FB Debate about Carbohydrates

#41

This is my favorite quote of the day! :smile:

(Jeff) #42

Doctor of Psychology here. Fat makes me feel full.

(Ross Daniel) #43

I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut about it as well. People I know on diets, trying to lose weight, and posting food pics of what they are eating. Usually it is nothing but a bowl full of carbs. But its low fat! So, it is healthy. Yep. I thought by getting off of FB and moving to Instagram would help. Nope. It still haunts me there too.

By the way, I’m a BSET.

#44

dont waste your time arguing with naysayers. There is no shortage in this life. Especially when you are getting results they never will. Your just going to work yourself up and get distracted.

Thats what naysayers do… they leach on to everyone around them and try to bring them down.

(Cheryl Meyers) #45

In the Mar. 26 NYTimes, this bit stood out to me in the article on the Ice Man:

From examining traces of pollen in his digestive tract, scientists were able to place the date of Ötzi’s death at sometime in late spring or early summer. In his last two days, they found, he consumed three distinct meals and walked from an elevation of about 6,500 feet, down to the valley floor and then up into the mountains again, where he was found at the crime site, 10,500 feet up.

That is a lot of steps for just 3 meals…

“Roughly half an hour before his death he was having a proper meal, even a heavy meal,” Inspector Horn said. The Copper Age menu was well balanced, consisting of ibex meat, smoked or raw; einkorn wheat (an early domesticated variety), possibly in the form of bread; some sort of fat, which might have been from bacon or cheese; and bracken, a common fern.

No potatoes.:stuck_out_tongue:

[fascinating read: http://tinyurl.com/ld74y3u]

(gooeykablooey) #46

I actually know a few people that share recipes from low carb/keto pages with statements like “these are so good” then the next night they’ll post a pic of their home cooked dinner. One plate consisted of biscuits and sausage gravy, mashed potatoes, canned sweet corn, kraft macaroni and cheese and a bottle of Ale8 (kentucky fruity ginger soda). I’ve tried gently a few times to explain why part time low carb can’t work. They aren’t open to the message but wonder why they’re still obese and depressed. It’s sad because I care about these people.

(Michelle) #47

I’m late to the party here, but ask her to name:

  • an essential fat
  • an essential amino acid
  • an essential carbohydrate

She cannot name an essential carbohydrate since they dont exist. Essential in this context means your body cannot produce it on it’s own. We have to supplement (ingest) in order to get the essentials. The body can make all the glucose it needs to run the body. No additional supplementation necessary.

(Megan) #48

I didn’t mean to enter into a debate and I stopped commenting. I know I’m not going to convince anyone that doesn’t want to listen.

I told her there’s no such thing a an essential carbohydrate and that’s when she comments about brain health and getting nutrients.

(Vivian) #49

I think a truly educated person in a particular field would be open to some n=1 trials to further their knowledge, instead of just believing what has been told to them.

(Jennifer) #50

Bingo - a true intellectual would be open to real world experimentation. So many people have blinders on and believe only what they are taught. You must examine both sides of an issue and be open to both sides - nothing is concrete. Every person is different and you can’t claim one size fits all with nutrition.

I get really pissy with all the folks saying “it’s settled science” every time I raise a doubt to a common “belief”.

(Crow T. Robot) #51

“I’d rather have questions that cannot be answered than have answers that cannot be questioned.” – Richard Feynman

Feels like in nutrition science there’s way too much of both.

(Ross Daniel) #52

Have you ever listened to the Feynman lectures? He was a brilliant and gifted educator.

(Crow T. Robot) #53

No, I haven’t. For some reason I didn’t think it would be available. It just didn’t occur to me. I’ll go check it out. Thanks!

#54

It wouldn’t help her argument much, but from a modern scientific point of view (that factors in the essential health of the gut biome) one could say that fiber is an essential carbohydrate. Ron Rosedale discusses this in his book:

A more useful classification of carbohydrates is as either fiber or nonfiber carbohydrates [rather than complex or simple]. High fiber carbohydrates are found mostly in vegetables and nuts. The major advantage of fiber is that it can’t be bro- ken down into sugar, which means that it doesn’t raise blood sugar lev- els or send your insulin and leptin levels soaring. In fact, only bacteria (including some that inhabit our gut) can digest fiber at all, and they di- gest a type of fiber called soluble fiber into good fats that are used for energy by the cells that line our intestines. (Having high quantities of these beneficial fats made by bacteria from fiber may be protective against colon cancer.) High fiber foods such as vegetables also fill you up, and can help control hunger (although restoring leptin sensitivity is the best way to control hunger!).

Also read here:

Another recent study shows that when microbes are starved of fiber, they can start to feed on the protective mucus lining of the gut, possibly triggering inflammation and disease.

“Diet is one of the most powerful tools we have for changing the microbiota,” Justin Sonnenburg, a biologist at Stanford University, said earlier this month at a Keystone Symposia conference on the gut microbiome. “Dietary fiber and diversity of the microbiota complement each other for better health outcomes.” In particular, beneficial microbes feast on fermentable fibers—which can come from various vegetables, whole grains and other foods—that resist digestion by human-made enzymes as they travel down the digestive tract. These fibers arrive in the large intestine relatively intact, ready to be devoured by our microbial multitudes. Microbes can extract the fiber’s extra energy, nutrients, vitamins and other compounds for us. Short-chain fatty acids obtained from fiber are of particular interest, as they have been linked to improved immune function, decreased inflammation and protection against obesity.

Also a case could be made for phytonutrients being essential and this is quite possibly going to change in future as we discover more about the roles of specific phytonutrients in health. Check out the article here.

The following debate between Eric Westman and T. Colin Campbell, Westman highlights that their one point of agreement is that plant foods and real foods are essential to human health.

Taking all this into account, I think a more middle-ground discussion with your friend would yield better results than simply vilifying all carbs as non-essential. Saying all carbs are non-essential seems to me to be more of terminology issue than anything else. Plant fiber and phytonutrients are generally considered, even by many keto experts, to be essential to good health.

#55

Not sure the concept of fibre as an essential carb flies. There are indigenous cultures that don’t consume any or much fibre at all. So, it’s not essential for survival. And then there are the ZC folks who thrive quite well without fibre (no fruits and veg).

The other issue with fibre is that it bypasses our digestion (pancreatic juices, stomach acid, bile, etc), and then ends up in large intestine, which becomes food for our microbiome. For example, inulin, which becomes a pre-biotic, that is then converted into butyrates. Basically, same end products as ketosis.

So, fiber is not a carb in the classical sense of something like starch being broken down into glucose.

#56

I’m not sure that flies as a rebuttal. Which is it? None or some?

#57

Except that fiber is a carb. What you’re proposing is a “no true scotsman” argument. It’s a fallacy.

Also, our microbiome health is essential to our own health. Since it’s recent knowledge and there is no long-term study, you won’t find a historial precedent for someone dying from poor gut health. Yet a reassessment of disease data would reveal this.

#58

Well there are the Maasai tribe who primarily consume raw meat, blood and milk. In some Maasai villages, they don’t eat any vegetables or fruit at all.

And then the Inuit in the icy frozen northern parts of Canada…again, all meat and fish.

The interesting thing I find with fibre is that it bypasses the human digestion process. Some fibre never gets broken down,and is excreted. While other fibre becomes food for the microbiome (ie prebiotics). And then the real irony in all that is the breakdown of the fibre produces the same byproducts as ketosis…so, the fibre breakdown by microbiome produces ketones for our brain. It’s an ironic twist to the story.

(Jeff) #59

Keto is fascinating. Thanks for the brain treat!

#60

You’re citing Phinney, and he even claims that he doesn’t understand how they did it without fiber. He suspects there is lots of secret knowledge we are yet to understand. This caveat he made is pretty damn important.

https://chriskresser.com/myths-and-truths-about-fiber/

Also, check out the article above about LCHF and fiber. It’s not the same effect as actually eating fiber.