Introduction:
Why is it difficult to transition from being a mindless eater (Americanus Gluttonous) to a healthy eater?
1. Because crazy eating has over time become "normal." Of course crazy eating is not normal. It is egregious and when we acclimate to the egregious, we become crazy like the 1,200 pound man on Oprah.
Crazy eating includes dumping buckets of sugar and salt on all food; eating super-sized portions of food more appropriate for a hog or an elephant than human consumption; not chewing, rather inhaling food in the car, while watching TV, while surfing the Internet, etc.
2. Rejecting the "crazy eating" described above will result in ostracism from your peers.
3. Lack of time and fatigue compel you to rely on "fast food" to sate your appetites.
4. It's cheaper to eat a lot of processed food made with corn syrup and fructose. Most processed foods are made with corn in some form or other.
5. Restaurants cater more to Americanus Gluttonous than they do to healthy eaters with few exceptions in Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Seattle, San Francisco, and other tres chic locales.
6. You have negative associations with "health eating," which you associate with eating twigs, bark, rice cakes, pabulum, and other bland food matter so depressing that to contemplate "healthy foods" saps the life out of you.
7. You can't cook and are therefore at the mercy of restaurants or someone who cooks calorie-dense (as opposed to nutrient-dense) foods.
8. You don't know the difference between calorie-dense and nutrient-dense foods. When you don't the difference, you invariably eat the former, not the latter.
9. You don't know how to cook or where to begin to learn about nutrition, not because you cannot, but because you are mired in the abyss and paralysis of learned helplessness.
10. You have no intellectual curiosity in trying new things so you cling desperately to the ways of Americanus Gluttonous. Having no curiosity is a sign of low intelligence, a danger factor for both obesity and divorce.
Part One. Not All Calories Are Alike
1. Jean Mayer said, “Attributing obesity to ‘overeating’ is as meaningful as to account for alcoholism by ascribing it to ‘overdrinking.’” In other words, to examine the causes of obesity, we have to look at more than sheer volume; we have to look at WHAT KIND OF FOODS we eat since some foods are trigger foods, inflaming our appetites, and some foods spike our pancreas and blood sugar levels more than other foods, causing a harmful chain reaction.
2. A starchy (carbohydrates, especially refined ones) diet increases hunger; it puts sugars in the liver and weight-gain. Calories from starches are metabolized differently than calories from fatty animal protein, which create satiety, a sense of fullness.
3. According to Taubes, the 5 foods to avoid are bread or anything else made with flour, cereals, potatoes, foods containing sugar and all sweets. Others talk about the FIVE EVIL WHITE FOODS: SUGAR, FLOUR, POTATOES, RICE, PASTA
4. According to Taubes, the 5 foods you can eat are meats, fish, and birds; all green vegetables; eggs, cheese, and fruit with the exception of bananas and grapes. Of course, Taubes’ findings contradict Nutritionism, which says limit animal fats. Taubes’ finding contradict the Food Guide Pyramid, which puts fats and oils in the “be eaten sparingly” category. Taubes struggled with his own weight until he followed these outlined dietary principles.
5. Some people metabolize carbs better than others. Most of us become hungrier and fatter from a diet that has carbs, especially refined carbs, in it. These carbs are often called “trigger foods.” Pasta, bagels, muffins, garlic bread, etc., can make us hungrier and hungrier, putting us in a feeding frenzy.
6. About six scientists in the 1950s fell in love with the Lipid (Fat) Hypothesis and selectively used their research to support their hypothesis. Other scientists with dubious motivations, followed the hypothesis and a critical mass developed. Michael Pollan makes the same point.
7. The nutritional and medical community hated Dr. Atkins, who rejected the Fat Hypothesis and recommended a low-carb diet. They were threatened by his study, which contradicted their food pyramid.
8. Carbs create an enzyme reaction that spikes insulin and insulin is what puts fat in your tissue. Carbohydrates, not fat, put fat in your tissue.
9. Insulin, which is a hormone, is the primary regulator of fat in the human body and carbs trigger insulin.
10. Nutritionism focused only on cholesterol as a danger and in essence simplified science for mass consumption of information. But lipids, including free fatty acids and triglycerides, are also dangerous and contribute to heart disease. Both cholesterol and triglycerides circulate in particles called lipoproteins. Excessive fat in the blood caused by carbohydrates.
Part Two. Carb Glut in the Western Diet (from Part II of In Defense of Food)
1. Metabolic syndrome from the Western diet is evident in people from the bush who move to the city. They move back to the bush and their health problems go away. Metabolic syndrome includes elevated levels of triglycerides, slowed-down metabolism, diabetes 2, and other risk factors for heart disease.
2. The men ate fish, other meats, yams, figs, and honey and their Metabolic syndrome went away. I'm curious about the yams, figs, and honey since these are "no-no's" according to Taubes.
3. Since two thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, Pollan contends, we might want to look at ways we can identity and reject the Western diet.
4. Study after study shows that populations that don’t eat the Western diet are free of disease, including cancer and heart disease.
5. Weston A. Price found that populations free of the Western diet suffered no tooth decay, among other diseases. There was no single ideal diet. Simply put all the diets WERE NOT Western. They ate no processed foods.
6. One big difference in native populations: Meat eaters healthier than agriculturists, those who ate grain. See page 98. This has a huge anti-vegetarian implications.
7. Grass-fed cows are far more nutritious than corn-fed. Even the butter of grass-fed cow is more nutritious.
8. Pollan makes the point that health is our relationship with nature, not our ingestion of specific nutrients prescribed by nutritionists or the minions of nutritionism. See page 102-103.
9. One of the biggest shifts from the Paleo to the Western diet: Processed foods, especially carbs made from corn and flour: See page 106.
10. Refined carbs lost their original nutrients, but in the 1930s scientists learned how to fortify worthless carbs with vitamins. These fortified vitamins are worthless because they don't get assimilated into the body. See page 109.
11. Another huge shift: The percentage of calories that come from sugars. Pollan links this increased sugar consumption with type 2 diabetes.
12. Agriculture creates monoculture (one strain of broccoli, for example), which reduces diversity of nutrients. See page 116.
13. 75% of the vegetable oils in our diet come from soy.
14. Few foods constitute the calories we eat: 554 calories come from corn; 257 from soy; 768 from wheat; 91 from rice. Not a lot of room in our gut for other foods. These 4 crops account for two thirds of the calories we eat. Our ancestors in contrast ate over 3,000 edible species. See page 117. This lack of food diversity seriously compromises the nutrition of any omnivore and that includes humans.
Part Three. Some Rules to Save Ourselves from the Western Diet
Excerpt from Michael Pollan's Book Food Rules in Huffington Post
Using Parallel Structure for Mapping Components of Your Thesis Statement
Faulty and Corrected Parallelism Link
Parallelism in Different Parts of Speech
The theater eaters were hoggish, avaricious, relentless, and made lots of disgusting smacking sounds.
A diet that consists of locally grown vegetables, organic animal proteins, organic dairy, and fish that swim wildly in the open seas promotes strong health.
The diners at HomeTown Buffet smacked their lips and were sweating.
The HomeTown Buffet diners were pleased about the unlimited salad bar and that everyone got five extra slices of chocolate cake.
Corrected: The HomeTown Buffet diners were pleased that they had access to the unlimited salad bar and that they could have five extra slices of chocolate cake.
When it comes to losing weight, it's better to change one's lifestyle than dieting in a manic and compulsive panic.
Corrected: When it comes to losing weight, it's better to change one's lifestyle than to rely on manic, compulsive crash dieting.
Apply Parallel Structure to Your Thesis
In
a 1,000 word essay, develop a thesis that critiques nutritionism,
exposing its fallacies and mythologies and revealing the way
nutritionism deludes and cripples the average consumer. Use no fewer
than 2 sources.
Sample Thesis with Parallel Structure Errors
Nutritionism is a pretentious business fraud comprised of the promoting nutrients and chemicals over whole foods; promoting the false gospel of the low-fat diet; promoting nutritionism as a science when in reality it is a pseudo-science and an ideology based on false assumptions; promoting nutritionism with specialized, scientific-sounding language that only the Nutritionist Priesthood can understand; and promoting nutritionism as a champion of the people when in reality Nutritionists champion the food industry's interests.
In a 1,000 essay, analyze the causes behind the link between poverty and obesity. Use In Defense of Food and at least 2 other sources. Be sure to have a thesis that maps out the causes of obesity for poor people.
Southern culture predicated on fried foods
"Fill an empty stomach" mentality
affordable calories are processed foods, not real foods
"feeling poor," which is depression, makes you fat
Depression affects fat hormones
Fatness gives brain fat signals, which creates a vicious cycle
Poor have no nutrition education
Poor have little or no access to fitness centers
Poor live in a obesogenic environment
Fat discrimination leads to learned helplessness (giving up and depression, leading to more obesity and thus a vicious cycle ensues)
What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
Video Selection from the Diet Wars
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