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Fatty Foods Affect Memory and Exercise Performance
Death Metal writes "Eating fatty food appears to take an almost immediate toll on both short-term memory and exercise performance, according to new research on rats and people. Other studies have suggested that that long-term consumption of a high-fat diet is associated with weight gain, heart disease and declines in cognitive function. But the new research shows how indulging in fatty foods over the course of a few days can affect the brain and body long before the extra pounds show up."
Anecdotal evidence everyone is probably familiar with seems to confirm this. When you're at the office all day and decide to eat a pizza for lunch it seems very obvious that you're at least half way out of commission for the rest of the day. I had always assumed it was simply because one gets so stuffed from pizza, but apparently the high fat content played a big role too.
... although an occasional blunder feels SO good! Not while working though, this study clearly showed that.
Needless to say, I'm sticking to my low-fat diet with even more fervor henceforth
...and I was just about to grab a fatty pizza before taking an exam in quantum physics! Is this a sign?
News soon :
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390521/
... erm, i forgot.
Must be early onset alzheimers
Eating unhealthy foods causes health problems. News at 11. Try the new octo cheese burger while you're waiting.
On top of all that fatty food leaves you feeling bloated.
That is why for my short-term memory loss and performance hit in physical activities I prefer marijuana.
Hmmm, what was I going to say? Oh well, back to eating.
Switching your intake to a low-carb-high-fat diet involves a grace period a week or so. This is to allow the body to "reshape" itself to use the fat as an energy source instead of the previous intake of carbonhydrates.
Symptoms of switching away from carbs to fat include; fatigue, dizzyness, high irritability and headache.
"After only a few days on the high-fat diet, the rats performed 30 percent worse on the treadmill. After five days of testing, the treadmill performance of the rats eating fatty foods had declined by half."
Any bells? So, nothing previously unknown to the lowcarbers here.
Personally, I tried the lowcarb-highfat diet about half a year ago, and actually did lose a few kilos, but the most interesting change for me was that I felt more awake, my stomach stopped producing funny amounts of gas, and never ever felt hungry. I got tired of it after a while though - I kinda missed the occasional potato and pasta - so I've taken back the lost kilos again. These days I just don't shun fat and avoid sugary stuff. Both me and my previously upset stomach feels great now.
Were all participants americans? If yes, this study says nothing about the rest of world population. Seriously, metabolism of humans differs across the world, like for example asians can't metabolize alcohol well.
More fat is bad rubbish. I am supposed to believe that eating saturated fat is bad but of course eating lots of carbs is good. Of course the first thing the body does to excess carbs is to convert them to saturated fat in the liver. Why not just eat fat directly and give the liver a break, whilst maintaining my insulin sensitivity? If any one still believes the lipid hypothesis I suggest you log onto Hyperlipid and spend some time reading.
However how does it compare when you drop almost all carbohydrates and bring your body into ketosis? I always feel really energetic then, after "fat" food too. This doesn't include such fatty food than pizza and deep fried fries, but high-fat and high-protein meat, fish, ground beef and so on. Pizza and such is completely different, I think it comes from when you mix fat and carbohydrates (either "good" or "bad" ones) together.
Also my stomach feels a lot better when eating high-fat/protein food with next to nothing carbs. I also get much more work done that way when I feel great after eating too.
So definitely there is differences in body when eating fat together with carbs, and when eating fat but without carbs.
No-one seems to have spotted the fact that the rats who were being fed fatty food may have had less motivation for completing the maze, given that the reward was more food. Am I missing something or is this entire study invalid?
because while I can chow down on an ounce, usually more, of almonds which are high in fat it does not "seem" to affect me as much as if I am eating foods the pizza you mentioned.
I am curious what the break down is. As in, which fats are good/bad for the tests they performed. Now I will state in my case I bloat less from fatty foods compared to carb laden food and I have far less trouble with my sugar levels as well. I think we are missing some key information from this article.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I wonder what the underlying cause behind this is? Is it just some particular property of fat? Or is it that fat is both high in calories, and hard to digest, meaning your body's got to dedicate more time to digestion and less to cogitation. That'd explain why I feel sort of the same after having a low-fat, high-carb meal - something with a lot of bread, for example. Reading the article (which may not be an accurate representation of the study), the researchers basically had a bunch of rats on low-fat diets, then switched half to a high-fat diet. It would be also have been good to see rats that been on consistently high-fat diets, and rats that had another dramatic change in food, but with similar fat content.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
And here I was thinking I just don't like listening to Auntie Martha's stories. Now I know it's all the cake she stuffs into my face why I blissfully forget anything she tells me during my semi-mandatory (as long as I want to inherit anything) visits.
I just wonder... is it something evolutionary and we had to endure those visits to old relatives we hate (or at least their stories), and we were always stuffed by them with sugar rich crap, so our body develops some sort of mental protection that whenever we cram down sugar into our system we instantly block out anything we get to hear at the same time...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And then later, some of the rats had their diet changed to a high-fat diet and others kept the same diet as before. But perhaps they just performed worse because the diet differed from what they were used to? To make a fair experiment there should also be a group of rats who were fed on a high-fat diet for two months during training, and then switched to low-fat for tests. Perhaps their performance would worsen too.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
I'd rather be dumb and full of bacon than ... um. I lost my train of thought.
NONSENSE !! RMS is EXTREMELY FATTY and there is nothing wrong with RMS. RMS is as fine a speciman of that which is NERD as one could ever hope to discover in the dark and dank caves these NERDs dwell.
This is just another example of how the light product industry are running their lobby. There are way to much money to be made from light products to allow people to even consider eating the fat alternative.
Welcome to our low fat overlards.
I'm assuming these are saturated or trans-fats, which are known to cause disease and are already suspected to contribute to neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease, rather than polyunsaturated fats are supposedly good for you. Neither TFA nor the study abstract indicate what they actually fed the rats.
I know that after I eat KFC, I feel literally SHITHOUSE for the next three to eight hours. Not only do I feel bloated and "fat" but a strange combination of lethargic (totally) and at the same time, I can feel my blood pressure soar and my heart rate kick up a few gears. It's downright scary. It seems to be the only fast food that does it to me though.
I don't often decide to have a junk food binge, but I have learned to avoid deep fried chicken with the secret herbs and spices.
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I need the link for the study that proves the connection between sugars and starch being converted to fat that heads to the waste line more than fats.
It's very surprising that these scientists don't read basic articles in their field.
Anyone who read at least one article at this topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index knows that eating 50% fat, 50% carbohydrates will make your insulin spike like hell, much worse than just eating all that fat and carbs but separately separated by 2-3 hours.
Insulin spike will cause direct hit on your glucose levels to the point of hypoglycemia, hence the fatigue and slow brain + longterm increased body fat. As a result you're hungry very fast and still have no energy.
Just eat them separately.
Or take more powerful approach with carb cycle diet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carb_cycling
It works. I feel great all the time. Was not the case on Atkin's or any other food plan I ever been on (was obese since childhood, now not).
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
What if I partake in a physically intense activity such as running, spinning, biking or weightlifting burning maybe 1000 - 1500 calories in one session, which I do occasionally? Then I NEED all that fat because my stomach is not capable of digesting enough calories from other food types since it can only take so much. Fat contains 9 kcal/g whereas other sources such as carbs and protein only contain 4 kcal/g. So there wouldn't be enough room in the stomach to refill that if I stuck to low-fat food.
In the end does it really matter what types of calories one takes in? Usually it is when one eats too much of it the problems arise.
High_Fructose_Corn_Syrup
this stuff is in everything, soda-pop, cookies, crackers, loaves of sliced bread, packaged food kits like Hamburger Helper and other similarly packaged items, high fructose corn syrup is not the corn syrup you buy in the bottle, this stuff is much worse, and comparing the two is like comparing the caffeine in a cup of coffee to MethAmphetemines. high fructose corn syrup should be made illegal because it is the single biggest offender in obesity...
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I'm always amused when this kind of research comes out, talking about how fats are bad for you. Its much more complex than that. You really should be measure total calorie amount not just fat content. Too many calories is bad full stop. As other posters have mentioned the lack of energy is probably only a short term effect of switching to fat as a fuel source. I've switched over to a high fat/low carb diet (F50/P30/C20) and have no issues with lethargy or lack of concentration. I've got no problems with day to day programming tasks and haven't encountered any strength or endurance degradation in the gym.
I'm of the option that fat - esp saturated fat - is a much heather macro nutrient that carbs. The only carbs that the human digestive system can process in a raw state is sugar (think fruit), starch can be converted to sugar also but most of the other so called healthy carb sources needs processing before humans can consume them. Potatoes have to be cooked (try eating raw potatoes and see what happens), as does rice, wheat and grains have to be ground down into a powder. Fat on the other hand can be eaten straight off the animal. Humans aren't evolved to eat significant amounts of carbs.
I can't think of anything witty right now
Well we already knew about Salt & Pepper - I'm guessing their "secret blend of herbs & spices" also includes a touch of crack and heroin...
Meta will eat itself
I feel literally SHITHOUSE
Are you quite sure you mean literally?
Polyunsaturated fats - Good
monounsaturated fat - Good
Staturated fats - Bad
Trans-fats - Very Bad
Almonds mostly contain monounsaturated fat which can lower your cholesterol ....
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
I'm not surprised. KFC is the worst junk you can eat. Trans fats (in hydrogenated palm oil and the like) are well known to be the least healthy of all fats by far. And KFC is deep fried in the shit. I'm no healthy eating evangelist, but KFC really isn't good for you.
almonds are good for you; avocados are good; cashews are good. olive oil is good. I think the zone has the best approach to this, in that it specifies lean protien, complex carbs (think veggies and fruits, not sugars or breads) and GOOD fat (see above) every time you eat. I've lost 10 pounds of fat over the last few months doing this.
on (takes long drag) ... on...what was that again? Fatty foods, right, right...
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I eat fatty foods and my short-term memory is fine even though I eat fatty foods and my short term memory is fine.
First of all, if you are not separating the fats by their saturation, your data is going to be useless, as these fats have very different effects on the body.
And second, (refined) sugar/starch is ignored again, despite being a far worse problem in our society. (E.g. companies still advertising candy as "without fat".)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
If there was a way to remove the flavors that make Fatty foods attractive to people, then people would be less likely to eat fatty foods. The sad truth for a large group of people (no pun intended) is that Fatty foods appeal to our tastebuds. Training our bodies to prefer and like non-fatty foods is not easy.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
I disagree. My take is: Saturated fats - Good Monounsaturated fat - Neutral Polyunsaturated fats - Bad Trans-fats - Very Bad The more carbon double bonds a fat molecule has the more likely it is to be oxidised.
In before the correlation-is-not-causation trolls.
during my microprocessor architecture course in U, we'd go for a fast food feast after a stint of writing assembler code for theoretical CPU's this typically involved a trip to Harveys for a big greasy burger and fries . On our return we'd often find that the you'd have to start again on what you were working on. the joke was that your short term memory got wiped. thanks for confirming this was in fact true!
This is typical of the sorts of studies that try to support the low-fat hypothesis. In this case, the problem is that they didn't give sufficient time to adjust to the new diet. It appears that the rats were only given 4 days to adjust to the high-fat diet, compared with weeks on the low-fat diet. The problem is that when the body switches from burning carbohydrates to fats, the fuel the brain uses changes from glucose to ketone bodies. As anyone who has tried a low-carb diet can tell you, for the first several days (a week or two for some people--no idea what it would be for rats) you feel rather dull and drained for several days. Then one day the "brain fairy" arrives and you have more energy, physically and mentally, than you've had in years.
I spent years as a near-vegetarian on a very low-fat diet and what it got me was literally 200 lbs. overweight and type 2 diabetes. I've now lost 46 lbs. on a low carb diet getting about 60% of my calories from FAT, my type 2 diabetes is basically cured, and I feel better than I've felt in at least ten years. My lipid profile has also improved dramatically.
Every study done thus far looking at low-carb vs. low-fat has shown that low-fat is a failure (read the studies, not just the blurbs or the conclusions). Think about it... over the past 20 years, Americans have reduced their fat intake by 25% and type 2 diabetes has increased by 1000%, heart disease has become MORE prevalent, strokes have become MORE prevalent. The Low Fat experiment is a failure. And make sure to read "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
The carbohydrate content of most fruits is sugar, not complex carbs. For instance, the majority of the calories in an Apple (not a particularly sweet fruit...) are from sugar:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/fruits-and-fruit-juices/1809/2
Bread on the other hand is full of complex carbohydrates (starches...).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I already knew that there was a link between consuming high quantities of fatty foods and prevalence of low intelligence, but I thought that was because the kind of lard-arsed troglodyte who shovels burgers, fries, and extra large pizzas down their excessively jowled chins do so in front of the television.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Is it just me, or is the image in the article missing the burgers?
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/fatty-foods-affect-memory-and-exercise/
It looks like a nice semi-healthy lettuce sandwich with a little cheese.
Perhaps the photographer is a hindu or something...?
Those scientists have to look on the plus side.(Wow, double entre there) So wait a second, I don't want to hear their bitching anyways and fatty foods will help me forget so what was the problem exactly?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Well played sir!
I know when I was a vegetarian I would have these tremendous cravings for fat. Anecdotally, prisoners who have been released from prisoner of war camps, where they were fed low-fat diets, and were given a feast went straight for pure fats (butter, gravy, that sort of thing) over carbohydrates. Vegans tell stories of "binges" on sour cream, cream cheese, etc. Maybe the rats were craving the fat in the milk?
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
References?
I read articles about nutrition and cognition some time ago. In general high energy expenditure and low energy intake have about the same effect (however rather long-term as far as I recall). "Exercise and the brain: something to chew on" listed this food as potentially beneficial (though effects are not well-studied yet):
- omega-3 fatty acid (e.g. fish oil),
- some teas,
- fruits,
- folate (vitamin B9),
- spices, and
- other vitamins.
In another article, "Impact of Energy Intake and Expenditure on Neuronal Plasticity", I found that saturated fats and cholesterol increase the risk of cognitive decline.
In the 80's, the 'health food' movement was, for the most part, focused on 'low fat' diets. We've since learned that not all fats are created equal; some (your almonds for example) are incredibly beneficial to the body, actually among the most nutritious things you can consume (some other foods that come to mind are avacados and flax seeds, which are incredible healthy [i]because[/i] of their fat).
Obviously in addition to fats we also need proteins, vitamins, minerals... but what we DON'T need are the grains (in general; refined flour in particular), dairy and low-grade cooking oils (I'm going to leave the whole vegetarian thing for another day)... and you've experienced first hand what inundating your system with that shit will do to you. The fact of the matter is that we humans just began eating grains and dairy products yesterday, in evolutionary terms, and our bodies don't have a fucking clue what to do with them (there's evidence that letting some of these products be fermented by beneficial bacteria - yogurt, tempeh in the case of soy - allows our systems to process them better).
I've developed a simple method for determining whether or not I think something might be appropriate for me (i.e. let me feel and perform my best): I try to picture a chimp or gorilla chowing down on it in the wild; if I can't, I assume it's probably not the best thing for me to eat. As for whether or not my willpower allows me to avoid eating it... that tends to vary. ;)
Okay, if you want the real "skinny" on diet, you need to read (or watch the following:
Good Calories, Bad Calories Great debunking of the low fat myth. Meticulously researched and referenced. Not an easy read. The Vegetarian Myth Think eating grains is good for the planet, good for the poor, good for you, moor ethical? Think again. Writer is an ex-vegan who gave it up after it ruined her health. Fat Head: Movie/dt> Documentary Response to Supersize Me. Documentator (is that word?) looses weight eating at McDonald's by the simple expedient of drinking diet sodas and skipping the fries. Protein Power/dt> My personal favorite of the low-carb diet books, as it offers the most information and doesn't waste my time with recipes I'm not going to cook anyway, etc. But they're all fairly interchangeable. Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solutions/dt> Treats type I and Type II diabetes using a low-carb diet (and medication when necessary.) This man was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in the 40's, and is still alive. That's about all that needs to be said about whether his method words.Since I gave up my vegetarian pretensions and went low-carb mid-June, I've lost 46 lbs. and cured my type 2 diabetes. I can testify from personal experience: this stuff works. Do I miss bread? Sure. Do I miss my diabetes? HELL NO.
Click here to see the spreadsheet where I've been recording my weight loss. I'm never hungry, and haven't been doing more than basic exercise. It's all diet, and it's mighty hard to argue with results.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
That's a good point. More than once, early research and nutritional advice on "fats" has been shaded by later research which distinguishes between kinds of fats. The heart dangers of "fat" turned out to be for saturated fats. Then we decided that trans fats, which are unsaturated, are even worse. Then we decided that conjugated linoleic acid, is good, and that's a trans fat.
I suspect that fats are the one nutrient where the "organic" movement got it right. Foods naturally high in fat are probably better than foods manipulated to increase their fat content. Free range beef is not only leaner than feedlot beef, it has more of the omega 3 fatty acids that we associate with fish; fats that seem to have heart, blood pressure and possibly cognitive benefits. Fats are as different from each other as a poodle from a pit bull.
So the research, while important, isn't enough to make any kind of dietary adjustments that haven't been warranted by prior research. It seems almost certain that if it can be replicated, it will not be replicated with all kinds of fats.
Additionally, I see a flaw in the methodology -- as reported of course. We can't trust the media to get it right. The researcher was performed on rats who were rewarded by food for performing tasks. Unless the researchers controlled for the greater satiety value of fat, you'd expect the fat fed rats to perform less well. You could get the same results by testing rats who had just eaten versus ones that had been fasting for a short time.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Saturated fat is bad? That's hilarious. So your own fat is bad for you? Good job, evolution!
Among all the other flaws with this study, I'm surprised nobody else has pointed out that this study was performed with rats who have a vastly different diet than humans. Freshly hunted meat certainly is not a primary portion of a rat's diet, whereas historically speaking, it is for humans.
Not to mention CLA (a kind of trans-fat) - probably good.
The best advice I'd guess is to eat like a primitive modern human. That means eating plant matter pretty much all the time (like you were foraging) and enjoying meat but maybe not every day and always in conjunction with an active lifestyle.
I'd also limit foods whose nutritional profile have been heavily manipulated, other than by normal cooking (modern humans evolved to eat cooked food, the raw food movement notwithstanding). Those manipulated foods include hydrogenated oils and animals who have been fed artificial diets to increase their market weight. The "you are what you eat" advice applies to animal feed. Fish do not create Omega 3 fatty acids; they bio-accumulate those up the food chain from algae. Feed lot diets aren't aimed at creating healthy animals, they're aimed at creating heavy animals ripe for the slaughter, and you are what you eat.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Fatty foods don't make you fat. Taking in more calories than you're burning makes you fat.
This is...a very basic concept. The only way I know to short circuit it is to drop an essential component the body needs for making fat. Like carbs.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
...next time I do something stupid I'll say I ate some fried chicken or a cheeseburger... then when I get a puzzled look I'll explain fatty foods make you dumb.
[signature]
is like punching your pancreas: it spikes sugars in the blood, abusing your insulin making mechanisms
a high protein diet
can destroy your kidneys, put you in ketoacidosis, etc., etc., and other such nonsense scare tactics
did you know water can KILL you!?
look: eat carbs: complex unprocessed grains, so your blood sugars rise and fall slowly
eat protein: good sources like fish and egg that have biotin and omega-3s for brain health
and eat fat: good fats like olive oil. you actually want fats in your bloodstream, that's what hdl is. ldl deposits plauqes, hdl sweeps them up
so what do you do about the food you eat? you eat wholesome complex little processed foods, you eat them in moderation, and you get exercise
that's it, that's the magic
for those of you slurping down mountain dew at 3 am and eating bacon cheeseburgers all day: you're taking years off your life. which might be fine with you. in which case, when you read articles like this, toast a cheer your devil-may-care lack of interest in taking care of yourself, and congratualtions on less women being interested in you and your health problems in your 30s and 40s
life is short, take care of your body. it hardly means much now, but you will hate yourself in your 60s if you treat your body so badly. or, you could feel like you are in your 30s when you are in your 60s. its up to you. no pain (temporary, addiction like withdrawal from unhealthy foods now), no gain (a longer, richer life)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Other studies have suggested that that long-term consumption of a high-fat diet is associated with weight gain
Zowie, Batman!
Saturated fat is not bad especially saturated fat from animal meats. It is high in nutrients like vitamin A which your body can't even absorb without fat. Interesting how people keep mentioning pizza which is not only high in fat but also high in refined carbohydrates. So why does fat get the blame? Also, your overall cholesterol level is being shown to be less and less of a reliable indicator for risk of heart disease. Your triglyceride levels are a better indicator as well as obesity.
There are many people who are challenging the conventional wisdom that low-fat, high carb diets are in fact healthy. A good book that exposes much of the junk science on which our health recommendations are based upon is 'Good calories, Bad calories' by Gary Taubes.
This is a perfect example of the scientific method being subjective at its deepest level.
That's a good point. More than once, early research and nutritional advice on "fats" has been shaded by later research which distinguishes between kinds of fats. The heart dangers of "fat" turned out to be for saturated fats. Then we decided that trans fats, which are unsaturated, are even worse. Then we decided that conjugated linoleic acid, is good, and that's a trans fat.
At every step the scientists may have done good work, but with more information, details and premises will change, and most times the definitions will change with them.
So "fat == unhealthy" was, but is no more. Now it is an invalid comparison.
What is crucial is that this is not about correcting a mistake or being correct. There really was a time when "fat == unhealthy" yielded true. It is instead about becoming outdated. And if you are someone who works with science, always assume what you know today will eventually become outdated. Your goal is to out date what others have done, and what you yourself have done.
So you eat raw meat and other people? Chimps and gorillas will eat anything they can get their hands on for the most part.
Besides, a better role model might be the ourangutan.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Regardless, while I do happen to be a vegetarian myself, I am firmly convinced that a raw-meat-and-raw-plant-matter diet would be a LOT healthier than the typical vegetarian's diet of french fries and cheese pizza. :P
They also neglected to note that fat-starved animals become highly motivated by food. Satiated animals can't be arsed to fill their guts constantly, since they just don't feel as hungry.
That's one of the reasons why if you're trying to lose weight, a low-fat diet is about the worst thing you can do, because you'll feel hungry ALL the time, and want to eat ALL the time. Not exactly the desired goal!
As to which fats are "good" or "bad" for us, every generation of research has negated what came before. 20 years ago butter was bad and margarine was good. Latest findings are exactly the other way around. Make up our minds!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Ugh... bread (white) is NOT full of complex carbs. Dont' believe me? Put a piece iny our mouth, and let it sit. It will turn to sugar right there. 100% whole wheat bread IS full of complex carbs, but most people eat white bread.
Also, there's nothing wrong with fructose in the apple; it doesn't trigger an insulin response (which is the problem with sucrose). It also comes with many other nutrients.
There's nothing wrong witih what the OP said.
Well, other than the fact that it was blatantly factually incorrect. No matter if you put a pejorative on it or not, the majority of the calories in any fruit come from the sugar in that fruit, not from complex carbohydrates, and even more, most of the complex carbohydrates in fruits are fiber (which is a good thing to eat, but not really a source of calories, as it is not digested by humans).
And white bread does contain mostly complex carbohydrates (this is what starches are!), the reason it tastes sweet when it is chewed is that amylase (an enzyme in saliva) breaks the starches down into simpler sugars. See:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/baked-products/4872/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amylase
I do mostly eat whole grain bread, but that is mostly because it actually has texture and flavor, the health benefits of the whole grains are a bonus.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
The first citation shows a temporary effekt, the second two aren't even based on studies, but are just regurgitations of old opinions.
FRA: STFU GTFO
okay, this is actually really simple. Fatty foods slow down the digestive system and require more blood to be pumped into the stomach's compression muscles and later, the intestines to absorbs and transport it all. So eating fatty foods make your muscles weaker and brain slower because there's less blood flowing to them. The more you eat, the worse it gets. This is the same reason you get cramps while swimming or running after eating. Your stomach and intestines are using up all the blood so your muscles run out of energy and oxygen and cramp up.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Very few foods clock in at fat contents on those levels. This is the equivalent of a cheese diet with some butter as a chaser. That's one reason why I can't take this research seriously.
That is why they introduced NEW Kentucky Grilled Chicken (TM)!
The issue is calorie-dense vs. calorie-sparse, nutrient-rich foods. Consuming large amounts of calorie-dense food is what should be avoided. Butter, oils, sugar, and red meat are the primary culprits. Our society is far over-fed these types of foods. What we should be eating more of is calorie-sparse nutrient-rich foods such as squash, yam, spinach, broccoli, eggs, blueberries, brown rice, plums, peaches, apples, oranges, onions, garlic, etc etc. Of course, the body needs protein such as ham, shrimp, chicken, turkey, fish, small amounts of red meat and pork. NO ONE should EVER eat pizza or donuts or chips or cookies or anything like it. Cheese is one of least healthy foods -- extremely calorie-dense, mostly saturated fat. I started on this type of diet about 3 months ago, and with moderate cardio exercise, have lost 26 pounds such that my weight is 10% below my "ideal recommended" weight which I think is overstated by the medical community.
..along with alcohol and weed to the list of "things to ply a potential sexual partner with during a date."
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Wow! Everyone is an expert on this forum! I would like to see a team of government agents who kidnap fat people and lock them in a room with a controlled diet and exercise equipment, the room would have a small hole in the ceiling and until the person can get out through it, they stay there and lose weight. Tough love. Hopefully Barry Sotero will introduce is as part of his New Socialist United States ... not long till he renames it "The Democratic Republic of America".
20 years ago butter was bad and margarine was good. Latest findings are exactly the other way around.
Now that I'm eating a balanced diet, I trust my body to tell me what it needs. Feel like a Steak? Ok, have a steak. Feel like eating just vegies today? Fine. Margarine was never something I wanted, but butter is tasty.
I've figured out how I need to eat. You work it out with your body.
No matter if you put a pejorative on it or not, the majority of the calories in any fruit come from the sugar in that fruit
And you suppose this is necessarly a bad thing why? Fructose doesn't affect insulin levels, and thus doesn't cause the same insulin overreaction and hence storage as other sugars.
And white bread does contain mostly complex carbohydrates (this is what starches are!), the reason it tastes sweet when it is chewed is that amylase (an enzyme in saliva) breaks the starches down into simpler sugars.
My comment was not aimed at how sweet the bread tastes, it was how quickly it breaks down. Starch, although a complex carb, still breaks down exteremly quickly and spikes insulin levels pretty close to how sugar does.
Help produce some excellent code at 3:00 am. If programmers are so freaking smart, why do they consume so much caffeine and fat? I think it is so they can dumb themselves down enough to fit into mainstream society.
Good Calories Bad Calories is a book by the same author in which he exhaustively deals with the same issues as the article. Some minor differences (e.g. he has come to the conclusion that calories are less important than he thought when he wrote the article, likewise for exercise) but much the same content. The most important thing is that the book is exhaustively documented.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Well then you phrased it pretty poorly: "Ugh... bread (white) is NOT full of complex carbs." seems to be sort of contrary to the fact that most of the calories in bread come from starch, which is a complex carbohydrate. Maybe you should try to be more precise.
And I haven't said anything bad about the sugar in fruit (which is why I said "No matter if you put a pejorative on it or not", I was pointing out that I had made a factual statement about the sugar content of fruit, you assumed I was expressing an opinion about the sugar), I was simply trying to correct the statement that I first replied to, which was "complex carbs (think veggies and fruits, not sugars or breads)". That statement is incorrect. If you want to talk about eating fructose instead of glucose, that is fine, but fructose is not a complex carbohydrate, and breads, calorie for calorie, have a much higher percentage of complex carbohydrates than fruits.
If the post had said "Eat fruits and vegetables instead of sugar and bread", I wouldn't have had much to say, but the post effectively said "Eat fruits and vegetables for the complex carbs in them, instead of eating sugar and bread", which is quite a confused statement.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Also, there is a guy, out there on his own (so who knows if he is a quack or not) that believes fructose is worse than other sugars:
Lustig believes that fructose generates greater insulin resistance than other foodstuffs, and that fructose calories, therefore, fail to blunt appetite in the same way as other foods.
The full article is here:
http://www.ucsf.edu/science-cafe/articles/obesity-and-metabolic-syndrome-driven-by-fructose-sugar-diet/
(he says bad things about table sugar and HFCS in the article, he thinks people simply eat too much of it)
He doesn't have a problem with fruit (because people tend not to eat a great deal of it at once), but he doesn't like fruit juice.
You replied in another thread to a guy who linked a video by the doctor (Fudrucker), I think Fudrucker was probably confusing HFCS and fructose when he made his post:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1338085&cid=29089857
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
"Eating fatty food appears to take an almost immediate toll on both short-term memory and exercise performance"
Fatty food is double plus ungood. Live longer, pay more taxes. Twinkies make you stupid instantly. Eat celery for the greater good.
olive oil is obviously much better for you than say, palm oil
flax seed oil is even better for you than olive oil
but "all vegetable oils are the same" is some kind of ignorance. take all the kinds of vegetable oils out there, and some are worse for you than a diet of pure bacon fat, and others will actually help clean plaque from your arteries by amping up your hdl profile
and i'm really sick of this "they say that just because they want to sell it you" overused meme. yeah: and every manufacturer of every other kind of vegetable oil wants to sell you their particular oil too
you know its actually possible as a pure measure of objective chemical breakdown that olive oil really is better for you than most other vegetable oils
educate yourself, then open your mouth. here, get started:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vegetable_oils
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This contradicts the results published by Dr. Daniele Piomelli at UC Irvine, who found that eating fatty foods can improve long-term memory. Perhaps there is a difference between short-term and long-term memory formation, or a difference in methodology. In any case, the results of medical studies are rarely as simple as they initially appear. (First they said that cholesterol was bad for you, then they said that some cholesterol is good. First they said that being overweight is bad, but now they realize that losing weight isn't necessarily better for your overall health.)
That's pretty much what I do, too.
And if I crave something I just eat it, rather than nibble everything in the house and finally still eat whatever-I-craved in the end.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I'm concerned the implications of this study may adversely affect the success of the high fat diet book I am currently authoring.
You forgot to wave your arm to the left/right after each line.
are anti-inflammatory and heart healthy, olive oil is high in them
omega-6s are inflammatory and heart unhealthy, corn oil is high in them
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/omega-6-000317.htm
to hell with your feelings if you spread ignorance. the issue is not your feelings, the issue is objective fact. objective fact, supported by solid mainstream research: olive oil is healthier than most common food oils
"She tells me that the common perception of Olive Oil as having health benefits that other vegetable oils lack is absolutely wrong, and that this perception is the result of flawed research. Furthermore, there is research, published and unpublished that calls into questions supposed benefits of Olive Oil."
is your wife funded by the corn oil industry?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bullshit. This is such a vague study. It is just designed to promote an agenda. The problem is people who eat more than they should. We need fats in our diet, especially those of us who work physically hard in cool northern outdoor environments. Desk jockies can go vegan and die of unhappyness.
"Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."
I'm not sure what I expected in a Slashdot nutrition thread - but now that I've waded through it - I'm not surprised that most commenters think that Bread, Pasta, and Sugar are "required nutrients".
The diseases of Western Civilization (including obesity) are directly linked to carbohydrate intake.
Pick up a copy of 'Good Calories - Bad Calories' by Gary Taubes, its right up the geek alley.
Looks like the OP was eating some nachos while he wrote that summary.
Read the actual studies, not the "conclusions." The actual data show that Low-Carb diets are superior in every respect.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
If you're referring to this review, I understand him more to be citing a single countervailing study to dispute one core point of Taubes' argument. I'd actually like to hear a response from Taubes to that point (haven't found one) but otherwise the review is actually pretty positive.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Actually, just found Taubes' response. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/books/review/Letters-t.html?_r=1&ref=revie I think it's fair to say that he eviscerates the review.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Well then you phrased it pretty poorly: "Ugh... bread (white) is NOT full of complex carbs." seems to be sort of contrary to the fact that most of the calories in bread come from starch, which is a complex carbohydrate. Maybe you should try to be more precise.
Fair enough; I usually use complex carb to mean "slow digesting," which is typically the case.
That statement is incorrect. If you want to talk about eating fructose instead of glucose, that is fine, but fructose is not a complex carbohydrate, and breads, calorie for calorie, have a much higher percentage of complex carbohydrates than fruits.
Its not, but again, it acts like one in that it doesn't spike your insulin levels.
If the post had said "Eat fruits and vegetables instead of sugar and bread", I wouldn't have had much to say, but the post effectively said "Eat fruits and vegetables for the complex carbs in them, instead of eating sugar and bread", which is quite a confused statement.
Ok, I see your point, but I think the OP was getting at the same thing I was; slow digesting carbs or carbs from fruits and vegtibles are fine. Refined sugar and startch isn't.
Well, fructose doesn't spike insulin levels, so I fail to see how it'd be worse. People DO have too much refined sugar in their diets... but they also have too much fast digesting carbs and fat as well. Doctors trying to pin the blame on one or a few things are doing a serious disservice.
Most people that dislike fruit juice have problems because 1) its mostly NOT fruit juice, instead its sugar water with fruit flavoring and 2) drinks other than water are pretty much a waste, because they are calorie dense and you can drink a lot of calories very quickly, without hunger being blunted.
The other poster likely is confusing HFCS and fructose, but his post is still bunk. Too much of anything is bad, and saying if only HFCS was gone people would be thin is stupid... because people consume way too much fat and OTHER fast digesting carbs as well. If you're going come down on one thing, it should be fat, because it comes in at 9 calories / gram vs. 4 / g for protein or carbs (protein is actually a bit less, being harding to break down).
I guess he thinks that fructose contributes to insulin resistance in the liver, leading to increased production of insulin, which then leads to hyperinsulinemia, which then leads to insulin resistance elsewhere, but I am right at the edge of even pretending to understand the stuff.
This article isn't by Lustig, but it isn't a blog posting or anything and it has a nice discussion of how fructose may push things sideways:
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/2/1/5
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Just to be pedantic... :-)
I tend to look at a craving as bad. It usually means that my diet is out of balance, and my body is screaming at me to get it back in balance. I eat what "sounds good" today. Basically, it's the same thing as a craving, but much lower on the intensity scale. I can ignore it for days or weeks. But the longer I ignore it, the more intense it gets. Eventually it becomes a craving, and I cave. Vegetables that I don't like tend to fall into this category. I don't like spinach, but every once in a while, I get a moderately intense craving for a spinach salad.
I find that I usually don't eat a balanced diet every day. If I step back and examine the week, it averages out to a balanced diet.
I don't have time to read the article in detail, but certain parts of it seem to hint that the problem is too much fructose, not fructose in general, which would be consistent with what I said. Theres a part that says the "normal" amount people would consume via fruits doesn't appear to have any negative affects on insulin levels, but people are consuming about five times as much fructose as they normally could. I suspect that replacing HFCS with sucrose would have the same effect so long as people consumed as much.
Right, this is consistent with everything I have posted about what that doctor believes (I quoted him in the Fudrucker thread saying that HFCS and sucrose are equivalent).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Same here. I don't like beans or broccoli, but every so often I want a can of beans for dinner, or broccoli for breakfast! And as you say, if you wait til it's a real craving, you probably waited too long. Balance over time is perfectly okay, doesn't need to be an everyday thing.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
"Other studies have suggested that that long-term consumption of a high-fat diet is associated with weight gain." No. I wonder who did that study and how much they were paid? I would love, just once in my life, to get a gig like that. Maybe I could do a study on how being hit by gunshots affects overall lifespan.
Open Source: Eroding the Digital Divide
That drives me crazy... It's like, "what do you think made you fat in the first place?!?" I've been losing massive amounts of weight on a low-carb regime for the past several months, and I've had to accept that I'm never going to be able to go back to a "normal" diet. But, ultimately, that's a small price to pay for the benefits I get. I do hope that I'll be able to relax the carb counts more when I get down to a tolerable weight, but that's going to be a matter of experimentation.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Look, even the American Diabetes Association (who were adamantly opposed to low carb diets) have conceded that Low Carb diets are "safe and effective for weight loss". What's interesting is that when you look at the studies they reference (e.g. in the 2009 clinical guidelines) you find that while the conclusions of those studies say that low-carb diets were "as effective" as low-fat, the actual data show them to be more effective. The low-carb dieters lost somewhat more weight, had better lipid profiles, and were more likely to comply with their diet and most importantly liked the diets better. Can you lose weight on a low-fat diet? Yes, you can. But you'll be miserable doing so. See for example the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, which put 40 people on a low-fat, 1500 calorie diet back in the forties and literally put 5% of them in the mental hospital, had another participant cut off his fingers under suspicious circumstances, and had every single participant constantly obsessing about food and complaining of depression.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Take a look at Dietary carbohydrate restriction in type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome: time for a critical appraisal. As a "critical appraisal", it references numerous studies (over 60 references!) which support each element of the position I'm arguing for. No "deeply held dogma" here--the "deeply held dogma" is strictly in the low-fat camp, thank you very much.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
One thing I forgot to mention... the studies which found low-carb diets "as effective" generally tapered off the low-carb aspect of the diet after 6 months--at which point weight loss slowed. Studies which have not done that (there are a couple referenced in the paper a couple of levels down) have found that low-carb blows calorie restriction away. There are some Japanese studies, for example...
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1