Government and our eating habits

[Azure]

According to Scientific American, growing research into carbohydrate-based diets has demonstrated that the medical establishment may have harmed Americans by steering them toward carbs. Research by Meir Stampfer, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard, concludes that diets rich in carbohydrates that are quickly digestible—that is, with a high glycemic index, like potatoes, white rice, and white bread—give people an insulin boost that increases the risk of diabetes and makes them far more likely to contract cardiovascular disease than those who eat moderate amounts of meat and fewer carbs. Though federal guidelines now emphasize eating more fiber-rich carbohydrates, which take longer to digest, the incessant message over the last 30 years to substitute carbs for meat appears to have done significant damage. And it doesn’t appear that the government will change its approach this time around. The preliminary recommendations of a panel advising the FDA on the new guidelines urge people to shift to “plant-based” diets and to consume “only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry and eggs.”

http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/02/wh...ment-tells-you

Pretty non-surprising discovery.

[Devils'Advocate]

Azure and his "THE GOVERNMENT IS TRYING TO KILL YOU!!" crusade.

Nice unbiased link there....

The recommendation to eat a more "plant based diet" and have "moderate consumption of meats" is what the link is complaining about and is exactly the way that my dietitian and I have worked my diet. I am vegetarian, so a "plant based diet" is my only choice unless I like to eat rocks. And so long as those plants are mostly fruits and vegetables rather than carbs, I'm doing just fine thank you very much.

[Azure]

Me thinks you didn't read the article.

30 years ago there was more emphasis placed on staying away from saturated fat(meat), and to eat more carbs.

30 years later obesity is a serious problem.

Anyone who has taken about an hour of their life to look into how carbs react in your body would realize that a carb heavy recommendation for a society that becomes less and less active every year would only result in one thing. A lot of fat people.

[HPLovecraft]

Eat a traditional diet (Italian, French, Indian, whatever), and stay away from our Western one. No matter what new tidbit of info they release, traditional diets have proven over centuries and centuries to be healthy and work, while our Western diet is brand spankin' new in the world of things. Then you don't have to listen to all these corporate sponsored news breaks about eating "healthy."

[Weiser Wonder]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Eat a traditional diet (Italian, French, Indian, whatever), and stay away from our Western one. No matter what new tidbit of info they release, traditional diets have proven over centuries and centuries to be healthy and work, while our Western diet is brand spankin' new in the world of things. Then you don't have to listen to all these corporate sponsored news breaks about eating "healthy."

Booze, coffee, cheese and bread?

[transplant99]

Serious question as i have seen this come up a lot in regards to "white" rice...are they all the same generally?

The blond loves her korean rice that she can only find in a couple places around here and she is positive that it is different than most "white" rices.

i know it has to better than the instant/5 minute stuff because it takes forever to cook properly, and seeing as how so many eastern diets have a substantial amount of rice in them (including Korean, Japanese and Chinese etc) i am wondering the difference.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Serious question as i have seen this come up a lot in regards to "white" rice...are they all the same generally?

The blond loves her korean rice that she can only find in a couple places around here and she is positive that it is different than most "white" rices.

i know it has to better than the instant/5 minute stuff because it takes forever to cook properly, and seeing as how so many eastern diets have a substantial amount of rice in them (including Korean, Japanese and Chinese etc) i am wondering the difference.

Pretty sure, nutritionally, they're fairly similar. It's healthier than the 5-minute stuff largely because of all the chemicals added to that stuff.

My girlfriend's Pakistani and I end up eating a ton of Basmati.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Eat a traditional diet (Italian, French, Indian, whatever), and stay away from our Western one. No matter what new tidbit of info they release, traditional diets have proven over centuries and centuries to be healthy and work, while our Western diet is brand spankin' new in the world of things. Then you don't have to listen to all these corporate sponsored news breaks about eating "healthy."

I think traditional diets work....as long as people are active. Over the centuries you could eat all that great fat, energy rich stuff when you were out working the fields all day or doing manual labor. You needed the energy and you worked it off. Today though, if all you do is sit in front a computer for 8 hours a day, munching on camembert might not be ideal.

At the end of the day though, I'd rather eat fatty "real" food, than chemically processed "health food". I grew up on a traditional Hungarian diet (about as fatty as it gets!) and I'm pretty average in terms of weight.

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I think traditional diets work....as long as people are active. Over the centuries you could eat all that great fatty, energy-rich stuff when you were out working the fields all day or doing manual labor. You needed the energy and you worked it off. Today though, if all you do is sit in front a computer for 8 hours a day, munching on camembert might not be ideal.

At the end of the day though, not matter what, I'd rather eat fatty real food than anything chemically processed.

And yet it's still us, practitioners of a 99% Western diet, that largely suffer from obesity, and not the rest of the world that still eats a traditional diet while working in modern employment.

I read someplace that the science of nutrition today is near what surgery was in the 18th century. Rather dubious at times and always changing.

[transplant99]

And yet it's still us, practitioners of a 99% Western diet, that largely suffer from obesity, and not the rest of the world that still eats a traditional diet while working in modern employment.

That's the key IMO. My grandfather lived to a ripe old age of 86 and was very healthy for about 82 of them...and his diet when younger was something most would cringe at nowadays. However, he was a farmer for a long time and then ran his own grocery business in the latter of his work years. he worked HARD..really hard especially when farming so that diet was full of carbs and fats needed to fuel him at the time.

And as an adendum to that...his wife, my grandmother, turned 100 years old just 2 days ago....she still has 6 sisters living, her father lived to 99 and he had a sister live to 107 and a brother live to 104. So i am assuming genetic makeup is also a major part of obesity/health/age you die at as much as strictly diet and excercise are.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by HPLovecraft

Pretty sure, nutritionally, they're fairly similar. It's healthier than the 5-minute stuff largely because of all the chemicals added to that stuff.

My girlfriend's Pakistani and I end up eating a ton of Basmati.

White rice isn't similar to brown rice, just like white bread isn't similar to brown bread, or whole wheat bread.

Difference being when they mill the white stuff, they remove the husk, bran and germ, which happen to be the most nutritious part.

From wikipedia.

The polishing process removes important nutrients. A diet based on unenriched white rice leaves people vulnerable to the neurological disease beriberi, due to a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1). White rice is often enriched with some of the nutrients stripped from it during its processing. Enrichment of white rice with B1, B3, and iron is required by law in the United States.

At various times, starting in the 19th century, brown rice and wild rice have been advocated as healthier alternatives.[1] The bran in brown rice contains significant dietary fiber and the germ contains many vitamins and minerals. (See whole grain.) This is in contrast to the traditional view of brown rice which was associated with poverty and famine.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by transplant99

That's the key IMO. My grandfather lived to a ripe old age of 86 and was very healthy for about 82 of them...and his diet when younger was something most would cringe at nowadays. However, he was a farmer for a long time and then ran his own grocery business in the latter of his work years. he worked HARD..really hard especially when farming so that diet was full of carbs and fats needed to fuel him at the time.

And as an adendum to that...his wife, my grandmother, turned 100 years old just 2 days ago....she still has 6 sisters living, her father lived to 99 and he had a sister live to 107 and a brother live to 104. So i am assuming genetic makeup is also a major part of obesity/health/age you die at as much as strictly diet and excercise are.

It absolutely is, and there are a lot of inactive people who can gouge on high carb foods and still remain skinny.

But for the most part the key is to eat based on your lifestyle. Someone who exercises every single day isn't going to be able to survive on a plant based diet. You WILL need some carbs/fats to help fuel your activity.

Which is exactly the problem with government recommendations. Everyone is different, so its pretty stupid IMO to advocate a generalized diet for everyone.

[Azure]

The biggest screwup by the government is subsidizing the corn industry, which basically subsidizes 'big food', or processed food.

Because of that we've gone away from the 'naturally' fed animals who because of their diet had a high content of essential fats and minerals in their meat after they were slaughtered.

Grass-fed beef is a great example. Very high in Omega 3 and Omega 6 fats, both which are essential to our diet. But, because the 'beef' industry feeds subsidized corn and soybeans in the feedlots, most of our meat lacks those kinds of important nutrients.

Plus, grassfed beef has the distinction of the 'cows' not being fed animal byproducts, given anti-biotics to deal with the sickness of crowding hundreds of animals into 'pens' for mass production, no growth hormones to unnaturally force the cows to become bigger so the feedlots can push through more 'meat' in less time; animals have free range, with direct access to the sunlight/outdoors, pasture and lots of exercise, not treated like crap(which I can say because I've worked in the feedlot industry), and they don't live in a manure filled pen that are filled with diseases, most of which become immune to the anti-biotics over time, which is why pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer constantly come up with new drugs(Draxxin) to fight the diseases. Drugs that they sell for a tremendous markup, until they become useless because they become ineffective, and they then come up with something new.

But hey, we trust the government. No sense in talking about the real truth behind the 'food' industry.

[Devils'Advocate]

I think we should trust big business since they have absolutely no role whatsoever in providing the crap food found in the supermarkets.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I think we should trust big business since they have absolutely no role whatsoever in providing the crap food found in the supermarkets.

Big business is out to make a profit, and they have been able to do quite well with the subsidization of the corn industry in the US.

Still, I'm not going to defend big business. Companies like Tyson Foods, Nestle, and Dean Foods are as much at fault for supplying the processed crap everyone eats, and the government is for recommending people eat it.

But therein lies the difference. People trust the government, and the government screwed them over with their diet recommendations.

Companies like Tyson Foods are being forced to adopt organic food because of public demand in the past few years. The movie Food Inc talked about Walmart doing the same thing. Business can change, and will change based on what the public wants.

But the government isn't being held accountable, nor will it ever be. People just keep on trusting their recommendations each and every day.

[Rifleman]

Where do you get grass fed beef? I'm assuming the steak you get in Superstore is the corn fed stuff?

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Serious question as i have seen this come up a lot in regards to "white" rice...are they all the same generally?

The blond loves her korean rice that she can only find in a couple places around here and she is positive that it is different than most "white" rices.

i know it has to better than the instant/5 minute stuff because it takes forever to cook properly, and seeing as how so many eastern diets have a substantial amount of rice in them (including Korean, Japanese and Chinese etc) i am wondering the difference.

Kokuho brand rice is what most Koreans prefer. Properly prepared Korean rice is much wetter than what Japanese and Chinese prefer and would be considered overcooked by them.

[Azure]

I mean really...





Which would you rather eat?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Where do you get grass fed beef? I'm assuming the steak you get in Superstore is the corn fed stuff?

Local meat processors, local ranches, etc, etc.

http://www.calgaryfarmersmarket.ca/i...0the%20Vendors
http://www.luingcattle.com/whygrass.html
http://www.eatwild.com/products/canada.html
http://www.a7ranche.com/buy-all-natural-grass-fed-beef/

More expensive obviously, but very worth it. Plus, economically you support local instead of big food companies in the US.

[macker]

We currently have a trillion dollar per year industry that feeds us processed food that destroys our health and a trillion dollar per year industry that treats the symptoms of eating processed food rather than the cause. Many politicians are overweight and eat on the run....Eventually the health care costs will force change....