Diet Thread

[Nobody]

Like a lot of links I post, I don't agree with some advice at the end. I don't believe that fish is good for you for example. I think he was promoting cheese too in his final recommended diet. Otherwise an entertaining watch. I was surprised just how little time it took some to not to be able to continue. I think it was foolishness of them to volunteer for it in the first place.

[Nobody]

200+ years ago, I would have expected those who are poor to be very thin. Now the opposite is more the reality. Besides social security income for these people, I believe the main factors are processed food being cheaper, more convenient, and more available than healthy food. Besides being addictive.

It concerns me that these shows often paint exercise as the main answer, when diet change is the main answer. Especially for health as the previous video highlights. They didn't gain much weight in 3 weeks of eating junk. But their health surely went off the rails.

I agree with the end conclusion of this video in that the problem is mult-factorial and all the factors need to be addressed. Change your environment, change your life.

[Nobody]

The first 18 minutes or so are more about the history of processed foods - which surprisingly go back a long way.

Ultra-Processed Foods: why did we create them and why can't we stop eating them? - ABC RN

[Nobody]

Definitely worth a look if you want to have any chance of reducing your exposure to these chemicals. Yes, this is USA centric. But you know they sell all the same products here.

[Nobody]

A human study on the effect of sodium intake on blood pressure (BP). Although they said in the introduction that they reduced salt by a teaspoon a day - which is about 2400mg of sodium. The article itself said they went from about 2200mg/d to 500 mg/d. Systolic BP dropped by 6 mmHg.
Cut salt, cut blood pressure - Science Daily


If you want lower your BP by more than 6 mmHg without meds, then you'll not only need to lower your sodium (a vasal restrictor) to about 500 mg/d or less. But also decrease fat intake (which deceases blood viscosity) and increase potassium (a vasal dilator) by eating more vegetables. The optimal ratio of of potassium to sodium is greater than 5 to 1. Losing body weight also helps. After changes, you should see an initial drop over 3 weeks. But to gain the best possible results can often take years. After all it took years to increase BP in the first place.
How do I know the abpve works? Currently my potassium to sodium ratio is about 19 to 1. I am on a very low fat diet and my average BP is 92/63 mmHg. However it took more than 7 years to get to these levels.

For those who want to know more without having to read books on the subject, Peter Rogers has some videos related to the subject of sodium and hypertension.
https://www.youtube.com/@PeterRogersMD/ ... ery=sodium

[Nobody]

Nearly 40% of conventional baby food contains toxic pesticides, US study finds - The Guardian

[Nobody]

Taste depends on nature and nurture. Here are seven ways you can learn to enjoy foods you don't like - ABC News

[Nobody]

Below is a to the point video on why it's not just salt that raises blood pressure. I've also posted the linked video from McDougall.

[Nobody]

Australians are eating more ultra-processed foods amid the rising cost of living. How can we turn that around?

The short answer is, it won't be able to be easily turned around.

The food system is being played by the big processed food manufacturers. Since the problem is progressively getting worse, it won't turn around unless governments introduce laws to curb the trend. That won't happen until the situation is particularly dire IMO. Although the harm is similar, food is obviously different to cigarettes and alcohol. As the article says, the disadvantaged would be disadvantaged further if they taxed ultra-processed foods since they have come to rely on them.

From the article (my bold):

In 2019, Dr Hall led the first randomised trial of 20 healthy adults.

The participants were all given two diets which were matched nutritionally, but one was made up of ultra-processed foods and the other of minimally processed foods.

Dr Hall says they found people ate a lot more of the ultra-processed foods — about 500 calories more per day.

[Tim]

For quite some time now I've been struggling with the argument that it's cheaper eating junky processed and ultra processed food than it is to eat healthy, home prepared, fresh and seasonal, quality produce. My suspicion is that most people are either too lazy, or not well enough educated and capable of cooking a decent meal. That, or they use the excuse of being too time-poor. FFS, how much time do they waste on their phones or semi-comatose on the couch.
My diet is far from perfect but I eat a wide variety and quantity of fruit and veggies. Eat wholemeal/grain bread, fresh fish 2-3 a week and red or white meats about once a week on top of 1kg+ of various nuts to snack on, canned legume beans daily in a salad and about once a week "discretionary" junk such as chocolate or fast food pies/pizza/hamburgers etc, and I don't hold back or feel guilty when I do eat garbage. I'm not fat and never have been. All for the princely sum of about $15 a day.
There's no way on earth I could survive on packaged or take-away meals 3 times a day for that amount.

[Nobody]

For quite some time now I've been struggling with the argument that it's cheaper eating junky processed and ultra processed food than it is to eat healthy, home prepared, fresh and seasonal, quality produce.

Maybe I can help. By the way $15 is high for food per day.

When you compare the healthiest diets, it becomes clearer because the calorie density is quite low. So you have to eat a lot. For 2500 Cal/d. That is 3.4 kg of sweet potato a day before losing 8% to peeling. At $4.90/kg = $16.66
Broccoli say 250g at say $5/kg is $1.25
Cauliflower 1/3 of one at about $4 each is about $1.33
Cabbage at about $3.5 per half. About 250g of that which is about 1/4, so about $0.88.
So adding it all up, that can be as high as $20 a day.
It costs me less than that because I shop around for my sweet potato and so can sometimes get it for about half that price or less. But they are realistic prices when nothing is on special. I'm just fortunate to be well off enough to still be able to afford it at the top prices.
That is the most basic of diets too. That isn't including nuts, seeds and fruit which can cost more per Cal, especially fruit.

Also we aren't comparing this to microwave meals. We are comparing it to the truly rubbish dehydrated noodles etc, which cost about $1 per 1000 Cal, or $2.5 per day. Eg:
https://www.coles.com.au/product/coles- ... 5g-3023476

[Nobody]

Some aspects below are dietary related. We live in a toxic artificial world, so need to be guarded about what we expose ourselves to.

How to reduce your exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in plastics, tinned food and even paper receipts - ABC NEWS

[am50em]

From https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/a ... hape-index with my current weight and waist.

ABSI 0.08106
ABSI z-score -1.0088

According to your ABSI z score, your premature mortality risk is very low.

[warthog1]

Have started watching this
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertai ... 085986007/
on Netflix.

It will upset a lot of people but well worth a look imo so far.

The factory farming practices in the US are terrible. Presumably here too.
Made the point about how heavily corrupted dietary advice is by the food industry,

[Nobody]

Have started watching this
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertai ... 085986007/
on Netflix.

It will upset a lot of people but well worth a look imo so far.

The factory farming practices in the US are terrible. Presumably here too.
Made the point about how heavily corrupted dietary advice is by the food industry,

Thanks for posting.

It looks like the article has given away the end results already. Even when people are slapped in the face with their own test results, they still can't get completely past their food addictions to change. If anything it shows what a strong grip the various food industries have on their customers. The optimistic view is that it's just the beginning for them. Some have changed somewhat and may change further into the future. It takes months to form habits and for tastes to change.

Anyway my daughter has a Netflix account for our TV, so I might watch one or all of the series.

[Nobody]

OK. Watched the first episode. Two issues I take with this episode:

- They claim an omnivore diet is higher in omega-3 fats. According to the science I've seen on testing they have done with the army personnel versus vegans, this is not the case. They were about the same.

- They are promoting dexa scans as beeing a worthwhile procedure to have. I'd argue it's safer to avoid X-rays to lower one's cancer risk.

[Nobody]

OK, seen all 4 episodes now. They are about 45 minutes each.

The twins study of 21 sets of identical twins - but the Netflix program only follows 4 pairs visually - is a minor player of the series IMO. The majority of it is about the confronting Contentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) and the environmental impact it's having. It's pitched squarely at the western omnivore majority as you'd expect of a TV series.

IMO the vegan test diet could have been much healthier than it appeared to be and the omnivore diet couldn't have been that good either since most peoples' LDL-C went up slightly on it. If you could find some identical twins that are already WFPB. Place one on an omnivore diet and the other on a "take it to the limit" healthiest raw, whole food, high vegetable, very low fat vegan diet. Then I think you'd see some significant differences.

If you just want the results then go to about 39 minutes into the fourth episode. The results don't appear to be very comprehensive considering how much testing they did. Maybe we'll have to find the study to get more comprehensive results.

In the end worth seeing but regular readers of the diet threads won't learn much about health from them.

[warthog1]

The animal farming was quite confronting.
Still haven't watched it all yet. I will get there.

[baabaa]

The animal farming was quite confronting.
Still haven't watched it all yet. I will get there.

These are worth a listen

Planet Chicken
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ry ... /downloads

[Nobody]

I think this (full text) study on meal timing and chronotype (chronobiology) is worth a look for those who want to avoid obesity. Simply it pays to be a moring person and eat most of your food in the morning and little to none close to sleep time.

Meal timing and obesity: interactions with macronutrient intake and chronotype - International Journal of Obesity

[Nobody]

Does dieting ever actually lead to long-term weight loss? - SMH

Interesting in some ways as it explains the mechanism in simplistic terms of why most will return to their pre-diet weight in 4 years. That assumes you do nothing special but cut intake somehow and try to keep the same plan. To keep it off long term it explains you need to make changes that are permanent and liveable as you need to do them for life. Like almost everyone these days, the article recommends the mediterranean diet. If you want half-hearted results, then sure. But consuming plenty of "good fats" and some animal products aren't your friends if you're trying to lose weight over the long term. Also not arterially healthy in higher amounts either.
A Mediterranean Diet and Low-Fat Vegan Diet to Improve Body Weight and Cardiometabolic Risk Factors: A Randomized, Cross-over Trial

I touched on one of the mechanisms in the last part of this post as to why getting as much fibre as feasible is an advantage for losing weight and keeping it off.

[Nobody]

[Nobody]

It's not just industry groups and their funding that is tainting the credibility of science in general.

‘The situation has become appalling’: fake scientific papers push research credibility to crisis point - The Guardian

[brumby33]

I just spent 6 days up in Sydney seeing my GP as well as friends and going to get our fix of Japanese foods.

On the way back South leaving the City, we called into Costco at Casula to get some supplies of things we can't buy in Albury and whilst there, I was shocked by the size of many people shopping there, it's as if they pretty much lived there.....there were some seriously obese people coming through those checkouts with not very nutritious product in their trolley, in fact, a lot of junk.
I was in there mainly for the big boxes of Japanese green tea, Organic Flax Seeds, and some Japanese sauces (actually manufactured in Japan) and ok...some little mini apple turn-overs without the cream.
We generally only go to Costco twice a year as they have products we can't get anywhere else even though i often question the value of the membership....but as I said, i reckon some of these people almost live there, they are heart attacks waiting to happen sadly. We saved $12 for a tank of 98 octane fuel and we had 2 full refills on the trip. I always use 98 on a trip.

Anyway, last September I had my quarterly blood test and I was high overall with my sugar levels, Triglycerides were double to what they should've been and my Blood Pressure was a bit higher than ideal. My HDL was too high as well. Now I know most of this was caused by sugar overall and the only thing i could think of was breakfast cereals, so I cut out any of the over produced cereals and only ate weetbix or Oats with chia seeds, and flaxseeds mixed in and now with Cinamon and 1 flat tablespoon of honey. I may eventually try the Keto way but I want to know more about what's involved before I dive in.

So just before Australia day, My wife and I both had new blood tests and I got a nice surprise that all my counts have improved substantially in only 3 Months and the Doctor was amazed. I still need to lose at least 10-12 more kilos but overall I know I'm on the right track.
Whilst the Dr has me on Metformin, I plan not to be on these things long term.....I will try and attack this diabetes with diet rather than long term medication.....Diabetes can be reversed and I'm more determined than ever to make that happen.

cheers

brumby33

[Nobody]

Anyway, last September I had my quarterly blood test and I was high overall with my sugar levels, Triglycerides were double to what they should've been and my Blood Pressure was a bit higher than ideal. My HDL was too high as well. Now I know most of this was caused by sugar overall and the only thing i could think of was breakfast cereals, so I cut out any of the over produced cereals and only ate weetbix or Oats with chia seeds, and flaxseeds mixed in and now with Cinamon and 1 flat tablespoon of honey. I may eventually try the Keto way but I want to know more about what's involved before I dive in.

So just before Australia day, My wife and I both had new blood tests and I got a nice surprise that all my counts have improved substantially in only 3 Months and the Doctor was amazed. I still need to lose at least 10-12 more kilos but overall I know I'm on the right track.
Whilst the Dr has me on Metformin, I plan not to be on these things long term.....I will try and attack this diabetes with diet rather than long term medication.....Diabetes can be reversed and I'm more determined than ever to make that happen.

Many breakfast cereals are ultra-processed products which are mainly processed carbs, sugar and fat.

From what I've seen, the average man would be better off buying generic "Weet-Bix" rather than Sanitarium Weet-Bix as the generics usually have no added iron. Most men are overloaded with iron by middle age and it contributes to cancer growth and a host of other oxidation related problems in the body, including more insulin resistance problems.

Since type 2 diabetes is typically caused by a combination of genetics and too much fat in one's diet, you're mainly masking the symptoms by restricting carbs and adding fat. Yes, you can mask all the symptoms with keto, but you would still fail a glucose tolerance test. Plus all the fat would be unhealthy generally anyway. More recent and long term studies have shown keto to be bad for one's health, even though the blood numbers look good in the first year.
https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/keto-diet/

Below is an ABC news article which has in it a professor's explanation (IIRC) of the role of fat in T2D.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2018 ... ion=health


The information linked above may be suprising. But try to avoid the reaction of most who let what they think they know about something to prevent them from learning the truth. After all diabetes can be a debilitating disease.
https://www.quora.com/What-did-Hawking- ... -knowledge