There seems to be a new fad of avoiding carbohydrates and eating lots of fat
and meat.  The New York Times reports that people are avoiding eating
carbohydrates as part of a quick weight loss diet (and that various medical
associations point out the smoking also causes you to lose weight, and ketosis
which results from burning lots of body fat for energy is not good for the
health).  Mary commented that she sold her bread machine because she is trying
not to eat carbohydrates, and Scott made a similar comment about 'eating less
carbs'.  We went to a talk by the author of a nutrition book in which she also
implies that eating primarily fat and protein are good and eating
carbohydrates are bad, but in this case she implied that most Americans have
high blood sugar (incipient diabetes) so could not eat carbohydrates safely.
Jim and I were predicting that the low-fat high-sugar fad would soon be
replaced by something suitably opposite, that had already been done before.
Also that butter would be suddenly 'good' - and now people are blaming
artificially hydrogenated 'trans' fats for heart problems, not saturated fats.
Margarine is now the 'bad' fat.

When did this recent fad for avoiding starches and eating lots of butter
start?  We noticed when the buying club purchases arrived that there were more
than two whole cases of pounds of butter (but also lots of granola bars, corn
chips, potato chips, cookies, etc.).

28 responses total.

Well, I am trying to avoid simple carbs like sugar and white flour but 
that isnt the same thing as avoiding carbs. 

The New York Times claims that people are even avoiding fruit, and drinking
distilled liquor instead of wine because there is a bit of sugar in wine.

Well, I think that one can get more drunk per calorie on distilled 
liquor if that is what one's objective is. 

I used to eat *lot* of bread, rice, etc.  So I'm *not* doing that Atkins diet
where you don't eat any carbs at all.

I'm not avoiding all carbohydrates, just pasta, potatoes and
bread.  I'm finding I feel better if I get more like a 40/40/30
ratio and most of the carbs come from fruits and vegetables.
So I'm eating a lot more fruits and veggies than I used to and
most certainly more olive oil for the fat.

I don't miss the potatoes or pasta. 

Er, make that 40/30/30.  Carb/protein/fat.

Isnt that The Zone diet?

Potatoes are vegetables.  Jim puts olive oil on most everything now.  Before
that his diet when we calculated was about 5% fat.  Most food does not have
a whole lot of fat in it if you don't count nuts or animals or avocados.
Nuts can be about half fat.  It would be pretty difficult to eat a diet that
is 30% fat without eating animals, unless you REALLY liked peanut butter.

Modified.  I believe Sears wants each meal and each snack to be 40/30/30. 
I'm just kind of making additions and subtractions at each meal and hoping
in the end, overall, I'm getting total carbs down from the 60% or 70% I
used to eat to the 30% or 40% I now eat.  I only know I'm close to these
numbers from the few typical days I've calculated. 

And it's not even a diet I'm following as much as I'm starting to pay
attention to how I feel after eating certain meals.  Not during but after. 
And there is a difference. 

I've pretty much decided to never diet for weight loss ever again.

Do you have blood sugar problems?  What is wrong with eating starch?
I just found a lecture in the Observer on the 'hunter-gatherer diet'. 
Probably works fine for people expecting to die by age 35, says Jim.
Before they develop gout, kidney stones, due to eating too much meat. 
Actually, current day hunter-gatherers (in South Africa, anyway) get about
25% of their calories from animal products, which may be less than the average
American does.  

Nothing is wrong with eating starch.  I just feel better
when my meals have less starch in the mix.

My impression is that the % of starch and protein in a "traditional
hunter-gatherer diet" varied wildly by both local ecosystem and season.

I think that a fair number of folks have reported good results with one
(but not the other) of low-starch and low-fat diets - both when "good
results" meant "feel better" and "lose weight".  This suggest to me that
there's plenty of genetic variation in metabolic patterns out there -
which sounds pretty consistent with the big variations faced by the old
hunter-gatherers.

How and why would anyone 'feel bad' from eating whole grain bread if they were
not already diabetic?

It is possible to suffer some consequence without understanding how or
why -- or even *what* it is a consequence of.  (Some allergic reactions
leap to mind)   There have been times in my life when I didn't digest
some things well, perfectly wholesome things that on another day gave
me no problems.  The human body is complicated beyond *my* mind's
understanding!

Some people are allergic to gluten but not necessarily to potatoes or millet.
Hi grace, nice to hear from you again.
If a hunter gatherer ate the same diet as a Kalahari bushperson, about 25%
of the calories from animal parts, that leaves 75% plant matter which is
unlikely to be more than 5% fat and maybe 5-10% protein, or about 60% of
calories from carbohydrates.  They dig up a lot of roots.  

Nomads probably eat higher percentages of animals and animal fluids, but they
trade animals with farmers for bread flour.

There was an article on the Atkins-style diets in the magazine section of the
NY Times a month or two ago -- is that the one you're talking about, keesan?
I don't have the article in front of me, but it seemed to me that the author
was missing the point.  Whoever wrote it seemed to think that "starchy" and
"artery-clogging" are the only choices when it comes to diet.  Things like
green vegetables and beans just didn't seem to be on the author's radar.

Beans actually have a lot of starch in addition to the protein and fiber. 
People have used bean flour in bread.  It does not rise well.  Green
vegetables are mostly water.  You need to get your calories from
carbohydrates, fats or protein.   If you eat more protein than you need to
repair or build muscles and other body parts requiring protein, the rest is
broken down for energy, with some by-products that your body has to work
harder to clear from your system.  This is not particularly healthy. 
Carbohydrates break down into energy, carbon dioxide and water (no nitrogenous
waste).  Burning a lot of fats for energy can cause ketosis, or overproduction
of ketone bodies (a certain molecular structure involving oxygen), which is
also not good for you.  A certain amount of fat is essential as the body
cannot make some of the unsaturated varieties.  Ideally you would eat enough
fat and protein to replace any that is lost, and get the rest of your diet
from carbohydrates which would be burnt for energy (or if you eat too much
carbohydrates the excess is stored as fat).  

I can look up the details of this if anyone wants.

Simple carbohydrates (sugars) are not good in large quantities because it
upsets the insulin production controls when they are released into the
bloodstream all at once.  

Well, for that matter, lean meat and tofu and such seemed not to be on the
author's radar either.  I don't know, it could be that I was the one missing
the point.

Nope, I saw the article as having the same slant, that
if you are looking to modify the existing food pyramid you
must be into butter and sausage.  How silly.

Tofu is rather high in fat.
Alcohol is another source of calories that I forgot to mention.
Another problem with high protein intake is that it causes loss of calcium,
which is why the daily requirement for Americans is set so high.  

Protein is used to build muscles, and also hormones, antibodies, transport
proteins, for blood clotting, in scar tissue, bones and teeth, and in the
retina, as enzymes, and to maintain acid base balance.  Growing bodies need
extra protein.  The Recommended Protein Intake in my nutrition book is about
12 percent of total calories consumed (nowhere near 30%).  Fat should be under
30% and in many countries it is closer to 5-10%.  The rest carbohydrate.

For someone weighing 50 kilograms, you need about 40 g protein per day, unless
you are fat in which case you need less since protein needs are based on lean
body weight.  Someone overweight should therefore need less than 12% of their
calorie intake as protein.

WHO recommends slightly less than the US agencies, possibly since they assume
people have less fat.

"It is possible to consume too much protein.  Animals fed high-protein diets
experience a protein overload effect, seen in the hypertrophy (overgrowth)
of their livers and kidneys (which have to process the waste products of
converting protein to energy).  Infants are placed at risk in many ways if
fed excess protein.  People who wish to lose weight may be handicapped in
their efforts if they consume too much protein.  (Because they are les slikely
to eat fruits, vegetables, and grains).  Diets high in protein necessiate
higher intakes of calcium as well, because such diets promote calcium
excretion.  THere are evidently no benefits to be gained by consuming a diet
that derives more than 15 percent of its kcalories from protein, and there
are possible risks as intakes rise to 20 or more percent of kcalories when
kcalories are adequate.  (If you are not getting enough calories, it does not
hurt to get enough protein anyway).

You can get 40 g protein from 2.6 cups of black beans or 8 cups brown rice
or 8 baked potatoes with skin (peeling removes nearly half the protein).
One pound of whole wheat bread is 44g protein.  Or five cups milk.  Half
gallon of ice cream (11% fat).  1 cup grated parmesan. 1.5 cups cottage
cheese.  One yellow cake with frosting, 8-9 inch diameter.  6 oz hamburg.

Depending on your activity level you need varying amount of protein each day
to replace what you've destroyed.

The amount is estimated based on your lean body mass and ranges from .5
grams per pound for sedentary people to .9 grams per pound for athletic
people.  For a person of my height, bone structure and activity level, I
need about 55-65 grams of protein per day just to maintain my muscle mass.

Fat people do not need less protein because they are fat!  

In fact, a good dietician will tailor a fat person's eating plan so that
they get adequate amounts of protein, and fewer non-protein calories again
based on their activity level and desired body composition.  

Men and women need different percentages of body fat to maintain hormaonal
balances, and different amounts of protein based on their height, activity
level, and bone structure.  There is not a simple, single number that you
can declar as the amount of protein that a person needs each day.

What is the authority for those protein guidelines?  And is there a
corresponding recommendation for total calorie consumption.

Think I'll try applying cmcgee's guidelines to me.  From self-measurements
I do from time to time, my lean body mass seems to be around 125 lb.  I'm
fairly active physically, doing regular workouts under the guidance of a
personal trainer.  Don't think I'd class myself as "athletic", but I'm
not sedentary either.  So let's say my daily protein needs are around .75
grams per pound.  That comes out to 125*.75 = 94 gm protein per day.
There's 4 calories in 1 gram of protein, that's 376 calories/day from
protein.  Assuming total consumption of 1800 calories per day, that's 21%
of calories from protein.  With 30% of calories coming from fat and the
rest from carbohydrates, and rounding off sligtly for simplicity, it seems
like a reasonable calorie distribution for me would be

                50% carbohydrate
                20% protein
                30% fat

I wonder if that's reasonable or not.  I've been aiming for the 40/30/30
ratio specified by the Zone Diet.  Why do I like the Zone Diet?  Because
when I switched to it a few years ago, my energy level and feeling of
well-being shot up almost immediately, and with the diet and regular
exercise I was able to accomplish some much-needed weight loss.  So I'm
wondering if 50/20/30 isn't a bit high on the carbs and low on protein,
at least for me.

WHO recommends .75 g per kilogram (not per pound).  I doubt that most
Americans get nearly as much exercise as the average third world person.

No, fat people do not need less protein but since they are eating more
calories to remain fat, they need the same amount of protein which is a
smaller percentage of total calories.

Remmers, if you recalculate this with the WHO figures, your protein
requirement would be divided by 2.2 (2.2 pounds per kilogram).

If most of your protein comes from plant sources (as it does in much of the
world) you probably need more total protein unless you balance out the
different amino acids really carefully.  I presume the WHO figure also takes
that into account.  

Most of the protein broken down by the body is recycled - the amino acids are
reused - so you don't need to replace it continuously.


Someone highly athletic would probably be eating 4000 rather than 1800
calories per day, as fuel.  Doubling the total protein requirement would not
double the percentage of calories needed from protein.  I will let a
mathematician explain this one.  Walking fast half an hour a day is not going
to double your calorie needs.  Walking all day might - we found this out when
hiking in Porcupine Mountains, where we ended up rationing our food by the
third day.  

Some people (diabetics and near-diabetics) don't handle carbohydrates well.
This does not mean that the rest of us should avoid carbohydrates (other than
concentrated sugars).  

Part of the problem is, there's no single standard for judging what diet is
best.  Do you go with the diet that lets you keep your weight down?  The one
that makes you feel energetic?  The one that keeps you healthy now?  The one
that fends off nasty things like heart disease down the road?  The one that
keeps you on the right side of malnourished the most cheaply?

Sometimes, the same diet will fulfill all of these goals.  More often, they
seem to conflict.  I don't think it's surprising that the WHO, Colleen's
nutritionist and Dr. Atkins all have different advice.

FOOD FIGHT!

If there is going to be a food fight, I would want lots of healthy 
foods on my side. Nuts are nice because they are hard and oatmeal is 
good because it is messy. 

Throw some nuts our way.  I could use more fat in my diet to add to the daily
oatmeal.

People used to eat arsenic to keep themselves looking fashionably pale, and
there are those who continue to smoke in order to stay fashionably thin. 
Eating a high-protein diet to be fashionably thin is equally stupid if it
going to ruin your kidneys and bones.

Well, I dont think there is any hope for me being fashionably thin. 
*snort*. I'll settle for reasonably healthy. 

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