The China Study, Anybody Read it?

[usschicago1]

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Thats really interesting, I definitly need to research more, but wow thats crazy it nearly killed you

Glad you found something. Does Price have a book?

 

[usschicago1]

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I agree, im only 3/4 done so far but your right a single diet won't solve it

 

[Wifezilla]

It's fairly clear at this point that many diseases are associated with a high fat diet

No. It's not.

The entire hypothesis that saturated fat caused heart disease was based on a FRAUDULENT STUDY!

There have been several recent studies trying to prove once and for all that saturated fat is unhealthy that have shown the opposite. Saturated fat (not hydrogenated, but plain old natural saturated fat) is NEEDED by the body. We evolved eating saturated fat over millions of year. The idea that it kills us is just silly from the get go.

"In one such study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the proportion of calories contributed by fat was found to range from 25 – 47 per cent across 18 countries. However, this wide variation in fat intake appeared to have no bearing on body weight in men. Even more surprising was the finding that, in women, higher levels of fat consumption were clearly associated with a reduced risk of excess weight. "
http://www.drbriffa.com/2006/10/02/is-saturated-fat-really-that-bad/

"During 5–23 y of follow-up of 347,747 subjects, 11,006 developed CHD or stroke. Intake of saturated fat was not associated with an increased risk of CHD, stroke, or CVD. "
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/ajcn.2009.27725v1

"putting people on unpleasant low-fat diets didn’t help them live any longer nor avoid another heart attack. Over the course of the study, the same number of subjects died in both groups."
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...ed-fat-and-heart-disease-studies-old-and-new/


Also, if the calories in/calories out thing were really true, I would have been a super model. Along with being a vegetarian, I did calorie counting and calorie restriction along with exercise for years. I got fatter and sicker the whole time. Calories from different macronutriyents have different effects on the body. Carbohydrates raise blood sugar which raised insulin which leads to fat storage. Saturated fat makes you feel full and does not raise insulin so you do not go in to fat storage mode. A meat free, high whole grain diet is a DISASTER for many and that is what is being pushed. The science does NOT back up a high grain diet as a healthy way of eating. Remember, lots of grains are what is used to fatten cattle.

"Over the past five years, however, there has been a subtle shift in the scientific consensus. It used to be that even considering the possibility of the alternative hypothesis, let alone researching it, was tantamount to quackery by association. Now a small but growing minority of establishment researchers have come to take seriously what the low-carb-diet doctors have been saying all along. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, may be the most visible proponent of testing this heretic hypothesis. Willett is the de facto spokesman of the longest-running, most comprehensive diet and health studies ever performed, which have already cost upward of $100 million and include data on nearly 300,000 individuals. Those data, says Willett, clearly contradict the low-fat-is-good-health message ''and the idea that all fat is bad for you; the exclusive focus on adverse effects of fat may have contributed to the obesity epidemic.'' "
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all-been-a-big-fat-lie.html​

 

[welsummerchicks]

None of the basic information about weight gain has ever changed and it never will. It is based on physical laws that cannot be ignored or disproved.

Some foods are calorie-dense. It is easier to over do with calorie dense foods.

I think that studies that show that the ONLY way one gets in trouble is with fatty meats are flawed.

As I stated, too many calories of anything can lead to weight gain, which puts more fat in fat cells in the body and is associated with health problems.

Excess calories, no matter if they come from vegan cake or fatty meat or organic yogurt or fat free sugar free gluten free crackers, are excess calories. Excess calories can come from low fat foods just as well as high fat foods.

It does not HAVE to be fatty meats. A person MIGHT eat tiny amounts of fatty meat and no starches, for example, and exercise like a fiend. A person might avoid all meats, and eat modest amounts of fattening dairy and starches. A person might eat large amounts of vegetables and little else, and stay slim. The key is whether the calories are too much or not.

One person might have more success with one diet pattern or a different one. Some people have more trouble limiting themselves with one food item or another. That doesn't change the basic laws of the physical world.

 

[FourPawz]

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I respectfully disagree.

Most of us think that diets of fatty meat make us fat. How many large people whose diets include high quantities of fatty meat also eat substantial quantities of refined carbohydrate, such as bread, pasta and sugary desserts? It's easy to think that eating fat must cause weight gain. I would suggest if you read "The China Study" you also read Gary Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories".

Here is a link to Taubes' discussion - it is long, but if you are interested, well worth the time:

Why We Get Fat: Adiposity 101 and the Alternative Hypothesis of Obesity - Gary Taubes

We are bombarded with advertising from the snack food industry to eat carbohydrate-laden food. The Big Grain corporate giants rely on the American taste for junk food. It is counter-intuitive that Americans might be mal-nourished and obese at the same time, but a steady diet of fast food, sugary soft drinks, potato chips and Twinkies will most certainly guarantee an individual's morbid obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I think you didn't read what I said.

I said that eating fatty foods is not the only way people pick up weight. Too much carbs, too much anything. Equals overweight.

I personally do not CARE if eating fatty animal based meats or other products has been 'found to be bad' sufficiently for some individuals or not. It's so easy for me to limit these items, and it gives me a lot more flexibility in what I eat.

I think people are making this too complicated because they don't want to change their eating habits. So they try to make their eating habits 'not the problem' or 'okay'.

THE PROBLEM comes when people convince themselves that basic laws of the universe and physics and energy do not apply to them. This is why they fall for fad diets and 'miracle' diets instead of simply following the basic, unchanging rules of weight loss.

THAT is what I meant when I said 'diets don't work'. Extreme, unmaintable, unrealistic 'diets' don't work. Unhealthy diets don't work AND keep a person healthy. Unbalanced diets don't work. A sensible diet with less calories works, along with exercise and simply getting so one doesn't crave to eat too many calories. 'Fad' diets don't work.

Vegetarian diets CAN work. Sufficient protein can be provided. Vitamin B 12 can be stored in the body for months, and can be supplemented. But as anyone who's gone to India knows, one can become too fat simply by eating rice and ghee and vegetables, or just by eating rice. NO combination of foods is magical and will violate basic physical laws.

The Frenchman who eats fatty meat such as sausage, with cheese and butter and bread for lunch, may eat a tiny bite of each, and then walk for an hour after dinner, or bicycle fifteen miles in the mountains to get home from work and spend half the night cutting hay with a scythe. The Indian laborer who eats two pounds of rice a day may spend 14 hours a day breaking rocks with a sledge hammer and be as skinny as a rail. The 96 year old Italian grandma who eats pasta and olive oil may spend most of the day beating her laundry on a rock, and could probably beat most of us at arm wrestling. You have to look at the WHOLE picture. The diet without the lifestyle may be less than half of the equation.

If someone becomes heavy on a vegetarian diet, they ate too many calories. If someone becomes heavy on a high protein high fat diet, they ate too many calories. If someone becomes fat on the all grapefruit and gummy bears diet, they ate too many grapefruit and gummy bears.

If someone eats one piece of fatty meat all day every day, and consumes therefore 900 calories, they'll lose weight over time if they burn off more than 900 calories a day. If one eats 3 gingersnap cookies at sixty calories each, or 180 calories, and nothing else, one will lose weight unless one burns off less than 180 calories a day (unlikely). If one eats less than one burns off daily, the body will use stored body fat as its energy source.

Those wacky methods probably aren't ideal. Most likely, the best way to lose weight is to eat fewer calories of a balanced, healthy diet, such as by following the guidelines of the American Heart Association for amounts of calories, fat, saturated fats, etc.

Everyone has a different rate of metabolism. Some people expend more energy. You've all seen the person who figits and can't sit still. They burn more calories. It's complex, though. People when very heavy, ALSO burn more calories. If you try to starve them with an extreme, unbalanced diet, the results will not be ideal.

In general, people lose very little weight overall from adhering to any 'diet'. This has been proven out by research. What is needed is a lifestyle change and an eating habit change, and a change in what the person finds satisfying and filling. Food needs to not be the answer for stress, neglect, unhappiness or boredom.

 

[Wifezilla]

Calories in = calories out doesn't work. People who use the laws of thermodynamics to describe humans don't understand the law and never took thermodynamics. I did. Got a B too.

The second law of thermodynamics describes a closed mechanical system. Humans are a chemical system.

1000 calories of carbs does a totally different thing to the human body that 1000 calories of fat or protein does to the body. That is not opinion. That is called endocrinology.

As for exercise, I used to work out an hour a day 6 days a week. Did it for 2 years straight. Low fat diet, calories under 2000/day (I am 6' tall)...blah blah blah. Total weight loss over those 2 years? ZERO. I went low carb years later. DIdn't work out other than an occasional walk and a weekly dance class. Weight loss in less than 6 months? 40 lbs. Calories? Well over 2000 per day. Most days 3000 or more. 65% of calories or more from fat. Carbs, less than 50g/day.

That is how I cured my high blood pressure and reverse pre-diabetes. MORE calories lead to MORE weight loss. Obviously a simple formula doesn't explain that. Truely understanding how the hormones in the body work does.

Eating as we did for millions and millions of years before industrialized grain processing became normal is not wacky, a fad or unhealthy in any way. Eating as we have over the last 30-50 years is what is totally weird and it's killing us.

"As it turns out, it’s carbohydrates—particularly easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars—that primarily stimulate insulin secretion. “Carbohydrates is driving insulin is driving fat,” as George Cahill Jr., a retired Harvard professor of medicine and expert on insulin, recently phrased it for me. So maybe if we eat fewer carbohydrates—in particular the easily digestible simple carbohydrates and sugars—we might lose considerable fat or at least not gain any more, whether we exercise or not. This would explain the slew of recent clinical trials demonstrating that dieters who restrict carbohydrates but not calories invariably lose more weight than dieters who restrict calories but not necessarily carbohydrates. Put simply, it’s quite possible that the foods—potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, pastries, sweets, soda, and beer—that our parents always thought were fattening (back when the medical specialists treating obesity believed that exercise made us hungry) really are fattening. And so if we avoid these foods specifically, we may find our weights more in line with our desires."
http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/index4.html

 

[redhen]

When i was on the Atkins Diet.. (i know..i know.. not the best thing..)
Anyways... i could eat a TON of bacon and steak and hamburgers.. etc... all high calorie fatty foods.. and still lose weight...
It was all about cutting out the carbs and sugars..

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Before the invention of the restaurant we ate fat in the boom of summer when we needed the most energy an we ate mostly grains in the winter. Our body is programed to turn our metabolism up in the boom times an down in the bust times. So by not eating much meat you are telling your body to slow down an store energy. By eating meats you are telling your body to burn more energy to help you hunt.

 

[Wifezilla]

When i was on the Atkins Diet.. (i know..i know.. not the best thing..)

Actually it is one of the better things. More and more studies keep backing that up. I just don't like the unnecessary induction phase.​