April 13, 2004 The old team trainer, who knows I'm a nutrition major, often recommended nutrition-related books he thought I would find "interesting." Among other things, he recommended a bunch of low-carb type diet books, including Dr. Atkins and the Zone. So, being a dutiful athlete and a curious student, I checked all these books out of the library. I admit, at first glance, some of what these books are saying makes sense -- but only to a certain point. While there is something to be learned about favoring fruits and vegetables over refined flour and sugar, some aspects of this low carb/high protein thing are simply ridiculous.
Reading these books, they always point to the Inuit (you might know them as "Eskimos"). "Look, they live off fish and blubber and eat virtually no carbohydrate, and heart disease is virtually unknown to them!" Okay, I will grant that. But the Inuit also have a much higher rate of osteoporosis, something the diet books conveniently forget to tell you. Can we say "too much protein?" Can we also say the Inuit probably get up off their butts more than most Americans? (And don't forget that those who follow a largely plant-based diet full of green leafy vegetables and moderate in protein have low incidents of heart disease and osteoporosis.)
Oh, and that "paleodiet" hype, that original humans were hunters so it's okay to gorge on meat. I could go on forever on this point alone, but suffice it to say (a) grain-fattened, tortured factory farm animals are a far cry from the lean wild game in prehistoric times (b) our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and relied more on the gathering aspect, and (c) if you really want to be "paleolithic" about it, try killing your own cow and eating the flesh raw right off the bone while its still nice and warm and bloody. Does that really sound appealing? Yeah, that's what i thought.
If you read objective medical studies on the effects of macronutrients (i.e. carbs, fats, protein) on blood glucose and blood insulin levels, you see that even if so-called "low impact carb" meals don't raise blood sugar, they still raise blood insulin levels. Isn't that supposedly why carbs are bad for you, because they cause your body to produce more insulin? Ah, well, it turns out overeating anything triggers a huge release of insulin. Strangely enough, this can be offset by regular physical activity. Hmm, could that mean that overeating and sedentarylifestyle are the causes of weight gain? I feel as though we've heard that somewhere before...
Let's suppose for a moment that the industry-funded studies are valid, and these diets really do lower blood cholesterol and all that. For one thing, the reduction in blood lipids and blood sugar is because the test subjects are losing weight, not because they are reducing their carb intake per se. And they don't tell you about the long-term health effects of diets high in saturated fat, cholesterol, and animal protein: cardiovascular disease, kidney strain, liver problems, osteoporosis, a whole host of cancers, et cetera ad infinitum. You lose weight on these low carb diets because you're reducing your energy intake. Really, though, there are a lot more healthful ways of doing that than stuffing your face with pork rinds and steak and cheese.
Speaking of junk passing as "food"...
When I worked at Whole Foods, I almost cried the day the store started selling low carb breads and pastas. Even in conventional supermarkets you can get low-carb or "low impact carb" versions of almost anything these days, from milk to steak sauce to pancake mix. Sometimes I'm not sure what's worse, the "real" thing or the incredibly fake low-carb versions. Have you ever read the ingredients labels on these things? They even sell low carb peanut butter now. Peanut butter! Think about this for a minute, I mean really think about it. Real peanut butter is naturally low in carbohydrates. The peanut spreads which Skippy and Jif and the like try to pass off are "high-carb" because they add (along with the usual hydrogenated oils and other atrocities) tons of sugar and/or corn syrup. The low carb versions, all they do is replace the sugar with artificial sweeteners and add more powdered protein isolate. And still keep the hydrogenated oils. Yum. So healthy for you, too. *add sarcasm*
To be fair, all of these books quite rightly state that the low-fat craze is extreme, and replacing fat with sugar (as so many low-fat and fat-free processed foods do) is just as bad, if not worse. But that doesn't give free reign to swing the pendulum in entirely the other direction.
Be honest now. Can you really sit there with a straight face and tell me pork is better for you than a peach?
