What's the deal with the low-carb craze?
Is it me, or has this gotten completely out of control just in the last year or so in the US? There are now low-carb restaurants, in the grocery store there are "low-carb" signs and foods with "low-carb" on the boxes. It's gone from a scientifically disreputable money-making scam to a completely mainstream phenomenon. Half the people I know are on low-carb diets, and even the other half talk about avoiding carbs.
I'm even sick of the word itself. Carb. Carb this carb that. Low carb high carb avoid the carbs.
Sure, sugary sweet foods like candy pack a lot of calories in to a small space and have little nutritional value. And sugar is a carbohydrate. But what about bread and potatoes and pasta and rice? We should be eating less calories and fat, not less "carbs." And we should be eating more fruits and veggies, not more meat.
I'm looking forward to the carb backlash. I think carbs are cool. I'm going to start a new high-carb diet fad. Who's with me?
Some linkage about the explosion of low-carb crap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/health/19CARB.html?hp
http://www.suntimes.com/output/food/foo-news-low18.html
I'm even sick of the word itself. Carb. Carb this carb that. Low carb high carb avoid the carbs.
Sure, sugary sweet foods like candy pack a lot of calories in to a small space and have little nutritional value. And sugar is a carbohydrate. But what about bread and potatoes and pasta and rice? We should be eating less calories and fat, not less "carbs." And we should be eating more fruits and veggies, not more meat.
I'm looking forward to the carb backlash. I think carbs are cool. I'm going to start a new high-carb diet fad. Who's with me?
Some linkage about the explosion of low-carb crap.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/health/19CARB.html?hp
http://www.suntimes.com/output/food/foo-news-low18.html
Comments
The fact remains that unless you are being monitored by a dietician it is super easy to enter ketosis. So BRussell, I say give it a few months and when people start dying because their livers cease up in acetone then we will have normal dieting practices.
This is just marketing : eating better do not mean eat crippled food, but eating good food in balanced quantities.
Sugars are also chemically addictive. Seriously. The body and brain's reaction to concentrated sugars is really damned close to that of other chemical addicitions. Not so with fats and oils.
Also, if you make raw sugars available to your body via the digestive system, it'll burn those first, before ever touching your fat deposits. If you eat fat, it's less readily available to your cells as energy, and your body will start in on the fatty tissues as well.
Of course, all this is is a pendulum overswing against the sugar-laden foods we eat en masse, when a balanced diet low in refined sugars, moderate in fats, high in proteins and fiber has been *the same damned message we've been getting for years* from the non-fad nutritionists.
Eat your lean meat, eat your fruits and veggies, lay off the sweets. Simple.
The only thing new here is "*gasp* Fats won't kill you!" They're okay in moderation, but of course people just plain like being pigs. If they're going to be pigs, better they be so with fats than sugars, if their only goal is weight loss. Ketosis, cardiac problems, etc, all are other tradeoffs, but hey. It's not an anti-ketosis nutritional plan, it's a *DIET*.
People, limit your intake of processed starches like white bread, white rice, etc. Whole grains are usually fine. Avoid too much sugar as an ingredient. Naturally occuring sugars like in fruit is OK. Limit the amount of animal fat you take in, that's the "bad" fat. Plant fat is the "good" fat. Vegetables are basically "Free" because they're low-energy and high-nutrient, and even fatty, high protein or starchy ones are still fairly good for you. You can fill up with veggies and moderate the other stuff more.
All of this assumes you know what common sense is. You can have some of everything, just not too much of anything, and avoid soe things more than others. If it's processed food, it's not as good for you.
The point of a low-carb diet is to limit the processed sugars and starches that are almost ubiquitousin our cooking. I can't remember the details but I think the idea is that your body is too efficient at breaking down these processed carbs, it never gets around to burning fat, and it can't use all the energy from the broken down starches, which turn to fat, which aren't burned... a cycle. Also, processed carbs aren't satisfying as far as your hormones are concerned, and you can't tell when you're hungry or finished very well when you eat a lot of them alone. Meat and protein gives people a sense of satisfaction or fullness.
Atkin's is too extreme though.
I had a reading of 248 a couple of years ago, which shocked me. No eggs, lean meat only, lots of soy, veggies, etc, etc, etc. Doing everything right.
Doc had me go to a nutritionist. "You're doing everything right.... except you eat cheese? Okay, cut that out and see what happens."
So I'm on as zero a cholesterol diet as is possible to get on, for 8 weeks, and go get retested.
274.
I ask the doc "How is this possible??" "Oh, your body is making it." "Wait. My body makes it?" "Yup." "Okay, so the cholesterol in my digestive system is *not* absorbed into my bloodstream, but broken down, and then my body *makes* it from the components?" "Yup." "So if my body thinks I'm *lacking* in cholesterol in my diet, it'll probably overcompensate by making *more*, right?" *blank stare*
Doc puts me on Lipitor. I end up with the most *GODAWFUL* leg cramps, I lost 15 pounds of raw muscle mass in three weeks, it's bad. I call my sister-in-law who runs clinical trials for exactly this class of drugs and she says "You're allergic - about 10% of the population is, get your doc to change you out." I call him up and say "Look, this isn't working, can you prescribe something else?" "Leg pains you say? Okay, come on in, and I'll write you a prescription for a painkiller so you can sleep."
Needless to say, I'm no longer seeing that doctor. I immediately went off the Lipitor, and started eating two eggs every morning for a month.
227.
Go figure.
Our bodies aren't empty vessels that just are made of whatever we toss in them - they're adaptive. If we starve ourselves past a certain stage, they'll pack on storage fat. If we reduce our cholesterol intake to zero, they'll overcompensate, thinking we're not getting enough in our diet for our bodily functions.
Balanced diet, balanced exercise. Waaaaaaaay too much work for most people to handle.
you want people to be healthier in the states? encourage gym/spa/vacation benefits for employees (not just a fuggin' 10% discount from bally's -- hell, if i ever have my own business, i will try like hell to have one room set aside for exercise equipment and a healthy snack bin, open pre-9 am, lunch, and 5-7 pm. i'd bet my workers would skyrocket in health, well-being, self-esteem, you name it), and stop working people to the bone so they can have more energy on their downtime to do something -- ANYthing -- physical.
I think these companies are counting on the ignorance of the consumers to sell their products.
but you know what the best rule is...
everything in moderation.
but this country is portion crazy... every see the size of a bowl of pasta at olive garden??? that's like 6 portions...
a portion of anything should be about the size of the palm of your hand,
If you're eating lots of fibre and fruits and vegetables, normal amounts of carbs, it won't hurt you...
by the way... 4 of the top 10 fattest cities are in Texas.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
Back in 1992 i was amazed during my trip into the US, by the number of low fat food. Impossible to find a normal sauce or mayonnaise : just low fat food.
This is just marketing : eating better do not mean eat crippled food, but eating good food in balanced quantities.
I think you were witnessing part of what brought on this new "low-carb" phase. It was clear that we had too many calories in our diets, and much of that was coming from fat. So they started coming out with all these artificial low-fat foods, which, unfortunately often replaced fat with sugar and ended up having just as many calories.
So I bet part of this low-carb phase is a backlash against the low-fat craze. Which is too bad, because, artificially low-fat diet foods notwithstanding, a low-fat diet is much better than a low-carb diet, in general.
Originally posted by Kickaha
Actually, it makes sense. You can cram a whole lot more sugars in your gullet before you get a full signal than you can fats. Fats make you feel full, so you eat less in total. Since fats and sugars have the same energy carrying capacity, you get less calories. Sneaky, huh?
I think that's true re: sugary sweets, but not breads and pastas. Those certainly fill you up.
But I think you're exactly right that the only way to lose weight through diet is to cut back on calories. But I bet it's a different mechanism than the one you're talking about. I think most people get such a large portion of their diet from breads, pasta, grains, etc., that when you restrict so many basic foods in your diet, you end up just getting less calories overall. The problem is that we should be getting at least half our calories from carbohydrates.
Originally posted by Kickaha
I ask the doc "How is this possible??" "Oh, your body is making it." "Wait. My body makes it?" "Yup." "Okay, so the cholesterol in my digestive system is *not* absorbed into my bloodstream, but broken down, and then my body *makes* it from the components?" "Yup." "So if my body thinks I'm *lacking* in cholesterol in my diet, it'll probably overcompensate by making *more*, right?" *blank stare*
Yeah, that's pretty basic stuff that the cholesterol you eat doesn't have much to do with your blood cholesterol level. The fat you eat does, but not the cholesterol you eat.
But I'm pretty skeptical that there's some kind of reverse effect. I've never heard that one before.
Originally posted by Akumulator
It is pretty rediculous. Now they're putting Low Carb stickers on things that don't even have carbs....
I think these companies are counting on the ignorance of the consumers to sell their products.
They've been doing this at the cafeteria at work- "NEW!! Lo-Carb chicken!"
Like the chicken before was so high in carbs..
I have a friend who, no joke, cannot tell the difference between the food at the local Chinese buffet and the Four Seasons. He appreciates quantity only. We finally humored him one day by going to a buffet he swore was excellent and two weeks later, my body is still getting back at me. I can't make buffet-style dining work for me. I eat one plate (nevermind how bad the horse feed is) and I'm full, maybe a dessert.
Part of the problem with a non-balanced approach to eating and diet mentality is that people tend to overcompensate in one area for lacking in another. A lot of Atkins dieters eat a 16 ounce steak instead of an 8 ounce steak and a potato. Others eat the bottomless bowl of bread and pasta at the olive garden or drown their salad in dressing in lieu of eating a "full" meal in their eyes.
I'm trying to lose weight right now, but I'm simply cutting out some things like soda and fries, and not snacking as much. First you have to figure out how much you can eat and maintain weight. Then, if you can eliminate 500 calories a day -- that's a soda and fries worth -- you can lose 1 pound a week. 1 pound = 3500 calories (don't ask me the equivalent in joules!) That's a good rate of weight loss. I studied what the calorie counts were for some foods one weekend, but I'm too lazy to be precise, and I don't need to be that careful about calorie counts, so long as I don't eat out of boredom, I'm doing fine. I can't imagine giving up carbs though. They're just too good! When Atkins dieters go off the wagon, they really fall off and roll of a cliff. Without eating what you like, you end up binge eating and making the extreme diet thing even worse for you.
This is just marketing : eating better do not mean eat crippled food, but eating good food in balanced quantities.
"Crippled Food' is just about the best description of our typical modern diets I have ever heard.
Drank lots of water... lost at least 10 pounds by doing that and eating wraps instead of sandwiches with a huge roll.
There's a big difference between complex carbs like that in vegetables and whole grains then what's in white bread and pastas.
I'd much rather have a nice peice of prefectly prepared tuna and sauteed vegetables than a breaded and fried cutlet of chicken, a side of fries and some mac and cheese and about 4 rolls.
There's one thing that no one can deny about Manhattan... the food rocks! As soon as you leave most major cities... the food quality goes way down and the portion sizes double!
Originally posted by tmp
They've been doing this at the cafeteria at work- "NEW!! Lo-Carb chicken!"
Like the chicken before was so high in carbs..
Back when "low fat" was the hotter buzz phrase, I remember seeing things like "low fat" breadsticks, which were labeled differently, and priced higher, than the "regular" breadsticks... yet both products had exactly the same amount of fat listed for exactly the same serving size (by weight and by number of breadsticks). It seemed almost a certainty that the only difference between the low-fat and the regular breadsticks was the packaging and the price, while the contents remained the same.
I'm looking forward to the carb backlash. I think carbs are cool. I'm going to start a new high-carb diet fad. Who's with me?
i learned all about the high-carb diet in Madison. it's called "Beer".