Carbs Kill
October 9, 2009
Richard writes:
Your writing is usually refreshingly free of modernist claptrap. But that’s not the case with your “Obesity in America” article, and certainly isn’t so with much of the Oprahized conventional wisdom from your correspondents on that article. The current obesity epidemic is the result of four decades of bad public policies and cultural cues based on some truly awful science and preconceived notions. The science is finally catching up, but it may take generations for public perception do so.
Most of the increase in obesity seen in the last few decades is a result of a condition called metabolic syndrome, which results from a steady decrease in sensitivity to insulin. Many people have chronically high insulin levels due to a diet high in certain carbohydrates. Insulin enables fat cells to rapidly convert glucose into energy stores. Over time they develop insulin resistance, and eventually related problems like Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus.
To put it simply, people are not fat because they eat a lot. They eat a lot because they are fat. Their chronically high insulin levels mean their fat cells are using up their supplies of glucose, and telling their brains that they are starving even when they have just eaten. It is a form of malnutrition. Their fat cells are quite literally robbing the rest of their bodies of nutrition. They aren’t being gluttons – they are being poisoned.
This idea causes lots of screaming among many people because it goes so directly against our millenia old notions that obesity is the result of gluttony and sloth, or our modern touchy-feely notions that it is the result of “food issues” or some spiritual sickness.
Food was just as available in the 1970’s as now. People were certainly not more chaste and self-controlling then. (Sexual revolution anyone?) So what changed? We began a war on dietary fat both culturally and as a matter of public policy. Fat content in many foods was replaced by sucrose and fructose. Our consumption of sugar has skyrocketed. People began buying “low-fat” everything, inadvertently driving up their insulin levels.
Unfortunately I’m unable to do justice to what is a complex and fascinating subject. There are a couple of great places to start to get an understanding of this issue. First, here is a lecture by Dr. Robert Lustig. He is a professor of pediatric endocrinology UC San Francisco. He details exactly how sugar intake is responsible for the obesity problem and related diseases.
Then you might want to watch two lectures here and here by science writer Gary Taubes – one at Berkeley’s School of Public Health and the other at the Steven’s Institute. His book “Good Calories, Bad Calories” is a brilliant study of the history of nutrition science and policy.
It’s difficult to believe that the very diet that has been recommended as “healthy” for three decades is, in fact, the cause of the obesity epidemic. It requires us to give up any smug notions of personal self-control, and to give up some faith in the opinion of experts. But three decades of low-fat semi-starvation diets and psychological approaches have seen the problem grow worse. How sure are you really that it’s a matter of restraint?
Laura writes:
A carb-heavy diet is unquestionably addictive. Once a person is obese due to heavy consumption of and dependence on carbohydrates, they suffer from increased hunger and things can quickly spiral out of control. Their disability is compounded if they continue to eat a high-carbohydrate diet.
But, without having studied all of the research he has cited, I disagree with Richard on two points.
He says people first choose high-carbohydrate diets in a misguided effort to keep slim and fit. They choose foods labeled as “low-fat,” not realizing they were dangerous poisons. In reality, it appears people choose these diets because they are convenient, cheap and filling. They consume large quantities of foods that have never been labeled low-fat by anyone. Pizza, pasta and soda give instant gratification and demand no work.
Second, the danger of carbohydrates has been widely publicized. I agree many people are still probably unaware of it, but those who are obese see themselves growing fatter and sicker. They know something is not right. If they are actively encouraged by so-called experts to continue consuming soda, chips, pizza and pasta, they are being done a grave disservice.
If the dependence on carbohydrates is the main culprit, then what is the solution? There is not much money to be had in selling the public plain slices of turkey, hard-boiled eggs, and greens without sugary dressing. In fact, there is not much money to be had in selling any quick and healthy foods.
The solution then would seem to be the same as I suggested. People have to take control of their diets and make food themselves unless they are rich enough to buy delicious healthy food. Once they become simply passive recipients of manufactured food, they become easy victims and are likely to enter this unbearable disembodied condition, where they unwittingly consume the things that are killing them.
Richard writes:
The obesity rate in the U.S. was about 10-15% for decades prior to 1980. It then begin the steep climb to the 30% (and rising) rates of today. What changed? Official government dietary policy changed following the release of the McGovern Select Committee’s “Dietary Goals” in 1977. A low fat regimen was now the recommended diet for Americans. Low fat was now the standard line – from the USDA, the FDA, in school lunch programs, everywhere.
Food components can be broken down into three categories – fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Fat was removed from foods and mostly replaced with carbohydrates. Diet advice almost always started with “eat a low fat diet.” Well, a low fat diet inevitably means more carbs. In 1992 the USDA scrapped the old “four food groups” paradigm and replaced it with “the food pyramid.” And what does it recommend?
It says almost half of your food intake should be made up of “bread, cereal, rice, and pasta.”
Government guidelines are still pushing a very high carbohydrate diet. The rare occasional mention of low carb diets in the press is accompanied by “experts” claiming it is dangerous, and pushing a low fat diet. People have been feeding their kids lots of whole grain breads, pastas with tomato sauces containing corn syrup, and bowls of breakfast cereals washed down with glasses of fruit juice. People are eating hundreds of grams of starches and sugars every day, thinking it is healthy because it is “low fat” – and it is exactly what the food pyramid tells them they should be eating. It’s no coincidence that our average consumption of sugar/corn syrup has increase 20 pounds per person per year since the mid-1970’s, and that obesity has climbed along with it.
Frankly, I’m stunned that you believe that it’s common knowledge that carbs are a problem. That’s not the message most people are hearing.
As for the people at Golden Corral – I don’t have a clue. Maybe they are gluttons. Maybe they have tried to diet unsuccessfully and have just given up. Maybe their insulin levels have been so jacked up that their brains are screaming “feed me.” Who knows? Anecdotes are not data. What we do know is that carbohydrate intake has gone up radically in the last three decades. And we know that government, industry, and the medical establishment has been telling people to eat more carbohydrates during that time too. A lot more.
Richard writes in response:
Laura said:
“He says people first choose high-carbohydrate diets in a misguided effort to keep slim and fit. They choose foods labeled as “low-fat,” not realizing they were dangerous poisons. In reality, it appears people choose these diets because they are convenient, cheap and filling. ”
Actually I suspect it’s both. I think people are generally eating high-carb diets because they are convenient and cheap (filling may be arguable given the insulin effect). But at the same time, they are able to reassure themselves that such a diet is also healthy because it is low-fat and fits in with the food pyramid scheme they were taught in school. Human motivation can be pretty complex. One slice of wheat bread sounds pretty healthy, but it has the same carbohydrate content as three teaspoons of sugar.
Richard continues:
I first started digging into some of the science behind nutrition a couple of years ago and was just dumbfounded at how bad the conventional wisdom was. Here’s what really amuses me. Back when our grandparents were young, people who gained weight were told to eat meat, eggs, and vegetables and to cut back on the starches like bread and potatoes. And skip the desserts. In my lifetime the message has been to cut back on the meat and eggs, and eat lots of starches. It’s amazing how much wisdom has been disposed of in the last couple of generations in so many areas of life. It reminds me of the Tom Wolfe essay “The Great Relearning” which, looking back, may have been more prophetic than descriptive.
Laura writes:
Despite my critical remarks, I have compassion for anyone who finds themselves obese – for whatever reason. This is a miserable way to go. The obese person is analagous to the alcoholic. He is voluntarily ingesting substances that are killing him slowly. If he is diabetic, his condition and the cure are vastly complicated. For those who find themselves gaining weight rapidly and for the alcoholic, physical suffering is a necessary part of any cure. Ending an addiction is painful. Yes, they need the truth about their condition and the scientific facts, but spiritual resolution matters.
Rose writes:
The obesity problem supports my thesis that comfort and ease are emasculating.
“The hygra physis is the mature female body, which I declare a prison of gender. Female experience is submerged in the world of fluids, dramatically demonstrated in menstruation, childbirth, and lactation. Edema, water-retention, that female curse, ….There are male initiates into female experience. The white circus clown, for example, is an androgyne of female fatness. In silhouette, he is pregnant. Stumbling, tumbling, buffeted, he is a tumescence which cannot act but is only acted upon. The morbidly obese man, my next example, loses virility because he is paralyzed by passive engorgement. The fat man as hollow female vessel appears in Prince Hal’s satire of Falstaff as “that trunk of humors,. . . that swoll’n parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloakbag of guts” (I Hen IV II.iv.454-57). In Emblems (1635), Francis Quarles expands these images to nature, rebuking the fat man, “Thy skin’s a bladder blown with watry tumours; / Thy flesh a trembling bog, a quagmire full of humours” (I.xii.4). Bog and quagmire are my chthonian swamp, that dank primal brew of earth and water that I identify with the female body.” — Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae
Laura writes:
The obese male does often appear effeminate.
I have worked hard, day after day, to keep my husband from becoming one of these “stumbling, tumbling, buffeted” males. Have I done it purely out of vanity or self-interest? I like to think I’ve done it out of love. I’ve spent thousands of hours alone at the stove and countless hours at the market. I’ve been told by friends and relatives I am elitist or just plain irresponsible for foregoing a couple of million bucks in income and the approval of others in order to care for my family. That’s why I react with anger when others who have fed their families easy meals of pizza and pasta then expect sympathy when their children and husbands are obese and clearly ill.
Hannon writes:
Thanks to you and Richard for this enlightening exchange.
I was diagnosed as hypoglycemic when I was a teenager and about that time I picked up my mother’s copy of Adelle Davis’ “Let’s Eat Right to Keep Fit.” I don’t remember enough of it to know how it squares with this discussion altogether. However, I do remember one key lesson that I have found to be, in personal practice, very sound advice. It has to do with the proportions of fat, protein and carbs we take in. (Fruits and vegetables are a further consideration).
Eating carbs alone is a terrible thing for the body, especially when they are highly processed, since starches (much of carb intake) convert quickly to sugar and we know how this turns out. However, when carb intake, such as pancakes, is balanced with proportionate fat and protein– e.g., bacon and eggs– the result of this combination is a slower, steady supply of energy (glucose) and storage of excess in the form of glycogen in the liver. When I eat such a breakfast I am evenly and substantially powered for 6-7 hours
with ease, no small feat for someone with hypoglycemia.
It is remarkable, in retrospect, that her book was so in-depth, citing many references, and still successful. Its substantiveness far exceeds many food books sold today. Much of it is probably out of date, but it certainly had an awakening effect on a generation or two.
Rita writes:
I think you have some valid points, but there are underlying issues that aren’t being properly addressed. I agree with Richard that there is more to the obesity dilemma than meets the eye.
Below is my personal journey. I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry for me, but to illustrate that there are many in our society who have physical problems that they didn’t ask for and for which there are few answers. I honestly think some of the “in-your-face” eating and bravado is coming from physically sick people with no real answers from the medical community who, yes, perhaps have given up, and/or yes, perhaps are literally starved for nutrients.
After being a very athletic child and teenager, even teaching aerobic exercise in my late teens, I experienced an extreme, chronic lack of energy, constant low grade headache, memory problems and had a slow yearly weight gain and other symptoms beginning in 1987 when my oldest daughter was born. I was twenty-two at that time. Doctors never seemed too concerned, assuming the problem was related to my being a working mother, I guess. Since I got no answers and felt horrible everyday, I DID self-medicate my physical and emotional pain with food. Admittedly, that was not the best answer – it probably made it worse, but it was the only way I knew how to cope with having no relief, day after day. Frankly I truly just didn’t have the energy or money to pursue better doctors or alternative medicines. At one point, I went to the doctor because of stomach pain caused by my poor eating habits but was given Bella Donna “to soothe my stomach.” Something told me not to take this drug and I’m glad I didn’t. It’s rather toxic. I was beginning to realize that doctors may not have my answers and that at the very least, I should improve my eating habits. I was able to do this and experienced a tiny bit of relief from my issues but was unable to lose any of my extra weight. At this point I was still one of those just carrying around an extra 20 pounds. I wasn’t worried about that, I just wanted to feel better.
In roughly 2001, when I was around 36, I had my thyroid checked. I was told that I was within the normal range. I kept living. My memory was getting worse and worse. I could and can function at a job but I have to work harder than most to keep all the plates spinning, due to the memory and energy problems. I examined my eating constantly, experimenting with cutting out different foods to find out what I might be allergic too that might be causing me problems. I discovered a couple of things and I have the self-control to stay away from those items, 90% of the time. For the sake of argument I’ll tell you, they were milk and wheat. Two items that are in a lot of foods. I only tell you so you’ll understand that many fat people DO have self-control.
Finally, six months ago, I found myself ready to try for some help again. I was in a health food store (nothing new for me) and I asked the nutritionist who owns the store if he had anything for thyroid problems. I had all the symptoms of this problem, but no diagnosis. I really didn’t think there was anything that could help me so I guess God must have prompted me to ask this question that day.
He gave me IODINE. I take three drops a day. It has changed my life. After just a week or two I started to feel better. After six months, I think I can imagine what normal might be like. Iodine allows my thyroid to produce the hormones I need. I have energy again. I like cleaning my house and exercising again. I enjoy people again. I have not experienced weight loss yet but I hope that will be the next miracle.
Here’s the interesting part. There are many people who are suffering from iodine deficiencies in this county and in the world. Sufficient amounts of iodine are not found in most foods although they are easy to get in seaweed (how many people eat seaweed everyday though or can afford it? It isn’t particularly cheap). Iodine used to be added to all store bought bread but for some reason it is no longer in there. And a lot of people like myself, cut out salt in their diet (there I am having self-control again) to try to be healthier, thereby further depriving themselves of much needed iodine.
I should further add, I weigh a lot more now than I did when I was carrying the extra 20 pounds. If you met me you would assume that I eat fast food every night and donuts for breakfast but I have eschewed these and other high fat foods for most of my adult life. Just thought you should know.
Bottom line: Thyroid problems are VERY frequently under-diagnosed. (I was in the “normal” range but was very sick). MANY people have thyroid or other nutritional problems, (like a simple iodine deficiency or problems like Richard alluded to) that are going undiagnosed and untreated. I don’t think these problems are as rare as you think. That’s why I hope that Christian writers will investigate and report the TRUTH of what is happening in our country. Whether it is by design or not (the jury is still out) we are being undernourished and conventional medicine is often a sick joke.
I wouldn’t expect you to publish this as it’s very long and not well-written, but I wanted to share my experience with you. I suspect there are many thousands more just like me. Here’s an article out in yesterday’s news about Australia adding iodine to their bread. There’s more information here and here.
Rita adds:
This is anecdotal but I know in my area, most of the middle and upper middle class are eating sushi rather frequently. The seaweed in the sushi probably is enough to keep them “iodine rich” for a little while at least and stave off some problems. How much sushi or seaweed do people get in the middle states or in the country?
From one of the articles I sent you: “In the U.S., for example, the area around the Great Lakes used to be known as the goiter belt because the soil is particularly iodine-deficient, and this resulted in higher incidence of goiter among residents of the area.” Not sure, but maybe that provides a clue as to why so many of those youth in upstate New York that you mentioned are obese.
Laura writes:
The sort of chronic, undiagnosed illness you describe slowly destroys your morale. I don’t doubt that there are many others such as you.
I apologize if I seemed insensitive to this sort of battle with illness. I was trying to awaken the conscience of gluttons, not to heighten the guilt of those who are suffering from illness and deserve compassion. I will be returning to this issue after and only after I have received a master’s degree in nutrition. Stay tuned.
