Food Politics

It’s post-Thanksgiving so I suppose I must say something about overeating.  Fad diets contribute to obesity, says the president of the British Society of Gastroenterology.  He singles out Atkins, Raw, Hallelujah (fruits and seeds mentioned in the Book of Genesis), and Grapefruit diets for particular scorn.  Why?  He doesn’t say.  His otherwise sensible conclusion: “The problem facing society is not the content of our diet but it’s the quantity we are consuming and the consequential impact of obesity.”

Ah yes, quantity.  Probably best not to mention it this week.  Enjoy the weekend!

The New England Journal of Medicine has just published a new diet study that is already causing plenty of debate (see the Wall Street Journal’s take on it, for example). The investigators put about 100 people each on one of three diets: low-fat, low-carbohydrate, and Mediterranean. After two years, everybody lost about 6-10 pounds. The low-carb people did best, the Mediterraneans came next, and the low-fat people lost the least – but the differences were not great. The low-fat diet was not really low in fat (30% of calories) but it doesn’t matter. Everybody reduced caloric intake, increased physical activity, lost some weight, and made some metabolic improvements. One funny thing: the study was funded by the Atkins Foundation but the low-carb people were counseled to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein, not meat. So this was not a test of the Atkins diet. My interpretation: eat less, move more works, and you have choices about how to do the “eat less” part.

Thanks to Eliza McEmrys for telling me about this: 

“Hi Dr. Nestle,: Thank you for maintaining such an interesting blog! I thought this article on “orthorexia” from the Chicago Tribune might be of interest since so many of your blog readers might be spotted checking ingredients in the grocery store or avoiding HFCS – which are apparently sure signs of this new disease! I wonder when the drug to treat it will be released….” 

Avoiding junk food is sign of illness?  Who knew?

Best,

Thanks to my colleague Fred Tripp for forwarding this item from the Wall Street Journal about Tony Gonzalez, the 247-pound Kansas City Chiefs’ football player who has switched to a vegan diet to the shock of his family, fellow players, and, I guess, the world. Why anyone is surprised that people can do well on vegetarian and vegan diets is beyond me. Plant foods have plenty of protein and calories if you eat enough of them. If he is following a strict vegan diet–no animal products at all–he will need to find a source of vitamin B12 (it’s made by bacteria and incorporated into animal tissues), but supplements work just fine. I just don’t see this as any big deal. Many different dietary patterns promote health and this one can too. I suppose people will attribute any missed block or dropped pass to his diet, but cheeseburgers are not essential nutrients.

Shari would like an answer to her question: “Why is it that when a person doesn’t feel well, she tends to eat less healthy foods, such as those with more fats and carbs? The last few days, I have been fighting a nasty flu-like bug. I’ve actually eaten a lot of things that are typically off my list. Yes, I ordered the pastrami! Yes, I ate lots of noodle soup. And, (my goodness!) I even ate some Pringles and 2 coca-colas.”

Do people eat less healthy foods when sick? Whatever happened to chicken soup?

Any suggestions for Shari?

Thanks to Fred Tripp who sent me this article from the Wall Street Journal about a little known (at least to me) aspect of food history: teams of intrepid dieters in the early years of World War I who competed to see who could eat for the least amount of money and maintain their weight. The guys managed this for under today’s equivalent of $4 per day, and some of them gained weight–no surprise since they were taking in more than 3000 calories a day. The article is a lot of fun but I wish the writer had provided references. Does anyone know the source?

That same commenter had a second question: “What’s your take on all the diet books that are out there these days?”

I’m not sure which ones you mean in particular, but it doesn’t matter. They are all pretty much the same. They promise that if you just do this one thing, weight will pour off. All of them work–for some people, for some period of time. All of them say they are easy to follow and are a breakthrough, and all provide a semblance of biological rationale (some better than others). Whatever the gimmick–low fat, low carbohydrate, high volume of fruits and vegetables, low glycemic index, whatever–all have to be based on some method to reduce calories. Calories count. That’s why it matters to eat less and move more. Diets that suggest “eat more” fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, however, do make sense. But the ones that suggest eating more fat usually don’t (because fat has more concentrated calories). Whatever the diets suggest, they are unlikely to be harmful for a few weeks.