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Why clean eating is a myth


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Anyone seen Fringe season 5?

 

 

They have a nutrient system similar to that.

 

No, I haven't. I should definitely watch this!

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I have a friend who went on paleo-style diet after I told him about Gary Taubes. He doesn't work out but eats a lot of meat and fats, avoiding sugar and bread and all of that. I mean he eats a lot of food. Lost 50 pounds in just about 8 months or so.

 

Just one data point but, I tend to think that clean eating is real. At the very least it helps your body work to its fullest potential.

 

So basically, the Atkins no carbs thingy?

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There's really no such thing as an 'empty calorie'. A calorie is just a calorie. It's a unit of energy. A calorie from Coke is the same energetically as a calorie from a carrot. It's just a calorie.
Are you aware that excessive sugar is toxic to humans?
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Are you aware that excessive sugar is toxic to humans?

 

Excessive anything is toxic to humans. Excessive Vit C is toxic to humans. A can of Coke is FAR from excessive, unless you're diabetic and your body's system for dealing with sugar in the blood is compromised.

 

And by sugar, I'm assuming you mean sucrose? Look, glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, etc etc are all sugars, and therefore all carbohydrates. Our bodies are more than equipped to metabolize 'sugar' (ie insulin hormone). So, you can have sucrose in a piece of candy, and an equal amount of fructose in a piece of a peach. What's the difference? Maybe a few Cs, Os and Hs. Essentially the same macromolecule. I've heard people say fructose is better because it's 'natural'. Ummmm....pretty much everything we put into our bodies, even if boiled up in a lab, is 'natural'. Most everything we consume, whether healthy or crappy garbage like Hostess Cupcakes, are essentially made up of the same few elements. Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen is the vast majority of ALL foods. When you get into proteins/AAs, you start to mix in some nitrogen and phosphate, some sulfates. And then the various salts. That's pretty much it. Molecularly, there's not a whole lot of variation. It's not like if you eat an apple it's made out of natural CHO and a Cheeto is made in a factory out of some toxic manufactured molecule comprised of tungsten, lead and plutonium.

 

The point? Your body can handle it. It's designed to.

Edited by RonaldS
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Like your post Ronald! Although clarification on food sensitivity does exist.

Ask anyone that sits down to one of my cooked meals :rolleyes:

 

Find the foods that sustain and maintain. I personally get a treat out of chocolate and do not have any guilt if its around.

 

Certain nuts (pecans. walnuts), Certain grains and certain meats are out of my diet due to my intestinal....and trust me....its been a venture to be reminded...

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<snip>

 

Even recommended levels of sugar shown to be toxic to mice - CBS News

 

Researchers discovered that when mice consumed a diet that consisted of 25 percent added sugar -- which would be the equivalent to three added cans of soda a day for a healthy human -- females died at twice their normal rates. Male mice were 25 percent less likely to reproduce with sugar added to their diets.
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thefooloftheyear

 

I didnt read the article and dont care to..The reality is that no two individuals metabolize sugar the same way, so really whats the point? What is "toxic" to some might be nothing to someone else...

 

Some people live to 100 smoking 2 packs a day and eating a box of donuts a day..Some people get fat looking at food, some can eat whatever they want..I consume several pounds of lean red meat a week, along with milk, dozens of eggs, etc...My cholesterol level just measured at 130 and the HDL/LDL ratio was ideal..Its immaterial..

 

I eat clean...ALL the time..I feel better, have less bloatedness, less headaches, etc...But I thnk so much about what happens to us with regard to diet and fitness is determined by pure genetics and one has little control over it. That doesnt mean sit on our asses and eat junk food, but to think that all of a sudden we are going to live to 150 and never get sick because we eat clean and exercise is just foolish...

 

Do your best every day and put it all in perspective...Thats all we can do...

 

TFY

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thefooloftheyear
There's nothing to talk about if you haven't read the article.

 

 

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies animal studies as having low evidentiary value," they wrote. "Mice do not eat sugar as a part of their normal diet, so the authors are measuring a contrived overload effect that might not be present had the rodents adapted to sugar intake over time. Numerous scientific studies and reports show that in humans, moderate consumption of caloric sweeteners such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup does not increase risk factors for chronic diseases."

 

 

Oh well....:laugh:

 

TFY

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"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classifies animal studies as having low evidentiary value," they wrote. "Mice do not eat sugar as a part of their normal diet, so the authors are measuring a contrived overload effect that might not be present had the rodents adapted to sugar intake over time. Numerous scientific studies and reports show that in humans, moderate consumption of caloric sweeteners such as sugar and high fructose corn syrup does not increase risk factors for chronic diseases."

 

 

Oh well....:laugh:

 

TFY

 

Wait... Aren't they testing stuff on mice because their metabolism is the closest to us?

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thefooloftheyear
Neither did humans, prior to sugar synthesis.

 

 

So we should go outdoors and eat like Orangutans now?:laugh:

 

My own father lived a sedentary life, no exercise, smoked three packs a day til he wound up on a respirator when he took a bad fall and broke his hip and wound up with a bad case of pneumonia.. He made it to 88.

 

Diet? :laugh:

 

This man ate a full box of Entenmanns donuts a day, drank tons of coffee, ate nothing but pasta and bread. It was rare to see him eat any meat or vegetables. Did it his entire life..Maintained 170 lbs til he was around 75, then lost a few pounds just due to being old and feeble.

 

My brother has a 4 year old that simply will not eat any veggies, salad or most any type of meat based protein foods...He eats nothing but bread and butter, pancakes, waffles, macaroni and cheese, cake and ice cream etc.. Drove my brother and SIL crazy fighting with this kid over what to eat. Despite all of this, the kid doesnt have an ounce of fat on him..The pediatrician flat out told them NOT to worry about it and let him eat what he wants..As long as he is metabolizing it theyll deal with it later when the kid understands the benefits of a balanced diet.

 

Its just not a black and white issue..

 

FY

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Can we just get some science out of the way? Seriously, so many conversations about this stuff are just absent even basic scientific understanding.

 

Sucrose, fructose, glucose, for instance. Glucose is a basic sugar that our bodies derive a lot of energy from. Fructose is the sugar we associate with fruits, so it's 'natural' and 'good'. Sucrose is table sugar, and we think of it as refined and 'bad'.

 

Fine. But sucrose is a disaccharide. Made of two sugars bonded together. Which two sugars? Glucose and fructose. Well, what do you know about that? So two monosaccharides share a carbon and a couple of hydrogenated, and all of a sudden, it's bad for us. Nevermind that it's a naturally occurring sugar.

 

Just tryin to keep some perspective here. The differences in these things are not major. Maybe they are metabolized by some different enzymes, but at the end if the day, when it gets into your body, your body has the equipment to process it.

 

Anytime you get too much of anything into your body....doesn't really matter what it is....your body needs to do extra work to maintain the equilibrium it likes. That's the toxicity factor. Your body is always trying to even everything out. Is a lot of sugar good or bad for you? Depends on how much you use. If you exercise a lot, you deplete the sugars your body runs on. If you eat a lot if sugar, a lot of it can be stored for use. If you aren't depleting your sugar reserves, then your body needs to do extra work to metabolize it and store it, or remove it.

 

The bottom line is, lets try to let go of the simplified, propagandized approach to defining and understanding what these things are.

Edited by RonaldS
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I'm mostly disturbed that there is anyone who recommends eating 25% added sugar in our diet. :sick:
They don't really recommend eating 25% added sugar but state that up to a maximum of 25% is okay which is almost as bad. This too was disturbing:

 

Potts pointed out that the National Research Council recommends that no more than 25 percent of a person's daily calories come from added sugars. Between 13 and 25 percent of Americans' diets are made up of 25 percent added sugar.
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There's really no such thing as an 'empty calorie'. A calorie is just a calorie. It's a unit of energy. A calorie from Coke is the same energetically as a calorie from a carrot. It's just a calorie.

 

Star Gazer raises a good point in talking about glycogen and sodium replacement after rigorous exercise. So, you might think the sugar in Coke is nutritionless and empty, but that isn't the case. When your body depletes glycogens (which are bundles of glucose...a sugar), those stores need to be replenished. Is pounding a Coke the most nutritionally beneficial way to do that? No. But it's not terrible either.

 

All of that 'empty' sucrose is going to be metabolized into glucose, which will subsequently be metabolized through glycolysis and the energy from that rxn facilitates the production of ATP and NADH. Your body runs on ATP, so metabolism of that sucrose in the Coke will ultimately provide your body with energy it needs for...well, ATP is an energy source for pretty much every metabolic activity.

 

The problem people have with Coke and refined sugars and 'unclean' foods is when their caloric intake is higher than their caloric demands. It's a numbers game, and if the numbers work out in your favor, it matters less and less what you eat, as long as you aren't displacing other nutrients that your body needs and malnourishing yourself.

 

To expand on Star Gazer's point re: sugar and sodium....that's te entire concept behind Gatorade. It's a way to quickly replenish sugars that your body is breaking down during rigorous exercise. And the sodium is essential to, even though we're taught (very erroneously) that sodium is bad. Good luck contracting a muscle w/o sodium. Or even living, for that matter.

That's a 19th century view of nutrition. Now we know that eating is not a thermodynamic process, that different macronutrients are metabolized differently and that eating triggers a complex hormonal response that we are only beginning to understand.
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That's a 19th century view of nutrition. Now we know that eating is not a thermodynamic process, that different macronutrients are metabolized differently and that eating triggers a complex hormonal response that we are only beginning to understand.

 

Not sure where you're getting the 19th century stuff from. For instance, ATP being viewed as our primary energy source was first proposed a little over 60 years ago.

 

Of course it's a complex metabolic process. Where did I state otherwise? I alluded to Na+ as being a requirement for muscle contraction. Why? Because of its critical role in the depolarization of the muscle cell....you know, the whole action potential, acetylcholine release, Ca+ gates opening and release of Na+, cell depolarization, the muscle contacts, etc...and how things like GABA initiate the release of anti-excitory hormones which allow the muscle cell to relax, and so on and so forth.

 

None of that is 19th century. That is all current. How our bodies use sugars, that current, too. You state it's a hormonal process. Yeah, didn't I mention insulin?

 

In other words, I'm not sure where you're getting the notion that the information I posted is antiquated. It's all very current.

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So did and do mice.

 

What I mean is, fruits and (some) veggies have sugar in them. :)

 

P.S. I just had another small Coke post long-run. Holy cow, I needed it.

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thefooloftheyear

I gotta laugh at some of this....

 

Think about all of the big, strong, PRO athletes. Many of these people grew up impoverished, either malnourished or growing up on the worst possible diet you can draw up.. Even despite all of this, they grow up to be super athletes who can outperform all the other people who have scientifically designed diet and workout regimens in their sleep.

 

Does this mean eat Cheetos and Pepsi? Of course not, but lets put it all into perspective..

 

TFY

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^ Agreed.

 

Gene expression is also worth reading about if you're interested in this sort of stuff. The results of some of the studies are quite intriguing.

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