High-Fat, High-Sugar Diet Can Lead To Cognitive Decline

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from Oregon State University have completed a study into how the sugar and fat content of a diet relates to cognitive flexibility. They found that diets with high amounts of either led to a decline in cognitive function. "This effect was most serious on the high-sugar diet, which also showed an impairment of early learning for both long-term and short-term memory." After four weeks on a high-fat or high-sugar diet, the performance of mice on various mental and physical tests started dropping. One of the scientists, Kathy Magnusson, said, "We've known for a while that too much fat and sugar are not good for you. This work suggests that fat and sugar are altering your healthy bacterial systems, and that's one of the reasons those foods aren't good for you. It's not just the food that could be influencing your brain, but an interaction between the food and microbial changes."

Comments

High fat?

[Anonymous Coward]

What’s often referred to as the “Western diet,” or foods that are high in fat, sugars and simple carbohydrates, has been linked to a range of chronic illnesses in the United States, including the obesity epidemic and an increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease.

The part about fat has being disproved in the last several years.

This is just one study. We'll see if the results can be duplicated.

Re:High fat?

[LesPeters]

If they took the "Standard American Diet" and added fat, then yes, I can see that being a problem, but from the carbohydrates that are still there.

I didn't see any reference to how the tests were ran, so it is very challenging to properly understand how they reached their conclusions.

I have been running on a LCHF way of eating for nearly 2 years, with zero negative impacts.

Re:High fat?

[rmdingler]

This. Quit the knee jerk reactions and instant dieting habits swing based on the last episode of Dr Oz.

Enjoy a few decadent meals each month, and balance that with plenty of salads, fruits, and vegetables. Avoid the processed food poison.

Shite, you might even exercise once in a while.

Re:High fat?

[nucrash]

This and more.

I have switched to low sugar, low carb, and started working out five times a week, two days of lifting, three days of cardio with running 5K or more on the weekends and managed to lose 40 lbs in 8 weeks. That's over 15% of my body mass.

While the level of insanity that I endured for this is a bit much, I can attest to the fact that the amount of crap we add in American diets is excessive to the point of "we need to stop hurting ourselves"

The biggest guidelines that I have for myself is if it's designed to sit on a shelf for a long time, it's not designed to be consumed and carbs are great, only if you have a plan to burn them off.

Re:High fat?

[nattt]

SAD is SAD for mice and humans. Lab chow is far removed from a natural diet for mice, as are the special higher fat or higher carb chows. LCHF will work very well for humans.

Re:High fat?

[CrimsonAvenger]

managed to lose 40 lbs in 8 weeks.

Losing 300+ grams (11+ oz) a day is generally considered seriously unhealthy. Yeah, you started from a seriously unhealthy weight, but continuing a diet like that is a really bad idea.

Re:High fat?

[fwarren]

I call bullshit on the study. Mice are designed to run on a grain based diet. Adding a bunch of fat or sugar is not really natural for them. This is a study that works as FUD. When the government agrees with the experts that we need remove the limits on fats in foods and that low fat foods are actually harmful, they can point to this study to keep people confused and sell some more low fat yogurt and snackwells.

Now if we stop talking about mice and start talking about people we can look at what the science has always shown. There are things called diseases of modern culture. As in indigenous people who don't eat like western cultures have low cancer and mental illness rates and no heart attacks. It looks like flour and sugar are the big culprits.

All grains turn to glucose (sugar) when you eat them, all sugar is already glucose. A 60% carb loaded diet is a lot of sugar for the body to process. And if your ability to handle that load is affected over time, to become prone to all sorts of conditions. Dementia, schizophrenia, heart disease, cancer, etc.

Fats and proteins don't spike the blood sugar. Even if mice are not designed to eat fat and proteins like humans are.

Re:High fat?

[unapersson]

The job of government would be to enforce standard food labelling so that you have the information to make those choices yourself.

Re:High fat?

[plopez]

"The part about *some* fats has *research suggesting that consumed in moderate amounts can be part of a healthy diet has been published" in the last several years."

Fixed that for you.

Re:High fat?

[FranTaylor]

so in other words it's okay to put poisons in food as long as you pretend to list them on the label

Re:High fat?

[Anonymous Coward]

So because he prefers to eat food the way that food is meant to be eaten, he is now thrown in a box with people who think 9/11 was an inside job and that the moon landing was fake. Critical thinking much?

Re:High fat?

[nattt]

Typical lab mouse chow is far removed from the natural diet of mice. The carbohydrate comes from sugar and simple carbs, the fat from industrial seed oil and lard. Lard is fine for humans, but it's no where near what a mouse would eat naturally.

Our bodies are rather adept at turning grains into sugar, and sugar is sugar to your body when eaten directly or converted from grains. They have essentially the same metabolic effect and are almost equally bad for us.

Re:High fat?

[nattt]

Actually it's the high carb / low fat diets that put you at greater risk of getting gall stones. And yes, going low fat is a treatment for gall stones, but that doesn't imply high fat causes them. If you eat a low fat diet you're using less bile to digest your food, and hence more bile stays in the gall bladder which influences the formation of stones. See http://gut.bmj.com/content/54/... for how high carb / low fat diets increase gall stones.

Re:High fat?

[kilfarsnar]

Avoid the processed food poison.

What a dashing tin foil hat you're wearing today!

Oy, it's not tinfoil hattery. Processed foods have been shown to be less nutritious and healthy. Man has yet to improve on nature in this area.

Re:High fat?

[tburkhol]

so in other words it's okay to put poisons in food as long as you pretend to list them on the label

Why do you care how I kill myself, as long as I'm making an informed decision?

The lifetime cost of diabetes is around $85,000, so I suppose you might argue that my poor diet raises your health insurance premiums. The lifetime cost of a single knee replacement is around $130,000, so I would counter that it is 3x more expensive to be an avid runner who wears out both his knees than to be a diabetic.

Re:High fat?

[oh_my_080980980]

Read the study then comment moron. The point of the research was how the diet altered the bacteria in the gut and how that impacted cognitive performance.

Yes mice are a good animal model.

Since when is sucking diet Doritos and bottled sugar water a natural diet for people....

Re:High fat?

[oh_my_080980980]

I think you meant to say omega-3 and that a restriction on total dietary fat is not good because it can restrict the intake of good fat like omega-3.

Enhanced that for you.

Re:High fat?

[codeAlDente]

He mostly just said that are mice are designed to run on a grain based diet. The study is clearly motivated by the natural diet of a particular organism. From the intro: "The Western diet contributes to many chronic, diet-related illnesses in the United States, including the obesity epidemic (Cordain et al., 2005). Western diets are typically high in fat and simple carbohydrates (CHOs) (Cordain et al., 2005). Higher intake of fats and refined sugars are associated with deficits in cognitive flexibility and hippocampal-dependent memory in humans (Kalmijn, 2000 and Francis and Stevenson, 2011) and an increase in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease (Pasinetti, 2002)." When that diet is altered, things will change, including gut bacteria. Will there be other important changes? The study doesn't address that, but the sensible working hypothesis should be: yes, radical dietary changes affect more than gut bacteria. Let's look at the end of the discussion to see if this makes a difference: " Interestingly, mice fed 33% fat, in the form of lean ground beef, showed better long- and short-term memory than those on 12% fat (Li et al., 2009)." Maybe all the stuff in the diet besides the current macronutrients of interest actually matter??

Re:High fat?

[NeoMorphy]

Why do you care how I kill myself, as long as I'm making an informed decision?

The lifetime cost of diabetes is around $85,000, so I suppose you might argue that my poor diet raises your health insurance premiums. The lifetime cost of a single knee replacement is around $130,000, so I would counter that it is 3x more expensive to be an avid runner who wears out both his knees than to be a diabetic.

The cost for diabetes is a lot higher than that, especially when the patient is older and requires home care. Healthy walks or bicycling work as well. And you're assuming someone with diabetes is less likely to require knee replacement surgery or are they more likely to have their limbs amputated? What's the cost for a prosthetic?

Re:High fat?

[nullchar]

Processed foods have been shown to be less nutritious and healthy. Man has yet to improve on nature in this area.

Well, you can use nature to naturally process foods, such as fermenting them. What did people eat before refrigeration? Dried and fermented meats and vegetables.

How do you keep cabbage good all winter long? Make sauerkraut. Cucumbers? Pickles. Grapes? Wine. Etc.

Re:High fat?

[nullchar]

Except the runner who has knee problems just starts riding bikes instead. The people spending $130k on knee replacements are overweight and put too much pressure on their joints.

If you have joint/tendon pain when you exercise, you're doing it wrong.

Re:High fat?

[bugs2squash]

I was 250, got down to 210 in a zealous fit of diet and excercise a couple of years ago. I seem to have settled at around 230 now (still obese, I'm not sure that label is helping me). I have gone back to not eating well but I did at least find a sport and stuck to it, so some good did come out of it and I feel a lot better than I did.

What I want OSU to do is to come up with something that means I can continue to eat badly but not suffer the bad effects, it's not that I don't know how to eat well or that I don't enjoy health food, it's just that I enjoy the unhealthy food as well. I found it far easier to change my excercise habits for the long term than to change my diet habits

Re:High fat?

[TheoMurpse]

That's actually not the case with obese patients. It's only true for people who are, shall we say, chubby at most.

Re:High fat?

[maeka]

If you're grossly overweight it's even worse! Only the most elite athletes can liberate and metabolize adipose tissue at 1/2 that rate, and so a morbidly obese individual losing weight at such rates is burning muscle.

Losing weight is far far easier than gaining strength. If the end goal is to be a fit individual and not just skinnyfat the easiest and fastest way is to lose weight more slowly and maintain the muscle.

Re:High fat?

[master_kaos]

Perhaps, but since he did low carb, guaranteed 10-15lbs of that was water weight. I lost over 15lbs in my first week doing low carb, but almost all of it was water. About 4 days in starting the diet I was literally pissing every hour, and taking pretty much pure liquid shits every 2-3 hours for two days straight. My body was dumping huge amounts of excess water. I was way less puffy.

So he probably lost an actual 25-30lbs of fat instead of 40, which is an ok amount if morbidly obese, but not a rate that is sustainable for a long period of time.

Ive been averaging a loss of 2lbs/week for the past 10 months. I think I will be able to sustain it for another 2 or 3 months, but then will need to lower down to 1.5 as right now I can only eat 1700 cals on non workout days which is difficult. Most days I go over but I also dont eat back exercise calories.

Re:High fat?

[m00sh]

This and more.

I have switched to low sugar, low carb, and started working out five times a week, two days of lifting, three days of cardio with running 5K or more on the weekends and managed to lose 40 lbs in 8 weeks. That's over 15% of my body mass.

While the level of insanity that I endured for this is a bit much, I can attest to the fact that the amount of crap we add in American diets is excessive to the point of "we need to stop hurting ourselves"

The biggest guidelines that I have for myself is if it's designed to sit on a shelf for a long time, it's not designed to be consumed and carbs are great, only if you have a plan to burn them off.

Losing weight is not the hardest part.

The hard part is maintaining the weight after you've lost it.

Most people who have lost weight eventually gain it back.

Re:High fat?

[adolf]

The biggest guidelines that I have for myself is if it's designed to sit on a shelf for a long time, it's not designed to be consumed

But then you miss out on an entire world of lacto-fermented foods which are absolutely lovely, and also very good for you.

Sauerkraut, for instance. It's designed to sit on a shelf for a long time (sitting on a shelf is part of the production process, FFS), is ridiculously nutritious and requires only two ingredients: Cabbage and salt.

Re:High fat?

[Trogre]

I see this a lot, recommendations to avoid processed food, but what constitutes processing in this context? Is a boiled egg processed? What about chopped lettuce? A peeled orange?

Or are we talking more about adding items to food such as the much maligned "chemicals"?

Re:High fat?

[Mr. Slippery]

Now if we stop talking about mice and start talking about people we can look at what the science has always shown. There are things called diseases of modern culture. As in indigenous people who don't eat like western cultures have low cancer and mental illness rates and no heart attacks.

Except that science has never shown that. Atherosclerosis has been found in mummies (not just from Egypt but also Peru, the southwest America, and the Aleutian Islands), and the idea that modern Inuit have low rates of heart disease was never evidence-based

Fats and proteins don't spike the blood sugar.

But protein does spike insulin.

What science actually shows is what it's always shown: a diet based around whole plant foods, high in fiber and moderate to low in fat and protein, is the most healthful for primates, including those weird bald ones.

Re:High fat?

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Indigenous people who don't eat like Western cultures appear to have lower rates of cancer and mental illness for several reasons. One, health surveillance is typically much worse in those areas, so many deaths have an unknown cause, and many cancers are missed. Mental health issues are similarly just not diagnosed. Two, their life expectancies are shorter. Risk of cancer and heart attacks increases with age, and if they don't live to be as old, then you aren't likely to see them. That being said, obesity is also a risk, and it's true that indigenous people are less obese, although this is partly an issue of supply. You aren't considering external factors; if I were to do the same thing, I would say that Western diets prevent measles and many other infectious diseases, because Western cultures have much lower rates of those.

Now, the Western diet does have flaws, in particular overeating, but let's not attribute it to things without considering the confounding factors.

And in related news...

[TVmisGuided]

...Kim Kardashian has published a book.

I'll be here all week. Tip your waiter.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Anonymous Coward]

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again. All I can ever taste anymore with so much food in the States is either salt or sugar/HFCS. It's so fucking gross.

Seems Reasonable.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Wouldn't it be obnoxious if, rather than being 'unhealthy', that treasure-trove of historically scarce calories is simply a signal that whatever strategy we are using must be pretty much optimal, so wasteful expenditures on cognition can now be reallocated to building energy reserves. Thinking is, after all, the tool not the goal; because there isn't a goal.

All this time

[mike00dot]

I thought it was because I was watching Fox News...

Actual Paper

[nattt]

The paper is here if anyone wants to cough up the cash to read it: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Re:Actual Paper

[nattt]

Exactly. And without open access to the paper we can't have a well informed discussion on it.

Re:Actual Paper

[oh_my_080980980]

When has that stopped anyone? FYI it's published in a peer review journal. Go to you local university library - odds are they have a copy. Heck you local library might even have access to that journal.

Re:Actual Paper

[jones_supa]

It remains true that we cannot have well informed discussion about the paper if we can't get everyone to easily access it for free. Are we really going to arrange it so that everyone goes to the library to acquire their copy? Too complicated.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[master_kaos]

When I used to eat like shit it was weird, there would be some unhealthy food that I thought tasted gross (such as certain kind of donuts, candy, etc) but if I ate it and didnt like it.. for some reason I was still compelled to continue eating it. Even though I knew it tasted gross, I was addicted to the high fat and/or high sugar.

Of course I would think vegetables tasted cross and wouldnt be compelled to finish eating them.

Luckily that has all changed now and eat a lot healthier.. Sure I still occasionally go for some of those snack foods, but if I dont like it I throw it away, and I have one serving of it and that's it. And when I do want to treat myself, I will usually go for something a bit more high quality, because why waste the empty calories on something that tastes like shit.

Re:And now tell

[beelsebob]

No, alcohol is basically just sugar too... They have protein, and starches to fall back on... So basically, this leads to the same advice as they've been giving for a good long while. A reasonable amount of meat and fish, preferably white meat, and lots of salads, leafy greens, and veg...

Re:Must've been the "Beef Jerky Lobby"

[master_kaos]

except you look at a lot of the big branded beef jerky on the grocery store and they are full of added sugars as well.

Diet composition

[nattt]

Although I can't read (without paying) the study to be exact, most chows for diet testing mice are pretty standard. Although the claim is that a high fat diet was used, we must be careful to consider the type of fat used and that it's still greater in carbohydrate than fat. The types of fat used in these diets all seem to contain industrial seed oil which is not something any of us should be eating, and all are what would still be considered a high carbohydrate diet, almost all from simple carbohydrate and sugar, again, not what we should be eating.

Re:Diet composition

[codeAlDente]

Here is the dietary composition. Sorry about the formatting. Table 1. Comparison of diets Normal (chow) High-fat High-sucrose PicoLab Rodent Diet kcal/kg diet 4070 4500 4000 Percent of kcal provided by: Protein 24.7 17.3 17.7 Carbohydrate 62.1 42.7 70.4 Fat 13.2 42.0 11.8 Sucrose, g/kg diet 31.8 341.46 645.6

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Ol Olsoc]

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again. All I can ever taste anymore with so much food in the States is either salt or sugar/HFCS. It's so fucking gross.

Pipe down, and eat your tofurky.

Re:Must've been the "Beef Jerky Lobby"

[Lumpy]

You have to look for the right ones. The sriracha Jacks jerky is low in sugar and is one of my favorites.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[ArcadeMan]

Pipe down, and eat your tofurky.

I can't, it's out of stock at the store!

TL,DR

[Bohnanza]

Back to my mini donuts

Not All Fats are Equal

[xantonin]

This seems rather unfair. There has been a lot of research about some fats actually being good for you and trans fats are bad. Perhaps a new name needs to be given to fats since fats are ESSENTIAL to the diet for brain health, which would seem to contradict what this article is stating without further clarification.

Grain Brain is a good book on healthy fats and the impact of CARBS on brain health. Note that here Carbs is referenced as a whole, and not just sugars - seems backwards of this study which perhaps more accurately should be "High Trans Fat and Carbs can lead to cognitive decline" which is nothing new.

Re:Not All Fats are Equal

[TheCarp]

Everything is so specific and oversimplified. The reality is, diet is complicated and there are multiple interlocking factors. Part of the problem is we know whats bad, but its what people like to study. The better question is, what helps regulate diet?

Fat is good, fat regulates appetite. I dunno about you but if I overdo it on fatty foods and someone sets a burger in front of me, it turns my stomach. Too much fat, well, its a very high density energy source, theres a number of issues with eating too much. Fat alone will not regulate your intake.

Sugar ototh has been shown to decrease fullness, and lead to over eating. Give someone a soda before a meal, thats +300ish calories... and they eat MORE food than they would otherwise. Sugar also gets turned into fat, but funny thing, the process actually makes VLDL cholesterol.....oops.

Fiber, has little nutritional value on its own, but it regulates absorbtion, it takes up space, it really keeps those bowles working like they should. Great stuff.... but its not in everything and its often removed from anything processed.

So drink a soda with every meal and eat foods with fiber processed out or which didn't have any to begin with, and its almost a perfect storm.

Re:Not All Fats are Equal

[Faust6]

True, I wouldn't haste to demonize fats - even saturated fats get an unfairly bad rap when they are in fact necessary. Transfats (hydrogenated palm/vegetable oils) remain evil, though few people seem to know how to identify them proper. Grains are much more complicated an issue, in my mind.

Re:Not All Fats are Equal

[ceoyoyo]

Carbohydrates are also essential to the diet, particularly for the brain. Many tissues in your body are reasonably happy burning a variety of things, but your brain likes it's glucose very much. You can't just eliminate or seriously restrict a nutrient and not have negative consequences.

The problem is that many people have diets that are wildly skewed. They may eat too little fat and too much carbohydrate. Or too much fat and carbohydrate and too little protein and micronutrients.

Re:Not All Fats are Equal

[dinfinity]

Quote from a better article than TFA:
"Prof. Magnusson and colleagues reached their findings using 2-month-old male mice, which were randomized to be fed either a high-fat diet (42% fat, 43% carbohydrate), a high-sugar diet (12% fat, 70% carbohydrate - mainly from sugars) or normal chow."
( http://www.medicalnewstoday.co... )

Note that both could also be called low-protein (less than 18%) and that the second could be called low-fat.
But "Low-Fat, Low-Protein Diet Can Lead To Cognitive Decline" doesn't quite ring the bell that has been rung a thousand times before. A bell that sounds familiar, safe and doesn't cause cognitive dissonance.

Re:And now tell

[beelsebob]

Now look up how the two are processed by your body, and alcohol's affect on your blood sugar levels, then reconsider your statement in the context of an article on how substances affect your body.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again

No, when your palette gets used to it again, it becomes bearable ("as hell" is quite an apt a metaphor, actually) — but not especially tasty. Ice-cream or chocolate will still trump "healthy" and an ongoing effort of will is required to stick to broccoli.

I'd say, the results of the study show, that we increase cognitive abilities, when experiencing shortages, rather than decline, when eating, what we want. Which makes sense from evolutionary stand-point — if you are starving, you better think harder about finding sustenance...

But, however one spins the same facts, we better adapt to the 21st century of plenty. All of our evolution to day was spent with starvation constantly looming and occasionally hitting whereas today — and only for the last few decades — "starving" became a synonym for "dieting". And that we view the thinness as beautiful today is not a result of some evil conspiracy, but simply a reflection of what is healthy today — for a never-starving Westerner. Our super-thin ideals of today would not have survived even in the 19th century... The still-hungry Africans, for a counter-example, still think "fat is beautiful" and Mauritania even has a concept of "wife-fattening".

It is not "cultural" — they just still remember famine, whereas the "golden billion" has blissfully forgotten it.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[cayenne8]

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again. All I can ever taste anymore with so much food in the States is either salt or sugar/HFCS. It's so fucking gross.

Well, if all you seek out and eat in the US is fast food, or the lower level chain restaurants, then sure, that's all you're gonna get.

If you shop for and buy processed foods (the goop in the center aisles of the grocery store), again, yes, this is all your gonna get.

But if you take a little time and look around, VERY good food choices can be had. And there is really NO excuse for only having bad foods at home. Ever heard of cooking? (and no, I don't mean popping something pre-made/frozen in the fucking microwave).

Re:Must've been the "Beef Jerky Lobby"

[cayenne8]

You have to look for the right ones. The sriracha Jacks jerky is low in sugar and is one of my favorites.

Nothing.... beats home made though.

;)

Re:And now tell

[plopez]

Lots of *whole* grains, veggies, lean meats (or none at all), and fruit. It calls for low fat and sugar, not *no* fat and sugar.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[FranTaylor]

yeah the fat old guy in the nursing home who needs someone to roll him over, that's what he used to think.

Reverse be true

[Billly Gates]

Would switching to a high veggie low fat diet reverse the trend and rebalence flora?

It has been stated weight gains happen with fecal transplants. So different flora over time could reverse

Re:Reverse be true

[srone]

Fat has a bad reputation, as we have been brainwashed into believing that all fat is bad. We are all children of the trans-fat (hydrogenated vegetable oil) lie, in that it was healthier than saturated animal fats (Hog lard or Beef tallow). We evolved our present brain capacity, primarily due to eating a fair amount of saturated animal fats. That is not to say that too much of anything good, is better.

Now that InterEsterified Fat (IE fat) is gaining popularity as a replacement for Trans-Fat (Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils), we are being told that they are healthier than everything else, which there is sparse evidence for.

I saw where a recent Korean study showed that fermented milk proteins may have heart protective abilities. That looks good for Kefir sales and consumption, as well as all of the numerous bacteria within the Kefir and how it is a better way to populate your gut, than fecal transplants.

I also recently read a research article where consumption of trans fats was shown to effect short term memory in young men, that may be why my memory was worse when I was a teenager and ate anything I could find, in the 1970's.

It really looks like, if it is artificial fat, it is likely that mammals are unable to process it safely and the results of long term use could be hazardous to a long healthy life.

Re:Reverse be true

[oh_my_080980980]

Hi that was marketing hype. Trans-fats were known not to be good since the '50s. It's just a cheaper, longer lasting fat for cooking/baking.

Re:Reverse be true

[ryllharu]

"The Big Fat Surprise" by Nina Teicholz is a real eye-opener on this. The author traced back where the whole "Fat is bad!" discussion came from over the course of an 8 year investigation. She found a single, dubiously-prepared study from a man named Ancel Keys that conveniently was released about the same time as President Eisenhower's health scare. Keys worked his way to the President's personal physician, and carefully convinced him. Eisenhower's doctor publically declared Keys work "brilliant."

From there he wormed his way into getting the American Heart Association to declare his study as fact. After that, Ancel Keys went on a world tour to confirm his hypothesis, deliberately excluding the countries that had diets that contradicted his initial study.

The result is that a lot of scientists jumped on the chance to get easy funding and perpetuated the idea that fat is bad.

The myth that all fats are bad has been present in the world opinion ever since. And a great deal of it is all PR bullshit.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[nawcom]

Sugar causes your brain to produce dopamine as soon as your tongue comes in contact with it. If you have trouble believing this, take a break from sugary food and drinks (artificial sweeteners as well) for a few weeks to a month, and then after, take a bite out of a sugary snack or drink. You will feel this very rewarding, even pleasurable feeling as soon as you taste the food. This is dopamine in action. Other mammals have very similar reactions to sugar - some even getting into a drunken state due to the sugar rush. Now why the most pleasurable foods are unhealthy, especially with the amounts that Americans consume, is definitely a topic for discussion.

Nah...it's just the munchies

[RogueWarrior65]

Maybe the researchers were smoking pot thus making them stupid and then got the munchies but to cover their asses they blamed the food.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[nattt]

Yes. Even in their so-called high-fat diet, it's still higher in sugar than it is fat, and typical mice chow is sugar and simple carbohydrate. And mice are not humans with their diet.

Because Brawndo's got electrolytes.

[savuporo]

And i quote:
As the 21st century began, human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest, the fastest, reproduced in greater numbers than the rest, a process which had once favored the noblest traits of man, now began to favor different traits. Most science fiction of the day predicted a future that was more civilized and more intelligent. But as time went on, things seemed to be heading in the opposite direction. A dumbing down. How did this happen? Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.

Re:Because Brawndo's got electrolytes.

[Howitzer86]

Other people are more threatening to our survival than any animal on the planet.

If you think about it, it doesn't take a lot of brain power to hunt a woolly mammoth. Perhaps there was a minimum requirement to hunt the way we did. But maybe our current situation is the result of a runaway chain reaction of bigger and bigger brains so that we may better compete with ourselves rather than other animals.

The "whole dumb people reproducing more" meme may be true in some places, but in others, I bet that dumb people don't live very long. And by dumb I don't mean uneducated, I mean unintelligent. Someone with a lot of street smarts is intelligent, they just learned different things, and those things were needed for their survival. Someone unintelligent in an unstable or failing society is probably going to end up dead at a young age. While the smart ones live to become village elders or guerrilla leaders or whatever, but most importantly - mothers and fathers.

That said, both of our comments are off-topic.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[the_skywise]

You insensitive clod! I eat fofurky because I'm tofu intolerant!

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

I've seen a whole bunch of people who thought just like you did, they are drooling and moaning as I walk past them in the nursing home.

Wow. So even merely thinking like me can cause people to drool and moan? Serious stuff...

throw around your hysterical rant about ice cream

Uhm, yes, one of us here is hysterical...

at some point someone is going to be changing your diapers.

So, you expect the broccoli will let you live forever? Or just drop-dead some day without a need for anyone to change your diaper?

simple, effective solution for the office.

[nimbius]

As a committed member of the management team working to facilitate synergy in my group, it disturbed me to learn the delicious donuts and cookies id been bringing to work each friday morning for my team were in fact turning them into knuckle dragging dullards. The crisp crullers and warm cheese danishes that melt in the mouth were stymying their creativity. Action had to be taken and being an ITIL six sigma pirouette jolliette corvette and pork chop marionette certified manager I had to facilitate this actionable the only way I knew how.

Instead of sickening sweets and donuts, I've changed things up. Each friday morning I treat my team to delicious asparagus and baked beans. The beans I'm told provide powerful protein and nutrition, while the asparagus is good for the mind and helps regulate glucose and blood pressure. I only wish the facilities team could get on the bandwagon and start eating healthier. Maybe then they would be able to make some progress on their continuous restroom repair that seems to have lasted for nearly a month now.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Faust6]

There's something to be said for laziness. It's easy to cook up a healthy, tasty, low-effort inexpensive meal, but convenience seems to trump all of that for a good chunk of the populace. Nobody knows or cares how to cook up a decent meal.

Uhh durrrrrr

[r_naked]

'ell I mus' ba dum az shit -- an' Ima keep gettin' stupider.

Really? Eat a BALANCED fucking diet and you will be just fucking fine. Food scare 2015... *sigh*

I love the morons that don't have Celiac disease, but OMG TH3 GLUTENS they are killing me!!!!

I have given up on not laughing my ass off if I am out and someone I am with asks for gluten free and I say: "Holy SHIT! You have Celiac disease?!? I didn't know" ... reply: "No, it just makes me feel bad". Whatever.....

Re:Uhh durrrrrr

[Faust6]

If you polled everyone on what a "balanced diet" is however....

Re: Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is borin

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey everybody, here's an example of that cognitive decline TFA was talking about.

Flounder

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[ljw1004]

If you shop for and buy processed foods (the goop in the center aisles of the grocery store), again, yes, this is all your gonna get. But if you take a little time and look around, VERY good food choices can be had.

It's not that easy. At QFC and Safeway, EVERY bread they sell is overly sweetened. The only bread I've found without too much sugar is Trader Joe's rye.

Sugar, Fat to become Schedule 1 restricted drugs

[Spinlock_1977]

Recent studies have researchers concerned that pot use in the under-18 crowd causes cognitive decline. Since pot is a Schedule 1 (most restrictive) substance in the US, I argue sugar and fat must also be put on Schedule 1 since our Oregon friends at OSU have discovered similar effects in youngsters.

Once again

[crmarvin42]

omce again human nutritional claims are being based on rodent model work, despite there being very little reason to expect the results to e replicable in humans. Stop giving PRELIMINARY and non-confirmed trials coverage as though they actually mean something. This trial only applies to mice at the moment. Maybe it can be extrapolated to all rodents in general, but the leap from rodents to humans directly is pure bull shit over reach.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[sribe]

It's not that easy. At QFC and Safeway, EVERY bread they sell is overly sweetened. The only bread I've found without too much sugar is Trader Joe's rye.

So what??? Bread should be a TINY portion of your diet. At QFC and Safeway it is trivially easy to find whole-food products: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, meats, dairy...

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[kilfarsnar]

Is this some kind of natural law?

Nope, not a law at all. Healthy food can be quite delicious. But you can't get it out of a bag or a can. Doritos taste good because they are chemically engineered to be that way, and then focus-grouped to refine the flavor. Fruits, vegetables and legumes are the way they are. It up to the person to combine them in a tasty way.

I don't think Americans eat the way they eat primarily because of the flavor of the food. It has more to do with ease, convenience and price.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Minwee]

Yeah well, I'm sure I would learn to really appreciate the taste of dogshit if all I ate every day was dogshit. But that doesn't make it tasty to anyone else.

That's okay. If nobody else likes it, more dogshit for you.

Could this be that mice weren't hungry?

[sinij]

Could this be that mice weren't hungry after high-fat and high-sugar diet and weren't as motivated to run the maze?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[cayenne8]

It's not that easy. At QFC and Safeway, EVERY bread they sell is overly sweetened. The only bread I've found without too much sugar is Trader Joe's rye.

Well...breads would indeed be one of the 'goop' type highly processed foods found in the center aisles I was talking about.

IMHO, it should be eliminated or at least made an extremely small portion of your diet. Try sticking to veggies, fruits and animal proteins. And yes, for some people I think a bit of dairy is ok. Just try to stick to foods that don't spike your blood insulin and for the most part, you should be ok.

If the label has ingredients you can't readily decipher, or pronounce, likely as not, it should not be something you want to consume.

Or, if the top ingredients include sugar or HFCS...you should likely pass that one by too.

These kinds of press releases are useless

[hey!]

You need the full article -- the abstract at the very least -- to make any sense of a study. Press releases are written by PR flacks who dumb down the science to the point where it is meaningless, as in this case. What you need to make sense of an experiment are details and context, neither of which the PR release in question provide. This is the problem with PR -- it's not a discipline that's meant to help you grasp complexity; it's about coming away with a simple, carefully chosen message.

Even if you have a whole article you have to proceed with caution. Interesting science tends to be about open questions; cutting edge topics tend to produce a diversity of opinion and contradictory evidence. What you need to read if you want to go to the horse's mouth in science is to read some literature review papers, like this one, which summarize the current state of research and the open questions at the time of writing. In fact you should probably read a recent review paper before you try to make sense of any individual paper. Having skimmed the review paper, it looks like the experiment we're discussing is attempting to explain a long-known experimental effect in terms of gut biota, which is a hot research field right now.

If all you had to make dietary decisions was the press release, you'd probably think, "Well, I'd better cut down on fat and sugar in my diet." The problem I have with that is that "fat" is a vast category of chemicals with wildly different physiological effects. Avoiding all fat because of this study would be like avoiding all acids because of a study of aspirin poisoning -- acids including all proteins and most vitamins.

What makes more sense is to consider all the proposed mechanisms, namely: chronic oxidative stress, inflammation, insulin resistance, and now disturbed gut flora. It's feasible to devise a lifestyle and diet which reduces *all* these things, which in turn would also improve our chances against other things like diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and cardiovascular disease. But so far as I know nobody's really put all that together yet. Science deals mainly in diseases, leaving health to the quacks.

Re:These kinds of press releases are useless

[oh_my_080980980]

From the abstract:

"Western diets are high in fat and sucrose and can influence behavior and gut microbiota. There is growing evidence that altering the microbiome can influence the brain and behavior. This study was designed to determine whether diet-induced changes in the gut microbiota could contribute to alterations in anxiety, memory or cognitive flexibility." http://www.sciencedirect.com/s...

Surely you can understand that much without getting your panties in a twist. It's not a public policy document. It's a straight forward research paper published in a peer reviewed journal. The topic is pretty easy to understand and the experiment rather straight forward.

Re:These kinds of press releases are useless

[hey!]

From the abstract:
Surely you can understand that much without getting your panties in a twist.

Please re-read the first sentence of my post.

Even so a single paper still isn't enough for a layman to conclude anything from. That's why laymen are so misinformed on science. Even when a news account accurately describes a study or experiment, it's still misleading. Just because an experiment produces a result doesn't mean that result represents the bulk of evidence, or that that the conclusions won't be shot full of holes in a few months.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[kilfarsnar]

So, you expect the broccoli will let you live forever? Or just drop-dead some day without a need for anyone to change your diaper?

Actually yes, that is the goal. Not to live forever, of course. But maintaining health into old age, and avoiding "lifestyle" diseases, is part of the reason I work out and try to eat healthily. Besides, being physically fit makes life easier (not that I'm some triathlete, but I think I'm in better shape than most people my age). I enjoy a little bit of ice cream here and there and still love chocolate. I just don't eat the entire pint or bar in one sitting. I hit the gym twice a week and pay attention to what I eat, that's all. It's not really a big deal, you just have to be mindful.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[funwithBSD]

Buy the book Flour Water Salt Yeast and make your own.

It is easy and tastes better than anything you can get at a store. (but maybe not if you live near a real bakery)

Oh, and it is geeky fun... Stoichiometry, cooking by weight not volume, temps, growing yeast cultures in your spare time!

I spend about 2 to 2.5 hrs a week to make enough bread for a week, most of which I do while on conference/support calls.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[tburkhol]

There's a well-known study on the effect of voluntary exercise on life expectancy. Just drop a running wheel in a rat cage, and see if they live longer. Turns out that young rats will run, literally, miles every day. They eventually get bored, or old, and stop running, but if you reduce their food intake by just 8%, they get back on the wheel and run.

To be a little hungry seems to stimulate activity and raise the mental state a bit. It may not be good for tasks that require sustained, focused attention, but that fidgety feeling you get before lunch can actually be directed.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Faust6]

This misconstrues so much. First, beyond the fact that it's not up to you what the study shows (without even reading it no less), lets [i]assume[/i] that we experience an increase in cognitive ability during a shortage. You're deciding to conflate sustenance with "eating what we want" when the dialogue here is healthy vs unhealthy - as if to depict healthy eating as a shortage when, in actuality, poor eating habits cause malnutrition along with obesity. Ironically that's the true shortage in this context. I promise you that eating shit food isn't increasing your cognitive ability. Second, I'd say Western society's conception of what healthy is is not necessarily in line with media's depiction, which wavers anyway (this seems to be "generation ass", as hips are back in favor and seemingly larger than those of 40's pinups.. not universally of course, but prominently). Third, It's amusing to think that super-thin idols "wouldn't have survived" in the 19th century when the vast majority (i.e. the peasant class) had to do just that, farming and supplying meats to the upper-class while surviving on soup and hard bread, laboring for long hours. The revolution in eating habits for proletariat didn't really occur until the 20th century for most of the world, mind you this happened quicker in the U.S. than, say, Italy.

Re:Must've been the "Beef Jerky Lobby"

[funwithBSD]

And you can put enough Sriracha on it that it jerks itself...

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Faust6]

The joy of getting this from fruit is that the high insoluble fiber content means your body uses less insulin to break down sugars. Nature's candy, man. That being said, I can understand the distaste for fruit when the vast majority of commercial variety is just awful, awful quality. Apples are cold-storage waxy paperish shit now. Even cheap bananas taste weirder. Buy high grade or organic and you'll taste the difference and learn to enjoy fruit again.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[jellomizer]

The issue isn't the taste of Healthy vs Unhealthy.
Fat and Sugar, use to be hard to get nutrition. Fats from hunting down animals, and Sugar from rare to find fruits, or rather dangerous to get honey. So our body was designed to reward for finding such foods, as they were hard to find nutrition.

However now Fat and Sugar are plentiful, so we can eat this all the time, so our body gets more of this nutrition then it needs, and really more then it know how to handle. However the reward system for such foods is still there.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[oh_my_080980980]

I think you meant you'd eat it like Doritos if they added flavoring they way they do to junk food.

makes sense

[argStyopa]

Honestly, it makes evolutionary sense.
Cognition is a high-energy task; the brain takes a massive proportion of the body's energy - it's about 5% of our mass, but consumes about 25% of our resting caloric consumption, and this does go up as we "think harder".

The *sole* function of an organism is to live and to reproduce.

If - from a simple organism standpoint - the "living" bit is effortless, ie you're not being chased by sabertooths and you're getting piles of calories coming in, why waste energy on brainpower?

Re:makes sense

[argStyopa]

Begged question, I'd say.

As long as my wife isn't watching what I type.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[oh_my_080980980]

Super thin ideals? Wow. America is no where near that. Considering we are setting obesity records left and right, perhaps eating less and eating healthy would be a good idea. America is fast becoming the people in the Pixar movie Wall-E...

Correlation is not causation

[jklovanc]

Could it be that high fat/sugar diets cause decline in cognitive function and gut bacteria by two separate and unrelated mechanisms? It is possible that gut bacteria decline and decline in cognitive function are not related at all. It is similar to drinking too much coffee. The coffee causes the alertness and irritability not the coffee causing the alertness and the alertness causing the irritability. Sometimes the results are not a chain.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[omnichad]

Newest studies show cholesterol is influenced more by carbohydrate intake rather than saturated fat intake. Eggs have dietary cholesterol, which has been proven for a while not to influence cholesterol levels to any real degree at all.

Think about the oldest people that are still alive and what they probably ate.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[ceoyoyo]

Sounds like most workplaces, actually. Except for the exercise wheel.

Another lousy study with an agenda

[codeAlDente]

If you're going to study high fat vs high carb, you'd at least control for protein and calories, right? NO!!!!!! THE HIGH FAT DIET HAS LESS PROTEIN AND MORE CALORIES!!!!! Previous studies in this field have also been misleading: "It’s well known that in mice, “high-fat diets” induce endotoxemia. But these diets aren’t necessarily high in fat – any pelleted rodent food in which fat provides more than 20% of calories may be called “high-fat.” The critical difference of “high-fat diets” from chow is that they are composed of purified nutrients – starch, sugar, oil, vitamins, and minerals – whereas chow is composed of natural whole foods such as wheat, corn, and seeds." (http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2015/06/disease-begins-in-the-mucus/) At least they didn't use a "high fat high cholesterol" diet with ridiculous amounts of purified cholesterol.

Odd...

[Archtech]

As far as I can see, the study concluded that "too much" fat or sugar impairs cognitive function. Presumably the study itself explains what is considered "too much"; but obviously no diet can reduce both fat and sugar very far, or the majority of calories would have to come from protein. And that is very unhealthy. It is well known that deriving more than 40-50% of calories from protein leads to ill health and, in extreme cases, death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So at least half of daily calories must come from carbohydrate and fat in some combination. And all carbohydrate is rapidly broken down to simple sugars in the gut. Sounds like Scylla and Charybdis.

Re:Odd...

[Archtech]

Ah. OK. Now I see. When I posted the parent, I had only read the summary on Slashdot. I assumed the research was competently done, and accurately reported. As I finished posting, I realised those are not safe assumptions, so I took a closer look.

Well, folks, the study was done on... mice. Because obviously mice have evolved to eat the same diet as human beings, and react in exactly the same ways to changes in diet. Right.

Reminds me of the early researchers in the "cholesterol will kill you" racket, who did painstaking studies that showed a diet of fatty foods leads to clogged arteries and death. Right - in *rabbits*. Herbivores. Those "scientists" fed exclusive herbivores a diet heavy in *animal fat* - something they would never have consumed in nature - and then wondered that it harmed them.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[blue trane]

This is why we need a basic income. Not as if the world will fall apart because ppl prefer to work on their own projects rather than some new improved popunder technology - now with more intrusive sound!

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[AthanasiusKircher]

If you shop for and buy processed foods (the goop in the center aisles of the grocery store), again, yes, this is all your gonna get. But if you take a little time and look around, VERY good food choices can be had.

It's not that easy. At QFC and Safeway, EVERY bread they sell is overly sweetened. The only bread I've found without too much sugar is Trader Joe's rye.

I say this as someone who enjoys baking, but bread IS a processed food, almost by definition. I know that some people say "processed food" when they really mean "nasty stuff with chemical names I don't know." But a more consistent definition of "processed food" is something where the raw ingredients (even "natural" whole animals or plants) are significantly transformed and generally split up into multiple "processed ingredients" which are then further combined into a new food that has little semblance to the original "raw ingredients."

Bread is probably one of the oldest versions of "processed foods" in existence. Rather than having the fiber and other natural mixture of ingredients in a raw whole grain, those grains are ground up into small bits and usually separated (e.g., whole wheat kernels are turned into white flour + wheat germ + wheat bran) in a complex process. Then you recombine some of that flour with other processed ingredients like salt and oils and sugars (most all of which are significantly processed, no matter what they are called).

This processing changes the way we digest the food significantly. Lots and lots of studies show that complex carbs (e.g., intact whole grains) work differently metabolically from the kinds of carbs you find in processed flours, or even heavily processed "whole-grain" flours. For people who have problems with sugar (e.g., diabetics), bread is not a good solution -- because it only takes minimal digestive processes to turn it directly into sugar.

You want "good bread" that is minimally processed? You're pretty much going to have to bake it yourself, as GP implied. It's a basic cooking task, and all of the "no knead" recipes that have been revived in the past decade mean that you can make a great loaf of bread by probably investing about 10 minutes or less of your active prep time. (The rest is just waiting for it to rise and then bake.)

Plus, it's cheaper than even the cheapest store bread if you make it yourself.

But even then, it's generally still going to be a "processed food" which shouldn't be a huge part of your diet. You're not going to find "good bread for you" in Trader Joe's rye, no matter if it has a little less sugar.

You want bread that might actually be better to eat? Use the smallest amount of flour possible, and only get truly whole-grain, coarsely ground flour. (If you have a grain mill, grind it yourself.) Fill up the rest of the bread dough with actual whole (not ground) grains and other ingredients that are less heavy in simple carbs, like nuts, seeds, etc. The result is going to be somewhat heavy and dense, but that's as close as you can get to less "processed" bread.

Otherwise, bread is a carb bomb, no matter what. (A delicious one, I admit -- but even when I bake standard white or "light wheat" or "deli rye" bread or rolls at home without added sugar or whatever, I'd never pretend it's an "unprocessed food" or significantly different from the "goop in the center isles of the grocery store," even if it tastes a lot better.) Taking a little sugar out of it is nice and all, but it won't change the fact it mostly turns into sugar very soon after it hits your digestive system.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[jonnyj]

And I use a bread maker. It takes 2-3 minutes to load it up with ingredients before I go to bed, much quicker than walking to the local shop to pick up a loaf. I wake up in the morning to delicious, fresh, healthy, low GI wholemeal bread that tastes a million times better than anything sold in the supermarket.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[ceoyoyo]

It would be interesting to see what we came up with if a significant number of people knew that working on things they're interested in was a viable choice. You could also no longer use the excuse "but I have to eat" for doing unethical things at the behest of your employer. Which is why it will probably never happen.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[John.Banister]

Beckmann & Markner will sell you Dimpflmeier bread from Toronto. They ship bi-weekly to the USA. They used to have a 7 lb minimum order, but I don't see that restriction now.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[biek]

Actually yes, that is the goal. Not to live forever, of course. But maintaining health into old age, and avoiding "lifestyle" diseases, is part of the reason I work out and try to eat healthily.

Exactly. Die quicker, not sooner.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[jonnyj]

Healthy food is tasty as hell once your palette has had a chance to get used to it again

No, when your palette gets used to it again, it becomes bearable ("as hell" is quite an apt a metaphor, actually) — but not especially tasty. Ice-cream or chocolate will still trump "healthy" and an ongoing effort of will is required to stick to broccoli.

Speak for yourself: tasty vs bearable is learned behaviour. I travel a fair bit, and the USA is a major outlier in what's regarded as tasty. To many (maybe most) Europeans, typical mainstream US food is pretty unpleasant - too much salt, too sweet, too over-seasoned, too thick, too bright, too colourful, too large, too in-your-face. That's why many products like soft drinks are formulated differently for European markets to match local tastes.

Personally, I'll take a light lunch in an Italian trattoria, a French bistro, a Greek Taverna or a Spanish tapas bar ahead of your ice-cream or chocolate any day, thank you very much. I could happily live the rest of my life without chocolate, but the thought of a tomato-free existence would destroy my soul.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[AthanasiusKircher]

But if you take a little time and look around, VERY good food choices can be had. And there is really NO excuse for only having bad foods at home. Ever heard of cooking? (and no, I don't mean popping something pre-made/frozen in the fucking microwave).

Not only that, but cooking your own food is way cheaper. I know somebody's going to chime in here about how they can get seven cheeseburgers at McDonald's or a large pizza at Pizza Hut for X dollars and that's a lot cheaper, but sorry -- you're wrong. Any fast-food restaurant even with a "dollar menu" is paying for the cost of preparing and serving that food, which is a cost you don't have if you buy raw ingredients from a grocery store.

Generally, for the same price to what I'd pay at a fast-food place, I can buy raw ingredients to make some sort of fancy, significantly higher quality version (even "organic" or "natural" if you'd like, though many times those terms are somewhat bogus). If I'm willing to buy the crappiest stuff in the grocery store (like that found in many fast-food places), I could usually make 2 to 5 times as much food for the same price by buying ingredients at a grocery store.

Cooking is cheaper, you have more choice, and after a couple years' of practice, it will taste better than 90+% of the food you'd get eating out, even in "normal" (non-fast-food) restaurants.

Yes, it takes time and practice at first. But there are also plenty of cookbooks out there for people who have little time or skills.

Your body literally is made up of what you eat. Obviously it can have significant impacts on your health and thus your entire life. Cooking may require some investment of time or effort, but it will take minimal effort to make it better than chowing down on crap from the microwave or a can or a box every night.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[GLMDesigns]

It's easy to get healthy food in the US. I don't know where you shop but from Maine to NY to SC to Texas to Oregon I've had no problem finding healthy food.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

But maintaining health into old age, and avoiding "lifestyle" diseases, is part of the reason I work out and try to eat healthily.

Very good. Now, can you identify, where in my post above have I said anything against this commendable practice?

That FranTaylor is part of the 70%, who can not read proficiently, is already clear. Are you a fellow victim of America's public school system, or you just didn't pay attention today?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[GLMDesigns]

I guess it depends on what you consider to be healthy. A good peasant bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives and wine is what I consider to be healthy food. Eggs are healthy. The only food that is unhealthy are those pre-packaged with tons of salt, sugar and fat and have had all it's nutrients removed in the cooking and preserving stages.

Pasta and red sauce is healthy.
Roasted chicken is healthy.
Avocado is healthy.
Walnuts and almonds are healthy.

Sushi is healthy.

There's tons of delicious healthy stuff.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

too bright, too colourful, too large, too in-your-face.

That's what they tend to claim about America in general, not just our food. "Sour grapes", I say...

the thought of a tomato-free existence would destroy my soul.

Well, thank Lord for America then — where tomatoes (and potatoes, and chocolate, and red peppers) originated.

So that's why...

[whitroth]

So many people in the US South, whose cooking and tastes are high on both, keep voting against their own self-interest....

              mark, wondering what the average diet of a libertarian is

Re:So that's why...

[kenj123]

>>average diet of a libertarian is The eat carcinogens and poop out flowers and butterflies.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

it's not up to you what the study shows

It certainly is up to the reader (myself include). The study offers the following finding: people with plenty of fats and sugars have lower cognitive ability than those, who do not. Whether

• the latter is "normal" and the former — "decreased", or
• the former is "normal" and the latter — "elevated"

is a debate as sensible, as arguing about a half-empty/full glass.

conflate sustenance with "eating what we want" when the dialogue here is healthy vs unhealthy

That the study makes no distinction between the two vastly different classes of foods — sugars and fats — leads me to the conclusion, that the key here is the total caloric intake, not the particular foods.

Third, It's amusing to think that super-thin idols "wouldn't have survived" in the 19th century when the vast majority (i.e. the peasant class) had to do just that

Yes, they had to do that, and perished periodically from famines.

The revolution in eating habits for proletariat didn't really occur until the 20th century for most of the world, mind you this happened quicker in the U.S. than, say, Italy.

Of course — because the US is a vastly richer (and better governed) country, which maintained a far better standards of living than others throughout its history.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

That's a nice rant against pre-packaged foods, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the study. According to them, the still-quivering lard from a freshly-killed pig will, if you eat enough of it regularly, diminish your cognitive ability as well as "pre-packaged" margarine.

Oh, and there is no mention of "salt" in TFA either. Off-topic much?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[macs4all]

I think you meant you'd eat it like Doritos if they added flavoring they way they do to junk food.

Or frozen, like Poopsicles

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[macs4all]

It is not "cultural" — they just still remember famine, whereas the "golden billion" [wikipedia.org] has blissfully forgotten it.

Correct!

And even more importantly, our bodies haven't forgotten famine; that's why so many people have the propensity to store fat.

Coconut oil in my coffee

[goombah99]

There's a difference between a high fat diet and avoiding fat at all costs. For me, the southbeach diet is a sustainable diet and for all that is written about low carbs, the real secret ingredient is accepting more fats in you diet as caloric replacements for carbs. While some fats seem to be better than others (e.g. Nuts) the simple evidence is fats 1) digest more slowly 2) satiate your appetite more that the equivalent calories in carb or protein and 3) metabolically don't produce more fat. The last factoid is intriguing. When processing carbs, metabolically, some pathways produce lots of triglycerides. Thus paradoxically switching fats for carbs leads to lower triglycerides. Your body is the culprit.

An amazing discovery I made is the wonder of adding a 1/4 teaspoon of virgin coconut oil to my morning coffee. At first it's a little weird since it changes the character of the coffee from being what your mouth feel for coffee is to something new. It's not worse it's just new and after a while it's a superior acquired taste. There's been an effort to commercialize this blend under the name "bulletproof" coffee. (which combines coconut oil, undalted butter, and extra caffiene in a blended mixture). I prefer it without the butter, and while I initially blended it that was too much hassle.

Anyhow the marvel of this is not the flavor but the effect i find. I can skip breakfast and have a later lunch. A lower dose of coffee last longer and I'm less spiked in energy level and there's no low blood sugar crash from the coffee (leading to binging in the lunch line). I'm not sure why. I think the oils play several roles. First caffiene is partially fat soluble so it acts like a time release. And second, the fats shut down your hunger faster. And third, the mixture with a little floating oil on it lends it self to sipping rather than swigging your coffee giving more time for the feeling of satiation to set in, and the urgency of breakfast to go away.

pro tip: virgin unsalted coconut oil ONLY! the expeller pressed (non-virgin) oils have no flavor or aroma. And salted coffee everyone knows is awful.

Anyhow if you try it, keep an open mind-- it's not bad, it's novel.

Bonus: Your lips will feel smooth all day.

Fats, Carbs, and Protein

[penguinoid]

What’s often referred to as the “Western diet,” or foods that are high in fat, sugars and simple carbohydrates, has been linked to a range of chronic illnesses in the United States,

I seem to recall also that eating excessive amounts of protein is also bad for you.

I guess it's time to start avoiding foods that are high in food.

This shit again

[ThatsNotPudding]

But if you take a little time and look around, VERY good food choices can be had. And there is really NO excuse for only having bad foods at home. Ever heard of cooking? (and no, I don't mean popping something pre-made/frozen in the fucking microwave).

Absolutely! All that is required of you is TIME AND MONEY.

The majority of Americans' waistlines is tied innately to the fact they're being worked longer and longer for less and less buying power. This means they don't have the TIME to prep / cook relatively short-shelf life healthy food that also would cost them too much MONEY, therefore cheap, fast, preprocessed food IS THEIR ONLY CHOICE. Treble the impact in urban settings.

But, yes; sit along side Oprah and Gwenyth Paltrow, cluck your tongue, pat us on the head, and tell us again how simple the solution is, six-figure. /s

Re:This shit again

[cayenne8]

The majority of Americans' waistlines is tied innately to the fact they're being worked longer and longer for less and less buying power. This means they don't have the TIME to prep / cook relatively short-shelf life healthy food that also would cost them too much MONEY, therefore cheap, fast, preprocessed food IS THEIR ONLY CHOICE. Treble the impact in urban settings.

We all have 24 hours a day to play with.

It all depends on how you spend your time.

I tend to spend most of the day Sunday, cooking...I prep and cook 2-3 entree dish type things, or maybe just grill a bunch of veggies and chicken, etc. I can then make quick meals from that plus leftovers are great for lunches, etc.

This is quite easy, cost effective...and you can get your whole family involved in this...bring the kids in the kitchen and teach them to cook and help out.

It is NOT the only choice to eat out and eat crap food. Why not spend a bit less time camped out in front of the TV or Xbox, and take the family shopping for groceries together, etc....cook together.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[GLMDesigns]

Oh! Was I supposed to read the article?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[macs4all]

but not especially tasty. Ice-cream or chocolate will still trump "healthy"

I've seen a whole bunch of people who thought just like you did, they are drooling and moaning as I walk past them in the nursing home. You can throw around your hysterical rant about ice cream but at some point someone is going to be changing your diapers.

Don't worry; you will be drooling and moaning too, soon enough.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[BronsCon]

Masochist much?

My Sugar Homily

[kenj123]

I can tell you how to kill your sweet tooth quick. at least it works for me. first thing in the morning eat about 1/2 or less of a pickle. You can even run it under the water a bit to get rid of some of the taste if its too strong. eat it slowly and suck the vinegar out. It seems like first thing in the morning your taste buds need to be calibrated and this makes your palate more sour than sweet. I've noticed quite a bit Asian and eastern European diets are rather sour and seems to keep them slim. I've also noticed when I used to drink beer, I had little interest in sweets. now I don't drink beer anymore, not much alcohol either. I can make and excellent milk shake out of some whole milk, frozen banana, and some vanilla flavoring. a regular milkshake would be so sweet it wouldn't be enjoyable. I'm avoiding all processed foods that have added sugar. I make my own bbq sauce - ketchup from tomato paste and pineapple. I make my own salad dressing, starting with blended chickpeas (hummus), then adding horseradish, or mustard, or buffalo wing sauce (the one I like has no sugar in it, thank goodness). I've been watching a lot of BBC history shows and I can tell from portraits that people started to gain weight around the tudor times, basically HenryVIII. Apparently that's when sugar got popular. Some people blackened their teeth on purpose to make it look like they could afford to eat sugar regularly. it was a status symbol.

Eureka!

[Balial]

I see someone just found an explanation for why the flyover states vote republican.

Fat eaten with poiosn kills you!

[Anonanonaon]

Why don't they try just eating the fat? (What kind of fat? Saturated? Unsaturated?)

Because if you mix fat with sugar, you're essentially eating food mixed with poison.

But then, as others have pointed out, when you test human diets on tiny herbivores, you're not really contributing anything to the brain trust.

Why not run your tests on cows? They have more stomachs per animal, so you don't need as many! Science can be done faster!

Also.., side note: Protein converts to sugar when you eat more than you need. You don't need much.

Re:Sugar, Fat to become Schedule 1 restricted drug

[transporter_ii]

While always causing a heated debate, Asians generally score higher on average than Americans on IQ tests (Among white Americans, the average IQ, as of a decade or so ago, was 103. Among Asian-Americans, it was 106). I would argue that Asians aren't by in large more intelligent, but that they eat better and get more exercise.

See the recent study: The new five-year study of more than 2,200 adults claims to have found a link between obesity and the decline in a person's cognitive function.

Since 3 out of 4 Americans are overweight, what we are probably seeing in these IQ tests are diet and lifestyle in action on the national level.

And yes, I too agree that IQ tests aren't all they are cracked up to be. However, go to a Chinese buffet and look at the thin people in the restaurant. They usually work there. All the Americans are large, with plates piled up to the ceiling full of food.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Faust6]

It certainly is up to the reader (myself include). The study offers the following finding: people with plenty of fats and sugars have lower cognitive ability than those, who do not. Whether

• the latter is "normal" and the former — "decreased", or
• the former is "normal" and the latter — "elevated"

is a debate as sensible, as arguing about a half-empty/full glass

Quite sure that high sugar and fat content as stated by researchers, were it explicitly defined, is not anywhere close to "normal" (i.e. optimal) intake. This was conducted on young mice - I'm sure they know what they eat. The relativism game doesn't apply here.

That the study makes no distinction between the two vastly different classes of foods — sugars and fats — leads me to the conclusion, that the key here is the total caloric intake, not the particular foods.

Last I checked, sugar and fat is measurable and quantifiable. According to this - http://www.labdiet.com/cs/grou... ... calories from mouse feed pellets are 30% protein, 13.4% fat and 56.7% carbs, and less than 5% of the chemical composition is sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose). Merely increasing feed intake and calling it an increase in fat and sugar would not be a case of "all things held equal" and it's frankly laughable to believe that's what was conducted here. It would be outright un-scientific and render this a false study.

Re: Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is borin

[mi]

The Americas, yes, not the United States of America, which is what we're talking about.

Are we? I thought, we are talking about eating vs. not eating fats and sugars.

But, fine, let's talk about Mexico — the actual source of tomatoes (actually, that may have been in modern-day Ohio), chili peppers, and chocolate. Their obesity levels are even higher than the US'... You were saying?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[mi]

My point was, if, as the study found, the effects of "high sugar" and "high fat" was the same, then the observed phenomenon is, likely, due not to a particular food group, but the total caloric intake. Eat more — become stupider. Or, to play the relativism game, ear less — become smarter.

It would be outright un-scientific and render this a false study.

Which would not surprise me either, actually.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[nospam007]

"It's not that easy. At QFC and Safeway, EVERY bread they sell is overly sweetened. The only bread I've found without too much sugar is Trader Joe's rye."

But that one has more than a day's amount of salt in each slice.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[sribe]

But that one has more than a day's amount of salt in each slice.

But the currently-recommended day's amount of salt was literally pulled out of someone's ass, it has no basis in evidence. (You should still avoid hugely excessive amounts, but the commonly-recommended, almost impossible to achieve, amount is just bullshit.)

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Sardaukar86]

But the currently-recommended day's amount of salt was literally pulled out of someone's ass,

Surely you mean figuratively? I'm not sure faeces are the best possible material for recording and storing health metrics, but I'm open to debate.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[sribe]

Surely you mean figuratively?

I mean literally, in the figurative sense ;-)

mystery food

[swell]

I worked in a spice factory for 3 days, long ago. They made hot dog spice. I walked in the first day and smelled hot dogs. I was instantly hungry for, guess what, a hot dog!

This was a powerful spice that filled the air, and my eyes and the pores of my skin. So powerful that anything it was applied to would smell like hot dog. Anything. Whatever smell it might have had before, like rotten meat, etc, would be covered by the spice. Anything. Pull a lump from the toilet and spice it up--delicious!

Manufacturers know our weakness. Salt, sugar, chocolate, vanilla, cooking oil, smoke flavoring and more spices/colorants/flavorings than you can imagine. They know the 'mouth feel' that we prefer- crunchy, chewy etc depending on the food. They understand our response to packaging, naming, labeling, product placement... And manufacturers will apply these items to the most unhealthy food knowing that we will buy it. Yum, garlic flavored genetically engineered corn chips! (cost pennies to manufacture, dollars to buy) These addictions lead us to a slow motion form of suicide.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Trogre]

QFC and Safeway?

Are these American variants of KFC and Subway?

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Ol Olsoc]

You insensitive clod! I eat fofurky because I'm tofu intolerant!

I wouldn't doubt it. Tofu, as un-natural as the vegans who love it, is made by grinding soybeans, then cooking with a coagulant of either Magnesium Chloride, or Calcium Sulfate - aka Gypsum - the stuff the drywall sheets in your house is made of, or Magnesium Sulfate, AKA Epsom Salts, the chemical used to soak sore joints and a rapid and rather violent laxative .Either way, a veritable organic feast.

Yumm yum eat it all up!

Thanks, but I'll just have a pack of crackers.

Re:Sugar, Fat to become Schedule 1 restricted drug

[surd1618]

BS. The #1 reason pot was scheduled was racism. If we cared about 'cognitive decline' in teenagers, we'd be really scrupulous about keeping teens away from binging on alcohol and encouraging regular sleep patterns.

Re:Happy Thursday from The Golden Girls!

[KGIII]

In this case it is just an example of how high sugur sodas have instigated the decline in the qualitty of slashdot discussions.

Yes, yes it is an example.

Re: Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is borin

[ceoyoyo]

When most people say "processed food" they really mean "engineered food". Bread is processed, yes, but so is cooked meat, and there's A reasonable theory that the Invention of cooking made food more easily digestible, freeing up energy to evolve our big brains in the first place.

There's also evidence that prepared food that is literally engineered to be as cheap as possible, taste good and make you want more, may not be so good for you.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[sribe]

Are these American variants of KFC and Subway?

No, they're supermarkets. The person to whom I responded was literally claiming that because many of the mass-produced breads in the supermarkets contain (too much) sugar, he was unable to find healthy food there. As though the scent of over-sugared bread drew him uncontrollably, causing him to shuffle blindly past the fruits, vegetables, meats and so on, and fill his cart with nothing but bad bread.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

Rats aren't sapient. It's a shame we need to use animals for testing, but there is no way to safely translate biomedical research from cells (or organs on a chip) into people without going through animals first. Organs on a chip don't work as replacements for animals because the interplay between organs is important, it doesn't recapitulate the circulatory system at all, and you can't effectively screen for off-target effects.

I do agree, however, that the research community needs to work on reproducibility more; I don't know how to make that change, but it's a good goal.

So "Time machine" is right again

[YoungManKlaus]

small, fluffy creatures that are pretty dumb

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[pepty]

The only food that is unhealthy are those pre-packaged with tons of salt, sugar and fat and have had all it's nutrients removed in the cooking and preserving stages.

If it is full of sugar and fat then it's full of nutrients, not void of them.

Re:Unhealthy food is tasty. Healthy food is boring

[GLMDesigns]

You have a point there. Strawberries have a lot of sugar (and in moderation) is healthy, But soda, twinkees and ice cream are not healthy. Both are fine as a compliment to one's diet, every once-in-a-while, but healthy is not the word I would use for them.

Why aren't they healthy because it doesn't seem as if it's adding anything to one's diet outside of calories.

Now if we were in the middle of the zombie apocalypse - bottles of concentrated calories (soda) would be very valuable indeed.