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His premise is simply that for the vast majority of people who are obese, the culprit is located within the high-carbohydrate aspect of their diet. Good Calori

by zach 15y ago

His premise is simply that for the vast majority of people who are obese, the culprit is located within the high-carbohydrate aspect of their diet. Good Calories, Bad Calories is about why the "garbage" people eat has caused them to get fat, and why it's not the saturated fat like experts have been telling the public for a generation. It's not a book about the best way for everyone to eat like Michael Pollan's books are. If you believe it's about telling people "eat food, but not too many carbs" I understand why you think little of it.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
So how come we were thinner back when we had a high carb, low fat diet? https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usda.gov%2Fpublications%2Ffoodsupply%2Ffoodsupply1909-2004report.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...
- jasonlotito 15y ago
  Different types of carbs, man, different types of carbs. =)
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    So processed white flour [1] isn't the culprit? Good to know. Maybe the real culprit in the obesity epidemic is fats, oils, and sugar. It certainly fits the data. [1] At the beginning of the century, whole wheat flour was uncommon except in rural areas. It spoiled too quickly.
    - jasonlotito 15y ago
      I'm not a nutritionist. My understanding, however, is that sugars are the culprit. When you look at what has changed over the years, that's the big one. Sugar: The Bitter Truth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM There are lots of other articles concerning this, but I felt this was the best one for pure information. He's not alone in discussing this, so I don't have to just take his word for it. But like I said, I'm not a professional in this area.
      - yummyfajitas 15y ago
        Actually, if you look, you'll discover fats and oils have increased more than sugar. Consumption of fats and oils increased 90% (from 12.6% of diet to 23.9%), while sugar consumption only increased 34% (from 12.9 to 17.3%). (By "increase", I mean from 1909-2004. See table 4 of my link.)
        jasonlotito 15y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear. It's the increase in the fructose in our diet via juices and sugars. Be wary as well, as those charts lump different things together.
        eel 15y ago
        If between fats and sugars, one is "bad" and the other is not, then any increase in the one that is bad will have negative effects regardless of how much the non-bad one is increased. Nutrition and human biology is obviously more complicated than just this, but I'm just pointing out that data like this provides as much evidence for Jason's argument as it does for your argument. Also, FWIW, I have seen the video, and to me the main message was that fructose is bad when fiber consumption is too low.
    - zach 15y ago
      It's hard to know enough to say definitively what the culprit is. That's why Taubes is mostly content to argue merely the cause of increased obesity is located within the high-carbohydrate aspect of the modern diet. But even that has been a controversial enough position. The problem could be primarily that the Kool-Aid, fruit juice, Tang, soda and Sunny Delight (and other sweet food like sugared-up yogurt and maybe even infant formula) that we've been feeding our kids for the last sixty years has halfway burned out many of their metabolisms while they were still young. It may have nothing to do with wheat. But we can be quite sure that the suspect(s) is a carbohydrate. If that's so, those folks with a permanently injured insulin response will have a need for an appropriate diet, which may not be like what metabolically-healthy individuals can enjoy. Taubes takes the position that the most effective diets for them are ones which restrict some or all carbohydrates, which is not going to give you clogged arteries like the medical establishment has been saying. That's about it. There are definitely other places you can go (i.e. the Heart Scan Blog) if you want to see arguments for wheat as a demon of the modern diet. Yet again, that also interacts with the modern insulin resistance that wasn't as much of an issue in the 1920's.
      - yummyfajitas 15y ago
        But we can be quite sure that the suspect(s) is a carbohydrate. How can we be so sure? The most obvious culprit is total calories. From 1980 to the present, total caloric consumption increased by 500 calories/day (see table 1 of my report). Coincidentally, obesity increased over the same period. But lets ignore that. Carb consumption decreased, both as a fraction of diet and in absolute numbers. Obesity increased. Taking these two facts together, you need to make a very convincing argument that carbs are really the problem, in spite of the fact that obesity and carb consumption are negatively correlated.
        zach 15y ago
        First off, I think this is good data and commend you for going back to the numbers to make your point. It's not perfect data - as the report says, by nature it's overstating actual consumption - but for short-term trends it is valuable. But I don't see where gross carbohydrates are decreasing in Table 1. It seems like they went from 420g in the 80's (from under 400g in the 70's) to 480 or so a decade ago.
    - infinite8s 15y ago
      At the beginning of the century, most people lived in rural areas. [1] [1] http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005wup.htm http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005wu...

by zach 15y ago

yummyfajitas 15y ago

So how come we were thinner back when we had a high carb, low fat diet? https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usda.gov%2Fpublications%2Ffoodsupply%2Ffoodsupply1909-2004report.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...

jasonlotito 15y ago
Different types of carbs, man, different types of carbs. =)
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  So processed white flour [1] isn't the culprit? Good to know. Maybe the real culprit in the obesity epidemic is fats, oils, and sugar. It certainly fits the data. [1] At the beginning of the century, whole wheat flour was uncommon except in rural areas. It spoiled too quickly.
  - jasonlotito 15y ago
    I'm not a nutritionist. My understanding, however, is that sugars are the culprit. When you look at what has changed over the years, that's the big one. Sugar: The Bitter Truth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM There are lots of other articles concerning this, but I felt this was the best one for pure information. He's not alone in discussing this, so I don't have to just take his word for it. But like I said, I'm not a professional in this area.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      Actually, if you look, you'll discover fats and oils have increased more than sugar. Consumption of fats and oils increased 90% (from 12.6% of diet to 23.9%), while sugar consumption only increased 34% (from 12.9 to 17.3%). (By "increase", I mean from 1909-2004. See table 4 of my link.)
      - jasonlotito 15y ago
        Sorry, I wasn't clear. It's the increase in the fructose in our diet via juices and sugars. Be wary as well, as those charts lump different things together.
      - eel 15y ago
        If between fats and sugars, one is "bad" and the other is not, then any increase in the one that is bad will have negative effects regardless of how much the non-bad one is increased. Nutrition and human biology is obviously more complicated than just this, but I'm just pointing out that data like this provides as much evidence for Jason's argument as it does for your argument. Also, FWIW, I have seen the video, and to me the main message was that fructose is bad when fiber consumption is too low.
  - zach 15y ago
    It's hard to know enough to say definitively what the culprit is. That's why Taubes is mostly content to argue merely the cause of increased obesity is located within the high-carbohydrate aspect of the modern diet. But even that has been a controversial enough position. The problem could be primarily that the Kool-Aid, fruit juice, Tang, soda and Sunny Delight (and other sweet food like sugared-up yogurt and maybe even infant formula) that we've been feeding our kids for the last sixty years has halfway burned out many of their metabolisms while they were still young. It may have nothing to do with wheat. But we can be quite sure that the suspect(s) is a carbohydrate. If that's so, those folks with a permanently injured insulin response will have a need for an appropriate diet, which may not be like what metabolically-healthy individuals can enjoy. Taubes takes the position that the most effective diets for them are ones which restrict some or all carbohydrates, which is not going to give you clogged arteries like the medical establishment has been saying. That's about it. There are definitely other places you can go (i.e. the Heart Scan Blog) if you want to see arguments for wheat as a demon of the modern diet. Yet again, that also interacts with the modern insulin resistance that wasn't as much of an issue in the 1920's.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      But we can be quite sure that the suspect(s) is a carbohydrate. How can we be so sure? The most obvious culprit is total calories. From 1980 to the present, total caloric consumption increased by 500 calories/day (see table 1 of my report). Coincidentally, obesity increased over the same period. But lets ignore that. Carb consumption decreased, both as a fraction of diet and in absolute numbers. Obesity increased. Taking these two facts together, you need to make a very convincing argument that carbs are really the problem, in spite of the fact that obesity and carb consumption are negatively correlated.
      - zach 15y ago
        First off, I think this is good data and commend you for going back to the numbers to make your point. It's not perfect data - as the report says, by nature it's overstating actual consumption - but for short-term trends it is valuable. But I don't see where gross carbohydrates are decreasing in Table 1. It seems like they went from 420g in the 80's (from under 400g in the 70's) to 480 or so a decade ago.
  - infinite8s 15y ago
    At the beginning of the century, most people lived in rural areas. [1] [1] http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005wup.htm http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/WUP2005/2005wu...