"Fat Head" documentary

it was a load of bologna

I haven't seen it, but now I know what I'm filling my night with!

To anyone interested, you can see it for FREE on Hulu!
http://www.hulu.com/watch/196879/fat-head

Yeah, I thought it was really interesting. Especially about how red meat is (supposedly) not that bad for you. He had a good point about the whole "vegetarian only" agenda. Early man most likely ate a lot of animal fat, not just plants.

I think all the processing, factory farming, antibiotics, etc, play a huge part, not just weight but in overall health. That's why there is such a huge wave of people going to grass-fed meat from small, local, family farms. Instead of giving up the excellent nutrition meat provides, we just get better meat.

I've seen it - it jives with the experience of a lot of people I know, but that doesn't mean it's best for everyone. I've done a lot of nutritional research, and the conclusion I've come to is that humans can thrive on a lot of different diets. Isolated groups of people subsisted on high-fat, high-carb, high-protein, and plant-only diets, and they're still around. But what works for an Alaskan Inuit might not work for a tropical Latin American. It seems that everyone has to experiment to find out what kind of diet optimizes their health. And that might change over the course of their lifetime. Good luck figuring yours out!

I've seen it - it jives with the experience of a lot of people I know, but that doesn't mean it's best for everyone. I've done a lot of nutritional research, and the conclusion I've come to is that humans can thrive on a lot of different diets. Isolated groups of people subsisted on high-fat, high-carb, high-protein, and plant-only diets, and they're still around. But what works for an Alaskan Inuit might not work for a tropical Latin American. It seems that everyone has to experiment to find out what kind of diet optimizes their health. And that might change over the course of their lifetime. Good luck figuring yours out!

Bravo!! Good response.

Since I've watched Fat Head and The Big Fat Fiasco on youtube I've started watching my carbs and have lost 7 pounds and my blood sugar is stabilized in the normal range so it works for me.

Funny, I just watched this on Netflix yesterday too! Maybe we were even watching it at the same time. :happy:

I agree that I am sure that there was a lot of stuff that he did not cover, such as work by Dr. McDougall, who has basically reversed illnesses such as heart disease by putting patients on a very strict low-fat vegan diet.

Edit to add: I think what might be similar in both Paleo and McDougall (low-fat vegan) is that they both limiting added sugars....

I think you're right. And I also think that 100g carbs/day or less used to be the "normal" carbohydrate content of our diet up to the 1950s (in the first world, that is). About after that time we started adding more sugar to our diet, also because of the rise of convenience foods.

I came at this from the other direction: my doctor tested my metabolism and put me on a low-carb, high-fat high-protein diet based on the way my body processes (or, rather, *doesn't* properly process) carbs & sugars. Then later I watched this documentary, and found it extremely interesting to see that this same diet appears to help "normal" people too.

I also read an article (sorry, can't cite it, my memory sucks and I didn't bookmark it) by a biologist who pointed out that the human digestive system does not handle cellulose (plant matter) very well. Which means that we did not evolve as herbivores, and we're not meant to live on plants. No offense to vegetarians, I know that with the proper planning and nutritional knowledge you *can* live healthily as a vegetarian or vegan. But what this scientist was pointing out is that we human beings did not evolve that way. Our teeth and our digestive systems are designed to be omnivorous. Even societies that never domesticated animals or had much of a hunting or fishing culture would collect and eat things like snails, worms, termites or locusts, and get their fat and proteins that way. There has never been a human society that existed on a plants-only diet.

And don't let anyone tell you that ketosis is bad for you. I've been eating this way (30g or fewer carbs each day) for four months now and have had nothing but good results. It has done wonders for me. It has cured my depression and mood swings, and I've lost 30 lbs so far with very little effort and without ever feeling hungry. My doctor introduced me to people who have done this for over a decade, and are in perfect health. A ketogenic diet has been successfully used to treat epilepsy, diabetes, hyperinsulinemia, depression and even migraines.

Some people who think ketosis is dangerous are confusing ketosis with ketoacidosis. Ketoacidosis can be deadly, but they're two completely different things. Also, people think it's hard on the liver or kidneys. Not true, unless your liver and/or kidneys are damaged to start with. Saying that ketosis harms the liver or kidneys is like saying strenuous exercise causes heart failure. Yes, technically, it can, but only if the organ is weak to start with.

So, yes, I think the Fat Head documentary had a lot of good valuable info in it.

Just to play Devil's Advocate a bit on the vegetarian thing. First, I think you are right in that we evolved to be omnivores but I also bet that most paleolithic people had to endure long periods without meat, making do with what vegetable matter they could forage. So, I don't know that the "all meat all the time" way that many people go about the paleo-style low-carb diet is necessarily an accurate representation of how humans evolved eating, either.

Second -- just to touch on the ethical/sustainability side of the vegetarian choice -- men also evolved to impregnate as many women as they could but modern man realizes that isn't necessarily good for modern society or the planet. :happy:

Third, paleolithic man's evolutionary "job" (so to speak) was to make it to child bearing age, not old age. What gets a human to age 13-20 is not necessarily what is best for an 80-year-old. The nutritional needs could, theoretically, be different, but I don't think that paleolithic man can really tell us.

Or maybe he can, I haven't studied the matter in great detail. I am personally still working on finding a way of eating that jives with me in all respects. I'm happy to hear that you have had such remarkable success with the way of eating that you are currently enjoying!

Also important to note are:

Paleolithic man fasted for extended periods, leading to drastic calorie restrictions and cycles of fasting and (briefly) feasting
The low average age of human in pre- and early historic periods was caused by high perinatal mortality, i.e. lots of children being born who don't make it to their 1st birthday.

Adults who survived could live well into their sixties: increases in lifespan have been brought about primarily by better control of infectious diseases, not by a better diet (rather, the reverse is true, witness he rise of coronary diseases and complaints that are associated with high levels of insulin secretion)

I saw it. It pretty much corresponded to my own personal diet philosophy, so I did like it. The guy has a 5 part lecture on youtube called "big fat lies" which is very interesting.