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USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

unsettledscience.substack.com

71–80 of 296 posts

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#71
post #64

I'll know they're serious about health when they put a tax on added sugar and an additional tax on high fructose corn syrup. Until then, they're just actors on a stage

I'm rarely shocked by the ingredients of food anymore, but I was looking at a packet of "honey sauce" from KFC the other day, and couldn't help but laugh at the things we're doing to ourselves. There are 11 ingredients and 5 of them are added sugar. All to recreate something resembling honey, at approximately 2/3 the cost of real honey. "High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Honey (7%), Fructose, Contains 2% o…

Imagine the price of honey if all these faux sauces were made with more than a passing sniff of the stuff.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#72
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps remove the government from these recommendations altogether? Don't they have more important things to do?

> Don't they have more important things to do? Like caring about the well being of the citizens?

How has that government caring worked out over the past five decades of ballooning BMI and heart disease? Should we double down on government caring for us, or admit defeat and defund government food recommendations?

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#73
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organic food itself is a fraud as it doesn't actually mean anything. If anything they should just ban the label entirely.

Citations needed. I worked on an organic vineyard for a summer and I can tell you it took a lot of work to get that label. Non-organic vineyards in our area had barren earth or gravel under the stalks as they used weedkillers regularly. In contrast, we practiced “turf flipping” where we would, with clever machine and hard work, turn the soil over to smother weeds. The soil was alive and rich with the longest earthwor…

> And the extra money from labeling it organic didn’t come close to covering the extra effort.

And this right here is why people are skeptical about organic produce.

There seems to be two kinds:

- The kind that doesn't scale (so any would be environmental benefits would stop existing if it became more than a niche)

- The kind that scales because they're abusing loose definitions of "organic" to charge the end customer more money.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#74
If you haven't tried a low-carb diet, you should and see how it works for you. I never felt better than I did when I was eating pretty much just Chipotle salads (chicken+salad+guac) and doing a bit of weightlifting three times a week (https://stronglifts.com/5x5). Of course, I was in my mid-20s and had three fewer kids, so there's that...

I'll add--free office snacks are the devil's work.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#75

If you want to convince regulators, perhaps you should first try to convince serious nutritionists. Because very few of them really buy this keto narrative.

And yet there are thousands of people who posted their successful weight loss or bloating and autoimmune issues online which were solved by keto or carnivore.

The term "modern serious nutritionist" is a joke anyway: a true nutritionist is one who heals himself with a diet, and many people on keto do.

Science advances one funeral at the time.

Remember: ~150 years ago people were making fun of the guy and outsted him because he recommended that doctors should wash their hands before surgery! Now that is accepted and is known to be a prerequisite for a safe surgery.

Modern "serious nutritionist" are those kind of people: they are too arrogant and egoistic to see that thousands of people have given successful testemonies online.

Here is a list of them:

(NOTE THE PAGINATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE: THERE ARE 86 PAGES OF TESTEMONIALS!)

https://carnivore.diet/category/success-stories/

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#76

If you want to convince regulators, perhaps you should first try to convince serious nutritionists. Because very few of them really buy this keto narrative.

Keto requires ~0 carbs (some references I can find claim up to 50g carbs per day), thus a very extreme kind of low-carb dietary.

While keto might not be recommended by nutritionists, a low-carb diet is widely recommended to diabetes/prediabetes patients (e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managing/eat-well/diabetes-and-...)

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#77
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm rarely shocked by the ingredients of food anymore, but I was looking at a packet of "honey sauce" from KFC the other day, and couldn't help but laugh at the things we're doing to ourselves. There are 11 ingredients and 5 of them are added sugar. All to recreate something resembling honey, at approximately 2/3 the cost of real honey. "High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Honey (7%), Fructose, Contains 2% o…

Imagine the price of honey if all these faux sauces were made with more than a passing sniff of the stuff.

OK, I imagine higher honey prices would bring more producers. Maybe some corn sugar producers would become honey producers. Then production would increase and price would decrease.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#78

the best diet is the one that works for you. for some it’s low carb, for others it’s vegan. what’s key is to focus on what you eat, that’s probably 80% of the battle.

No, "ignore everything and do whatever you like" is terrible and dangerous advice.

OP's point was that different people require different extreme diets (at least temporaril) to heal themselves.

This is not dangerous advice: this is exprimentaion, beacuse modern medicine has obviously failed them.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#79
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dairy products are a solid part of low carb; butter, cream and whey are all completely normal, even in Keto.

Lactose is sugar, though.

There is hardly any lactose in the food that low-carbers advocate.

Re: USDA ignoring the science on low-carb diets

#80
post #64

I'll know they're serious about health when they put a tax on added sugar and an additional tax on high fructose corn syrup. Until then, they're just actors on a stage

I'm rarely shocked by the ingredients of food anymore, but I was looking at a packet of "honey sauce" from KFC the other day, and couldn't help but laugh at the things we're doing to ourselves. There are 11 ingredients and 5 of them are added sugar. All to recreate something resembling honey, at approximately 2/3 the cost of real honey. "High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Honey (7%), Fructose, Contains 2% o…

I’ve noticed that sometimes a snack food will have 3 different kinds of sugar as the 2-4th ingredients. I’ve wondered if they break it up like that so that the first ingredient isn’t sugar, even if there is more sugar-type-ingredients than there is of the first-listed ingredient.

It’s possible they use multiple types for flavor/texture reasons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some foods where it could be accomplished with sugar, but then everyone would know that the “snack” is mostly just sugar.

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