They lower our ability to absorb fat soluble nutrients, but that is not the only problem. The fats we are eating contain fewer nutrients to start with. Most of the fat in our diet comes from animal products, and their nutrient content has been reduced by using commercial feeds.

Despite the fact that grass fed beef is lower in fat that feed red beef, its overall content of vitamin E (a fat soluble vitamin), is much higher. Grass fed beef is four times high in vitamin E than feed raised beef. It also has higher levels of B vitamins, vitamin D, iron, zinc coenzyme Q10 and olecic acid.

Higher Vitamin E in Grass Fed Beef Despite Lower Fat:
http://www.americangrassfedbeef.com...atural-beef.asp

Higher in Content of other Nutrients:
http://www.skunkhouse.com/postings/...10311b18474.pdf

Here is some data on simple sugar usage. I believe it is from the USDA, but I don't have a direct citation, I can find one if anyone objects.

Year Simple Sugar % of per capita calories
1860 10%
1910 13%
1925 16%
2000 25%

In 1860, I think simple sugar from fruit was a significant component of these numbers, but the increase is almost certainly dominated by refined or added sugars. In fruit and vegetables, sugar isn't a problem. As hunter / gatherers, it has been estimated many of us had a very large consumption of fruit, but their was no obesity. However, large consumption of refined sugar is associated with obesity.

So their are two theories that believe refined sugar causes obesity and offer an explanation:

Theory 1.) Sugar without fiber leads to blood sugar spikes that this deregulates the bodies ability to manage energy. Also, the theory that certain sugars are more harmful to blood sugar. I'm not a big fan of this one, defatted wheat fiber when added to meals has no effect on weight. If it was the fiber was important, I think this would have an effect. Also, when comparing foods with equal fiber content, their is wide range of effects on hunger, their seems to be another variable.

Theory 2.) Refined sugars are calorically empty and use up other nutrients when being processed, the body craves nutrients just as it craves calories. Nutrient deficiency leads to increased hunger, and high refined sugar diets are nutrient deficient.

This one makes a lot more sense to me because it can explain why grains, refined sugar, artificial sweetens and more cause weight gain. My basic rule of thumb is to eat the foods that are the healthiest and highest in nutrients. I also avoid substances that the body expends nutrients to process, caffeine, alcohol, non-organic fruits and vegetables with pesticide residue, etc. I didn't mean to gloss over sugar. In the discussion here, I have been responding to people's comments which have mainly been about grains.

My family is riddled with allergies to milk, wheat, eggs, peanut...
I myself, am allergic to dairy products, shellfish, iodine, and I suspect grains.

It has gotten worse. My doctor calls it Irritable Bowel Syndrome. You know, one of those clinically diagnosed things they can't find a test to have findings with.

It is like my gut cannot take it anymore. I am also a Type 2 Diabetic. When I went to the American Diabetic Association, I was shocked at the diet they gave me, it had MORE carbohydrates than I was eating. They said I could have one donut a day, just not six. I said that I never ate donuts. The sample breakfast they gave me had one egg, 2 pieces of toast, and a bowl of cereal. I said I ate a whole carton of Eggbeaters with vegetables for breakfast. You should have seen their faces. They said I couldn't do that. I said, why not, I feel great on it, and am not hungry until lunch. They said I needed to eat grains. They told me it was a myth that sugar was bad for diabetics, and "You can eat what everyone else eats, just in smaller amounts"...but I knew that was poison, I had tried that route several times, and it is just horrible trying to starve oneself on small amounts of the foods that make one sick and set up cravings.
I told them that the Atkins diet made me have energy and I felt good and didn't get the highs and lows of blood sugar. They told me the Atkins diet is bad, awful, blah blah.
So I don't respect most dieticians, because they have bought into the diet that is so bad for everyone.
Mothers are told when they have children, to not give them wheat right away, and to start with rice, then barley, then oat cereals, because of allergies.
IBS is terrible to have, because doctors won't listen to the diet thing. They say its from the bowel not working correctly. But when someone has uncontrollable diarrhea and gut pain, something is going on...

This whole thing depresses me, because it has affected the quality of my life so much.

I exercise, but that has not helped me lose weight. I don't eat much, and everything goes through me, and yet, I don't lose weight. I can't resign to being fat for the rest of my life, I just can't.
I am not eating any carbs except vegetables, but things like broccoli, which I have always loved, cabbage, lettuce, etc. bother my sensitive gut now...

It is like the IBS and the Diabetes are fighting each other, and making it hard to lose weight.

I agree with all of the posts about the grains and losing weight. It seems so many on here have had to take their health into their own hands.

Twixcookie,

O.K., the nutritionists you talked to seem somewhat uninformed. While I think certain grains are healthy (although less than 10% present in our diet), there is no way anyone can make a statement that we need grains. We have had grains in our diet for maybe 10,000 years. Before that we ate fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and meats. We seemed to be fairly healthy, at least in regards to autoimmune disorders, for that several hundred thousand year period.

With regard to irritable bowel syndrome and exercise, a quick Google shows that their are multiple suspected links to nutrition. Are you taking supplements? Do you avoid caffeine and alcohol? Organic produce? Grassfed meats? What cooking oils do you use? The mechanism by which exercise causes weight loss appears to be increased fat oxidation, but fat oxidation requires certain vitamins and minerals, when be become deficient in these, exercise loses its ability to increase fat oxidation. This is the plateau effect. Fat oxidation levels have been associated with B complex vitamins, vitamin C, and certain minerals.

With regard to allergies, there was a book (four volumes, about 4,000 pages) called Chemical Sensitivity by Dr. William Rea. He treated about 40,000 people with multiple allergies and food sensitivities. You can find his books on books.google.com, they are written for doctors, each is about $125, but you can preview them on google books for free. Also, I have attached links from a report on multiple chemical sensitivities by the U.S. National Research Council Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology.

One of the things found about people with these multiple allergies was that they had deficiencies in multiple vitamins and minerals, and raised levels of pesticides in their bodies. He had an over 90% success rate treating these people with methods such as targeted vitamin supplementation, high nutrient food and toxin avoidance.



Pesticides in the blood of people with chemical sensitivity (multiple allergies):
http://books.google.com/books?id=D-...ciency&pg=PA180

Vitamin Deficiency in chemical Sensitivity:
http://books.google.com/books?id=D-...ciency&pg=PA181

Actually, I disagree strongly with you here. People have lowered their fat intake only to have out of control cravings -- low fat EVERYTHING has been prevalent since I was young. Fat is actually VERY good for us, including animal fat. It's when you increase the refined carbohydrates that you run into trouble. Fat, without the insulin spikes caused by carbohydrates, is very self limited. Drinking oil aside, you can only take in so many calories before you're completely stuffed.

See, I believe I eat an incredibly healthy diet. The eggs I eat are from a local farm (they cost 3x the amount of grocery store eggs, and over half have double yolks or are fertilized -- these chickens have fun). But eggs are cheap enough, even while paying a premium price. I eat a good amount of healthy proteins including fatty meat, adequate vegetables and fruit. I have NO hunger now, and definitely no out of control cravings. Add grains, I have problems -- severe enough cravings that I went up to 235 pounds.

Fruits and vegetables are now MUCH sweeter than they were from even 150 years ago. For people who have wrecked their metabolism, even an apple may contain too much sugar (I'm one of them -- even melon is too sweet for me).

There are no magic bullets, unfortunately. I'm going to see if my doctor will test me for deficiencies -- she may since she is a low fat/high carb fanatic! She can't believe I'm not sluggish, constipated, falling dead of a heart attack.

I think this may be the wrong place to try to convince many people that our issues with hunger are vitamin deficiencies since many (maybe most) but definitely not all of course have already cured those issues with cutting out the grains. THAT is one struggle you don't have on a low carb diet.

I did lose my weight following Atkins diet one time before, then added a small amount of grains back in. A slice of bread here, a scoop of rice there, occasional oatmeal. That lead to cravings, blood sugar swings, blurred vision and binging, uncontrollable hunger, especially at night. Could that change be because suddenly I wasn't getting nutrients, or is it more likely that it was caused by adding grains back in? Now that I've eliminated them again, I'm losing weight. But more importantly, to ME, I no longer have those symptoms. I certainly continued having them when I tried to cut the fat from my diet -- in fact,they were worse. And plus I beat myself up ALL the time over my lack of control.

Have a great day!

Fat intake has increased from 1909 to to 1974 (citation bellow) as obesity has skyrocketed, although I don't think this is why obesity has increased, I think it is the nutrient content of the fat and possibly also the fat type are responsible.

Increasing Fat Intake from 1909 to 1974:
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/c...Part_2/3246.pdf

I think the problem with grains in our diet is that they have had the fat removed to extend shelf life. The fats in wheat germ oil and rice bran oil are much higher in nutrients that the fats in even grass fed animals. Over 90% of the grains in our diet are like this, even whole wheat. Unless a grain says it is 100% whole wheat, it has been defatted to extends shelf life. This is the part of the of wheat and rice that are biologically most similar to fruits and vegetables. They contains vitamins A, B, and E, minerals, coenzyme Q10, phytochemicals, and likely other nutrient substances we haven't identified. There are also likely other things in grain kernel that we are discarding besides that fat that have nutritive properties.

I am not claiming all animal fat is bad for us, the French eat much more animal fat that we do and have lower rates of heart disease, however, in the United States, people who eat less animal fat have less heart disease. The difference appears to be that in France cows are grass fed, and have a different fat content and nutrient type than American cows.

While I didn't taste fruits and vegetables 150 years ago, fruits and vegetables are much less sweeter in the U.S. than in Israel where obesity is much lower. I spent a summer in Jerusalem a couple years ago, and I was shocked at how good the produce tasted. It took me a long time to figure out why. It is likely the lower use of chemical pesticides that leads to a higher nutrient content. In Israel, starting in 1983, the government started to phase out chemical pesticides. They introduced owls and krells (a type of falcon) onto farms to eat rats and insects. The lower use of pesticides means higher anti-oxidants. In a sence, regular Israeli fruits and vegetables are like American organic fruits and vegetables.

Owls Replace Pesticides in Israel:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8004426.stm

Ok, you ARE ignoring the refined grains and sugar part of this equation. THOSE have skyrocketed as well. What I believe is that it's the refined carbohydrates that have caused the issue, NOT the fat. I also suggest you read Gary Taubes "Good Calories, Bad Calories" as he is FAR more eloquent than I about this topic.

Even before I read that book, though, I KNEW that the "experts" were wrong. I finally started listening to my body. That is why I cannot agree with you. You can deal with theories all you want -- I see actual, real changes, HEALTHY changes, when I cut out the grains and sugars, including sweet fruit. There may be people out there whose problems are caused by deficiencies, or perhaps the deficiencies go along with health problems caused by grains and sugars. Your theories are interesting, I think not quite based in the entire picture of what happened to our nation's health (but understandable given what the focus has been in our media and our educational system).

Again, please read GCBC, or at least the first chapter. I don't even agree with everything he says (I do disagree with him on exercise, because I think exercise helps level out insulin even if we match our eating to our activity level), but he at least has all the information put together in a very readable format.

Take care!

I know with myself, I have never found any vitamin supplementation or various nutrient supplementation helpful - only harmful in terms of it being very expensive, causing side effects like constipation etc. The things I found helpful were eliminations, not add-ons. I've always had a problelm with milk, literally since birth, and no amount of supplementation or low carbing or meditation or CBT or anything would help that except strictly avoiding it.

I suspect many people have inborn issues with one of the major proteins (dairy, wheat, soy, corn, eggs) found in processed foods that have nothing to do with underlying nutrient deficiencies (I would argue that the allergenic protein may cause nutrient deficiencies as just one side effect) and they are always getting dosed (which makes it hard to see the effect) because processed foods almost always contain these in some combo. The only way to figure that out is to do an elimination diet. The best I have ever felt in my life was 3 days into a 5 day fast.

For me, it was the same with coffee. Coffee gave me plenty of problems straight off... it wasn't due to mysterious vitamin deficiencies it was causing, it hurt my stomach right away and made me seriously anxious and very hungry later in the day. It also gave a nice high and bad withdrawal which made it difficult to quit (many rate caffeine as the hardest drug to quit, at least compared to nicotine and alcohol).

I think simple sugar consumption follows obesity quite nicely at least in the us. As it has gone up, overweight and obesity have gone up. But then there is msg which is associated with obesity. Over salting of food may play a role.
There are all sorts of toxic food additives. Bleached white flour is full of crap. We live in a world that I would argue is more stressful than in the past, especially giving a constant low level stress with a the media over bombardment. I think all of this plus intrinsic individual food sensitivities equals a dulled, bloated person on their way to all sorts of problems.

I doubt you will find a nutrient that solves all of this. You may be able to kill off a fast occuring dramatic symptom like scurvy or rickets, as a result of any obviously deficient diet... but cancer or obesity I think is more complicated and will likely require subtraction, not addition in my opinion.

The problem is that supplements are poorly absorbed. While we can take water soluble vitamins like B-Complex and C in pill form, the fat soluble vitamins (like vitamin E) are not absorbed in synthetic form. This doesn't meant vitamin deficiency isn't responsible for many of our problems, it just means vitamin supplements aren't the answer. However, food enrichment causes much higher absorption that pill supplements. Probably because the vitamins have more of a chance to be absorbed by fats during storage.

Wheat germ oil and rice bran oil have been shown to have drug like effects on LDL cholesterol (citation below), and this is assumed to be due to their vitamin E content. However, vitamin E supplements do not have this effect on cholesterol, likely because they are not absorbed. Vitamin E levels in the blood are almost unaffected by supplements. Wheat germ oil has about 20 times the vitamin E of olive oil, and has also been reported to help with autoimmune disorders. Many of these have become more prevalent as vitamin E levels in our diet have dropped due to food processing techniques and agricultural practices.

Wheat Germ Oil Lowers Cholesterol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640461

I've experimented with natural mixed tocopherols in the past, taken with food, and even wheat germ but it didn't taste very good, I think it may have been rancid. I never felt any benefit with natural supplementation taken with food. However, elimination of certain things have helped dramatically.

I've always had great lab numbers, low blood pressure etc.

That is just incorrect. Low carb diets were invented as early as 1863. Low calorie diets existed long before then. The first LC diet was popularized by William Banting who is only one of three people in the english world who have had there name immortalized as a verb (alas Paracelsus name is only an adjective, points to anyone who knows what word ). He published his Letter on Corpulence in 1863. Also it is well known that wealthy Romans were prone to obesity. Actually in almost all "civilized" societies obesity was considered a problem of the wealthy.

However M Levac also wasn't referring to obesity in particular but Diseases of Civilization which do not exist in societies that do not eat grains or large amounts of other carbohydrates. Carbohydrates that are eaten are in their natural whole form in these cultures as well. Plenty of skinny people get heart disease, diabetes, diverticulitis, apendicitis, glaucoma, arthritis, ankylosing splonditis, celiac disease, IBS, kidney stones, myopia, etc.

Obesity is considered a risk factor in just about all of these diseases and many appear in the same individuals as well. Instead of concluding a common cause though because of the stigma on obesity and the widespread acceptance of the gluttony cause for obesity they have treated each of these as completely independent of cause.

Also earlier you referred to if we find a nutritional cause for obesity that we can supplement to "cure" it. Thats precisely the kind of thinking that is causing the problem. We don't need to supplement we need to correct the food culture to allow for foods that provide their natural intended nutrition.

You're assuming, as most do, that blood cholesterol has a direct correlation with heart disease. All I can say to that is, again, please read GCBC. You will understand at least a bit better where so many of us are coming from. Reading GCBC will at least give you an understanding of why I (and many others) think so much of what you say is incorrect.

I'm not the only person here who has had their eyes opened to the absolute mess that faulty data collection and research has wrecked upon our diets here in the US. Heh, even my 76 year old father cut all the grains and sugars out of his life and while he has always been healthy, this has done WONDERS for his short term memory.

Is the original poster still around? This really seems to be turning into a thread to discuss dmkorn's theories. I am still not buying the "nutrient deficiency/supplement with grain oils" line...or the book.

These are the diets of the healthiest people (based on his criteria), that Weston Price found almost 90 years ago in his world travels:



The Bantu, an African tribe, were primarily agriculturists. Their diet consisted mostly of beans, squash, corn, millet, vegetables, and fruits, along with small amounts of milk and meat.


The Dinkas of the Sudan, an African tribe, ate a combination of fermented whole-grains with fish, along with smaller amounts of red meat, vegetables, and fruit.


Eskimo, or Innu, ate a diet of mostly meat and blubber from fish, walrus and seal, and other marine mammals. The Innu were also gathers of nuts, berries, and some grasses during the short summer months.


Gaelic fisher people of the Outer Hebrides who ate cod and other sea foods, especially shell fish. Whole oats were a major part of their diet.


Hunter-gatherer peoples in Northern Canada, the Florida Everglades, the Amazon, and Australia, consumed game animals, including organ meats, and ate a variety of whole-grains, legumes, tubers, vegetables, and fruits.


The Maori of New Zealand, along with other South sea islanders, who consumed sea food which consisted of fish, shark, octopus, sea worms, shellfish - along with fatty pork and a wide variety of plant foods including coconut and fruit.


Masai, an interior African cattle-keeping tribe, consumed virtually no plant foods, just beef, raw milk, organ meats, and were famous for drinking cow's blood.


Swiss mountain villagers who subsisted primarily on unpasteurized and cultured dairy products, butter and cheese as well as whole-rye bread.


All of these people has great health and vitality, with little or no degenerative disease (and great teeth).

Of them all, the Dinkas were the healthiest.

Seems to me they are all missing sugar and refined foods in general. Maybe coffee/caffeine? They likely also didn't sit in chairs for a good part of each day.

In order to have a low calorie diet, you need to have a unit of measure called a calorie. This is the amount of heat given off when food is burned in a calorimeter. This unit of energy was establish for food in the early 1900s by the United States Department of Agriculture. I believe that was also when it was discovered that fat and carbohydrates have different energy densities. (citation below)

You are correct that obesity did exist before 1900, I was not implying it did not, but it was very rare. The person you mentioned is an example of this. Obesity began to be more prevalent in Europe in the 1600's but it was among the upper classes. There is a also a disorder called Cushing's syndrome that causes a very small percentage of people to be obese. However, obesity did remain at less than 1% of the population until the early 1900s.

After the invention of the food calorie in the 1900s, low calorie diets were introduced. There were likely starvation diets before that, or low food diets, but nothing called a low calorie diet.

The disease of civilization existed at very low prevalences until the 20th century. I agree that they have a common cause with obesity. However, I don't agree that it is carbohydrates. I am citing a link from the China Study that shows fat consumption correlates with cancer risk. However, I don't think it is fat that causes cancer, just the types that have become prevalent in the modern diet. In China, the lowest consumers of animal products have the lowest cancer rate. That is also in the study I am citing, you need to flip back a few pages. Can you cite a study linking grain consumption to cancer?

The reason I think enrichment is necessary is that some vitamin loss is caused by cooking and refrigeration, and we can't ban cooking and refrigeration. I don't think enrichment is the only answer, I just have no other way of dealing with vitamin loss from cooking and refrigeration. I would probably treat a refinement process proven to cause obesity the same way we treat tobacco. I would heavily tax it, and ban its sale to people under 18. I admit what I am proposing are not perfect solutions. What solutions do you propose?

Calorimeter:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Food_energy

Graph Showing Meat Consumption Correlating With Cancer:
http://books.google.com/books?id=FI...lpg=PP1&pg=PA84