new research debunks trad views on nutrition

[Perris]

Research published just yesterday (having been conducted over 184 countries over 28 years) links Type 2 diabetes with 3 dietary issues:
1. insufficient whole grain consumption
2. excess refined rice and wheat consumption, and
3. excess processed meat consumption.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02278-8

It is not just a matter of what we eat (or feed our chickens) but how processed, or not, that food (or feed) is.

 

[MaryJanet]

Research published just yesterday (having been conducted over 184 countries over 28 years) links Type 2 diabetes with 3 dietary issues:
1. insufficient whole grain consumption
2. excess refined rice and wheat consumption, and
3. excess processed meat consumption.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02278-8

It is not just a matter of what we eat (or feed our chickens) but how processed, or not, that food (or feed) is.

I just clicked informative while chowing down on a packet of crisps!

But seriously, crisps are not among my favourite/frequent foods.

 

[BDutch]

Research published just yesterday (having been conducted over 184 countries over 28 years) links Type 2 diabetes with 3 dietary issues:
1. insufficient whole grain consumption
2. excess refined rice and wheat consumption, and
3. excess processed meat consumption.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02278-8

It is not just a matter of what we eat (or feed our chickens) but how processed, or not, that food (or feed) is.

I prefer your summary over the quite unreadable report.

 

[Perris]

Happy to help! what really surprised me (and I left out, to keep it short and simple) was how little fruit, veg, nuts and seed consumption mattered.

 

[Somewhere_In_The_Clouds]

I finally got around to finishing reading this thread (Yes, I did skim some parts and didn't really read most of the links. My brain can only handle so much info at one time...). I find it all fascinating and wanted to add a few observations/thoughts of my own.

I kind of sit in the middle between processed food and a free range/raw/whole grain diet (what's it actually called?) for poultry (in fact I hold the same view for my parrots). I don't view either as "bad".

Some observations.
I don't feed my chickens layer feed as I often have varying ages and always roosters. So for the time being I am feeding a scratch mix. Almost all of my chickens have free run of a small paddock (sometimes sneaking over/under the fence to the other goat paddock too) during the day, there's a wide variety of weeds in there now, during winter (when there's adequate rain fall to keep things alive). Majority of which I couldn't name for you. Every evening when I lock them up I generally have to catch one or two, their crops alway feel quite full (they still have room for their scratch of course ).

One of my hens recently raised a brood of seven chicks. It wasn't from the start that I let them free range (they had access the majority of the 1.5 acre property, but didn't even use all that space), but when they were bigger I would let them out for a few hours sometimes whole days. Something interesting I noticed is they reached a point when if I hadn't let them out to free range, when I went to feed them their scratch they would run out of their run past me to the grass without a second thought. Even once I had put the food in their run they wouldn't even look my way. I see people say lots that chickens will always pick out what they want and leave healthy stuff, so why did they pick grass and weeds over corn, sunflowers, wheat, etc? I think they knew what they wanted and what they needed.

Interested to see any more replies to this thread, again it's an interesting topic.

 

[Perris]

Here's another approach to assessing the quality and adequacy of the diet for you and your chickens (instead of trying to count or calculate fractions of a gram of something, or looking just at gross protein, carb and lipid analysis of a sample specimen of each item in splendid isolation):

"The MDD-W indicator was developed by FAO and partners to fill the need for a simple, food-based indicator for measuring dietary diversity and micronutrient adequacy, key dimensions of diet quality of women of reproductive age. This population–level qualitative indicator measures the proportion of women 15-49 years of age who consumed food items (at least 15g) from at least five out of the ten defined food groups the previous day or night. It is associated with a higher probability of nutrient adequacy for 11 micronutrients. "

https://www.fao.org/nutrition/assessment/tools/minimum-dietary-diversity-women
NB the guide is 176 pages long; the key point is

"MDD-W is a dichotomous indicator of whether or not women 15 to 49 years of age have consumed at least five out of ten defined food groups the previous day or night. It is a food group diversity indicator that reflects one key dimension of diet quality – micronutrient adequacy – summarized across 11 micronutrients: vitamin A, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-6, folate, vitamin B-12, vitamin C, calcium, iron and zinc. The proportion of women of reproductive age (WRA) who achieve this minimum of five food groups out of ten in a population can be used as a proxy indicator for higher micronutrient adequacy. In other words, a higher prevalence of MDD-W among a group of WRA is a proxy for better micronutrient adequacy in a given population (Martin-Prével et al., 2015)."

And the ten food groups are
1. Grains, white roots and tubers, and plantains
2. Pulses (beans, peas and lentils)
3. Nuts and seeds
4. Milk and milk products
5. Meat, poultry and fish
6. Eggs
7. Dark green leafy vegetables
8. Other vitamin A-rich fruits and vegetables
9. Other vegetables
10. Other fruits

If you and your chickens are eating at least 15g of at least 5 of these food groups in 24 hours, you and they are probably getting all the micronutrients you need.

edited to remove the footnote numbers that might have been confusing from the quote.

 

[MaryJanet]

15g doesn't seem like much?

 

[Perris]

15g doesn't seem like much?

that's why they're called micronutrients

And it's more than a few seeds or nuts sprinkled on a salad, for example.

 

[MaryJanet]

that's why they're called micronutrients

And it's more than a few seeds or nuts sprinkled on a salad, for example.

Excuse my ignorance, what's the difference between micro and macro nutrients? I'm assuming there's a difference.

I'm genuinely naive in this area.

 

[Perris]

No apologies necessary. Basically the micronutrients are the vitamins and minerals needed. The macronutrients are the meat and potatoes bit - the carbohydrates, proteins and fats.