Looking for the truth on nutrition...

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brentbat
brentbat Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
So yesterday I watched a movie called "The Perfect Human Diet"

http://www.perfecthumandiet.us/

And basically they were making the case that the USDA guidelines on nutrition are wrong, and that our bodies were not designed to eat grains etc. so even foods like Muesli and other cereals are not good for us.

I could kind of understand the directions of their arguments, but it feels to me like they were making some pretty big leaps to their conclusions.

Can anybody point me to some some solid, scientifically validated nutritional information..... It's do confusing.... high protien vs high carb... blah blah blah.

Thanks in advance
Brent
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Replies

  • MaritzK
    MaritzK Posts: 66 Member
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    I think you're right although a lot of people are more or less intolerant on wheat and other flour products like pasta and so on. Then cutting out is reasonable. If you don't have any problems, you should be fine with eating them :) You have a liver for a reason, just don't eat to much crap, but that's common sense anyways ;)
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
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    Sounds like Paleo propaganda. I suggest reading this article. The author is Alan Aragon, a highly respected nutrition scientist.

    http://www.simplyshredded.com/research-review-the-dirt-on-clean-eating-written-by-nutrition-expert-alan-aragon.html

    I'd also check this out, has a bunch of scientific sources cited for evidence:

    http://www.nsca.com/uploadedFiles/NSCA/Inactive_Content/Program_Books/PTC_2013_Program_Book/Aragon.pdf
  • STC1188
    STC1188 Posts: 101 Member
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    My brother didn't know we weren't supposed to consume grains, and he accidentally ate a box of Cherry Frosted Poptarts and DIED. Since then, I haven't been able to even step foot inside a bakery, much less glare at the donuts through the glass cases at the grocery.

    Just kidding OP. You seem smart enough not to take any extreme viewpoint seriously.
  • elyelyse
    elyelyse Posts: 1,454 Member
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    when I visit the web site the first thing i see is a HUGE ADVERTISEMENT for their video to purchase on DVD.
    even the blog portion of the site is mostly just articles promoting the video.
    that makes me very skeptical, and less likely to trust anything they have to say.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    And basically they were making the case that the USDA guidelines on nutrition are wrong,
    I've no doubt they are. Often it's based on old and questionable research.
    , and that our bodies were not designed to eat grains etc
    It doesn't really matter or not whether our bodies were designed (sic) to eat grains.
    The vast majority of people can eat them perfectly safely - a small proportion can't, but plenty of people have plenty of problems with different foods. I have a mild casein intolerance unfortunately - I still advise others to use it.

    This isn't quite what you're asking, but is backed up with studies and I like it, so tend to post it a lot :).
    http://www.simplyshredded.com/the-science-of-nutrition-is-a-carb-a-carb.html
    A quote...
    Low glycemic load diets are good for your health if you’re initially unhealthy (like obese or diabetic), but in healthy populations there was no effect. This is an example of a ceiling effect. You can’t fix what isn’t broken, so if you’re already healthy, eating ‘healthy’ foods at some point stops making you even healthier.
  • camanokid183
    camanokid183 Posts: 1 Member
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    If you have the time, and want to see sources I'd recommend picking up "Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health" by Gary Taubes. Gary Taubes cites all of the findings from different studies in the book.
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
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    Here's another good article. This is basically the Holy Grail of articles when it comes to macronutrients and how they affect nutrition. The article sites over 100 scientific studies and is very thorough:

    http://evidencemag.com/why-calories-count/
  • jweindruch
    jweindruch Posts: 65 Member
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    If you have Netflix watch the following titles too:
    - Forks Over Knives
    - The Beautiful Truth
    - Food Matters
    - Vegucated
    - Hungry For Change

    Keep educating yourself and don't believe anything anyone says here, on TV, in a book, or in conversation. Be a freethinker and come to conclusions through your own experiences. You can be the science experiment and determine your own truth. Good luck!
  • Amandainyaface
    Amandainyaface Posts: 33
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    I'm so super tired of nutritionists and scientists and dietitians telling people that some foods are not meant to be eaten. Jesus freaking christ, we aren't 'meant' to use the computer, we aren't 'meant' to have electricity. This is 2014 and i'm so bugged that they can't just get over themselves
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    I'm old fashioned...balanced diet with lots of veg and some fruit...plenty of lean protein and heart healthy fats and some whole grains..plenty of water.

    I eat around 40c/30p/30f.

    I do not believe in low carb though I do believe that most people on the SAD could benefit from a reduction of carbs...not because carbs are evil but because the SAD tends to be very carb heavy and sugar laden. I find that my athletic performance is substantiall impacted if my carbs get too low.

    The vast majority of people can eat grains just fine...there are actually very few people who are truly gluten intolerant...it's just cool right now to be gluten free so all of a sudden everyone and their brother has some imaginary gluten intolerance...believe me, if they were truly intolerant they would have figured it out before last year or whenever this trend became cool.
  • Harrisonsauntie
    Harrisonsauntie Posts: 119
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    http://www.simplyshredded.com/research-review-the-dirt-on-clean-eating-written-by-nutrition-expert-alan-aragon.html

    Great article
  • AJ_G
    AJ_G Posts: 4,158 Member
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    If you have Netflix watch the following titles too:
    - Forks Over Knives
    - The Beautiful Truth
    - Food Matters
    - Vegucated
    - Hungry For Change

    Keep educating yourself and don't believe anything anyone says here, on TV, in a book, or in conversation. Be a freethinker and come to conclusions through your own experiences. You can be the science experiment and determine your own truth. Good luck!

    HAHAHAHA...Forks Over Knives is a joke. Biggest example of pseudoscience that I've ever seen when it comes to nutrition.
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
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    If you have Netflix watch the following titles too:
    - Forks Over Knives
    - The Beautiful Truth
    - Food Matters
    - Vegucated
    - Hungry For Change

    Keep educating yourself and don't believe anything anyone says here, on TV, in a book, or in conversation. Be a freethinker and come to conclusions through your own experiences. You can be the science experiment and determine your own truth. Good luck!

    Ok, I get what you're trying to say here, BUT a well designed science experiment needs to have a sample size larger than ONE, because statistics. I don't mind people placing value on personal experience and anecdotal evidence, but that is NOT SCIENCE, and that 's not how scientists do things.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    ...and that our bodies were not designed to eat grains etc.

    Well that is completely bull****. We have plenty of archeological evidence that humans evolved eating grains.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    Indeed. You may find something that works for you and that's great. But you may not understand the reasons why and that can cause problems.
    The obvious one is someone's that choose a solution that leads to them losing a lot of weight and thinking "great" - then five months later finding they've lost loads of muscle and still have a load of 'skinny fat'.

    From what I've seen the five videos mentioned all concerning biases.
    I always make a point of reading the studies myself. Often the results deduced are far from reasonable when you read what actually happened.
    Here's someone that's done the research for you on the first video:
    http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/09/22/forks-over-knives-is-the-science-legit-a-review-and-critique/

    On that, personally I'm am sceptical of most such things presented in video form and would approach them with even more caution.
    The majority of such videos seem to be the remit of people with other agendas who want to HIDE information and convince the punter of their view with the lowest information presented with the most spin.

    After telling you to avoid videos, if you'd like some light entertainment, see 'fat head', which is a rebuttal to 'supersize me', though I've got a feeling it may be a bit anti-carb.
    Using a diet consisting mostly of Twinkies and similar 'treats' there was also the 'twinkie diet' professor who lost weight AND improved 'health markers' with that over 10 weeks.
  • Haskin_Fuzernick
    Haskin_Fuzernick Posts: 22 Member
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    My brother didn't know we weren't supposed to consume grains, and he accidentally ate a box of Cherry Frosted Poptarts and DIED.

    The SAME THING happened to my brother! Class action lawsuit, here we come.

    On the less sarcastic side, I get where you're coming from on the nutrition confusion front. Virtually every opinion gets taken to the extreme by some segment of the fanbase until BS meters start sounding. If you have an opinion there are 10 studies proving that you're right (of course, there are 10 proving that you aren't and that someone else is).

    I don't think there's a silver bullet, and what's perfect for you may very well not be for me. Different people. Different environments, ages, tastes, habits developed since we were small, work life, family life, and lastly, different body compositions. My Dad's nutritional requirements later in life were drastically different from mine at a much younger age, so I see nutrition as extremely personal. A guy that's 6' 6" will likely have different requirements than me. He'll have totally different requirements than my 120 lb wife.

    The only thing that I agree with is that the USDA is full of it.
  • QueenBishOTUniverse
    QueenBishOTUniverse Posts: 14,121 Member
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    I don't think there's a silver bullet, and what's perfect for you may very well not be for me. Different people. Different environments, ages, tastes, habits developed since we were small, work life, family life, and lastly, different body compositions. My Dad's nutritional requirements later in life were drastically different from mine at a much younger age, so I see nutrition as extremely personal. A guy that's 6' 6" will likely have different requirements than me. He'll have totally different requirements than my 120 lb wife.

    The only thing that I agree with is that the USDA is full of it.

    Yes and no, these are all variables in an equation. The fact that the result changes based on what variables you input doesn't mean the equation is innaccurate. The truth is that for *most* people the "equation" for nutrition is pretty accurate they just don't understand the variables or don't like the result they get....
  • fruttibiscotti
    fruttibiscotti Posts: 986 Member
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    What I observe is a growing understanding and acceptance for eating higher fat and higher protein and lower carb, as alignment to ancestral eating patterns. I also observe that this eating lifestyle, which seemed to only once be accepted by those with metabolic conditions (diabetes, pcos, obesity, etc) and inflammation/allergies is now gaining acceptance with athletes too. As example, here is a newspaper article talking about professional basketball players on low carb high fat diet...Kobe Bryant and Lakers players...

    http://www.examiner.com/article/kobe-bryant-and-lakers-score-with-low-carb-high-protein-paleo-and-grass-fed-meat

    Also, there have been many peer reviewed papers showing that the classical low fat diet failing. The woman's health initiative was a real bad failure example in this. Here are a few papers published in medical journals:

    - Howard BV, et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and weight change over 7 years: the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006.

    - Howard BV, et al. Low-Fat Dietary Pattern and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006.

    - Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial: Risk Factor Changes and Mortality Results. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1982.

    Also, another myth being put to bed is that saturated fat is bad for cardio system. Again, here are medical and nutrition publications that show that saturated fat is not related to risk of heart disease.

    - Siri-Tarino PW, et al. Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2010.

    - Mente A, et al. A systematic review of the evidence supporting a causal link between dietary factors and coronary heart disease. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009.

    - Dreon DM, et al. Change in dietary saturated fat intake is correlated with change in mass of large low-density-lipoprotein particles in men. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1998.

    Also, since 2002, low-carb diets have been studied extensively and over 20 randomized controlled trials have been conducted. It has been shown that they lead to much better health outcomes than the typical low-fat diet. They cause more weight loss and improve all major risk factors for disease, including triglycerides, HDL and blood sugar levels. Here are papers in medical journals:

    - Westman EC, et al. Low-carbohydrate nutrition and metabolism. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2007.

    - Hession M, et al. Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of low-carbohydrate vs. low-fat/low-calorie diets in the management of obesity and its comorbidities. Obesity Reviews, 2008.

    - Santos F, et al. Systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials of the effects of low carbohydrate diets on cardiovascular risk factors. Obesity Reviews, 2012.

    And finally, the myth that fat makes you fat is something else that is being busted in published papers, like these below published in medical journals, which show high fat low carb diets improving weight loss.

    -Brehm BJ, et al. A randomized trial comparing a very low carbohydrate diet and a calorie-restricted low fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in healthy women. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2003.

    - Yancy WS, et al. A low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-fat diet to treat obesity and hyperlipidemia: a randomized, controlled trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2004.

    - Westman EC, et al. The effect of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet versus a low-glycemic index diet on glycemic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus. Nutrition & Metabolism, 2008.
  • geebusuk
    geebusuk Posts: 3,348 Member
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    http://evidencemag.com/why-calories-count/
    Definitely good stuff - I was going to see what else it had to offer, then worked out it was Impruvism, which I've got bookmarked already :).
  • brentbat
    brentbat Posts: 4 Member
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    Wow!!!!

    Thanks so much everybody for the flurry of responses and links to various publications on the topic.

    Yes, I'm definitely somebody who likes to hear different sides to the debate before forming my own view.

    I appreciate all the help.

    Brent

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