Beyond first-world diets.

[twizzle]

Just started reading "Toxic Oil", (same author as "Sweet Poison", which I haven't read) because of a newspaper article on the weekend.

Sadly, if I put together the recent books on diet I have read, they all come back to the same basic premise that our industrialised diet is slowly killing us. Toxic Oil, The smarter science of slim, The Paleo Diet, The Paleo Diet for Athletes, The Specific Carbohydrate Diet... all basically stick the boot into processed foods. The only book that hasn't scared me is "Gold Medal Nutrition" by a sports dietician connected with the AIS... but the focus of that one is on performance, not health.

Anyway... "Toxic Oil" is scaring the crap out of me, as I though I was doing an O.K. job of avoiding stuff that had long-term health implications, but it's pointing out that saturated fats and dietary cholesterol are necessary to our health, and the more low fat / polyunsaturated stuff we eat, the more damage we will do. And the latest Australian Dietary Guidelines say to ditch saturated fats with polyunsaturated oils/spreads when there appears to be a truckload of evidence and studies saying it's the wrong direction.

Someone, tell me it will all go away and I can just buy stuff off the shelf without looking or caring!

This thread is for POLITE discussion. Science and study-backed preferred, no one is interested in stories about your neighbours wife's mothers friend.

[twizzle]

Macular degeneration. My mother has this.

[reefer]

I am not sure I have ever read to “ditch” food stuffs, well, not the normal food I eat anyway.

I follow the CSIRO eating guide, which is basically a sensible plan to healthy eating.

It includes foodstuffs that have saturated fats. It just reminds us to eat in moderation and be active to burn the energy you eat.

Following this simple idea has served me well losing 25kg in the last 3 years. Though I am struggling to get below 84kg (177cm tall), time to renew the effort both in the pantry and on the bike once the wet subsides.

Previous to this, we grew all our own food on a organic hobby farm, but we were not eating WELL as my livestock was soo pampered that they had very high fat levels, which we ate with gusto.

Now, off the farm, I buy lean meats, fresh veggies and use Butter,Olive and Grapeseed oils in moderation.

[foo on patrol]

Here is my take Twizzle!

Why is it that people with lactose intolerance can drink pure as in straight from the cow and not have a reaction?

With all the fresh food available, why do we need friggin preservitives?

Why do we need food colouring in foods?

Why do we need growth hormones injected into our soon to be eaten animals?

Lastly, to many halfwit eggheads out to make a name for themselves on running down and putting the fear of God into the average Joe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somewhere in these questions is your answer.

Foo

[simonn]

"David Gillespie is a recovering corporate lawyer, co-founder of a successful software company and consultant to the IT industry."

http://sweetpoison.com.au/?page_id=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[twizzle]

and Grapeseed oils in moderation.

Grape seed oil.

Then look at the Macular Degeneration link above.

And we finished a bottle recently.

[twizzle]

"David Gillespie is a recovering corporate lawyer, co-founder of a successful software company and consultant to the IT industry."

http://sweetpoison.com.au/?page_id=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes. But doesn't make him wrong, either.

[twizzle]

Oh, and "why bother" with creating this thread? 260Km a week of cycling, ~ 1200 calories a day extra on average. I go through a lot of food.

Edit: And I have four children as well. Someone, think of the children!

[reefer]

I use about one litre of grape seed oil every 2-3 months, just for stir fry’s as it has a higher smoke point. I use about 500ml of extra virgin olive oil per month. I eat a reasonably well balanced diet (now) and don’t worry about minor risks here and there. If your old enough, you will remember when potatoes were “bad” for us (according to researchers).

Eat well, exercise and don’t stress

[foo on patrol]

Apparently Rice Bran oil is very good for you.

Foo

[Venus62]

Why is it that people with lactose intolerance can drink pure as in straight from the cow and not have a reaction?

There's no evidence for this other than anecdotal, and a scientific study suggests it isn't true. It also seems that lots of people who claim to be lactose intolerant actually aren't.

http://grist.org/article/2010-11-01-raw ... nt-reduce/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[foo on patrol]

Why is it that people with lactose intolerance can drink pure as in straight from the cow and not have a reaction?

There's no evidence for this other than anecdotal, and a scientific study suggests it isn't true. It also seems that lots of people who claim to be lactose intolerant actually aren't.

http://grist.org/article/2010-11-01-raw ... nt-reduce/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Unfortunately I don't holded much credence to these so called scientific studies as they are the ones that also said, eggs are bad for you along with every other thing we eat.

It would seem that these people must have had the wrong results for their tests or went to the same dodgey brothers test lab.

I don't intend getting into a shite fight about these things, because I've seen all this crap before on what is and is not good for you, from the so called experts and if you dig a bit deeper, you will find out who is funding them. A bit like the current political scene of, this sounds good at the moment.

Seems strange how people that ate bread and dripping on a regular basis have lived long years. Both sides of my family tree have longevity and had all the so called bad things that the so called "scientific experts" say is bad for us. Get rid of the preservatives, additives and whatever else is going into our food these days and you will have a halfway decent answer too your questions but that is probably to easy a thing to do. Hell even breathing fresh air these days is killing us.

Foo

[casual_cyclist]

Whilst Gillespie and Taubes et. al. are considered junk science by the mainstream, I think there is a great deal to be concerned about our food supply. Certainly obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, macular degeneration, to name a few, can be traced back to a western diet high in processed foods. What is alarming is that if you take populations eating a traditional diet of minimally processed foods where the population has low rates of western diseases listed above and then introduce them to a western diet, the results are catastrophic. Off the top of my head I would use Nauru, Okinawa, France and the Pima Indians as examples.

In Nauru, an estimated 94.5% of residents are overweight with an obesity rate of 71.7% the highest in the world (1). It is thought that the increase in overweight and obesity is a result of a move from traditional foods to western foods.

Traditionally Okinawans have been known for their longevity (2). The traditional Okinawan diet is vegetable and fruit heavy but reduced in meat, refined grains, saturated fat, sugar, salt, and full-fat dairy products. However, this has changed since the introduction of western foods, with increased intakes of fat, rice, white bread and noodles. A traditionally lean people, the Okinawans now have an estimated obesity rate of 45.2 percent of all adult males aged 20 to 69 (3).

Traditionally, the French have been known for their low coronary heart disease (CHD) death rates despite high intake of dietary cholesterol and saturated fat (4). However, in the past 15 years, the obesity rate has doubled to 7 million French people, or 15% of the entire population. Those considered overweight on the BMI scale constitute a third of the population (5). Fast food and packaged foods have been blamed for this.

When comparing Mexican to U.S. Pima Indians, Mexican Pima Indians were found to have lower BMI, percent body fat and waist circumference values than the U.S. Pima Indians (6). The higher rates of obesity in U.S. Pima Indians has been blamed on westernisation (7).

Finally, the populations in the so called 'Blue Zones', people around the world with the highest life expectancy (Barbagia region of Sardinia, Ikaria in Greece, Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica, Seventh Day Adventists of Loma Linda California and Okinawa in Japan) have been found to have a heavily plant based diet (i.e. minimally processed) (8). However, I wonder if it equally important that they have a tradition of eating until about 80% full (9). It is interesting that all of the people of the Blue Zones eat meat (excluding the vegetarians of Loma-Linda) and most of that is pork. Also, of the 9 factors contributing to longevity, only 2 relate to food and eating. Perhaps the other lifestyle factors are equally as important in being lean and living a long and healthy life. Looking at the list, I can see that a lot of them could be missing in a traditional "western lifestyle".

In conclusion, there does appear to be something uniquely obesogenic about the western diet or western lifestyle. There appears to be higher risks of lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer associated with a western lifestyle (10). However, when a traditional culture adopts a western diet and becomes obese, this can be reversed by reverting to a traditional diet 11. Gillespie and Taubes et. al. may be onto something?

[casual_cyclist]

Why is it that people with lactose intolerance can drink pure as in straight from the cow and not have a reaction?

There's no evidence for this other than anecdotal, and a scientific study suggests it isn't true. It also seems that lots of people who claim to be lactose intolerant actually aren't.

http://grist.org/article/2010-11-01-raw ... nt-reduce/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Unfortunately I don't holded much credence to these so called scientific studies as they are the ones that also said, eggs are bad for you along with every other thing we eat.

Ouch! Looks like you might have a good reason to be sceptical...

A recent paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that since 1973, nearly a thousand biomedical papers have been retracted because someone cheated the system. That's a massive 67% of all biomedical retractions. And the situation is getting worse - last year, Nature reported that the rise in retraction rates has overtaken the rise in the number of papers being published.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/ ... od-science

'nuff said really.

P.S. link to the original paper because the Guardian is a bit...

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/ ... 9.abstract

[casual_cyclist]

A nutritionist's take on 'Toxic Oil' http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au/?p=673

Linking to this article does not mean I agree with anything the guy has to say. I like reading other perspectives even when I don't agree with them.

[Mulger bill]

This thread is for POLITE discussion. Science and study-backed preferred, no one is interested in stories about your neighbours wife's mothers friend.

+lots

You all know where the report button is. It is my sincere hope that is will never have to be pressed.

[foo on patrol]

A nutritionist's take on 'Toxic Oil' http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au/?p=673

Linking to this article does not mean I agree with anything the guy has to say. I like reading other perspectives even when I don't agree with them.

That's the thing that most won't do mate, they read only what they want to read, to fulfill their narrow minded views and everyone else is wrong. Just because it looks good on a piece of paper or a graph, doesn't make it right.

I will use myself as an example. If I eat raw peanuts or oysters I become violently ill but if I eat the cooked, smoked, seasoned or whatever other way you want to do them, then I don't have a problem with them. Bees and wasp stings can kill me, yet as a young bloke, they didn't bother me so go figure.

I also believe that some people are born with problems with their immune systems and nothing is going to help them overcome it 100% but you need to do the homework on their diet to see if their bodies will react with cert elements in the food chain and this where the all natural thing can help some but will be extremely expensive for them. To much in the way of chemical fertilizers instead of the old way of rotational crops.

You may feel that I'm rabbiting on somewhat but I think you will find a lot of truth in what I say. Couple all the stuff that we are being fed with the life style that we have now = ridiculous work hours - the ability to exercise = the reason why we are battling weight now. I put myself in this category. I'm working up to 80hrs a week and that's in 5 days and I'm 55yrs old but I have always worked hard but more now, than when I was in my 20s.

The lifestyle balance of today is just crap and this is the crux of the problem, from my point of view. Am I right? I don't know but I don't think I'm not to far off the mark. People are just slaves to the big companies now and family and recreational life has gone out the door, unless you are well off.

Foo

[Venus62]

Unfortunately I don't holded much credence to these so called scientific studies as they are the ones that also said, eggs are bad for you along with every other thing we eat.
Foo

I'm a scientist myself so am always sceptical of claims unsupported by evidence. The reason I even bothered to look this up was that it makes no sense for raw milk, which contains lactose, not to affect people who are lactose intolerant. Lactose is a simple sugar and won't be affected by the pasteurisation process. Sure there may be microbes in the raw milk that act on the lactose, but if they acted long enough to remove the lactose, you'd have yoghurt and not milk.

Usually it's other scientists who will do further research that will change existing ideas about health. The claims about eggs changed in line with increased knowledge about cholesterol metabolism, and the realisation that dietary intake is only part of the question. And it's usually other scientists that will discredit the work of dodgy ones. Andrew Wakefield and his scandalous claims that the MMR vaccine was linked to autism was soundly flogged by the scientific community.

So I'll continue to use science to guide me and not anecdotes.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Venus62]

P.S. link to the original paper because the Guardian is a bit...

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/ ... 9.abstract

Quote from said article: PubMed references more than 25 million articles relating primarily to biomedical research published since the 1940s. A comprehensive search of the PubMed database in May 2012 identified 2,047 retracted articles. So around 2000 retractions from over 25,000,000 articles. Not too bad I'd say...

[casual_cyclist]

A nutritionist's take on 'Toxic Oil' http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au/?p=673

Linking to this article does not mean I agree with anything the guy has to say. I like reading other perspectives even when I don't agree with them.

That's the thing that most won't do mate, they read only what they want to read, to fulfill their narrow minded views and everyone else is wrong. Just because it looks good on a piece of paper or a graph, doesn't make it right.

[...]

You may feel that I'm rabbiting on somewhat but I think you will find a lot of truth in what I say. Couple all the stuff that we are being fed with the life style that we have now = ridiculous work hours - the ability to exercise = the reason why we are battling weight now. I put myself in this category. I'm working up to 80hrs a week and that's in 5 days and I'm 55yrs old but I have always worked hard but more now, than when I was in my 20s.

The lifestyle balance of today is just crap and this is the crux of the problem, from my point of view. Am I right? I don't know but I don't think I'm not to far off the mark. People are just slaves to the big companies now and family and recreational life has gone out the door, unless you are well off.

I'm sure you are on the right track. If you had to summarise the 'western lifestyle' in a word, it would be 'convenience'. We are surrounded by foods that are ready to eat, wherever we go, shopping, movies, sport, events, school, uni, supermarkets, we have unprecedented access to food. Also, because we work such long hours we don't have time to exercise or cook decent meals. So we select ready made or processed food from supermarkets to reduce our preparation time or eat out. The problem with processed foods is they are high in calories and low in nurition. The problem with eating out is that serving sizes are usually too big (in terms of calories per person). So we work longer hours to afford the lifestyle we want and that lifestyle is killing us?

Changes that I have made to my lifestyle include: cycle commuting because I never had time to exercise after work but cycle commuting takes about the same time as public transport (I call it sneaky exercise); preparing and freezing lunches in advance becuase I don't have time to cook every day so I make a big batch of food from scratch and freeze lunch sized portions. It actually doesn't take that long to cook a dinner from scratch provided I have the ingredients. Yes, it takes some planning and effort but I am finding it doable. I note that I do not work the hours that you do, so I do have more time to cook.

[twizzle]

And I'd like to also say that while I find "The smarter science of slim" interesting and not a "bad idea" to read and have a shot at diet wise, I think it has probably cherry-picked the bits that support it. Then again, some of the quoted studies on rats are unlikely to be allowed on humans for ethical reasons.

Sent from my iThingy...

[matagi]

At the risk of coming across as a bit of a crackpot, and with no scientific studies that I know of to support this view .... there is a dearth of information on the effects of combined food additives. Sure, we can find literature on the LD50 of every food additive out there and studies that show if you feed x kg of additive y to Sprague Dawley rats, you will give them cancer but what happens if you feed additives a+b+c+d+ .... etc?

My completely unscientific opinion is that some of the additives in processed food act synergistically to modify basic biochemical pathways and also affect hormone-receptor interactions and are in part responsible for some of the problems associated with a "Western diet".

[foo on patrol]

No argument from me on that Matagi.

Foo

[sogood]

Relax Twizzle! No need to get all scared.

Fact is, whilst there are suggested "bad" effects of modern food, it's also true that life expectancy in the developed world has reached higher than any other time in the history of human. So to me, as long as one eats sensibly (balanced diet with lots of fresh meat/vegi/fruit etc), exercise, avoid obvious negative environmental/lifestyle factors (asbestos, pollution, smoking, excess alcohol etc) and keep our weight in check, we will attain good health in this life, or at least whatever our genes permit us.

[matagi]

Problem is, the "eat sensibly" message is being lost in the barrage of information available on the net and elsewhere. Some of the information is worthwhile, but there is a lot of 'junk science" out there without any biological validity whatsoever.