*Extremely* interesting article, thank you for sharing. Lengthy read (there's a "show on one page" link) but was well worth my time. It connected a lot of nutritional dots.

I've always found it interesting that the food pyramid is published by the US Dept of Agriculture, not the FDA as one would think. Seems like an obvious conflict of interest.
Has anyone considered moderation? The hard part is defining moderation.

Thanks again for the link.

Counter article, also interesting.
reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake/5

Hmmm, I know this is an old thread, and I know there are many points of view, but I had to throw in my $.02 on this.

I lived and worked in NW China for 4 years. Although the staple in northern China is usually wheat in the form of noodles, rice is very common as well.

Yes, rice is served in smaller bowls. However, I measured once, and my "small" rice bowl held 1.5-2 cups of cooked white rice. It is very common for people to get seconds of rice at restaurants, and to do this for both lunch and dinner. Let's say, on the low side, that's 4 cups of cooked rice a day, coming out to almost 1000 calories of day of rice.

Servings of wheat noodles are similarly large.

I realize my comments are anecdotal, but I ate in restaurants all the time, as well as a guest in Chinese family homes. The carb consumption was huge.

Now, I'm with you on the activity level also being high. No elevators (student dorms went up to 10 stories); walking to the market every day; hauling drinkable water from the local water house (I didn't have to do this, but students did); mandatory PE in college . . . yes, people were more active. But a 1000 cals of rie a day more active?

Also, veggies were the most common accompaniment to rice, but the most common veggie? Potato - this is true where I was, I obviously can't speak for other regions, especially southern China.

I pondered weight loss a lot in China. I was close to my HW while there, and I wondered endlessly why I could eat such a similar diet, with a similar activity level, as my Chinese friends, and still be SOOOO much heavier than they were. Of course, looking back, I see all kinds of places where I was "hiding" extra calories. But I still don't think I could do all that rice!

A BBC TV show called "Horizon: Why are Thin People Not Fat?" did some very interesting studies. They stated that there is far too much research in obesity concentrating on the people who are obese or have been obese, but very, very little has been done on those people who are NOT obese, except as part of a control group. Few people have rounded up a group of thin subjects to see why they are thin.

Horizon studied a small group, so by no means conclusive research or anything, but they were logging their activity and diets very carefully. Most of the people had to withdraw from the program because they were physically unable to consume the required number of calories to take part in the weight gain experiment. One participant (an Asian male) actually gained muscle when he ate excess calories, and there's no evidence he worked out or did anything that would normally lead to muscle gain, just that it appears this is how his body metabolised and stored the excess calories.

The amount of weight gained by each subject was not at all in keeping with how much they ate, it did not follow the 3,500 cals to 1lb rule at all. Every single thin person automatically shed their extra weight after the experiment with no effort.

To maintain your weight you must eat a difference of no more than 7 cals per day, and the mechanism by which the human body does this naturally in some people is a source of fascination, as 7cals is the most tiny, tiny amount, how on earth does a body sum up all the different types of food and pick out a diet that varies by no more than 7 cals on average each day? With so much variety of food that our bodies have not had before no wonder they find it difficult to analyse the foods and assign values to it. Perhaps if you ate nothing but rice each day then not only would you become very bored with it and the desire is minimal but your body knows exactly how rice is ingested, digested, burned and stored, and will regulate your intake of rice to ensure it's appropriate to your physical needs. When you suddenly eat a Pop Tart your body doesn't know what to do with that. Maybe it's not so much what people in many carb-staple countries are eating, it's the sheer repetitive consumption of it?

Very interesting starting points, but unfortunately there is little funding to do obesity research with thin people as the powers that hand out funding don't see how it contributes, they'd rather "get fat people thin" than find out what causes the desire to get fat. And I think that's the underlying problem too, that they concentrate on factors that scientifically and objectively cause obesity - eating too many calories - but do not do much on "why does this person choose to eat too many calories when the next person doesn't" just assuming it's all "willpower". That's nonsense, if I desire a chocolate cake and my friend does NOT desire a chocolate cake then her refusal is not due to better willpower! It is not through willpower that I resist alcohol, illegal drugs, prescription drug addiction, etc. I just don't like them. I'm not better than the alcoholic, I'm not full of a fabulous willpower that he does not possess, I just look at alcohol and think "yuk".

i know for me, part of what learning about the government and how things work encouraged me to become vegan. i learned some of it in skinny B--- sorry if you don't like that book, i know some people don't, and i learned some of it other places.

The FDA has extremely little say in anything when it comes to the health of animals & meat, and yes, the food pyramid people are the agricultural people, it doesn't make much sense. These are the same people who pimp all the meat and milk, buy up the excess, and then give it to the school programs (more good info on school lunches in "supersize me!" the older documentary you can watch online for free). Anyway, my point is, you lose faith in the bureaucracy when you learn more about it. Even if you hate the book, read the "trust no one" chapter in skinny b---- if you find this interesting, also the aspertame documentary online, i think it is called sweet poison.

For example, in the slaughterhouses, the people who run the place have the "approved by the USDA"stamp. They decide, once the inspectors leave, what gets stamped. Crazy.

i also learned a government agency has given Dominoe's pizza 12 MILLION dollars to increase cheese in their pizza and pay for advertising. i am sure you have noticed the new advertising-your tax money at work let me shut up now....

Good stuff!
-fm

Fixing the link

http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake

Very interesting. It appears the author of the original article misquoted a lot of doctors that he interviewed for this article. The doctors were upset, stating later that they did not say what Taubes claimed they said and they did not agree with his findings. Also, Taubes failed to include every study that had contradictory results, so that the article was biased and inaccurate.

I hope everyone that read the original article will read the follow up.

I definitely agree with this 100% and I think it's an interesting line of thought that should be investigated. I'm not an alcoholic because alcohol simply doesn't appeal to me. I can have a drink or two on occasion but I have no need or desire to have any more than that. I'm on a couple of prescription medications that are considered addictive but I take them when I need them and leave them be when I don't. There's no willpower involved - I just don't have any desire or drive to abuse them.

You're right - it's not that I'm any better or stronger than the drug addict or the alcoholic because I can resist the temptation - because for me, there is no temptation at all.

My hubs used to be an addict and I know that if I put a bag of marijuana on our kitchen counter he might be able to stop himself from smoking it but I also know that it would be one of the hardest things for him to do - even though he's been completely sober for over 10 years. It would call to him, tempt him and drive him out of his mind. While I would be able to ignore it completely and never even have a thought of trying it.

However, if that was tub of ice cream on our counter - I would be practically convulsing from the effort it would take me to keep from eating it and my hubs would walk by it without a problem.

Very weird how we're wired.

I'm from an Asian culture -- I'm Chinese.

Rice is a staple in the sense that about 1/3 cup to 1 cup of white rice (depending on the person; women take less) is a 'dinner portion' of rice for every individual in a traditional meal. The rice comes in a bowl that is full to the top with that rice, and you eat it with shared veggies and meats. That doesn't really mean you eat more rice than other things (esp if you are only taking 1/2 a cup).

Rice is a daily staple because it's cheap, filling (it's cooked to be very puffy), and goes well with low-fat vegetable and meat dishes alike. Banquets and other celebratory meals de-emphasize rice/carbs and tend to emphasize complicated/well-spiced meat and vegetable dishes. In all of these cases, slender Asian women still emphasize proper portion control.

I don't think rice being a staple means that people eat tons of carbs... it means they eat less pasta and bread.

I agree. Even with sashimi you have a nice portion of fish on top of each piece of rolled rice, and they're meant to be eaten together.

Personally, I think that portion control is a key factor because in countries like France (where all sorts of tasty, buttery things lurk), Japan, Ethiopia, etc the portions are a lot smaller than what we're used to in the good ole USA. Here, we're conditioned early on that "more is better" so we get used to eating more at one sitting. Going out to a buffet? Better eat your money's worth! Why get the Happy Meal (which IMO has enough food for a basic lunch) when you can Supersize EVERYTHING? And our restaurant portions border on ridiculous; unless you are a lumberjack or an athlete who burns 6000+ calories daily in training who needs those calories you can almost always doggybag half your meal and still have an ample portion for the next day. We also buy more things that are ready-prepared (with all sorts of preservatives and who-knows-what stuffed inside) rather than making things from scratch.

I was wondering about the portion thing as well: people in different cultures being used to different sizes of plates, bowls..., and also perhaps being used from an early age to a different kind of lifestyle as well. I.e. people in Asia eating lots of rice but being pretty active otherwise vs. a Western person adopting such a diet but gaining weight/not losing weight on it, even if "suddenly" becoming more active. Could it be also that unconsciously, we are still not as active -- thinking we are, getting the feeling that we are, but in fact still "saving" on our calories? (Cf. people on the phone: one sitting on her cough to phone, the other pacing through the room while talking. We don't really pay attention to such little gestures, and yet in the long run, maybe they also do influence our bodies' calories expenditure?)

This said, being used to different portions plays a part IMHO. (Which is also why I don't eat at buffets anymore, because I just can't get my money's worth anyway. )