
Processed foods that dilute protein content subvert our appetite control systems - dang
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v508/n7496_supp/full/508S66a.html
======
icegreentea
Screw it, going to try to preempt the standard responses to dietary posts on
HN.

a) Yes, obviously fundamentally it all comes down in conservation of energy.
But that's also a ridiculously reductionist view that neglects the layers and
layers of complexity that overlays that. For example, if you were able to
create a situation where a person's diet and exercise levels could be exactly
controlled, then yes, we can control a person's weight from first principles,
relying only on conservation of energy. But that's not a realistic situation.

b) Just "cutting your carbs" is probably a reasonable piece of advice on an
individual scale, and probably a reasonable thing for a person who is worried
about their weight/health to attempt. But as the article points out, the carb
increase is systemic, and while its certainly possible to address systemic
problems from a purely ground-up, individual basis, it's certainly easier to
tackle the issue from as many perspectives as possible.

c) Just "cutting out the processed foods" is exactly the same as above

d) Just "try <insert name> diet" is once again probably the same as above,
with the added bonus that nearly any diet is probably going to work and
generate short-medium term results just by shocking the body, and forcing some
level of structured discipline on an individual, especially discipline laced
with all the extra goodies of being from "experts" and all the other fun
social stuff we work in.

e) Natural obviously does not mean 'better'. However, it's clear that we have
adapted for a certain environment, and while we certainly don't need to
replicate that environment in it's totality, that does not imply that our
current environment is any good at all from any number of perspectives.

f) This does mean that 'paleo', especially the way the that the paleo-
diet/lifestyle is marketed is the way to go. Really all we got to go on is
that our macronutrient ratio is out of whack. That does not mean that if
you're doing paleo, or are considering paleo that you're doing shit wrong. If
it's work, its working, but that don't mean it gonna work for everyone.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Now if we could just get this to autopost if the referenced article mentioned
nutrition and obesity. :-)

Looking at the software that is probably not feasible, but it would make for
some interesting forum software which did an autoFPR[1]

[1] Frequently Posted Responses - probably needs a better acronym.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Isn't tokenadult a biological implementation of an autoFPR system? ;). His
posts are long, well-thought, full of references and appear so quickly that
I'm damn sure he's copy-pasting things from his personal Wiki or research
notes.

------
SixSigma
There's also the "a calorie is not a calorie" when it comes to comparing fat /
pure sugar / carbs / protein. [1][3]

Calorie content printed on foods is done by calorimetry not by bodily uptake.
[2]

And research suggests it is important how you eat foods in combination. Even
the simple process of drinking water with food will increase your calorific
uptake, just ask any dairy farmer; they give water with dry feed for that
reason. Fibre, wholewheat and fat will give you less bodily calories than the
same calories of sugar.

I'm not advocating any special dietary regimen but time and time again the
research points to : each your food with plenty of fresh vegetables,
particularly leafy greens - for iron, fibre, calcium - and the rest will
pretty much look after itself.

If you want to keep up with research then
[http://www.reddit.com/r/advancedfitness](http://www.reddit.com/r/advancedfitness)
is a good place to keep tabs on.

[1] [http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/a-calorie-is-
not-...](http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/a-calorie-is-not-a-
calorie)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorimeter)

[3]
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full)

~~~
shard
Could you share any links regarding studies that suggest drinking water with
food increases calorific intake? My Google searches come up with studies that
say drinking water with food increases weight loss.

------
amit_m
My personal experience is that the there is something about food in the US
that really pushes you towards obesity.

I recently spent 2 months in the US (conference + work + road trip). It was
relatively sedentary, but probably no more than my day-to-day life. I was
careful not to consume any soft drinks - just water, tea (the coffee is
unbearable) and the occasional beer. I ate very few snacks and sweets and
usually swapped fatty side dishes with salads or cooked vegetables.

I did eat out a lot, but I also eat out a lot at home. I don't think my
portion sizes were any bigger. The result? Gained nearly 8 pounds! I was
really surprised by this.

In contrast, during a 2-month long trip to china that included more physical
activity, but also tons of very oily noodles, I lost around 4 pounds.

Btw, my typical diet is roughly mediterranean+beer (Tel-Aviv). In particular
it includes lots of salads with olive oil, lots of hummus, chicken, fish,
pasta, pizza, and various forms of junk food.

------
tlb
This is, at least, an appealing simple explanation for obesity. Much simpler
than "Impurities in high-fructose corn syrup disrupt a particular metabolic
pathway in the liver causing ... increased fat storage". Simply: humans crave
protein and will eat things that taste like protein until they have enough.

I hereby suggest Occam's diet: avoid things that taste like protein but
aren't.

~~~
theboss
The explanation for obesity is simply a caloric surplus. You can't get much
simpler than that.

~~~
seabee
That's just shuffling the question around rather than answering it. Why are
more people running caloric surpluses than before? It is not happening
deliberately.

~~~
theboss
I'm absolutely not shuffling around the question rather than answering it.

In a practical sense, the question doesn't matter at all to people trying to
live healthier lives.

The reason we have fatter people is we have more calorically dense foods
readily available (meaning greater calories in) while people live more
sedentary lifestyles (means less calories out).

This function to lose weight is so incredibly simple (paging jacques chester
and his steam machine blog post).

~~~
jasallen
A proper solution involves solving the 'Willpower Issue'. We want to address
the problem in a way that can be nearly invisible to those who want to spend
their willpower and intellect elsewhere. As someone in the nutrition industry,
I spend a lot of _my_ time considering what I eat, but we also have to solve
the problem so that everyone can eat healthy without it having to also be a
full time hobby.

~~~
scoofy
Yea, it seems that people have this historical fantasy that people used to
just exercise all day, and voila... were thinner. I've lived in Boston, NYC,
and SF... all of which have had transit systems for a century, and people
presumably lived extremely similar lives as far as passive exercise is
concerned (though air conditioning is an obvious change). Still, many people
in these cities are incredibly obese. The biggest difference is the automobile
(for which i'm assuming these cities would be good control groups), after
that, the clearest difference is food. More of it, yes, but why are people
eating so much more... cost doesn't fit. It's not as though my stomach says,
well these are cheap calories, better get my money's worth. No, it just
doesn't make much sense if the food itself isn't causing the increased
consumption.

------
ama729
Is it me, or does the reference don't even match the article? Number 4* state:

    
    
      Longevity and health were optimized when protein was replaced with carbohydrate 
      to limit compensatory feeding for protein and suppress protein intake.
    

Overall, the science behind the claims seem weak, there are no clinical
studies on human for example.

*[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=npg&am...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?holding=npg&amp;cmd=Retrieve&amp;db=PubMed&amp;list_uids=24606899&amp;dopt=Abstract)

~~~
pessimizer
It doesn't really contradict the article, which isn't _really_ saying that
eating protein is healthy, but that people scarf up carbohydrates trying to
find protein - but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the article.

[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/cp-
cpi022714....](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-03/cp-
cpi022714.php)

------
brodney
The article mentions a 0.8% decline in protein concentration. That seems
negligibly low. Does such a small variance really matter to foods?

The interesting part seems to be the increase in carbs/fats at 8% over the
same 35 years.

~~~
hyperpape
I think the point is that protein concentration is staying almost constant but
people are achieving it by eating more over all.

~~~
a3n
s/concentration/consumption/

Protein _consumption_ is staying constant, because _concentration_ has
dropped, and people eat more total food to bring total protein back up. Acc to
the article.

Which is a win/win for industrial food. The article says industry is incented
to replace protein with cheaper fat and sugar. So a volume of food sold costs
less to produce. And then people turn around and eat/buy even more, to make up
for the lower protein concentration.

I sometimes feel played.

~~~
fragsworth
You could interpret the comment as protein concentration _in humans_ stays
constant.

------
wil421
>Many processed food products are protein-poor but are engineered to taste
like protein.

I think MSG may be the culprit here. In college I worked in a large Chinese
restaurant, we didnt use it but many people would ask if we did. It go me
thinking so I did little research. MSG gives the taste called umami. I started
looking through my pantry and many items I snack or junk food items contain
it.

------
nairteashop
> An optimal diet includes a mixture of foods that provide dozens of different
> nutrients in appropriate amounts and in the right proportions.

I wonder if we're any close to understanding what these "right" proportions
are, and whether they are at all close to what is recommended by the USDA
(which I believe is 45-65% carbs, 10-35% protein and 20-35% fat).

~~~
Retric
I have read that the USDA's recommendations are influenced by the huge grain
farming lobby in the US. It's well known that a carbohydrate heavy diet works
to fatten up a wide range of farm animals, though the impact this has on
people is under some debate.

~~~
rficcaglia
i lost significant weight (>33% from start) eating 50% protein (non processed,
mostly fresh fish) 30% vegetable fats (olive oil, avacados, etc) and 20% non-
starch carbs (berries, veggies - no breads, pasta, rice, beans)

i have kept it off past 2 years and replaced remaining fat with muscle (eg 48
inch waist -> 30 inch waist) slowly replacing protein with more veggies,
beans, and some whole grain breads...fat % same. about evenly split 1/3 fat,
carbs, protein.

i couldnt maintain exercise at higher protein levels...i could feel a physical
response in energy levels by adding in say 1/2 cup beans or 2 apples 30 min
before a workout allowing me to sustain target activity levels

Ymmv

------
nlh
Good piece, and makes sense, but some examples would be helpful -- there's a
lot of talk about foods engineered to taste like protein but that have carbs.

Anyone have some examples? Chicken and Beef are, in their un-seasoned form,
pretty bland, so I'm not sure what "engineered to taste like chicken" actually
means....?

~~~
DanBC
Engineered to taste like chicken means pretty much that - they try to
reproduce some of the texture and mouthfeel. They make it a bit bland and
chicken-like, then use it for something that would have chicken.

Not sure about your first paragraph. I know tha. If you take a rel chicken and
roast it, and serve it with vegetables, that you'll have a tasty nutritious
meal. But if you take that same chicken you can take the breast meat off and
sell that as fillets; same with the legs; the wings get sold too. You do that
with all the bird. Eventually you have a carcass from which you mechanically
recover as much meat and meat-like protien as possible. That gets sold off for
low value meat style products.

So, you take some meat and chop it and re-form it into small lumps. You cover
those in a salty spicy coating (which will soak up fat) and you fry those. You
serve them with a sweet sauce (ketchup; bbq; anything with sugar).

Now you have a low value bit of meat that you can sell in high volume to many
many people for incredible markup. It is really tasty - some people think
there aee combinations of sugar / salt / fat that are hyper paletable - and
really easy to eat.

This kind of popcorn chicken will have less protien, but more salt and fat and
carbs than a regular chicken.

~~~
canvia
"(ketchup; bbq; anything with sugar)"

Sadly those don't even have sugar in them for the most part, it's all high
fructose corn syrup these days. HFCS along with trans fats have been linked to
inflammation and should be avoided.

~~~
DanBC
I'm in the UK. We use sugar, not HFSC.

We also have obesity over here. Drinking 42 oz drinks is going to cause
problems whether they're using HFCS or regular sugar.

~~~
threedaymonk
We do have HFCS in the UK, but we call it glucose-fructose syrup. I've noticed
it in the ingredients of an increasing number of beverages.

------
pietro
The core research looks very interesting, but Nature should probably hire a
few economists to read through all the crap that scientists believe they know
about economics, and maybe a few psychologists, too.

------
aqme28
I'm curious _why_ processed foods contain less protein now than before.

~~~
fibbery
From the post: "Food manufacturers have a financial incentive to replace
protein with cheaper forms of calories, and to manipulate the sensory
qualities of foods to disguise their lower protein content."

