From what you've posted in this thread, I gather that you have not taken the time to understand insulin, what it is, and how low carb diets affect insulin, carbohydrate cravings and cell metabolism.
First link briefly covers the insulin response second link is general information regarding insulin.
See the Gary Taube youtube link elsewhere in this thread for a great deal more information.
mountains of contradictory research
Not really. There's mountains of research and then public policy officials and non-scientist nutritionists that have let the food industry provide guidelines and cheap foods that aren't really good for us.
As Gary Taube points out in the video link, the science is old news. The puzzling thing is why the science has been ignored for so long.
And from what you've posted in the thread, I gather you believe nutrition and weight gain or loss can be explained in the micro sense by individual things like insulin. Most of what I know about sugar, simple carbs in general, and insulin is what I learned from the just-OK book http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Blues-William-Dufty/dp/044634312...
But most of what I've learned about weight gain/loss and nutrition I've learned from books and research that look at the subject from a macro level.
The summation of everything I've read on the subject -- and I read a lot through my year long experience of losing weigh and changing almost entirely how I thought about food -- and my own experiences make me believe firmly that this is primarily an I/O issue.
And as much as you say "the science is settled and I am right" it's contradicted by a lot of smart people who study this and admit essentially 'the science of nutrition is immature and in many times conclusions are contradictory.' The most recent time I heard that was just last week in the same Pollan NPR interview I mentioned elsewhere. (Though i think this was a re-broadcast, not sure the original broadcast date)
To be clear, here's my take:
1. Primarily an I/O issue. Everything else is a distant 2nd place.
2. How much of the equation is I/O? I don't know. 75%? 50%? It's not the whole story, though, I don't think. Our bodies are adaptive and complex.
3. There are no silver bullets and anybody peddling one is probably wrong (not to say they are entirely without merit.)
4. Nutrition is a science that is not nearly as well understood as most people think.
Actually, we know a great deal about weight gain in the micro sense that is explained by insulin. Jeez, point after point you've made are answered in that Taube youtube link in this thread. You could have your answers if you just clicked the link, opened your mind, and thought about what the guy said.
At the end of the day, here's what I know from going on and off low-carb eating for the last ten years.
I eat carbs, I crave carbs, I binge eat, I gain lots of weight. Contrarily: I stop eating carbs, I lose the cravings, I eat moderately, salads even look satisfying, I lose weight.
Ok, I'm not one for internet debates and I think this has run it's course fairly. Feel free to take the last word after this if you'd like.
Maybe we've been talking past each other or maybe you just see this differently than I do.
I see a difference between the physical mechanism of weight gain and the mental part of hunger and eating.
Your comment here is something I can totally agree with: When you eat carbs, you crave them and binge eat and over eat and gain weight.
For you, eating carbs leads you to increase your input too much. Now this could be insulin like you insist, or it could just be bad habit. Either way, it's what I consider "mental." Because even if blood sugar issues with carbs triggers the hunger, you're still choosing to satisfy it by eating.
But there's some basic science behind the thermodynamics of weight gain and weight loss that cannot be waved away IMO.
Also, worth noting that carbs do not trigger me to over eat. They are and have been a staple in my diet and I cut them from my lunch meal entirely for reasons of caloric restriction and eat them liberally at my dinner meal. I load UP on carbs at dinner. And still, I don't eat again for at least 18 hours.
First link briefly covers the insulin response second link is general information regarding insulin.
http://www.spinalhealth.net/insulin.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin
See the Gary Taube youtube link elsewhere in this thread for a great deal more information.
mountains of contradictory research
Not really. There's mountains of research and then public policy officials and non-scientist nutritionists that have let the food industry provide guidelines and cheap foods that aren't really good for us.
As Gary Taube points out in the video link, the science is old news. The puzzling thing is why the science has been ignored for so long.