Taubes' Opinion on "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"
FIT_Goat
Posts: 4,224 Member
From here: http://carbfreenation.com/blog/2015/7/23/carb-free-nation-interviews-gary-taubes-author-of-why-we-get-fat-and-what-to-do-about-it
I especially liked the part about "Mostly plants"
OK, OK, this doesn't mean Taubes is on board with my carnivore agenda, but I'm still amused.
There's more to the interview. Most of it's just similar stuff to what you all know already. And he talks a bit about NuSI and some of the challenges they're facing.
I especially liked the part about "Mostly plants"
Mostly plants. It’s possible this could simply be wrong. That advice is based on a general epidemiological observation that health-conscious people eat more plant-based foods, and that’s the advice public health officials have given for the last forty years so that’s not particularly meaningful. And it's clear from the various existing surveys, for whatever they’re worth, that Americans did indeed eat more fruits and vegetables over the past forty years, during which they got fatter and more diabetic. So you can’t imply cause and effect from this kind of association, but it should, at least, be reason to stop and question the value of this as meaningful advice.
OK, OK, this doesn't mean Taubes is on board with my carnivore agenda, but I'm still amused.
There's more to the interview. Most of it's just similar stuff to what you all know already. And he talks a bit about NuSI and some of the challenges they're facing.
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I think the 'not too much' thing is valid from a general health standpoint, if not necessarily a weight loss standpoint. All the animal studies show CR to be beneficial for longevity markers.0
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I'm chomping at the bit waiting for actual studies from NuSI. Heck, I'd be happy if Attia would just update his blog.
This seems to be the latest:
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150716/NuSI-launches-groundbreaking-clinical-study-to-halt-nonalcoholic-fatty-liver-disease-in-children.aspx
Looks like they're going after low-hanging fruit. It should be obvious that carbs contribute to NAFLD.0 -
Ridiculous! We may have eaten more fruits and vegetables over the last forty years, but we dramatically increased our consumption of simple carbohydrates in the form of sugary drinks, cookies, corn chips, etc. in the same time period. The elephant in the room. I agree that fruits have been hybridized for sugar content to where they are no more than sugar bags. To implicate plants, greens in particular, in the obesity and diabetic rates is poor science. Taubes gets a lot of things right but is the first to criticize many for bad science. IMHO he is way off the mark here. If we had adopted "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." as a dietary policy in the 70's we would not have the crisis we have today and Taubes would still be writing books critiquing bad science in physics. "So you can’t imply cause and effect from this kind of association,".... He should have left it there.0
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He doesn't say they made us fat. But they certainly didn't do anything to prevent it. There's no proven benefit from eating more vegetables outside of the fact that those who eat the most tend to be healthiest. But that same group also eats the least of the processed carb foods, exercises more, smokes and drinks less, etc. If we had science that actually controlled for that. Say a group that only ate meat and a group that ate meat plus greens, and then compared the outcomes... that would be interesting. Until then, vegetables are a waste of prime belly real-estate.0
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What about digestive issues for people who can't tolerate plant based diet? I eat veggies in moderation but they still make my stomach hurt. I'm ok with fruit and berries but not so much with veg. I'll be dead from stomach pain if I only embraced veggie diet. Any consideration for less fortunate? Ugh!!0
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FIT-Perhaps the statement that Taubes should have made - Increased plant consumption will not provide protection from obesity or diabetes when large quantities of simple carbohydrates are consumed. To ignore the fact that simple carbohydrates consumption skyrocketed over the forty year period is a bit disingenuous. He is well aware of that fact, well chronicled in 600 pages of his book. We will see what picture he paints and stance he takes when his new book on sugar is released.
Real food...is meat.
It is interesting, listening to Taubes podcast interviews, he includes greens in his diet.
There are pros/cons for all foods. Plants are no exception. Plants have nutrients and anti-nutrients. Greens are probably the least offending and offer high nutrient density. My opinion and not yours. We all make our own choices.
GSD- Dietary guideline are made for the masses, the general population. There are always specific groups, outliers that don't fit the general recommendations..
What about people who can't eat plants?
What about people who are lactose intolerant?
What about people who can't eat nuts?
What about people who can't eat nightshades?
What about people who can't eat shellfish?
What about people who can't eat grain proteins?
What about people who can't digest meat?
What about people who have kidney disease and need to restrict fluids?0 -
Taubes never said "eat no vegetables" only that the statement "mostly vegetables" has no basis in science.0
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Meh. I'll keep eating my plants.
And my meat
And not all the heavily refined carbs.
For me, anyway, leafy greens are not the problem.0 -
For sure, the switch from fatty real foods to sugar and heavily refined carb-based processed foods played a huge role in the decline in health over the last 40 years. And, for most people, plants are an acceptable part of their diet.
But, there are some people who don't understand that you can't add plants to crappy eating as a way of balancing things out. I have a cousin who drinks one of those "green smoothies" every morning. She tells me how she has 12 servings of vegetables or something in it. That excuses the whole box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins she'll eat for lunch, right? She can't understand why eating all the vegetables isn't helping her lose weight!0 -
For sure, the switch from fatty real foods to sugar and heavily refined carb-based processed foods played a huge role in the decline in health over the last 40 years. And, for most people, plants are an acceptable part of their diet.
But, there are some people who don't understand that you can't add plants to crappy eating as a way of balancing things out. I have a cousin who drinks one of those "green smoothies" every morning. She tells me how she has 12 servings of vegetables or something in it. That excuses the whole box of Dunkin Donuts munchkins she'll eat for lunch, right? She can't understand why eating all the vegetables isn't helping her lose weight!
Yes this is an issue. But the issue isn't with the plants. :-)0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »
Yes this is an issue. But the issue isn't with the plants. :-)
This!0 -
Again, people seem to be missing the point. It's not that plants are bad, it's that the advice that our food should be "mostly plants" is unfounded. Now, I think plants are bad (or at best neutral). But, that's not what Taubes is stating.0
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How did Taubes conclude that "health conscious" people are eating plants? How did he determine that it's a confounding variable on the numerous studies? Especially when some of these studies looked a subjects who were vegetarian based on their religious beliefs? Does religion make you "health conscious?"0
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Religious vegetarians are also significantly less likely to smoke or drink, among other things. In response to the exact question you ask, I would need to dig deeper into GCBC and WWGF to find his previous discussions on vegetarian populations and why their results aren't necessarily due to the plants they eat, but from other lifestyle differences.
I know he's covered this (vegetables not necessarily benefiting health) before. Some of the information is in Good Calories, Bad Calories. Page 74-75 has a good discussion on the results of the Women's Health Initiative study, which was heavily biased in favor of those eating more fruits and vegetables (plus less fat, fewer calories, etc.) and still couldn't find a positive relationship. In fact, those eating more fruits and veggies had the same amounts of breast cancer, heart disease, colon cancer, and stroke as those eating their regular diets.0 -
Drinking and smoking are typically adjusted for. Some of the meta-studies even partition subjects by the type of vegetarianism, so it seems like the data has been looked at in many different ways.
IIRC, there isn't an improvement in all-cause mortality in many of the studies, but BMI seems to always be lower for vegetarian populations.0 -
Heh. Here's a recent study that sort of agrees with Taubes:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24941447
Obese and overweight women had higher odds of being in the highest intake quartile for combined fruit and vegetable intake, and were more likely to meet the "2 and 5" target or to have five or more serves of fruit and vegetables per day. In contrast, overweight men were less likely to be in high intake quartiles and less likely to meet recommended target of 5 per day, but there was no consistent relationship between obesity and fruit and vegetable intake. Underweight women and underweight men were less likely to be in the highest intake quartiles or to meet the recommended targets. These data suggest that improving adherence to dietary targets for fruit and vegetables may be a dietary strategy to overcome overweight among men, but that overweight and obese women are already adhering to these targets.
So veggies are good for men, but not for women. 0 -
From In Defense of Food p. 162 'Eat mostly plants, especially leaves' p. 164 'There are literally scores of studies demonstrating that a diet rich in vegetables and fruits reduces the risk of dying from all the Western diseases. In countries where people eat a pound or more of fruits and vegetables a day, the rate of cancer is what it is in the US.' Interesting stuff. At any rate, when we quote something or someone it is probably good to get the quote as accurate as possible. The book is interesting and I think for the most part Pollan has some interesting perspective on our intake, especially his thoughts on Vitamin C. So food for thought(yes, pun intended).0
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It's funny though, because vegetarians are more likely to suffer from cancer, allergies, and mental illness. So, the claim that lower rates of cancer are associated with vegetable intake is not nearly as well established as Pollan would make it seem. In the study below, the people with the diets highest in fruits and vegetables were almost 2-3 times more likely to identify as having cancer.
Source: The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study
Although, apparently the meat heavy carnivores are more likely to pee their pants. LOL
There's huge issues with using this study to say that vegetables cause any of these issues, though. So, don't think that I'm saying that. It's completely possible that the cancer rates are identical across the whole population, it's just that the people eating the most plants were more likely to survive it and end up in the survey. Similar arguments could be made about the higher rates of heart disease for vegetarians. The fact that nearly 2.5 times as many vegetarians reported having a heart attack doesn't mean that it was caused by the vegetables*. It could be that they were put on a vegetarian diet because of heart disease or that they survive heart disease more often. Anyway, it's still a fun study. You can usually find a study to support nearly any claim.
* The line relating to heart attacks (cardiac infarction) isn't in bold because the relationship wasn't statistically significant. Only the lines in bold reached the level of being considered significant relationships.
Edit: One thing I did find interesting about this study, the most strongly associated condition (allergies) is also the one that completely resolved for me after switching to meat only. I've had horrible allergies for years, and they're completely gone now. I've also not had a migraine in nearly two years (since going keto and continuing into meat only), which is rare. That's not quite significantly associated, according to this study, but it's close.0 -
What are Pollan's thoughts on vitamin C? Because I get none. I'm inclined to believe the benefits people attribute to it are over-rated. I'll probably have to look more closely into what he says. That will be added to my future reading list.0
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Very cool info Goat ! Thanks for this. Oh well, I guess that you'll be feeling so good having avoided cancer, allergy symptoms, migraines, and mental illness, etc, that you may not mind having wet pants. 0
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What are Pollan's thoughts on vitamin C? Because I get none. I'm inclined to believe the benefits people attribute to it are over-rated. I'll probably have to look more closely into what he says. That will be added to my future reading list.
Do you have a copy of Phinney and Volek? Phinney was a fan of the Inuit diet, and he has theories about the Vit C issue. Basically, Vit C is useful for the antioxidant properties, but we make an increased amount of endogenous antioxidants when carbs are restricted.
In terms of cancer, there are basically two things going on: 1) mutations leading to cancer cells, and 2) proliferation of the cancer cells.
Increased antioxidants and decreased ROS should help with (1). In some cases, decreased glucose may help with (2), but growth hormones are probably more important, and dietary protein will have an effect there.0
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