Bacon and Cheesecake compared to Heroin and Cocaine

[lefox]

I had to post a link to this story -

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2737117

I can’t believe this is my daily newspaper, it’s so discouraging! :mad:

[mcsblues]

"Ecocarnivore" (that's not you is it Linda?) has it about right, but what the 'study' also forgets (as Mike keeps telling us) is that rats aren't small furry humans - and in that light, our eating behaviour is doubtless quite a bit more complex than that of rats, and that we also evolved to thrive on a higher fat diet in the first place.

I wouldn't be too down on your newspaper - (a) its a syndicated story, which almost requires a black and white, 'simple' message and (b) they are ALL getting worse!

[jilly27]

It bugs me that they're calling this a "high fat" diet. I didn't have to get through more than two paragraphs into this to decide its crap.



When rats raised on regular chow were suddenly given unrestricted access to a high-fat diet, they lost complete control over their eating. Not even mild foot shocks kept them from compulsively feasting on chocolate bars, cream-stuffed cakes, sausage, frosting and other highly palatable human foods. Within 40 days, their body weight had increased 25%.


The people running the so called study are assuming its the increase in fat that causes the addictive behavior. What about all the sugar?! So the average readers take on this is that the fat was the problem, exactly what the Drs. running this farce want them to believe.

This was my initial reaction before even reading the comments. I'm glad to see at least one person comment the way Ecocarnivore did.

It's so obvious its blatant, if you know enough to look at it objectively, unfortunately most of the general population focused on the SAD doesn't.

Jilly

[laughingW]

Actually I think the "palatable food' is research-speak for fats AND refined carbs. There are a few researchers who are not rushing to judgement about what in the palatable food is the worst culprit, but paying attention to the combination of fats and refined carbs.

It's the ignorant commentators who add in about "fatty" foods, prompted by lazy journalists asking one or two experts to have something to pad around the press release and make it look like journalism.

[lefox]

"Ecocarnivore" (that's not you is it Linda?) has it about right,

Took me awhile to catch the reference. When I read the article, the comments hadn't been posted....ahhh...:o nope, the truth is I got so annoyed reading the first few paragraphs that I didn't actually read the entire article until later...:rolleyes:

Jilly's comment prompted me to look back to the article where I found his comments.

In any event, yes I agree with Ecocarnivore - who happens to be a 43-year old male on another LC forum (Google-able).

[lefox]

Okay people, the original article the Newspaper was commenting on is here (http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2519.html).

I've begun reading Taubes' GCBC and must have become sensitized to this whole subject. Guess I should stop and read this Nature article first....

[Eleanor]

On a slightly more positive note, hubby has been looking over the British Heart Foundation website and notes that it is saying that it's 'fatty and sugary' foods that cause the problem. Which taken literally, is exactly right. He thinks that because of face saving and other such issues, it won't be a big overnight revolution that changes the authorities' food recommendations, but that the right information will slowly creep in without a big fuss. Because otherwise, they'll have to say they were wrong....

[Needlewoman]

And if they have to say that they were wrong LAW SUITS A MILLION!

[Frank Hagan]

On a slightly more positive note, hubby has been looking over the British Heart Foundation website and notes that it is saying that it's 'fatty and sugary' foods that cause the problem. Which taken literally, is exactly right. He thinks that because of face saving and other such issues, it won't be a big overnight revolution that changes the authorities' food recommendations, but that the right information will slowly creep in without a big fuss. Because otherwise, they'll have to say they were wrong....

BINGO!

(If that's a uniquely American phrase, its roughly equivalent to "BRILLIANT!" as used by Brits - but not Americans, who use "brilliant" disparagingly).

((Sheesh, I guess we are really two countries separated by a common language)).

[Eleanor]

We use Bingo too.... kind of like 'There it is!' as said by Chandler when Joey gets it finally (from Friends)...

[S Bear]

(If that's a uniquely American phrase, its roughly equivalent to "BRILLIANT!" as used by Brits - but not Americans, who use "brilliant" disparagingly).

Yes indeed. Most common use of "brilliant" in the US is to mean "extremely intelligent." It also means "bright" (which is also used for "intelligent.") Both words can also be used, as you note, sarcastically.

What we almost never do is use it as a term of generic praise--e.g. "We went to the UK last month. London was brilliant!"

A big US/UK divide is over the word "mean." Although we once had the shared meaning of "stingy, impoverished, or diminished," in the US it now is taken almost exclusively to suggest "cruel or spiteful."

The result is that most Americans now misunderstand old phrases such as "mean-spirited," or "on these mean streets."

Not to mention Mean Mister Mustard from Abbey Road, who is not particularly cruel, but is instead just quite reluctant to part with any cash.

[mcsblues]

Mike loves "hilarious". While of course we know what it means (and what he means when he uses it), it would almost always be used sarcastically here.

[lefox]

I’ve been analyzing the High-Fat Study published March 28, 2010 in Nature Neuroscience titled ‘Dopamine D2 receptors in addiction-like reward dysfunction and compulsive eating in obese rats’. The conclusion reached:

“These data demonstrate that overconsumption of palatable food triggers addiction-like neuroadaptive responses in brain reward circuits and drives the development of compulsive eating. “

I’ve come to believe the “thorn” in this study is the “palatable food”.

To summarize the method: rats were split into 3 groups – a control that received regular rat chow, another group that was allowed access to a “Cafeteria” diet for an hour/day (read “palatable high-fat food”) and a third group which was given unlimited access to the “Cafeteria” diet. The test ran 40 days.

The “Cafeteria” diet was six foods. These break down as follows based on information drawn from www.fatsecret.com:

Based on 100 gram servings, measured in grams:
Butter Pound Cake Fat 19.9, Carbs 48.8, Protein 5.5
Cheese Cake Fat 22.5, Carbs 25.5, Protein 5.5
Vanilla Frosting Fat 16.2, Carbs 67.9, Protein 0.0
Chocolate Fat 34.2, Carbs 59.6, Protein 3.9
Bacon Fat 41.8, Carbs 1.4, Protein 37.0
Sausage Fat 26.5, Carbs 0.0, Protein 15.1


The study begs some questions:
1. How were the various foods presented? I’ve assumed that equal weights of food were provided but even then there are issues – were they in discrete piles or mashed together? I expect not the latter since this would not be a “Cafeteria” concept. So assume the foods were supplied in nice separate locations.

2. If the first part is true, then which foods attracted the most attention? Did one food get eaten completely before the next was approached? Or were there too many animals involved in each group to determine this?

3. At what point was additional food provided – and at that point was any food remaining uneaten? (Doubtful since we are talking about rats…..)

I could go on, but studying the various foods it’s clear that the range of nutrients was vast as can be shown by this table that rates each food and nutrient relative to the average:

Average 100g serving: Fat 26.9, Carbs 33.9, Protein 11.2 (i.e. assumes each component in the Average rates as 1.0):

Butter Pound Cake Fat 0.7, Carbs 1.4, Protein 0.5
Cheese Cake Fat 0.8, Carbs 0.8, Protein 0.5
Vanilla Frosting Fat 0.6, Carbs 2.0, Protein 0.0
Chocolate Fat 1.3, Carbs 1.8, Protein 0.3
Bacon Fat 1.6, Carbs 0.0, Protein 3.3
Sausage Fat 1.0, Carbs 0.0, Protein 1.4

I’ve requested more information from Mr. Paul Kenny listed as the corresponding author at pjkenny@scripps.edu on the diet composition, but I’m not holding my breath.

Suffice it to say, that based on my analysis there’s no way that a fair evaluation of the effects of fat consumption can be made without controls in place to monitor the effect of the uptake of the different foods.

I believe this is important to understand (as I’m sure most of you on this forum do) but also that information of this sort should be presented without the sensational bias that permeates this field.

My own body experience has proven to my satisfaction that a diet of protein and fat with a modest amount of carbohydrate has resulted in a vast improvement in my health and well-being. I’m a recent convert to this having spent quite awhile previously on a low fat/high carb diet that was promulgated by both my GP and Nutritionist. I ate lots of fruit/veg – but minimal fat and quite often insufficient protein. Weight fluctuated but overall remained stable – while the fat around my middle increased enormously. In other words, I lost muscle and possibly bone but gained fat.

When will the world wake up to the fact that many are eating themselves to death? And that the vast majority of health professionals are not adequately educated or motivated to change this?

And on a personal note - is there any way to insert a logical table of data in this forum?