Lupine, A Novel Food That's Already Causing Problems

Mark G, a correspondent from Australia, drew my attention to this stuff:

Low-Carb Bread

Low carb, high protein bread! What could go wrong with that?

Well, if you zoom in on the ingredients, the first three are wheat protein, soy protein, and lupine protein.

Lupine protein? Lupine, the flower? Apparently:

"Lupine cultivation is at least 2,000 years old and most likely began in Egypt or in the general Mediterranean region. The lupine plant, like other grain legumes (beans, peas, lentils, etc.) fixes atmospheric nitrogen, and produces seed high in protein. There are over 300 species of the genus Lupinus (L.), but many have high levels of alkaloids (bitter tasting compounds) that make the seed unpalatable and sometimes toxic. Historically, lupine alkaloids have been removed from the seed by soaking. But plant breeders in the 1920's in Germany produced the first selections of alkaloid-free or "sweet" lupine, which can be directly consumed by humans or livestock. White lupine (L. albus L.), yellow lupine (L. luteus), and blue or narrow-leafed lupine (L. angustifolius) are cultivated as crops. Lupines are currently grown as a forage and grain legume in USSR, Poland, Germany, the Mediterranean, and as a cash crop in Australia, where it is exported to the European seed markets. Both winter-hardy and non-hardy types are available."

Uh-oh...

And since humans make such excellent guinea pigs for these sorts of things:

"The United States has a developing specialty human food market for lupine in the form of lupine flour, lupine pasta, and hulls for dietary fiber. Sweet lupines have been shown to increase the protein and fiber crops in conjunction with durum wheat in specialty pastures, and to be an excellent source of white-colored fiber, as an additive to breads and cereals."

("White-colored fiber" is most likely an euphemism for cellulose, the modern marketing name for sawdust. But that's a whole 'nother post.)

So what's wrong with using lupine protein in food? The most obvious problem is that many people with peanut allergies, one of the most common allergies, cross-react to lupine. Since lupine's novel, the regulators haven't caught up to this, and you could wind up with a nasty surprise:

"Lupine or lupin is a legume that may cause an allergic reaction in those with peanut allergy. Lupine is used in this country in many gluten-free and high-protein products. In many European countries, particularly Italy and France, lupine flour and/or peanut flour may be mixed with wheat flour in baked goods."

Also here:

"Amino acid sequence homology also suggests that these proteins could be responsible, at least in part, for some of the allergic cross-reactions between peanut and lupine reported in the literature."

And here:

"Lupine flour is allergenic and potentially cross-reactive with peanut allergen, thus posing some risk if used as a replacement for soy flour."

And of course:

"Conclusions:  A small but significant number of children with peanut allergy are allergic to lupin."

But you won't learn that from reading the allergen warnings, if you live in Europe:

"Tough new laws on food allergens that enter into force in Europe in November will require food manufacturers to list 12 potentially allergic ingredients, and their derivatives. Lupin flour is not included in the listing."

Of course that's after they allowed lupin flower to enter the food supply. But that's not all:

"Poisoning varies depending on lupine species and varieties, and it is difficult to pin point to specific plant or animal since different animals become susceptible in different ways under varying range conditions.

Species and taxonomic differentiations between species are insufficiently characterized. Different lupines produce varying syndromes in a a given species of livestock....

More than a dozen quinolizidine alkaloids, but some piperidine alkaloids and other types of alkaloids have also been isolated from species of Lupinus. These alkaloids are largely nicotinic in effect. The nitrogen oxides of some of these bases have also been detected in some lupines. The alkaloids are present in the foliage but the greatest concentration is in the seeds.

Lovely.

[P.S. I forgot to mention that this food has nearly the perfect profile for a novel, yet toxic, food to be introduced. It's enough to make you a Paleo paranoid. In it's new and improved form, it's not overtly toxic, but if it were to present symptoms of toxicity, they'd be diverse, and nearly impossible to tie back to the original source. Sort of like modern wheat. In the meanwhile the producers would be able to make a boatload of cash on it, until the truth finally starts to leak out.]

I'd guess that they're reduced the levels of alkaloids in the "sweet lupine" down to some tolerable level, and not completely eliminated them. So, like soy, wheat, or bok choy, if you start eating large amounts of lupin, you may find that you've exceeded the toxic amount.

Interestingly, I found that one of the major proponents (and producers) of lupine, George Weston Foods, applied to the US Food and Drug Administration for a "generally recognized as safe" designation for "sweet lupin" flour, fiber, and protein. They then withdrew the request:

"The subject of the notice is sweet lupin flour. The notice informs FDA of the view of George Weston Foods, Ltd. that sweet lupin flour is GRAS, through scientific procedures, for use as an ingredient in baked goods and baking mixes and grain products and pastas at a maximum level of 25 per cent.

"In a letter dated December 10, 2008, you withdrew your notice. Given your letter, we ceased to evaluate your GRAS notice, effective December 16, 2008, the date that we received your letter."

That's odd. I wonder what George Weston Foods knows about lupin that caused them to withdraw the request?

Nevertheless, if you're dying to give Lupin flour a try in the U.S., you can buy some here. What are the advantages they cite?

Type: Peanut Free, All Natural, Gluten Free, Kosher, Raw, Sugar Free, Vegan, Wheat Free, Dairy Free.

Technically, that's true, of course. But the only reason you'd be interested in the fact that a food was peanut-free is if you were allergic to peanuts...

Calling all attorneys.

Caveat emptor, as always. Look out for yourself, because you can't trust the food producers or the regulators to look out for you.

Linoleic Acid and Melanoma

Dr. Briffa writes: "Could shying away from the sun increase our risk of melanoma?"

Seems a little odd that a condition under which we evolved could cause a fatal disease, right?  You'd think that some other variable would have to have changed to make the sun toxic...  Of course Briffa points out that sunlight isn't toxic, necessarily.

Somebody should look into whether any novel dietary components might be implicated in the rise in melanoma rates.  Oh, wait:

"A population-based case–control study of diet and melanoma risk in northern Italy" (PDF)

"We aimed at examining the association between dietary constituents and risk of cutaneous melanoma."

Well that's helpful.  What did they find, I wonder?  (Or you could re-read the title of this post, but humor me...)

"Results: We found an excess risk of melanoma in subjects with a higher energy-adjusted intake of total polyunsaturated fatty acids and, in particular, of linoleic acid (relative risk = 2.16 for intake in the highest tertile compared with the lowest tertile, P for linear trend = 0.061). Conversely, disease risk was inversely associated with the consumption of soluble carbohydrates (relative risk = 0.34 for intake in the upper vs. the lowest tertile adjusting for total energy intake, P for linear trend = 0.046). No other dietary factors, including alcohol, vitamins and trace elements, correlated with melanoma risk. The association of melanoma risk with linoleic acid and soluble carbohydrates intakes was further strengthened in multivariate analysis, and when analysis was limited to females.

"Conclusions: Overall, these results indicate that an excess energy-adjusted intake of linoleic acid and a lower consumption of soluble carbohydrates may increase melanoma risk"

This doesn't establish causation, of course, but since linoleic acid is already a proven carcinogen, this is not much of a stretch.

What's interesting is the inverse association with soluble carbohydrates, a.k.a soluble fiber.  Stephen Guyenet did a post a while ago on the benefits of fiber in the diet:

"It turns out, butyrate has been around in the mammalian gut for so long that the lining of our large intestine has evolved to use it as its primary source of energy. It does more than just feed the bowel, however. It also has potent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects. So much so, that investigators are using oral butyrate supplements and butyrate enemas to treat inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. Investigators are also suggesting that inflammatory bowel disorders may be caused or exacerbated by a deficiency of butyrate in the first place."

Butyrate is produced in the bowel by bacteria consuming soluble fiber, as one of the commenters on that post notes.

So if you're eating lots of processed foods, which feature linoleic acid as a preservative, effectively, and little fiber, you're in trouble.  If you're eating a whole-foods paleo diet, where you eating some fruits and veggies, and avoiding linoleic acid, you're reducing your risk, most likely.

This is a follow-up, of sorts, to this post: My Vitamin D Experiment, and is an explanation of why I'm not too worried about the cancer risks of going sunscreen-free.

I'll also note that sunscreen use has been going up at the same time that skin cancer rates have been increasing. (The conclusions of that paper are amusing.  Take a mouse known to get skin cancer from exposure to UV radiation, block UV radiation.  What do you think happens?)

If sunscreen prevents skin cancer, why is incidence still going up?  (This article notes the differences between different types of skin cancer and sun exposure.)

Folks are slathering their kids with enough sunscreen to give them rickets...

"Low-fibre Western Diets Deter 'Good Bacteria'"

So eat your fiber. 

"The stools of the African children contained almost three times as many short-chain fatty acids. SCFAs are generated by bugs associated with diets containing a very high proportion of vegetables and cereals... SCFAs kill harmful gut bacteria such as salmonella and help protect against inflammation. Allergies are often the result of an excessive inflammatory response to otherwise harmless agents."

Not only that, but it appears to be a vital nutrient for the bowel:

"It turns out, butyrate [a short-chain fatty acid] has been around in the mammalian gut for so long that the lining of our large intestine has evolved to use it as its primary source of energy. It does more than just feed the bowel, however. It also has potent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects. So much so, that investigators are using oral butyrate supplements and butyrate enemas to treat inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn's and ulcerative colitis. Investigators are also suggesting that inflammatory bowel disorders may be caused or exacerbated by a deficiency of butyrate in the first place.

"Butyrate, and other short-chain fatty acids produced by gut bacteria**, has a remarkable effect on intestinal permeability. In tissue culture and live rats, short-chain fatty acids cause a large and rapid decrease in intestinal permeability. Butyrate, or dietary fiber, prevents the loss of intestinal premeability in rat models of ulcerative colitis. This shows that short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate, play an important role in the maintenance of gut barrier integrity. Impaired gut barrier integrity is associated with many diseases, including fatty liver, heart failure and autoimmune diseases..."

Given that the decline in eating fiber was matched by the rise in eating wheat flour, it sounds like a 1-2 punch to the intestinal tract.  Although my own experience was that even eating fiber doesn't do the trick if you're also eating wheat.

"The Western Diet and Lifestyle and Diseases of Civilization"

From Cordain and Lindeberg. I just posted this as a comment on Robb Wolf's Facebook page, which is where I learned about this:

"Looks interesting, but pretty scatter-shot. Just looking at one area where I've done a lot of reading, fiber & diverticulitis, they're throwing out a lot of unproven hypothesis, and some that have been disproven, or where counter examples can easily be found (Maasai and Eskimos eat no fiber, and don't get diverticulitis, for instance.) They also don't discuss that the food that moved in to replace vegetable fiber in Africa was wheat flour, which is a known intestinal carcinogen. In my case, I can reproduce my diverticulitis symptoms at will by eating some wheat. I avoided sugar, but ate lots of fiber, and still got diverticulitis."

It's pretty dense.  It will take some time to digest and have a better reaction than the above snippet...

Follow-Up to "Sawdust and Ice Cream"

"...Perhaps most important to food processors is that cellulose is cheaper, he added, because “the fiber and water combination is less expensive than most other ingredients in the [food] product.”

"Indeed, food producers save as much as 30% in ingredient costs by opting for cellulose as a filler or binder in processed foods, according to a source close to the processed food industry who spoke with TheStreet on the condition of anonymity.

"Inman said that in his 30 years in the food science business, he’s seen 'an amazing leap in terms of the applications of cellulose fiber and what you can do with it.' He said powdered cellulose has a bad reputation but that more of his customers are converting from things like oat or sugar cane fibers to cellulose because it is 'snow white in color, bland and easy to work with.'

"Most surprising, said Inman, is that he’s been able to remove as much as 50% of the fat from some cookies, biscuits, cakes and brownies by replacing it with powdered cellulose – but still end up with a very similar product in terms of taste and appearance.

"'We’re only limited by our own imagination,' Inman told TheStreet. 'I would never have dreamed I could successfully put 18% fiber in a loaf of bread two years ago.'..."

The story includes a list of products you can run out and buy.

Original post.

Diabetes And Cancer

Interesting stuff:

"Diabetes and cancer are common diseases that have a tremendous impact on health worldwide. Epidemiologic evidence suggests that people with diabetes are at a significantly higher risk of many forms of cancer. Type 2 diabetes and cancer share many risk factors, but to our knowledge, potential biologic links between the 2 diseases are incompletely understood....

"The association between weight loss and subsequent cancer risk is less clear. Most evidence has been derived from breast cancer studies, in which weak or null associations were observed. Because the weight loss definition and the referent groups differed across studies, these studies are difficult to compare. Weight loss categories tend to have small numbers, and many women who do lose weight do not maintain their weight loss beyond 1 year. In the Nurses' Health Study, a statistically significant inverse association between adult weight loss and postmenopausal breast cancer was found only when the weight loss had been maintained for 2 survey cycles, or 4 years."

So you'd better keep the weight off...  I was happy to see this (emphases mine):

"Diet

"A majority of studies (despite different study designs and differing study populations) suggest that diets low in red and processed meats and higher in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains are associated with a lower risk of many types of cancer. Diets that are low in red and processed meat but high in monounsaturated fatty acids, fruits, vegetables, whole-grain cereals, and dietary fiber may protect against type 2 diabetes, possibly through improving insulin sensitivity. Low-carbohydrate diets (which often include a greater consumption of red meats and fat) have also been associated with weight loss and improvements in insulin sensitivity and glycemic control. However, to the best of our knowledge, randomized controlled trial evidence of dietary interventions and diabetes prevention exists only for low-fat, low-calorie, plus/minus high-fiber diets.

"Several studies have suggested that diets high in foods with a high glycemic index or load are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. However, evidence of their associations with cancer risk is mixed. Regardless, to the extent that energy-dense and sugary foods contribute to overweight and obesity, the American Cancer Society, the World Cancer Research Fund, and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommend limiting consumption of these foods. "

Given where the science is on this, I would say this is a totally fair summary.  Kudos to the researchers for giving the low-carb option fair mention.

Of course the NY Times buries any mention of the dietary options:

"People with Type 2 diabetes tend to have a higher risk of getting certain cancers. And preliminary evidence suggests that metformin, the most widely used diabetes pill, might be effective in treating or preventing cancer.

"It is still not clear if high blood glucose is the reason diabetics have a higher cancer risk. A more likely explanation is that people with Type 2 diabetes have high levels of insulin, a hormone that is known to promote growth of certain tumors, according to the consensus statement.

"Similarly, metformin might fight cancer by lowering insulin levels, not blood sugar levels. But there is some evidence that the drug works in part by inhibiting glucose metabolism in cancer cells.

"Even if blood sugar levels fuel tumor growth, however, experts say that trying to lower the body’s overall level of blood sugar — like by starving oneself — would probably not be effective. That is because, at least for people without diabetes, the body is very good at maintaining a certain blood glucose level despite fluctuations in diet."

So keep piggin' out until the Doctor gives you a pill. This message brought to you by Big Pharm.

Given what I've read about diabetes and cancer and the emergence of both as widespread diseases since the adoption of the Modern American Diet, I'd run screaming away from the Modern American Diet ASAP.  Oh, wait, I already have...

Unfortunately the phrase "linoleic acid" does not appear in the link above.

While you're pondering all this, go for a run:

"Physical Activity

"Evidence from observational epidemiologic studies consistently demonstrates that higher levels of physical activity are associated with a lower risk of colon, postmenopausal breast, and endometrial cancer. Physical activity may also help prevent other cancers, including lung and aggressive prostate cancer, but a clear link has not been established to date. Some evidence also suggests that physical activity after diagnosis may improve survival for some cancers, including those of the breast and colorectum.

A protective role for increased physical activity in diabetes metabolism and outcomes has been demonstrated. Data from observational and randomized trials suggest that approximately 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, such as walking, at least 5 days per week substantially reduces (approximately 25-36%) the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Analyses of the effects of different components of the intensive lifestyle intervention in the Diabetes Prevention Program have suggested that those who did not reach weight loss goals still significantly reduced their risk of diabetes if they achieved the physical activity goals, although weight loss was the only component found to be independently associated with diabetes prevention on multivariate analyses.

A Gift

Seth and I corresponded via email occasionally. He was very generous with his time. I wanted to copy these two posts from his blog, as I don't know how long it will remain available.

Make Yourself Healthy: Diverticulitis


You have diverticulitis when “diverticula in your digestive tract become inflamed or infected. Diverticula are small, bulging pouches.” A man in his forties named Tuck had a serious case:

In my twenties I got really sick; lying in bed for 5 days, bleeding from the lower part of my digestive tract: not pretty. . . Delirious days later and ten pounds lighter and I was recovered, except for one problem: I had diarrhea for the subsequent 14 years. . . . Two years ago [2008] I passed out on the toilet on a ski weekend. The emergency room at Bennington Hospital [Vermont] told me it was a stomach flu.
Four weeks later I got cramps at work. I had to lie on the floor until it passed. Then I drove to my doctor’s office, and he told me that I had diverticulitis, and I had to go to the emergency room. I drove myself, and barely made it. I was in agony; I nearly passed out again while they were interviewing me to see if it was “serious”. . . . I had a perforated colon. . . . I spent the next four days in the pre-operative ward, so if it got worse they could cut me open immediately. I lost 10 pounds. Then I started bleeding, and I realized these were all the same symptoms that I had had 14 years before. My blood pressure got so low that the automated blood-pressure machine wouldn’t work . . .
I mentioned to all three of the doctors I saw that I had had constant diarrhea for the last 14 years, since the first attack, and they shrugged. They told me to eat more fiber, and whole wheat, even though that was what I had been eating for the last 20 years. So I avoided surgery, started eating salad with salad dressing (containing industrial seed oils) and lots of whole wheat. . . . But the more salad and whole wheat I ate, the worse it got. I couldn’t understand why. Finally had to have eight inches of my colon removed. The diarrhea continued, so obviously the cause remained.

Then something happened that, before blogging, wasn’t possible:

Someone sent me a post that Stephen Guyenet did about how dental problems were pretty much all due to diet, not genetics, as I’d been told. As someone who’d had a ton of cavities, and 8 teeth pulled, and was determined to spare his daughters the same fate, I found this of interest.
I started reading the blog. 6 months later, I decided to stop eating seed oils, which eliminated my carb cravings, hence no wheat. Two days later, [unexpectedly] my diarrhea stopped. A good bit of trial and error, some accidental, ensued. [I learned that both] wheat and seed oils cause distress, but different types. The two combined can cause me to pass out. If I eat wheat by accident, then eating saturated animal fats (like cream) causes things to settle down.

He found that “traditional” oils (palm, coconut, olive) are okay. Industrial oils (corn, canola, cottonseed) are not. Animal fats (butter, lard, beef tallow) are best.

After 16 years my symptoms are now completely under my control. . . . I read the ingredients on everything. I make a big mistake once every 6-9 months. [Other benefits:] I’m much more resistant to sunburn, for instance, and my vision improved a bit.

So his problems were due to (a) wheat and (b) too much omega-6. His doctors had no idea.
The Mayo Clinic recommends a “diverticulitis diet” that is clear liquids and low-fiber foods. According to the Mayo Clinic, “mild cases of diverticulitis can be treated with rest, changes in your diet and antibiotics. But serious cases of diverticulitis may require surgery.” The Mayo Clinic, it appears, has no idea what causes diverticulitis.
Tuck added:

It really pisses me off when people dismiss this, because it really makes a difference.  I had a colleague who was in the hospital for a colon resection for diverticulitis.  When he heard my story, he had the hospital put him on a gluten-free diet.  Four days later, instead of having surgery as scheduled, he checked out: cured.  He’s symptom-free on a gluten-free diet to this day.

I agree. As someone on the Shangri-La Diet forums put it, “you are handed a GIFT.” A story like this is a gift.


How Common Are Medical Errors? A Horror Story

In this post a contract artist who calls himself Wolverine gives a long list of life-threatening medical errors that happened to him. I hope that he will eventually add dates so that the rate of error becomes clearer [more: all the errors happened within a 14-month period] but even without them the stories suggest that life-threatening errors are common. (As does the effectiveness of surgical checklists.) Medicine is a job where if you make a mistake only the customer suffers not you. Surely this is why the error rate is so high. Wolverine was operated on by a surgeon who, because of a fatal error, had lost his license to practice in California. He changed states, was hired again, and made the same error on Wolverine.
I learned about this from Tucker Goodrich, who has been corresponding with the author and told me something remarkable:

He’s eating a paleo with raw milk diet.  The other transplant patients he knows are all eating the modern American diet and dying of infections; he’s been infection-free for two years.

I Thought Fiber Was Good For Diverticulitis?

"I immediately jumped onto the whole-grain wagon and started eating oatmeal by the boat load, whole grain bagels every morning, fiber crackers with lunch, and every other classic conventional wisdom food you could imagine. A few months into this lifestyle I developed a crippling case of diverticulitis that resulted in having a foot of my colon surgically removed at the age of 24."

Sounds familiar.  Read the whole thing...

"My diverticulitis, I believe, was a direct result of my attempts at eating 'healthy' whole grains."

Exactly right.  Someone please tell Cordain and Lindeberg.

Luckily for me, when this happened when I was in my 20s, I didn't go see a doctor.  They got me the second time around, however.

Fat-Adapted Horses

In The Perfect Health Diet, the Jaminets point out that while a ruminant like a cow may each lots of carbohydrate in the form of indigestible fiber, what actually makes it into their blood stream is nearly pure fat, along with about 10% protein, thanks to the fermentation of fiber into short-chain fatty acids. (No link, sorry, and I can't find my copy to quote it directly.)

This ends, of course, when they're put on the feed lot, and they develop a nice layer of fat and fatty deposits in their muscles, if a grain-based diet doesn't kill them first.

Post moved to Substack.

Diet vs. Exercise

In response to Scott's comment,  I went and found this article, which describes a study that:

"...compared African American women in metropolitan Chicago with women in rural Nigeria. On average, the Chicago women weighed 184 pounds and the Nigerian women weighed 127 pounds.


"Researchers had expected to find that the slimmer Nigerian women would be more physically active. To their surprise, they found no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of calories burned during physical activity.

"'Decreased physical activity may not be the primary driver of the obesity epidemic,' said Loyola nutritionist Amy Luke, a member of the study team.

This jives with my experience.  Fixing my diet caused me to start losing weight that exercise had been unable to take off over the course of years.  I intentionally scaled back my running volume when I eliminated veggie oils from my diet, just to make sure that wasn't the cause.

I don't have time to look into some more research, but exercise alone won't do the trick.  Neither will cutting back on calories.  From what I've read, it's what you eat, now how much you eat or exercise.

"Diet is a more likely explanation than physical activity expenditure for why Chicago women weigh more than Nigerian women, Luke said. She noted the Nigerian diet is high in fiber and carbohydrates and low in fat and animal protein. By contrast, the Chicago diet is 40 percent to 45 percent fat and high in processed foods."

"The Raw Truth About Raw Vegan Diets"

A bit harsh...  But accurate.

Best bit from the comments:

"But, Don, they have uncovered many, many paleolithic food processors.

"I believe they are called ruminants."

Part 2 goes into the physiological reasons why we are not vegans:

"Briefly, both of the apes closest to humans by genetic constitution (about 98% identical), chimps and gorillas, are hindgut fermenters. In chimps and gorillas, the hindgut, or colon, comprises about 52 percent of the total gut volume. It houses microbes that ferment fiber, converting it to fatty acids that supply up to 65% of the animal’s energy requirements. In contrast, in humans the hindgut comprises only about 17 percent of total gut volume, and has relatively small microbial population. At most, microbial fermentation in the hindgut can provide about 10% of human energy requirements."

How To Raise Your Cholesterol

Good suggestions.  (That's right, raise it...) 

Darya's a fan of grains, I'd suggest going light on those, even whole grains (especially wheat).  There are plenty of other ways to get fiber in your diet. And if you're eating paleo you're already getting plenty of niacin.

Interview: Brad Marshall, Tucker Goodrich on Obesity Causes, Reductive Stress—A Neighbor's Choice with David Gornoski

Brad Marshall, David, and my dog get together to talk about our commonalities and where we differ.

(That yipping you hear in the background is my new puppy. Sorry about that.)

"Brad Marshall, Tucker Goodrich on Obesity Causes, Reductive Stress"

"David Gornoski, Brad Marshall, and Tucker Goodrich get together for an investigative conversation on what exactly is causing the obesity crisis in modern society. What do we make of the idea of stearic acid as dietary fiber? Is reductive stress driving the obesity crisis? Do we get in a state of torpor after consuming linoleic acid? Is more sugar the way to go, as Dr. Ray Peat suggests?

Check out Brad Marshall's blog Fire in a Bottle here: https://fireinabottle.net
Visit A Neighbor's Choice website at https://aneighborschoice.com"

Podcast:

Quaker Chewy

Like this post, this is motivated by seeing an ad appear on my blog.  I agree with Richard Nikoley about these ads, but I do occasionally feel motiviated to comment on them, especially when the product promoted is diametrically opposed to the mission of this blog.

Quaker Chewy candy

So here we have the Quaker Chewy.  I presume this is part of a campaign of some sort, but out of morbid curiosity I felt compelled to go check out the ingredients, given that this ad appeared under my post on sawdust in food.

Sadly, they don't overtly include sawdust, as, along with the chocolate in the chocolate chips, that would have been one of the healthier ingredients.

This appears to be the product page for the Quacker Chewy, and happily, they include all the nutrition information (you may have to click on the nutrition tab at the bottom of the page):

Serving size   1 bar (24g)

Amount per serving
Calories 100	Calories from Fat 30

%daily value
Total Fat 3g		5%
	Saturated Fat 1g	6%
	Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg		0%
Sodium 75mg		3%
Total Carbohydrate 17g		6%
	Dietary Fiber 1g	4%
	Sugars 7g
Protein 1g

Calcium 8%

•  Iron 2%

Not a significant source of Cholesterol, Vitamin A, Vitamin C.
*	Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.

Ingredients

GRANOLA (WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, BROWNSUGAR, CRISP RICE [RICE FLOUR, SUGAR, SALT, MALTED BARLEY EXTRACT],WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED WHEAT, SOYBEAN OIL, DRIED COCONUT, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, SODIUM BICARBONATE, SOY LECITHIN, CARAMEL COLOR, NONFAT DRYMILK), SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE LIQUOR, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLA EXTRACT), CORN SYRUP, BROWN RICE CRISP (WHOLE GRAIN BROWN RICE, SUGAR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, SALT), INVERT SUGAR, SUGAR, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, GLYCERIN, SOYBEAN OIL. CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF SORBITOL,CALCIUM CARBONATE, SALT, WATER, SOY LECITHIN, MOLASSES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), CITRIC ACID.

CONTAINS WHEAT, COCONUT, SOY AND MILK INGREDIENTS.

MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT AND OTHER TREE NUTS.

The calories nearly add up.  Quaker claims the total calories are 100, with 30 coming from fat.  If you total the numbers they present, there are 27 calories coming from fat (9 calories per gram) 2/3s of that is coming from non-saturated fat sources.  The rest comes from the carbs (68 calories, 4 per gram) and protein (the lonely 4 calories from 1 gram).  I guess that's close enough to attribute the difference to a rounding error.

By weight, oddly, the numbers total 21 grams, while Quaker claims the total weight is 24 grams.  There's a missing 12.5%, which contains 1 calorie.  Perhaps we've found our sawdust?  3 grams (12.5%) of the total is fat, apparently coming mostly from the soybean oil.  17 grams (70.8%) is carbs, with 7 grams of "sugars" (29.2%).

So you're basically eating a bar of sugar bound together with soybean oil, and a miniscule amount of saturated fat (1 gram, 4.2%), hopefully coming from the chocolate.

This is a fine thing to feed to a lab rat if you're trying to make it sick, or if you just don't know better, but I don't understand why anyone would eat this themselves, or feed it to their childern. 

It has virtually no redeeming qualities as far as nutrition goes.

The 2010 US Dietary Guidelines: A Scam?

Seems like it.

Concerns that were raised with the first dietary recommendations 30 y ago have yet to be adequately addressed. The initial Dietary Goals for Americans (1977) proposed increases in carbohydrate intake and decreases in fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, and salt consumption that are carried further in the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) Report. Important aspects of these recommendations remain unproven, yet a dietary shift in this direction has already taken place even as overweight/obesity and diabetes have increased. Although appealing to an evidence-based methodology, the DGAC Report demonstrates several critical weaknesses, including use of an incomplete body of relevant science; inaccurately representing, interpreting, or summarizing the literature; and drawing conclusions and/or making recommendations that do not reflect the limitations or controversies in the science. An objective assessment of evidence in the DGAC Report does not suggest a conclusive proscription against low-carbohydrate diets. The DGAC Report does not provide sufficient evidence to conclude that increases in whole grain and fiber and decreases in dietary saturated fat, salt, and animal protein will lead to positive health outcomes. Lack of supporting evidence limits the value of the proposed recommendations as guidance for consumers or as the basis for public health policy. It is time to reexamine how US dietary guidelines are created and ask whether the current process is still appropriate for our needs.

Wall Street Journal Article on Wheat

"Giving Up Gluten to Lose Weight? Not So Fast. Diet Regimen Effective in Treating Celiac Disease, Wheat Allergies, But Not for Shedding Pounds

This is the evidence that the author provides that ditching wheat won't help you to lose weight:

"The notion that a gluten-free diet can help people lose weight or avoid carbohydrates is a myth. 'Many packaged gluten-free products are even higher in carbs, sugar, fat and calories than their regular counterparts, and they tend to be lower in fiber, vitamins and iron,' says Shelley Case, a registered dietician on the medical advisory board of the Celiac Disease Foundation. 'Gluten-free does not mean nutritious,' she notes."

That's it.

Now I agree that if you eat the gluten-free stuff you'll not lose weight.  What I've seen of it is mostly rice flour, which is not nutritious.

But what if you replace wheat with fruits and vegetables?  Unfortunately there's no discussion of this in the article at all.

The last sentence of the article is really the prize, however:

"Also, for dieters, going back to gluten after avoiding it can lead to stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhea and other symptoms, at least temporarily."

Why on earth would you eat anything that caused those symptoms?   If I gave you an egg that caused "stomach cramps, bloating, and diarrhea", the FDA would call it food poisoning and issue a recall.  But to Miss Beck, the WSJ Health columnist, they're perfectly acceptable side effects of eating wheat.

Now that's nuts.

Is Science Broken? Part 0: Most Medical Research "Is Misleading, Exaggerated, And Often Flat-Out Wrong."

This is the article that drew my attention to the wholesale nature of the problem:

"Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science"

"...Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted?

"That question has been central to Ioannidis’s career. He’s what’s known as a meta-researcher, and he’s become one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies—conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for heart disease or back pain—is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences. Given this exposure, and the fact that his work broadly targets everyone else’s work in medicine, as well as everything that physicians do and all the health advice we get, Ioannidis may be one of the most influential scientists alive. Yet for all his influence, he worries that the field of medical research is so pervasively flawed, and so riddled with conflicts of interest, that it might be chronically resistant to change—or even to publicly admitting that there’s a problem."

Even though this is not new, I wanted to have a link to it on this blog, just for reference. (Emphasis mine.)

Part 1, Part 2.

"Animal Fibre"

I like reading things that make me smack my forehead and think, "You idiot: why didn't you think of that!"

This is one of those posts:

Fruits and veggies, fermented or otherwise, aren’t the only source of prebiotics in your diet. Eat a whole sardine and some of the ligaments, tendons, bones, and cartilage will surely escape digestion to reach the distal intestine where they will be fermented by the resident microbes.

Read the whole thing, but this explains why populations that don't eat much or any plant fiber, like the Maasai warriors or Eskimos of yore, do perfectly fine.

Low-Carb Athletes: Chris Froome, Tour de France Winner 2013, '15, '16.

I think we're pretty close to putting this whole thing to bed.  Two of the three Hardrock 100 winners are low-carb athletes, and the third, while high-carb, trains fasted for hours on end and can do prodigious feats on stored fat along.  (I haven't done a post yet on any of them!).

Now this.

"Especially the carbs, he's got such a sweet tooth. But he's found now that if he does cut back on carbs the weight does come down a lot easier than it did in the past. And cutting out foods like breakfast cereals and a lot of the wheat products and bread but still eating enough food — the right food — that he is able to not feel hungry during the day. If you look at his build from the 2011 Vuelta compared to now, he's still lean but his muscles look a lot more defined. So now he has found a way of doing it ..."

That's his girlfriend and nutrition advisor.

Here's the athlete:

"In the Vuelta that year (2011), I think my muscles were probably lighter. I was gangly. You wouldn't look at me and say, 'That's someone who's strong.' Whereas now, my diet is a lot more protein based. I've cut back on carbs completely but I'm not losing muscle."

Yeah, that is how it works.

"I think hard about the quality of the food I'm eating – organic fruit, vegetables and meat wherever possible. It's a common misconception that because we're training five or six hours a day that we can eat what we want and burn it off. It really is a case of watching every little thing you put in your mouth and how it's going to benefit you. Your body really does respond to tweaks then."

Paul Jaminet would approve of this:

"I try to go very light in terms of diet. In the mornings I limit myself to just the one bowl of porridge, and normally a two-egg omelette, with no hint of extras on the side. No second helpings, no picking, nothing. If there is a big stage ahead that day I'll try a three-egg omelette, but warily, and I'll mix a small amount of white rice into the porridge ..."

So he's not no-carb, but he's pretty explicitly low-carb.

The incomprehension of this feat in the press is simply priceless.  I found this article, "This is what you have to eat to compete in the Tour de France", which states:

"09:00 Breakfast 

"Riders have their breakfast around three hours before the race — carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, muesli, cereal, fruit, coffee, smoothies, orange juice and even noodles help top up glycogen stores. 

"“One thing all riders avoid is eating heavy food,” says Judith Haudum, sports nutritionist to the BMC Racing team. 

"“They have to resist the enticing pastries from the hotel breakfast bar because this type of food isn’t fully digested in time for the start, making riders’ stomachs feel uncomfortably heavy.” 

10:30 Pre-race snack 

"Transfers from hotels to stage starts can be long, offering an opportunity to top up carbohydrate and calories — typically, rice cakes with honey, raisin bread or a sports bar are consumed with fluid."

No mention of Chris Froome, who won the race last year and again this year. We saw what he's eating above.  Is a three-egg omelete "heavy"?

Breakfast of champions

Here's his breakfast on a recovery day:

"The carbohydrates in the avocado (which contains about 320 calories) provide him with a source of quick energy, while the hefty amount of protein and fat in the eggs (70 calories each), avocado, and fish (100 calories for 3 ounces) helps fuel muscles and slow the breakdown of food in the body. 

"That helps steady energy levels and stave off hunger pangs. Plus, since the eggs are poached and the fish is smoked, they have no added fats or oils.

"As an added energy boost, Froome has a sachet of cherry-juice concentrate, 2 tablespoons of which would give him about 18 grams of carbohydrates and about 70 calories."

"Carbohydrates in the avocado"!?!  An avocado contains 17 grams of carbs, and a lot of that is fiber, which enters the bloodstream as fat, not glucose.  I'd be surprised if there are more than a few grams of digestible carbs in an avocado.  So that puts him at 20-30 grams of carbs for breakfast, a far, far cry from what's "required"!

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that a low-carb athlete could never win the Tour. "Once is an accident. Twice is coincidence. Three times is an enemy action."  The enemy in this case is coming to obliterate the carbs-are-needed-for-performance baloney we've been sold for decades.

The other thing I always hear is that low-carb doesn't improve performance.  It pretty clearly improved Chris Froome's performance!

"After Chris Froome cut back on carbs for more protein, he lost 20 pounds, started winning the Tour de France, and became a millionaire"

Your results may vary.

Via the excellent Diet Doctor.