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Ladies and Gentlemen,
It's not everyday an issue of Science contains articles about newly discovered "fresh" impact craters (Hiawatha) or fingers the source of the worst year to be alive (534 in case you're time traveling).
But the same issue has these open (no paywall) articles summarizing what we do know about eating and living long healthy lives.
Quick takeaways:
- The 1977 guidelines that we all grew up with were written by politicians, not scientists.
- Trans-fats are bad, no matter what.
- Intermittent fasting can help your brain, kidneys, chemotherapy effectiveness and recovery, AND encourage weight loss.
- Refined sugars and carbs are generally bad for you.
There's way more than any summary can contain. In fact, almost every section of these four meta-articles could be their own discussion topic.
Since I care for all of you, I want you all to be as healthy and live as long as you want. These articles contain the state of-the-art on how to do that through proper eating habits.
Optimizing the diet.
Dietary fat: From foe to friend?
A time to fast
The gut microbiota at the intersection of diet and human health
Swifter, higher, stronger: What’s on the menu?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @07:06AM (7 children)
Are there instructions on how to remove the sugar from food an drinks, cause it's everywhere in high doses.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @07:18AM
It is a very simple procedure: Eat and drink up, the human body is the most resiliant filter known to bureaucrats world wide, sir. Happy O.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @09:28AM (3 children)
The only way is to make sure it never went in in the first place.
In other words, you have to PREPARE YOUR OWN FOOD.
More work than buying readymade food, but for health, it is a must.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Friday November 30 2018, @09:33AM (2 children)
No need for preparation. Drink water, eat vegetables.
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Friday November 30 2018, @09:56AM (1 child)
I confess myself disappointed.
As a sheep, you should promote a healthy grass diet, not vegetables.
Unless, shrewd consideration, you want to reduce the competition on your lawn dinner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 30 2018, @03:15PM
*sigh*
Grass: animal, vegetable, or mineral?
I should probably apologize for being serious when you're being funny, but, I can't help wondering how many might not catch on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @06:14PM
yes, stop buying processed food like products and eat actual food.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday December 02 2018, @09:11AM
Look at the nutrition information, specifically grams of sugar per 100g (not the "per serving" crap). Only buy food where it's low.
Pretty straightforward really.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Friday November 30 2018, @08:52AM (19 children)
I ws actually quite looking forward to those, and then I got bored.
The fat ones are basically inconclusive: "Of course, any meaningful assessment of a diet’s impact on health must extend far beyond macronutrient quantity, to include the myriad qualitative aspects of food and food combinations that influence hormonal response, gene expression, and metabolic pathways. Further complicating this issue is the likelihood that inherent or acquired biological differences among individuals or populations, especially related to glucose homeostasis, affect response to specific diets."
The microbiome one tells the same story: It depends who you are.
And two of the others merely use athletic performance / endurance as their source of how good a diet is.
The guidelines are bad because they're guidelines. You are supposed to adjust for your circumstances, not just follow the average to the letter and then expect miracles. For instance, if I lived on diet foods, I'd waste away to nothing. When I've been short of money and merely eaten a little less than usual, people have asked if I'm ill and told me that I look terrible. There are other people out there (let's call them fat and not pretend to be politically correct here) who really shouldn't even be eating the "average" diet. Or can't. Or won't. Or have no clue what they're eating anyway because the guidelines are so loose and nutritional information so incomplete that we have no idea anyway (and, hey, aren't we all supposed to be eating fresh, organic, local produce that likely has no nutritional information on it whatsoever?).
The only takeaway I have is that what I've said myself for years is right. Listen to your body. Eat when you're hungry. Don't eat when you're not. Literally "forget" about food, and having lunch "just because it's lunchtime". That's probably the biggest problem... we all get to 12/1pm and then everyone else is eating in front of us where if we didn't think about it, we might go the whole day without eating at all. When you need it, your body will let you know. We "break fast" for a reason... it's enforced by the traditions of the day and a specifically-timed fast rather than one that waits for us to be hungry. (Same reason you wake up in the night, historical references to two or more specific sleep periods in one night, with waking and maybe even eating in between are all over the old texts).
Now, if your body is broken, you can't listen to it. If you listening to it means you STILL keep putting on / losing weight (sorry, but being underweight can be just as bad for your health as being over), then you need to implement the protocol that is your only way to overcome your body's natural urges (of any type)... you switch on your brain. You tell yourself no. In the same way that we don't go around just attacking the first female we see, we also should be able to control our food urges even given the temptation (e.g. going for a walk at lunch!).
Those two things: Let your body dictate what it wants, and then force your brain to either accept it or override it when it's obviously not-conducive to your goals - are the only tools you have at your disposal. Nutritional information and "dieting" is a data-heavy form of the latter. Unfortunately, for most people, it's driven entirely by the former and they end up having to be told that "this shake can replace a meal" because obviously who could ever possibly go without three meals a day!?!?! (Hint: Almost the entire developing world, not to mention almost every human in history).
Everything else is going to require such tailored analysis of billions of gut bacteria, millions of foods, and all the combinations in-between AND then making you stick to that psychologically too.
Fact of life is... if you train your body to a bad diet, it's going to demand a bad diet. It's purely addiction, based on the microbiome that you've bred. If you eat fatty foods, you'll get a ton of bacteria that thrive on fatty foods, and then when you don't have fatty foods, what happens? They all cry out for more. To clear out those for a stomach that actually can't process and get what it needs from a bunch of salad and a handful of sprouts takes months or years.
Personally, I have one of the most unpredictable and unusual diets I've ever seen of someone. I will happily just not eat. I don't think it's a problem. My body isn't crying out for sustenance. And then when I do it, it's almost like a pregnancy craving... it could be for an apple, for bread, for fried egg, for cereal, for a handful of frozen peas, or gorging on just a dessert, anything. I'll eat at 3am, or I'll go an entire day without touching anything. I'm lucky... it all ends up in a skinny frame with lots of energy, zero health problems, no stomach trouble and no great detriment.
If you're not that lucky... it's always going to be hard work. It's always going to be something you don't want to do. And it's hardly ever going to be pleasant. But it will be 99.99% psychological... convincing yourself that you have to do it. All the data in the world won't help with that, and the second people start talking carbs or trans-fats, people just switch off.
Those people who want to have a good diet can have it. Without nutritional information on every product, mass government advertising campaigns and free gym membership incentives, etc. Those who don't can only be encouraged to.
The worst addictions I ever witness in my life include addictions to food - in social protocol (let's meet for a coffee!), tradition (it's lunch *time*), and complete lack of willpower (literally anyone who says they are "on a diet"). Hell, even mating. First dates are almost always "over dinner".
Not to mention the silly rules... you can't have the same thing for dinner two nights in a row. But you can have the same thing for breakfast for 20 years and no-one bats an eyelid!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday November 30 2018, @09:29AM (3 children)
> he worst addictions I ever witness in my life include addictions to food
The problem with food addiction is that you can't go "cold turkey". It's a lot easier to give something up if you can, well, give it up. Completely.
Try telling a heroin addict that they really need to stop doing so much heroin... but they can't stop completely, they have to just cut down to three moderate doses per day.
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Friday November 30 2018, @10:02AM (2 children)
Right you are! I can't see anyone developing a food addiction to something as bland as cold turkey.
Vive le boeuf!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @01:10PM (1 child)
After about a week of nothing but turkey, that distinctive turkey flavor starts to taste horrible. One year my dad got a 20lb turkey for Thanksgiving (and my sisters are both vegetarians, and my mom went to visit her parents after Thanksgiving). It was at least 6 months before I could stomach turkey again.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Friday November 30 2018, @04:57PM
It's not just flavor. I used to raise turkeys. They smell like that in real life
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @09:43AM (13 children)
You have the right idea about not being obligated to eat if you are not hungry, but you are wrong about hunger signals and especially about fat.
Today, Americans eat way too many simple carbs (flour and sugar). This messes up your hunger signals because of insulin response. You actually get hungrier the more you eat of this food. It doesn't satisfy. The answer is to eat more fat and protein and less simple carbs. Make sure to eat healthy fat though which means unsaturated fat. Again it's a proportion thing: some saturated fat is necessary, but at a much lower proportion than unsaturated fat, so you don't even need to try to eat saturated fat. You'll not lack. Natural oils as found in nuts, fish, and extra virgin olive oil are super healthy.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday November 30 2018, @10:05AM
You may be onto something here.
Does it happen, by chance, to know how complex the carbs in crispy honey bacon are?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @10:53AM
No. Not eat. Drink.
Stop drinking soft drinks and other sugar bombs. Drink water. Then your diet is already more than halfway fixed.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by ledow on Friday November 30 2018, @12:27PM (9 children)
You mention carbs and unsaturated. I switch off, as do most people.
P.S. I probably consume more flour/sugar than anything else. Sugar is not the enemy to anything but your teeth. And there is no food that makes you hungrier., or else it'd be a vicious circle.
P.P.S. if your choices are unhealthy or hungry, suffer one or the other. And don't whine to me about it!
- Everything in moderation.
- Try to follow what your body asks.
- Let your brain take control. If you know sugar makes you hungry, and you can't possibly allow yourself to eat, then eat less sugar or cope with the hunger.
Honestly, I have never monitored a "carb", "calorie" or "protein" in my life, except to literally prove people wrong about how "healthy" their muesli is (generally worse than honey-nut frosted cornflakes!) or why one slice of pizza means they may as well just give up pretending they are even trying to diet (possibly the worst single food product you can eat in your entire life).
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @01:38PM
Hi! I never had any problems with *my* teeth, so I don't know why people are always going on about brushing, seeing the dentist, and all that!
Just be me and you'll never have any tooth problems!
(Score: 5, Touché) by Bobs on Friday November 30 2018, @01:46PM
Oh, come on. Pizza? Pizza is the worst food?
Good pizza is a decent food: baked with bread, veggies, cheese and possibly meat. A meal in a mouthful.
These are examples of much, much worse:
(Apologies for the poor URL’s: my mobile doesn’t do double-quotes well.)
Bon appetit!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @03:53PM (4 children)
> - Try to follow what your body asks.
And that, my friend, is exactly the problem that some people (me included) have to face. I'm constantly hungry, even when I've just eaten. Hungry, all the goddamn time. Therefore I eat more than I should. I know this, yet it is beyond my willpower to not eat. Sure, I can handle dieting (going even more hungry) for a while. But when your body screams 24/7 for food, any food, it is unbearable.
Praise yourself lucky you don't have to go through this. It is hell.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday November 30 2018, @10:08PM (1 child)
Have you tried untasty food in unlimited quantities? Empty the house of any food. Buy 100 pounds of chicken breast, boil it and put in the refregirator. Eat it as much as you want, but nothing else. (some vitamns to stay alive are needed, off cource).
Once mastered, go on hunter diet. No food untill you catch the chicken. In practice, a day or two without food but with lots of cardio, then unlimited meat.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:38PM
What's untasty about chicken? Making a shitton of chicken soup isn't gonna make anyone skinny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:48PM
Some options to shrink your stomach:
Take some amphetamine pills - there are "diet pills" similar to adderall that basically work by making you nauseous so you can't eat. Pretty much any (meth)amphetamine will have the same effect though.
Drink to excess/drink something you know will give you a bad hangover
Don't bring a lunch to work and leave your money at home
I know it's not a particularly healthy way to go about it, but feeling like shit and/or being unable to procure food is the only way I can stop eating, and it sounds like it might help you too. Once you manage to fast for day or two, it will be much easier to eat less, as long as you don't eat until you're all the way full - that's important, because you don't want to stretch your stomach back out, it will make it hard to feel full again. Spreading your meals out into smaller, more frequent portions can help you with not eating too much at one time if you have a hard time with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 01 2018, @06:31AM
Generally that means you're missing some nutrients and your body is trying to find them and/or you're rapidly cycling your sugar/insulin levels which mean you need to eat less carbs/sugar and instead need more slowly digestible foods (fiber, meat/fat).
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @06:16PM
you're a fucking idiot.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 30 2018, @06:37PM
Sugar is not the enemy to anything but your teeth
That is simply not true.
I was going to look up some references for you but this AC further down thread did a pretty good job already. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 30 2018, @03:21PM
I've read a few similar articles. The primary victim in those articles is "diet" drinks. You taste buds taste that sweet, and they send a signal to the digestive system, 'Hey, here comes some sugar! Better gear up!' The stuff hits bottom, and the stomach is ready to thank the Lord for what we have recieved - but there is nothing nutritious there. Something, but the stomach doesn't recognize it. So, the signal goes back up, 'Hey, we got cheated! We didn't get our sugar down here!' Some hunger pangs are sent to the CPU to inform Central that there is a problem. So - the diet soda drinkers drink more soda to appease the pangs.
Eating healthy is probably near impossible if you're sending trick signals to the digestive tract several times each day.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday December 02 2018, @09:15AM
True, they're more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @12:43PM (7 children)
i dont understand all the hate refined sugar gets.
ofc theres alot sugar in unhealth stuff but how can refined sugar per se be unhealthy?
my argument goes something like this: sugar is very very close to the chemical (atp?) that the
body really uses. not many extra steps required. other stuff needs to go thru more steps using enzymes and what
not to arrive at the chemical the bidy can really "burn".
these extra steps are not for free. they themself require energy in conversion steps and the "cogs and wheels" involved get
used up and need to be replaced.
in car analogy: dont use refined oil (gasoline) but rather connect a mini heavr crude refinery plant to the engine
that works by using some of the engine output to refine the heavy crude in gasoline that the engine can really use...
now i am not saying a sugar only duet is healthy but i just want to point out that sugar gets a bad rap for no obvious reason
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @01:20PM
Well, refined sugar products generally lack the nutritional profile of other sources of sugars. Sterile food is probably a bigger problem than excess sugar though - the modern microbiome is probably incredibly lacking compared to those of our ancestors who got new yeasts and bacteria with every fruit and vegetable they ate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @01:36PM
If you believe in evolution, millions of years have tuned your body to thrive on a certain type of diet.
Piles of sugar only became available in around the 18th Century with sugar cane plantations. It's not something our bodies are adapted to consume in such amounts. Neither is large quantities of flour. It's a reliable food source (agriculture), but not a healthy one compared to alternatives. It kept the peasants alive to work for the king who ate better, though.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:50PM (3 children)
Refined sugar generally means fructose. Fructose has a double effect on insulin resistance, the precursor for diabetes. It both stimulates production of insulin (because it's a sugar), and it reduces liver function (because it gets stored there as fat).
source 1: [medium.com]
source 2: [nih.gov]
Note that this study specifically mentions glucose intolerance. Once a body's metabolism has been affected with insulin resistance, all sugars become toxic and can increase diabetic risk.
source 3:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @02:53PM (1 child)
argh. source 3 [fructosefacts.org].
(Score: 1) by doke on Friday November 30 2018, @03:45PM
fructosefacts.org is an industry shill site. You can't trust it to be unbiased. There are a lot of other sites saying fructose is bad.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 30 2018, @11:01PM
'Sugar' without a modifying adjective is sucrose not fructose. Chemically it is basically one glucose and one fructose molecule bonded together. However, the first thing your body does with it is break it into the two parts.
Glucose is the one used all over the body (and especially the brain) as the main energy source, getting it in a big lump can trigger blood sugar spikes and fat storage, but is generally not too bad for you unless you are a diabetic.
Fructose is processed in the liver via basically the same metabolic pathways as alcohol. It has pretty much all the same nasty secondary effects as alcohol. If you are an alcoholic trying to give up drinking, you should give up fructose as well.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Monday December 03 2018, @04:33PM
It's not all sugar that is bad. Glucose is fine as is and lactose is good for those who can handle it. The specific problem is fructose.
Dr. Lustig, MD does a good job present the problem. "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" [youtube.com]
tl;dw;
Glucose can be readily be used by every cell in the body the body. It goes from your gut, to your bloodstream and roughly 80% is directly used by the body and used for fuel; no processing needed. The remaining 20% is processed by the liver, which converts it to light density fat cells (VLDL) that are associated with heart disease. The brain will also receive signals to stop eating when glucose is consumed. Ethanol is also a carbohydrate--but is also an acute toxin. The reasons why we regulate ethanol is because of the effects of ethanol being metabolized by the brain. Roughly four times the amount of ethanol will reach the liver than glucose when the same serving size is consumed; 10% is consumed by stomach and intestine, 10% by the kidneys, muscles, and brain, and the remaining 80% by the liver. This gets converted to lots of things the liver tries to expel, like free fatty acids that end up in the muscles which causes insulin resistance or as light density fat cells (VLDL).
Fructose on the other hand must be processed completely by the liver because only the liver can metabolized it. Fructose does not stimulate insulin, and thus the signal to stop eating is not sent to the brain. Fructose ends up depleting the liver of phosphorous, and in the attempt to recover as much phosphorous as it can, the liver produces lots of uric acid as a byproduct--uric acid is the cause for gout and hypertension (high blood pressure). The end result is VLDL. But not all the fat is able to leave the liver and some becomes a lipid droplet within the liver and also causes liver inflammation. It also creates compounds that cause insulin in the the liver to be ineffective. This results in the pancreatitis making more insulin which raises blood pressure. This encourages more fat cell creation, hence obesity, and changes how your brain recognizes energy in a negative fashion--so it thinks it is starving and signals for more eating. The result of this is the common liver related diseases of alcoholism: hypertension, myocardial infarction, dyslipidemia, pancreatitis, obesity, hepatic dysfunction, fetal insulin resistance, habitual if not addictive consumption--that's 8 of the 12 diseases associated with alcoholism.
What we consider as refined sugar, or table sugar, is sucrose. It is one part glucose and one part fructose with a single molecular bond joining the two. Take in a glucose load, nearly none of it ends up as fat (less than 5%). Take in a fructose load, 30% of it becomes fat. A high sugar diet results in the same as a high fat diet. Fructose will cause new fat cell production, triglycerides to rise, and free fatty acids to rise (high levels of free fatty acids will call insulin resistance). In clinical studies, these numbers will tend to double in participants consuming the fructose load within 6 days.
The take away: glucose is fine as long as you don't consume excessively and start producing fat cells. Fructose will always become fat cells and will damage the body's ability to regulate itself and is always as harmful or more harmful to the liver than ethanol. Refined sugar is half fructose and thus why the informed community rails against it. If you want a challenge, eat food without added sugar, corn syrup, or high fructose corn syrup. I've found the easiest way is to make it yourself.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday November 30 2018, @02:51PM (3 children)
Though I've had a few failing days recently due to stress, I've been on 16/8 (or more) IF and a ketogenic regimen for a couple of months. It's gotten me down to 143 lb at 5'10" at last weigh-in. Supposedly this works better for men, and I've been reading some things about how maybe I should stop keto during Shark Week, but I can't argue with the results. The best part is simply not being hungry all the damn time; I can go about 24 hours now before getting weak and dizzy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday November 30 2018, @03:40PM (2 children)
My brother does Paleo (mostly vegetables, some meat, fruit is dessert and a small amount of fat) and he as dropped weight well.
My family has sort of started eating with this guideline (more veggies) but our lifestyle sucks, so we're eating better but too sedate.
Wish we had longer summers here: swimming is about the only real exercise we get because our son LOVES swimming.
My favourite meal, though, is macaroni with spiced, salted tomatoes and Spam.... definitely NOT a healthy meal, lol, but Mmmmmmmm...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 01 2018, @11:54AM
I am convinced that it's not Paleo that works for these people, it is being on a diet that works
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday December 02 2018, @02:36AM
macaroni with spiced, salted tomatoes and Spam
Doesn't sound all that unhealthy to me as a meal. Could use some green vegetables, but not every single meal needs to be balanced.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday November 30 2018, @03:31PM (1 child)
I'm gonna live forever, Heaven don't want me and Hell's afraid I'll take over.
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Friday November 30 2018, @03:44PM
I'm going to live forever because there is no God, heaven OR Hell.... Or at least I hope I die mounted upon my good woman! ;)
"Heart....attack....but that's...okay....cumming......" * Dies with smile on face.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday December 02 2018, @02:28AM
So as not to mention transfats on their labels, food companies have made a new invention, the modified fat. These are made by breaking up the triglycerides and letting them recombine randomly.
Now naturally occurring triglycerides have three chains of equal length, and triglycerides of different lengths are metabolized in different parts of the body. No one knows how these ragged triglycerides are processed in the body or where they end up.
Much like no one knew where transfats ended up when they were first inflicted on the population.