Educate and Lose

Thanks for your comment.

Cutting out processed foods meant two things...you presumably started eating in a calorie deficit, which will cause weight loss, and if you cut down on carbs, you lost water weight. More of the latter than the former. Congratulations on the loss, but I'm doing fine with some processed foods in my diet.

I read positive and negative reviews on Amazon and was intrigued enough to download the available book by this author from the library.

You may also wish to post this in the Clean Eating Group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/133-clean-eating-group

I have two close friends and a brother in law who are all chemists. None of them have any issue with processed foods. All of them do support CICO as the most scientifically sound way to manage weight.

The FDA works for the public. In fact, the regulate the heck out of those organizations that they regulate. However, its the USDA that is mostly concerned with the security of the food supply in the U.S., not the FDA. And its the CDC and the NIH that compile most of the medical statistics, such as those for childhood obesity.

I looked up the author of the book that you mention, Dee McCaffrey. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental chemistry. Her "formal training" in nutrition is from an unaccredited, for-profit school of "Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts" called Bauman College. She also owns a company that sells "processed-free" food products (their word), of the sort that her book recommends. So I'm not inclined to put much stock in her scientific opinion because, as you yourself pointed out originally, those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

sheermomentum wrote: »

The FDA works for the public. In fact, the regulate the heck out of those organizations that they regulate. However, its the USDA that is mostly concerned with the security of the food supply in the U.S., not the FDA. And its the CDC and the NIH that compile most of the medical statistics, such as those for childhood obesity.

I looked up the author of the book that you mention, Dee McCaffrey. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental chemistry. Her "formal training" in nutrition is from an unaccredited, for-profit school of "Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts" called Bauman College. She also owns a company that sells "processed-free" food products (their word), of the sort that her book recommends. So I'm not inclined to put much stock in her scientific opinion because, as you yourself pointed out originally, those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

sheermomentum wrote: »

The FDA works for the public. In fact, the regulate the heck out of those organizations that they regulate. However, its the USDA that is mostly concerned with the security of the food supply in the U.S., not the FDA. And its the CDC and the NIH that compile most of the medical statistics, such as those for childhood obesity.

I looked up the author of the book that you mention, Dee McCaffrey. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental chemistry. Her "formal training" in nutrition is from an unaccredited, for-profit school of "Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts" called Bauman College. She also owns a company that sells "processed-free" food products (their word), of the sort that her book recommends. So I'm not inclined to put much stock in her scientific opinion because, as you yourself pointed out originally, those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

maidentl wrote: »

sheermomentum wrote: »

The FDA works for the public. In fact, the regulate the heck out of those organizations that they regulate. However, its the USDA that is mostly concerned with the security of the food supply in the U.S., not the FDA. And its the CDC and the NIH that compile most of the medical statistics, such as those for childhood obesity.

I looked up the author of the book that you mention, Dee McCaffrey. She has an undergraduate degree in environmental chemistry. Her "formal training" in nutrition is from an unaccredited, for-profit school of "Holistic Nutrition and Culinary Arts" called Bauman College. She also owns a company that sells "processed-free" food products (their word), of the sort that her book recommends. So I'm not inclined to put much stock in her scientific opinion because, as you yourself pointed out originally, those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

That...just....happened. BOOM! Thank God 'cause I didn't want to find out who is poisoning who.

If I had a dollar for every weight loss book out there, I'd be rich! Instead, the authors rake in the dough while confused and desperate people grasp at any straw.

goldthistime wrote: »

Those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

Following this logic, no one who is getting paid to do any job should be trusted because they have financial motives to keep their job and make people happy rather than be accurate in their work.

Have you heard of Dr. Oz? Because there are plenty of people out there with "credentials" willing to lie to make a lot of money.


And while it can be beneficial to reduce highly processed foods, it does not mean they cant be a part of a nutrious diet. What most authors dont tell you is total diet matters more than the sum of its parts. Essentially, find a way of eating that will allow you to address your goals. For me, i eat 80 to 90% of my calories from nutrient dense sources and the rest is going to be junk. I do this because weight loss needs to be enjoyable to be a long term change. And because I would rather kill myself than have a life without chickfila milkshakes.

Eliminating or reducing processed foods could very well be an effective weight loss strategy by making it easier to achieve CI<CO. For those who think that a lot of their calories consumed are from processed food, it's worth a try. Maybe they will lose some weight and then, if it's not the goal weight, switch to a more rigorous method of following CICO after having broken some overeating habits. Whether it would work would depend on the calories of the foods replacing the processed food in the diet.

Goldthistime mentioned a recent book, "The Dorito Effect," that discusses the lack of flavor in today's "healthy" food, as contrasted with the hyperpalatable processed food. Review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/books/review/the-dorito-effect-by-mark-schatzker.html

There are a couple of more books that come to mind. One is "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us." It details the extraordinary effort the food industry puts into creating hyperpalatable food (finding the "bliss spot") that is essentially addictive and then marketing that food. Sensory-specific satiety is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. The successful processed foods have complex formulas that make them tasty, but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating. (This was also why the author of the Dorito Effect thinks that we are no longer sated by healthy food, since it has lost so much flavor in comparison to the same food in years past.)
More on Salt Sugar Fat here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?_r=0

Another book is “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite” by former FDA head and Harvard-educated pediatrician David A. Kessler. He says that by combining fat, sugar and salt, the food industry uses the brain's reward system to create a feedback loop that stimulates our desire to eat and leaves us wanting more, even when we're full.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html

The abundance of processed food deliberately created to be hyperpalatable and addictive certainly presents a challenge when trying to manage CICO, and eliminating those foods could be helpful for some. One person might be more easily able to limit those treats, while another might do better cold turkey. I agree with CICO, but don't discount the effect of processed food on overeating.

What do you mean by processed food? Most food we eat is processed in some sense (cooked, fermented, dried, frozen, cut up, so on). I am careful about my diet and think most of the processed stuff I eat fits well in a healthy diet and serves some purpose, but I've found that people have all kinds of weird definitions of "processed foods" hereabouts.

I would try to avoid making assumptions about how others eat and what they need to do, since I certainly did not get fat based on eating loads of "ultraprocessed" foods, if that's what you mean -- I ate a pretty healthy diet when getting fat, just too much and without moderation even in some more whole food type things. If you do eat lots of packaged stuff so that cutting them out means a calorie deficit, that's great! I looked at my diet and came up with some other strategies which have worked for me, since packaged stuff was never really an issue.

(If you truly mean all processed food, I am interested in a discussion, since as I said I think it can make a diet more healthy. Where I live vegetables are either frozen, canned, or trucked in from far away or not available during the time of year we are about to go into, and similarly processing makes my supply of seafood far greater than it otherwise would be in the US midwest. Plus, European cheeses!)

lorrpb wrote: »

goldthistime wrote: »

Those who are making money off a product should not be trusted to give you advice about it.

Following this logic, no one who is getting paid to do any job should be trusted because they have financial motives to keep their job and make people happy rather than be accurate in their work.

The word was 'product' not 'service'.
If you are doing a job you are providing a service and get money for providing your time.
If you are making money off of a specific product, e.g. commissioned sales, then you are not to be trusted because you are out to sell your product and it doesn't have to be good as long as you make money from your sale.

lmsaa wrote: »

lemurcat12 wrote: »

What do you mean by processed food? Most food we eat is processed in some sense (cooked, fermented, dried, frozen, cut up, so on). I am careful about my diet and think most of the processed stuff I eat fits well in a healthy diet and serves some purpose, but I've found that people have all kinds of weird definitions of "processed foods" hereabouts.

I would try to avoid making assumptions about how others eat and what they need to do, since I certainly did not get fat based on eating loads of "ultraprocessed" foods, if that's what you mean -- I ate a pretty healthy diet when getting fat, just too much and without moderation even in some more whole food type things. If you do eat lots of packaged stuff so that cutting them out means a calorie deficit, that's great! I looked at my diet and came up with some other strategies which have worked for me, since packaged stuff was never really an issue.

(If you truly mean all processed food, I am interested in a discussion, since as I said I think it can make a diet more healthy. Where I live vegetables are either frozen, canned, or trucked in from far away or not available during the time of year we are about to go into, and similarly processing makes my supply of seafood far greater than it otherwise would be in the US midwest. Plus, European cheeses!)

I think most people use "processed food" to mean those foods that are the product of a lot of laboratory manipulation with ingredients or ratios that one wouldn't have found before food was factory produced and engineered, not "processed" in the strict dictionary definition.

First, you seem to have taken my response above as directed at you and it wasn't. It was directed more at OP. But I suppose it fits your comment too.

Anyway, people don't use "processed" in any consistent sense. I'd think of what you are talking about as "ultra-processed," perhaps, but even so I don't think you can generalize about such foods, as they differ vastly depending on the ingredients. Also, I just don't think there's anything terrible about a Quest bar or some extra fiber in pasta, which fit what you are talking about, as well as being generally processed.

I'm in the Midwest, too, and my local supermarket chain is pretty terrible, so I eat a lot of frozen fish and vegetables, also.

My grocery stores are pretty good, actually -- what I'm talking about is unavoidable given seasons and distance from the place where the fish are sourced. Even fish sold unfrozen will almost always have been frozen formerly, of course. And while I prefer to cook unfrozen vegetables, I don't fool myself that there's something superior to some out of season broccoli that happens to be in my grocery store in January (or even now) from far away, vs. something that's been frozen. The frozen stuff probably has more nutrients.

I don't think anyone is using "processed" to mean packaged and frozen, but, rather, for the meals that are seasoned and sauced and have more fat, sugar, and/or salt than you would use if you had cooked the dish from scratch.

Pre-made meals? I'd call that convenience food, not "processed." And while I don't eat them myself (and never have), they vary quite a lot. Some are very high cal and have poor ingredients, but others are not.

And, of course, the snack chips, etc. I eat a lot of yogurt, which is one of those items that has been altered over the years to make it more palatable (more sugar), but I make it easier to control the amount by buying the individual cups instead of the larger containers

I eat plain Fage. It's processed in that I usually eat 0% or 2% (and because yogurt is inherently processed anyway), but there is no sugar added to plain yogurt. People seem to just buy into this stuff about all processed products being unhealthy or unhealthier now than before without actually checking the ingredients. I totally agree that people should look at the ingredients and know what they are eating, but you can't just generalize and be accurate.

There is a lot of evidence that it is more difficult to limit portions of those foods laboratory-engineered to make us keep eating them. For people able to limit their portions, enjoy them. For those who have difficulty and know they are eating too much of these foods, replace the bag of Doritos on the kitchen counter with a bowl of apples. Why make weight loss harder than it needs to be?

Advice like this assumes that everyone is eating Doritos and needs you to tell them it might be good to eat an apple instead, and that's why it rubs me the wrong way. (I also just don't find snack food in a bag appealing, especially compared to something homemade, so I am skeptical about the idea that the food is magically harder to stop eating. What I think is that people tend to be bad about stopping eating, so will eat a whole bag of something -- or a whole giant portion or more from a bigger plate and all that -- when they'd be perfectly happy with a smaller portion if they just portioned it out. People also tend to eat more when food is easily available and in sight -- one huge affect of processed and convenience/snack foods is just that food is available all the time and cheap and easy. And people eat more when eating at a particular time has been normalized and we've now normalized snacking constantly. There are studies to support all this too, and I think it's more significant than this idea that chips are too delicious for us to deal with ('cause to me they just aren't). (I've read Salt, Sugar, Fat -- or whatever the order is! -- and liked it, so I don't deny that manufacturers try to make food more appealing to people and this includes by putting ingredients that tend to make them higher cal, but I continue to see the bigger issue that we are snacking all the time, which isn't so much about us being unable to stop, but that we see this as normal in a way we did not when I was a child.)

But I of course do agree that there are different strategies and if someone is struggling with control over snack foods cutting it out might well be a good strategy if it turns out they don't miss it much. I just don't like generic advice to everyone to do such things, as if we were all eating bags of Doritos and couldn't figure out for ourselves how to deal. I'm a big fan of people thinking through their issues and figuring out what will work for them.