Confused About Nutrition? Eat Food!
I can’t resist dealing with the questions just asked by Elliot and Johannes. From Elliot:
A meta-analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies showed that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease or cardiovascular disease (see: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 13, 2010)…[but] in his book, Good Calories Bad Calories, Gary Taubes clearly attributes most of our chronic disease problems — including heart disease — to carbohydrates (see page 454). In contrast, Colin Campbell in his book The China Study (pages 113-133) forcefully argues that animal proteins contribute to CVD. Yet, Dr. David Katz in his book Nutrition in Clinical Practice (pages 130, 133) asserts that to prevent heart disease, “saturated and trans fat should be restricted to below 7% (or even 5%) of total calories . . . .” Who’s right? We badly need your unbiased wisdom on this topic.
Joannes says that according to the Weston A Price Foundation,
it seems as if (naturally-occurring) saturated fats are almost better for you than the unsaturated fats we get fed these days, which mainly consist of rancid oils which more than anything contribute to heart disease, whereas many saturated fats are actually quite beneficial.
OK. Here’s my “unbiased wisdom” (if such a thing exists). I like to ask: What do saturated fats, sugars, and animal proteins have in common as factors in the development of heart disease? Answer: They are all single nutrients.
Recall that nutrition research is difficult to do because diets contain many foods, foods contain many nutrients and other chemicals that affect health, and other behavioral, socioeconomic, and genetic factors influence heart disease. Studies of single nutrients take these chemicals out of their food, dietary, caloric, and lifestyle contexts and are, therefore, reductive.
Such studies tend to produce ambiguous results that demonstrate small differences, if any. Small differences create situations ripe for interpretation. Interpretation depends on the viewpoint of the interpreter. That is why it helps to know who is doing the interpreting and who sponsored the studies.
Short of that, you would have to read every study cited by these authors and come to your own decision about how to interpret them – a daunting task.
My approach to conflicting research? I look for points of agreement. The authors cited here do not disagree about the basic principles of healthful diets: variety in food intake, moderation in calories, largely plant-based (although not necessarily exclusively), and minimally processed. Eat according to those principles and you do not have to worry about nutritional details.
All of that boils down to the advice I propose in What to Eat: eat less, move more, eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, and don’t eat too much junk food.
Let the scientists and their interpreters fight it out over single nutrients. Eat food and enjoy your dinner.
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Michael Pollan makes more sense than anyone else on the issue of what to eat. Basically, just eat real food, not processed foodlike substances.
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2010-02-09 17:47:01
Elliot,
The confusion over what constitutes healthy eating stems from a lack of familiarity with two issues; appropriateness and adequacy. Appropriate food choice means the individual matches his food intake to the biochemical needs and physiological makeup of his body. For example, some people can thrive on a high carbohydrate diet. Others need to restrict carbohydrates to be enjoy optimum health. Some people do fine on a vegetarian regimen. Others absolutely must include animal products in their dietary intake to function normally.
This matter of adequacy has to do with the balance of biochemical materials the body needs to maintain and repair itself. Our modern industrial food environment is laced with refined carbohydrates and omega-6 fat. The latter may be the larger threat, partly due to its impact on the body’s ability to control inflammation but mostly because hardly anyone knows about it. There’s a lot of publicity about the benefits of omega-3 oils but no articles about the benefits of restricting omega-6 intake.
So, I urge all who read this comment to watch this excerpt from a 37 minute presentation by Dr. Bill Lands: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ9i-9JcTF4
The full version is available at: http://videocast.nih.gov/summary.asp?live=8108 Dr. Lands begins speaking at about 12 minutes into the videocast. Just drag the timer button slightly to the right to avoid the preliminaries.
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2010-02-10 07:51:06
Good nutrition just ins’t that hard.
Eat real foods. Real foods contain muscle bundles, rinds, leaves, seeds, grains.
Limit items that aren’t real foods. Non-real foods come in packages with words like “flavored,” “FD&C [insert color}” “high fructose corn syrup,” “lite,” “diet,” “no-cal,” “Helper,” or words that you’d expect to find in a chemistry textbook.
Don’t overcook real foods. Many can be eaten without cooking at all. Just remove inedible rinds and seeds, and cut into bite-size pieces. Cook grains only until they’re soft enough to chew.
Have a variety of colors at every meal – some white, some yellow, orange, or red, some green.
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2010-02-10 09:33:49