4 ms·

The idea that grains and legumes cause obesity is absurd. Asians have been living largely on both for thousands of years [1,2] and have enjoyed incredibly low o

by miles 14y ago

The idea that grains and legumes cause obesity is absurd. Asians have been living largely on both for thousands of years [1,2] and have enjoyed incredibly low obesity rates [3] until recently. Consuming more calories than you expend is the culprit here, not grains and legumes. If we want to single out some of the leading causes for overconsumption, I'd point to refined sugar, oils (pure fat), junk food, and high fructose corn syrup. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice#Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice#Asia [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_bean#Asia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soy_bean#Asia [3] http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-trends/obesity-rates-worldwide/#References http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesit...

newnewnew 14y ago
We should also remember that Asians are Asian. A few of the high-profile genes that we know influence diet occur at far different levels in Asian and other populations, such as lactose and alcohol tolerance. To believe that there is one best diet for all mankind we would have to deny human genetic diversity.
VLM 14y ago
In a modern american diet is it possible to eat grains without your laundry list of "sugar, oils, junk food, HFCS"? It doesn't matter if you "can" eat grains although they're almost never available in a format that meets the other requirements. Don't try to tell me every american, especially fat ones, cracks open a can of creamed corn kernels every meal for a vegetable. In a modern fat american diet, grains = wonder bread (or equiv) made out of sugar, oil, and HFCS, doritos made out of oil aka junk food. Pizza with the wheat and soy flour crust baked on oil with a super sugary sauce covered in oily meat and dairy cheese. What, if anything, do americans eat made out of grain that isn't a junk food? Bread is junk food. Donuts are junk food. Pretty much everything from the bakery is junk food. Breakfast cereal is junk food. Granola bars are junk food. Oatmeal (my son needs special GF uncontaminated oatmeal..) is just a delivery vehicle for 25% by weight brown sugar, butter, and maple syrup, so thats junk food too. Anything fried, baked, and heavily seasoned and sealed into a shelf stable bag contains wheat and/or soy and is junk food. Is there any junk food out there made without dairy, soy protein extract, or wheat? I have extensively researched this and the answer is basically "no". My son can eat a couple kinds of corn chip and some unflavored potato chips, thats about it for his "typical american diet" junk food. Almost anything "heat and eat" from the freezer section of the store is off limits. My son has a medically diagnosed allergy to a protein in wheat. So for about a decade, no wheat (ditto soy and dairy ... so we eat what boils down to medically required paleo diet at home since about 2004, although we don't (probably to our detriment) exclude potatoes, rice, and beans). Coincidentally, exclusion of wheat pretty much excludes all junk food. There's not much he can eat in the category of "junk food" other than some plain potato chips, and specialty expensive therefore rare exotic gluten free junk food. I only get to eat "junk food" while at work, its not like I'm gonna dig into a cake in front of a kid who can't eat it without exploding out both ends... I see it as a happy coincidence. If the FDA mandated all junk food contain blue food coloring, and a diet was proposed that we shouldn't eat stuff made with blue food coloring, it doesn't "really" matter that its not the blue dye making us fat...
- dalke 14y ago
  "Is there any junk food out there made without dairy, soy protein extract, or wheat?" Jell-O gelatin snacks? Its ingredients list is "WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, GELATIN, CONTAINS LESS THAN 0.5% OF ADIPIC ACID AND CITRIC ACID (FOR TARTNESS), SODIUM CITRATE (CONTROLS ACIDITY), RED 40, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR." Fruit roll-ups also look like they foot the bill, but I can't copy&paste the ingredient list. As you say, there are corn chips, like Fritos: "Corn, Corn Oil, and Salt". Frito-Lay has a list of foods which contain neither gluten nor dairy, at http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-not-containing-gluten-and-milk-ingredients.html http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-not-containi... and a list of foods containing soy at http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-containing-soy-ingredients.html http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-containing-s... . Putting the two together give: BAKEN-ETS® Fried Pork Skins, ... CHESTER'S® Butter Flavored Puffcorn Snacks, ... EL ISLENO® Maduro Sweet Plantain Chips, ... RUFFLES® TAPATIO® Limon Flavored Potato Chips ... FRITO-LAY® Cashews, ... SPITZ® Smoky BBQ Sunflower Seeds ... and more. (I mostly omitted flavor variations.) That reminded me that banana chips are one of my favorite junk foods. "Bananas, Coconut Oil, Sugar, Natural Flavor" say the lists at http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nice!-banana-chips/ID=prod6094512-product http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nice!-banana-chips/ID=prod6... and http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/products.html?product=2558 http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/products.html?product=2558 . That's at least a couple more junk food options than "plain potato chips and some corn chips."
  - VLM 14y ago
    Ok on fruit rollups (which I haven't personally eaten since the early 80s, but if there's still out there, cool), and fritos. Also genuine corn chips without additives and a salsa dip is very American. "RUFFLES® TAPATIO® Limon Flavored Potato Chips" At that point I think we need to define the "mainstream american diet" aka most of the stuff at the supermarket. I don't think this or banana chips quite make that cut. Don't get me wrong, they might be tasty, and the banana chips might even be good for you although not as good as fresh banana, but they aren't American as defined by what you'll see on TV or at a typical store. Even fruit rollups are kind of questionable past grade school or so. Likewise I have been informed that roasted crickets are a really yummy nutty tasting junk food, but there's no way you're convincing me thats "american junk food". American junk food is at least 99% HFCS / wheat flour / soy flour / dairy /corn and having to bring up Plantain Chips as a counter example kind of makes my point. And if you're going to abandon the mainstream diet, or adventure beyond it, or however you phrase it, why not kick just a little further out and try something obviously healthier like paleo diet? Rather than jello and fruit rollups, which are kinda gross if you think about it, try a piece of actual fresh fruit? So very intensely profoundly unamerican, yet so very tasty, yet also more or less good for you...
vidarh 14y ago
Consuming more calories than you expend is the culprit, but that is a fairly uninteresting fact, as it ignores what makes humans more likely to consume more calories than we expend. Especially in situations where we can easily afford to. To me that means past data on obesity quite pointless - that large parts of our populations is able to afford enough food to easily get fat is a relatively recent thing.

by miles 14y ago

newnewnew 14y ago

We should also remember that Asians are Asian. A few of the high-profile genes that we know influence diet occur at far different levels in Asian and other populations, such as lactose and alcohol tolerance. To believe that there is one best diet for all mankind we would have to deny human genetic diversity.

VLM 14y ago

In a modern american diet is it possible to eat grains without your laundry list of "sugar, oils, junk food, HFCS"? It doesn't matter if you "can" eat grains although they're almost never available in a format that meets the other requirements. Don't try to tell me every american, especially fat ones, cracks open a can of creamed corn kernels every meal for a vegetable. In a modern fat american diet, grains = wonder bread (or equiv) made out of sugar, oil, and HFCS, doritos made out of oil aka junk food. Pizza with the wheat and soy flour crust baked on oil with a super sugary sauce covered in oily meat and dairy cheese. What, if anything, do americans eat made out of grain that isn't a junk food? Bread is junk food. Donuts are junk food. Pretty much everything from the bakery is junk food. Breakfast cereal is junk food. Granola bars are junk food. Oatmeal (my son needs special GF uncontaminated oatmeal..) is just a delivery vehicle for 25% by weight brown sugar, butter, and maple syrup, so thats junk food too. Anything fried, baked, and heavily seasoned and sealed into a shelf stable bag contains wheat and/or soy and is junk food. Is there any junk food out there made without dairy, soy protein extract, or wheat? I have extensively researched this and the answer is basically "no". My son can eat a couple kinds of corn chip and some unflavored potato chips, thats about it for his "typical american diet" junk food. Almost anything "heat and eat" from the freezer section of the store is off limits. My son has a medically diagnosed allergy to a protein in wheat. So for about a decade, no wheat (ditto soy and dairy ... so we eat what boils down to medically required paleo diet at home since about 2004, although we don't (probably to our detriment) exclude potatoes, rice, and beans). Coincidentally, exclusion of wheat pretty much excludes all junk food. There's not much he can eat in the category of "junk food" other than some plain potato chips, and specialty expensive therefore rare exotic gluten free junk food. I only get to eat "junk food" while at work, its not like I'm gonna dig into a cake in front of a kid who can't eat it without exploding out both ends... I see it as a happy coincidence. If the FDA mandated all junk food contain blue food coloring, and a diet was proposed that we shouldn't eat stuff made with blue food coloring, it doesn't "really" matter that its not the blue dye making us fat...

dalke 14y ago
"Is there any junk food out there made without dairy, soy protein extract, or wheat?" Jell-O gelatin snacks? Its ingredients list is "WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, SUGAR, GELATIN, CONTAINS LESS THAN 0.5% OF ADIPIC ACID AND CITRIC ACID (FOR TARTNESS), SODIUM CITRATE (CONTROLS ACIDITY), RED 40, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR." Fruit roll-ups also look like they foot the bill, but I can't copy&paste the ingredient list. As you say, there are corn chips, like Fritos: "Corn, Corn Oil, and Salt". Frito-Lay has a list of foods which contain neither gluten nor dairy, at http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-not-containing-gluten-and-milk-ingredients.html http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-not-containi... and a list of foods containing soy at http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-containing-soy-ingredients.html http://www.fritolay.com/your-health/us-products-containing-s... . Putting the two together give: BAKEN-ETS® Fried Pork Skins, ... CHESTER'S® Butter Flavored Puffcorn Snacks, ... EL ISLENO® Maduro Sweet Plantain Chips, ... RUFFLES® TAPATIO® Limon Flavored Potato Chips ... FRITO-LAY® Cashews, ... SPITZ® Smoky BBQ Sunflower Seeds ... and more. (I mostly omitted flavor variations.) That reminded me that banana chips are one of my favorite junk foods. "Bananas, Coconut Oil, Sugar, Natural Flavor" say the lists at http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nice!-banana-chips/ID=prod6094512-product http://www.walgreens.com/store/c/nice!-banana-chips/ID=prod6... and http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/products.html?product=2558 http://www.bulkbarn.ca/en-ca/products.html?product=2558 . That's at least a couple more junk food options than "plain potato chips and some corn chips."
- VLM 14y ago
  Ok on fruit rollups (which I haven't personally eaten since the early 80s, but if there's still out there, cool), and fritos. Also genuine corn chips without additives and a salsa dip is very American. "RUFFLES® TAPATIO® Limon Flavored Potato Chips" At that point I think we need to define the "mainstream american diet" aka most of the stuff at the supermarket. I don't think this or banana chips quite make that cut. Don't get me wrong, they might be tasty, and the banana chips might even be good for you although not as good as fresh banana, but they aren't American as defined by what you'll see on TV or at a typical store. Even fruit rollups are kind of questionable past grade school or so. Likewise I have been informed that roasted crickets are a really yummy nutty tasting junk food, but there's no way you're convincing me thats "american junk food". American junk food is at least 99% HFCS / wheat flour / soy flour / dairy /corn and having to bring up Plantain Chips as a counter example kind of makes my point. And if you're going to abandon the mainstream diet, or adventure beyond it, or however you phrase it, why not kick just a little further out and try something obviously healthier like paleo diet? Rather than jello and fruit rollups, which are kinda gross if you think about it, try a piece of actual fresh fruit? So very intensely profoundly unamerican, yet so very tasty, yet also more or less good for you...

vidarh 14y ago

Consuming more calories than you expend is the culprit, but that is a fairly uninteresting fact, as it ignores what makes humans more likely to consume more calories than we expend. Especially in situations where we can easily afford to. To me that means past data on obesity quite pointless - that large parts of our populations is able to afford enough food to easily get fat is a relatively recent thing.