The good fat bad fat controversy!

milasavesmoney

This study was taken from consumption less food loss. In other words, total food bought minus what is wasted by American households. It does not address fast food or restaurant eating as far as I can tell. Americans eat out...a lot. I have seen charts listing total calorie intake as over 3500 daily for adults.

GreyQueen

milasavesmoney wrote: »

This study was taken from consumption less food loss. In other words, total food bought minus what is wasted by American households. It does not address fast food or restaurant eating as far as I can tell. Americans eat out...a lot. I have seen charts listing total calorie intake as over 3500 daily for adults.

Exactly. Humans are free-range animals and we don't sit in cages whislt our keepers hand us meals as per the food pyramid or eatwell plate. We're out and about, on the hoof, foraging in a world where food abounds. Hell, most people will never have seen those pie charts, never mind obey their proportions in their own diets, therefore they are a meaningless exercise.

Can't speak for the US, although Brits I know who have lived in married US suburbia have some hysterically funny (to us Brits, anyway) traveller's tales of their American neigbours taking the car to post a letter 20 yards away...... but here, people have grown a lot less active over my lifetime.

And fast food's popularity has exploded. Time was, your average Brit town would have a couple of fish and chip places and that was pretty much that. Nowadays, there are opportunities to buy unhealthy food prepared unhealthily on every street corner, and you can't even go buy a newspaper or petrol without having to reach over a huge selection of sweetie bars.

Interestingly, we are eating fewer calories than we used to about 30 years ago. As in about 20% fewer. And getting a lot fatter on them. I guess not all calories are created equal and that too many of them are carb-calories.

Re Kerrygold butter, the primal/ paleo crowd lurve it as the cows are grass-fed. I enjoy butter from time to time, probably using one pkt over 6-8 weeks but if I fancy a slather of buttery goodness over some steamed veggies, I'll just go for it.

VfM4meplse

I agree that junk food is endemically woven into our way of life. Now sugar-free, if I stop off for a snack I'm so much more aware of how much junk is readily accessible, and that it requires discilpline to avoid it and buy something else (in my case, usually a cheese salad sandwich) instead, which for me is a meal.

GreyQueen wrote: »

Re Kerrygold butter, the primal/ paleo crowd lurve it as the cows are grass-fed. I enjoy butter from time to time, probably using one pkt over 6-8 weeks but if I fancy a slather of buttery goodness over some steamed veggies, I'll just go for it.

I haven't appreciated any difference in flavour between this and others. I hate to admit it, but shiny gold packaging seems to influence my choice of butter: President, or more recently Aldi / Lidl's which is just as good

OneLeggedPig

VfM4meplse wrote: »

Hello, flour and cereal products?!

QED, excess carbohydrate consumptionl

They went up, but so did meat and eggs, and dairy. The increase was in terms of calories from those sources- but note that the actual proportions of the diet did not change.

So the American diet has the same proportion of food from flour and cereals and from meat and eggs as it did several decades ago. But they are consuming more calories.

Two helpful images, which show how to consume enough food to feel full, without eating a lot of calories (which is the course of weight gain).





Anyone interested in that could read up on the dietitian Jeff Novick’s work on calorie density, “CRAP” foods, and more.

Living_proof

I have spent much of my day investigating ketogenic diets and at one point it was definitely for me. A lot of health benefits are given, but with all the high fat input I am concerned that our arteries will become furred up. I can see the point about low-carbing and using up the body's store of fat, but if 80% of your diet is fat, how can you be getting all the nutrients needed? Now thoroughly confused. Also as my allotment has been planted up already with amongst other things, sweetcorn, potatoes, beans, peas, pumpkins, tomatoes and carrots - I would have to give them all away!

VfM4meplse

Living_proof wrote: »

I have spent much of my day investigating ketogenic diets and at one point it was definitely for me. A lot of health benefits are given, but with all the high fat input I am concerned that our arteries will become furred up. I can see the point about low-carbing and using up the body's store of fat, but if 80% of your diet is fat, how can you be getting all the nutrients needed? Now thoroughly confused. Also as my allotment has been planted up already with amongst other things, sweetcorn, potatoes, beans, peas, pumpkins, tomatoes and carrots - I would have to give them all away!

Balance is the key. A bit of everything but don't over-do the carbs, simples.

NewShadow

OneLeggedPig wrote: »

They went up, but so did meat and eggs, and dairy. The increase was in terms of calories from those sources- but note that the actual proportions of the diet did not change.

The proportions for cereals did actually increase on your charts. Numerical tables would be more useful, but I would suggest a 10% share increase (judging by eye).

Anyone interested in that could read up on the dietitian Jeff Novick’s work on calorie density, “CRAP” foods, and more.

There is a significant difference between calorie density and satiety.

The general difference is you have to 'fill your stomach' to feel satisfied with low calorie food, but you need to eat smaller amounts of satisfying food to feel equally full.

Protein is the nutritive substance that satisfies hunger best based on its energy content and ability to make you feel full over the longest period of time.

The Satiety Index

pigpen

For the last 5 generations of my family the women have been typically a size 16.. from around 1900.. with a very changeable diet over the years, through poverty, rationing, change from natural to highly processed and back to natural again.

Fat is necessary for proper nerve cell formation so unless you want to develop some forms of dementia you HAVE to eat it.. it coats the synapses and makes them work, without it your brain dies.. is the very short version.


I can't eat most fruit and many veggies, bready type stuff is very restricted.. and no more than 2 slices a day.. brown is totally out.. meat is currently off the menu though I can almost cope with a couple of sausages (I buy 'nice' ones for me due to this, low cereal/high meat) I haven't eaten a salad for over 20 years!... carbs are the one thing I can actually eat with no ill effect.. potatoes/pasta/rice make up a very small part of my diet however.. essentially I have a low fat/low carb/low calorie diet and am still a size 16 and classed as 'obese', I have weighed everywhere from 8-13 stone and still worn the same size clothes.. personally I think it is all a load of BS..

Most top class athletes are classed as 'obese' because their muscle density is so great, and heavier than fat... there might not be a scrap of fat on them. The methods of gauging fat/obese are severely flawed and not as all accurate .. weight/height are not the only factors to be considered yet they are all anyone obsesses about.

I will eat when and what I want within the confines of what I can.. I won't be 'shamed' because we have a large set bone structure (at 85 and 5.5 stone my grandmother still wore size 16 trousers because that is how big her bones were.. you cant shrink your bones!) I won't be told I am 'unhealthy' when my physical symptoms all say otherwise.. BP, blood counts, energy levels etc.. how many of these serial dieters have issues with malnutrition? I think all these things should be taken into account before determining that this person or that person is unhealthy, there are so many factors involved you cannot just use 2.

I think it is all just a control method being used by the government to keep the publics eye on irrelevant matters while they screw everyone over. I am absolutely cannot abide the fact they fill the heads of 4 and 5 year olds with all the bs about 'good for you and bad for you' food.. NOTHING is bad for you in moderation and that is the key.. when I have a teacher who is clearly disgustingly morbidly obese, can barely walk/fit through doors, gets out of breath walking from the classroom to the hall (about 20 yards) telling my scrawny 5 year old she can't eat a packet of crisps once every blue moon or have ice cream after dinner there is definitely something going wrong.. lead by example!! Having a dietician speak to the children is one thing but for some untrained nobody to be telling my children what they can and cannot eat when they have their own ecosystem is disgusting.. and I have taken it up with the school, not about the large teacher because that would be inappropriate but the school trying to influence the children in matters they have no control over.. how does a child stop their parent feeding them a chip butty for their dinner every night on the way home from school? (yes I know this family!)

Determining 'health' should be priority not shaming because on individual does not fit the 'average'

GwylimT

OneLeggedPig wrote: »

I understand why you'd be concerned about that, but you're treating the symptom rather than the disease. Diabetes isn't about blood sugar going up, it's about the sugar staying in the blood because it can't get into the cells properly, because of fat accumulation inside the cells. Insulin is the "key" to get glucose into the cells, so your body produces more of it to try and get the glucose in.

So you can control it by not eating things that raise your blood sugar, or treat it by reducing the fat accumulation in the cells which blocks the glucose getting in.

The study I posted a link to shows some of Dr Barnard's work with a low fat whole foods diet, and the effect it has on diabetes. The diet used in that study, which worked really well for the subjects, was 75% carbohydrate. He has a lot of resources on this and has had a lot of success with treating patients this way, as have other doctors.

I'm a type two diabetic, my body fat at the moment is 9%, if I eat the suggested diet my blood sugar will sit at around 25 for hours, I don't particularly fancy blindness or kidney disease. I'll stick to my high fat virtually no carb diet which keeps me at a steady 5.2.

If I stayed on a high carb diet not only would I damage my sight etc permanently, I would also increase my body fat, which also increases the risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease and liver disease.

dirty_magic

I don't think you can blame obesity on any one type of food, it's a combination of things. In the 60's fewer people had cars so they had to walk. People didn't have takeaways so often in the 60s, and a meal out was a treat not a regular occurrence. There was much less technology so children played outside after walking to and from school. In the 60s people tended to eat more traditional meat and two veg type meals, whereas now people eat a wider variety: pizza, pasta with cheesy sauces and curries with lots of fat.

Now there are a lot more working parents, so they drop the kids off at school in the car on their way to work. People have takeaways for lunch at work and then go home and have another big meal. Children have tablets and parents worry about safety so they don't play outside on their own as often as they did in the 60s. Coffee shops are popping up everywhere and everyone drinks lattes with syrups, that's 250 cal just in a drink.

I also think a lot of people are in denial about their weight, I've heard so many people who are actually overweight themselves criticise others for being fat. I think people have definitely got bigger, and clothes sizes have got bigger due to vanity sizing, but it is a bit of a myth that everyone was thin in the past. Looking at old family photos not everyone is thin!