From what I gather, he thinks marbling in steak is bad. The marbling comes from corn-fed cattle is what I think he means. Thinks marbling = BCAAs (branch chain amino acids). Excess BCAAs go to liver, flood mitochondria, excess is turned into fat.
The idea appears to be that you can get fat (or at least gain body fat) by eating steak from non-totally-grass-fed cattle.
Ah, what?
And has he compared the cost of totally grass fed beef with corn/grain-finished beef? I very rarely eat meat from pure grass fed cattle, because it’s too expensive
Three and a half hours? Good lord. Are you in blizzard country, snowed in?
(Actually I love Lustig, I could easily listen to him all day. Just not this day.)
1:43. It’s not too clear to me either. What I think he’s saying is two separate things: 1. that marbled fat is a marker of metabolic syndrome, which cows develop with exposure to BCAAs in corn. And 2. that too many BCAAs in a human diet leads to that whole pathway of metabolism you’re referring to which eventually converts excess BCAA to fat - and possibly leads to the same metabolic dysfunction seen in the corn-fed cows?
It’s not clear that he’s directly implicating the marbling or even the fat content as the problem (aren’t BCAAs proteins?), but perhaps just the idea that corn fed beef contains too many BCAAs??
I struggle with Lustig sometimes because he’s too smart for his own good. He rushes along and says, “So we add 1 and 1 and we get 7, see?” And the likes of me sez, “Nope, don’t see at all.”
I sympathize with the lament that 100% pastured beef is outside the financial reach of most of us, but that’s not Lustig’s fault. (My soapbox, I think we’ve pushed human population to the point where 99.99% of the planet is going to be eating at least somewhat unhealthy food just to have anything to eat at all, as the meager supply of what’s truly healthy has become stratospherically expensive.)
@ctviggen@kib1 Thank you both for this exchange. By skipping this l-e-n-g-t-h-y video, you have extended my effective life by at least 3+ hours… in which time I could thaw, grill, eat and nearly digest a nice thick marbled steak.
Branched-chain amino acids are an issue, because if you don’t use them to build new muscle, they have to be dealt with in the liver, by the same metabolic pathway that handles ethanol and fructose. That pathway is easily overwhelmed, and therefore we do not want too much of those five items. (I say five items, because there are three branched-chain amino acids: leucine, iso-leucine, and valine. Those three plus ethanol and fructose make five.)
The BCAA’s are essential in the human diet. What Dr. Lustig is saying is that we do not want to overwhelm that liver pathway I mentioned, because that way lies de novo lipogenesis, fatty liver, steatohepatitis, and eventually cirrhosis, all of which are Bad Things. Fatty liver is one of the causes of hyperglycaemia/insulin-resistance.
So I suspect that someone who does not drink and who avoids fructose and sucrose (which is half fructose, half glucose) can tolerate more BCAA’s from meat than perhaps a drinker or a sugar-eater. Remember that Dr. Lustig is also talking about the generality of the American public, whose diet is sucrose- and fructose-laden, not to mention rich in alcohol.
As far as beef is concerned, yes, marbled beef comes from cattle in which metabolic disease has been induced. However, the animal is slaughtered in the initial stages. According to Peter Ballerstedt, the nutritional profiles of grass-fed and grain-finished beef are nearly identical, so the cheaper grain-finished meat is perfectly acceptable, especially on a diet that is far less likely to cause liver problems. The main reason that beef is such a good food is that its amino-acid profile is exactly what the human body needs (you’d almost think we evolved by eating the meat of ruminants, wouldn’t you? ).
It may well be that grass-fed beef is healthier for us than grain-finished, but any beef is healthier than no beef at all, so we’re talking about relative degrees of goodbess, not the distinction between bad and good, which is a lot sharper. There are so many problems with the standard American diet that if I were advising someone how to eat, worrying about grain-finished versus grass-fed is pretty far down the list. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good.
One last thought: once we get healthy enough from the new way of eating, so we’re no longer spending money on toxic food-like substances, no longer losing income from having to take time off from work for doctor visits, and are no longer spending our money on insurance co-pays and such, we might actually have enough extra income to spend a bit more on grass-fed meat.
Agreed. It’s also true that we’ve become very spoiled by agricultural subsidies (of corn, wheat and soy) making the garbage food unrealistically cheap to buy. We dump the externality of “food” cost on the taxpayer rather than the consumer. I don’t want to triple my food budget to get away from the junk (i.e. ultra processed food with grain at its base), but perhaps that’s, ha ha, the nature of the beast.
If the processed-food manufacturers had to pay full price for the commodities they use as ingredients, processed food-like substances would not be such an attractive option. If I were king, I’d subsidise meat, fish, and dairy, instead of commodity crops.
Agreed, and he lost me with that nonsense. Aside from the fact that the grass finished beef (notice he never said finished) because those people pretend that the cattle don’t eat grass only for 95% of their lives before a quick burst at the end will somehow kill us, sorry, we’re not that fragile, and neither are cattle. That’s aside from the fact that the grass finished beef doesn’t taste as good.
Some can be close, but it requires the cows to get another year or two older, and we pay for that. Also the crap of BCAA’s, going on about “that’s what’s in protein powder that bodybuilders add to things”, Wrong genius, that’s what’s in ALL complete protein. I’ve noticed last couple years Lustig says more and more stupid things sadly.
In his defense, he does say somewhere that BCAAs - in body builder’s protein powder or anything else - are not a problem for people building muscle; he’s not questioning that situation, y’all have a need, and a place to use all those amino acids! It’s a big glut of BCAAs in someone like me who’s not doing anything with them but sending them to my liver that he’s questioning, I believe.
BTW, whether it’s bad or good for me, thanks for the beef collagen recommendation, I still like it although I can’t tell yet if it’s “doing anything” or not. -
I do feel like he’s burning up in his need to bring all this information into a cohesive theory (and maybe I sympathize with him for it.) Perhaps a thyroid issue?
But that’s just the thing, everybody has that need. Everytime you consume protein, you’re comsuming the BCAA’s. His assertion that protein powder has more of it or something is also false. They don’t have any more than what came along for the ride. Many years ago cheap scumbag companies were caught added them on top of what was in there, it’s refered to as Amino spiking and it was a was they could lie on labs to make it look like their protein was higher, that’s a very known tactic now and no reputable brand is stupid enough to destroy themselves by doing it, most quality proteins are 3rd party tested because of crap like that.
On the need, we ALL have that need, most people are under muscled to begin with, most don’t consume adequate protein to not only build, but to maintain muscle. That’s the path to Osteopenia and then Osteoporosis, let alone the bone density problems, which is a great way to invite the famous break a hip die of pnemonia exit from life. So I’d argue somebody doing anything should absolutely have them to keep that anabolic signal alive and stop muscle wasting and bone loss.
I was thinking a way to generate clicks to that website he mentioned…that’s his! That’s how my brain works though.
Yes. I’m just not sure how much anyone needs if they’re not building muscle but only maintaining what they’ve got. I know Lustig is making a hash of it, no pun intended, but what I’m reading is a caution against an excessive amount of protein in the diet of someone not actively building more muscle. Of course, what is defined as excessive …
Nope. That is not what he is saying. He is saying that excess marbled fat is there because the cows are being fed corn and grains rather than grass. The corn causes an increase in blood sugar and insulin, and therefore an increase in fat storage. Although he didn’t say quite that. He is saying the BCAAs not used to make muscle, are also being converted into fat. The fat itself doesn’t really have that much more BCAAs than the fat in grass fed cows, but there is a lot more fat. The nature of this fat is also changed because of the grain feed to favor omega 6 fats over omega 3 fats at a ratio of about 6:1. Whereas, in grass fed beef the fat has an omega 6:omega 3 ratio of about 1.5:1, which is essentially ideal. He didn’t really address that issue, but the grass fed fat is going to be less inflammatory for this reason. As the meat consumer, you are not really going to get much excess BCAAs from eating grain-fed cattle versus grass fed. The issue is it is creating a lot more fat in the meat, and this is largely the more inflammatory omega 6 fat from the feed.
I follow Dr Lustig quite closely, and his other beef(no pun intended) with grain-fed beef is that typically, because the animal is made metabolically sick, because of its grain-fed diet, they have to feed it antibiotics to keep it healthy, which in turn get into your body when you eat it… tending to kill off your own gut microbiome.
My last personal beef with grain fed beef is that it lacks the vitamin K2 we used to get from grass-fed beef - unless the particular rancher who raised it supplemented vitamin K1 - as far as I know that is not a practice in the industry, although some chicken farmers do it.
I can get grass fed ground beef for about $5/lb at Sam’s club, which is the same cost as the “organic” beef at Costco. It is also relatively cheap at Winco stores. I can also get it on sale cheaper at Kroger-owned stores if I go at the right time of week. It is essentially vacuum packed, so is not going to be too oxidized. I would rather buy this near its “sell by” date than even “fresh” SAD ground beef, which is probably only going to be about 20% cheaper at best - than I can get it at Sam’s. I can also buy Australian or New Zealand lamb at either of these club stores for $5.50/lb, and it is almost guaranteed to be grass fed - also well packed to prevent its oxidation.
I do buy roasts and steaks from the meat dept of the grocery store, but usually it is going to be more expensive than the above per pound. I usually buy lean cuts or roasts, so don’t worry about the richer omega 6 content of the fat. I eat it usually only once or twice per month. It is still far less than the average US citizen is running around with - more like a 25:1 ratio.
Personally, I don’t eat red meat every day - more like 2x wk. It has a sugar called NEU5GC which we build antibodies to, whereas chicken and sea food do not.
And that’s only if the pathway in the liver that handles them is overwhelmed. It is the total amount of ethyl alcohol, fructose, and BCAA’s consumed, and the rate at which they are consumed, that determines whether de novo lipogenesis kicks in, or not. Lustig goes into this in great detail in his lecture “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” available in many incarnations on YouTube.
The ratio of ω-6 to ω-3 is not relevant to the liver damage–if any–caused by excessive–if it is excessive–consumption of ethanol, fructose, and BCAA’s. In any case, we don’t need all that much of any of the essential amino acids, and we need even less of the essential fatty acids. As Dr. Phinney remarks, the challenge the standard American diet poses is not getting enough ω-6, it’s avoiding getting far, far too much.
An important point, though Peter Ballerstedt says that the data show that none of the antibiotics make it into the meat, so I don’t know how much of a concern this is.
I don’t have a Sam’s club account. I can get some grass-finished beef at Aldi’s, but I rarely go there. Where I live, grass-finished beef is 2-3 times more expensive for what I want to buy. And I’m not a huge fan of lamb. I can eat it, but given the choice between beef (or chicken or pork) and lamb, I’d almost always choose the former.
@PaulL I saw some info from Ballerstedt about anitbiotics, and the amount in beef was tiny. Anyway, here’s one article from Peter Ballerstedt:
Another article:
This has the following information:
This is part of the reason he suggests that if you want to increase O3, you eat fish.
OK, I had to stop listening. He doesn’t like statins for primary prevention (when you don’t have heart disease). That’s good. But then he goes into this discussion of how triglycerides may be the best marker, as higher trigs = higher carbs. Fine. But then he thinks that lower carb = fluffier LDL and higher carbs = more small, dense LDL (sdl), and those are atherosclerotic.
That’s where I can’t listen any more. Sdl don’t penetrate the endothelium. They are no more atherosclerotic than are any other types of LDL. What’s atherosclerotic is a bad diet, primarily a lot of carbohydrates.That’s whats causing damage to the endothelium, not sdl. Sdl just happens to be caused by a bad diet and just happen to be where clots are.
He’s also against certain types of chocolates.
It’s too much for me. There’s only so much I can do. I personally can’t subsist (or afford) only on grass-fed beef and lamb and wild-caught fish. I would like to eat grain-finished beef, chicken and pork (also MUCH higher in PUFA that any beef), and some chocolate.
It’s not entirely clear, but he is not saying that the small, dense LDL is causing the problem, merely that it is a marker for a problematic diet. Small, dense LDL is a sign of glycation, which is damaging in many ways, and the small size also means that the particles haven’t been cleared properly from the system.
He doesn’t mention this, but a number of studies have shown an almost perfect correlation between a high ratio of triglycerides to HDL and the unhealthy Pattern B of particle sizes (in other words, a lot of small, dense LDL), and both the ratio and the Pattern B are markers of high cardiovascular risk. Markers, I hasten to emphasise, not causes. You are absolutely right that small, dense LDL does not penetrate the endothelium, and most certainly not from the blood inside the artery.
However, it is worth noting that ApoB can help form clots in arterial walls by entering from the vasa vasorum, the arteries and capillaries that supply oxygen to the main coronary arteries. As Kendrick mentions, clots on the skin form a scab, underneath which new skin grows, and the scab eventually sloughs off. This cannot be allowed to happen in an artery, for obvious reasons. So what happens is that the scab forms on the outside of the arterial wall, and new skin grows as part of the arterial lining to cover it over and prevent it from coming loose. This is apparently how the cholesterol and lipoproteins end up at the outside of the arterial wall. It is not because they somehow penetrated from inside the artery.
Chocolate is always consumed with sugar, since it is too bitter for most people to eat on its own. So are you truly surprised that Dr. Lustig opposes foods containing sugar? His other big thing is fibre, and chocolate has been stripped of the fibre that occurs naturally in the bean. Furthermore, I have come to believe that when most people miss their chocolate, what they are actually missing is the sugar hit. The bitterness of the chocolate counteracts the sweetness of the sugar, so they are not aware of how much sugar they are actually consuming.
Myself, I eventually did come to appreciate the taste of unsweetened chocolate, but I also found that, over time, I became aware of its oxalic acid content, and I feel better without it. Now that I am carnivore, I am no longer shedding oxalates, and my skin feels so much better. I am also far more aware of the effects of oxalic acid on my body, on those now very rare occasions when I consume some.
You mean to tell me that 23.0 nm (or 20.6, the lower range of “large” LDL) LDL doesn’t get into an arterial wall, but 19.0nm does? Putting it lightly, that’s absurd. It’s ludicrous to think that a 20.6nm lipid is not atherogenic, but a 19.0nm lipid is.
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