From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 11:37:47 MDT
Damien Sullivan wrote:
>
> Oh, definitely. But you have to get calories too. And the link between
> saturated fat and heart disease seems pretty strong, so I'd be careful with
> the meat and fowl.
Unfortunately I don't have time currently to do much more than skim this
list, but I would like to chime in here and give my opinion that based
on some reading I've been doing lately I am beginning to believe that,
along with the "food pyramid", the "lipid hypothesis" is also going to
end up being absolutely wrong. In fact, just like how all the refined
carbs the food pyramid advised us to eat likely ended up causing
rampaging obesity/diabetes/etc. in the US population, not getting enough
natural saturated fats while eating likely harmful manufactured
polyunsaturated and other fats is likely also causing multiple diseases.
Some of these manufactured fats are likely carcinogenic/toxins, and many
are pro-oxidants.
If you actually go and look at the "research" purporting to show
negative effects of saturated fats you find that for the most part the
studies have such poor design/implementation that they are essentially
worthless. In some cases it is so bad you wonder if they were trying on
purpose to achieve a particular result. In fact this trend of very poor
experimental design seems to run rampant through pretty much all areas
of nutritional research. It appears that based on some jumping to
conclusions and poorly done experiments a consesnsus formed early on
among most scientists regarding the idea that "fat is bad", etc. Is it a
coincidence that a lot of scientists in this area are backed by funds
from the manufactured food industry? Why is it that in the early 20th
century there were only a few thousand heart attacks in the USA, but
later on when we began eliminating natural forms of fat from our diet
and replacing it with manufactured fats and other foods that we suddenly
had a crisis on our hands?
What I can certainly also say however is that this area is so complex
and nowhere near fully understood that no one can yet say for sure what
is the best way to eat. We certainly would have better info at this
point though if more people would have broken away over the last 30+
years from the "regime" of the lipid hypothesis and performed more
independent research IMO.
>
> And I'm on a budget. Grains and beans are cheap. (I miss Trader Joe's and
> whole wheat pasta which wasn't a price ripoff.)
>
I've read the experiences of some people who have switched to eating a
more primitive, high fat diet, and not only are things like liver, other
organ meats, and high fat foods fairly cheap but they find that eating
plenty of fat makes you naturally desire to eat less. So it ends up
being not that expensive at all. Obviously if you do it the way many
Atkins Dieters do and just eat filet mignon and other expensive forms of
high protein meat you will have a different experience, but I don't
think this is the meat with the best nutritional value- especially
corn/grain fed meat.
P.S. For those who say calories are calories are calories, I would say
two things: 1) it has been shown that your GI tract can absorb fully
100% of the protein and carbs you eat, but only can absorb fats at the
rate of around 12 to 15 grams per hour. So there is a limit to how many
fat calories you can absorb in a given time. 2) now that there are
finally some studies going on comparing alternate diets with the "low
fat paradigm" it appears that many of them show people lose
significantly more weight on various low carb/high fat diets even when
eating the same or higher amounts of calories.
P.P.S. Three other interesting ideas worthy of researching: 1) normal
cholesterol is actually an antioxidant and actual proof showing that
moderately high (300 combined or below) levels of it has any negative
effect on cardio health is extremely lacking. In fact, people with too
little of it are more likely to have health problems. 2) studies appear
to show that saturated fat consumption has no bearing on the amount of
atherosclerosis detectable in post-mortem studies. In fact in areas such
as Japan that are perceived to eat healthier diets they actually suffer
more of this disease as they get older. 3) more recent research is
beginning to show that what actually causes heart disease is an
inflammation process, which actually has little if any relation to the
particular fats and cholesterol that most doctors and individuals in the
USA currently believe is the cause. What causes this inflammation is a
very interesting topic...
-- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/
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