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It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat!

It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat! The NY Times has even run other articles saying as much: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really-makes-us-fat.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really... (by Gary Taubes, whose book "Why We Get Fat" is a must-read.) The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption. Hence skyrocketing obesity. Eating a low-carb diet and easing off grains (particularly "white" grains) and sugars will help you lose weight. From the article I linked above: "On the very low-carbohydrate diet, Dr. Ludwig’s subjects expended 300 more calories a day than they did on the low-fat diet and 150 calories more than on the low-glycemic-index diet. As Dr. Ludwig explained, when the subjects were eating low-fat diets, they’d have to add an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity each day to expend as much energy as they would effortlessly on the very-low-carb diet. And this while consuming the same amount of calories." I can also speak from personal experience: I went gluten-free after being diagnosed with gluten intolerance in 2009. In three weeks, I effortlessly shed 12 pounds--12 pounds that had refused to come off previously no matter how much exercise I was doing or how religiously I tracked my caloric intake. I wasn't doing gluten-free to lose weight; I got dragged into it by a diagnosis, so this was a wholly unexpected yet awesome side benefit. I've since noticed that if I slide back into eating too many carbs and sugars (even gluten-free ones), I start to gain weight again, and I feel groggy and disoriented. As a side effect of this diet^Wlifestyle change, I've also completely been able to drop caffeine consumption--something I never expected. Put simply, I didn't feel like I had been hit by a train when I woke up. Caffeine and energy drink consumption has spiked right along with "low-fat", high-carb diets. Something to consider.

joedev 14y ago
If "a colorie is a calorie", then why do you single out "eating too many carbs and sugars" as the cause of your occasional weight gain?
- ericabiz 14y ago
  Please read the entire link I posted above. He's rebutting the "calorie is a calorie" thesis, not endorsing it.
- Ixiaus 14y ago
  A colorie is a calorie (in the sense that a unit of energy is a unit of energy); however, there are some (I don't have science to cite, so I won't say it is factual) people that say fructose is worse for you than glucose (the two monosaccharides). Here's an interesting article you can read: http://www.eatingrules.com/2011/05/introduction-to-sugar/ http://www.eatingrules.com/2011/05/introduction-to-sugar/ In this sense, a calorie is not a calorie - but to be precise it's more that different sources of calories have different side-effects on the body when converted INTO energy/calorie. Now to grains (specifically wheat-based products): gluten. The single reason why people in my athletic sphere (CrossFit) avoid wheat products as a source of calories when training is because of gluten (and sometimes yeast - as it does stimulate candida growth). Gluten can cause all sorts of problems that aren't related to the calorie intake - diseases, obesity, inflammation, etc... (I won't cite anything here for that because the information is widely available and in many books - although there are still "studies" that would say this information is bunk) I consume around 4-5k calories per-day as part of my training. As long as you use it, the calories aren't bad for you but the source of the calories must be clean.
  - MDS100 14y ago
    Oh god. What the hell does "clean" mean. That's orthorexic nonsense. Unprocessed foods can be very helpful, but they aren't magically different kcal, If you eat too much potatoes and nuts (instead of cake) you'll still gain the same amount of fat (controlling for fiber and protein energy loss). http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/ http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-cle... Regarding fructose: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab... http://weightology.net/?p=434 http://weightology.net/?p=434 Gluten is extremism overhyped, but sensitivity to it can be a problem.
ComputerGuru 14y ago
Nitpick: Not exactly correct. Once 30% of your total caloric intake is in the form of fat calories, genetics comes into play. Apparently, and for reasons no one yet understands, there is a gene marker APOC3 [0] and other apolipoproteins like it [1] [2] that will cause your body to no longer break down all consumed fats, and leading to part of that fat to be "absorbed" instead. However, this only affects around 5% of the population, for the other 95% your "calorie is a calorie" approach is correct, be it fat, carb, or protein. 0: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/research/12heart.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/research/12heart.ht... 1: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/10/2517.full http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/10/2517.full 2: https://www.23andme.com/health/familial-hypercholesterolemia-typeB/ https://www.23andme.com/health/familial-hypercholesterolemia...
3am 14y ago
Your point is great, but could you elaborate on how you read the article as pushing, "fat makes you fat"? I read it much more as saying that large food companies have developed deep expertise in tuning the quantity of sugar, salt, fat, and texture to make their products bypass our body's natural mechanisms for feeling full. I think if you're reading this through some kind of paleo/non-paleo lens, then you're missing the point of the article.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  >>Your point is great, but could you elaborate on how you read the article as pushing, "fat makes you fat"? Yeah, I didn't get that message either. I think the parent is reading too much into it (a.k.a. projecting).
  - glenstein 14y ago
    Same here. I read this whole article a few days ago, and discussed it with friends. The main takeaway for me is the incredible complexity and subtlety that goes into researching the "perfect" junk food. In particular, the term "bliss point" which seems to apply to a number of properties that food can have. For one example, a "bliss point" as applied to the "crunch" a food should have, ie the most satisfying amount of resistance for a cracker or chip to have is apparently 4 lbs of pressure. But often there isn't just one single answer- sometimes there are multiple mutually exclusive, highly optimal combinations of preferences, as with spaghetti where you have plain, spicy and chunky. And sometimes, the most satisfying flavor preference is not the most optimal result for profitability- snacks with too strong a flavor will "oversaturate" the brain and you will not have a strong desire to keep eating them after a few samples. In these cases it's better to have a subtle taste that never leaves the consumer feeling quite fully satisfied. So yeah. It's not really about "fat makes you fat" -- though perhaps there is an aside to that effect -- it's more about corporate junk food researchers foraging their way through a world of data on consumer preferences and designing the most efficient products.
- maxerickson 14y ago
  It's amazing how much arguing and pontificating there is about subtle effects of dietary composition with little or no mention of massive increases in intake. For example: http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf Says ~25% increase since the mid 1980s. I do tend to accept the idea that it is better to get excess calories from fat than from simple carbohydrates and sugars, but I don't think any ongoing significant excess is a good idea, elaborate metabolic theory or not.
pvnick 14y ago
While you're right that fat in and of itself does not lead to weight gain, it's the combination with sugar that absolutely, 100% leads to weight gain. Sugar and other high glycemic index foods (eg white bread) causes an insulin spike and puts your body into an anabolic, "building" state in which it will assimilate whatever it has lying around. Usually, if you're eating something with high amounts of sugar, it will also have high amounts of fat (ice cream, cookies, etc). Thus you will have a large amount of fatty acids lying around which your body will go ahead and form into droplets to be stored in adipose tissue. That's how you build fat. However, if you are in a state of muscular stress, such as after weight lifting, and you eat a ton of glucose - notice I said glucose, not sugar, which contains fructose - and you combine this with a moderate amount of protein and little to no fat, you'll have a bunch of amino acids floating around and this insulin spike will cause your muscles to soak up all that protein and become bigger/stronger/both depending on the type of weightlifting you did with no spillover into adipose fat tissue. It's this very simple metabolic process that people don't get. Everyone gets all worked up on pointing the finger at fat or sugar or whatever, but this is the "secret". Btw, for anyone looking to lose weight or put on muscle in a healthy way, check out intermittent fasting, specifically the leangains plan. Source: I'm a biochem major with a six pack
- MDS100 14y ago
  Yeah, you are referring to insulin sensitivity and calorie partitioning. Still depends on genetic makeup (insulin sensitivity can vary 10-fold). P-ratio isn't the same for everyone. So not correct what you are saying (energy does not only go into muscle cells). You can still get fat(ter) with such a diet. Muscle and liver glycogen will be full at some point and more and more fatty acids will be stored in adipocytes. Berkhan got fatter when he overfed. Kcal still need to be controlled. Also you can get fat on a very low carb diet if you eat too much fat/energy. As a lot of low carb "gurus" do (such a jimmy moore). As a biochem major you should be aware of other mechanisms besides insulin. (ASP & HSL) Insulin is so terribly overrated.
  - pvnick 14y ago
    Then exercise with weights at high-speed on an empty stomach (empty glycogen supplies) and wait for a couple hours before enjoying your large amount of carbs and protein. Maybe consume some branched chain amino acids to signal to your body not to break down any muscle. You'll enjoy all the benefits of interval training and your body will tap directly into your fat for energy at this point to burn through whatever small amount of spillover you're speaking of. Obviously if you eat far more than your body needs you will get fat because that's how your body's efficient machinery works. But it's quite hard to do when your stomach physically only has enough room for so much and you'll throw up before consuming that many calories.
xefer 14y ago
Taubes actually started the mainstream reexamination of fat over 10 years ago with his New York Times Magazine article "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?": http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-... The key point is that it is only very specific varieties of fat that matter for heart disease. It goes in to much more detail than his opinion piece for those looking for more info.
- MDS100 14y ago
  http://examine.com/faq/is-saturated-fat-bad-for-me.html http://examine.com/faq/is-saturated-fat-bad-for-me.html
  - anon1385 14y ago
    >Meta-analysis of effect of saturated fat intake on cardiovascular disease: overadjustment obscures true associations http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long I find it hard to take that site seriously when they call fish oil a "brain booster" next to a great big affiliate link to buy fish oil supplements on Amazon [1]. Also they don't seem to have a page about trans fats at all. Are they pushing an agenda through cherry picking and deliberate omission of contrary information? I don't have the time or energy to investigate. (Note: I'm not trying to defend Taubes here, as far as I can tell he is a hack). [1] http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/ http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/
    - aaxe 14y ago
      Is Glen Beck a rapist? I'm just asking questions. That is the exact equivalent of what you did. They clearly say "Why the buy link" right next to that link. And if you actually tried reading it, right here: http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/#summary7-1 http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/#summary7-1 - "brain boosting" So no time or energy for anything but wild accusations.
      - 14y ago
MDS100 14y ago
You are wrong. Too much energy dense food makes you fat. Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic. There are many more factors, most important being inactivity and overconsumption of food. The carbohydrate hypothesis is very clearly Bullshit: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hy... When people go on a low carb diet they: a. restrict their food intake by restricing their choices (less processed foods if you exclude a massiv part of " b. increase protein intake (protein has a higher thermic effect than any other macronutrient and drastically cuts down total kcal consumption in ad lib feeding trials by reducing appetite) You can do something similar with a low fat diet (on which another part of the population will feel better - skewed towards more active and leaner people). Low carb (whatever that means - not clearly defined) isn't a better choice for your health than a mixed diet with a high(er) protein intake. If it works for you: great. But that doesn't mean calories don't count and carbohydrates/insulin cause obesity. Nor that it works for everyone.
- JPKab 14y ago
  "Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic." Insulin plays a role in regulating the patitioning of fatty acids in the body. The flawed thinking, that calories burned by the body is a fixed amount that doesn't vary based on calories consumed, is simply wrong. The key is that energy expenditures only rise when the calories consumed are not being partitioned for storage. Elevated insulin levels cause storage of fatty acids, and inhibit release of fatty acids from fat cells by triggering them to be bound up into triglyceride molecules. I'm not some hardcore paleo/keto/Atkins dude, but reducing carbohydrate intake (particularly refined carbs) makes appetite control much easier, by virtue of several obvous and not so obvious reasons. The obvous is that proteins and fats fill you up more (satiety), and that could be accomplished with diets that aren't high in fat by simply upping protein intake, of course. However, the less obvious is the energy partitioning going on with low insulin levels. The fat cells are behaving as they naturally should, pulling in and releasing fatty acids in a balanced manner.
rwallace 14y ago
'Carbohydrate' is a fine chemical term, but it is not a useful nutritional category. A plate of steamed vegetables and a can of Coke both contain carbohydrate, but they are at opposite poles in nutritional terms. The most useful nutritional term is 'junk food', and the most useful advice for most people is, instead of trying to fine tune the amount of this or that chemical substance, just stop eating/drinking junk food of any kind.
- DanBC 14y ago
  > 'Carbohydrate' is a fine chemical term, but it is not a useful nutritional category That's why we have simple carbohydrates (sugars) and complex carbohydrates (starches). > The most useful nutritional term is 'junk food', That's not a useful term. Most people wouldn't think freshly squeezed orange juice is junk food, yet it contains a lot of sugar.
  - rwallace 14y ago
    Again there's a distinction between a chemical analysis perspective and a practical nutritional perspective. Freshly squeezed orange juice contains sugar to be sure, but in practice very few people guzzle the stuff to the point of destroying their health, whereas lots of people do precisely that with Coke.
    - gbhn 14y ago
      "If it comes in a package, it's candy" is probably the correct rule. It's not that eating candy will kill you, but if you eat a bag of chips, drink some soda, and eat a packaged snack, the reality is that you have almost certainly just had a meal consisting entirely of what is best described as "candy." So don't do that regularly. :-)
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  Carbs are one of the three macronutrients. The two examples of carb sources you mention differ in that one offers a great deal of bulk fiber, as well as copious micronutrients, while the other doesn't. This doesn't make either any less a source of carbohydrates.
Goladus 14y ago
It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat! Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat. Excellent refutation of Taubes hypothesis: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese. The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption. They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem. The problems are: 1. High caloric density. 2. *Vanishing* caloric density-- foods that prevent satiation. 3. Addictive flavors and sensations that cause cravings. Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. All Ludwig's experiments suggest (as reported by Taubes, with lazy citation[1]) is that obese people who have just lost 10-15% of their weight tend to have a higher daily metabolism without conscious addition of physical exercise on a low-carb diet, compared to a low-fat diet or a low-GI diet. This in turn suggests it might be easier to maintain calorie balance on a low-carb diet than a low-fat diet (for formerly obese people who have just dieted to lose 10-15% of their body weight). postcript: I would also add that lifestyle changes are a factor as well as diet. Addictive foods are more dangerous to someone who has a snacking/forager mentality than someone who plans and eats fixed meals every day. [1] This appears to be the study referenced in the NY Times article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
- schoper 14y ago
  I'm not too impressed by Stephan Guyenet's article. He is wrong about one of his main points that fat is completely regulated by the brain and that insulin does not cause fat gain. You can Google for photographs of people who have done insulin injections in a single place over many years (rather than moving the injection point around) and see huge fat deposits at the injection site. That has got to be tissue regulation. Further, lipodystrophy is hard to explain by only invoking brain regulation. We know that artificial insulin is a great way to gain weight. But is that only for diabetics? Hardly. It works just as well on athletes. Stop by your local gym and ask any of the chemically-assisted bodybuilders there for details. Insulin injections are a very common way to put on weight while bulking. The idea that the body is "confused" by food density, which seems to underlie many of your ideas, is simply unsupported. The brain is very good at measuring calorie intake irrespective of density. I could point you to rat studies to confirm this, but I'd rather propose the following experiment that you can try in your own kitchen: Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full. Your brain does not get fooled by food density.
diminoten 14y ago
> 12 pounds that had refused to come off previously no matter how much exercise I was doing or how religiously I tracked my caloric intake This, aside from other potentially valid points you may make, is utter nonsense. The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Your comment as a whole reeks of the pseudoscience that plagues the nutrition field and makes it incredibly difficult to determine fact from fiction when trying to get healthy.
- randallsquared 14y ago
  > The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Except, you know, in practice. There are many potential explanations for why this could happen, but "pretend it doesn't happen" is not one.
  - diminoten 14y ago
    It's a false implication that it's the body's set of physiological processes that are to blame for the inability of a person to lose weight, when in reality it's a myriad of psychological issues which are really to blame. So yes, in practice, it doesn't make sense.
    - positr0n 14y ago
      Are you arguing that losing weight is purely a psychological process with no physiological component?
      - diminoten 14y ago
        No?
akurilin 14y ago
I think we all share the frustration of research being unable to give us conclusive answers about what works and what doesn't. Seems like good portions of nutritional studies over the past 100 years were either misinterpreted or even influenced by interested parties. We, the consumers, are paying the price.
- MDS100 14y ago
  Oh we do have answers on many questions. Just not 100% sure, because detailed experiments on humans are kind of hard to get through the ethic committee. Reading the available Pop science books/articles on nutrition however will probably just confuse people than help them. What kind of questions do you have?
  - akurilin 14y ago
    Well, as someone who has read some of the intermittent fasting, paleo and low-carb literature (including all of Taubes' monster tome GCBC) over the years, I continuously run into people pointing to articles (and perhaps studies?) of how all of the conclusions of these authors are incorrect and so we shouldn't believe the hype despite the dozens of pages of scientific references that some of these text propose. I basically don't know who's right and who's wrong anymore, because everybody claims that everybody else has an agenda or is being intentionally misleading. Having eaten paleo for several years and done low carb, keto, zig-zag and all that jazz under expert supervision, I still don't know if at the end of the day I'm killing myself. The chain of events that leads to atherosclerosis seems to be very poorly and inconsistently understood by mainstream medicine, and you hear vastly different interpretations of what your lipid panel numbers actually signify for your long-term health. That's where my frustration is coming from.
terhechte 14y ago
I have the feeling that you misunderstood the article. It doesn't say that fat makes you fat, instead, it displays the lack of ethics and morality in the food industry when it comes to the obesity problem caused by overconsumption of processed food. Due to additional sugars, salts, fats, clever advertising and more, they managed to make people eat more of their processed and unhealthy food then necessary, thus causing a diabetes and obesity epedemic (not necessarily because of the contents of the junk food, but because of the amount of it being eaten). I never understood this article as a cricicism of fat - that word doesn't even appear to often. Instead, it diligently describes the amount of money invested into making people eat more of this stuff even though more of it is not healthy for them. Moralics and ethics aside: “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”
stdbrouw 14y ago
It didn't bother me, though. Most of the article is about attitudes about healthy food in the processed foods industry, and about how that industry is trying to get you to eat more. One or two little mentions about how fat is bad detract very little from the story. It'll take a while to root out 50 years of erronous dietary advice and conventional wisdom.

joedev 14y ago

If "a colorie is a calorie", then why do you single out "eating too many carbs and sugars" as the cause of your occasional weight gain?

ericabiz 14y ago
Please read the entire link I posted above. He's rebutting the "calorie is a calorie" thesis, not endorsing it.
Ixiaus 14y ago
A colorie is a calorie (in the sense that a unit of energy is a unit of energy); however, there are some (I don't have science to cite, so I won't say it is factual) people that say fructose is worse for you than glucose (the two monosaccharides). Here's an interesting article you can read: http://www.eatingrules.com/2011/05/introduction-to-sugar/ http://www.eatingrules.com/2011/05/introduction-to-sugar/ In this sense, a calorie is not a calorie - but to be precise it's more that different sources of calories have different side-effects on the body when converted INTO energy/calorie. Now to grains (specifically wheat-based products): gluten. The single reason why people in my athletic sphere (CrossFit) avoid wheat products as a source of calories when training is because of gluten (and sometimes yeast - as it does stimulate candida growth). Gluten can cause all sorts of problems that aren't related to the calorie intake - diseases, obesity, inflammation, etc... (I won't cite anything here for that because the information is widely available and in many books - although there are still "studies" that would say this information is bunk) I consume around 4-5k calories per-day as part of my training. As long as you use it, the calories aren't bad for you but the source of the calories must be clean.
- MDS100 14y ago
  Oh god. What the hell does "clean" mean. That's orthorexic nonsense. Unprocessed foods can be very helpful, but they aren't magically different kcal, If you eat too much potatoes and nuts (instead of cake) you'll still gain the same amount of fat (controlling for fiber and protein energy loss). http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/ http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-cle... Regarding fructose: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/ http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-ab... http://weightology.net/?p=434 http://weightology.net/?p=434 Gluten is extremism overhyped, but sensitivity to it can be a problem.

ComputerGuru 14y ago

Nitpick: Not exactly correct. Once 30% of your total caloric intake is in the form of fat calories, genetics comes into play. Apparently, and for reasons no one yet understands, there is a gene marker APOC3 [0] and other apolipoproteins like it [1] [2] that will cause your body to no longer break down all consumed fats, and leading to part of that fat to be "absorbed" instead. However, this only affects around 5% of the population, for the other 95% your "calorie is a calorie" approach is correct, be it fat, carb, or protein. 0: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/research/12heart.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/research/12heart.ht... 1: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/10/2517.full http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/10/2517.full 2: https://www.23andme.com/health/familial-hypercholesterolemia-typeB/ https://www.23andme.com/health/familial-hypercholesterolemia...

3am 14y ago

Your point is great, but could you elaborate on how you read the article as pushing, "fat makes you fat"? I read it much more as saying that large food companies have developed deep expertise in tuning the quantity of sugar, salt, fat, and texture to make their products bypass our body's natural mechanisms for feeling full. I think if you're reading this through some kind of paleo/non-paleo lens, then you're missing the point of the article.

enraged_camel 14y ago
>>Your point is great, but could you elaborate on how you read the article as pushing, "fat makes you fat"? Yeah, I didn't get that message either. I think the parent is reading too much into it (a.k.a. projecting).
- glenstein 14y ago
  Same here. I read this whole article a few days ago, and discussed it with friends. The main takeaway for me is the incredible complexity and subtlety that goes into researching the "perfect" junk food. In particular, the term "bliss point" which seems to apply to a number of properties that food can have. For one example, a "bliss point" as applied to the "crunch" a food should have, ie the most satisfying amount of resistance for a cracker or chip to have is apparently 4 lbs of pressure. But often there isn't just one single answer- sometimes there are multiple mutually exclusive, highly optimal combinations of preferences, as with spaghetti where you have plain, spicy and chunky. And sometimes, the most satisfying flavor preference is not the most optimal result for profitability- snacks with too strong a flavor will "oversaturate" the brain and you will not have a strong desire to keep eating them after a few samples. In these cases it's better to have a subtle taste that never leaves the consumer feeling quite fully satisfied. So yeah. It's not really about "fat makes you fat" -- though perhaps there is an aside to that effect -- it's more about corporate junk food researchers foraging their way through a world of data on consumer preferences and designing the most efficient products.
maxerickson 14y ago
It's amazing how much arguing and pontificating there is about subtle effects of dietary composition with little or no mention of massive increases in intake. For example: http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf Says ~25% increase since the mid 1980s. I do tend to accept the idea that it is better to get excess calories from fat than from simple carbohydrates and sugars, but I don't think any ongoing significant excess is a good idea, elaborate metabolic theory or not.

pvnick 14y ago

While you're right that fat in and of itself does not lead to weight gain, it's the combination with sugar that absolutely, 100% leads to weight gain. Sugar and other high glycemic index foods (eg white bread) causes an insulin spike and puts your body into an anabolic, "building" state in which it will assimilate whatever it has lying around. Usually, if you're eating something with high amounts of sugar, it will also have high amounts of fat (ice cream, cookies, etc). Thus you will have a large amount of fatty acids lying around which your body will go ahead and form into droplets to be stored in adipose tissue. That's how you build fat. However, if you are in a state of muscular stress, such as after weight lifting, and you eat a ton of glucose - notice I said glucose, not sugar, which contains fructose - and you combine this with a moderate amount of protein and little to no fat, you'll have a bunch of amino acids floating around and this insulin spike will cause your muscles to soak up all that protein and become bigger/stronger/both depending on the type of weightlifting you did with no spillover into adipose fat tissue. It's this very simple metabolic process that people don't get. Everyone gets all worked up on pointing the finger at fat or sugar or whatever, but this is the "secret". Btw, for anyone looking to lose weight or put on muscle in a healthy way, check out intermittent fasting, specifically the leangains plan. Source: I'm a biochem major with a six pack

MDS100 14y ago
Yeah, you are referring to insulin sensitivity and calorie partitioning. Still depends on genetic makeup (insulin sensitivity can vary 10-fold). P-ratio isn't the same for everyone. So not correct what you are saying (energy does not only go into muscle cells). You can still get fat(ter) with such a diet. Muscle and liver glycogen will be full at some point and more and more fatty acids will be stored in adipocytes. Berkhan got fatter when he overfed. Kcal still need to be controlled. Also you can get fat on a very low carb diet if you eat too much fat/energy. As a lot of low carb "gurus" do (such a jimmy moore). As a biochem major you should be aware of other mechanisms besides insulin. (ASP & HSL) Insulin is so terribly overrated.
- pvnick 14y ago
  Then exercise with weights at high-speed on an empty stomach (empty glycogen supplies) and wait for a couple hours before enjoying your large amount of carbs and protein. Maybe consume some branched chain amino acids to signal to your body not to break down any muscle. You'll enjoy all the benefits of interval training and your body will tap directly into your fat for energy at this point to burn through whatever small amount of spillover you're speaking of. Obviously if you eat far more than your body needs you will get fat because that's how your body's efficient machinery works. But it's quite hard to do when your stomach physically only has enough room for so much and you'll throw up before consuming that many calories.

xefer 14y ago

Taubes actually started the mainstream reexamination of fat over 10 years ago with his New York Times Magazine article "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?": http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-... The key point is that it is only very specific varieties of fat that matter for heart disease. It goes in to much more detail than his opinion piece for those looking for more info.

MDS100 14y ago
http://examine.com/faq/is-saturated-fat-bad-for-me.html http://examine.com/faq/is-saturated-fat-bad-for-me.html
- anon1385 14y ago
  >Meta-analysis of effect of saturated fat intake on cardiovascular disease: overadjustment obscures true associations http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long I find it hard to take that site seriously when they call fish oil a "brain booster" next to a great big affiliate link to buy fish oil supplements on Amazon [1]. Also they don't seem to have a page about trans fats at all. Are they pushing an agenda through cherry picking and deliberate omission of contrary information? I don't have the time or energy to investigate. (Note: I'm not trying to defend Taubes here, as far as I can tell he is a hack). [1] http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/ http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/
  - aaxe 14y ago
    Is Glen Beck a rapist? I'm just asking questions. That is the exact equivalent of what you did. They clearly say "Why the buy link" right next to that link. And if you actually tried reading it, right here: http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/#summary7-1 http://examine.com/supplements/Fish+Oil/#summary7-1 - "brain boosting" So no time or energy for anything but wild accusations.
    - 14y ago

MDS100 14y ago

You are wrong. Too much energy dense food makes you fat. Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic. There are many more factors, most important being inactivity and overconsumption of food. The carbohydrate hypothesis is very clearly Bullshit: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.de/2011/08/carbohydrate-hy... When people go on a low carb diet they: a. restrict their food intake by restricing their choices (less processed foods if you exclude a massiv part of " b. increase protein intake (protein has a higher thermic effect than any other macronutrient and drastically cuts down total kcal consumption in ad lib feeding trials by reducing appetite) You can do something similar with a low fat diet (on which another part of the population will feel better - skewed towards more active and leaner people). Low carb (whatever that means - not clearly defined) isn't a better choice for your health than a mixed diet with a high(er) protein intake. If it works for you: great. But that doesn't mean calories don't count and carbohydrates/insulin cause obesity. Nor that it works for everyone.

JPKab 14y ago
"Fat will make you fat if you overeat (because the fatty acid molecules from your food will be stored in your fat cells). It's not as easy as "more carbs" = obesity epidemic." Insulin plays a role in regulating the patitioning of fatty acids in the body. The flawed thinking, that calories burned by the body is a fixed amount that doesn't vary based on calories consumed, is simply wrong. The key is that energy expenditures only rise when the calories consumed are not being partitioned for storage. Elevated insulin levels cause storage of fatty acids, and inhibit release of fatty acids from fat cells by triggering them to be bound up into triglyceride molecules. I'm not some hardcore paleo/keto/Atkins dude, but reducing carbohydrate intake (particularly refined carbs) makes appetite control much easier, by virtue of several obvous and not so obvious reasons. The obvous is that proteins and fats fill you up more (satiety), and that could be accomplished with diets that aren't high in fat by simply upping protein intake, of course. However, the less obvious is the energy partitioning going on with low insulin levels. The fat cells are behaving as they naturally should, pulling in and releasing fatty acids in a balanced manner.

rwallace 14y ago

'Carbohydrate' is a fine chemical term, but it is not a useful nutritional category. A plate of steamed vegetables and a can of Coke both contain carbohydrate, but they are at opposite poles in nutritional terms. The most useful nutritional term is 'junk food', and the most useful advice for most people is, instead of trying to fine tune the amount of this or that chemical substance, just stop eating/drinking junk food of any kind.

DanBC 14y ago
> 'Carbohydrate' is a fine chemical term, but it is not a useful nutritional category That's why we have simple carbohydrates (sugars) and complex carbohydrates (starches). > The most useful nutritional term is 'junk food', That's not a useful term. Most people wouldn't think freshly squeezed orange juice is junk food, yet it contains a lot of sugar.
- rwallace 14y ago
  Again there's a distinction between a chemical analysis perspective and a practical nutritional perspective. Freshly squeezed orange juice contains sugar to be sure, but in practice very few people guzzle the stuff to the point of destroying their health, whereas lots of people do precisely that with Coke.
  - gbhn 14y ago
    "If it comes in a package, it's candy" is probably the correct rule. It's not that eating candy will kill you, but if you eat a bag of chips, drink some soda, and eat a packaged snack, the reality is that you have almost certainly just had a meal consisting entirely of what is best described as "candy." So don't do that regularly. :-)
dredmorbius 14y ago
Carbs are one of the three macronutrients. The two examples of carb sources you mention differ in that one offers a great deal of bulk fiber, as well as copious micronutrients, while the other doesn't. This doesn't make either any less a source of carbohydrates.

Goladus 14y ago

It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all, it's that fat makes us fat! Overeating makes us fat. Caloric surplus makes us fat. It's pretty trivial to consume a caloric surplus eating lots of fatty foods. In that sense: fat makes us fat and it's silly to try denying it. It doesn't mean a low-fat diet will make you lose weight, it just means that high-fat diets are going to make you fat. Excellent refutation of Taubes hypothesis: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... Insulin does not regulate fat storage, leptin does. Obesity is a complex state and there are no simple answers. A diet that may be best for weight loss in one individual may not be the same diet that is best for another. This seems particularly likely if one of the two individuals is not obese. The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is often replaced with sugar to add taste, but sugars and other high-carb grains are more problematic than fat consumption. They aren't more problematic. Aside from the relationship to cholesterol levels, they are the same problem. The problems are: 1. High caloric density. 2. *Vanishing* caloric density-- foods that prevent satiation. 3. Addictive flavors and sensations that cause cravings. Calorie surplus makes you gain weight, and unless you're building muscle it's going to be fat. All Ludwig's experiments suggest (as reported by Taubes, with lazy citation[1]) is that obese people who have just lost 10-15% of their weight tend to have a higher daily metabolism without conscious addition of physical exercise on a low-carb diet, compared to a low-fat diet or a low-GI diet. This in turn suggests it might be easier to maintain calorie balance on a low-carb diet than a low-fat diet (for formerly obese people who have just dieted to lose 10-15% of their body weight). postcript: I would also add that lifestyle changes are a factor as well as diet. Addictive foods are more dangerous to someone who has a snacking/forager mentality than someone who plans and eats fixed meals every day. [1] This appears to be the study referenced in the NY Times article: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154 http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154

schoper 14y ago
I'm not too impressed by Stephan Guyenet's article. He is wrong about one of his main points that fat is completely regulated by the brain and that insulin does not cause fat gain. You can Google for photographs of people who have done insulin injections in a single place over many years (rather than moving the injection point around) and see huge fat deposits at the injection site. That has got to be tissue regulation. Further, lipodystrophy is hard to explain by only invoking brain regulation. We know that artificial insulin is a great way to gain weight. But is that only for diabetics? Hardly. It works just as well on athletes. Stop by your local gym and ask any of the chemically-assisted bodybuilders there for details. Insulin injections are a very common way to put on weight while bulking. The idea that the body is "confused" by food density, which seems to underlie many of your ideas, is simply unsupported. The brain is very good at measuring calorie intake irrespective of density. I could point you to rat studies to confirm this, but I'd rather propose the following experiment that you can try in your own kitchen: Try making cream of cauliflower soup tonight, one with skim milk and the other with heavy cream. Measure how many spoonfuls of each that you can eat before getting full. Your brain does not get fooled by food density.

diminoten 14y ago

> 12 pounds that had refused to come off previously no matter how much exercise I was doing or how religiously I tracked my caloric intake This, aside from other potentially valid points you may make, is utter nonsense. The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Your comment as a whole reeks of the pseudoscience that plagues the nutrition field and makes it incredibly difficult to determine fact from fiction when trying to get healthy.

randallsquared 14y ago
> The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Except, you know, in practice. There are many potential explanations for why this could happen, but "pretend it doesn't happen" is not one.
- diminoten 14y ago
  It's a false implication that it's the body's set of physiological processes that are to blame for the inability of a person to lose weight, when in reality it's a myriad of psychological issues which are really to blame. So yes, in practice, it doesn't make sense.
  - positr0n 14y ago
    Are you arguing that losing weight is purely a psychological process with no physiological component?
    - diminoten 14y ago
      No?

akurilin 14y ago

I think we all share the frustration of research being unable to give us conclusive answers about what works and what doesn't. Seems like good portions of nutritional studies over the past 100 years were either misinterpreted or even influenced by interested parties. We, the consumers, are paying the price.

MDS100 14y ago
Oh we do have answers on many questions. Just not 100% sure, because detailed experiments on humans are kind of hard to get through the ethic committee. Reading the available Pop science books/articles on nutrition however will probably just confuse people than help them. What kind of questions do you have?
- akurilin 14y ago
  Well, as someone who has read some of the intermittent fasting, paleo and low-carb literature (including all of Taubes' monster tome GCBC) over the years, I continuously run into people pointing to articles (and perhaps studies?) of how all of the conclusions of these authors are incorrect and so we shouldn't believe the hype despite the dozens of pages of scientific references that some of these text propose. I basically don't know who's right and who's wrong anymore, because everybody claims that everybody else has an agenda or is being intentionally misleading. Having eaten paleo for several years and done low carb, keto, zig-zag and all that jazz under expert supervision, I still don't know if at the end of the day I'm killing myself. The chain of events that leads to atherosclerosis seems to be very poorly and inconsistently understood by mainstream medicine, and you hear vastly different interpretations of what your lipid panel numbers actually signify for your long-term health. That's where my frustration is coming from.

terhechte 14y ago

I have the feeling that you misunderstood the article. It doesn't say that fat makes you fat, instead, it displays the lack of ethics and morality in the food industry when it comes to the obesity problem caused by overconsumption of processed food. Due to additional sugars, salts, fats, clever advertising and more, they managed to make people eat more of their processed and unhealthy food then necessary, thus causing a diabetes and obesity epedemic (not necessarily because of the contents of the junk food, but because of the amount of it being eaten). I never understood this article as a cricicism of fat - that word doesn't even appear to often. Instead, it diligently describes the amount of money invested into making people eat more of this stuff even though more of it is not healthy for them. Moralics and ethics aside: “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”

stdbrouw 14y ago

It didn't bother me, though. Most of the article is about attitudes about healthy food in the processed foods industry, and about how that industry is trying to get you to eat more. One or two little mentions about how fat is bad detract very little from the story. It'll take a while to root out 50 years of erronous dietary advice and conventional wisdom.