Re: Bekele & Big Macs

Donovan Rebbechi said...
On 2006-08-31, Mark Hutchinson <marhutch@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I read enough of that verbose rambling editorial to grasp that
much ... but I'm already familiar with that argument.

I see. So you haven't *really* read it. I thought so. But
that's OK.

Calories derived from carbs, especially simple carbs, have a
strong effect on the production of insulin.

But this is greatly overrated. The way Atkins tells it, you would
think that we are all diabetic.

Hmmm... overrated... now there's a quantifiable term worthy of an
argument.

Sure, if you drink a dunkin' donuts coffee with a scoop of sugar,
or a "big gulp", or some corn-syrup laden junk, you will have
problems (the fructose doesn't help either for other reasons)

Or eat of hunk of white bread, or a dollop of white rice, or a
plate of pasta made from processed flour, etc. - all that good
stuff promoted so earnestly for so long.

So the source and nature of the calories, not just the absolute
numbers consumed, has a direct effect on weight. If your
insulin

No, it's indirect at best.

It's only indirect in the sense that it makes you eat more often.
I think we both agree that eating more often will make you fat -
directly.

So for example, would you say that it's harder to overconsume
heavy cream than, for example, apples or spinach ?

I would. Or perhaps eating an apple and the same amount of bacon?
Definitely. Furthermore, after eating the apple I'd probably be
hungry again in a couple of hours. The greasy bacon would hold me
for most of the day.

If you substitute fats and proteins for carbs, you will not be
able to eat as much.

I don't think that's true, unless you're talking about *grains*
as opposed to *carbs*.

I think it's true from personal experience. And there's research
out there that supports that. Perhaps one of your nutrition
books....

Also has the drawback that high protein foods are more expensive.

Aha! But we have not been discussing the cost of food rich in fat
and protein. But you're right - it IS more expensive.

Well, guess who has the biggest problem with weight? Hint: poor
people are the fattest socio-economic group in America. Hmmm....
let's see... cheap carbs... poor people fat... is there a clue in
there somewhere?

If you take in protein that ultimately ends up getting converted
into glycogen, that's an awfully expensive (and probably not very
healthy) way to get carbs in your diet.

That's a ridiculous statement. You don't eat protein to "get
carbs in your diet". You would eat carbs to get carbs in your
diet. Perhaps you meant something else?

The trick is to determine how you get people to limit the
intake. The way you *not* do that is by encouraging them to
limit the intake of fat calories. Why?

Sure. You encourage them to lay off the junk food instead.

Define junk food.

The Kenyans and Ethiopians follow a diet not unlike the USDA food
pyramid. It doesn't make them fat. But then, they don't consume
high fructose corn syrup.

But they don't consume much of anything, do they? Comparing the
availability of food in the US and Ethiopia is kind of ridiculous.

The USDA food pyramid is medieval nonsense, but note that it
doesn't recommend consumption of large amounts of high fructose
corn syrup. If people really did follow the USDA food pyramid,
sugar consumption would have dropped.

The point is (once more) that when you discourage the use of fats
in a diet, you, by default, encourage the use of carbs. And
unfortunately most people will not be able to distinguish between
the better, complex carbs and the simpler ones.

An example is a box of cookies. If it's grandiously labeled as
"Fat Free", the average person will believe that's it's OK to eat
that. It's "Fat Free"... the USDA says to avoid fats... so it's
gotta be good for you. And presto, 65% of the population is
overweight. See how misleading that recommendation can be?

substitution of carbs for fat. A simple cause-and-effect
relationship.

You haven't even come close to establishing cause and effect. To
do that, you have to do more than show that two events coincide.
Even if I believed your argument, at best you have shown that it
is *plausible* that this is the cause. It's almost impossible to
demonstrate causality without an intervention and controls
(that's why it's still being debated).

Right. Now give my your hypothesis that accounts for the obesity
phenomenon. And until you define exactly what "junk food" is,
don't use that argument.

What about the absolute amount, the number of grams of fat ? Did
that go down also ? Or did it go up ?

I don't know, perhaps you can look it up and contribute it to
this debate. In terms of percentages, we went from about 40
percent of calories in fat and 45 percent carbohydrates to 34
percent fat and that much more carbohydrates.

(6) most people know what "junk food" is, and what it isn't.

And how do they know this?

Nutrition labels, even casual attention to popular media is
enough to enable one to make "healthy"/"unhealthy" distinctions
with reasonable level of accuracy.

I don't believe that's true. Most people don't even read
nutrition labels. Even if they did, the information is too
complex for the average person. As I pointed out earlier, even
leading researchers still don't agree on many of the nutritional
fundamentals.

But that still doesn't provide a definition of "junk food". How
many labels have you seen that say "Warning: this package contains
junk food"?

The USDA Food Pyramid has been encouraging them to eat lots of
carbs.

Where is high fructose corn syrup on the USDA food pyramid ?

What's this fixation with HFCS? There are other simple carbs
beside HFCS on the pyramid.

Do you think most people will know the glycemic difference
between a beef hamburger patty and a french-fry? They both
come from a "junk food" place, right? But are they both junk
food? Perhaps you'd care to define exactly what junk food is.

Most people would have the common sense to know that a french fry
is junk food, and so is a big mac. The big Mac is stuffed full of
calories (not just fat and protein).

That wasn't the question. A Big Mac is the whole package,
including the bun. I asked if they would know the glycemic
difference between a beef hamburger patty and a french-fry. But I
already know the answer, as do you - they wouldn't know.

I would wager that most people would correctly guess that a
home-cooked beef pattie on wheat bread is healthier than a big
mac, though they might not know why.

And they would be wrong. There should be no nutritional
difference between a beef patty cooked at home and one cooked at
BK. And there should no nutritional difference between two slices
of wheat bread at home and two slices of a wheat bun at BK. Or do
you see a difference?

Let's just say I've been reading exercise physiology books and
studying up on this stuff for years.

You might consider getting some of your money back. ;-)

I have done more than read a few random web articles. But thanks
for the advice anyway.

You're welcome. But next time, make that web search more targeted
rather than random. ;-)

a diet high in fats and proteins will not make you fat. So
when you eat a hamburger, it is the bun, not the beef that will
make you fat.

Atkins would be proud of you.

And that's your counter-argument?

But it's ultimately the calories that will make you fat. Not
everyone on low carb diets magically loses weight.

Actually, that's not true. Vast majority of people do lose weight
on low-carb, kind of magically.

Especially if you don't use common sense and consider the diet to
be some sort of license for gluttony, you are likely to be
disappointed.

But you never go hungry. And that's the key to being able to
adopt low carb as a permanent lifestyle rather than a transitory
diet.

Of course if you're running the sort of mileage that both of us
run, you will be pretty damn lean unless you try really hard to
avoid it.

You know, I thought so too, but from personal experience and from
the experience of other good runners I have talked to, we all
still have to watch every damned thing we eat.

Try it sometimes. All you have to lose is fat itself.

I have popout veins on my abs. I do not need to get any thinner.
My exercise schedule means that I do need to take some carbs. I
prefer a diet that has some carbs anyway. I am not diabetic, so I
see no need to go on a diet designed for diabetics.

I didn't mean you personally. ;-) There's a wider audience one
typically addresses when writing on Usenet.







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