Post by Doug BoucherPost by Hagrinas MivaliIt's because food companies go along for the ride. We were told decades
ago
Post by Hagrinas Mivalithat fat was bad for us.
Of course, they also told schoolchildren that in case of nuclear attack,
they should hide under their desks, but they were sorta right about fat.
Yes, and no. It's true that saturated fats are bad for us. But it's also
true that unsaturated fats are good for us. So categorizing things as good
or bad based on whether they are fatty or fat free is as sensible as
stepping into a room where half the people have guns and deciding who might
shoot by looking at eye color.
Post by Doug BoucherPost by Hagrinas MivaliIt was true for some types of fat, but you can't
expect consumers to be smart enough to know one type from another.
It doesn't take too long to figure it out, either. I first started reading
up on fat a few years ago. How many people know what Omega 3 fatty acids
are? The shit is good for you. In fact, they refer to it as essential. My
favorite food for it is salmon, it's in other kinds of fish too. And since
we were talking about cooking oil earlier, I'll mention that I started using
canola oil a few years ago, which is higher in these unsaturated fats and
lower in the saturated. There's apparantly a ton of crap on the internet
about how canola oil is bad for you, but most of those claims seem to have
been proven to be bullshit, and it looks like a good alternative to me.
Olive oil too.
There is nothing wrong with canola oil, and you are right about those oils
in general.
You can pour 8oz of olive oil on your salad at lunch time, and do the same
thing at breakfast and dinner, and your fat intake will be way beyond what
the USDA says is healthful. But it would be totally misleading information.
The government did the same thing with carbohydrates. They decided that
they are good for us, but it wasn't quite true. Then Dr. Atkins came along
and said that they were bad for us, which wasn't quite true either.
Research now shows that processed carbohydrates such as refined flour and
carbohydrates such as potatoes and other almost pure starches are bad for
us, but complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, that the body actually
has to digest in order to break down, are actually not so bad for us.
Indeed, the fiber is helpful. (I think the Atkins folks now say the same
thing.)
The problem comes when you look at another part of the world, see that their
health is better than ours, that their diet is low or high in something, and
conclude that we should carve up our food groups the same way. They may be
low in fats because they stick to unsaturated fats, or high in carbs because
they eat lots of fruits and vegetables. You can't go strictly by whether
something is a protein or a carbohyrate or a fat. Things don't work that
way. There's a difference between fatty bacon and lean Canadian bacon, but
if you think of them as both being in the meat group, then you miss the
point. And there's a difference between whole milk and skim milk, the
latter being better for you (except for small children.) Likewise, something
like mayonnaise is 90-95% fat. But before you run away, it's mostly
unsaturated fat, and if you switch to the low fat mayo, you end up with more
carbohydrates. Since it's the ratio of unsaturated to saturated that is
important here, the regular mayo is actually better for you according to
some experts.
So don't avoid fats simply because you were told they are bad, or stick to
white bread because you were told it was harmless. Eating that bread with
some butter on it will actually slow down the intake of sugars as it is
digested, but you are still better off using olive oil instead as is done in
finer Italian restaurants. And switching to whole grain bread would be
better too.
Post by Doug BoucherSo we as
Post by Hagrinas Mivalia nation moved away from food with fat to high carbohydrate foods made
with
Post by Hagrinas Mivalirefined grains. In other words, all the nutrition gets removed and we get
the stuff pre-digested for us. They also add lots of sugar to make up for
things, and we were expected to believe that this was good for us.
You mean sugar is bad? Fuck!
Sugar is the body's fuel. Your body sends sugar through the blood stream,
and makes insulin so that the body can make use of the sugar and get it into
our organs, or store its energy in our fat cells. The way the body has done
this for the past few million years or so (including our pre-modern-human
ansestors) was to digest food. It was a slow process, and it resulted in a
release of sugar over a period of time. The body responded with a gradual
release of insulin. If we ate something such as unrefined grain, the body
had to rip it to pieces during digestion, thus going through the same slow
digestion process. Something like refined white flower is a carbohydrate
that gets broken down into sugar almost instantly. Aside from the fact that
one can hurt your teeth more, eating a slice of white bread is not much
different from eating pure sugar.
The problem with eating pure sugar is that it enters your bloodstream almost
immediately. Your body has to respond with a large surge of insulin that it
must make immediately. As the body finally takes in the sugar, you are left
with that elevated insulin level and that's what causes the rebound and the
cravings. It can also result in reactive hypoglycemia, which means that
your blood sugar is now way too low because of this. Thus the cycle
continues as you get the munchies. If you are fat and your fat cells already
contain sufficient amounts of stored energy, they will not be able to take
in the sugar so rapidly and it and the fat will circulate in your blood
stream instead. And making more insulin won't really help. At least not
immediately. The insulin level will continue to rise, though, and
eventually the sugar will leave your blood stream rapidly. Boom!
With the traditional gradual intake of sugar, there is no resultant surge of
insulin and the slow absorbtion is followed by a slow decline of blood
sugar. Your body can handle that better and you are less hungry. So yes,
staying away from sugar and refined grains and simple carbohydrates can
help.
Post by Doug BoucherPost by Hagrinas MivaliWhen they want to fatten up cows, they give them a diet of pure
carbohydrates. Then they tell us that grain is not fattening.
Yeah, but I don't want to make a steak out of you.
I wouldn't be filling.
Post by Doug BoucherWhat seems to help me (when I'm smart enough to do it) is to go low on sugar
and saturated fats, but eat plenty of fiber. Also, eating fruit itself is
better than drinking juice because you get the fiber to balance the sugars.
Of course, I'd drink a gallon of juice a day if I could, but that's not a
good idea
You are right about that. Fruit sugar is still sugar. That's why diets
such as Atkins will limit you or keep you away from fruit. Other diets such
as South Beach keep you away for the first two weeks until your blood sugar
is under control and then reintroduce it in moderation.
Drinking fruit juice is not the healthy choice that people used to think it
is. Rejecting it because it's carbs is not good reasoning since it does
have some nutrition, but you are better off eating an orange or two than
drinking that juice with no fiber. The intake of sugar is slower when eating
the whole fruit, and a piece or two a day is a good idea.
Post by Doug BoucherAnd lots of water. Shitloads of water. If you have a lot of fiber and not
enough water, you're fucked. I have to piss a lot more often, but if I ate
the amount of saturated fat I was eating even five years ago, I'd be
shitting blood every half an hour. I simply can't handle the same amounts of
either fat or sugar I used to be able to. Which is probably because I ate
too much of that crap in the first place. Not that I don't eat fat. Them
were some damn good pork chops I made a few days ago.
Water will definitely help. So will fiber. Even a litle fiber before a meal
(or ideally 1/2 hour before a meal) will help a lot. If you trim the pork
chops first, they are not the worst thing for you. But leaner meat is
generally better, as long as it's not marinated with a sugary sauce to make
up for it.
Post by Doug BoucherTrying not to think about Pepsi and Twizzlers,
Dougie
Some people say to just switch to diet Pepsi. My feeling is that if you
stay away from diet soda and artificial sweeteners, you won't stay
accustomed to sweet tastes and you'll be better off. But I don't know if
there's enough science to show that that works for everybody. I did read of
a study that showed that diet drinks end up increasing people's consumption
of sweets overall, but I don't know if that's because they tend to be
consumed by people who like sweets more than folks who don't need diets, or
if it's a legitimate finding. But staying away from that stuff works for
me.