dmkorn,

"In 1900, Americans got the vast majority of their calories from grains." That statement misses the contribution of other foods to carbs besides wheat. For carbs, you also have to consider sugars and potatoes, not just grains. I also like to separate rice from wheat, instead of lumping all grains together. As an example of the impact of sugars, American consumption of High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is now over 50 lbs per American per year. Your 20% obesity in 1974 is not correct.
There was almost no heart disease in the US prior to 1930. The introduction of hydrogenated oils, and decreased consumption of butter, lard and red meat, has led to heart disease and cancer. You can go read Jim Mercola on line, he among many others explains this very well. Read up on the "Prudent Diet", the falsification of data by Ancel Keys. The Framingham Study, the multi-decade long study of heart disease, inadvertantly proved those who ate the most meat, have the lightest weights, the best cholesterol, and the best blood pressure.


We have been lied to all our lives.

Some people, starting with Atkins, figured out what was really going on.

100% whole wheat bread is not healthy. Wheat served a purpose if it prevents people from starving, otherwise you are better off without it. Russia and Ukraine periodically had massive deaths from eating moldy rye. After the calamity of the 1930's (whether due to Stalin or due to terrible planning), Soviet researchers in the 1940's proved moldy grain caused ergotism (your hands and feet can, and did, rot and fall off).
Please do a Google search on Barry Groves, find his UK website, and see what he has to say. Then read "Dangerous Grains".

The propaganda: Eat nearly vegetarian, eat whole grains, eat soy, eat small amounts of lean chicken breast with the skin removed. Eat salads with soybean oil dressings. Eat many vegetables including broccoli and cabbage. Use margarine.

The reality: Eat red meat, eat butter, eat lard, we are hunter-gatherers who have eaten cooked meat on a regular basis for over 200,000 years. Eat a gluten free diet, avoid soy. Avoid all vegetables which are goitrogenic, including cabbage and broccoli. Avoid all vegetable oils, except olive oil and occasional use of canola (rapeseed) oil.

After Americans have had their health ruined with bullshit advice from "professionals", then they are blamed for being fat. "It is your fault, you lazy dumbass, if you ran a marathon every night, you would not be fat. There is nothing wrong with the high carb, low fat diet I told you to eat. It is all YOUR fault".
Well the last piece of the puzzle, you do not need to exercise to lose weight if your diet is truly correct.

Read the summary of the different low carb plans listed at lowcarber.org, and you will begin to see the truth.

Watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8WA5wcaHp4

Just wanted to say that in my experience - this is so true! And no, I'm not comparing 'calories from grains' against 'calories from fruits and vegetables' - what I noticed is that when I made an effort to make sure that 'most' of the carbs in my low-carb diet were coming from vegetables, the plan worked a whole lot better.

I do not eat any grains whatsoever - and yet, making sure that most of my limited carb intake was coming from lower-carb vegetables and a tiny bit of fruit here and there, was the thing that *finally* worked for me.

Meanwhile, as far as I'm concerned - you can leave grains out of it.

As I said, my numbers for obesity in 1974 were off the top of my head. Here are the exact numbers. As I said previously in 1900, the obesity rate was less than 1%. From the period of 1964 - 1970, about 11% of the population was obese, and about 39% of the population was overweight. So the increase from 1900 to 1974, was much bigger in percentage terms than from 1974 to today.

If we just look at cereals and grains (wheat and oats but very little rice), we got 40% of our calories from them in 1909, by 1974 it was 20%. During this time of increasing obesity, our consumption of the fats that you suggest rose by 40%. If your instructions were the correct way to lose weight, Americans would have become thinner because we were eating more of these during this time period. However, people did not become thinner. So you advice is either incomplete, or incorrect.

I agree with you that the introduction of hydrogenated oils was a factor. These are nutritionally empty, and obesity is associated with deficiencies in certain nutrients. In nature, when we craved fat or sugar we could be sure to eat healthy fats and sugars. So a craving for fruits and fats would be a good response to nutrient deficiency. Today we get nutritionally empty food and remain hungry after eating.

The problem with eating todays red meats and fats is that the fat content is radically different that it was in nature. For example, in the U.S. cows are raised on corn and soy despite the fact that they are not naturally grain fed animals and lack some of the enzymes needed to break them down. This changes the content of the fat from one that is evenly split between omega-3 and omega-6, to one that is heavily tilted towards omega-6 fats, much like hydrogenated oils. While some
people have the ability to eat large amount of omega-6 fats and not gain weight, for genetic reasons, many of us can't handle it. In addition to obesity, omega-6 fats have been linked to the increase in mental disease and the massive decline is sleep quality. Antidepressant act on the same area of the brain as omega-6 fats, blocking their action. Saying we should just eat all meat and fat because we always have, ignores the fact that these meats and fats are radically different than what they were in nature.

Atkins did not have all of the answers, though he did make progress. First, during his time science was not really aware of the changes in fat that were causes by using cattle feed rather than grazing. He was correct in identifying the refinement of grains as a factor in obesity. Interestingly, the part of wheat the is removed, which had the most nutrients, was the germ oil. Wheat has three main nutrative parts, endosperm, bran, and germ. Endosperm is what we eat in white bread, adding wheat bran to the diet doesn't effect weight, so whatever we are losing that causes a health problem is in the germ. My bet is its the germ oil. Buy I digress. At the height of its popularity, about 10% of North American adults were on Atkins. It has currently fallen to under 2%. If Atkins was a complete diet plan, everyone would have adopted it and become thin. The people it works for are probably those that have a genetic ability to handle the high omega-6 fat content of our modern diet. They see it works for them, and don't understand why everyone doesn't follow along, not realizing that they are genetically different.


Changing obesity rates from 1900 to 1974:
http://www.insulitelabs.com/articles/Why-We-Eat.html

Omega-6 Fats and Drug Addiction:
http://www.economist.com/science/di...ory_id=12415194

Decline and Fall of the Atkins Diet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet

Citruskiss,

You don't need to eat grains, vegetables are fine. We have eaten grains for only several thousand years, and we have eaten vegetables much longer. If you accept the hypothesis that it is the nutrient content that is affecting our hunger, it makes sense to eat the vegetables that have the highest nutrient content. Those are fresh organic vegetables. Chemical pesticides lower the content of many antioxidants that are associated with hunger. You can leave grains out if you want, especially since you really have to look in order to find healthy ones. My point was not that you need to have grains, it was that it wasn't consumption of non-refined grains that led to increasing obesity.

Omega-6 Fat News & Commentary Research News by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD This site has a collection of research on the adverse effects of omega 6 for those who want to follow this up. Even if you haven't time to read all the posts, skim through the headlines and you will have an idea of the scope of the damage they can induce.

Stephan at Whole Health Source has also spend a lot of time explaining how excess omega 6 has adverse effects.

Because there is so much information being issued it is extremely difficult to keep up with it all. It therefore is tempting to specialize in one or two areas (I've been following vitamin D3 and omega 3 for some years now) however the danger of looking closely at specific areas is that one can lose sight of the whole picture and how the factors you have been following fit in with those other factors.

I would be very pleased if you could notify us when the new edition of your book is available.

There are also other factors changing in our dietary fats. The omega-6/3 ratio of fats is the usual suspect, and most studies show negative health effects from most of these. Yet raising animals on commercial feeds also affects their vitamin E content, and other nutrients.

While omega-6 fats are usually considered inflammatory and bad for cholesterol, rice bran oil is high in omega-6 and is considered to have a good effect on cholesterol, stress, inflammation, and insulin sensitivity. One explanation for the difference is the nutrient content, the amount of vitamin E in rice bran oil is about twenty times that found in olive oil. This is different from high omega-6 meats in our diet and most high omega-6 vegetable fats.

The problem with decreasing vitamin E in our meats is that this is one vitamin we can't absorb well from supplements, some experiments show that large amounts of vitamin E supplements, even taken with food, have almost no effect on blood vitamin E levels. We are also losing vitamin E in our staple grain, wheat.

Wheat oil, which is removed in all but 100% whole wheat to extend shelf life, is ten times higher in vitamin E than cold pressed olive oil, which is considered quite healthy, and many processed oils have their vitamin E content seriously degraded. Rice bran oil also had powerful antioxidants that have been identified in no other source. The Japanese and Chinese still use rice bran oil as a skin cream and as a cooking oil, and rice bran is added to stews. So while the Japanese and Chinese are eating lots of white rice, they also eat the parts removed from rice. It a sense, they are eating whole grains.

Hutchinson,

I would be more than happy to notify you. I am trying working on it now, but I am also busy with another project as is another person who works on it with me. It should be no more than two weeks.

-Daniel

"So the increase from 1900 to 1974, was much bigger in percentage terms than from 1974 to today. "

It is totally misleading to make that statement. While it may be technically true, it is a way of providing misleading information. Obesity has worsened since 1974.

Obesity as percentage of the total human population in America and now many other countries, has gotten much worse since 1970 until now. Long after Americans stopped eating the miracle "stone ground whole wheat".

One could just as easily make false correlations, such as "When
Americans stopped eating whole grains their lifespan increased" which is true, but the correlation is not valid.

I saw the documentary last night "Killer at Large: Why Obesity is America's Greatest Threat". Very interesting. It looks at the many reasons for the current epidemic of obesity and T2 diabetes... including increasing sugar consumption and promotion especially to kids. One thing it touched on that I don't see much discussed is the stress aspect of obesity and how cortisol can make you fat. It looks briefly at the american system: the threat of terrorism and terrorist alerts, the threat of being involved in nuclear war being the king of nukes, the stressful and complicated tax system etc... all creating a low level of constant fear and elevated cortisol.... I think sicko hints at this as well.... people are afraid to get sick because even if you do have insurance it's likely going to be very expensive which creates more financial stress.... which makes us sicker. I am sure we have always had stress ... it was a tough life back then... but I don't think we ever had certain threats always hanging over our heads no matter how good our day is going. Not to mention the constant bombardment of media and news and opinion... much of it negative, always in the background, delivered through internet devices, a million channels of tv, radio and print.

I think caffeine plays a big role with elevating cortisol and causing weight gain, it does for me anyway, but the one thing I notice different just in my lifetime is the explosion in sugar use... we never had vending machines in school when I was in high school. How much has sugar use increased since 1990?

The documentary especially notes the ineffectiveness of exercise to lose weight and how "do more exercise" has been used by the government and "big junk food" to take the heat off themselves and blame the consumer for their overweightness and not the addictive junk sugar food they promote in devious ways to people from birth on.

I think at least some of diet is individual. I have no problem with refined wheat. Dairy is another story. I can't eat rice. Caffeine really messes me up and fruit gives me hypoglycemia. Many vegetables, brassicas and nightshades for example, I cannot eat. I think you have to look at the way food effects you. I think a lot of the problem is stress (all strong cortisol increasers - way of life/culture, caffeine, alcohol), too much sugar and processed junk (probably partly driven by the first) and individual food intolerances, some probably caused by the first 2, some probably present at birth.

Another good point the film makes is that crap high calorie food is very cheap. You can get up to 1200 calories per dollar with junk versus 250 for something healthier. If you are living on a budget and believe that getting more for less is a value above all else, you are likely consuming a lot of junk.

I am not making a misleading statement, that was just the longest data set I had available, but I found a longer term one. Here is one from 1860 to 2000. In 1860, the American diet was 12% protein and 25% fat. In 2000, it was still 12% protein, but it was 37% fat. Simple sugars rose from 10% of the diet in 1860 to 25% today, these are mainly refined sugars and that is certainly not healthy.

What this data set show us is that we are eating much more fat than we were in 1860, when there was essentially no obesity, say less than 1 in 200 people (1 in 150 in 1900), and we are eating much fewer carbohydrates. Consumption of complex carbohydrates, mainly grains, has fallen my more than half in the 140 year period as obesity has skyrocketed. So we can't say the problem is we are eating too many carbohydrates and not enough fat. We are eating few carbohydrates and more fat than 150 years ago.

As I said before, I don't think decreased carbohydrate consumption is responsible for increased obesity, nor do I think increased fat consumption is. I am not saying the increase in obesity is obesity is due to not eating stone ground wheat, however, certainly anything that lower the nutritional content of our diet is unhealthy. Refining wheat to remove wheat bran oil certainly falls into that category. That oil has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity and lower cholesterol. It is a much denser source of vitamins and minerals than any known vegetable oil, the only known better source is rice bran oil.

Changes in Western Diet from 1860 - 2000:
http://www.chiphealth.com/topics/di...et-changed.html

Food additives, alcohol, caffeine, and refined sugar consumption can all lead to vitamin deficiencies. The first three have to be removed from the body, and the last takes away the opportunity to eat nutrious food. Try using rice bran oil, it is the worlds richest source of anti-oxidants, and it appears to lower cortisol production and inflammation. It may also help with food intolerance as that has been associated with certain vitamin deficiencies. Wheat germ oil is similar in nutrient content, but not as good a source of anti-oxidants. The other benefit of rice bran oil is that it is, like rice, hypoallergenic.

By the way, part of sugar consumption is self medication. People who are stressed eat more sugar because it produces and anit-stress molecule. Stress is also related to vitamin deficiency, people who increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables eat less sugar without being instructed to.

That is true, but if we can identify exactly what is causing obesity, we can fix it through regulation. Rickets was cured by the government requiring vitamin D supplementation, it worked very well. I have never heard of a person getting it, but it used to be common. Vitamin A supplementation reduced the prevalence of blindness. Curing obesity might be as simple as discovering the exact cause. The problem has been that their has been more than one contributor. With perfect knowledge of the nutrient cause of obesity, we could cure it for nothing. We are just not exactly sure, however, we can narrow it down to a workable set vitamins, minerals, enzymes, fatty acid, additives, and chemicals - or at least the foods and production techniques they are present in.

dmkorn, Your analysis of obesity with grain consumption and meat consumption is not very accurate. First I am guessing that the study you cited uses the USDA data for food cosnumption. However the data from prior to 1925 or so (going by memory) was estimated as they had no good numbers for it. Even after that it was based on certain commercial sales figures which are highly misleading. Meat killed by hunting or on the farm would not be included in the data. Neither would wild caught fish. All my grandparents and great grandparents grew up on farms, raising there own meat and vegetables as well as hunting and fishing for food. That way of existence was much more common than today and would not have been measurable.

Secondly it is always inaccurate to look at a correlation of one item to one criteria. The incidence of obesity may increase with the apparent increase in meat consumption. It also may increase with the decrease of whole grain consumption, no argument that whole grain consumption has decreased. It may also have increased with the decrease in traditional food prepping methods. It also has increased with the consumption of polyunsaturated oils. It also has increased with the consumtion of refined sugar and refined carbohydrates in general.

I am sure there are even more correlates. Any one of these can be taken in isolation and a conclusion be drawn, but only when the totality of the available data is examined will we actually be able to get an accurate answer.

I don't think that anyone would disagree that real whole weats contain more nutrients than refined wheats and that more nutrients is better. However that also doesn't mean that lack of good grain causes obesity. Whole grains still contain phytates and other bad things. Only when someone can look at the big picture with an open mind and a lot of expertise in varied fields will we start to get an accurate account of the casues of obesity.