I downloaded the article by Layman you linked to and read it. I’m wondering how this will mesh with IF? Especially regarding IF and strength training (and diet w/ regard to recovery). Eagerly awaiting you’re post on IF when you get around to it. I thought you said were going to do a post on it and you were leaning towards it again.

Thanks for all you do again.
Joe

Yes, we own the book. It is beautifully done.

The American diet actually isn’t too high in saturated fat (in fact, saturated fat intake has gone down over the past 40+ years or so. Furthermore it says that American’s don’t get enough complex carbohydrates. What?! If anything, we get too many complex carbohydrates, hence the world of hurt we’re in, health-wise.

Not enough fiber in the American diet? That premise is a flawed one, based on misguided observations, by people like Denis Burkett, a British physician, who missed the boat in his observations that people eating native diets in other parts of the world didn’t have GI disease rates that westernized countries had (they also squat to eliminate instead of sitting unnaturally on toilets, ferment many of their high fiber foods to increase digestibility, and in many cases, remove fiber if they can, to make the nutrients more absorbable and less likely to bind up minerals). It’s comparing apple to oranges to look at fiber rates in Africa and the US and come up with a meaningful comparison. There are too many other variables to consider.

Some big epidemiological studies might support the fiber theory, but intervention studies (when study subjects increased fiber and outcomes were compared to control subjects who did not) have not provided ANY support for the fiber theory. It’s also possible to tease out from some data that fiber from grains actually do more harm than good (the body works hard to get rid of toxic harsh grain fiber, hence the “movement”), but TBTB haven’t seriously considered that option enough to actually study it in depth, because everyone *knows* wheat bran is good for us, right?

Personally, my GI function improved tremendously when I dropped all sources of grain fiber and fiber supplements. Now I just get whatever fiber is in my non-starchy veggies and some fruit and would never go back to seeking fiber in my diet. I’m learning that the science actually supports what I’ve noticed myself, too.

In addition to the posts and comments on this blog, that I interpret as strongly stating that saturated fat consumption in the US is not “too high”, nor fiber intake “too low”, there are some good scientifically oriented posts on fat and fiber over at Whole Health Source and Hyperlipid blogs. Fiber, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

http://lowcarbconfidential.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/irvingia-letter-from-lef-010909.pdf