Thin Rice Eater
It’s a common question. If carbs can make you fat, why were some populations (e.g. Japanese people) thin while eating a high carb diet?
Dr Peter Attia has written a nice post on this: The War on Insulin: How do some cultures stay lean while still consuming high amounts of carbohydrates?
I basically agree with his ideas, although I think there is a few more answers to this question:
The three big reasons
Here are the main reasons why I think populations could stay thin on high carb diets:
- Low to insignificant consumption of refined sugar (fructose). This may stop insulin resistance from developing.
- Eating mainly unrefined starch (e.g. brown rice, root vegetables) that is slow to digest, due to high fiber content etc.
- Traditionally more physical activity then sedentary western population. Compare a Japanese rice farmer (in the field all day) to an American office worker with a car. If you burn more glucose (via physical activity) then less insulin is needed when you eat carbs.
If you avoid sugar (fructose) and refined high GI starch and stay physically active you can probably stay thin and healthy on a high percentage of carbs. Lots of populations have done so.
Three more factors
- Poverty: These traditionally thin populations were on average fairly poor by todays standards, meaning perhaps they could not always afford all the food they would like to eat.
- Food reward / addiction. This may be controversial but I think there is a point to all this food reward talk that’s been going on in the blogosphere. Our processed junk food and candy is carefully designed to artificially make it taste great and be addictive. It also contains a lot of sugar and starch. It’s like cigarettes: The nicotine makes people addicted, thus they smoke a lot and the smoke gives them cancer. Fast food and candy is also addictive, thus people eat more of it and the sugar / starch overdose makes them fat.
- Genetic makeup. Asians do not look like Caucasians or Africans. They have (on average) way less musculature, they have a thinner build. This means that comparisons between the weight of Americans / Europeans and Asians using BMI is misleading, it exaggerates the difference. Asians are often “skinny fat” or even get diabetes at BMI levels that are considered normal for Caucasians (e.g BMI 24).
What do you say?
What do you think about this common question and the possible explanations?
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227 Comments
I also read him elsewhere.
You do realize he is not against the consumption of complexed carbs as a significant part of the diet for many people?
Or are you selectively choosing only those elements of his ideas that you agree with?
Lustig is not adverse to eating food items such as rice, though I'm sure he'd prefer the more complexed version.
Is Lustig wrong? Or is it just that he isn't pure enough?
From my perspective, he is making a parody of teaching biochemistry which is my job. A metabolic map is like any map. It tells you where you can go but it doesn't show you the traffic lights or the road construction. Also, what's missing from Lustig's compelling talks is data. The studies that support sugar as toxic are done at a total carbohydrate of 55 %. Under those conditions adding fructose is clearly worse than adding glucose, but is that what we want to know. Science is about the facts and understanding so, in some sense, there are no credentials but Lustig is simply not acting like a biochemist although he wants to take credit for being one. We could be wrong in our methods but he is definitely not a biochemist. The reason real biochemists don't like to jump in here is because we are reluctant to make sweeping statements. But we have some data and as far as we know, the effect of replacing fructose with glucose even under the conditions that he cites, is generally not as great as replacing any carbohydrate with any kind of fat.
The bottom line from a therapeutic perspective is that the mass of data clearly shows that for diabetes and metabolic syndrome and obesity, dietary carbohydrate restriction is the best bet -- if it doesn't work, thou can try something else. If you want to take sugar out of the diet, even just sugared soda as a strategy for reducing total carbohydrate, that may be very effective for obesity. For diabetes, it may be better to reduce starch depending on the individual case and conditions. What's scary about Lustig is that he is on the American Heart Association panels, the group who have gone out of their way to attack low carb diets and to distort the scientific data.
In term of the original thread on Asian diets, it is obvious that we don't know enough to make any clear statements although all the comments touch on relevant stuff. Overall, what we know is less than what we don't know but if you give up on scientific method, you've got nothing.
Why not try for a while and find out for youre self? Not eating rice wont kill you - while eating rice might in the long run turn out not to be so healthy (as many LCHF-people already have found out). But it is up to each and everyone to take chances with their health if they want to. I´m not one of them, that is for shure. I only eat what my body needs and rice is not on the list.
If rice was essential I would be dead by now. As a matter of fact I would probhably never have been born in the first place if it was - my ancestors, the wikings - are (in)famous for a lot of things - eating rice is not one of them.
I belive rice have had the same function for Asians as the potato have had for the nothern Europeans. It is the poor mans food to fill the hungy belly in lack of the good stuff like wild game that was only available among the rich and wealthy landowners.
I already eat a mountain of all types of veggies and salads.
Are yams and such, perhaps squash etc, your idea of how I could replace those calories?
What is left? Meat, butter, other dairy, oils, ? Or would one need to reduce physical activity to reduce energy output?
Obviously adding in sweets, sugars is not a viable alternative.
I suppose adding in lots of bananas might add fuel.
I really can't eat less calories or I would slowly waste away.
I'm thinking rural Asians face a very similar dilema.
LCHF menas replacing the carbs (rice, pasta, bread) with fat. The best fatsources ar animal fat. Eat fat fish like salmon and mackerel, dont cut of the fat from the meat, eat the skin from the chicken. Dont be afraid of eggs and dont forget butter, full cream and other fat dairyproducts.
last but not least - forget about calories! Just eat until you are not hungry anymore - if you eat enough protein and fat it is very difficult to overeat.
I know they say the same thing about heart disease, but how about the Western diet's "connection" with a extremely higher incidence of prostate cancer compared to Japanese and other Asian populations?
Not exactly the incidence, but the progression to a state where it causes problems.
Or is all that increase just the result of all the extra refined carbs and sugars?
Until I find better evidence of that, I'm not going to suddenly load up on fat meats, poultry, butter, creams etc.
I'll keep reading but I've not seen anyone suggest that such a full fat diet is beneficial for the progression of prostate cancer ( a cancer which lies dormant in the majority of men as they pass into their 50s, 60, 70.s and beyond.)
Apparently Japanese men have a similar incidence of such cancers, but they don't advance, thus never causing a problem in a much larger percentage of Japanese men.
I'll keep looking into that.
The drugcompanies that pay for expencive studies (who else do you think pay for it?) are not intrested in knowledge preventing diseases with something as simple as natural food - unless you could put it in a pill an make zillions of dollars selling it.
Keep looking in to it - but I would not trust Big pharma if I where you - just follow the money.
It is your prostate - not mine
But a growing number of top nutritional scientists blame excessive carbohydrates — not fat — for America's ills. They say cutting carbohydrates is the key to reversing obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and hypertension.
"Fat is not the problem," says Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "If Americans could eliminate sugary beverages, potatoes, white bread, pasta, white rice and sugary snacks, we would wipe out almost all the problems we have with weight and diabetes and other metabolic diseases."
It's a confusing message. For years we've been fed the line that eating fat would make us fat and lead to chronic illnesses. "Dietary fat used to be public enemy No. 1," says Dr. Edward Saltzman, associate professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University. "Now a growing and convincing body of science is pointing the finger at carbs, especially those containing refined flour and sugar."
Americans, on average, eat 250 to 300 grams of carbs a day, accounting for about 55% of their caloric intake. The most conservative recommendations say they should eat half that amount. Consumption of carbohydrates has increased over the years with the help of a 30-year-old, government-mandated message to cut fat.
And the nation's levels of obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease have risen. "The country's big low-fat message backfired," says Dr. Frank Hu, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "The overemphasis on reducing fat caused the consumption of carbohydrates and sugar in our diets to soar. That shift may be linked to the biggest health problems in America today."
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-carbs-20101220,3,465492,full.story
I suggested you watch the obesity video because you were speculating about whether insulin signaled satiety to the brain and the third video gave a pretty clear explanation as to how the interaction of hormones and blood sugar can cause people to be overfed AND hungry all the time.
I found The Bitter Truth interesting because I learned something I didn't know about the way sugars are metabolized. I think he raises some interesting questions about why there's been an increase in the obesity rate even for babies. I didn't agree with his conclusion that sugar should be regulated like alchohol or tobacco.
"Will more meats or fats improve our health? How many studies suggest that to be true?"
Quite a few. Because as you're noticing, if you drastically reduce one thing in the diet, something else must replace it. The good studies that have been done of carbohydrate restriction (which necessitates and increase in fat and protein consumption) all show not only better weight loss, but improvements in blood pressure, lipid profiles (HDL-C goes up and triglycerides go down) and fasting glucose.
For the last 30 years a huge uncontrolled experiment has been done on the public in replacing one macronutrient with another - fat, especially saturated fat, was replaced by carbohydrates on the advice of health "experts." People embraced the idea that fat in the diet equalled fat in the arteries because it was a simple, intuitive idea. Too bad it was wrong, and we're seeing the results.
Now, that simple, powerful, WRONG idea has gained such intractablity that fat, and to a slightly lesser extent, meat have become as "moralized" as tobacco and laden with all sorts of emotional trigger words: "greasy killer," "artery clogging," etc. The fear of fat and the naive embrace of the "natural" means that kids who used to get whole milk now get fruit juice. Instead of scrambled eggs they get sweetened low-fat yogurt. Instead of getting a roasted chicken leg (with skin) they're getting whole wheat pasta with "all natural" sauce out of a jar.
For myself, I did NOT get fat eating fast food and sweets or by drinking soda (never cared for any of those things). I took in the warnings about fat and tried to cook "healthier," replacing meats with whole grains, whole milk with skim, a pat of butter with a film of olive oil, avoiding eggs, eating more vegetables (steamed). Result? 60 pounds overweight by the age of 48.
Thanks to Gary Taubes, I lost 50. Thanks to all the ignorant people around me warning me about my fat intake, I gained back 25. Now I've lost 15 again, in good part thanks to the growing number of people understanding how nonexistent was the science supporting the low-fat recommendations.
Or anything to do with trusting "Big pharma".
Is the "money" following simple veggies and unrefined carbs to the exclusion of something else?
I do agree that all the food processing companies would like to keep folks eating as they currently do and might/do support studies that would suggest their products are good.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21811224
Now, while I don't like to use specific cases, in a overall view of things.
I'm very slender, low/normal blood sugars, low blood pressue, exercise, no cardio problems.
Should I be concerned that I could have, or could get metabolic syndrome that possibly could impact any potential for prostate cancer?
Or am I just hunting some theoretical problem and would be changing my current diet to avoid such.
Remembering that I eat very few refined carbs and almost no sugar, except what I add to my cup of tea in the morning.
Normal healthy person, just trying to remain that way. Not a person who's health is out of wack from a long history of terrible foods of any type.
I do think that we shouldnt get in to the explanation of everything, let Lustig try to do this, he got some good points, but there are holes in his teory, but I think he points in the right direction.
There are probably not one simpel explanation.. but the good thing is that we cant blame the fat for it, not that unprocessed animal fats.
Probably is refined carbs and processede vegetabile oils a part of it.. and there is a lot of good evidens pointing in that direction.
And Wade, you have altså some good points, about our modern food and our way of living.. must have some to do with it.. I dont think nobody can denie that.
And as you do says, there is seldome any good to eat junkfood.
The good thing is that we know how to revert the metabolic syndrom, how it appears is teories, still to be proven.
But there are som links.. its hyperinsulinemia, thats almost is the sign of it.
"I'm very slender, low/normal blood sugars, low blood pressue, exercise, no cardio problems."
That is how most of us start our life in young age. But things start getting worse as we get older. I dont know your age - but if you are still young your slender figure and good health tell us nothing moore than normal. It is when we reach the age of 40 - 50 the problems starts and it is time to pay the bill for an unhelaty lifestile from younger years - slender or not....
Very few exercise or pay close attention to their diets.
Most common, cardio vascular disease, diabetes, strokes....
The combination of those three is like a neighborhood epidemic.
good for you if you past 60 and are still at good health - unfortunatley I belive you are an exeption to the rule - I wish more people had your health at that age.
Now I wish you all good night. It is midnight in my part of the world
"I belive rice have had the same function for Asians as the potato have had for the nothern Europeans. It is the poor mans food to fill the hungy belly in lack of the good stuff like wild game that was only available among the rich and wealthy landowners."
I want to remark that in comparison to the long term tradition of eating rice in Asia potatoes were established in Northern European foods only in the 18th century. They were intended to become the basic food for the people but there were lots of problems with acceptance.
Being a descendant from a family of conservative landowners until my days as a child potatoes were not considered as the first choice among foods: They were difficult to cultivate, our soil was not fitting and there were lots of trouble with infestation by pests. After the famine in Ireland caused by problems with potatoes my family decided to cultivate only a minimum of plants and stick to their traditional farming.
I used to listen to the stories of my grandparents and I suspect that my ancestors mainly lived on all kinds of cabbage with pork and they surely used every piece of their livestock. The precious grain was animal feed during winter times and not for human usage. Survival of livestock was the equivalent of survival of the human.
In my opinion it is very unlikely that over such a short period and very few generations a genetic adaption to potatoes occurred. I think the problem is that in our modern lifestyle our energy input and output is not balanced anymore and according my experiences with 5 years living low carb it is easier to keep the input low with satisfying LC food.
Only my 2 cents.
Steve from Diabetes Warrior blog, is doing experiments with a continuous glucose meter, exercise, and carbs. You said "we know how to fix metabolic syndrome, but it's just theories". After looking at Steve's experiments these last few days, I think we have more than theories.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/5/1/14
And we know for 99% certainty that the precursor is hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance.
But those is complex to understand, and to explain.. but there are hypotesis.. still to be proven
Yes I know potatoes came in late on our plates
In sweden the stapelfood was the root called Swede or Rutabaga, which actually grew wild.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutabaga
I dont know exactly why they replaced it with potato but from what we know now maybe it was not such a good idea...
The Swede/Rutabaga have only 6 gram carbs, while potato have 16 per 100 gram.
If poor 18th C british farm labourers are any indication, cheese and bacon were the main sources of animal protein (more flavour for lower cost, and less perishable)
However, following the Black Death, low population and high wages saw a rise in meat eating for all classes that lasted more than a century. Europe was swamped in cheap, fresh meat that all classes could afford.
See "Capitalism and Material Life 1400-1800" by Fernand Braudel
Highly recommended
"Europe was swamped in cheap, fresh meat that all classes could afford."
Maybe it was for some priviledge aristocracy - but it was never - and are still not - avalible for the Pesants. Not even today 2012 are wild game like elk and deer available and allowd to hunt for others than the landowners.
The only alternative in the old days was to be a rich farmer hwo had kows, pigs and sheep - but than we are still not talking about peasents....very sorry but when we talk about access to good meat it has never been available for the poor. They had to rely on the occational wild birds, rabbit/hare and fish they could catch....
that is capitalism - still alive and kicking.
Meat in those good years (15th and 16th centuries) was included in wage agreements of the lower-paid workers where documents survive.
It was a labour-based economy; half the population had died. The survivors could get whatever they asked for their labour, which was the equivalent of oil today.
Read the book:
http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=rPgVp3vMOjcC&pg=PA190&lp...'s+carnivorous+century%22&source=bl&ots=0OHwF6OWjv&sig=xstm5Z5fPo9NFwGdy7eHVTrQWlk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QkesT6ytFc2fiAfijsW1Aw&ved=0CGcQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=%22europe's%20carnivorous%20century%22&f=false
It may depend of wich country we are talking about. In my part of the world (Sweden) the peasents - if they where lucky - they got a small house and a small peace of land to grow potatoes from the landowner - that was it. Unless they signed up to be a soldier in the kings army - than they could even get a uniform and extra food for the horse.
Yes I recognice that story. Unfortunatly people in those days did not realise how good food it really was. A lot better than nowdays when the salmon is only worth half of what it used to be... nutritionwise...
"In the 14th century, Sweden was struck by the Black Death. The population of Sweden was decimated.[26] During this period the Swedish cities began to acquire greater rights and were strongly influenced by German merchants of the Hanseatic League, active especially at Visby"
So it probably applied to Sweden too.
Watch out, or the market for "polished rice" will skyrocket.
Actually, a well followed and very old diet, predating today's diet-mania, was the "Rice Diet" introduced in 1934 at Duke University by a medical doctor on staff. Walter Kempner.
In light of all the over-the-top diet wars we see today, it would do one well to go back and read about Dr. Kempner and his success and his published papers.
http://www.ricediet.com/page/view/rice_diet_founder_dr._walter_kempner
Using nearly the exact opposite of what we read here, Dr. Kempner had success with thousands of patients over many decades.
Always pays to keep one's mind open to all the issues and history, rather than finding "the answer" and then searching only those facts which support your "conclusion".
I have been eating LC diet since Nov.2007, and feel I can do it forever, unlike unsalted rice..
Which of the two, if practiced optimally (with good ingredients), will produce the best outcome over 20 or 30 yealrs is probably the question.
However, neither is of much value if one cannot sustain the general concepts.
Thus there is no doubt that a low-carb diet is superior to a failed diet of any other type where the participant gives up within the first year.
People have to figure out which diet they can sustain rather than making either the only way to salvation.
Really, it often seems that one side of "followers" from either choice, spend a lot of energy trying to prove the other diet will produce a poor outcome, and that people/cultures that eat that way for centuries must have been wrong, and further, that there are other reasons for their ability to stay slender and healthy.
There really are many shared concepts.
Veggies good- eat lots more.
Sugar bad- eats far less.
Refined carbs bad- When you have carbs, make them complexed.
Drinking calories bad, even when its real juice. (eat the apple, don't drink it)
Just following those few ideas alone would probably reduce America's "excess" weight by about 30 to 40 percent over a decade or so.
Not by chance that we are now seeing a concerted effort by the combined group of Coca Cola, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and the American Beverage Association, to combat what they fear will be a effort to turn them into the demons of the obesity epidemic.
New York City is running the following ads.
http://www.the9billion.com/2011/02/14/will-new-york-citys-pouring-on-...
I agree with this generally apart from one thing; some complex carbs are highly refined;
white flour, french fries, pasta, etc. are all complex carbohydrate (starch)
Whereas honey is unrefined (except by bees) but high in simple sugars.
The sugar companies are the new cigarettes.
It is possible, and has been done, to compare low-carb and other diets, over increasingly long periods. Low-carb diets do come out better, again and again, but stickability with any diet is all-important.
However, on a low-fat or low-calory diet your health only improves if there is weightloss; on high-fat, low-carb diets there is usually measurable health improvement even when weight stays stable.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/24
Low carbohydrate diets improve atherogenic dyslipidemia even in the absence of weight loss
Richard D Feinman1* and Jeff S Volek2
A regular low-fat diet is a feast when compared to the low-salt-low-fat rice diet, I can tell from my personal experience because I tried both. It is very possible for a low-fat diet to taste good and to be sustainable for at least that reason. I doubt Asian people eat very bland meals even if they don't put salt into their rice. I am not talking about populations which face hunger and almost constant food deficit. It is quite a different situation.
At least in my case, low-fat eating controls appetite and hunger much worse than a low-carbohydrate eating, and I use LC to eat less without a discomfort. I grew-up in a fast-food free society, all my life I cook every meal for myself and my family, except when we travel, so I don't compare SAD with LF or LC . After turning 45, keeping my weight at reasonable range became more challenging, my LC diet also brought huge health improvements for me (migraines and allergies management, infection resistance, pre-menopause symptoms elimination and more), my mom also normalized her blood pressure with a LC diet.
As far as I know, the Duke rice clinic is still functioning and doing well with success if you can live like that.
As for complex carbohydrates, I can't help pointing to the "guest" post on my blog:http://wp.me/p16vK0-cg
The anagrammatic Dr. Ferdinand I. Charm points out that:
Complex carbohydrates... still refer, in organic chemistry, to polysaccharides such as starches and for many years, it was absolute dogma in nutrition that complex carbohydrates were more slowly absorbed than simple sugars. Science advances, however, and when measurements were actually made it was found not to be so so simple, giving rise to the concept of the glycemic index. The term “complex,” had since then been used loosely but has currently evolved to have a more precise meaning derived from mathematics, that is, as in complex numbers, having a real part and an imaginary part although the recent Guidelines from the USDA make it difficult to tell which is which.
LOL! Nice one.
Anyone who can't investigate and figure out which are "good" and which are "poor" may not be a candidate for any plan that describes itself as depending on carbs for any significant portion of its calories.
BTW, that would include about 80% of the people who bought into the "low fat" fad that was dominant in the past 20 years. The Snackwell, Entenmann's crowd.
The "low fat" moniker that all too many use as a strawman when comparing diets with the intention of showing "low fat" is bad compared to any healthy low-carb plan.
I'm certain that there are many reasonably intelligent people who are improving their health on both types of plans, when done proper fashion.
Example, President Bill Clinton seems to have found his road to better health in a Ornish type of diet (although he attributes his current weight loss and heart/vascular/blood numbers to several proponents of similar plans)
Tonight, on CBS5 in San Francisco, a local media doctor will begin a multi-night series promoting the Paleo diet. One she went on last year.
She more or less claims it is "THE" answer. She seems a bit to far "born again" and never includes alternative views or methods for arriving at the same health gains.
"Anyone who can't investigate and figure out which are "good" and which are "poor" may not be a candidate for any plan that describes itself as depending on carbs for any significant portion of its calories."
Here Here. People will investigate pesticides or GM components, which represent a tiny portion of any diet, yet go through life without investigating the pounds of bioactive material - fats, carbohydrates, and protein - that they process every day.
The SAD is so BAD that even an Ornish diet will greatly improve numbers, weight, etc.
But compared to an Atkins diet, the Ornish performs very poorly in these areas.
It is all relative.
Also, the LC diet brings about improvement that allows many people (if not too far gone in DM2 or obesity) to eat carbohydrate (of the "safe starch" sort) again after a while and prosper.
This can give the impresson that the LC was unnecessary, whereas in fact it was medicinal, and will be in future if metabolism breaks again.
A simple sugar (carbohydrate) is one, or two linked (disaccharide), sugar molecules, usually glucose, fructose, or galactose.
Refining is any industrial process of seperation that results in a greater concentration of any one component, by the removal of impurities, fibre or unwanted nutrients.
Fibre is those complex cabohydrates and simple sugars that cannot be digested, except in some cases by gut bacteria.
And there was a lot of populatins that did eat a lot of carbs, but they get it from real food, or they eat it with real food, so they get all there essential nutrishment.
And thera was populations that didnt eat a lot of carbs, but more meat and fat.. and they altso got all there essential nutrishments.
And there was and are altso a lot of populations thet eat a lot of of carbs but lacks there essential nutrients, and get sick, like pelagra, beriberi, kwasiokor, rakitis.. and so on!
So its probably more about malnutrition and to much energy, rather then "bad" carbs!
And at last.. Asias population is not known to have the best healt or longevity, with som countrys being among does how is healty.
Its those rich contrys, like Japan and Singapore, and they are as healty as same rich contrys in Europe and in North america.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition
From my perspective the problem with this article its very first assumption that raising insulin is bad and makes you fat.
This very much reminds of how the Cholesterol / Heart theory started back in 50's based on flimsy evidence and disregarding anything that proved otherwise.
The low carb paleo community has been quick to jump on board this theory and defend it to seven hells and back, and again this really mimics the low-fat dogma of the 50's. Personally I was on that bandwagon for a few years and I had great results. But now I've introduced starch back into my diet I feel even better.
There's a couple of things that disprove the "eatings carbs spikes insulin which stores as fat theory"
A lot of what I know is taken from this site where the author debunks "insulin is bad" myth after researching many studies:
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319
The first one is that eating anything will cause your insulin levels to increase. The difference between low carb and high carb meals isn't that great as long as there is some mixture of protein and carbs.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20060863
Secondly higher levels of insulin suprress hunger -
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16933179?itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntr...
thirdly insulin is required for normal body functions such as building muscle.
There is no doubt chronically high levels of insulin resulting in insulin resistance is not healthy for you, but for normal healthy people spiking insulin after meals is a very normal and necessary function for the body.
Insulin also carries glycogen and amino acids into your muscle post exercise.
Now about Asian people and rice I'd hypoethise the author has not spent a whole of time in Asia, like the previous commenter who spent time in Japan I spent a lot of time in Korea and China and all of the generalisations they make are on partially right:
1. They eat less refined sugar - This is probably true. I'm in Malaysia now and their sugar consumption is extremely high, they have one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world
2. Eating unrefined starch like brown rice - Most people are eating white rice, the biggest difference between how east and west consume rice is that Japanese and Koreans only eat quite small portions with their meals. It's not considered the mainstay of the meal, merely a side dish as a filler.
3. Asians are somehow more active than westerners - This is the main point I disagree with, I would say Eastern industrialised countries are about the same as the West. Not everyone in Asia is a poor working farmer!
My own hypothesis is that insulin is not bad...chronically raised insulin and insulin resistance yes, its not good for you.
The main things that have changed in the past 100 years in the west
1. Sugar consumption has increased a lot
2. Refined vegetable oils high in omega-6 fatty acids have increased
3. Highly processed, very cheap, high carb food is easily available.
4. Meal frequency has increased - people are eating 4,5,6,7 meals and snacks a day which keeps insulin levels high and possibly this has also increased total calories that people eat.
I do not think carbs per se are bad as long as they are from a natural source and they're eaten with other healthy protein and fats.
Check out martin berkhan's leangains for an example of a guy who carb loads after exercise to spike insulin and build muscle. I've also been following his method for a while now with very good fat loss results and generally feeling better.
Anyone who has been there knows only about 1% of the rice eaten is brown.
Next,
"American Girl' corrrectly describes the Japanese as eating animal products with many meals, along with the veggies and rice.
However I think one might get a false impression if one assumes they eat servings that are anywhere similar to what Americans eat.
Some data, from 1999
Beef consumption in Kilos per capita -- Japan 11.7 USA 45.3
Pork consumption in Kilos per capita -- Japan 17.0 USA 31.7
Poultry consumption kilos per capita -- Japan 13.7 USA 49.6
Source, US Department of Agriculture.
Now, no doubt, they eat more fish than Americans do.
You may also want to compare mainland Japan with the Japanese island of Okinawa.
To the extent you trust Wikipedia, you can read a brief synopsis of what they eat, percentages of animal products, veggies, carbs and the like. They are famous for eating a certain variety of sweet potato even more so than rice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_diet
Okinawans are well known for their traditional eating individuals having one of the longest lifespans.
I do understand however that newer generations have been changing their ways with Westernization.
This shift is mentioned in the paragraph.
Still, the Okinawans and their health has long been examined as a example of ONE way in which a person might want to live a healthy life.
As I've stated, in all my travels to Asia, I cannot just throw out these examples where millions and millions of people live healthy lives while never avoiding carbs, yet at the same time eating very few of the garbage carbs and sugars we see so common in the American obese population's typical diet.
I avoid sugar (desserts, candy, soda) like the plague. Eating it makes me feel bad. I also try to avoid junk carbs (chips, crackers, etc) and fake fats.
I do eat a lot of fruit (along with good fats, protein, greens and lesser amounts of whole grain carbs (brown rice, cracked wheat, etc). I know that fruit has fructose, but Lustig says it also has fiber which slows the absorption of sugar.
Is fruit a problem?
Thanks
The low level long term exposure to pesticides has been known to cause changes in hormones that resulted in such things as micro-penises, breast growth in men, attention disorders, abnormal relationship behaviors, lack of coordination, apathy, and more.
What this means is that daily- we are exposed to and consume addictive foods, we are exposed to false information designed to increase stress, we are working in jobs that used to take 4 or 5 people to do which increases our stress. AND the daily pesticide exposure that can't be avoided steadily causes hormones to erode our ability to perceive, analyze, and problem solve, have normal relationships, care about life in general, and we are so awkward in motion we stay away from group exercises.
Do you think that obesity is all our fault through human ignorance and laziness?! Not!
There is going to be a third element soon, and that is genetically engineered or modified food. It's already been proven that it causes problems in the environment in insects and mammals. But supposedly even though humans are mammals, we are assured that the crops are safe to consume. I used to believe in my government.