugar manually.) It's released whether you're active, sedimentary, eating a healthy diet, or junk food. When you eat breakfast in the morning, you're most certainly replenishing glycogen. While you sleep, it's the primary sou…

So... there's no such thing as too much insulin?
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