Twelve Black Code Monkeys

This article, published by the Manchester Times, derides low-carb products:

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1614&dept_id=516591&newsid=10826770&PAG=461&rfi=9

The main thing I take issue with in this article is the author’s obsession with calories. We have been told over and over again by the old guard nutritionists that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. But the human body is not a test tube. It is an extremely complex metabolic mechanism that isn’t simply an equation of calories in vs. calories out. Do calories matter? Yes. Are they the end all and be all of nutrition? No. Recent studies have shown that the distribution of calories matter. People eating a restricted carbohydrate regime have been shown to lose a similar amount of weight as those on other types of eating plans but while eating 300 more calories per day. To me this indicates that it’s not as simple as calories in vs. calories out. According to Dr. Atkins, this is from reaching a state called ketosis where the body breakes down fat and actually excretes some of it without using it. According to Drs Eadeses (authors of Protein Power), it is at least partially due to the fact that protein takes a considerable amount of energy to digest, thus decreasing the net energy (caloric) gain from eating it. Whatever the case is, calories are not the main focus of low-carb plans. This isn’t mentioned in the article. Perhaps the author disagrees with the premise, but if so he states no argument as to why.

That being said, I will say that I agree with him in spirit in a sense. Although companies are starting to try to make products that are low in carbs, many are doing this by adding ingredients that are artificial, and not very pleasant tasting. A few years ago before the onslaught of all these new products, those of us eating low-carb were hard-pressed to not eat in a more natural way. Most of what you could buy at the grocery store was high in carbs except for animal products, nuts, seeds, veggies a few fruits - in other words natural, whole foods. Sure there was protein powder and protein bars, but for the most part, the foods that were available were those people were eating 200 years ago. Now that there are so many low-carb foods out there, there’s much more temptation to simply continue to eat the same foods, but just with their low-carb varieties. Even labeled “low-carb,” these products still have enough carbs to where if you have them at every meal, they will quickly swallow up your daily allotment (usually anywhere from 30-60g per day). Because of this there is precious room left for the highly nutrative vegetables and fruits one could be eating instead.

In the kitchen, there are ways of simulating things that are normally high in carbs with items that aren’t. One very popular dish amongst low-carbers is mashed cauliflower. I have tried this myself a few times and it is extraordinarily easy and tastes very much like what it is meant to replace - mashed potatoes. Yet it is high in nutrition and has no artificial stuff at all. All you do is put a head of cauliflower in a blender or food processor with 1/4 cup of butter, heavy cream, yogurt, or sour cream, puree it, and add some salt. Some people get fancy and add cheese to the fix, or other spices, but that’s not necessary.

I have nothing against these low-carb food-products as an occasional treat, but I think there is a great potential for them to be abused, especially when people don’t know a whole lot about nutrition and are just jumping onto a low-carb diet because they’ve heard they can lose a lot of weight really fast and still eat lots of fatty foods. And now that they see they can “have their cake and eat it too,” well, that just seals it for them!

A humorous article by Heidi Gaiser, poking fun at all the labeling hijinx was just published in Northern Montana’s Daily Interlake:

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/NewsEngine/SelectStory_AD.tpl?command=search&db=news.db&eqskudata=58-814651-56  (No longer available)

Actually, this article does point out something about the current craze to label everything that the food industry can as “low-carb.” I am, of course, an advocate of eating a minimal number of carbs. However, I do see the danger, though, in that many people who hear about low-carb in the mainstream media or through a few words someone spouts in their office, may jump onto the bandwagon without really knowing how or why a) it is a good way to lose weight, and b) it is actually a healthier way to eat if you do it right.

I was unlucky enough to be overweight as a kid. But I think in the end this has given me a huge advantage. Although older than many, I did go on my first real “diet” in college. I became much more conscious about food ingredients then, started reading diet books, and have continued to do this since. So I have read a good deal more about health, nutrition, and dieting than, say, the guy who has stopped exercising because of an injury at 40 and has somehow put on a bunch of weight for the first time in his life. Or that woman who’s always been thin until she had her first child and now that she’s in her 30’s her metabolism is naturally starting to slow down.

As mentioned, there’s this other factor of the mainstream media. Often they simply get things wrong, or rely on “experts” who shovel the same old dogma to the public. Then it comes out that there might actually be merit to eating low-carb. And so, the media tells us, the public is “confused.” Maybe, but only if the public cannot understand that there may be some aspects of low-carb that have been proven effective and others that are still unproven, but not DISproven. The mainstream media, though, I think inherently distrusts the intelligence of the public and so believes that it can think only in terms of the big picture and only in black and white or good and bad.

Food manufacturers then enter the fray and jump at the latest trend, trying to paint their product as healthy, or at least allowable on whatever the most popular plan of the day is. Back in the 1990’s it was low-fat and low-cholesterol. We began seeing labels touting these qualities on EVERYTHING! It didn’t matter whether no rice ever had any cholesterol, but since they COULD say their brand had none, they figured why not! It seems to be happening again now, but with low-carb labels. Herbal tea, unless you consider the sweetened “chai” drinks as herbal tea, has never been a high-carb drink. I almost expect Crisco to put “low-carb” on their trans-fat shortening at this point! It is a bit ridiculous, but it’s not like these companies are giving false statements. Perhaps one could view it positively - these companies are simply putting reminders for people who simply aren’t that familiar with food composition (or familiarity with nutritional labeling) that their product doesn’t contain carbs. Whether these companies did this or not, I don’t think matters in the scheme of things. What matters most is that consumers educate themselves as to what is healthy. There ARE different opinions out there of course, but there are differing opinions on EVERYTHING: religion; politics; sex; you name it! People are able to handle most of these without confusion; I think nutrition is no different.

An article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on what should be counted as a carb and creating legal definitions for food manufacturers to put on labels:

http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/0104/18carbs.html

The article is a good one and hopefully there will be some good guidelines to come out of the FDA in February. The debate the article focuses on is whether or not fiber and sugar alcohols should be counted in the overall count of carbs. Many low-carb plans discount these because they have little or no effect on insulin levels. High insulin is the culprit that low-carb pins on obesity and health issues. You may see the term “net carbs” or “effective carbs” on some food labels. This is an equation by witch carbs from fiber and sugar alcohols are removed from the total carb count. Unfortunately, the article makes no distinction between fiber and sugar alcohols. Fiber, at least insoluble fiber, really shouldn’t be counted as far as total carbs because it is not metabolized, it simply passes through your system without effecting insulin or contributing to calories at all. Sugar alcohols, on the other hand, have varying effects. Depending on the individual and the particular sugar alcohol involved, sometimes there can be just as much of an increase in insulin as there was from a carb of sugar, sometimes there is none. There is just no way of telling, or at least no way that anyone has yet to determine. Therefor, in my opinion, “net carbs” should only subtract fiber. Perhaps a seperate “contains x grams of sugar alcohols” might be useful as those might be considered at least somewhat less impactful than regular carbs, but a lot people have gastrointestinal distress from some sugar alcohols, so it might be part hook and part warning!

So, I have decided, at least for the moment, to try to post whatever articles I find in the media concerning low-carb and, if warrented, comment on them. Here’s the first one, an article from the Minneapolis-St.Paul Start Tribune titled “Food industry counts on carbs”:

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/4324443.htm (no longer available)

When I first looked at this story, I had no problems, but going back, it told me I needed to register first. I’m not sure if this is due to some policy where stories that are recent are openly accessible but once they reach a certain number of hours or days in age they become restricted, or whether they are giving you a cookie and then if you return, it sees you’ve already been there so it then requests registration. If someone goes there and has no problems viewing it, let me know (I don’t feel like deleting my cookies right now). Otherwise, you will have to register with them, which took me all of a couple of minutes.

Ok, as far as the article itself, I thought overall it was good as a medium-length synopsis of low-carb trends in both the restaurant and packaged food industries. Quotes from TGI Fridays, Prego, a dietician, an FDA spokesperson, a nutrition academician, and a random consumer, give it somewhat of a balance, as much as you can have in a short piece like this. I love dietician’s quotes on low-carb plans because they always show how ignorant they are of the details of the plans. It’s as if because they are taught to be against such plans they cannot even stand to read the books, and so end up believing in the false stereotypes that they help to propogate.

Sue Moores, a registered dietician in St. Paul and a spokeswoman for the organization, said her concern with low-carb dieting is that “people innately like to eat carbs.”

“That’s the trouble you find with this diet,” she said. “People don’t want to give up noodles and they don’t want to give up their favorite comfort foods, which are carb-heavy.

I found giving up my favorite carb-heavy foods, like popcorn, pizza, and baked potatoes, not all that hard, especially when that meant not having to worry about fat or calories, enabling me to eat all the chicken, fish, beef, lamb, pork, nuts, avacados, etc. that I care to. I don’t consider what I do a “diet” as I’ve been eating this way for almost three and a half years, however, ALL diets seem to restrict something. Low-fat is just as restrictive since you simply cannot eat certain foods because they are too high in fat. Even the current mantra of “balance” restricts eating meats that are too fatty, or sugar-filled/refined-carb laden deserts. Certainly if chocolate and ice-cream was not counterindicated, I might eat those several times a day! But part of committing to a healthy eating plan, and one that will potentially help you lose weight as well, is giving up a few of the foods that you might really enjoy. It doesn’t mean you can never have these foods again, but you just can’t have them every day let alone several times a day, and in large quantities. Sorry, but this is NOT a convincing argument for me against low-carb…

“The trick is to give up some of the bad carbohydrate foods but not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. To give up all carbohydrates is truly a disservice to your body.”

Here is where Moores displays, as most dieticians do, their ignorance of low-carb plans. Or perhaps it’s intentional disinformation. NO low-carb plan out there forces one to give up ALL carbs. Atkins and South Beach have the strictest initial phases, but even so these phases last only two weeks and allow around 20 grams of carbs (at least for Atkins) per day, which is enough for several servings of high-fiber veggies, especially considering the aspect of these plans that no dietician will complement: fiber content is not counted. What this means is that a very high-fiber food, like brocolli for example, counts for even fewer carbs than you would think because of the fiber.

“Moores and others suggest that dieters avoid the simple carbohydrates in such foods as processed sugar, snacks and white bread, but not forgo the complex carbohydrates found in such foods as fruit, potatoes and whole grains.”

Simple vs. Complex carbohydrates is an old distinction that no longer carries any scientific significance. The more recent distinctions discussed by the scientific community are glycemic index and glycemic load. This again, shows how so many dieticians are simply parroting their training which for the most part deals with a very narrow set of nutritional ideas from decades ago. Schools of nutrition in general are not bastions of open discussion and different viewpoints. They are schools where one is taught a dogma and other points of view are vilified. Of course there are probably exceptions to this - Harvard’s School of Public Health’s Nutrition Department , run by Walter Willett, is probably much more open about this stuff, given Willett’s own predisposition.

One thing I have never understood was the criticism that low-carb plans don’t include whole grains, which supposedly have tons of nutrients and fiber. Well, they may have these, but there are so many vegetables out there that both have tons of nutrients and fiber AND are MUCH lower in carbs than whole grains. So why MUST we have whole grains instead of these other nutrient sources? I cannot fathom it! I content that one can have one’s cake and eat it too (no pun intended). Dieticians make a good show of being very pro-vegetable, but by emphasizing so much consumption of grains, potatoes, and other starches (the USDA food pyramid, which many dieticians worship as the quintessential symbol of their profession, puts at its base grain products, recommending more servings from this group than all others), they are, IN EFFECT, saying we should not have as many veggies as we might otherwise. Perhaps I am biased, but I simply have not heard any explanation that makes sense of this stance. It’s fine to want people to get lots of nutrients, but grains (even whole grains) cannot be said to be the only (or even best) dense form of food that provides these. So why do so many dieticians consider them indespensible???