sci-fi author, beatmaker

3 Idiotic Nutrition Myths That Won’t Die

The most fattening graphic in the history of the universe.

The other day my wife came back from a PTO meeting at our local school and noted (with a bewildered look on her face) that “The low-fat thing is alive and well, isn’t it?”  Since the nutritional thinking in our household is more along the paleo/Weston Price lines of thinking, it sometimes comes as a shock that the rest of the world still thinks that Wheat-Thins and fruit juice is a “healthy snack.”

Poorly designed and haphazardly analyzed studies like The China Study reinforce the conventional thinking that has led to a national obesity epidemic.  Food alone isn’t to blame, so are too much sitting, too much driving, not enough exercise, and environmentally pervasive chemicals like bisophenol-A.  But poor food quality and misinformation about food are mostly to blame.

Here are a few dietary misconceptions that annoy the hell out of me:

Misconception #1: Fat Is Bad (and Saturated Fat is Especially Bad)

In the 1980’s the standard dietary advice was to reduce fat intake, and avoid all saturated fat (found in meat, egg yolks, and dairy products).  Polyunsaturated fats (found in safflower oil, for example) were considered to be “good fats.”

This line of thinking originated in the now infamous Ancel Keys “seven countries” study that found correlations between saturated fat intake and coronary heart disease.  The main problem with this study was that Keys left out data from countries that had both high saturated fat intake and low rates of CHD.  Still — Keys was a persuasive evangelist, and the low-fat/anti-meat “health” craze swept the nation.  Americans have been avoiding eggs, meat, and whole-milk dairy products for decades.  This might not be so bad if those missing calories had been replaced with fruits, vegetables, and healthful plant oils (like olive oil and coconut oil).  Unfortunately, the caloric difference had been made up (and exceeded) with refined flour products (bread, pasta) and high fructose corn-syrup (in soda and other sweetened beverages).  The result?  As a nation, we’re fatter than ever.

For a more in-depth discussion of fat and saturated fat (including many detailed discussions of contemporary clinical research), check out the websites of Kurt Harris, Michael Eades, Gary Taubes, Chris Masterjohn, and Petro Dobromylskyj.

Eat grains and you’ll need a bigger belt.

Misconception #2: Grains Are Necessary for Good Health

I’ve discussed the paleo diet in previous posts, and linked to a number of clinical trials that show eating a grain-free diet supports excellent health, strong immunity, fat loss, muscle gain, and has other numerous benefits (including cessation of allergy and asthma symptoms in my own case).  In addition to the clinical research, there are thousands of anecdotes that hint at the possibility that a paleo diet (with various degrees of strictness) can reverse autism, lead to massive fat loss, and reverse chronic heartburn/GERD.

Knowing this, it’s massively frustrating to see grains at the bottom of the food pyramid (the foundation of a “healthy” diet).  It’s also frustrating to have your kid offered white bread, cake, and/or white-flour crackers at every single school snack time, birthday party, or picnic (by people who mean well, love kids, and are generally “health conscious”).  I really wish the “grains are healthy” misconception would die, even more than the low-fat myth.

After you’ve stopped eating grains for awhile (and effortlessly lost that extra ten or twenty pounds you’ve been carrying around for a decade or three), you start to notice what I call the correlation.  It’s simple — eating starchy food at every meal prevents you from being lean (unless you are a compulsive exerciser and/or calorie counter).  It doesn’t necessarily make you fat — that depends on genetics, activity level, sugar consumption, and the amount of food eaten.  But generally, if you see someone with a spare tire, their “reasonable” diet will look something like this:

1) Cereal and low-fat milk for breakfast.

2) Sandwich with white-bread for lunch.

3) Pasta, rice, and/or potatoes with dinner (in addition to whatever protein source and vegetables, if any).

Even someone with a tremendous amount of self-discipline (who eschews snacks, desserts, alcohol, and sweet beverages) will have trouble getting lean with a diet like the one above.

On the other hand, consider someone whose typical diet looks like this:

1) Eggs fried in butter, cheese, fresh fruit, coffee with cream for breakfast.

2) Salad, chicken or fish, beans, and fresh fruit for lunch.

3) Almonds and dark chocolate snack.

4) Lamb-chop or steak cooked in coconut oil, greens cooked in olive oil, salad, red wine, fresh fruit for dinner.

Nine times out of ten that person is going to be effortlessly lean, even if they “cheat” on a regular basis and eat small amounts of bread, ice-cream, rice, or other sweet and starchy foods (or drink beer a few times a week).  Exercise?  It never hurts, but you’ll still be lean even if you don’t do much more than climb the occasional flight of stairs or do a few air squats in the morning.

Yes, I’ve just described my own diet in the second example.  By no means do I think this is the only diet by which to stay lean and healthy.  But it makes it damn easy.  For at least five years I carried around an extra fifteen to twenty pounds from eating a high-starch, high-sugar diet (and being over thirty, and not very active).  Now I’m over forty, stronger than I’ve ever been, with the same waist size I had in high school.  On the inside, my blood pressure is normal, my HDL/LDL ratio is good, and my triglycerides are extremely low.  I eat as much as I want and never leave the table hungry.  Exercise consists of walking, working while standing up (if that even counts), a little bike-riding, and about a minute or two of strength exercise every day.  I realize there are much more impressive weight loss stories out there, but my point is that it is incredibly easy to get lean when you don’t eat bread, pasta, and the like on a daily basis (not for everybody, but for most people).  The reason is pretty simple — eating protein, fat, and low-starch vegetables quickly leads to satiety.  Eating starch and sugar, on the other hand, make you want to eat more starch and sugar (with fresh fruit and beans being the exception; it’s difficult to overeat either food because they are high water-content and high soluble-fiber).

My own diet isn’t low-carb, or low-calorie.  It’s definitely not Atkins (which is what most people think of if they notice you’re not eating bread and pasta).  It’s closest to Mark Sisson’s “Primal” diet — what I consider to be a low-discipline diet for hedonistic food lovers who don’t mind giving up grains and fast food for the most part.

I don’t think it’s necessary to give up all grains to be healthy.  A vegetarian friend of mine recently cut out gluten (found in wheat, barley, and rye) but has continued to eat brown rice, quinoa, and other gluten-free grains.  He and his wife (who isn’t veg but also gave up gluten) look fantastic — at least five years younger and much leaner.

What bugs me is the misconception that grains are needed for good health.  For more information about eating grain-free check out the websites of Mark Sisson, Richard Nikoley, Robb Wolf, and John Durant.

Bad fruit.

Misconception #3: Eating Fresh Fruit Makes You Fatter

This idiotic notion wouldn’t even be worth mentioning if it wasn’t for Tim Ferriss’s massively popular book The Four Hour Body.  Tim’s “slow carb” diet for fat loss allows beans, but not fruit (except on “binge days”).  Tim bases this recommendation on a self-experiment during which he drank a large glass of orange juice every day and noted it made him a little fatter.

Now, I’m not a Tim Ferriss hater — the opposite in fact.  I’m a fan, and have recommended his blog and books to dozens of friends.  He has donated huge amounts to various charities and gotten personally involved.  Some of his diet and health tips make tons of sense and are backed by other research (in addition to his kooky self-experiments).  And even on the topic of fruit I agree with him that it’s easy to eat too much.

For example, a glass of apple juice plus a box of raisins is a terrible snack — way too much fructose sucrose (fructose + glucose).  Your body will react with a huge shot of insulin, your blood sugar will crash, and you’ll feel tired and cranky after a short initial rush.  I’ve seen it happen in my daughter’s preschool class.  F*cking mayhem.

The same is NOT true for a whole apple, a bowl of fresh berries, or a grapefruit.  Those foods take longer to eat, contain much less sucrose, and will take a longer time to convert into fuel (because of chewing time and fiber).

You don’t absolutely need fruit any more than you need grains — on this point Ferriss is right.  As long as you get enough vitamin C from fresh vegetables like spinach (or even from supplements) then you’ll be fine without it.  But you will miss out on hundreds of powerful phytonutrients (some found only in fruit) that have health benefits we are just beginning to understand.

There is also emerging research that shows that fructose may be an ideal fuel for rapid glycogen replacement.  Tim Ferriss, Kurt Harris, and the like may be premature in condemning fruit and fructose.  Fruit is one of the few plants parts that evolved to be eaten — most fruits are devoid of harmful self-defense chemicals (like the lectins found in legumes and grains).  While it makes sense to cut out fruit juice and most dried fruit, eating moderate amounts of fresh fruit (especially lower sugar fruit like berries, tart apples, kiwis, etc.) is going to contribute to fat-loss and good health for the vast majority of people.

Good fruit!

Other Food Myths

I was originally going to include food combining, strict macro-nutrient proportions, and a few other dietary misconceptions on this list.  I decided not to, because not all wrong ideas about food are harmful (for example if you only want to eat fruit on an empty stomach that’s not going to hurt you or anybody else).  The misconceptions above — the ones that push people towards eating more refined grains, processed vegetable oils, syrups, and other empty calories (while avoiding nutrient dense foods like eggs, fatty fish, grass-fed meats, butter from pastured cows, and fresh fruit) are harmful, both to individuals and to societies.

I hate haranguing people about what they eat — it really makes people dislike you.  I was a vegetarian for years — the super-annoying variety.  Now I don’t lecture people unless they ask, and even then I keep it brief and go the soft-sell route.  But on this site I’m going to speak my mind and talk about what pisses me off — after all you can choose not to read it if you want.

On a side note, you might wonder what the hell an electronic music producer is doing writing about health and nutrition.  Or quantum mechanics and bees.  I’m still trying to figure that out — I’m interested in a huge variety of topics and I can’t seem to narrow it down.  I really enjoy seeing the traffic that comes to this blog, and it’s been growing and growing.  So thanks for stopping by, and don’t hesitate to subscribe (in the upper right).  I post about once a week and try to keep it lively.

Lastly, I’d like to recommend Dan’s Plan for people interested in weight loss (there’s also a Dan’s Plan blog).  Dan Pardi is a friend of mine, extremely smart (and well educated), and has designed a comprehensive, holistic, realistic weight loss system that is getting results for many people.  Dan and I don’t agree on every point (he advocates calorie counting, which sounds like a huge pain-in-the-ass to me), but he’s sympathetic to the paleo/grain-free perspective and has a sophisticated understanding of the hormonal systems that control appetite, fat-loss, and sleep.

Correction: Dan’s Plan doesn’t count calories, but rather grams of protein and carbs (meal and daily totals).

I’ll end with a question.  Which misconceptions about food, nutrition, or health piss you off?

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17 Comments

  1. reading this on a sunny sunday in the caribbean, i put away the oatmeal and made myself a 3 egg omelette (avocado, onion, red pepper, cilantro) with a big pile of black beans. and coffee.

  2. Sounds good!

  3. Tim

    Amen, J.D.! Thank you for posting. As a trainer and strength coach I struggle every single day to get people to see this.

  4. Madelyn

    Jondi,
    Your timing is impeccable. I’m in week 3 of CLEAN detox (Unger.). Including the 5 day pre-detox, I’ve been off gluten, soy, peanuts, dairy, caffeine, and beef & pork. With the protein shakes I’ve been drinking, and the fiber and water I’ve been ingesting, I haven’t had much desire for grains. When I do, the craving is all about bread. In those moments, I’ve been thankful for a small square of millet toast.

    Anyhow, from this new vantage point with so much pushed away, I’ve come to wonder what my new eating paradigm is. I haven’t come to an answer, but I do know that my food focus is shifting. I’m intrigued with the recipes I’ve found (but havent tried) for gluten free pancakes and other tasty treats made with almond flour. Your post gives me a little more food for thought as I navigate this new culinary road.

    BTW – Dan’s plan doesnt count calories. It counts grams of carbs and protein. It’s not quite the same thing.

  5. Ah — thanks for the correction re: Dan’s Plan.

    I’ve tried almond-flour pancakes … not so good. Good luck with culinary exploration and good health to you!

  6. My gripes? FOOD DYES!!! Don’t even get me started!

  7. Johndfdfdf5000@hotmail.com

    Interesting note about Ancel Keys: He lived to be 100.

  8. Nice post ! Good point of view, and I appreciate your honesty.
    A friend of mine has the n°2 diet with eggs, beans and bacon for breakfast, and we both like coconut milk, vegetables and wine :-).
    Nutrition is not everything but we surfed together this summer and he was much more stronger and lean than me :-).
    I’m gonna visit your links
    thanks and hello from France

  9. Adri D

    This is a great post. I was a grain gobbling vegetarian carrying extra weight for many years (10), and following a trip in Latin America after which I began to eat meat, I started experimenting with different ways of eating, most of which centred around ridding my diet of bread and pasta : I’ve experimented with the original Atkins, (v effective for weightloss, but crazy hard, and my carb flu basically never went away), Tim F’s way of eating (no fruits, eating more beans, and a cheat day), as well as paleo style (no to beans, yes to berries, no cheat day). I’ve tried other stuff, too. I’ve even done raw vegan as well 30 bananas a day, all fruit (seriously) a few times. Juice fasts. Lemonade cleanse. I’m fairly robust in health and have never had any allergies or issues, for me it was all about weightloss and avoidi the traditional low-fat and/or low cal diet, which never worked. No matter which route I take, as long as I really limit wheat and exercise a fair amount, I stay 25-30 pounds slimmer, (at age 37) than I was even at 23(!!), almost seemingly effortlessly. I eat a lot of fruit some days. Mind you, I feel no need to have a bizarrely low body fat like Tim and Martin, etc seemed to want to maintain. I think that the attitude of being really nit picky comes from body hacker guys that want super low body fat percentages.

    • Thanks Adri. You have tried quite a few diets — glad you have found something that works for you. I agree — if you get “in the ballpark” then the human body is pretty adaptable (with the exception of extreme allergies).

  10. Fructose doesn’t cause for a big insulin dump as your body doesnt use insulin to transport fructose.

    See here:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructolysis

    Also, if you are fairly sedentary and eat a high carb diet, eating fruit will make you fatter.

    Fructose is metabolised directly in the liver and then used to replenish glycogen stores directly in the liver if necessary or turned straight into fat.

    If you are eating carbs with every meal and fairly sedentary your glycogen stores in your liver will almost always be full, meaning that almost any fructose you eat will get turned into fat directly.

    Unlike glucose, which can be used as immediate energy or stored as glycogen in muscles and liver, fructose can only be used immediately or stored in the liver. So you can see why eating fruit is probably not a great idea IF you are on a weight loss diet.

    the other problem with people on weight loss diets and fruit is that it is a kind of “gateway drug” because it is sweet and can lead to cravings etc.

    I am a personal trainer and find that my clients get the best results when they remove all sweet stuff from the diet, work really hard for a short period of time to eat “clean” and then when they have reached their weight loss goals, start to re introduce fruit (and carbs in general) slowly and see how their body and lifestyle habits react.

    I was very surprised when I learnt that fructose doesnt raise insulin levels, but it still contributes to weight gain, sugar cravings etc etc.

    this is obviously in the context of a weight loss program. A person in relatively good health wont have any problem eating fruit on a regular basis.

  11. great!

    Hahahah I have just learnt that fruit contain sucrose… I thought sucrose was an artificial sugar. So thank you!! You learn something knew every day 😉

  12. What ticks me off are vegans and less so vegetarians. They feel high and mighty “saving animals” but so few that I met are healthy. Many are junk food eaters. We have teeth for all kinds of natural foods which in moderation are ok. Diets are so individual depending on heredity,metabolism, state of health, portion size, activity level, type of cooking ( high heat is said to be bad, such as BBQ and fast foods), and how YOU feel on them.
    I’m somewhat more concerned with GMOs, BPA, pesticides, herbicides, sprays, air and water and noise pollution, animals killed for their tusks or decor, radiation from electronics next to our brains, and screens affecting our eyes, people addicted to drugs, legal or illegal, smokers and heavy drinkers, doctors prescribing drugs treating symptoms versus cause of illness, and cellphones incessantly used in all places such as restaurants, supermarkets, stores, streets, classrooms, in cars, so that we hear the loud transmission of everyone’s “business”, media fake news , lack of manners and common courtesy, lack of family meals, abuse of women and those that think differently than you, sex relegated to “booty calls and one night hookups”, neglect of our old people, isolation, spoiling or abuse of children and pets, all leading to an increase of greed, stress and violence in the world. It all starts in the family , values and spirituality transmitted.

  13. Mother Theresa, many Lamas and nearly any wizard in fantasy novels are lean, wise, old, healthy, at peace and compassionate.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger (I love and appreciate my fellow Austrian immensely), long term nutritional advisor to the white house, has a cardio problem.

    So what did this militant twirp Hippocrates from Athens (Kos) say? EXERCISE?
    I rather think this philosophy came from the need to have many brave and strong warriors.

    I’m not recommending couch potato lifestyle. Leave the car in the garage and go for a walk. But high on exercise is just another addiction, like potatoes, cheese and cake.

    Addictions come from allergies, food intolerances and fervent beliefs that happen to be not quite the wisest thing.

    “Father of modern Medicine” is best applied to Paracelsus who said: ‘Observe, learn and think for yourself’.

    Sadly, for about 2500 years that’s taught in engineering not in medicine. Lawyers have more of a say in medical regards than anybody else. . . . and this is going where? Ah yes, Cardio, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, lung disease and truly mad societies. . . ’cause(s) unknown’ to diseases known to be deadly. After 2500 years? Hippocrates would have done better as did Arnie, whose cardio problem is not a major one.

    Arnie shares all of the qualities, apart from EXERCISE. Exercise can easily be used to gloss over underlying causes and conditions from allergies, food intolerances and fervent beliefs for many years.

    Think! When we got a fridge fermented food was almost forgotten!

    Neither Hippocrates, Paracelsus could have foreseen this disaster and Arnie grew up and lives in a time that’s after the worst wars of history.

    W

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