Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

There are honest disagreements, but sorry that McDougall is not honest. It's 
based partly on misrepresenting Dr. Weil, partly on ignoring all the 
supporting evidence, and partly on unreferenced claims about how studies are 
done. And it implies the funding source for the single study mentioned makes 
it rigged, worthless, and Dr. Weil a charlatan - when in fact he's far better 
known and long respected in the profession. Never heard of this guy. 
Apparently some of his ideas are alright.

There's nothing "revolutionary" or unique in what Dr. Weil stated. Whole 
foods advocates have warned of the dangers in refined carbs and sugars for 
decades. That's "whole" versus refined. Nor did he advocate stuffing with 
meat and dairy as implied - it's obvious that a constant diet of red meat is 
harmful. And his pointing out that low fat alone does not help does not make 
him a screaming advocate for lots of animal fats. We know from years of 
experience that the so called low fat diets do not make weight loss, nor make 
people immune to heart disease and the other chronic conditions. That's his 
point and he's entirely correct. Many other experts have also pointed out the 
obvious. Michael Pollan has publicized much of this in his books and lectures.

The crux of the matter is the difference between refined carbs and sugars and 
whole foods. Low glycemic loads are found in foods where unrefined carbs and 
sugars are bound up with the proteins and fiber in those foods. Which is 
digested and absorbed more slowly, slowing the insulin reaction that triggers 
more hunger and more fat storage. The snack food industry wants us to believe 
empty calories don't hurt us, that white flour breads and pastry, chips, 
sugared drinks etc. and all that stuff is just fine. It's not. It's unnatural 
and the body reacts accordingly.

Bottom line being it's healthiest to eat from the garden, or get the basic 
fruit and vegetables, fish etc. or free range animals from wherever. If it's 
processed and refined it's not good. It's also more expensive and the 
industry gets a better profit margin from all the processed foods. And BTW 
since I went completely to whole foods (not the store) I've steadily lost 
weight over six months now. Another six at this rate and I'll be at the ideal 
ratio without even trying. I'd call it living more on the land and less at 
the factory.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 7/6/2010 at 10:37 PM yarrow@sfo.com wrote:

>Fat or Carbs: Which is Worse?
>
>Dr. Andrew Weil’s
><http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/healthy-eating_b_629422.html>article
>in the Huffington Post has led his readers to
>believe that saturated fats in the diet, which
>are primarily from meats and dairy products, are
>better for them to eat than carbohydrates, which
>are from plant foods. He bases this on a March
>2010 analysis that was “published in the American
>Journal of Clinical Nutrition (that) found that
>‘saturated fat was not associated with an
>increased risk’ of coronary heart disease, stroke
>or coronary vascular disease.” In his opinion
>this piece of research is a significant
>exoneration of the dietary saturated fat theory
>for the cause of heart disease. He failed to
>mention that the National Dairy Council funded
>this study.
>
>Furthermore, the formulation of Dr. Weil’s
>revolutionary opinion on the wisdom of eating a
>diet high in animal foods appears to have been
>uninfluenced by an accompanying
><http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20130097>editorial
>written by the legendary authority on diet and
>heart disease, Jeremiah Stamler, MD. Dr. Stamler
>debunked this dairy-industry funded study based
>on its flawed methodology, and a disregard of 50
>years of diet-heart research with contrary
>findings, and dozens of metabolic
>(ward-type-feeding) experiments showing that
>eating saturated fat and/or cholesterol causes an
>adverse effect on blood lipids. In addition,
>thousands of relevant animal studies on the
>damaging effects of saturated fat and cholesterol
>were ignored.
>
>In this Huffington Post article, Dr. Weil claims
>carbohydrates are the real culprits, and he bases
>this in part on an April 2010 article from the
>Journal of the American Medical Association. This
>population study found that increasing added
>dietary sugars from less than 5% to more than 25%
>of the calories (a five-fold or more change)
>caused a small increase in triglycerides (by 9
>points, from 105 mg/dL to 114 mg/dL), with a
>similar small reduction in good cholesterol
>(HDL-C) (11 points, from 58.7 to 47.7 mg/dL).
>Most important to notice is the large amounts of
>“unhealthy” carbohydrates (table sugar) that must
>be consumed for even small changes in blood
>lipids to be noticed.
>
>In highly-controlled experiments, in order to
>show a rise in triglycerides, the experimental
>design has to be based on feeding the subjects
>large amounts of refined sugars and flours,
>and/or the subjects in the experiments are
>required to eat more food than they can
>comfortably consume; in other words, they are
>forced to overeat. Confirmation of the
>healthfulness of carbohydrates is seen when
>people are fed starches, such as whole grains,
>beans, and potatoes, and green and yellow
>vegetables, rather than overfed sugars and
>flours; their triglyceride levels do not increase.
>
>Dr. Weil’s position runs contrary to several
>irrefutable observations that you can make for
>yourself. Starches have fueled the engines of
>human civilizations for at least the past 14,000
>years. Carbohydrates (starches), such as rice in
>Asia, corn in Central America, potatoes in South
>America, and barley and wheat in Europe, have
>provided the bulk of the calories for almost all
>human diets. Only a few small primitive
>populations, living at the extremes of the
>environment, such as the Inuit (Eskimos), have
>been fueled by saturated fats. Just as
>undeniable, worldwide today, populations of
>people who consume the greatest amounts of
>carbohydrate are the trimmest and fittest, and
>also have the lowest incidence of heart disease
>and diabetes. This truth is confirmed by
>observing the change that occurs when people from
>Japan, for example, migrate to the United States
>or Europe. As they eat less rice (carbohydrate)
>and more saturated fat (meat and dairy products)
>they become fatter and sicker.
>
>Pointing the guilty finger away from fat and
>towards carbohydrates is self-serving for those
>diet-experts who themselves refuse to give up
>their high-fat diet. Food industries buy
>scientific research published in respectable
>journals because it is one of their most
>effective marketing tools. The end result of this
>mixing up of the truth could be that billions of
>people will be deprived of a real opportunity to
>live long, disease-free lives.
>
>John McDougall, MD
>www.drmcdougall.com
>
>Read this McDougall event announcement online at:
><http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2010other/news/weil.htm>http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2010other/news/weil.htm
>
>
>© 2010 John McDougall All Rights Reserved
><http://www.drmcdougall.com/>
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