Comment by LordHumungous
9 years ago
On the other hand, I think the low carb/keto people have taken the pendulum too far in the other direction. A lot of research seems to suggest that a plant based diet heavy on whole fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts is healthier than one consisting of animal fats and protein. It makes sense when you look at the diets of the healthiest people on Earth. Just because excess processed sugar is bad for you doe not mean all carbs are unhealthy.
Low carb and keto is consistent with a vergatable, plant and especially nut diet.
> Whole fruits
What are whole fruits and why do you feel fruits of any kind are healthy? The levels of sugars in them are unnatural - neither oranges nor apples have historically been as sweet as they are now.
There's a world of difference between something fresh off a plant and something ... not fresh out of a (chemical processing) plant, as most processed foods are.
Yes, ag breeding has created foods which are far removed from their ancestors. But get this: effectively none of the foods eaten by humans today existed in anything resembling their current form as little as 10,000 years ago.
Wheat ... was a wild grass occurring in the Mesopotamian valley. Corn was ... teosinte, a small, hard-kerneled Central American plant. Rice was a wild marsh grass found in the Yangtse river valley. Cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, horses (probably initially hunted for meat, only later exploited for draught), were bred from ancestors only distantly similar to today's major breeds. Apples were wild fruit tree from Turkey which didn't breed true. Etc., etc.
There's an online "tree of life" showing the evolutionary history of plants and animals, and what was shocking to me was the recency of most of humans' major ag and animal foods -- they're literally younger than our species, by far.
That's not to take away entirely from your point. But humans have been relying for much the past few thousand years, and certainly centuries, on foods far removed from their origins.
Well I don't agree that modern fruit is "unnaturally" sweet. If anything, the fruits you get in supermarkets today are watery and bland compared to locally grown stuff. Compare a strawberry bought at a farmer's market to one you buy at a grocery store, for instance.
Obviously it's possible to overdo anything, but fruit gives you a whole assortment of fiber and nutrients that you don't get from processed sugar. In moderation it's extremely healthy.
>What are whole fruits and why do you feel fruits of any kind are healthy? The levels of sugars in them are unnatural.
I am slightly skeptical. Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% on the no added sugar train. But I regularly go and pick wild blackberries from a thicket that has been there for about 100 years and they are like pure sugar. Easily sweeter than any storebought berry.
Whole fruits are pieces of fruit from a tree, that you bit into, as opposed to fruits that have been chemically mechanically/processed to extract some molecules (sugar) and discard others (especially the pulp/fiber)
Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.
> Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.
Aren't you conflating "natural" with safe/nutritious/good for you? Or am I misreading your comment. (It seems to strongly indicate you believe that "unnatural" things are bad for you.)
> Modern meat is also unnnatural, engineered by the agriculture industry.
Doesn't matter, because we digest and absorb plant matter only extremely inefficiently compared to all true herbivores and animal omnivores --- no matter how much more palatable we engineered/bred those plants to be; and we digest meat nearly as efficiently as any of the truest carnivores in the wild --- again, no matter how far removed by now our agricultural breeds are from their original ancestor stoneage species.
A diet of animal parts (i.e. ALL of the animal, not just muscle) and leafy, non-starchy plants, is perfectly keto-compliant. Who says that a low-carb diet excludes plants?
I'm pretty sure that's why low carb/keto diets work: they force you to avoid most processed junk food. However I don't think it has to do with carbs. I'm pretty sure you could get the same results eating potatoes, corn, beans, rice, etc.
4 years ago I did a strict no-carb diet for about a year and lost 40 lbs. Then I started eating only starches I had cooked myself - potatoes, rice, beans, some pasta, etc. I gained it all back. I'm doing it again now and have lost 35 of my original 40, but I have no intention of re-introducing starches into my diet afterwards. Aside from the weight control benefits, keeping starches out of my diet makes me feel so much healthier, it's insane. I eat lots of green vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs and a small amount of full-fat dairy. Cured or salted meat doesn't seem to be any worse than fresh meat, but most of what I eat is just plain fresh grilled steak or chicken.
I'm pretty sure you can't. Potatoes, corn, and rice don't make you feel full and satisfied for long, and the surprisingly high rates of diabetes and obesity in low-income agricultural communities suggests that their high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets aren't exactly the healthiest.