How dangerous is that beef-steak? Beliefs, dogmas and habits of mind are powerful things. I'd sooner have them on my side in an argument than the puny forces of reason and evidence. Take the belief that saturated fat is the source of all evil in the modern diet. It's a deeply and widely held notion in the Western World. Somehow, we all just know that eating red meat will kill us by clogging up our arteries with its saturated fat. Doctors, nutritionists, media pundits and ordinary people have … [Read more...]
Reviewing some good and bad advice for spotting bogus diets
Is a diet "bogus" because it bans "fat, sugar or carbs"? Yes claims an article at USA Weekend: Five ways to spot a bogus diet. I'll get to the other signs of dietary bogusosity in a minute. Let us first examine the assertion that banning or limiting particular foods or nutrients from your diet is "both nutritionally deficient and not sustainable." Sure, banning all fat would create a diet that is seriously deficient and unsustainable; in fact, it would kill you. Therefore, no one ever … [Read more...]
Have we been “brainwashed against carbs”?!
“We are brainwashed against carbs. But it is the wrong message" -- Frances Largeman-Roth, RD, coauthor of The Carb Lovers Diet and senior food and nutrition editor of Health Magazine, quoted in Diet Review: The Carb Lovers Diet and Resistant Starch Foods. WebMD. Before I discuss this brainwashing claim, let me explain the context. Most mornings, I get up early, brew coffee, eat breakfast and turn on the TV to catch the local news and weather. The best local TV news happens to be on an … [Read more...]
Exploring the HuffPo: Sugar, Paleo and Plaque
Man does not live by steak-and-eggs alone. Woman either, from what I can see. Having consumed plenty of editorial red-meat in recent days, I decided to venture beyond the low-carb blogosphere this weekend to see who else was writing about diet and health. There was bound to be somebody. I ended up at the Huffington Post. All Internet roads seem to lead there. The HuffPo (as we insiders call it) is the New York Times of the Digital Age, except that apparently the HuffPo doesn't pay its … [Read more...]
Why we snack
Do we eat more because we eat more often? Yes, says a study that claims Americans eat 570 more calories per day now than they did 30 years ago because they are eating all of the time. The study's lead author, Professor Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told CNN Health that "the real reason we seem to be eating more (calories) is we're eating often." But is eating frequency all there is to it, or does what a person eats make a difference? To say we are eating … [Read more...]
A calorie is a calorie, baloney is baloney
Here we go again. The "Calories-In, Calories Out" crowd have some new heroes from down-under. They may be reluctant heroes, though. In a study presented at the American Diabetes Association's 71st Scientific Sessions this week in San Diego, New Zealand researchers compare the effectiveness of a low-fat, high-protein diet to a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet followed by groups of over-weight people with type-2 diabetes for two years. Both groups exhibited similar decreases in weight (-4.4 … [Read more...]
Diet paradigm shift continues
Last week I reported on a study published in the journal Nutrition in Clinical Practice that suggested a paradigm shift toward low-carb dieting was underway. Tonight there is another piece of evidence in favor of such a paradigm shift. ABC News, in its flagship World News, presented a report about the foods most (and least) likely to be associated with weight gain, based on research by the Harvard School of Public Health. [Update] The broadcast report was present by Dr. Richard Besser, the … [Read more...]
Can watching TV kill you? What if you just listen?
The web is vibrating today with the news (loosely speaking) that TV viewing can kill you. This is not a metaphoric brain-death that we are talking about here, folks; it is actual, stone-cold, stick-you-in-the-ground death. Consider the following headlines gleaned this morning from a variety of online media sources via Google News: Too Much TV Linked With Disease and Early Death Alice Park, Time Healthland. TV Time Linked to Diabetes, Death, Crystal Phend, ABC News. TV gives you diabetes and … [Read more...]
Is the Dukan Diet “Atkins-like”? Not really
On Good Morning America this morning [June 1], Juju Chang referred to the Dukan Diet as "Atkins-like." Her report was about Dr. Dukan suing for libel another French doctor who had bad-mouthed the diet. The Atkins people may feel that Chang has libeled them. The Atkins website features a detailed contrast of the Atkins and Dukan Diets, the point of which is that Atkins is balanced and backed by science and Dukan is not. A key criticism leveled in the full-text of the Atkins article is that … [Read more...]
Baked, broiled or deep-fried: how do you like your variables?
Study: Baked, Broiled — But Not Fried — Fish Is Good for the Heart – TIME Healthland, May 26, 2011. Want a healthier heart? Try adding fish to your diet. But be careful how it's cooked, a new study warns: baked or broiled fish will boost heart health, but fried fish is probably better left uneaten. Heart failure risk lower in women who often eat baked/broiled fish--American Heart Association, Press Release, May 24, 2011. This study showed that the type of fish and cooking method may affect … [Read more...]