Thursday, August 7, 2014

One More Nail In The Coffin Of The Lowfat Diet

Yesterday I heard a segment on the radio (KQED public radio in SF) in which investigative journalist Nina Teicholz spoke about her new book, The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. Her book makes a scientific, "evidence-based" case for eating a diet high in saturated fats, and explains the rise and reign of the low-fat myth.

She spoke well. The audio is available here and/or here. She is also speaking at the Commonwealth Club tonight.

This is interesting to me for various reasons.

First, I want to know what to eat to keep myself healthy. I've been eating a diet high in saturated fats for a while now, and it's nice to have further confirmation that this makes sense.

Second, Sally Fallon Morell and the Weston A. Price Foundation have been on the record in favor of the high-saturated-fat diet for at least fifteen years, and for most of that time, they were disparaged and/or dismissed by the mainstream.

The fact that the saturated fat idea has become palatable to the liberal establishment (as represented by public radio and the Commonwealth Club) is heartening to me.

Let's hope that they get curious and start examining the rest of the dietary dogma that has been force-fed to an easily led public.

6 comments:

Barbara B. said...

I read this thoroughly researched and documented book a couple of months ago. It is required reading for anyone who thinks the government does anything to benefit the public. See how they have force fed the very diet that their own research tests proved was not good for the public while the medical institutions went along with the lies at great benefit$$$$. Sadly, Snowdon only touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the lies our government hides.

Alex Lewin said...

Where personal ambition and the public good are at odds, personal ambition often dominates...

NDE said...

Along the same lines (though probably somewhere between orthogonal and opposite to your interests): Evidence against "gluten sensitivity" (outside of the known but relatively rare celiac disease).
http://www.businessinsider.com/gluten-sensitivity-and-study-replication-2014-5

Alex Lewin said...

NDE, very interesting. Thanks.

For me, the businessinsider article epitomizes some of the problems with science as conveyed by the popular press.

You get more attention when you attack or defend fads that people are already familiar with than when you introduce complicated concepts that no one will take the time to understand. The businessinsider article makes zero mention of what kinds of foods might contain FODMAPs, except saying that gluten-free products frequently don't contain them. And then in the last sentence of the article, it recommends eating bread, which doesn't make sense.

The real take-away from this study seems to be that people are sensitive to FODMAPs, and that we now have a better understanding of why these people are helped by gluten-free diets, even though gluten might not be the actual issue.

Beyond that, the timespan of the study seems on the short side to me to definitively disprove the possibility of non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I'd want to see something more on the order of 6 months. Chronic conditions and syndromes frequently take months to clear up in the absence of aggravators.

I will keep my eye out for FODMAPs...

Alex Lewin said...

And the more I think about it, the more I feel like the real news is this:

In the last 30 years, we as a society have started adding stuff to our processed foods that has been causing reactions in up to 30% of the population.

And the discussion is NOT about removing that stuff, or what's wrong with the processed food industry-it's about what's wrong with people who are trying to figure out how to be healthy...

Alex Lewin said...

Here's another article on "To Gluten or Not to Gluten".

It's obviously much longer than the other one.

It does a better job of investigating the question of what exactly is triggering reactions in people, if it's not always gluten...

http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/traditional-diets/to-gluten-or-not-to-gluten/