

Eating Mostly Whole Grains, Few Refined Grains Linked to Lower Body Fat - cwan
http://news.tufts.edu/releases/release.php?id=208

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tomjen3
As interesting as hacking the body is, am I really the only one who can't seem
to keep up with which of these articles to listen to? I mean, it used to be
fat was bad, then it became some fat is bad, some isn't, then carbohydrates
became bad (even as that is literally what we are made of) now grains (well,
mashed in small pieces but still).

What the hell am I supposed to eat that doesn't take hours to prepare and
doesn't cost a fortune?

~~~
tptacek
I know there's a perception that nutrition science is churning, and I'm sure
that behind the scenes it _really_ is, but at the macro- scale that laypeople
care about, aren't the trends straightforward and aren't they unfolding pretty
slowly?

* Fat is bad

* Saturated fat is bad, olive oil is good

* Transfats are particularly bad

* Carbs are bad

* Fat's not so bad after all

* Fructose is particularly bad

* Refined carbs are bad, normal carbs maybe not so bad after all, and complex carbs are good

For 50+ years, this doesn't seem that hard to keep up with.

It's also one thing to say that we're "made of carbohydrates" and another
thing altogether to suggest that our metabolisms are equipped to process large
quantities of purified, metabolically dense nutrients that our ancestors never
had access to.

~~~
ecuzzillo
Also, not that you particularly exercised it here, but the whole what-did-
cavepeople-eat argument is totally retarded. Cavepeople clearly could
reproduce a fair amount of the time on the diet they had. That doesn't even a
little bit mean that their diet was the diet people were 'designed for' or
that that was even remotely related to their optimal diet.

(Which obviously doesn't necessarily mean that refined sugar is either good or
bad.)

So we should all stop mentioning our ancestors when thinking about what to
eat.

~~~
tptacek
Not that I buy into the whole caveman fad, but isn't there evidence that the
switch from hunter/gatherer society to agriculture came with a decline in
health?

~~~
ecuzzillo
Dunno. Offhand, if the HG diet is berries and meat, and the farm diet is bread
and more bread, could be. But we already kinda knew that bread and more bread
wasn't the best diet; cavemen don't add more information if that's what was
going on.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the truth about nutrition and caveman diets
are conditionally independent given currently actually-known science about
nutrition. If we didn't have science, and all you had was cavemen
observations, that might be valid, but we do, so it's not.

(And by "currently actually-known science" I mean very basic things like that
we can't make iron from scratch so if we don't eat stuff with iron in it then
we get sick, and same with some amino acids, and same with noticing that if
you eat 20 cheeseburgers a day you get fat quickly. Not stuff like whether fat
is bad or good.)

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timinman
A while back I made a choice to lose some weight and eat healthier. I cut out
anything with lots of sugar or refined starches - and deep-fried food. So, I
switched from white rice to brown, white bread to whole wheat, and white
tortillas to corn. Other than that I ate just about what ever I wanted and ate
until I was full, but not over-full.

One of the things I found was that the temptation for sugar went away as long
as I cut it out completely. Whenever I had a little, it started to creep back
in.

I steadily lost about 3 pounds a week until I'd lost about 40. I was even able
to stop taking high blood-pressure meds. That was about a year ago I've kept
the weight off. Actually I'm still losing weight, but much slower.

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scotch_drinker
I'd be interested to also see a study comparing a regular diet with one that's
only whole grains as well as one that is completely grain free. I know that
processed grains are definitely starting to show up as really bad for us but I
think removing grains entirely is likely to be even better than just going
with whole grains.

~~~
timinman
I think whole grains are great. They provide fiber, lots of vitamins, and they
fill you up with less calories, so you eat less of the other bad stuff.

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zachster
I can attest to this. I gave up gluten last year. I don't know if I was really
allergic. I never had the blood test done. The result is that I pay greater
attention to everything I eat and stick mainly to whole grains, vegetables,
seafood and dairy.

But I eat a lot more dairy. Something about the diet makes me crave ice cream
and creme brulee type things. I must be consuming more fat than I ever did
before.

The net result is I lost about ten pounds, which is about 8% of my body
weight.

If I wasn't allergic to begin with, I also gave myself a gluten intolerance,
so it's not something to enter into lightly. But I feel like a new man.

~~~
scotch_drinker
When you say you eat whole grains, does that just mean rice like grains? Whole
grain bread still has plenty of gluten in it so I'm interested what your whole
grains look like. I'm in the process of converting to a completely grain free
diet and it's made a big difference in my sleep as well as my body fat
percentages.

~~~
zachster
Yup, that's right. Also quinoa. Grain Free looks pretty intense too.

As someone who tries to keep a low profile (or at least only be noticed for
things I think are cool about myself) it's not ideal having such a dietary
restriction. But the benefits erase the question in my mind.

