How the Food Industry Manipulates Nutrition Science: Five Questions for Marion Nestle

[Arpeggio]

11 minutes ago, localhero1983 said:

The majority of people in the western world just cannot see that there is a big difference between having a long healthy life and a long shorter life, the majority are doing the latter these days, drug assisted, ill and unhappy 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8492918.stm

"Dr Chandra told me they tested people (Elderly Indians who rarely get Alzhimers) to see whether fewer of them carried the APO4E gene, which predisposes people to Alzheimer's disease. They did not. When compared to people living in a community in Pennsylvania, US, they found almost exactly the same proportion carried the gene"

http://reset.me/story/how-to-harness-nature-to-prevent-and-manage-alzheimers-disease/

"Yet the populations with the highest incidence of ApoE4 are in Africa, and Nigeria has one of the lowest prevalence rates of Alzheimer’s disease in its elderly population in the world."

That said, APOE4 is merely a negative factor in metabolizing certain foods that alleviate neuro-fibrillary tangles in the brain (the most recent theory for Dementia). A former theory for Dementia was plaque buildup in the brain, although autopsies have found as much plaque in those who did not have dementia.

[Dorkins]

6 hours ago, Arpeggio said:

 

The original black box warning was the result of there being so many adverse affects in the real world that enough got through, therefore overcoming the fact that adverse affects are, and always have been va$tly underreported

The link you gave is based on trials by drug companies. Even if you don't think drug companies are corrupt and so is the FDA, and are therefore neutral, you should question the fact that the drug trials that are supposedly there to give scientific credibility yet are done by none other than the companies that stand to make a lot of money out of selling them. quote from your link: "Based on an FDA review of a large clinical trial that FDA required the drug companies to conduct"

Yes the FDA removed the black box warning, completely meaningless. The FDA are corrupt corrupt corrupt corrupt corrupt

 

Not sure why you're so worked up about the FDA, they have no jurisdiction in the UK. I think you've poisoned your brain reading too many American conspiraloon websites.

[Arpeggio]

19 hours ago, Dorkins said:

Not sure why you're so worked up about the FDA, they have no jurisdiction in the UK. I think you've poisoned your brain reading too many American conspiraloon websites.

So nothing to ad then apart from borderline ad-hominem?  

Half the links I gave where not sites that could be argued as such. e.g. Harvard and ncbi.gov

This thread is about the food industry and FDA stands for FOOD and Drug administration. Are you the judge on what people can post on here? No you are not. To you, my mentioning the FDA is irrelevant to the perceived relevance you think it should have, probably because you don’t like / disagree with my views, and are therefore biased. To others from a neutral perspective it might be interesting and not necessary to be a U.K. organisation to be interesting.

That said, Pharmaceutical companies are international and many drugs in the US are available in the U.K. too (such as zyban) and often under different names. Much of what happens in US pharmaceuticals is reflected in the U.K. As far as the U.K. I have already mentioned that the MHRA are 100% funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

If all you’ve got is “poisoning brains and conspiraloon websites” please don’t waste my time. I sincerely hope your reply is a bit better than that.

[Sledgehead]

On 03/12/2018 at 19:13, highYield said:

Tomatoes have considerable anti-oxidant properties. Over heating/cooking them destroys anti-oxidants. ..

Which is why many people favour dehydrators, that gently dehumidify nutrition rich foods, 'naturally' preserving them by removing the water that eventually makes them mouldy - without killing the anti oxidants, as they are dehydrated at low enough temperatures.

But there is no science in the assertion that dietary anti-oxidants do you any good whatsoever, in fact what evidence exists suggests the complete opposite.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sledgehead

[Guest]

Just now, Sledgehead said:

But there is no science in the assertion that dietary anti-oxidants do you any good whatsoever, in fact what evidence exists suggest the complete opposite.

Please share. I'd love to consume a mostly pizza & burger based diet in the knowledge that fruit & veg anti oxidants are bad for you.

[Sledgehead]

56 minutes ago, highYield said:

Please share. I'd love to consume a mostly pizza & burger based diet in the knowledge that fruit & veg anti oxidants are bad for you.

Quote

Antioxidants have been touted as the answer to everything from heart disease to erectile dysfunction. But in fact, antioxidant supplements have been studied for almost 20 years and the results have been overwhelmingly poor, ranging from having no effect to significantly increasing the risk of death. - https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health-advisor/why-antioxidants-arent-as-healthy-as-you-think/article34470929/

But IMHO this does not mean you can eat pizza and burgers with no ill effect.

My suspicion is that foods high in anti-oxidants, as you point out, are raw and unprocessed, and as such contain large amounts of water and fiber. It is this bulking effect, I suspect, that keeps those eating a "healthy" diet fit, because it limits both the total calories and the meal glycemic load, stemming the onset of obesity and diabetes. But that is just must suspicion as to why those on "anti-oxidant" diets are also healthy.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Sledgehead said:

But IMHO this does not mean you can eat pizza and burgers with no ill effect.

My suspicion is that foods high in anti-oxidants, as you point out, are raw and unprocessed, and as such contain large amounts of water and fiber. It is this bulking effect, I suspect, that keeps those eating a "healthy" diet fit, because it limits both the total calories and the meal glycemic load, stemming the onset of obesity and diabetes. But that is just must suspicion as to why those on "anti-oxidant" diets are also healthy.

Supplements. The products of drug companies, rather than organic farmers.

Totally different to anti-oxidant rich natural foods, no?

[Sledgehead]

1 hour ago, highYield said:

Supplements. The products of drug companies, rather than organic farmers.

Totally different to anti-oxidant rich natural foods, no?

No. That was just the first article I came upon.

The sad fact is a tiny, tiny proportion of the antioxidants you consume actually make it into your blood stream (~2%) and once there, the body does its usual homeostasis trick: it starts to reduce the blood serum levels either by decreasing production of its own antioxiants, or steps up removal of the "foreign" antioxidants you injested. And worse still, this supression of antioxidants means that serum antioxidant levels are SUPRESSED below normal levels for 24 to 48 hours.

But never mind, there is actually evidence to show that the free radicals running riot during this supression of antioxidants ain't so bad for you after all:

Free radicals may actually be good for us

Just to give you an idea of how much the tide has turned wrt this antioxidants good / free radicals bad story, you might consider what those at the cutting edge of food nutrition are doing. Take the UK Olympic team. They used to take antioxiants to combat the effects of so called "oxidative stress", post training. That proceedure has now been dropped.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sledgehead

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Sledgehead said:

No. That was just the first article I came upon.

The sad fact is a tiny, tiny proportion of the antioxidants you consume actually make it into your blood stream (~2%) and once there, the body does its usual homeostasis trick: it starts to reduce the blood serum levels either by decreasing production of its own antioxiants, or steps up removal of the "foreign" antioxidants you injested. And worse still, this supression of antioxidants means that serum antioxidant levels are SUPRESSED below normal levels for 24 to 48 hours.

But never mind, there is actually evidence to show that the free radicals running riot during this supression of antioxidants ain't so bad for you after all:

Free radicals may actually be good for us

Isn't 'supplements' a nice, cuddly, marketing word for the drug companies' products? Their marketing teams must have worked long and hard for that one. It's clever, as it implies that the drug companies' products 'supplement' deficiencies in the diets of the nutritionally challenged that eat fruit & veg, and consume no pharma company pills.

I clicked on your link then scrolled down the the bottom to see whether the BBC article was based on real science, or just a drug company PR release. It linked to this article: https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(14)00359-6 - which I haven't read yet, but will.

Still believe that a balanced diet, including lots of fruit and veg, is better than eating burgers & pizzas, whilst occasionally popping drug company 'supplement' pills.

Perhaps the article will change my opinion. I'll reply and update when I've read it.

[Sledgehead]

1 hour ago, highYield said:

 

Still believe that a balanced diet, including lots of fruit and veg, is better than eating burgers & pizzas, whilst occasionally popping drug company 'supplement' pills.

 

I haven't said anything to contradict this. All I have said is that antioxidants are probably not the key here. If you take a supplement it might well give you antioxidants, but it still leaves you with cravings. That imho is the issue.

I repeat, there is no evidence to show antioxiants help in the way people think they do. The whole story is the same specious material Kellogs put our about cereals.

Cereals are now known to produce huge spikes in serum glucose. Only whole grains allow us to avoid this. People start banging on about the antioxidants in the bran being good for you, but maybe it has more to do with the bulking effect and slowed glucose release that comes with eating whole grains.

The fact is the money to research antioxidants is in elite sport. And what is the research showing?

Antioxidants Did Not Prevent Muscle Damage in Response to an Ultramarathon Run

You are rightly cynical about the term "supplement", but who do you suppose popularized the term "antioxidant" or "free radical" in nutrition circles? It wasn't researchers, that's for sure!

And now we have a new food industry buzzword: "protein".

We are now swamped with products sold on the "high protein" ticket. But imho, it's not the presence of protein that is so good for you, but rather the satiety it produces, coupled with the fact that the body uses 20 to 30% of the available calories in protein simply metabolizing it. In other words it puts you off food (like cake) and helps you keep your weight down: obesity and diabetes countered in one go.

But ironically the food industry touts high protein products as giving you energy. Quite the opposite really.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sledgehead

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Sledgehead said:

I haven't said anything to contradict this. All I have said is that antioxidants are probably not the key here. If you take a supplement it might well give you antioxidants, but it still leaves you with cravings. That imho is the issue.

I repeat, there is no evidence to show antioxiants help in the way people think they do. The whole story is the same specious material Kellogs put our about cereals.

Cereals are now known to produce huge spikes in serum glucose. Only whole grains allow us to avoid this. People start banging on about the antioxidants in the bran being good for you, but maybe it has more to do with the bulking effect and slowed glucose release that comes with eating whole grains.

The fact is the money to research antioxidants is in elite sport. And what is the research showing?

Antioxidants Did Not Prevent Muscle Damage in Response to an Ultramarathon Run

You are rightly cynical about the term "supplement", but who do you suppose popularized the term "antioxidant" or "free radical" in nutrition circles? It wasn't researchers, that's for sure!

And now we have a new food industry buzzword: "protein".

We are now swamped with products sold on the "high protein" ticket. But imho, it's not the presence of protein that is so good for you, but rather the satiety it produces, coupled with the fact that the body uses 20 to 30% of the available calories in protein simply metabolizing it. In other words it puts you off food (like cake) and helps you keep your weight down: obesity and diabetes countered in one go.

But ironically the food industry touts high protein products as giving you energy. Quite the opposite really.

Think we're proably talking at cross purposes here.

Didn't mention supplements or cereals. Not interested. All I said was that dehydrators are great for preserving nutrition rich fruit & veg.

Went to a commercial market yesterday, in what is probably the most expensive country on the continent in terms of living costs (apart from maybe Monaco). Bought these apples & pears (slightly out of date, hence at a 50% reduction, for about £12 - for 10kg of fruit):

See the missing few pears on the LHS? They're in my 4 tray Excalibur, and will be dried by tomorrow afternoon, ready for the next batch. Wish I'd bought an 8 tray Excalibur sometimes:

 

[Guest]

Fekkiing dodgy HPC forum software. Why couldn't they have chosen a more capable 3rd party software solution - it's not as if they have to write it, but just to use it.

Will try and post 2nd photo (already reduced so as both are under the total 1MB limit) - but sucky AJAX.

edit: does this manage to get around HPC's crappy chosen software solution?

2nd edit: Yes!

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by Guest

[Sledgehead]

4 hours ago, highYield said:

Supplements. The products of drug companies, rather than organic farmers.

Totally different to anti-oxidant rich natural foods, no?

 

3 hours ago, highYield said:

Isn't 'supplements' a nice, cuddly, marketing word for the drug companies' products? Their marketing teams must have worked long and hard ...

 

 

3 hours ago, highYield said:

Think we're proably talking at cross purposes here.

Didn't mention supplements ...

 

 

Forgive me fo rpointing out you did, and rather a lot!?

My point about supplements is that they represent concentrated antioxidants. As such they lack water and fiber, both key in bulking out food and adding to satiety.

My worry is you are concentrating only on antioxidants, so much so that you process food in a particular way: dehydration. But wahat I am positing is the position that bulk, and hence water, in fresh food may be the real hero .. and seeing as dehydration removes this, you may be half way to making good food bad for you.

My feeling is that any kind of flavour intensification, be it boiling or dehydration, can lead to over consumption of non-resitant starches and sugars.

 

 

 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Sledgehead said:

Forgive me fo rpointing out you did, and rather a lot!?

My point about supplements is that they represent concentrated antioxidants. As such they lack water and fiber, both key in bulking out food and adding to satiety.

My worry is you are concentrating only on antioxidants, so much so that you process food in a particular way: dehydration. But wahat I am positing is the position that bulk, and hence water, in fresh food may be the real hero .. and seeing as dehydration removes this, you may be half way to making good food bad for you.

My feeling is that any kind of flavour intensification, be it boiling or dehydration, can lead to over consumption of non-resitant starches and sugars.

I'm not advocating drug company sourced 'supplement' pills.

I'm advocating dehydrated fruits as a means to time shift seasonal produce.

[Sledgehead]

59 minutes ago, highYield said:

I'm not advocating drug company sourced 'supplement' pills.

I'm advocating dehydrated fruits as a means to time shift seasonal produce.

I know you are not advocating supplements. Anyone could infer that from what I have said.

You have however suggested that dehydration is better than using heat to preserve .... what? ... well, as you say, antioxidants. And that is what I have consistently made my posts here, a nutrition thread, about.

The fact is however, antioxidants may well be a red herring, and eating seasonal products out of season amy never provide the benefits you hope for, other than, perhaps, through freezing.

Dehydration, after all, is hardly new. People have used currants, raisins, sultanas, prunes, dates and dried apricots and figs forever. But are these good for you, or just a way of stemming off starvation when Tescos wasn't down the road?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Sledgehead said:

I know you are not advocating supplements. Anyone could infer that from what I have said.

You have however suggested that dehydration is better than using heat to preserve .... what? ... well, as you say, antioxidants. And that is what I have consistently made my posts here, a nutrition thread, about.

The fact is however, antioxidants may well be a red herring, and eating seasonal products out of season amy never provide the benefits you hope for, other than, perhaps, through freezing.

Dehydration, after all, is hardly new. People have used currants, raisins, sultanas, prunes, dates and dried apricots and figs forever. But are these good for you, or just a way of stemming off starvation when Tescos wasn't down the road?

Is it possible that the dehydration means of preserving fruits is 'hardly new' because it has worked excellently for a long time?

If you have a better means of preserving the nutritional components of seasonal foods, then I'm all ears.

Please suggest a better way of doing it, and I'll try it.

[Sledgehead]

3 hours ago, highYield said:

Is it possible that the dehydration means of preserving fruits is 'hardly new' because it has worked excellently for a long time?

If you have a better means of preserving the nutritional components of seasonal foods, then I'm all ears.

Please suggest a better way of doing it, and I'll try it.

Well, first of all, why bother? We can, as a modern economy, afford to source fresh food from around the world all year long.

Secondly, freezing does a much better job at preserving so-called nutritional value.

Thirdly, many antioxidants are severely degraded by enzymes within the food itself. What is not appreciated is that these enzymes break down at higher temperatures. This means that an antioxidant such as vitamin C is better preserved by quickly boiling , than by allowing the fruit to dry over a longer period. So, a commonly available dried fruit, such as apricots provides only 1mg of vit c per 100g of dried apricots, a mere 1/10th of that provided by the raw fruit. Canning on the other hand preserves a full 1/2 of the vit c. This preservation of vit c by destruction of natural fruit enzymes with heat is the reason why we 'blanch' fruit and veg before freezing.

As for dehydration working "excellently", well, it does, forcalories in general and sugars in particular. But are we really short of those in modern society?

Rather, I believe to that many of the techniques we used to use to help us through lean times have produced foods so addictive (because of sugar concentration necessary to preserve the foods), they have, in times of plenty, led to our modern woes of obesity and diabetes.

Returning to the apricots (tho your dried apples would produce similar results), 100g of fresh apricots have a glycemic load of 4 (apples 3). That means, taken alone, you could eat 2.5kg of raw apricots a day w/o damaging your insulin response in the long term. 100g of dry apricotson the other hand have a glycemic load of 30. That means you could only eat 1/3rd kg a day before you started to damage your insulin response (over the long term). That's about 50 small dried apricots. That might sound like a lot, but remember, I'm talking about those 50 being all the food you'd eat in a day: that would only amount to 42% of your RDA calories. ie, you'd feel seriously starved. And because they are so sugary, and offer little satiety, you better believe you'd eat at least double this amount. How good would that be for you? Well, it kinda depends on how you feel about peripheral neuropathy, peripheral ischemia, daibetic ulcers, amputations, retinopathy etc, etc. Now consider how much raw apricot you could get down. Even with the inevitable fructose-apetite promotion, I think you'd struggle to eat the 2.5kg.

Simply put, dried fruit is not the diabetics friend, because it encourages you to over-do carb intake. That what I meant above when I talked about making good food bad by dehydration.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Sledgehead

[Guest]

16 hours ago, Sledgehead said:

Well, first of all, why bother? We can, as a modern economy, afford to source fresh food from around the world all year long.

Secondly, freezing does a much better job at preserving so-called nutritional value.

Thirdly, many antioxidants are severely degraded by enzymes within the food itself. What is not appreciated is that these enzymes break down at higher temperatures. This means that an antioxidant such as vitamin C is better preserved by quickly boiling , than by allowing the fruit to dry over a longer period. So, a commonly available dried fruit, such as apricots provides only 1mg of vit c per 100g of dried apricots, a mere 1/10th of that provided by the raw fruit. Canning on the other hand preserves a full 1/2 of the vit c. This preservation of vit c by destruction of natural fruit enzymes with heat is the reason why we 'blanch' fruit and veg before freezing.

As for dehydration working "excellently", well, it does, forcalories in general and sugars in particular. But are we really short of those in modern society?

Rather, I believe to that many of the techniques we used to use to help us through lean times have produced foods so addictive (because of sugar concentration necessary to preserve the foods), they have, in times of plenty, led to our modern woes of obesity and diabetes.

Returning to the apricots (tho your dried apples would produce similar results), 100g of fresh apricots have a glycemic load of 4 (apples 3). That means, taken alone, you could eat 2.5kg of raw apricots a day w/o damaging your insulin response in the long term. 100g of dry apricotson the other hand have a glycemic load of 30. That means you could only eat 1/3rd kg a day before you started to damage your insulin response (over the long term). That's about 50 small dried apricots. That might sound like a lot, but remember, I'm talking about those 50 being all the food you'd eat in a day: that would only amount to 42% of your RDA calories. ie, you'd feel seriously starved. And because they are so sugary, and offer little satiety, you better believe you'd eat at least double this amount. How good would that be for you? Well, it kinda depends on how you feel about peripheral neuropathy, peripheral ischemia, daibetic ulcers, amputations, retinopathy etc, etc. Now consider how much raw apricot you could get down. Even with the inevitable fructose-apetite promotion, I think you'd struggle to eat the 2.5kg.

Simply put, dried fruit is not the diabetics friend, because it encourages you to over-do carb intake. That what I meant above when I talked about making good food bad by dehydration.

Thank you for taking the time to explain. I need to do some more research - It's difficult to accept the possibility that something I've done a lot of reseach on already might have led me up the wrong path, but you've given me a lot to think about.

[Sledgehead]

7 hours ago, highYield said:

Thank you for taking the time to explain. I need to do some more research - It's difficult to accept the possibility that something I've done a lot of reseach on already might have led me up the wrong path, but you've given me a lot to think about.

Thank you for such a courteous reply. I am no wiser about nutition than you, and you probably have the advantage of a more open mind - certainly more open than you credit yourself with. I'd be really interested to hear how you view these issues once you've conducted the research you intend to do.

For myself, I have also had to change my view about nutrition since my Dad developed type 2 diabetes. Actually, the impetus was a little more dramatic than that: he suffered a heart attack. The surgeons gave him a 10% chance of surviving the op, and his cardiologist told me that, throughout his career, he had never seen anyone ever leave hospital after such a heart attack.

Cardiovascular issues and diabetes are strongly linked, and although his diabetes is borderline, his heart attack had me furiously researching current thinking on diet (and it is of course pretty muddled). It was during these searches that I formed some inklings of how a man with two allotments, boundless energy, no vices and a low fat diet of fresh fruit and veg came so close to death. I had until that point seen bread, potatoes and pasta as pretty harmless. Accepting that was wrong was one thing. It took me a good while longer to accept that the only real way to fill the carb-calorie hole made by reducing these "staples" was to allow more fat into one's diet (cos protein alone just kills the appetite).

Of course, all these things aren't well understood because the body is such a complex thing, so maybe again I have misinterpreted the available data. The important thing is to keep an open mind as you do.

And in that vein, I'd like to thank you for bringing dehydration to the front of my mind. Low gylcemic index snacks are a big problem for diabetes, esp for those who can't handle a lot of nuts and pulses (IBS types). It strikes me that a dehydrator might be a great way to make one's own jerky - a great low gi snack. So cheers, and  keep me abreast of your searches.

 

Edited December 6, 2018 by Sledgehead