5 ms·

I think 'ramen profitable' is a great pithy phrase, but to work long hours effectively (and stay healthy) it always struck me as a false economy to live on rice

by sharpn 17y ago

I think 'ramen profitable' is a great pithy phrase, but to work long hours effectively (and stay healthy) it always struck me as a false economy to live on rice & beans. Good to see some data on the topic.

decode 17y ago
I can't figure out if you're saying your expectations were confirmed or undermined. I don't know much about nutrition, but I was under the impression that noodles, rice, and beans are all high in starch, which the body turns into significant amounts of glucose in a healthy way (sustained blood glucose over time, instead of short spikes like with simple sugars). I'm sure surviving on Ramen is bad for you, but as far as this article is concerned, it will help you have self-control.
- overman 17y ago
  Noodles and rice are pretty "spikey", beans are better though.
  - decode 17y ago
    I always thought the long-term blood glucose levels were the reason that runners traditionally have a spaghetti dinner the night before a big race. Am I confused, or is there just bad science behind this practice?
    - jackchristopher 17y ago
      I'm unsure of what you mean with "long term glucose levels". But runners carb-load. And bodybuilders eat "spikey" carbs after lifting to get the best recovery. While not the greatest thing to do (carbo-load), they burn it off so it doesn't matter much.
    - pygy 17y ago
      Muscles have their own glycogen (polymerized glucose) reserves, independant of blood glucose, and impossible to mobilize directly for anything but muscular activity. I'm not sure, but I think that's the point of these high carb meals. If I'not mistaken, they also eat pasta for breakfast, delaying the use of these reserves. Pasta are easy to eat in large quantities, and require little energy to digest.
    - nunb 17y ago
      Bad science, I'm afraid. Or rather, junk science, since science itself is simply unbiased experimentation and hypthosesis-testing. In the absence of carbo-loading there is no lactic acid "wall" and hence no sainted feeling. Perhaps that's why the runners magazines don't talk about it ;-) What did all those kenyan runners eat for fifteen years before blowing past their fellow marathoners? Did they drink beer and carbo-load on pasta the night before? In other news, running barefoot is better than trainers, omega-6 fats are more susceptible to free-radical damage than lard, essential fatty acids doesn't mean what you think, nor does "omnivore", margarine and omega-3 butter spreads kill, &c. &c. Oh, and tinny, tinny, Tinny, TINNY.
      - nunb 17y ago
        s/hypthosesis/hypothesis/
      - HalcyonMuse 17y ago
        Source? I feel poorly educated all of a sudden.
        nunb 17y ago
        I don't have medical papers for the barefoot assertion, just personal experience with running pose-style. http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-... (a nice comparison in the second photograph of heelstrike vs. forefoot strike for Jurek vs. Quimare: more info by googling Tarahumara). Discussion and links (including some to pose running). http://digg.com/other_sports/The_Running_Shoe_Debate_Barefoot_v_Pricey_Shoes http://digg.com/other_sports/The_Running_Shoe_Debate_Barefoo... EFAs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid#Essential_fatty_acids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid#Essential_fatty_acid... Omega-9 is more susceptible to free-radical damage, that's just basic chemistry. Lipid hypothesis is well worth looking up, link from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-9_fatty_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-9_fatty_acid -- the lipid hypothesis is what most people take to be gospel truth, despite, for example, well known bad-science (throwing out non-conforming data) shenanigans on the part of Keys. (A summary forthcoming in a "popular" movie called fathead). If you are more interested, Mary Enig is worth looking up, she has an in-depth explanation of competing n-3 and n-6 pathways that is touched upon here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid Lastly Gary Taubes is a great guide to the debate. Omnivore is descriptive, not prescriptive. For the rest, try going to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and searching for MRFIT, or googling Rotterdam study or the Lyon study. I believe paper summaries are not enough and that one needs to read the study, understand the methodology etc. e.g. http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/11/3100 http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/11/3100 is a link that turns up. They found countervailing evidence, basically, that fat-intake was inversely associated with CHD (bets are on fat-soluble vitamins like K2 being the agents). This whole thing is very OT for HN, so I'll stop here, if you don't mind. cheers.
- nunb 17y ago
  Replying to several others here, including this one. (Short version: use fat and starchy/tuberous food to have sustainable/stable blood sugar levels). There is no way to turn any carbohydrate into "significant amounts of glucose in a healthy way" unless you are talking about digestion or metabolism of fat. One slice of "whole wheat" bread is worse for you than a teaspoon of sugar (Glycemic load versus Glycemic index), not to mention the wheat germ agglutinin and other insulin/hormone mimetics that come with the bread, nor the gut-tearing action of insoluble fiber. Glycogen is touted as being your energy source, but it is not. How long can your muscles function on stored glycogen? Do you think humans would have survived (on an evolutionary timescale) if they'd had to eat pasta every 6 hours? In any case, any carbohydrate/starch is converted to a fatty substance, stored subcutaneously and used as fuel in lean times (even rabbits and cows do this via rumen fermentation). If you keep eating carbohydrates, you turn on the "storage-mode" and accumulate fat. Repeated turning on of storage mode robs your body of insulin-sensitivity. You become a non-symptomatic diabetic (if you're lucky you'll skip Type 2 diabetes and go straight to Type 3 -- a.k.a. Alzheimer's disease). Lastly, your body can easily convert (with hardly any usage of vitamins and other trace elements) fat into glucose (this process is done by the liver and is called gluconeogenesis). In contrast, digesting/utilizing carbohydrate has a high requirement in terms of vitamins etc., and even if it didn't, eating wheat blocks the absorption of most of these elements (especially zinc, vitamin C and calcium). Your liver does gluconeogenesis because a very few organs in your body (primarily some regions of the brain) need glucose to function. The rest work just fine on free fatty acids in your blood (aka lipids/cholesterol/ketones). In contrast, sugar causes a rise in triglycerides, which are the molecules used to transport sugar. While I don't have references right now, most of this can be found substantiated on pubmed/medline. An easily digestible summary can be found at http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com And a disclaimer: a year ago I would have thought all this very kooky. It is not. I think the news.yc folk can "handle the truth", as it were, and so I've written this comment. I hope it helps someone. If you're of an experimentalist bent, you can try it for yourself, it takes less than 2 weeks to adapt. Yesterday I was on a 24-hour intermittent fast (I didn't expect it to get so long, I just wasn't hungry) and I was programming no worse at the end of it ;-) in fact, I'd say that free of sugar-highs I now program much better and can concentrate more consistently. That implies more self-control, does it not? YMMV.

by sharpn 17y ago

decode 17y ago

I can't figure out if you're saying your expectations were confirmed or undermined. I don't know much about nutrition, but I was under the impression that noodles, rice, and beans are all high in starch, which the body turns into significant amounts of glucose in a healthy way (sustained blood glucose over time, instead of short spikes like with simple sugars). I'm sure surviving on Ramen is bad for you, but as far as this article is concerned, it will help you have self-control.

overman 17y ago
Noodles and rice are pretty "spikey", beans are better though.
- decode 17y ago
  I always thought the long-term blood glucose levels were the reason that runners traditionally have a spaghetti dinner the night before a big race. Am I confused, or is there just bad science behind this practice?
  - jackchristopher 17y ago
    I'm unsure of what you mean with "long term glucose levels". But runners carb-load. And bodybuilders eat "spikey" carbs after lifting to get the best recovery. While not the greatest thing to do (carbo-load), they burn it off so it doesn't matter much.
  - pygy 17y ago
    Muscles have their own glycogen (polymerized glucose) reserves, independant of blood glucose, and impossible to mobilize directly for anything but muscular activity. I'm not sure, but I think that's the point of these high carb meals. If I'not mistaken, they also eat pasta for breakfast, delaying the use of these reserves. Pasta are easy to eat in large quantities, and require little energy to digest.
  - nunb 17y ago
    Bad science, I'm afraid. Or rather, junk science, since science itself is simply unbiased experimentation and hypthosesis-testing. In the absence of carbo-loading there is no lactic acid "wall" and hence no sainted feeling. Perhaps that's why the runners magazines don't talk about it ;-) What did all those kenyan runners eat for fifteen years before blowing past their fellow marathoners? Did they drink beer and carbo-load on pasta the night before? In other news, running barefoot is better than trainers, omega-6 fats are more susceptible to free-radical damage than lard, essential fatty acids doesn't mean what you think, nor does "omnivore", margarine and omega-3 butter spreads kill, &c. &c. Oh, and tinny, tinny, Tinny, TINNY.
    - nunb 17y ago
      s/hypthosesis/hypothesis/
    - HalcyonMuse 17y ago
      Source? I feel poorly educated all of a sudden.
      - nunb 17y ago
        I don't have medical papers for the barefoot assertion, just personal experience with running pose-style. http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/ and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-... (a nice comparison in the second photograph of heelstrike vs. forefoot strike for Jurek vs. Quimare: more info by googling Tarahumara). Discussion and links (including some to pose running). http://digg.com/other_sports/The_Running_Shoe_Debate_Barefoot_v_Pricey_Shoes http://digg.com/other_sports/The_Running_Shoe_Debate_Barefoo... EFAs - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid#Essential_fatty_acids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid#Essential_fatty_acid... Omega-9 is more susceptible to free-radical damage, that's just basic chemistry. Lipid hypothesis is well worth looking up, link from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-9_fatty_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-9_fatty_acid -- the lipid hypothesis is what most people take to be gospel truth, despite, for example, well known bad-science (throwing out non-conforming data) shenanigans on the part of Keys. (A summary forthcoming in a "popular" movie called fathead). If you are more interested, Mary Enig is worth looking up, she has an in-depth explanation of competing n-3 and n-6 pathways that is touched upon here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omega-3_fatty_acid Lastly Gary Taubes is a great guide to the debate. Omnivore is descriptive, not prescriptive. For the rest, try going to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez and searching for MRFIT, or googling Rotterdam study or the Lyon study. I believe paper summaries are not enough and that one needs to read the study, understand the methodology etc. e.g. http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/11/3100 http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/134/11/3100 is a link that turns up. They found countervailing evidence, basically, that fat-intake was inversely associated with CHD (bets are on fat-soluble vitamins like K2 being the agents). This whole thing is very OT for HN, so I'll stop here, if you don't mind. cheers.
nunb 17y ago
Replying to several others here, including this one. (Short version: use fat and starchy/tuberous food to have sustainable/stable blood sugar levels). There is no way to turn any carbohydrate into "significant amounts of glucose in a healthy way" unless you are talking about digestion or metabolism of fat. One slice of "whole wheat" bread is worse for you than a teaspoon of sugar (Glycemic load versus Glycemic index), not to mention the wheat germ agglutinin and other insulin/hormone mimetics that come with the bread, nor the gut-tearing action of insoluble fiber. Glycogen is touted as being your energy source, but it is not. How long can your muscles function on stored glycogen? Do you think humans would have survived (on an evolutionary timescale) if they'd had to eat pasta every 6 hours? In any case, any carbohydrate/starch is converted to a fatty substance, stored subcutaneously and used as fuel in lean times (even rabbits and cows do this via rumen fermentation). If you keep eating carbohydrates, you turn on the "storage-mode" and accumulate fat. Repeated turning on of storage mode robs your body of insulin-sensitivity. You become a non-symptomatic diabetic (if you're lucky you'll skip Type 2 diabetes and go straight to Type 3 -- a.k.a. Alzheimer's disease). Lastly, your body can easily convert (with hardly any usage of vitamins and other trace elements) fat into glucose (this process is done by the liver and is called gluconeogenesis). In contrast, digesting/utilizing carbohydrate has a high requirement in terms of vitamins etc., and even if it didn't, eating wheat blocks the absorption of most of these elements (especially zinc, vitamin C and calcium). Your liver does gluconeogenesis because a very few organs in your body (primarily some regions of the brain) need glucose to function. The rest work just fine on free fatty acids in your blood (aka lipids/cholesterol/ketones). In contrast, sugar causes a rise in triglycerides, which are the molecules used to transport sugar. While I don't have references right now, most of this can be found substantiated on pubmed/medline. An easily digestible summary can be found at http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com And a disclaimer: a year ago I would have thought all this very kooky. It is not. I think the news.yc folk can "handle the truth", as it were, and so I've written this comment. I hope it helps someone. If you're of an experimentalist bent, you can try it for yourself, it takes less than 2 weeks to adapt. Yesterday I was on a 24-hour intermittent fast (I didn't expect it to get so long, I just wasn't hungry) and I was programming no worse at the end of it ;-) in fact, I'd say that free of sugar-highs I now program much better and can concentrate more consistently. That implies more self-control, does it not? YMMV.