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There's a lot of people here who are really into this, but this is really the opinion of a minority of nutrionists, without a large body of scientific evidence

There's a lot of people here who are really into this, but this is really the opinion of a minority of nutrionists, without a large body of scientific evidence supporting them. Low-carb diets are being sold to the public on a ridiculous premise: the quality of foods can be identified based on their major macronutrients, and "carbs" consists of a coherent group of foods. This is ridiculous because it lumps refined sugars in the same category as nutritious vegetables. When my brother-in-law tried a low-carb diet, he would come over to dinner and say that he couldn't eat lettuce, because lettuce is a carb. Well, it is, but it has few calories, it's mostly water, and it has relatively a lot of micronutrients. Avoiding high-satiety foods rich in micronutrients and antioxidants—such as cabbages, apples, and greens—because you're categorizing them with commercial soda seems insane to me. People have psychological models of what a meal should consist of, and for most Americans it consists of a large piece of meat as the star, some refined starches on the side, and maybe a small amount of (probably overcooked) vegetables. This is not very healthy: a healthier diet would put vegetables as the base and star of the meal. There is plenty of good evidence that: vegetable-centered diet > refined starch-centered diet But where does meat-centered diet fit in there? What negative health consequences are there from these diets? There are individuals who advocate for this kind of diet, but is it really something that can be recommended to the mass public? There is virtually no major culinary traditions built around this style of eating, except maybe for people who subsist upon marine mammals. My brother-in-law ended up eating grilled chicken thighs by himself until he couldn't stand it anymore.

CosmicShadow 9y ago
Just want to mention that there are always people who don't read the literature or properly follow a "diet plan" for lack of a better word to call it. If you are doing the Ketogenic diet, right at the end of Gary Taubes' book entitled "Why we get fat and what to do about it" which is about the diet (and is the same the guy who wrote the linked article) it says this about your daily diet in regards to vegetables: FOODS THAT MUST BE EATEN EVERY DAY: Salad Greens: 2 cups a day. Includes arugula, bok choy, cabbage (all varieties), chard, chives, endive, greens (all varieties, including beet, collards, mustard, and turnip), kale, lettuce (all varieties), parsley, spinach, radicchio, radishes, scallions, and watercress. (If it is a leaf, you may eat it.) Vegetables: 1 cup (measured uncooked) a day. Includes artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, green beans (string beans), jicama, leeks, mushrooms, okra, onions, peppers, pumpkin, shallots, snow peas, sprouts (bean and alfalfa), sugar snap peas, summer squash, tomatoes, rhubarb, wax beans, zucchini. The vegetables that he says you need to stay away from: "...“starchy” vegetables such as slow-cooked beans (pinto, lima, black beans), carrots, parsnips, corn, peas, potatoes, French fries, potato chips." So clearly the guy who wouldn't eat lettuce didn't do his research or just heard "to cut all carbs is what you must do". The book is a great read, very enlightening, and I've successfully done Keto several times and lost a lot of weight and body fat using it, all the while feeling better. I surely do not eat that many vegetables a day, if any, because I hate most allowed vegetables (I just have Caesar salads occasionally), but I still manage to feel good and lose weight. This feels like a lot of vegetables suggested for a "meat only" viewed diet, and it seems like more than I'm sure most people eat daily anyways, which I guess is probably sad, but hey. One last pitch for reading the book, it's essentially just science of the body and fat and talk about the history of various studies and how they relate to the science you just learned until the very end where in the appendix it basically says, ok here is how you actually do it, if you didn't figure it out by now (at least that's how I remember it).
- panglott 9y ago
  My point is how this is communicated to the public. It's nice that you have spend dozens or hundreds of hours reading ketogenic diet books, and have a clear idea about the limitations, tradeoffs, and risks of this. Ordinary members of the public get the message "only eat chicken thighs, and don't eat lettuce". That's a long way from a diet that's healthy for ordinary people.
  - hacktothefuture 9y ago
    Come on. I've never heard (no one has) the phrase, "don't eat lettuce". I've heard don't eat processed carbs, don't eat bread, don't eat pasta, don't eat simple sugars, don't eat potatoes.
    - panglott 9y ago
      Maybe he was doing one of those "try a ketogenic diets for 30 days", or stumbled upon one of those keto advocates who only eats meat and lard. If all you read about low-carb diets is the first paragraph about any popular news story about them, then what you know is that low-carb diets are the ones where you can eat lots of meat and you should shun any foods with sugar or starches.
aeorgnoieang 9y ago
> lettuce is a carb The typical advice I've seen is to limit 'net carbs' which is the difference between the total carbohydrates and 'dietary fiber'. Also, a serving of lettuce contains a very small amount of carbs, e.g. 1.2 g per cup for butterhead lettuce. Low carb diets seem to usually consist of less than 50 g of 'net carbs' per day so eating even lots of lettuce seems entirely compatible with them. Overall tho, nutrition just seems like an inherently 'causally dense' subject, i.e. there are lots of seemingly plausible explanations for any phenomenon. Maybe there is no one simple explanation for everyone everywhere, in general.
siegecraft 9y ago
> This is ridiculous because it lumps refined sugars in the same category as nutritious vegetables. It doesn't, though. Low carb diets focus on net carbs, which is carbs minus dietary fiber, and guess what: nutritious vegetables have a lot of dietary fiber and a lot fewer carbohydrates than refined sugar products. An optimal low carb diet is mostly protein, vegetables and greens (especially nutrient dense ones like kale, spinach, collard greens, etc). It seems like your brother-in-law was just ill-informed about his diet. As far as a meat-centered goes, protein is the only absolutely essential macronutrient. You can live without fat and/or carbohydrates, assuming you get your other micronutrients (vitamins, electrolytes, etc). You cannot live without protein.

CosmicShadow 9y ago

Just want to mention that there are always people who don't read the literature or properly follow a "diet plan" for lack of a better word to call it. If you are doing the Ketogenic diet, right at the end of Gary Taubes' book entitled "Why we get fat and what to do about it" which is about the diet (and is the same the guy who wrote the linked article) it says this about your daily diet in regards to vegetables: FOODS THAT MUST BE EATEN EVERY DAY: Salad Greens: 2 cups a day. Includes arugula, bok choy, cabbage (all varieties), chard, chives, endive, greens (all varieties, including beet, collards, mustard, and turnip), kale, lettuce (all varieties), parsley, spinach, radicchio, radishes, scallions, and watercress. (If it is a leaf, you may eat it.) Vegetables: 1 cup (measured uncooked) a day. Includes artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, green beans (string beans), jicama, leeks, mushrooms, okra, onions, peppers, pumpkin, shallots, snow peas, sprouts (bean and alfalfa), sugar snap peas, summer squash, tomatoes, rhubarb, wax beans, zucchini. The vegetables that he says you need to stay away from: "...“starchy” vegetables such as slow-cooked beans (pinto, lima, black beans), carrots, parsnips, corn, peas, potatoes, French fries, potato chips." So clearly the guy who wouldn't eat lettuce didn't do his research or just heard "to cut all carbs is what you must do". The book is a great read, very enlightening, and I've successfully done Keto several times and lost a lot of weight and body fat using it, all the while feeling better. I surely do not eat that many vegetables a day, if any, because I hate most allowed vegetables (I just have Caesar salads occasionally), but I still manage to feel good and lose weight. This feels like a lot of vegetables suggested for a "meat only" viewed diet, and it seems like more than I'm sure most people eat daily anyways, which I guess is probably sad, but hey. One last pitch for reading the book, it's essentially just science of the body and fat and talk about the history of various studies and how they relate to the science you just learned until the very end where in the appendix it basically says, ok here is how you actually do it, if you didn't figure it out by now (at least that's how I remember it).

panglott 9y ago
My point is how this is communicated to the public. It's nice that you have spend dozens or hundreds of hours reading ketogenic diet books, and have a clear idea about the limitations, tradeoffs, and risks of this. Ordinary members of the public get the message "only eat chicken thighs, and don't eat lettuce". That's a long way from a diet that's healthy for ordinary people.
- hacktothefuture 9y ago
  Come on. I've never heard (no one has) the phrase, "don't eat lettuce". I've heard don't eat processed carbs, don't eat bread, don't eat pasta, don't eat simple sugars, don't eat potatoes.
  - panglott 9y ago
    Maybe he was doing one of those "try a ketogenic diets for 30 days", or stumbled upon one of those keto advocates who only eats meat and lard. If all you read about low-carb diets is the first paragraph about any popular news story about them, then what you know is that low-carb diets are the ones where you can eat lots of meat and you should shun any foods with sugar or starches.

aeorgnoieang 9y ago

> lettuce is a carb The typical advice I've seen is to limit 'net carbs' which is the difference between the total carbohydrates and 'dietary fiber'. Also, a serving of lettuce contains a very small amount of carbs, e.g. 1.2 g per cup for butterhead lettuce. Low carb diets seem to usually consist of less than 50 g of 'net carbs' per day so eating even lots of lettuce seems entirely compatible with them. Overall tho, nutrition just seems like an inherently 'causally dense' subject, i.e. there are lots of seemingly plausible explanations for any phenomenon. Maybe there is no one simple explanation for everyone everywhere, in general.

siegecraft 9y ago

> This is ridiculous because it lumps refined sugars in the same category as nutritious vegetables. It doesn't, though. Low carb diets focus on net carbs, which is carbs minus dietary fiber, and guess what: nutritious vegetables have a lot of dietary fiber and a lot fewer carbohydrates than refined sugar products. An optimal low carb diet is mostly protein, vegetables and greens (especially nutrient dense ones like kale, spinach, collard greens, etc). It seems like your brother-in-law was just ill-informed about his diet. As far as a meat-centered goes, protein is the only absolutely essential macronutrient. You can live without fat and/or carbohydrates, assuming you get your other micronutrients (vitamins, electrolytes, etc). You cannot live without protein.