Looking for the truth on nutrition...
brentbat
Posts: 4 Member
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
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
0
Replies
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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 
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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.pdf0 -
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.0 -
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.0 -
I've no doubt they are. Often it's based on old and questionable research.
And basically they were making the case that the USDA guidelines on nutrition are wrong,
It doesn't really matter or not whether our bodies were designed (sic) to eat grains., and that our bodies were not designed to eat grains etc
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.0 -
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.0
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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/0 -
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!0 -
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 themselves0
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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.0 -
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.0 -
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.0 -
...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.0 -
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.0 -
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.0 -
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....0 -
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, 2008.0 -
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. 0 -
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.
Brent0 -
unless you have some kind of medical condition that makes your sensitive to carbs, wheat, gluten, et al …then you can eat carbs, wheat, gluten, and you will lose weight and be healthy.
any diet that restrict a food group is idiotic IMHO0 -
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/
Oh. I like this one! 0 -
The Perfect Health Diet by Drs. Jamine, perfecthealthdiet.com is in my opinion the perfect human diet. He is more intelligent and researched on the topic than anyone I have seen.0
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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!
Or rather read medical journal articles and similar sorts of scientific stuff. Or go really crazy and talk to your doctor. Netflix is not a reliable resource.0 -
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 personally believe that we are designed to eat carbs and I want to back that up with the fact that our bodies evolved the ability to digest the carbs into glycogen with the help of Amylase. - an enzyme found in our pancreas that we use to break down carbs into simple sugars & glycogen.0 -
Bumping to read the articles. I dislike eating a lot of carbs (as in over 35%), certainly not the USDA recommended amount, but then again I feel no different then when I held them down to 15% or so. I understand the point behind paleo, but I also see plenty of healthy people eating 3-400g of carbs a day and kicking butt. High protein seems to be the only thing that is not debated for weight loss or muscle retention though how much is enough is a bit. 1g/LBM seems fairly standard.
I chose to do 40F/35C/30P because I feel more satisfied on higher fat and lower carb, but taking that to an extreme didn't help me more. Body builders usually suggest 40P/40C/20F I think?
I've read/watched some, but still am not sure how it all plays out. It doesn't help that when you start digging into the cited studies, you find out that they were poorly designed (no control group, too few participants, participant reported behaviors), biased, payed for (by pharmaceutical agriculture or other companies with financial interest), completely flawed (correlation=/=causation for instance) etc. If you don't actually dig through them yourself it's impossible to tell if the author of any one article/book etc is taking things out of context or exaggerating them or telling it like it is.
I would say that in the end, go with a recommended macro level (particularly protein), and then tweak it until you are full and satisfied.
ETA: Really low fat sucks too. I don't believe that the "standard" (is it anymore?) low fat diet is beneficial to anyone. I am really hungry on less than 25%. Again, YMMV, but seriously restricting anything doesn't seem to work.0 -
Bumping to read the articles. I dislike eating a lot of carbs (as in over 35%), certainly not the USDA recommended amount, but then again I feel no different then when I held them down to 15% or so. I understand the point behind paleo, but I also see plenty of healthy people eating 3-400g of carbs a day and kicking butt. High protein seems to be the only thing that is not debated for weight loss or muscle retention though how much is enough is a bit. 1g/LBM seems fairly standard.
I chose to do 40F/35C/30P because I feel more satisfied on higher fat and lower carb, but taking that to an extreme didn't help me more. Body builders usually suggest 40P/40C/20F I think?
I've read/watched some, but still am not sure how it all plays out. It doesn't help that when you start digging into the cited studies, you find out that they were poorly designed (no control group, too few participants, participant reported behaviors), biased, payed for (by pharmaceutical agriculture or other companies with financial interest), completely flawed (correlation=/=causation for instance) etc. If you don't actually dig through them yourself it's impossible to tell if the author of any one article/book etc is taking things out of context or exaggerating them or telling it like it is.
I would say that in the end, go with a recommended macro level (particularly protein), and then tweak it until you are full and satisfied.
And all of this ^^^^^^^^^
I just don't have the time or energy to do any of that, but it is what one should do if you want the most scientifically sound answer.0 -
lilawolf:
Not entirely sure about bodybuilders, but for strength training they generally recommend you choose a protein amount based on your body weight, as you suggest.
I believe the idea is that even if you eat LOADS, you don't need more protein and if you're only eating a bit, you still need a good bit of protein - so a ratio wouldn't take account of that.
I actually have MFP set up to something silly like 75%Protein, but it isn't as flexible as I'd like, so I've got play around with the settings to get my desired result (alternate days of high and low cals.)
As opposed to the one above which cites around 100 studies, this doesn't seem to show any evidence of research.The Perfect Health Diet by Drs. Jamine, perfecthealthdiet.com is in my opinion the perfect human diet. He is more intelligent and researched on the topic than anyone I have seen.
And that includes the actual writing.
In the shadow of the apple are foods forbidden because of their high toxin content. Notably:
Toxins?Do not eat cereal grains — wheat, barley, oats, corn — or foods made from them — bread, pasta, breakfast cereals, oatmeal. The exception is white rice, which we count among our “safe starches.” Rice noodles, rice crackers, and the like are fine, as are gluten-free foods made from a mix of rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca starch.
Do not eat calorie-rich legumes. Peas and green beans are fine. Soy and peanuts should be absolutely excluded. Beans might be acceptable with suitable preparation, but we recommend avoiding them.
Do not eat foods with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Do not drink anything that contains sugar: healthy drinks are water, tea, and coffee.
Nope. Just food. 0 -
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.
Isnt Taube a joke?
And based on that title alone, the book must be too. Stop *kitten* demonizing foods.0 -
Take a look at http://www.drperlmutter.com/ - he is the author of Grain Brain - good info on site - search for him on youtube and watch a bit. It makes sense and he has the research to back up most of his ideas.0
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