Real food doesn’t have labels. Have you ever pulled a carrot out of the garden and looked at its label? Or a potato or an apple off the tree? Labels are put on so called foods to warn you how much no food is there. Margarine was originally made to fatten turkeys. When 40% of those turkeys died they decided to sell it to people to eat. If a label has listed three things you cannot even pronounce why would you want to eat it?Have you ever read “Added to retard spoilage?” Who’d want retarded spoilage? Regular spoilage is bad enuff!
A real burger would probably have been healthier.
A real burger at seven o’clock in the morning would make me feel like crap.
Better living through chemistry…
There have been incredible innovations in making our food “better” through various treatments. These days, pasteurized milk stays good for the better part of a week, without the fat and the water separating. We can get refrigerated meals that stay good for a week without the need to freeze everything into submission or add huge amounts of salt. If you drop yesterday’s bread on your foot, you don’t break a toe. We can enjoy cheap fruit from all over the world year-round. Fresh!
Just because something is a chemical with a hard to pronounce name doesn’t mean it’s bad. Yes, there is a certain romantic appeal to going back to the way things used to be and eat pheasants shot earlier that morning in a bed of in-season vegetables from your own garden. But how many people can afford to live that way? Or have the time to get fresh food every other day and prepare it themselves?
Yes, there is tons of fast (or not so fast) food that is not great for us. But guess what, these outfits aren’t trying to be evil by processing our food. They’re using technical innovation to make food available cheaply and consistently. If we as the public then choose to buy the fatty, sugary items on the menu, that’s what they’ll sell us. If we want to buy something different, they’re happy to sell that to us, too.
Eh, I take issue with the statement that “Real food doesn’t have labels.” Just one example (I buy a lot of these products, especially hummus and tabouli salad.) That’s on the label, and I’d say it’s real food.
I think Guyenet is off the mark on this one actually.
The JAMA study set out to compare diets that were billed as weight loss. All low carb plans are billed as weight loss diets. The AHA low fat recommendation is not billed as a weight loss plan. Hence it was reasonable to decide before choosing the studies to use a criteria that accepts any low carb plan that is similar to Atkins but to only accept the named weight loss low fat plans. In the interest of “symmetry” I could see runnng the analysis without accepting any unnamed Atkins-like diets but nothing of what Guyenet writes supports the conclusion that doin such would have led to different results - only that adding in the unnamed low-fat ones would have.
And again (and as JayRx1981 points out) Guyenet’s conclusion is that other, in his mind better, analyses also demonstrate that there is no real difference in terms of weight loss at the one year mark between low fat and low carb plans. From his POV neither gives impressive results.
Of course the focus here (Guyenet’s post) is on weight loss. The issue of long term morbidity and mortality is still an open one. In prospective trials all we have to go on are imperfect proxies for that and to some degree the fact that the “low carb” plans do well on those proxies is reassuring … but. 1) Comparisons of complete lifestyles are still the best information we have. No question that lifestyles with lots of veggies and complex carbs, foods high in fiber, overall win out there. 2) The little all cause mortality data we have shows an increase in all cause mortality in the low carb groups. (Very limited data though.)
Interesting. I really need to cement the practice of reading the questioned study before commenting in my head, because if what you’re saying is true, then yeah, I can’t really support Guyenet’s assertion at all…yet. I guess my project for this coming Monday night (first night off work) is to read both Hession and the JAMA study.
Honestly, I’ve read Guyenet’s blog for a couple of years now, and I’ve gotten the impression that he really does try to explain the science behind some of the studies in a way that is more accessible to a lay audience and question the (reported) conclusions of some studies likely to be semi-controversial while at least trying to be fair to the source. My impression is that he (and another Ph.D he links to, Chris Masterjohn) seem to have fully embraced the Paleo worldview, and they can’t fully separate themselves from that view, even when they’re trying to be “fair”. Nowhere near as egregious as his previously mentioned Paleo associate, Chris Kresser (I’ll take the advice of an Acupuncturist, particularly one who decided to not administer routine vaccinations for his kid…well, never, actually).
I don’t know about you, but I have a refrigerator/freezer and we shop once a week. We make almost everything from scratch as I am deathly allergic to anything mushroom and it is a common ‘natural flavor’ and umami boost as mushroom powder in many things [as well as a very common ingredient to bulk out foods as various types of mushroom, portobellos being one of the most common.]
What is our diet? milk, butter, eggs, various cheese and cultured dairy products [sour cream, yoghurts and such] Meats [name a critter found in the grocery store and we eat it though not as much fish and seafood as we would probably like.] I will admit that we keep poultry for fresh eggs and the occasional bird on the table - but we will also buy at the grocery if it is not really egg laying season [they taper off in the fall and start up again in the spring.] Any veggie and fruit you can find in the grocery store. We tend to bake our own breads, cakes and muffins as I am an excellent baker and it saves running out to the store to grab a loaf of bread.
Other than a couple hours on every third day or so to bake bread, making beakfast is however long it takes mrAru to make his eggs and toast, or my oatmeal. His lunch is our dinner leftovers, my lunch is a salad. Our dinner takes probably anywhere from half an hour [throwing together hamburgers, a salad and some sort of veggies] to all day [sous vide or crockpot thrown together in the morning] to anywhere in between. We will make an extra lasagne to keep in the freezer, and it cooks as fast as a stauffers purchased lasagne.
You can cook from storebought dried goods [beans, flours and such], fresh fruits, veggies, dairy and meats in almost as little time as from the freezer case. The only thing it isn’t shorter than is stopping at McDeath. You just need to learn how to use a cookbook and common sense. You can have healthy fresh meals without the fancy french banquet foods.
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FWIW I think Guyenet does a great job analyzing and explaining the science a large percent of the time, and I don’t see his embrace of Paleo to be as wholehearted as you do. Hey, his Eocene satire of the Paleo logic was killer. His presentations on the key role brain mechanisms play in obesity and getting people to understand that it aint so simple as “carbs teh evil/insulin bad” are wonderful things. I link to his bits fairly often. In a world of hyped science reporting that gets distorted even in good rags his posts are most often wondrous things. But no one is perfect and sometimes he is inexplicitly off the rails. (FODMAPs anyone?) This time … I understand his point and it is not off the rails but without an analysis that shows that excluding the “unnamed” Atkins-like plans as well the results would have been different I fail to see its cogency.
Honestly though I agree with him that the “low fat” vs “low carb” discussion is more than a bit stale. The pivot away from a focus on low fat as the be-all and end-all has long occurred. The current darlings are more variants of Mediterranean nutrition plans or one of the DASHes. And the “modified Atkins plan” advised in the study of the op was completely consistent with that. It promoted olive oil and nuts and fish; it advised lots of veggies; it encouraged bean consumption and high fiber foods in general. It allowed meat and cheese and it allowed fruit. This was not eat lots of bacon and pork rinds. Again, the low carb/high fat group ended up no higher a percent of daily calories from saturated fat than is standard among Americans; they had quite a bit more of what are currently thought of as “healthy fats” and apparently a lot less highly refined carbs and added sugars.
From on-line summaries it is clear that the “low fat” group was advided to keep saturated below 7% but they did not achieve that. It is not clear how much saturated fat they did end up eating. I am going to try to swing by the hosptal library today and see if I can a copy of the actual article.
Your post further illustrates one of the major issues: the difficulty of distilling some basic concepts into a short phrase mantra!
Let’s live in a real world. Most Americans are eating processed meats (think bacon, most packaged sandwich meats, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, etc.), drinking sweetened beverages (hey it was an athlete chugging Gatorade in the commercial; it must be healthy!), in short things created by the Food Industrial Complex designed to hit the brain’s centers that say eat more and to not trigger the brain’s satiety centers that say that’s enough. Now we are not all going to make our own pasta or mash up black beans and shredded veggies together into home made burgers. Lawd knows I aint. But as a general principle the more packages you need to open up to get to the product that you are going to eat the more likely it is foodish more than real food; the more you don’t recognize the first two or three ingredients as a real whole food (instead of things like “whole grain wheat flour” or “chick peas”) the less likely it is “real food”; and the more that what you eat is actually not premade in the factory the better. But yes, a veggie burger made in a factory with whole grains, beans, veggies, soy protein (or even the dreaded, gasp, gluten!) that also has some preservatives thrown in, is indeed likely to much better for you and more satisfying longer than Frosted Flakes.
Okay, actual article in hand! Interesting details.
Each group had one meal a day replaced with a supplied bar or shake. I just find that odd for the sort of broad nutrition question they were trying to answer. But what evs.
Low carb group kept saturated faty acids (SFA) at about 1/3 of total fat intake throughout and actually modestly decreased the absolute amount of both SFA and total fat over the course of the year even as it became a higher percent of total calories (13 to 14% from 11% at baseline). No fats increased in absolute amount terms and the percent from fat went from 33% to roughly 43%. Fewer total calories, from about 2000 at baseline to more like 1200 to 1500ish over the year. Call it 1350. (Which is how percent of total went up even as absolute amounts went down.) Pecent carbs down of course, roughly in half. Interestingly nearly same absolute amount of fiber in that much less carb, so clearly they cut out all refined carbs and kept or substituted high fiber ones. Ratio of fiber to total carb went from 0.076 to 0.16 at 6 months for exmple. Protein percent up from 17% of intake to 25ish. Pretty significant, up much more in percent terms than fat went up.
Low fat group also kept SFA intake to about a third of total fat intake. In percent terms it went from baseline of about 12% of total calorie intake as SFAs to about 8 to 9%. In absolute terms all fats, both total and by individual group (SFAs, MUFAs, PUFAs, omega 3s, the putatively “bad” and the putatively “good” both) decreased significantly, with biggest relative decreases in both omega 3s and SFAs. Fewer total calories also albeit not quite as big of a decrease as the low carb group had - close though, about 100 to 200 calories more a day than the low carb group depending on time period. But they were also about 50 more at baseline. So from roughly 2000 to about 1500. Absolute amount of carb actually down even as percent of total went modestly up. Also roughly same fiber amount as baseline and as in the low carb group - so clearly a larger portion of their carbs were highly refined ones. That ratio that increased so much in the low carb group? Here it stayed virtually unchanged, from a similar 0.069 to 0.08 at the same 6 month mark. Protein very marginally up.
So let’s highlight some of that.
This “low carb” was not an increased saturated fat condition. Total SFA intake decreased. This was an avoid all highly refined carbs including added sugars and keep eating the same amount of high fiber ones condition. This was a 25% of daily intake from protein (considered on the higher end) condition. This was an eat slightly less fat, including saturated fat, in absolute amounts, condition. In short it was a high protein, low refined carb, keeping up complex carbs with fiber, moderate fat condition. Despite the media ledes this was not embracing fat or even avoiding carbs in general. Total fat intake was decreased and only one class of carbs was avoided in practice - refined (low fiber) carbs.
“Low fat” OTOH was a keep it up with your refined carbs and added sugars and cut down all fats, both those believed to be “bad” and those believed to be “good.”
Those who avoided refined carbs and added sugars while keeping up with fiber and focusing on protein took in fewer calories by a small margin. Protein also takes more calories to process. Small daily margin but add up 100 calories a day over 365 days plus the increased processing energy and 8 pounds more weight loss is less than reasonably expected. They had a pretty good outcome in terms of weight and proxies for CV health. Better than those who continued to embrace refined carbs and cut down all fats.
I guess the lede that yet another study shows lots of refined carbs (including added sugars) are not so great and high protein plus fiber will help you lose weight and do well on heart health proxies would just not get the clicks. And the authors of the study honestly don’t help in their presentation of the data.
From the OP’s article: “a racially diverse group of 150 men and women … who were assigned to follow diets for one year…”
Anyone else think that the sample size and time frame was too small to be meaningful?
Depends on your value of “meaningful.” Statistically significant even with smallish sample size. A year is enough to say, well, how things are at a year: good weight loss, better than chugging along eating more refined carbs and less of all fats MUFA5, PUFAs and omega 3s along with the SFAs; and good on some biomarkers at the one year mark that are usually considered good albeit crude predictors of outcomes.
This does not and cannot say what will be at a two year mark. Weight loss maintanence is a whole different challenge. And as pointed out it does not adress long term actual health outcomes, just short term items that are thought of as crude correlates of those outcomes, and the data we have, such as it is, does find some increased all cause mortality associated with low carb plans, as defined in the meta-analysis done. From the link already provided -
Again, these are not randomized controlled trials. Low carb here was not the low carb of the op study which clearly prserved complex carb (fiber rich carb) intake and did not give carte blanche to consume any sort of processed meats. And I have not tried to second guess their inclusion criteria. The data we’ve got is not always the data we want. Interpret with caution.
Good advice DSeid. Thank you.
Are you significantly fat, and have you been so for a significant amount of time? It matters a lot.
If you are genuinely obese and have been so for years, what you really need to do is get used to it. Don’t torture yourself trying to be a thin someone that you are vanishingly unlikely to ever be, and don’t hate yourself for it. What is a far better, smarter, healthier goal is to strive for more activity in your life on a consistent basis, be conscious enough to avoid insane indulgence, and bail on processed garbage being marketed to you as nutriment, get acquainted with real food in a relatively natural state, and if you have a sweet tooth, explore fruit.
(As far as carb elimination and fats, it’s right on. You’ll lose more, lose it faster, and it won’t be a tenth as difficult as simply restricting your intake. But as good as it genuinely is, there’s a lot going on with obesity and the only diet that is absolutely guaranteed to be one you can and will stick to for all the coming decades of your life is Eat whatever the hell you please and as much as you please." But it won’t result in weight loss. 
And if you are just a little chubby and it’s a relatively recent development, never mind.
I find “dieting” literature to be very frustrating and misleading. So instead I try to ignore the literature and work to avoid eating garbage. I also cook a lot. And if I do eat garbage, I try to make sure it’s garbage I cooked so at least I know what went into it and know how to adjust the rest of my day’s food to accommodate it.
My rule is to eat in a way that makes me feel good. If I eat junk food, I feel sluggish and disgusting and I also gain weight. If I eat lots of fruits & veggies and some lean protein, I feel energetic, lose weight and sleep better. The fruits & veggies and lean protein don’t always satisfy my need or desire for junk, but when I eat the junk for too long, I remember why I try to avoid it.