Healthier Scammers

While on Facebook today, I saw an ad for a website called Healthier Post claiming to promote health and weight loss. I told you the other day that I could find something to make me face-palm every day of the week! They're out to sell you a supplement of course, and I am sure that there are probably hundreds of others just like them, but I'm picking on them because I saw their ad.

I perused their website, and honestly I wouldn't have bothered writing about them, except for the fact that they are touting patently false information, and some of it would be almost comical, if it weren't for the fact that this information will make you sick and could kill you. Now, some of the information on their site was reasonable. They advocate avoiding sugar and processed flour. I think we all agree those things are not good for you. But how about this?

This is a screen capture from a page on their website, text hi-light is mine

The idea that your body cannot process fats and oils is one of the most absurd things I've ever read. And I was an Art History major for a while, trust me when I say that I've read a lot of absurd things. I'm not going to get into the biochemistry behind fatty acid metabolism, mostly because I barely understand it myself. (If you want to learn more about biochemistry as it relates to health and weight loss I suggest checking out Hyperlipid's blog, as he knows more about this stuff in his pinky finger, than I do in my whole brain.) What I will say is this, it's very basic science to understand that your body doesn't know fat you eat from fat you store. It's all fuel to your body. If what they said were true, and your body could not "process" fats and oils, humans would not have made it out of the paleolithic. If there is nothing to eat, what do you think your body runs on? It runs on fat released from your adipose (fat) tissue and ketone bodies manufactured by your liver. Your brain can use ketone bodies for fuel instead of glucose once ketone levels are sufficiently high. Research has shown that brain cancer patients could benefit from zero carb diets because brain cancer likes glucose but cannot use ketones. Go figure.

But it gets better! On another page they tell you to avoid the following foods in order to lose weight. It sounds almost like the standard government advice, but the text below has more ridiculous assertions that have no basis in biochemistry.

Another screen shot from their website, emphasis mine

Three things here, first of all your body doesn't view "natural" sugar (whatever they mean by that) any differently than any other sugar. Sugar is sugar. Glucose and fructose are all handled in exactly the same way by your body and it doesn't matter what the source is. Next they say that fats and oils are toxic. Apparently they've never heard of essential fatty acids. You know, those things that are required for you to continue living. I don't know about you but I like living, and I like to eat fat too. Now lastly, they say that you should cut these foods completely out of your diet. You know, you'd almost think they were advocating veganism, but they're not. A few paragraphs down they say, "...you should eat proteins like steak, fish, chicken, and eggs to keep you strong and give you the energy to exercise." Are they just stupid? I'm not entirely sure, but a great portion of steak, fish and all of egg yolks are fat. Maybe they're just uneducated, out to sell you a product, and have copy and pasted various (and thus contradictory) text from around the web.

The moral of this story is, if a website promotes "fast" weight loss, advocates colon "cleansing," wants to sell you something to lose weight, and does not understand that just because something is "natural" doesn't make it good or safe, do like Monty Python and RUN AWAY!

Face-Palm Thursdays: Because two million years of evolution is obviously wrong

I should start a new trend where I publish things that make me face-palm on Thursdays. Actually, in this subject I could probably find enough things to make me face-palm every day of the week, possibly multiple times a day. US News has the skinny on what will make you skinny. Not really.

Face Palm: Best Diets for the New Year 2012

Top of the list? A diet, called the DASH diet, developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). You guessed it, eat your recommended number of carbs plus all those "healthy" whole grains, and just don't eat salt and saturated fat and you'll lose weight, especially if you cut back on calories! How does that work anyway? And they say that "rigorous studies" showed that this diet can lower blood pressure. Funnily enough, they don't quote exactly which "rigorous studies" they're referring to.

I'm not going to list all of the craptacular diets they put at the top of the list, (and believe me, I know all about craptacular diets having been obese for most of my life and trying repeatedly to lose the weight and being unable to), but they put Atkins towards the bottom. While their "rigorous studies" obviously prove that cutting back salt and eating whole grains defeats heart disease (really! I'm super cereal! pun totally intended) they dis Atkins because all the studies were too short and the data was not statistically significant. You can read that again, but I assure you, you didn't misread it.




Now, the Vegan Diet did better than Atkins and the Paleo diet despite the fact that it "may not provide enough of some nutrients." No kidding. But it ranks higher than ones that are better for you? Well, I believe that's called cognitive dissonance.

And what did they put at the bottom of the list? The Paleo Diet. Because 2 million years of evolution is obviously wrong. To whatever quack job wrote the article on US News, go live with the Inuit for a year like Stefansson did and get back to me on the lack of dairy and grains. Here's what they say about the nutritional breakdown of the Paleo Diet:

Fat. At about 39 percent of daily calories from fat, a sample Paleo menu exceeds the government’s 35 percent cap by a bit.

Protein. The government recommends 10 to 35 percent of daily calories come from protein; the Paleo diet clocks in around 38 percent.

Carbohydrates. At 23 percent of daily calories from carbs, it’s far below the government’s 45 to 65 percent recommendation.

Repeat after me, THERE ARE NO ESSENTIAL CARBOHYDRATES.

Newest Designs at Cafe Press

I have some new designs at my cafepress store! Grains are for the birds and oats are for horses! This is just a sampling, so please look around.

Bumper Stickers

Adults' Shirts

Kids' Shirts

Vegan Bacon

At Hunter-Gatherer.

Who would eat such crap? That's what I'm asking. Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to wreck your health being vegan, well fine. Go for it, but why would you eat something that is manufactured by some corporation and that doesn't even resemble food?

Veganism is one of THE stupidest things that exist, and the people who follow it like a religion are even stupider. I understand if you do it for "ethical" reasons (which I think is misguided but whatever), but it certainly ought not be for "health" reasons since it's one of the most unhealthful diets you can eat, right after the Standard American Diet. I blame the lack of saturated fat. Saturated fat is really important for developing and maintaining cognitive function. So is cholesterol, but I digress.

The thing that really burns my biscuits though, is that vegans act like theirs is the natural diet man is supposed to be eating. This couldn't be further from the truth. Do you think that paleolithic man had greens, bananas and other stuff that only grows for part of the year in most places, shipped to them from a tropical location? They ate meat and lots of it. Some archaeologists think that paleolithic people were partially responsible for the mass extinction of mega-fauna at the end of the paleolithic.

If one wanted to be "ethical" about the way we treat this planet, they would eat local. They'd eat what was in their back yard. Of course, that would require having a back yard. I despise living in a city. I've done it, and I really don't like it. The only place I despise living more is in the suburbs. The neighbors are always a bunch of wackos.

If you eat vegan bacon, I'd suggest finding some real food to eat instead. The ingredient list on this vegan bacon reads like any other crap-in-a-box you might find in the frozen food section. Hint: soybean oil is very bad for you

Lies, and the Vegans that tell them

I've been busy the last few days and haven't had a chance to write anything. While going through my email tonight, I have yet more spam from the Eat Right America morons. Tonight's theme was too much not to write about. It basically said I should eat less meat but they weren't trying to promote veganism. Yeah and I'm the Pope. {/snark}

The thing though that prompted me to write though is this, they lie. Liars, liars, pants on fire. (Should I be surprised? Probably not, most people propagating the vegan diet have to lie because if they told the truth, few would be vegan.) So what reason do they give for eating less meat?

"In fact, [animal products] are rich in substances that scientific studies have shown to be associated with incidence of cancer and heart disease: saturated fat, cholesterol and arachidonic acid, an inflammatory acid found only in animal products." [emphasis mine]

Ah yes, the big old boogie men of saturated fat and cholesterol. We already know that's BS, but what is this arachidonic acid? Only an essential fatty acid, vital for visual and cognitive development of infants and found in breast milk. In fact, if the mother is deficient they need supplementation. Arachidonic acid is vital for neural function. And these asshats are basically saying you don't need it.

See this kind of crap makes me madder than hell. Why, do you ask? Because these idiots have an air of authority, and many people who read this crap will take them at their word without looking into what the thing actually does.

They go onto say that meat causes osteoporosis. Yes, you read that correctly, I'm not making this up.

"In addition, animal products are very acidic for the body and cause calcium to be released from the bones to help neutralize the acid in the blood. This in turn leads to calcium loss and weak, brittle bones."

That's gotta be the biggest load of BS that I've read. And do they quote a source, a study? Hell no, of course they don't. If it were true, that eating animal products made your bones brittle, then body builders would be breaking bones all the damned time because most of the ones that I've read on the internet are eating paleo. These idiots just keep piling it on. Forget the shovel, someone get them a backhoe so they can dig their lying asses deeper faster. Maybe the pit they're digging will cave in and bury them. But remember, they're not advocating a vegan diet by any means. *rolls eyes*

The problem IS veganism

Props to Free the Animal:

Only in the "civilized" world would people be so stupid as to prescribe to a diet that would kill their child.

And only in the "civilized" world would people make excuses and say that it's not the diet that killed the baby since there are plenty of healthy vegan babies. That's a bunch of codwallop. The diet did kill the child, and the parents believed said codswallop. In both English and French press, there are people saying it's not the diet that killed the baby, but something else that was responsible, like the parents' ignorance, etc. I won't say it wasn't their ignorance that killed it, indeed it was. Ignorance that a diet that leaves you deficient could possibly be good for their infant daughter.

Let's explain this in terms that even a child should understand. Vitamin B12 deficiency can kill you. Vitamin B12 is found only in animal products. Therefore, many vegans are B12 deficient. As an adult, you have a store of B12 that might take years to deplete. If you metabolize B12 well, you might never become deficient. If you don't metabolize it well, you might become very sick.

A child has no choice. A child also does not have the vitamin stores that an adult has. I'm not going to beat around the bush and pander to your PC sensibilities. You are an absolute idiot to be vegan while pregnant or nursing.Ask any pediatrician. I blame a lack of saturated fat, which so happens to be essential for brain development. I think it makes them have a hard time thinking. If you're an adult and you want to be vegan, more power to you. Go for it. It's a free world. If you get sick and die, that was your choice. But don't damage your child's health by having them be as well. And the stupid thing is, you don't have to eat meat to get vitamin B12, you could be vegetarian. So long as you consume cream and eggs, you'd be fine.

Why must another child die for a lie? The lie is that veganism is healthy. It isn't.

The Vegan Cult of the Flying Orange Monster

So today, after taking that stupid survey from yesterday, I get an email in my inbox urging me to watch a video about their diet. Curiosity did indeed kill the cat. I couldn't help myself so I watched all six minutes of the vegan Dr. Joel Fuhrman looking like he was sitting in front of a green screen, with what looked to be tears in his eyes (for no explicit reason), telling me how eating animal products was killing me.

About a minute into this, I noticed something. He was using this strange speaking method, where he would pause at odd places. I've also seen preachers do this, but they typically vary their voices. Dr. Fuhrman's no preacher and his monotone voice got on my nerves after about another minute.

I did manage to watch all six minutes of his stupid video, but frankly, unless you're just a masochist, don't waste your time. It basically says if you don't eat vegetables, fruits, and seeds you're going to die a horrible death because you'll have cardiovascular disease, and who knows what else.

So why is this like a cult? The use of fear and "Join us so you won't be alone in a sea of sinners, er I mean SAD eaters..." has been successfully used by plenty of cults from Jim Jones to those crazy people in California who thought they were getting on a comet. From a marketing point of view, it's kinda intelligent that they sent me an email today. After all, gotta reel people in if they forgot about the survey they took yesterday. Gotta remind them that they're going to kill themselves if they eat animal products.

What I want to know, is when they'll mention supplements for B12, an essential vitamin found only in animal products. After all, they recommended to me that I eat 94% of my calories as vegetables, fruit, wheat and nuts. Excuse me, but that's mostly carbohydrates (with the exception of nuts, lets hope no one's allergic!). There are no essential carbohydrates, but there are essential fatty acids (fats) and essential amino acids (protein). If you got 94% of your calories from vegetables, wheat, fruit and nuts, and did not take supplements, you would be killing yourself. Except not for a little while, because first your body would start eating itself. It really likes to eat the heart muscle when it doesn't get enough protein. If people get sick after following the Eat Right America fallacy, it'll only be the American way to sue the hell out of them ala Heidi Diaz.

So, I can eat meat 4% of the time. To put that in perspective, I can eat meat 14 days of the year on their diet. If anyone thinks that what they're pushing isn't veganism, they should probably re-examine their critical thinking skills.

Word of advice. Don't join cults. Especially vegan cults. After eating that way for a while, you won't have the energy or the brain power to think about leaving. Why do you think that cults actually are typically vegetarian or vegan? They don't want you thinking. All that cholesterol and saturated fat your brain needs to think, that's the last thing they want you consuming.

We Worship the Almighty Flying Orange Monster

Forget spaghetti! Bring in the orange!

(props to Jimmy over at Livin' La Vida Low-Carb)

I'd like to deconstruct the above image. It's part of the header and used repeatedly on the website EatRightAmerica.com, which is run by a bunch of Vegan-not-really-called-vegan-call-it-Nutritarian idiots. Maybe the uneducated and/or unaware would look at this image and think nothing of it. Maybe they'd think it promotes good health, or fitness, etc. But I've had one too many classes in art history, and I never look at a picture as just a picture. Every picture has a meaning behind it, this is especially true of marketing images, and this one is no different.

For starters, this picture is full of religious iconography. Did the people who created this website do that on purpose? Maybe they weren't aware that they did. In the image we have a woman, in white, worshiping an orange. Yes, that is what that image says. She has her hands raised in adulation/adoration, just as many evangelical Christians might do during a sermon. She's wearing white, the color of innocence and purity. The orange is meant to represent the sun obviously, and what's better than sun worship? Many ancient cultures worshiped the sun, so there you have it. Even the tag line hearkens back to religion, as being a "life-changing" thing, or bringing you a "new life." In this case, your current life isn't "whole" enough.

This isn't done by accident typically. I mean, sure sometimes designers may accidentally associate something with something else and it's completely unintentional (or maybe they just claim it is to avoid the backlash). But most designers have had some art history, and they're typically not just throwing images together laissez-faire.

I have said before that a good deal of people treat diet as a religion. This was what Dr. Oz did when Taubes was on his show, repeatedly calling food "sacred." Food is not sacred. Neither is any diet (although I suppose one could argue it is if it is part of your religion, like in the case of the Hindus). I also think it's ridiculous that what I'm putting in my mouth gets some people as riled up as talking religion or politics.

Anyway, about the Eat Right America site. I put in my information. I couldn't remember my exact numbers for the blood tests (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) from when I was at the doctor last but I know they were all normal, so I put in something close to normal. What did their stupid form tell me? I'm at extremely high risk for all kinds of death and destruction! zOMG, what ever will I do? I'm at risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes(!) and all manner of ills.


My diet is on the right pie chart. The processed food must be bacon, because I don't eat anything else that could be considered "processed." I don't eat sugar, I don't eat out. I rarely eat any meal outside the house, low-carb or no. So, how did they determine that my health and diet are "poor"? Because I eat meat and dairy. In fact that's primarily what I eat, and yet I'm perfectly healthy. Indeed, I feel better than I have felt ever before in my life.

These people would be so much better served if they attacked what is wrong with most peoples' diets, which is excess sugar and high fructose corn syrup (and the fact that it's added to everything and used to replace fat). Instead, they quote studies that support what they want to promote, which is that animal products are bad for you.

They say at the end of my report:

"Of course, there are some ingredients that must be eliminated from your pantry. Salt needs to be avoided, even though we are used to adding it when we cook, and using a shaker on the table at meal time. Luckily, it takes only 1 week for your taste buds to recover from excess sodium. After that, the natural occurring sodium in food will be enough to tantalize your taste buds.

Oil is another ingredient that can easily be cut dramatically, or eliminated, without robbing your dishes of flavor or texture. You can sauté with water, or a little vinegar, or just let the ingredient release it's own liquid by slowly cooking with the top on your pan. You will be amazed at how quickly you will forget that oil and salt were ever essential ingredients.

Meat must become something special, never the main dish. Occasionally, reasonable portions of chicken or fish, 4 oz or less, will satisfy that craving, as long as vegetables remain the centerpiece of the meal. This is another one you will be shocked at- because today's focus on meat will change quickly, and you and your family will be amazed that meat "used to be" a daily essential. Another revelation will center on soy " meat " substitutes... Even lifelong carnivores won't feel deprived." [emphasis mine]

Thank you, but I don't think I'll be taking any cooking tips from vegans. Or worshiping oranges for that matter. Hell will freeze over first.

"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans ... are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit." --Anthony Bourdain

Low Carb should not be High Protein

Over at Primal Wisdom I read this post today. I have my own comments on the news article, which can be found here. I really wanted to read the original journal article, but it's new and the library doesn't have a subscription to the journal. Going off the abstract, it sounds first of all like a bullshit study.

Why? Well let's start with this. The assumption that a low carbohydrate diet is high in protein. It isn't. Or shouldn't be anyway. Unless you're a body builder. A low carbohydrate diet should be high in fat, not protein. The amount of protein they fed these 17 obese men is more than I consume on a typical day, some days by double. My protein intake is generally 70g to 130g. They fed these men 137-139g of protein.

My other main problem with this study, and why I think it's really irrelevant without even having to read it, is it's short duration and it's use of 17 men as subjects. Under powered and sexist to boot LOL

I think it's an obfuscation, what they're doing. They're attacking animal protein by attacking the low carbohydrate diet. In the case of the above study, I assume that they fed the people in the low carbohydrate group primarily animal protein. How else would you keep your carbohydrate count so low?

This whole attack on animal protein brings me back to something I was reading last night. They blame the protein in dairy for cancer. How did they come to that conclusion? By feeding people skim milk. The study I was looking at also lumped "all dairy" together and implied that "all dairy" had protein.

"Except for cheese with an insulin score of 45, milk and all dairy products including yoghurt, ice cream, cottage cheese, and fermented milk products have potent insulinotropic properties."¹ [emphasis mine]

All dairy? Really. What about butter? Heavy cream? They have no protein. They have very little lactose, if any. You tell me how that's possible. I say it isn't. I say someone has an agenda and it's against animal products. Gee, I wonder who would have an agenda against animal products. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that one.

"In a one-week intervention study of 24 pre-pubertal eight-year-old boys the effect of daily intake of 53 g of either lean meat or skim milk (1.5 l per day) was studied with regard to insulin and IGF-1 responses. In the skim milk group insulin significantly increased by 105% (from 22 to 45 pmol/l) and IGF-1 significantly increased by 19% (from 209 to 249 ng/ml) [12]. There was no significant increase in either insulin or IGF-1 in the meat group."¹ [emphasis mine]

Of course their insulin levels are higher in the skim milk group, the meat didn't have sugar (lactose) in it, and second of all, skim milk is not milk as you drink it from the cow. I mean, how stupid does one have to be? I went back and looked at the study that they're talking about, and talk about some confounding variables. The children were allowed to choose the diet they ate. Yes, you read that correctly. The children ate whatever they wanted, and simply were required to drink 1.5 liters of skim milk (12 of the boys) or eat 250g of low fat meat (the other 12). Consuming the milk apparently raised their IGF levels. But did it? Was it the milk? The protein in the milk? The lactose in the milk raising their insulin levels? The lack of fat in the milk so there was nothing to mediate their insulin levels? Some other dietary factor since there was no set diet? I mean, it could have been anything. I won't even get into the fact that it's under-powered and was only one week in duration.

Is drinking a large quantity of skim milk good for you? Hell no. I say you should never drink skim milk. If you want to consume milk, make sure it's whole, and better yet is straight from a dairy cow, not processed commercially.

"Milk consumption results in a significant increase in insulin and IGF-1 serum levels comparable with high glycaemic food. Insulin induces hepatic IGF-1 secretion, and both hormones amplify the stimulatory effect of GH on sebocytes and augment mitogenic downstream signalling pathways of insulin receptors, IGF-1 receptor and fibroblast growth factor receptor-2b."²

In other words, is it really the protein alone, or is it more likely that it's the lactose? And when they say "milk" do they mean skim, whole, or what? Because each kind should in theory have a completely different effect on your insulin levels.

One place to look for good information on what ketogenic diets do is in the one place that they're standard and acceptable. And that is in the treatment of epileptic seizures. About half of people, children included, will have a positive response to a ketogenic diet in helping control their seizures. This study found that IGF-1 was greatly reduced in a ketogenic diet, to the point where it stunted the growth of the children.³ A ketogenic diet is extremely low carb, basically near zero carb and low protein too (it's a high fat diet), and these children undertook it because being short is preferable to having seizures.

In fact, a lot of the literature is rife with making low carb synonymous with high protein. Like this study where they fed mice more protein than fat (46% v. 35% respectively). That's a lot of protein. Not to mention it throws in a confounding variable, so that when they declare that low carb diets do not slow tumor growth, one has to wonder how they know this. If they had fed them a higher fat diet, they might have noticed some benefit, since we know that protein affects insulin production, and insulin levels are probably a driving force behind a lot of nasty things. In fact, in this study IGF-1 was higher in the low carb group than in the high carb group, and I'm sure that is due to the protein, since insulin drives IGF.

So the point of all this? When eating a low carb diet, it should be primarily animal fat (none of that synthetic vegetable crap), your protein should probably be 15-20% depending on your activity level, and your carb count should be as high as you can tolerate and still lose/maintain weight. And don't listen to stupid journalists, and be wary of researchers, because I don't think most of them know what they're talking about.



References:

1. Milk - The promoter of chronic Western diseases. Medical Hypotheses 2009; 72(6): 631-639

2. Role of insulin, insulin-like growth factor-1, hyperglycaemic food and milk consumption in the pathogenesis of acne vulgaris. Experimental Dermatology 2009; 18: 833–841.

3.Growth dependence on insulin-like growth factor-I during the ketogenic diet. Epilepsia 2009; 50(2): 297-303.

A Faith Based Diet

You know why a lot of people hate Gary Taubes so much? Besides the fact that Good Calories, Bad Calories blew their idea of what was 'truth' out of the water, they're pissed because what he shows is that if you're overweight or obese, it isn't your fault. Basically, you don't eat too much, and you've been lied to. OMG, how can that be? Aren't fat people just gluttonous? Slothful? How can it be that they're not?

How can it be that you'd be such a prick to think otherwise? Or isn't that how society sets everyone up to be? It's a sort of blame-the-victim game. This can even be seen in texts on biochemistry. In Lippincott's Illustrated text, they say that β-cell death in Type 1 diabetes is caused probably by a virus. With Type 2, people don't become diabetic until their pancreas can't keep up. In other words, their β-cells have failed to produce enough insulin. What's Type 2 caused by? Obesity. Yes, you read that right. Obesity caused Insulin Resistance, which lead to Type 2. But, really? This is after they say that Type 2 (as well as weight) is heavily influenced by genetics. Is it not possible that Insulin Resistance is caused by a virus? Or that Insulin Resistance is the cause of obesity, not the other way around. It's a chicken-or-the-egg argument. I've also read that some people are insulin resistant, and not overweight. Normal weight people can become Type 2 diabetic. When it's a disease, it would be rude to say it's the person's fault. Therefore we can't call obesity a disease, or how else could it be socially acceptable to degrade fat people?

Also, who *wants* to be obese? Besides this crazy woman... Most people who struggle with their weight do so while trying to do something about it. Eventually they give up because they figure by starving themselves, they're doing more harm than good. And who likes to go around hungry all the time? I did lose weight eating a low calorie diet. But you can't keep doing that, so you go back to eating enough food to satiate you (as all skinny people do), and you wind up gaining what you lost back, and then some.

And then people like Atkins and Gary Taubes come along, and they tell you it isn't your fault, it's *what* you're eating, not how much. And all the little skinny ass people who have never been fat a day in their life and can eat however they like self-righteously tell you that people like Atkins are full of it, and if only everyone would eat the way they eat (which it seems is usually vegan or vegetarian, even though there are plenty of overweight vegans and vegetarians, because YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!), they'd lose weight.

That whole "you're doing it wrong" mentality is about as brilliant as some of the trolls I've seen on message boards. Just because you're not insulin resistant and/or don't have a hormonal imbalance with insulin, doesn't mean that you're doing something "right". It just means that you're not metabolically messed up.

I also doubt that most people who criticize Atkins or Taubes have ever read what they wrote. And in the case of Good Calories, Bad Calories, *if* they read it, they probably didn't understand it. This is where they resort to ad hominem attacks, because they have nothing else. I've read GCBC twice, and it's not an easy read. And I read plenty of intense books all the time. What artist do you know who reads Lippincott's biochemistry for fun? If you know of another artist who does, I'd love to meet them LOL!

I also understand that there is a group of people who don't have any critical thinking skills, who will follow whatever their doctors or their gurus tells them. They never look into anything for themselves. These are the same people who go on statins because they're scared of their cholesterol (hello! cholesterol is required for cell wall stability). They're the same people who parrot crap on message boards as if it's incontrovertible truth. I tell you, some diet advocates that I've seen put Catholics to shame when it comes to faith. Evangelicals, if you want to convert someone, target the diet crowd. I'm betting a near 100% success rate.

Basically, it's a bunch of codswallop. If some diet works for you, great, do it. If you can drink a two liter bottle of Coca-cola every day and not gain an ounce, that's fantastic {/snark}. I'd prefer to cook my liver on something tastier than soda though, just so you know (pain au chocolat comes to mind). If a diet doesn't work, then don't do it. But don't stand there and tell me that it won't work for me, or that it will work for me. How in the hell do you know what works for me? Are you me? And also, why do you care what I put in my mouth? If you care so much about what I, a complete stranger to you, eats, I suggest you do something important: Get a life.

Postscript:
If low carb diet isn't working for you, before you give up on it, a suggestion is to add more fat and less protein. A lot of low-carbers fall into the "fat is bad" mentality and don't eat enough fat. Depending upon how screwed up your hormones and cells are, too much protein may be triggering too much insulin, which if you're trying to lose weight, may cause you to plateau.

The Usual Fare: How your body adapts to what you're eating

After reading some of the comments on the news articles I read for what I wrote last night, about how McDonald's made the commenters sick, I got to thinking about it and the mum-in-law pointed out that most of them probably are vegetarian and perhaps ate it in a pinch, and then did get sick because their bodies did not have enough of the enzyme to digest the meat. It had nothing to do with the fact that it was McDonald's. If they'd eaten at Austin Land and Cattle, they'd have had the same response, and I don't think a $42 steak should make you sick. Unless your body just isn't used to eating meat.

Your body responds to what you usually eat by making enzymes (like protease) and hormones (like insulin) to deal with your daily food intake. This goes for all food components, fat, carbohydrates and protein. I personally don't eat very many carbs, usually. I still need to lose about twenty pounds, so I'm going to keep on the very low carb band wagon until I lose all the weight. Now, yesterday, if you read my post about what we ate for lunch, you'll know that we all felt like crap afterwards. This is because your insulin production is based on what you ate for the last meal and maybe overall on what you ate in the last day or two. If you do very low carb and want to eat sugar again, just like with a vegetarian who hasn't eaten meat in a while, you have to go gradually off of it. If you are vegetarian and decide that you're going to eat meat again, and you eat a double Whopper, you're probably going to be sick. And it isn't because of the food itself. The same happens if you're a low carber. Say for instance, you go to France on holiday and you eat half a dozen pain au chocolat, you're going to be sick. I suggest ramping up for that LOL

According to Lippincott's Illustrated biochemistry text, the things that stimulate insulin synthesis (production) are glucose, amino acids, and gastrointestinal hormones, and it says that "the synthesis and release of insulin are decreased when there is a scarcity of dietary fuels [i.e. carbohydrates]..." p.310

In other words, if you don't eat carbohydrates, your body isn't making very much insulin. Why would it? That would be inefficient. Luckily the body is highly adaptable, and in the case of former vegetarians will go back to making the enzymes for digesting meat in a couple of days. Same for the low carb folks. Fall off the wagon, and your body will start making insulin again. If we weren't so adaptable, you wouldn't be sitting here reading this because your ancestors wouldn't have lived.


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And a little tangential thing I read today while I was researching the above, for your amusement. It's about the stupidest thing I've ever read actually. From a study,

Protein dietary reference intakes may be inadequate for vegetarians if low amounts of animal protein are consumed:

"The health benefits of vegetarian diets are well-recognized; however, long-term adherence to these diets may be associated with nutrient inadequacies, particularly vitamins B12 and D, calcium, irno, zinc and protein...

Results and Discussion...

Furthermore, two food groups (nuts/seeds and fruits/vegetables) contributed to nearly 20% of dietary protein, sources not recognized by the DRI report. These are important distinctions because protein from cereals and vegetables (particularly if these foods are less refined) has poor digestibility. Traditional vegetarian diets (e.g., Indian and Guatemalan vegetarian diets) with low amounts of animal proteins and large proportions of cereal and vegetable protein have protein digestibility scores averaging 70% (range 54–77%) compared with plant-based diets with a large proportion of animal protein (mean 88%, range 78–93%)..."

Now you tell me how a diet is simultaneously healthy and yet long-term adherence causes deficiencies. And not only that, in the results of this paper, they even say that plant protein is not as digestible as animal protein. The prior is codswallop if I ever read it and the latter should really have some vegans and vegetarians raising an eyebrow about what they've been fed (hint: lies). Someone has an agenda, and it ain't in the interest of your health. If I eat meat only, as Stefansson (and the Inuit) did, no supplements are required. Chew on that.

McRunner Eats McDonald's for a Month

The news is going nuts over a guy preparing to run a marathon, by get this, eating only McDonald's for the month before. He's raising money for Ronald McDonald house. I immediately thought of Fat Head. Especially in response to some of the comments this guy is getting. People are complete sheeple. They believe anything they're fed.

I think some of the militant vegans are upset.

What I don't get about that last article I linked to, is people say they get sick off McDonald's. I think that's codswallop and/or all in their head. I worked at McDonald's in high school and ate plenty of it, and it never made me sick. The stores that I worked at were very strict on cleanliness. They were probably cleaner than your kitchen at home. If this guy does well in the marathon, it will probably give some vegans a heart attack.

Be eco-friendly: To hell with agriculture

I often see people who are advocating that we stop eating animal products tie that argument up into "environmentally friendly" and "sustainable" arguments. The arguments are flawed though, in so many ways.

Let's start with this, the fact that a single large ruminant will feed a single person for a while, and I mean a long while. The average weight of meat obtained from a single slaughtered cow is about 500 lbs. If you ate a pound of meat a day (which is a LOT of meat), then it would take you 500 days to eat the whole cow. That's over a year and a half of food, and it took only one cow. Say you only eat the beef for dinner, having eggs for breakfast for example, and you consume a half pound of meat, that cow will last a single person for more than three years.

One cow doesn't need very much grazing land, in good areas it's a cow per acre, unless you live in a very dry place. Not only that, but the cow doesn't till up the soil and drain it of vital nutrients. It doesn't kill countless rodents by using combine machines for harvesting (or farmers attempting to exterminate them because they damage the crops). It doesn't require pesticides that run off and destroy the water and kill fish. The argument that cows take up land that could be used to grow crops is a stupid one. Yes, let's tear down all those trees and till up all the grass so you can eat soybean oil.

If we take into account, that if you eat a primarily meat based diet, like the Inuit, you have no need of vegetables, fruit or grains, then you will by extension use less resources and less land than if you eat the standard American diet, or even a vegetarian or vegan diet. It is no accident that people who eat Atkins say that they consume less food. They do consume less food, because their body is getting everything it needs from the small amount of food they're eating. You cannot consume enough grain to get all of the essential amino and fatty acids that you need. But a single 6oz steak with fat on it has almost everything your body needs to function. We evolved to eat meat primarily. Our brains developed into what they are because of saturated animal fat. Your metabolism doesn't give one iota about your "ethics".

If you eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, you are forced to eat a wide variety of food to try to obtain all of the nutrients necessary for you body to function, and even then most who try such diets are forced to take supplements or they get very sick. Even some who take supplements cannot remain on such diets because it damages their health. Look at Gwyneth Paltrow. She's in her 40s and has osteopenia probably because she was a vegan.

Another thing is, I'm sure most vegetarians and vegans try to buy their food locally (or say they would like to), but depending on where you live, this could be impossible for most of the year. You're not going to find fresh fruits and vegetables in the middle of winter in most parts of the country. This therefore requires the shipping long distances of food (and vitamin supplements LOL). This is not a sustainable model for the environment. Do you know how much diesel a single tractor-trailer truck uses to travel across the country? I used to drive one, and for 600 miles of driving I would go through about a hundred(!) gallons of diesel. That's one truck. Not to mention jet fuel usage for fruits and vegetables that come from outside the country because it's too cold to grow them here in the winter.

So, how much land would it take to feed someone a vegan diet for a year and a half? The argument is, not very much. And that may be true. IF you lived out in the country, in a hospitable environment, and could grow your own food, it wouldn't take a lot of land to feed one person. Of course, you've got to get your vitamin supplements from somewhere >_<

You would also have to hope that the crops did good every year, and unless you're using pesticides, they may not do very well, and you would have to can enough of your crop for the winter. One bad year though, with floods, or bugs that eat all your plants, or no rain, and you'd better pray there's a grocery store nearby. Is this model applicable to most of the people in this country? Not no, but hell no. Most of the people who advocate eating vegetarian or vegan live in cities. Where the hell are they going to grow crops, on 5th Avenue? I mean, seriously?

We eat primarily venison, nearly every day for dinner, and even here in the Texas Hill Country, where the deer are small (about 38 lbs of meat on a doe after butchering), three adult does will typically last four adults for the entire year, and then some. And guess what, no fuel was consumed by any tractor-trailer to bring that food to us. We got it from our backyard. And that's another thing that pisses me off, though it is perhaps tangential to this argument, and that is that city-dwellers are somehow more "green" friendly than we are. Whatever someone in the city eats, whether it be meat or veggies, it has to be trucked in.

I insist that agriculture is the single worst thing that has ever happened to this planet. It allows for an artificially induced increase in population to a point that is unsustainable. From a historical point of view, it brought about patriarchy, but that's an entire other post all together. Eventually when crops no longer flourish because the soil has been over-used, there are famines. In addition to this, advocating commercial agriculture to feed everyone is supporting Corporations like Monsanto, whether you realize it or not. Monsanto loves vegans, they want all of us to be vegan so we'll buy their soybean derived products.

So, you want to be vegan? More power to you. Go for it. But here's a suggestion. Shut the hell up about it. It's not eco-friendly by default. It's not "the only way." It's not even a good way in my opinion. But it's a free country and if you want to do it, feel free. When you wreck your health, don't whine to me about it. I don't want to hear it. I'll probably just say I told you so. And don't tell me what to eat, and don't bother posting links to slaughterhouses run by some bad apples. I hate commercial farming, so of course I hate commercial cattle raising. That is not where most of my meat comes from, so you want something done about it? Write your congressman. I'm not an elected official and can't do squat about it. I don't come to your blog and tell you that paleo is more eco-friendly. That would be a waste of my time, because you're so caught up in yourself that you wouldn't consider it. I kill my own deer and know what it looks like to butcher one. Do you know where your food comes from? Unless you're hunting, buying from a farm down the street, or growing your own, Monsanto or some other Corporation is probably providing your food.

Angry at what I've written? Don't choke on your soybean oil.

When the dietary guidelines don't fit your agenda, get litigious

When I saw the headline 'PCRM sues federal agencies over dietary guidelines', I chuckled, since I consider the dietary guidelines a crock, and really, what place does the government have telling us what to eat? And then I read the story, and it just about made my blood boil.

Their problem isn't that the government is telling us what to eat, their problem is the government isn't promoting a vegan diet.

"'Yet Defendants intentionally use inconsistent language, ambiguous phrases, and biochemical terminology to avoid providing clear dietary information and guidance for the general public regarding the health benefits of reducing consumption of meat and dairy products. This is due to Defendants’ conflicts of interest.'...

Asked if the PCRM's lawsuit were less a device to correct any problems with the dietary guidelines and more a tool to promote the group's vegan diet, Barnard said the question itself was focused on the wrong issue. He said the evidence is overwhelming that plant-based diets are more healthful and not reporting such information, in clear and unambiguous terms, in the dietary guidelines is misguided."

Of course the USDA has a conflict of interest, and so does PCRM! In other words, yes, they are attempting to use the dietary guidelines to promote their vegan diet. The evidence is NOT overwhelming that a plant-based diet is more healthful, in fact, if you've read Good Calories, Bad Calories, you'll know that it's the freaking OPPOSITE. It's like Orwell's 1984, War is Peace, Slavery is Freedom, and bloody hell if Ignorance isn't Strength.

It's not that I have a problem with people eating a vegan diet. Quite the contrary, if you want to wreck your health, that's your prerogative. It's a free country, eat whatever you want. In fact, if you want to go to McDonald's every day and eat 5000 calories like Spurlock did and gain a ton of weight, then by god, that's your god given right. If you want to eat tofu and sit in a drum circle all night, that too is your god given right as an American. If I want to eat venison I killed myself every night, it's none of your damned business and if you don't like it, you need to STFU. We do not need a nanny state telling us we need to eat one way or the other. THAT is what is wrong with the food guidelines.

What we need, is someone telling us the TRUTH about what medical research finds out, and then we as THE PEOPLE get to decide whether we want to act on that knowledge or not. Anything else is not worthy of a free people.

My mum-in-law just this morning was saying that as soon as more people start eating low carb and paleo that these militant vegans will petition the government to add a tax to everything that has animal fat in it, on the premise that it's bad for us like cigarettes. And indeed, on many forums I have seen the consumption of animal fat compared to smoking cigarettes, as if the two have anything in common. Unfortunately, my mum-in-law may be right.