7 ms·

Your arteries on Wonder bread

52 points by ph0rque 17y ago

enomar 17y ago
Man I hate hearing about this stuff. I was raised on these types of foods and now it's like crack to me. As an adult, I'm having a really tough time giving them up. I'm sure I just need to learn new habits and have some will power, but sometimes I wish they'd just outlaw or ration unhealthy food too. It's just too damn abundant...
- hapless 17y ago
  My problem is that I was raised with the food pyramid. Grain as staff of life etc. I look at corn flakes or wonderbread, and my subconscious health barometer reads "all clear." I'll consume these products without thinking about it. It's really difficult to re-train myself for a more modern understanding of nutrition.
  - madh 17y ago
    Yes, especially since I've trained myself to think that carbs are so good.
- ambition 17y ago
  Instead of focusing on cutting back on "bad" foods, think about eating more good foods. The bad stuff will fall by the wayside naturally.
scscsc 17y ago
Cheap, fast, tasty, healthy. Choose the last or any combination of the first three.
- enomar 17y ago
  Is that an absolute or is it just our current reality?
  - scscsc 17y ago
    Current reality. I'm not sure why, but really unhealthy food seems to be very very cheap (think chips, crackers, snacks, chocolate, etc). And healthy food tends to be expensive, usually takes some time to cook, and it might not taste very good.
- whughes 17y ago
  I think it's more accurate to say "choose any two of the four." Certainly there are ways to have tasty and healthy or fast and healthy foods, but you may miss out on the other things.
  - scscsc 17y ago
    I might be willing to admit healthy and tasty sometimes work together. But healthy and cheap/fast? I don't think so.
alanthonyc 17y ago
I've been living on a (personal) variation of the South Beach diet for the past eight months or so. One mostly eats proteins and fats and only low glycemic index carbohydrates. I was also raised on the typical foods: white bread, frosted flakes, white rice, etc. However, although cutting out the starches was difficult, it was not impossible. The hardest part was during the first two to three weeks. Probably partially because of chemical factors as well as psychological. Since then, it hasn't been too difficult at all. I feel much healthier now and have lost a lot of extra weight I had been carrying around for years. On the other hand, my diet is much more expensive. It takes a lot more protein to feel full than carbs, and proteins are more expensive. The best thing about this diet is that, budget notwithstanding, I can actually live the rest of my life on it. It's not a binge type of diet which cannot be used for prolonged periods of time. It's very practical, as long as you can find the foods you need.
- jackchristopher 17y ago
  Protein + Fat destroys hunger. Eat them together. In fact if you don't get enough fat you starve. [1] One reason protein is filling is it signals a hormone PPY for satiety [2]. Ever try eating a jumbo can of tuna? You'll feel a lump in your throat. You can't eat much. Hormones usually are dismissed as wonky, but they actually do factor in weight loss. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation [2] http://scienceandreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/peptide-yy-and-appetite.html http://scienceandreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/peptide-yy-and-...
  - boundlessdreamz 17y ago
    High protein diets usually have high purine which can cause high uric acid levels in blood for some people [like me]. Can cause gout :(
thras 17y ago
Oops. Turns out the Keyes hypothesis (fat = harmful) was awful science based on cherry-picked data. High-carb is actually the killer, and it's not a coincidence that has our diet got higher and higher in simple carbohydrates, our obesity levels have tripled (since 1970). Of course, since we evolved to be hunter-gatherers and live off of high-fat, high-protein diets, it's sort of bizarre that medical professionals ever thought that high-carb was healthy in the first place. But that's what you get when you let doctors do the research instead of scientists. Iatrogenic disease has a long and sordid history.
- daveungerer 17y ago
  I'll forgive you guys for modding this up, as the article is quite poorly written - the author uses the terms "high glycemic index" and "high carb" interchangeably, when they are in fact vastly different. High carb: food that contains a lot of carbs, saying nothing about the effect on blood sugar. High glycemic index: carbs that cause blood sugar spikes. High glycemic load: the (very bad) combination of the above 2 factors. In other words, it's possible for one food with the exact same amount of carbs as another to have a much lower glycemic index. High-carb is NOT the killer. High GI carbs are. Low GI carbs are good for you. That is the point of the article.
  - trapper 17y ago
    Correct - but tecnically all food causes a blood sugar "spike" - it's the rate of change, and potentially area under the curve that counts. We know the body treats glucose in the bloodstream like a poison in the sense that it tries it's damnedest to get it out. Interesting articles: http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php http://darwinstable.wordpress.com/tag/glucose/ http://darwinstable.wordpress.com/tag/glucose/
    - daveungerer 17y ago
      If a graph has a spike, that implies "high rate of change". How high the peak is is all that really counts, as the body produces insulin in accordance to how high your blood sugar currently is - it has no way of knowing what the area under the curve will be in the end. And inevitably it overproduces if the peak is too high, since we are not evolved to deal with modern high GI carbs.
ams6110 17y ago
These studies come out like clockwork. Every few weeks we hear about the new discovery of a food or ingredient that will kill you. I say if you're not obese and in reasonably good health, eat what you like. Nobody escapes death because they don't eat Wonder bread.
- hachiya 17y ago
  Nobody will escape death, but death does not have to be prolonged, painful, and miserable. Everybody has to die of something, but if people were able to pick, nobody would pick the most common causes: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. If diet can play a part in avoiding these, and evidence suggests that the role is significant, we probably should eat what we like, as long as we learn to like that which is good for us.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
daveungerer 17y ago
I've been on a low glycemic index diet for the past 8 years, combined with regular snacks and exercise. The background to this is that I had trouble concentrating at university. Went to the doctor, who sent me for tests that confirmed I'm hypoglycemic. Today, I can still notice the drop in concentration and the intense desire to take a nap after eating the occasional high GI food. But my mind is very clear when I eat correctly, so that's enough motivation to keep it up. Of course, the health benefits are a nice side-effect - I became quite skinny from losing what little fat I had, so I had to work out to pick up some weight. A few points to address some of the other comments: It's not necessary to go extremely high protein, and increasing your fat intake may do more harm than good if you don't work hard to exclude saturated fats. Don't limit your total carb intake, but choose the right carbs and spread them out across meals / snacks. And some very important points the article doesn't mention: Never skip a meal. Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. This will help prevent spikes in your blood sugar. I would suggest googling the glycemic index as well as the glycemic load of foods before making any changes to your diet. Apart from giving preference to food that's higher in fibre, healthy fat and proteins, there are some surprises. Once you've passed through the proverbial dip, your taste changes. The cravings for sweet or highly processed carbs are similar to the cravings when giving up smoking. They do pass.
jberryman 17y ago
We've known for decades that the western diet kills people (and increasingly so) and that traditional diets don't, yet nutrition science seems to be stuck in a reductionist view of food, obsessed with finding the precise chemicals responsible for heart disease, diabetes, and all the other Western Diseases. Maybe this new study really has gotten to the bottom of heart disease, in which case we can all eat the newly re-formulated Low Glycemic Index Wonder Bread and carry on as usual. We'll be healthier, Food Industry will make another fortune, everyone's happy. Thought this would be a good opportunity to pimp the book: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. It's quite extraordinary if you are interested in your health (in the broadest sense of that word), food, and the history of Nutrition Science and the western diet.
- grandalf 17y ago
  Finally a rational comment! Nutrition is one of the areas where normally rational people (such as the typical HN reader) go totally off the deep end and rely on superstition, hearsay, herd mentality, group think, and whimsy. In general, most people (including people who are otherwise quite rational) do exactly what advertisers and corporate sponsors want when it comes to nutrition. There was a huge bombshell study a few years ago, documented in the book "The China Study" on the western diet (by a guy from Cornell). It should have made headlines. People should have thrown their meat and dairy into the garbage immediately... but nothing happened. Instead, ostensibly "health conscious" people convince themselves that there are "good fats" and ask themselves if they are getting enough protein. Most Americans are overweight and will end up with obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, or colon cancer. Most vegetarians are overweight, pallid, and sick-looking (b/c they eat so much "good fat" -- more fat than McDonalds aficionados eat!). What it means for a human to eat optimally is well known and has been backed up by rigorous scientific research... why hasn't it made headlines? Because in this case it's too much work to think critically... it's not easy going against the grain of an entire society built upon destructive mythology with the nutrition establishment telling us to eat according to a harmful food pyramid, etc. So the whole "nutrition" industry is focused on convincing people that health is obtained by consuming or avoiding magic ingredients like "Omega 3s" or "turmeric" or "trans fats" or "mono unsaturated fats" or "whole grains" or "protein". All of this is at best minimally correlated or patently false. What's the difficult truth that nobody wants to hear? Animal protein causes disease. That means no meat, fish, milk, etc. The optimal human diet is plant based and should contain 80% carbs (as much of this unrefined as possible), 10% protein, and 10% fat). Fresh fruit has a few percent fat already, so very little extra fat is needed, even if it's so-called "good fat". If you're skeptical, read The China Study and then raid your fridge and cure your future cancer immediately :) notes: 1) humans can survive on lots of things including meats, cardboard, etc. b/c we evolved to survive in extreme conditions/habitats. That does not mean that all things we can digest are optimal for health. Also, it is trivial for any modern human to obtain sufficient calories only from optimal foods. 2) link to book (well worth the $10, read the reviews on Amazon): http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246067556&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Im...
yankeeracer73 17y ago
Has anyone found a good book or site that has a definitive diet for a non-overweight, non-diabetic person who just wants to make sure they're eating healthy? Every book I've found seems to address some sort of problem vs. talking about being in a long term "maintenance" mode.
- hachiya 17y ago
  Some excellent resources: http://drmcdougall.com http://drmcdougall.com Dr. John McDougall's site An excellent presentation that he gave is available here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2348910096409126100 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2348910096409126100 John McDougall MD on the perils of dairy products He has advocated a low fat, whole foods, plant based site for decades, and this type of diet has been clinically shown to prevent and even reverse heart disease (see studies by Dr. Dean Ornish, probably others). The diet consists of fruits and vegetables, with starches such as potatoes, yams, beans, and oats featuring as the staple calorie source. The pre-1950s Okinawan diet was like this, with the staple being sweet potato. Their percentage of calories from fat was in the single digits, with carbohydrates being over 80% of calories. Okinawa has been known as having one of the highest number of centenarians, not to mention healthy long-lived people overall. Sure there are more factors than diet, but it is worth considering what they ate. The "Star McDougallers" area of the site has many testimonials of people helped with their health problems far beyond weight loss, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Taking it to the next level: The 80/10/10 diet also low fat and plant based, but all raw (fruits instead of starches, basically) http://vegsource.com/talk/raw http://vegsource.com/talk/raw Message board for the 80/10/10 diet, by Doug Graham http://foodnsport.com http://foodnsport.com Doug Graham's site http://30bananasaday.com http://30bananasaday.com 80/10/10 enthusiast forum & social network
  - daveungerer 17y ago
    Keep in mind that sweet potatoes have a much lower glycemic index than normal potatoes, and in fact many other carbs, which probably explains the centenarians. Having normal potatoes as a staple will reduce your lifespan.
gurtwo 17y ago
There is a ton of theories about nutrition out there, as the radically opposed comments show here. I haven't really studied the subject, but I know from experience that the food I used to have at home (basically, the mediterranean diet) keeps me healthy and with no overweight. So I still follow my mother's wisdom: eat a bit of everything, with ingredients around olive oil, vegetables, fruit, bread, fish and some meat.
bpb 17y ago
Umm... this study used water as the placebo? Shouldn't they at least have used oatmeal? As it is, the study compares eating vs not-eating, rather than eating high-GI vs low-GI foods.

52 points by ph0rque 17y ago

Man I hate hearing about this stuff. I was raised on these types of foods and now it's like crack to me. As an adult, I'm having a really tough time giving them up. I'm sure I just need to learn new habits and have some will power, but sometimes I wish they'd just outlaw or ration unhealthy food too. It's just too damn abundant...

hapless 17y ago
My problem is that I was raised with the food pyramid. Grain as staff of life etc. I look at corn flakes or wonderbread, and my subconscious health barometer reads "all clear." I'll consume these products without thinking about it. It's really difficult to re-train myself for a more modern understanding of nutrition.
- madh 17y ago
  Yes, especially since I've trained myself to think that carbs are so good.
ambition 17y ago
Instead of focusing on cutting back on "bad" foods, think about eating more good foods. The bad stuff will fall by the wayside naturally.

scscsc 17y ago

Cheap, fast, tasty, healthy. Choose the last or any combination of the first three.

enomar 17y ago
Is that an absolute or is it just our current reality?
- scscsc 17y ago
  Current reality. I'm not sure why, but really unhealthy food seems to be very very cheap (think chips, crackers, snacks, chocolate, etc). And healthy food tends to be expensive, usually takes some time to cook, and it might not taste very good.
whughes 17y ago
I think it's more accurate to say "choose any two of the four." Certainly there are ways to have tasty and healthy or fast and healthy foods, but you may miss out on the other things.
- scscsc 17y ago
  I might be willing to admit healthy and tasty sometimes work together. But healthy and cheap/fast? I don't think so.

alanthonyc 17y ago

I've been living on a (personal) variation of the South Beach diet for the past eight months or so. One mostly eats proteins and fats and only low glycemic index carbohydrates. I was also raised on the typical foods: white bread, frosted flakes, white rice, etc. However, although cutting out the starches was difficult, it was not impossible. The hardest part was during the first two to three weeks. Probably partially because of chemical factors as well as psychological. Since then, it hasn't been too difficult at all. I feel much healthier now and have lost a lot of extra weight I had been carrying around for years. On the other hand, my diet is much more expensive. It takes a lot more protein to feel full than carbs, and proteins are more expensive. The best thing about this diet is that, budget notwithstanding, I can actually live the rest of my life on it. It's not a binge type of diet which cannot be used for prolonged periods of time. It's very practical, as long as you can find the foods you need.

jackchristopher 17y ago
Protein + Fat destroys hunger. Eat them together. In fact if you don't get enough fat you starve. [1] One reason protein is filling is it signals a hormone PPY for satiety [2]. Ever try eating a jumbo can of tuna? You'll feel a lump in your throat. You can't eat much. Hormones usually are dismissed as wonky, but they actually do factor in weight loss. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation [2] http://scienceandreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/peptide-yy-and-appetite.html http://scienceandreason.blogspot.com/2007/10/peptide-yy-and-...
- boundlessdreamz 17y ago
  High protein diets usually have high purine which can cause high uric acid levels in blood for some people [like me]. Can cause gout :(

thras 17y ago

Oops. Turns out the Keyes hypothesis (fat = harmful) was awful science based on cherry-picked data. High-carb is actually the killer, and it's not a coincidence that has our diet got higher and higher in simple carbohydrates, our obesity levels have tripled (since 1970). Of course, since we evolved to be hunter-gatherers and live off of high-fat, high-protein diets, it's sort of bizarre that medical professionals ever thought that high-carb was healthy in the first place. But that's what you get when you let doctors do the research instead of scientists. Iatrogenic disease has a long and sordid history.

daveungerer 17y ago
I'll forgive you guys for modding this up, as the article is quite poorly written - the author uses the terms "high glycemic index" and "high carb" interchangeably, when they are in fact vastly different. High carb: food that contains a lot of carbs, saying nothing about the effect on blood sugar. High glycemic index: carbs that cause blood sugar spikes. High glycemic load: the (very bad) combination of the above 2 factors. In other words, it's possible for one food with the exact same amount of carbs as another to have a much lower glycemic index. High-carb is NOT the killer. High GI carbs are. Low GI carbs are good for you. That is the point of the article.
- trapper 17y ago
  Correct - but tecnically all food causes a blood sugar "spike" - it's the rate of change, and potentially area under the curve that counts. We know the body treats glucose in the bloodstream like a poison in the sense that it tries it's damnedest to get it out. Interesting articles: http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php http://darwinstable.wordpress.com/tag/glucose/ http://darwinstable.wordpress.com/tag/glucose/
  - daveungerer 17y ago
    If a graph has a spike, that implies "high rate of change". How high the peak is is all that really counts, as the body produces insulin in accordance to how high your blood sugar currently is - it has no way of knowing what the area under the curve will be in the end. And inevitably it overproduces if the peak is too high, since we are not evolved to deal with modern high GI carbs.

ams6110 17y ago

These studies come out like clockwork. Every few weeks we hear about the new discovery of a food or ingredient that will kill you. I say if you're not obese and in reasonably good health, eat what you like. Nobody escapes death because they don't eat Wonder bread.

hachiya 17y ago
Nobody will escape death, but death does not have to be prolonged, painful, and miserable. Everybody has to die of something, but if people were able to pick, nobody would pick the most common causes: heart disease, cancer, and stroke. If diet can play a part in avoiding these, and evidence suggests that the role is significant, we probably should eat what we like, as long as we learn to like that which is good for us.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

daveungerer 17y ago

I've been on a low glycemic index diet for the past 8 years, combined with regular snacks and exercise. The background to this is that I had trouble concentrating at university. Went to the doctor, who sent me for tests that confirmed I'm hypoglycemic. Today, I can still notice the drop in concentration and the intense desire to take a nap after eating the occasional high GI food. But my mind is very clear when I eat correctly, so that's enough motivation to keep it up. Of course, the health benefits are a nice side-effect - I became quite skinny from losing what little fat I had, so I had to work out to pick up some weight. A few points to address some of the other comments: It's not necessary to go extremely high protein, and increasing your fat intake may do more harm than good if you don't work hard to exclude saturated fats. Don't limit your total carb intake, but choose the right carbs and spread them out across meals / snacks. And some very important points the article doesn't mention: Never skip a meal. Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up. This will help prevent spikes in your blood sugar. I would suggest googling the glycemic index as well as the glycemic load of foods before making any changes to your diet. Apart from giving preference to food that's higher in fibre, healthy fat and proteins, there are some surprises. Once you've passed through the proverbial dip, your taste changes. The cravings for sweet or highly processed carbs are similar to the cravings when giving up smoking. They do pass.

jberryman 17y ago

We've known for decades that the western diet kills people (and increasingly so) and that traditional diets don't, yet nutrition science seems to be stuck in a reductionist view of food, obsessed with finding the precise chemicals responsible for heart disease, diabetes, and all the other Western Diseases. Maybe this new study really has gotten to the bottom of heart disease, in which case we can all eat the newly re-formulated Low Glycemic Index Wonder Bread and carry on as usual. We'll be healthier, Food Industry will make another fortune, everyone's happy. Thought this would be a good opportunity to pimp the book: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. It's quite extraordinary if you are interested in your health (in the broadest sense of that word), food, and the history of Nutrition Science and the western diet.

grandalf 17y ago
Finally a rational comment! Nutrition is one of the areas where normally rational people (such as the typical HN reader) go totally off the deep end and rely on superstition, hearsay, herd mentality, group think, and whimsy. In general, most people (including people who are otherwise quite rational) do exactly what advertisers and corporate sponsors want when it comes to nutrition. There was a huge bombshell study a few years ago, documented in the book "The China Study" on the western diet (by a guy from Cornell). It should have made headlines. People should have thrown their meat and dairy into the garbage immediately... but nothing happened. Instead, ostensibly "health conscious" people convince themselves that there are "good fats" and ask themselves if they are getting enough protein. Most Americans are overweight and will end up with obesity, type II diabetes, heart disease, or colon cancer. Most vegetarians are overweight, pallid, and sick-looking (b/c they eat so much "good fat" -- more fat than McDonalds aficionados eat!). What it means for a human to eat optimally is well known and has been backed up by rigorous scientific research... why hasn't it made headlines? Because in this case it's too much work to think critically... it's not easy going against the grain of an entire society built upon destructive mythology with the nutrition establishment telling us to eat according to a harmful food pyramid, etc. So the whole "nutrition" industry is focused on convincing people that health is obtained by consuming or avoiding magic ingredients like "Omega 3s" or "turmeric" or "trans fats" or "mono unsaturated fats" or "whole grains" or "protein". All of this is at best minimally correlated or patently false. What's the difficult truth that nobody wants to hear? Animal protein causes disease. That means no meat, fish, milk, etc. The optimal human diet is plant based and should contain 80% carbs (as much of this unrefined as possible), 10% protein, and 10% fat). Fresh fruit has a few percent fat already, so very little extra fat is needed, even if it's so-called "good fat". If you're skeptical, read The China Study and then raid your fridge and cure your future cancer immediately :) notes: 1) humans can survive on lots of things including meats, cardboard, etc. b/c we evolved to survive in extreme conditions/habitats. That does not mean that all things we can digest are optimal for health. Also, it is trivial for any modern human to obtain sufficient calories only from optimal foods. 2) link to book (well worth the $10, read the reviews on Amazon): http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246067556&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Im...

yankeeracer73 17y ago

Has anyone found a good book or site that has a definitive diet for a non-overweight, non-diabetic person who just wants to make sure they're eating healthy? Every book I've found seems to address some sort of problem vs. talking about being in a long term "maintenance" mode.

hachiya 17y ago
Some excellent resources: http://drmcdougall.com http://drmcdougall.com Dr. John McDougall's site An excellent presentation that he gave is available here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2348910096409126100 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2348910096409126100 John McDougall MD on the perils of dairy products He has advocated a low fat, whole foods, plant based site for decades, and this type of diet has been clinically shown to prevent and even reverse heart disease (see studies by Dr. Dean Ornish, probably others). The diet consists of fruits and vegetables, with starches such as potatoes, yams, beans, and oats featuring as the staple calorie source. The pre-1950s Okinawan diet was like this, with the staple being sweet potato. Their percentage of calories from fat was in the single digits, with carbohydrates being over 80% of calories. Okinawa has been known as having one of the highest number of centenarians, not to mention healthy long-lived people overall. Sure there are more factors than diet, but it is worth considering what they ate. The "Star McDougallers" area of the site has many testimonials of people helped with their health problems far beyond weight loss, such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Taking it to the next level: The 80/10/10 diet also low fat and plant based, but all raw (fruits instead of starches, basically) http://vegsource.com/talk/raw http://vegsource.com/talk/raw Message board for the 80/10/10 diet, by Doug Graham http://foodnsport.com http://foodnsport.com Doug Graham's site http://30bananasaday.com http://30bananasaday.com 80/10/10 enthusiast forum & social network
- daveungerer 17y ago
  Keep in mind that sweet potatoes have a much lower glycemic index than normal potatoes, and in fact many other carbs, which probably explains the centenarians. Having normal potatoes as a staple will reduce your lifespan.

gurtwo 17y ago

There is a ton of theories about nutrition out there, as the radically opposed comments show here. I haven't really studied the subject, but I know from experience that the food I used to have at home (basically, the mediterranean diet) keeps me healthy and with no overweight. So I still follow my mother's wisdom: eat a bit of everything, with ingredients around olive oil, vegetables, fruit, bread, fish and some meat.

bpb 17y ago

Umm... this study used water as the placebo? Shouldn't they at least have used oatmeal? As it is, the study compares eating vs not-eating, rather than eating high-GI vs low-GI foods.