Food Fight

I have spent virtually this entire day researching on one subject--FOOD. The spur for this action came from my latest dust up with Karen De Coster. Karen had defriended me on Facebook after an earlier dust up because she is a high strung psycho bitch. After all my dust ups with her, I get discreet emails from people who know her who tell me they have the same experience with her. The woman has issues. But she allowed people to subscribe and comment on her public updates using the new Facebook feature which I did. This led to a complete ban, so I can no longer read or participate in any of her Facebook postings. (I follow the opposite policy even going so far as to deliberately friend people who will disagree with me. This makes me stronger.)

Karen posted something incredibly stupid to the effect that libertarians should eat low carb or else they aren't true libertarians. I merely restated what KDC said a little more bluntly, and I got the KDC death penalty. This was probably more for past transgressions than the current one. Remember, this is the same woman who will chide you for being thin skinned if you can't take her criticisms. But what she said did get me back on this subject to review and see if there is anything to her beliefs. I have spent considerable time reading and watching videos of Gary Taubes, a BBC special on the Atkins diet, and hilarious videos from a militant Aussie vegan named Durian Rider. I come to this issue with a certain degree of skepticism and open mindedness because it is a complex issue. I will simply relate facts that stuck in my head and state the conclusion that I have reached.

1. There are two warring camps--Vegan vs. Atkins.

The vegan side say that carbs are not the problem. It is the fat. Fat comes from animal products. Eliminate animal products, and you won't be fat. Or as they put it, "The fat you eat is the fat you wear." Atkins and Paleo people say the opposite. The carbs are the problem because they produce an insulin response which turns those carbs into fat. The moderate viewpoint is that excess bodyfat and obesity come from a simple imbalance between calories in and calories out. This would be the American Heart Association, the AMA, and others. Who is right? This is hard to tell because both sides marshal facts to support their viewpoints. I have tried to pick apart these facts to tell what is true and what is not true.

2. You can and will lose weight on a low carb/high protein diet.

There are many people who have done the Atkins diet and the Paleo diet, and they have lost weight. Vegans can argue forever about this, but you can lose weight by eating sausage and eggs for breakfast while cutting the carbs. The reason for this weight loss is not the reason Atkins/Paleo people cite. The trick is to be able to consume more calories than you can burn, but this will never work at weight loss. I watched a BBC program where they studied the issue, and Atkins people actually consumed fewer calories just like any other diet. The reality is that you can lose weight on almost any calorically restrictive diet. They all work the same. The first law of thermodynamics will always hold. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It can be bread and water or steak and eggs.

3. The Atkins/Paleo diet works by making people feel sated.

The advantage the pure carnivores have is that they can eat without counting calories or exercising portion control. They feel full long before they have gone over their need for calories. This is why that program works. It automatically reduces the caloric input without the pain of constant hunger. The Atkins/Paleo people claim that it is fat that creates this satiation. They were wrong.

4. Protein is the secret.

Protein is what produces satiation. This was what the BBC program discovered. They did an experiment with secretly introducing fat into people's diets to see if it made any difference on their portions. It didn't. They ate as much as the control group and got fatter because of the extra calories. The take away is that it doesn't matter if you eat the potato baked or fried. You will feel the same after eating both, but you will get fatter on the french fries. The vegans are correct. The fat you eat is the fat you wear.

The secret to the Atkins diet is not the fat but the protein. For some reason, eating more protein makes you feel fuller and decreases hunger and appetite. This is where the vegans are wrong, and why I always felt famished on my vegetarian diet. But unlike the Atkins people, I don't think sausage and hamburgers are the answer either. If fat makes you fatter but doesn't satisfy you, I think it makes sense to eat lean meat. This would be poultry and fish.

5. Simple carbs will make you fat.

This was the unfortunate side effect of Dr. Dean Ornish's vegetarian diet advice. The idea that you merely need to eliminate animal products from your diet, and you will lose weight is utter nonsense. You have to remember that you can eat cake and drink soda all fucking day and still call yourself a vegan. This is essentially what people did when the low fat advice hit the public. Atkins people say that people starved of fat turn to simple carbs such as sugar and white flour to try and fill themselves up. But as I said, it isn't the fat that makes you feel full. It is the protein. Without protein, you get hungry, and you are prone to eating a lot of crap because it is available. Plus, the crap tastes good.

6. You can lose weight on a whole foods vegan diet.

Vegans who don't eat donuts lose weight. By choosing fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, vegans lose weight. The Paleo/Atkins idea that carbs are bad is simply false. But I have done a lot of reading from ex-vegans, and they all confessed to craving bacon and steak while vegan. Those cravings never went away, and their health wasn't all that great either.

Conclusions

My conclusions on this crap are still the same as they were before. I think both the carnivores and the herbivores are extremists who get it right and wrong for various reasons. You need a balanced diet that is low in fat and simple carbohydrates like sugar and white flour. I believe in what I can only call a semi-vegetarian diet. Basically, you get protein from poultry, fish, and eggs. You get carbs from complex whole grains. You avoid anything fried. You avoid desserts, sweets, and sugary soft drinks. Fat and sugar which abound in processed foods are calorically dense. They are easily digested making it much easier for you to overeat. The secret is to eat fiber rich foods and lean protein. This will reduce hunger while also reducing weight.

People want a magic bullet on this stuff which is why they go to extremes. You can choose the ketosis and bad breath of the Atkins/Paleo diet, or you can pick the constant hunger and food cravings of the vegan path. The reason these paths ultimately fail is not because they don't work at losing weight but because people can't stick to them. Extreme diets are not the answer.

UPDATE: I have received requests to post links and videos, so here they are. The list will grow as I try and put up everything I watched and read on this subject. Check back often.

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