DailyDirt: Don't Eat Fat. Or Sugar. How About Just Less Of Everything?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Sep 19th 2014 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Everything in moderation. Somehow that adage seems to get lost in the media coverage of diets that claim near miraculous health results from totally eliminating X from a person's diet. Sure, there are things that you don't need even moderate amounts of, such as arsenic, lead and other toxins. But just less gluttony could go a long way.

In the 1990s, there was a fat-free craze that lead everyone to try to avoid fat, resulting in fat-free labels on unexpected items like bottled water. The unintended consequence was also that people tended to eat more carbohydrates, and the substitution of carbs for fat doesn't seem to have positive health benefits. [url]
Could you live without added sugar in your diet for an entire year? One family did it (almost), but this sample size of two adults and two kids doesn't really mean everyone will experience a positive health transformation from a no-added-sugar diet. Perhaps look for a follow-up book on their family health after a few more years..? [url]
The World Health Organization is considering a sugar intake recommendation of just five teaspoons. Sugar is looking like the next trending "bad guy" in our diet, but have nutritionists cried wolf too many times now? [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: diet, fads, fat, food, health, moderation, sugar, world health organization

30 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Mason Wheeler (profile), 19 Sep 2014 @ 5:08pm

Hooray for unintended consequences! You know what they recently found out? Fat (especially saturated fat) is actually GOOD FOR YOU (in moderation of course) for one simple reason: it's an important part of the body's satiety mechanism. If you eat fatty foods, you start feeling full sooner, which means you end up actually eating less.

When we started trying to cut fat out of our diets, we ended up feeling hungrier, eating more (but it's OK because it's low-fat food!) and growing heavier.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anusser (profile), 19 Sep 2014 @ 8:04pm
  
  Re:
  If you eat fatty foods, you start feeling full sooner, which means you end up actually eating less.
  
  When we started trying to cut fat out of our diets, we ended up feeling hungrier, eating more
  
  That is a bullsh*t excuse to support the argument that "Fat is GOOD FOR YOU".
  
  That's the kind of excuse fat people use to make themselves feel happier when eating lard.
  
  You might as well say that eating cyanide is good for you because you get sick so you eat less which helps you lose weight.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Colonel Panic, 19 Sep 2014 @ 9:03pm
    
    Re: Re:
    probably replying to a troll but lol.
    
    It is though. Ever heard of trans fatty acids? Without them, you'd die.
    
    Fat is just a macronutrient, and there's a lot of different kinds of fats. Some of them are bad for you, a few of them are good for you, but for the most part they just get a bad rap because:
    a) misinformed people who still believe all of the bad anti-fat anti-cholesterol hype of the 90s
    b) It has a very high caloric density, so it adds on calories easily
    c) people don't understand that dietary fat != body fat.
    
    All macronutrients are alike in that if you eat more than you burn, you gain weight, and if you burn more than you eat, you lose weight. It's all just chemical energy in different forms.
    
    Dietary fat IS NOT BAD FOR YOU. period. You can get more than a third of your calories from fat and be perfectly healthy and thin. It doesn't magically make you a lardass.
    
    Even carbs aren't bad for you. Simple carbs aren't great, and sugar is terrible, but carbs in general are fine.
    
    If you're trying to lose weight though, cutting carbs is the effective way to do it, not cutting fat. Fats and proteins contain all of the trans fatty and amino acids your body needs to prevent smooth muscle wasting while losing body fat.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 9:00am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      "Ever heard of trans fatty acids? Without them, you'd die."
      
      This is not entirely correct and could be considered a lie by omission. The term "trans fat" is used in reference to many different sources of several different types of "fat".
      
      In the recent past, media exposure predominately talked about a human created version otherwise known as partially hydrogenating plant fats. The debate continues as to how bad these particular forms of trans fat are for human physiology but one can certainly do without them and not suffer any health issues as a result. Food conglomerates do not put that in their product for your benefit, it is there to extend shelf life regardless of any detrimental effects.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Colonel Panic, 20 Sep 2014 @ 10:17am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        ... So you haven't heard of them then?
        
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid#Essential_fatty_acids
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 4:02pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        The term Essential Fatty Acids is not the same as Trans Fat.
        Perhaps this would explain why there are separate wikipedia entries, you should read them - both.
        
        First, "trans fatty acids are not essential and provide no known benefit to human health",[2] whether of animal or plant origin.[49] Second, while both saturated and trans fats increase levels of LDL, trans fats also lower levels of HDL;[3] thus increasing the risk of coronary heart disease. The NAS is concerned "that dietary trans fatty acids are more deleterious with respect to coronary heart disease than saturated fatty acids".[3] This analysis is supported by a 2006 New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) scientific review that states "from a nutritional standpoint, the consumption of trans fatty acids results in considerable potential harm but no apparent benefit."
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anusser (profile), 20 Sep 2014 @ 11:45pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      probably replying to a troll but lol.
      ...
      Dietary fat IS NOT BAD FOR YOU. period.
      
      When did I say that is "IS" bad for you? I merely said that "you end up eating less" is a bullsh*t argument.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - John Fenderson (profile), 20 Sep 2014 @ 6:13pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Then why are there so many obese people who eat low fat diets? Seriously, there are a lot of them.
    
    The provable fact is that eating fats are critical to maintaining good health. Overeating anything at all, including fats, can lead to an imbalance that can lead to obesity. The key is what we've been taught for generations: be physically active and eat reasonable amounts of a wide variety of foods. Including fats.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2014 @ 5:09pm

Because Science....
Is mostly a political or social tool.

You can't move a single decade across any landscape without some bullshit "pseudoscience" getting in the fucking way.

Transfats, fake sugars, the false link of high cholesterol to heart disease, FDA and the pasteurize everything bullshit, global cooling, global warming, and the the stupid sheeple are led by their little noses.

Science was never meant to be, but had because exactly a religion!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 9:04am
  
  Re: Because Science....
  You forgot to add that the earth is only 6000 years old and humans existed along side dinosaurs.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Dustin, 20 Sep 2014 @ 10:07am
  
  Re: Because Science....
  Sorry to tell you, but both trans fats and unpasteurized foods are bad for you. Can you survive without pasteurization? Sure, but to act like you're not playing roulette every time you do is a fallacy.
  
  As for the "global cooling, global warming" but... Sorry, but the science is pretty much completely decided on that one. The fact that politicians and industry lobbyists are trying to muddy the waters and keep the status quo around doesn't negate the fact that global warming is a reality.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Angel (profile), 19 Sep 2014 @ 5:17pm

The husband and myself have been doing no more than 25 grams of carbs a day for the last 172 days. We've both lost over 30 lbs each, If I didn't already have other health issues I might have lost even more in that time. In any case cutting out carbs has really helped me clear up a whole host of symptoms I was dealing with due to graves disease. Even if I never lost another pound I would continue this lifestyle just for that reason alone.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2014 @ 6:10am
  
  Re:
  I have had a similar experience. I started living very low carb over a year ago and I will never go back to any other way of eating. Just this year alone I have lost over 50 pounds and feel healthier than I have in my entire life. Like you I said I would never turn back even if I never lost the weight.
  
  I don't know if you have had the same experience that I have had, but for me it has been so easy to maintain. I don't count calories. I don't even think about how much I eat or when I eat. I just make sure it has as few carbs as possible and I only eat when I'm hungry. I've adapted a pretty light exercise routine, too: breathing. If I didn't look in the mirror every day I would have thought it was magic.
  
  Most people I talk to about this express concerns over cholesterol and heart health. I keep tabs on my triglycerides because that's the primary (non-inflammation) marker for men in terms of heart health. My doctor told me that mine are "non-existent" (his words). So not only do I have complete weight management and overwhelming feelings of being healthy, I have empirical evidence to support it.
  
  I highly recommend everyone do more research in this area, especially for high-fat, low-carb diets. I think it would open some eyes.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Colonel Panic, 19 Sep 2014 @ 5:25pm

Well, actually...
Dietary science is a constantly evolving field, and there have been a few (highly egregious in my opinion) mistakes in the past with things like our misunderstanding of dietary vs blood cholesterol, demonization of fat, etc...

That said, we've known for a very long time now just how damaging and completely unnecessary sugar is in the diet, and it's really been an uphill battle against big holders in the food industry for years to try and raise awareness and start making progress toward reducing our nation's sugar dependency.

Portion control is actually affected by sugar intake, and the metabolic syndrome (a.k.a., "why Americans are fat") has been demonstrated to be largely, if not entirely, the result of the body attempting to process an excess of fructose, the primary ingredient of refined sugar. Sugar impairs the body's satiety response, causing hunger and an inability to tell when to stop eating. Fructose, like alcohol, can only be metabolized by the liver, and involves virtually all of the same biochemical processes as metabolizing alcohol, resulting in all of the same health problems as excessive prolonged alcohol use.

And that's really only the tip of the iceberg. There's all kinds of other ill effects of a diet high in sugar, such as glycemic load, diabetes, etc... while it supplies no benefit whatsoever to your body. It's effectively poison. I could go into a whole spiel on all the reasons you should avoid sugar, but it would be long and boring, and I'm not really fully qualified to discuss all of the biochem aspects anyway... but let's just say that while it seems unrealistic to try and eliminate sugar entirely from the western diet (It's everywhere), it is highly advised to reduce your intake as much as possible, as the less of it you consume, the better. As a former smoker, I consider sugar more hazardous to public health than smoking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2014 @ 5:35pm

The sugar article is out of date. The World Heath Organization as lower to recommend intake to 2 teaspoons or 5% of you calorie intake.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Pixelation, 19 Sep 2014 @ 8:46pm

We are now discovering the damage done by sugar substitutes. Similar to hydrogenated oils (margarine).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Colonel Panic, 19 Sep 2014 @ 9:09pm
  
  Re:
  It's true, and we've known about that for a while, too. We've known saccharin was a carcinogen since the 50s, and there's a lot of studies linking aspartame to diseases like alzhimers.
  
  The best substitute for sugar is to not use sugar. Just stop eating sweet things, and you'll lose the taste for it eventually. Americans only started incorporating sugars and sweets into their diets in the last 100 years. The healthiest option is to simply go back to not using it. Stick to unprocessed, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grains, home cooked meats, and just don't drink soda, diet or otherwise.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 9:07am
    
    Re: Re:
    I thought the OP was referring to High Fructose Corn Syrup.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Colonel Panic, 20 Sep 2014 @ 10:19am
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      HFCS isn't a "sugar substitute," it's a sugar.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 4:10pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Funny - the human body does not treat them both the same.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2014 @ 5:03am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        How does the human body not treat them the same when HFCS is just glucose and fructose? Are you saying that glucose and fructose are metabolized in the body differently when the label on the bottle says HFCS?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2014 @ 6:33am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
        Do some research and get back to us - k?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Craig Welch (profile), 22 Sep 2014 @ 6:08pm
        
        Sugar treatment by the body
        Why should the human body treat different sugars the same?
        
        Sugar is a label for several substances. Sucrose, glucose and fructose are but three of them.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
        
        Anonymous Coward, 22 Sep 2014 @ 7:05pm
        
        Re: Sugar treatment by the body
        Agreed.
        The point being that HFCS is worse for the human body than table sugar.
        
        HFCS is used in many processed foods in place of sugar because it cost less, therefore it is being used as a sugar substitute - despite claims by Mr. Panic.
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Craig Welch (profile), 21 Sep 2014 @ 8:24am
    
    Saccharin
    Colonel Panic: "We've known saccharin was a carcinogen since the 50s".
    
    Long since refuted - http://tinyurl.com/27dte24
    
    "there's a lot of studies linking aspartame to diseases like alzhimers [sic.]"
    
    Convincingly refuted: http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/3496.htm
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 1:32am

I have never bought diet soda or diet anything. Have you not seen the size of the people buying that crap? They are huge
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
shawnhcorey (profile), 20 Sep 2014 @ 7:03am

Fat is Good for You...
Fat is good for you, except trans-fat. That stuff will kill you.

It's carbs, that is, sugars and starches that are bad for you.

And sugar is additive.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 20 Sep 2014 @ 8:30am

The thing that bothers me most...
...about nutrition in the US is the stupid food 'pyramids' put out by the Department of Agriculture, and the thing about those pyramids that bothers me most is the concept of 'portions'. The portions they list have absolutely no bearing on what the rest of the world does. Almost anything one buys, even if it is a 'single' serving package, is categorized by them as something more than a 'portion'. There is no way to practically translate their concept of 'portion' into what one cooks, or receives as a 'meal' in a restaurant. While they may be well intentioned (what is the implication of this coming from the Agriculture department rather than say the FDA, or the CDC or some other?) the usability of their pyramids is close to zero. Then there is the fact that they keep telling us it is 'right' and then change their minds. 1992, 2005, 2011 each have 'new' versions of this monstrosity, and they are all 'right', at least until they change their minds again. When will the next one come out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_guide_pyramid

I remember another stupid government PR campaign, Smokey the Bear saying 'only you can prevent forest fires'. Right, only you can stop lightening.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 21 Sep 2014 @ 8:31am
  
  Re: The thing that bothers me most...
  On a side note, although macabre it would be entertaining to see a friggin bear tear up one of those assholes that go around intensionally setting fires.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Christopher (profile), 21 Sep 2014 @ 3:57pm

People are looking for too many 'easy outs' for their health issues. You have to get down to the nitty-gritty of exactly what you are trying to fix (overweight, diabetic, etc.) and realize that most likely you will not be able to TOTALLY fix those issues but can lessen them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]