Why Did Federal Government Create the Recommended Dietary Guidelines If Data Was Flawed?

Miscellaneous General
21

“then the USDA can probably figure out that people need to eat less calories.”

Sieben, its not about eating a certain number of calories. Its about what you’re eating. Fake food vs real food. Real food is good for you, fake food is not. The USDA confuses the subject more by getting people into thinking saturated fat is bad for you, when it isn’t. That’s my point. The study they used to originate this idea was FIXED. That is a problem. They need to correct this. One conclusion I see for them not correcting it is money. People in the grain industry lobbying them to keep these guidelines going. That’s obviously bad for the people in many ways, not to mention a waste of tax money.

22

More to the point, shouldn’t there be competition of ideas, rather than government claiming monopoly on truth?

And, who’s body is it anyway? What business is it of government to tell me what to eat and what not to eat.

And, how can there be one diet for a diverse nation? This form of central planning, like their economic planning, assumes a one size fits all, which physicians will tell you is not realistic.

23

And whilst you and I can choose to ignore the USDA, children are being subjected to their guidelines via Federal Grants which require complaince with the Food Pyramid. In Illinois they even go so far as to not allow parents in some schools to let kids bring their own packed lunch!!

24

@Sieben

If only everyone thought Phil was a woman, then your insults would go unnoticed, and apparently it wouldn’t be a poor reflection of the community to visitors.

It also helps if you’re a moderator. Then you could just ban him because you don’t like him.

25

Low grade interaction? Then maybe you should ban Phil. That would take care of the low-grade interaction, since I’m quite “civil” around reasonable people.

Lol. Pushing your ideological preference for “civil” conduct. Like I said, and like you ignored, it wouldn’t matter if I had a legitimate reason for telling people that they’re retarded when they are retarded. You’re just going to pretend like you’re right by default. Kind of like Phil.

But you has a banhamar so you get to exercise power over me. Must feel nice to slap other people around without being in the right.

[edit] Btw there’s no point temp banning me. I’m not going to come back having “learned my lesson”. Its because I think I have a legitimately good reason for telling Phil he’s a retarded dishonest fuck. You’re welcome to engage me on it, but you and danny have just kind of said “lol no swears okay temp-ban”.

If I came back the same thing would just happen all over again.

26

I JUST posted a study showing that overeating causes you to gain weight. I can also point to studies where people underfeeding lose weight. Always.

Where are your studies about the efficacy of eating the “right” foods? Here’s a study showing that for 3 meals, matched for macros, and only differing in quality, the only appreciable differences are in cholesterol. The “anabolic” response is the SAME for all 3 meals. So as far as weight gain/loss goes, calorie quality doesn’t seem to matter.

Is it a problem? How much saturated fat (or fat period) do people need to eat in a day? How much are they eating now? Why is what they’re eating now better than what the USDA recommends?

And btw, the USDA recommends eating “good” foods. Whole foods replacing processed grains, etc. No one at the USDA is telling people to lose weight by eating jelly beans (even if you could do it).

On the other hand, there’s a fast food industry that would benefit from the opposite. And then there’s the meat industry and supplement companies who would benefit from telling people to eat more protein (which is not a bad recommendation). Where are these forces in the USDA guidelines?

No one actually follows the USDA guidelines. If they did, they’d lose weight.

I hate the government too, but they probably did not spend billions of dollars constructing the food pyramid or publishing their little pamphlets. Just sayin’

27

Sieben, I’d rather you weren’t banned if you could be civil, because your questions and statements encourage good debate. I didn’t come here expecting everybody to agree with me. I just wish you didn’t have to add an insult to every question or crossed wire.

Back on topic, here are some books on obesity recommended by the Foundation which utilize low carb diets which do not restrict fat intake. In particular, the Eat Fat, Loose Fat book was cited in a recent Lew Rockwell podcast. I’d add Zoe Harcombe’s book on obesity to the list if you want a more technical book that pulls apart public policy:

28

Actually Sieben, the USDA recommend a diet high in grains and starchy vegetables. These are all broken down into glucose, which leads to weight gain. You could eat tons of potatoes, white pasta and bread, be in accordance with the guidelines and put on a heap of weight.

So its not only about eating wholefoods if you are heavy on grains and starch.

29

Here is the food pyramid, with 6-12 servings of grain!! Much of the rest of the diet is fruit and vegetables, leaving only 10% for saturated fat and very limited space for protein and fat from meat and diary.

The carbs in the three dominant groups are all broken down into glucose, which is only used for energy or stored as fat, and fruit is particularly good for putting on weight. Note, in nature, animals feast on fruit and grain in the early fall to fatten up for the winter. We are not supposed to do that all year!! And the govt is letting businesses say that refined fruit juice provides a serving, and that is the sort of thing they get away with at schools, allowing refined counterfeits, even if it was enough to have ratio’s as unbalanced as the above.

30

Who cares what FDA says. They would never recommend any diet which is heavy meat. Because its not proletarian cost wise. Only reason.

According to Bob Fogel, higher consumption of meat in US and Britain, relative France or China, is what has contributed 25-50% of producitivty over last 250 years, by increasing number of people who could work longer hours, and reducing stunting.

Let’s pose a more fun question (fun as I see it, being professionally experimental scientist). How exactly are ideal studies going to be done? I mean studies about nutrition, not economics: Fogel had already covered economic aspect and gotten his Nobel prize.

In another thread I posted my diet. I myself put much no faith in virtually all purely nutritional studies, except where they agree with my diet. Why?

I’ll tell you:

What kind of group of researchers would do a large study, over many years, where they PAY test subject to stuff themselves full of blue fin, filet steaks, and cavier? That stuff, in quantities that are required for satiety is just EXPENSIVE.

One person, no problem, at least in Midwest. (My diet fails cost-wise, say, in New York City.)

1000 people study: not going to happen, Midwest or New York or wherever.

All I do is concentrate on sharp flavors which do not require complex or taste enhancement chemicals (because eating lots of anything common to all food that you eat lessens reaction reflex, and then for next few days tastes are not as sharp, because of Sokolov’s law of reflexes, which is just physiological proof of Gossen’s law).

As for the rest, I merely keep in mind calories.

All I do is eat tastiest food that is actually tasty without requiring taste enhancers. Taste enhancers level differences between stimuli, which is bad for having biggest satisfaction for your diet, all week long, because they are common factor in so much food. Same thing for ingredients of sauces.

That’s it. Turns out, tastiest food combinations with sharp differences in taste, to preserve reaction and pleasure, are also highest density of energy, and are mostly animal or fish products.

Why is this conversation so bitter about nutritional value?

No one will actually do the studies that would really prove anything.

On other hand, studies about reflexes and basic ideas about what amount of calories and vitamins you need would pretty much give you a very nice diet.

Pavlov’s rule: eat tastiest food which is actually sharply tasty. Period.

EDIT: I have way too much time on my hands at work, now that I think about how long this post is… .

31

As said, Dr Price’s book is a huge study, which does provide real data:

And folk in the Weston A Price Foundation have provided some good info about their kids:

Also, see this study of folk with nutrient dense diets:

32

“Where are your studies about the efficacy of eating the “right” foods? Here’s a study showing that for 3 meals,”

honestly, I do’t have the time to look through your stuff. There is so much info on the damage fake food does to your body and so much info on the healing good food does, you just merely have to do some google searching.. Take for example, doctors and nutrionists who are curing people with Diabetes Type II with nothing but raw foods. in some cases in 2 weeks!

Surely, you don’t believe beef from McDonalds which is treated with ammonia and full of growth hormones and antibiotics is just as good for you as grass fed beef full of more omega fatty acids and no growth hormones or antibiotics? Do you really need a study for that? Really?

Do you really need some scientists to tell you that eating white processed flour with almost no nutrional value is the same as eating raw organic vegetables? Really? Come on dude. Wake up. Real food vs fake food. Of course there is a difference, how else do normal people get diabetes type II? And then, how else do they get cured by eating raw foods? Its not calories. You really need a scientists or doctor to walk you through that?

33

So, you can study folk who choose to eat nutrient dense foods, and Dr Price’s work is probably the best study we have of that. Just get a bunch of members of the Weston A Price Foundation alongside family members of theirs who eat the standard american diet. Then you have a study, right there.

34

I just wish you didn’t ignore evidence and talk past your opponents and use false evidence that you haven’t even read to bolster your claims.

But whaddaya gonna do

Do you really expect anyone ITT to buy or read any of those just because you tell them to? Lol.

AND HOW DOES THIS COMPARE TO THE STANDARD AMERICAN DIET?

This is my point. That the USDA diet is better than (read: not the best) whatever americans currently eat.

Again, I pointed you at De Novo Lipogensis. You ignored it. Gee wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t flat out ignore it when people prove you wrong?

Yeah we’re supposed to go through periods of starvation; intense caloric deficits. Where’s your advocacy of that? Hmm? Like I said. You only do what you want to do. You’ll use paleo as a justification for stuff you wanna do, but you’ll ignore it when it tells you to do something uncomfortable.

By FAR the largest difference between modern diets and paleo diets is starvation periods. Cus no matter how much you cry about the difference between animal fats and plant fats, the difference between that and NOTHING is far greater. So where’s your advocacy of intermittent starvation? Nowhere? That’s what I thought.

35

Okay so you’re talking past me by shifting the goalposts. My claim was that FAT GAIN/LOSS (read: not necessarily cholesterol) is going to be basically the same no matter what “quality” of food you’re eating.

And there are actually good studies showing that blood chemistry improves on weight loss diets, despite the source of calories. This study shows that virtually ALL fat loss diets cause similar beneficial changes in cholesterol levels.

Are calories controlled? Am I supposed to believe you even though you don’t have a hyperlink to the study? Why can’t I just ignore it like you ignore mine?

No. But if you make specific claims, like you’ll get fat eating 1000 calories of mcd but not 1000 calories of organic food, then we have a problem. Cus when you make specific claims about outcomes, you need studies demonstrating those outcomes.

Like I wouldn’t go out of my way to put oral growth-hormone in my body, but I also couldn’t tell you how bad it is. It may actually be relatively harmless. Does that make sense? You can make dietary choices without spazzing out about ZOMG PROCESSED CHEMICALS and pretending like that’s as good as real evidence. I don’t know how bad a lot of chemicals are.

Has it ever crossed your mind that some of the “artificial” chemicals might actually be beneficial? Impossible. “Artificial” just means “bad” to you people.

Again, in what context? In weight loss, probably they are the same. In cardio health, maybe they’re the same too. In terms of vitamin deficiencies… well that depends on the whole diet. But lets say they do cause vitamin deficiencies - how bad are they? How low will your magnesium levels get? Is this problemmatic?

These are relevant questions. Again, you have no grounds to spazz out and make it the freaking FOCUS of your nutritional philosophy. Calories are much much more important (see mah studies. Or don’t. Ignore them so you can be a religious fanatic like Phil).

36

Sieben, I personally do not support intermittent fasting, and your comments are beginning to sound a bit silly.

37

No phil. The biggest way in which historical man’s diet differed from modern diets are seasonal periods of starvation. You want to spend all this time and energy crying about how plant fats are different from animal fats, but they’re even more different than NOTHING. And NOTHING is what cavemen ate for months at a time (okay maybe some berries, but extreme caloric deprivation).

Caloric restriction has been shown to improve your lifespan. So whaddaya gonna do? There’s A) Paleo evidence for it and B) Scientific evidence for it, but you’re going to ignore it because it doesn’t fit your personal religion.

38

Actually, this is wrong. Dr Price saw isolated people’s eating much as they would have for thousands of years, including hunter gatherers. They had elaborate ways of preserving foods, such as curing meat, fermenting vegetables as sauerkraut, drying meats, making pemmican, fermenting and freezing. Pemmican, for example, is a blend of cured meat and fat that has been demonstrated to last for 30 years and stay safe. Through traditions, and artisan methods of food preservation, communities and families would have abundance throughout the year, planning ahead for risks.

It is these methods which differentiate humanity from beasts.

Under anarchy, communities and traditions kick in to produce well planned life patterns that provide for risk and future, creating abundance.

39

Zzzzzzzzzzz

I don’t care what Dr. Crazy observed. Merely being able to preserve food doesn’t mean there’s enough food to eat yearround. Here I’ma give you some citations so you can ignore them, but maybe you’ll realize deep down that you’re wrong.

Here’s a source (yeah its an article, but it has a link to the research in it) showing that historical man was frequently very close to starvation, and would in fact cannibalize his fellow man if necessary. It makes perfect sense evolutionarily speaking, but I seriously doubt you would advocate either constant near-starvation or cannibalism. Because you just cherry pick which parts of the historical lifestyle you like, and ignore the ones you don’t like. Like an ideologue.

Here’s a list of famines. You will notice the death toll is sometimes in the millions. I quote from the opening: “Between 108 BC and 1911 AD there were no fewer than 1,828 major famines in China,” So this is like, MAJOR famines that affected ENTIRE regions. Let alone localized famines affecting individual village/tribe units.

And here’s another source confirming what any third grader could guess; that historical man frequently died because of lack of food/water.

So again, the greatest way in which modern diets differ from historical diets is that they didn’t have enough food. They were under intense calorie restraints. So not only should you starve yourself if you take historical diets seriously, you should also pause and realize that what I have been saying ALL ALONG is CALORIE RESTRICTION.

So I’m actually more paleo than you. A guy who eats nothing but twinkies for 1500 calories all day is more paleo than you. Again, you just cherry pick whatever pseudo/fake-evidence tells you what you want to do. Bla bla bla religious zealot.

40

Yes, many people have lived under tyranny where much of the wealth is taxed and they cannot provide for risk and famine. Dr Price found that isolated tribes had TEN TIMES more fat soluble vitamins in their diet. Their diets were nutrient dense.

Sure, peasants in medieval England starved, but that was because they lived under tyranny.

In contrast, isolated people’s who are not taxed a major portion of their output can store plenty of food for most eventualities, but if you have the King’s men coming around stealing from your food stores, then sure, you will starve at times of lack.