Food Fight Round 2

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Food fight. Round two.

In Food fight. Round One, we discovered what, contrary to some people's beliefs, does not make most people fat.

Here's the second surprise from the food fight front:
What food DOES make a person fat?

One journalist spent five years looking into this full time. He reviewed tens of thousands of pages of research findings, and interviewed numerous doctors and nutrition folks. Here's his second (of nine) conclusions about what DOES make a person fat.

"2. The problem is carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis - the entire harmonic ensemble of the human body.

"9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be." Taubes, p. 454

Before you gasp in disbelief, here's what Andrew Weil, the well known MD said about Taubes' stunning and revolutionary book on Larry King Live:

“I think this is a very important book. I’ve been recommending it to my medical colleagues and students. There are some very big ideas in this book…[Gary Taubes] has done a meticulous job of showing that many of the assumptions that are held by the conventional medical community simply rest on nothing…

"It’s very important to get these out to the medical community because a lot of the ways we try and prevent and treat obesity are based on assumptions that have no scientific evidence.”
-Dr. Weil, speaking on Larry King Live, 2008

Gary Taubes was as surprised by this conclusion as you might be right now.

[Carbs: bread, pasta, legumes, grains, cereal, chips, rice, sugar & sweets, donuts, muffins...]

"Hey," you say, "doesn't that sound like Atkins? But he's been been vilified in the professional community, hasn't he?"

Yep. Millions of people have lost weight using his approach. But Atkins today has many detractors. Here's a surprise reason...

Food fight. Round Three, next.

Posted by Kim Klaver at 12:11 AM

Fiber is a cheap filler....

Fiber is a cheap filler...
Posted on: October 16th, 2007 by Heidi Dulay

Fiber is a good thing - if it's in food, or in a fiber supplement. It is NOT a good thing in a vitamin/mineral supplement, whether the supplement is synthetic or whole-food.

Why? Two reasons:

First, if fiber is among the ingredients in a capsule or tablet, you're getting less of the expensive ingredients (the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, probiotics, etc). You can buy a month's supply of fiber (psyllium husk, oat bran, wheat bran, etc.) in the bulk section of a health food store for a few dollars. A good vitamin or whole-food supplement costs way more.

The space in a capsule is best saved for precious ingredients, not wasted on cheap fillers, don't you think?

Second, fiber prevents the body from using vitamins and minerals. It can bind with vitamins and minerals and carry them right out of the body. Phyllis Balch, in the Fourth Edition of her immensely popular guide to natural health, recommends that "supplemental fiber and minerals should be taken at different times." (Prescription for Natural Healing, 2006, p. 30).

So, if you need to add fiber to what you eat, take it alone.

Whole Food Nation