Ultra-processed foods are the hottest subject in nutrition. Is it too much to ask the journalists writing about them (and the researchers studying them) to think critically?
I have no problem with the length of your articles, despite Mark Twain apologizing for a long letter, saying he did not have time to write a shorter one. But I understand the need for brevity. I am retired. I sat down in my recliner and read this slowly, absorbing as my capabilities allow, feeling sated after. I wondered why researchers go to such lengths to go around some points that must be addressed if they are being honest: Why were obesity and diabetes not problems before they became problems? The answer surely lies in the diets then and now. What is different? When I was in high school, my medium-sized home town had but one pizzeria and no McDonalds, though a few burger joints were around. Our choices were limited and most cooking was done at home. Those meals in my house were always meat (except Friday), a vegetable, milk and often enough potato. Dessert was for weekends. Soda pop was limited to two bottles weekly. Nowadays I avoid sodas and anything potato, the only difference. I am trim and not ill in any way, knock on wood.
Hi Mark, Thanks. The answer may be the difference in the diets then and now, but it could also be in the difference in the generations prior, when a process called fetal programming (which I discuss in The Case Against Sugar) would have led to ever greater obesity and diabetes rates. The mothers' diet and metabolic health when pregnant programs, in effect, the children's metabolic health as they age. So a change of diet in the post-WW2 era could explain the explosion in obesity rates one or two generations earlier.
One of the issues I had with the NYer article but (thankfully) left out was his suggestion that the diet could influence health via effects on microbiome, which is the fashionable thinking, while not mentioning this fetal programming scenario, which is much better documented.
By the way, speaking of nightly vegetables, Mom felt a need to give us variety rather than peas and then green beans and then corn ... to this day I cannot eat Lima beans. But she tried everything at least once.
I enjoy the long articles, and I fear that shortening them by much would leave a lot of important information out. They are long, but energy dense. :-)
Thanks, John, and nice pun. One of my readers suggested a simple solution in the future, which is cut these articles into two (or more) parts, and post separately. That's the easiest fix and I might opt for it. Another academic friend suggested a box up top with the major points in the article to help folks follow, and I might try that as well.
I appreciate the thinking on a very nuanced issue! Crucial questions.
But I did struggle to follow the arguments in this article. Seems like the points of view could've been laid out simpler. Might be that I'm new to these topics.
Just some (hopefully) constructive feedback. I will keep reading!
I agree. It’s like he started in the middle of things, expecting us to know all the players and their viewpoints beforehand. I felt like I was reading a CJ Cherryh novel.
Thanks, Pete. Good point. I have different audiences here, from the folks who have read all or some of my books and then followed the progress in the years after to folks who are new to these issues. I'm also writing what interests me, which means I'm going to be erring on the side of the kind of expectations you discuss. Still, your critique is a good one and I'll keep it in mind. (Although I don't know CJ Cherry, and now you've made me think it might not be worth it.)
As it happens, I have read a couple of your books -- Good Calories, Bad Calories, and The Case Against Sugar. My own health/fitness weight loss journey probably proceeded along lines you'd generally approve of -- I cut sugar almost completely (except for rare treats), and I eat meat, fish, and vegetables that actually look like plants. I am not religious in my opposition to potatoes and pasta, but they are two to three times a month items, not every night items. That, together with an intense strength training program augmented by some cardio has produced good results for me.
I am inclined to agree with most of what you say. I just could have used a summary of who Hall is and what position he's staked out, before going on to the rest of the discussion.
CJ Cherryh is a science fiction/fantasy writer, and a very acclaimed one, winning multiple Hugo Awards back when that award actually meant something. Whenever I hear other science fiction fans discussing her work, it seems fascinating and exactly like something I'd love. Unfortunately, I often find that I'm halfway through one of her books, and I realize that I have no clue what is going on. I realized later this was intentional -- she writes with a very tight perspective on the viewpoint character, so we as readers know only what the viewpoint character sees or hears or feels, and the only thoughts we are privy to are those of the viewpoint character. Since her main characters are often put in very difficult and confusing situations, it is not surprising that I was confused. Her protagonists are equally confused, as well as being terrified most of the time. If you are a science fiction fan, she's worth trying, but if inhabiting alien worlds is new to you, she's probably not the most approachable way to start. Her pen name is spelled "Cherryh" with an "h," but her real name is Cherry -- one of her first editors said it sounded like a romance writer, which she very definitely is not. Also, she used "CJ" rather than "Carolyn" because in the 70s when she started, most science fiction writers were male, and she was worried that guys might not buy her books if they knew she was a girl. For as long as I've been an SF fan, everyone knew she was female.
There. Far more than you needed to know.
Anyhow, I mostly like your writing, but I found that one article a bit confusing. Perhaps I'm just easily confused.
As I see it, Mr Taubes wrote this article as simply and briefly as he could, consistent with not omitting important facts or misleading readers. I have read a couple of his books, and as a retired professional writer and editor I can say that he is one of the clearest writers I have come across.
It seems to me that the story Mr Taubes tells is that of a hopeless maze of error, misunderstanding, and a generous helping of deliberate obfuscation. To start with, human nutrition hardly seems to be a true science at all, though it uses and refers to many scientific methods and tools. Many of the participants - as in so much modern science - may be biased in one way or another. With such huge industries and such vast flows of money in play, even a slight nudge can have large effects. Moreover, as a layman I cannot help reflecting that the scientists and others participating in these journalistic tournaments have their own special interests: as long as they keep producing articles, papers, and speeches, they go on being well paid and respected even if they never come to any definite useful conclusions. How often do we heard the battle-cry "More research is needed!" with its silent implication "... so give us more money!"
Reading the article, my immediate response was "why eat pizza and burgers with buns in the first place?" I have avoided bread, cake, and other floury concoctions for years and I believe that has done me good. I eat as much plain grass-fed meat as possible, and that too seems beneficial. It seems somehow artificial to see highly-paid professionals arguing in the pages of leading periodicals about the fiddling details of which junk food is worse.
Moreover, I was jerked back to Mr Taubes' Nutrition Science Institute and the high hopes I had for it. As far as I could make out, it was doomed by the sheer complexity of trying to apply rigorous scientific methods and techniques to such a ramified subject - but also by the difficulty of hiring staff who could agree even at a basic level. (I may be quite wrong about that, in which case I apologise).
Tom, thanks for those kind words. The NuSI story was an interesting one and I will discuss it at some point. In the meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review did a case study on NuSI half a dozen years ago and the authors did a pretty good job (although you might have to pay for it). https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51464
I'd be interested in your thoughts on intermittent fasting.
Dr. Jason Fung's Obesity Code describes how he helps people reverse type 2 diabetes by using fasting to restore their insulin sensitivity. It also helps with weight loss. In a nutshell (and as I understand it), if we don't stop eating long enough to let our insulin levels drop back from their post-eating spikes, the insulin keeps telling the body to store the glucose we keep adding when we eat more.
Only when insulin is low enough does our body burn fat. And it only gets low enough after a good long pause from consuming calories. Two or three hours isn't a good long pause. A 16-hour fasting period with an 8-hour eating period helps me lose pounds when I'm in a calorie deficit. Fasting means no calories and only black tea or coffee w/o additions.
Some people fast for a whole day to achieve weight loss, (which sounds quite difficult).
I've seen people note that we snack more now than we did before the obesity epidemic. That fact appears consistent with Fung's results.
Just wondering if you might look at this or whether you've already addressed it? Thank you for your work.
Insulin "doesn't tell the body to store glucose". Insulin hormone promotes fat to be stored in fat cells (adipose tissue) and it also inhibits lipolysis, which is fat mobilization from fat cells. Excess of glucose can be converted by the liver into fat that can be stored in fat cells too.
As for Intermittent fasting, Gary mentioned that he practiced it himself. Also, he had a number for interviews with Jason Fung which you can find on YouTube.
And thank you both. I might do a post on intermittent fasting as the clinical trial data is interesting but not at all conclusive. And, yes, I do it myself in that I stopped eating breakfast as an experiment circa 2017 or so and I found I had more energy than otherwise. I also lost a dozen pounds I didn't think I had to lose. So I've kept it up. It's certainly one of those things for which you don't need a clinical trial in that you can see if it works for you (also a subject of a future post).
I think the forest lost for the trees here (oh my God, so many, many trees) is that foods manufactured to be hyper palatable are almost always ALSO hyper dense with a macronutrient profile (high carb but no fiber, or fiber artificially broken away from sugar so the glucose hit is immediately available) that's intrinsically problematic and obesigenic. This is not an either/or situation. Manufacturing tweaks, i.e. ultra-processing, make unhealthy, fattening foods much tastier and possibly even addictive.
Industry wouldn't be doing it's job if it didn't try to make its foods tastier. It's a competitive business. Whether the foods are addictive is a different issue. Having been addicted to nicotine and caffeine, I am biased to think that eating a bowl or bag of chips when available is an entirely different phenomenon. When you find yourself wandering out at 6 in the morning to buy Doritos because you don't have any in the house, or wandering into a snowstorm at 10 at night because you've eaten your last chip, I'll buy the addiction concept.
Ultimately, the questions are:
1. Are they unhealthy and fattening?
2. If so why?
That's what the post is about, although I get the trees for the forest problem.
The obese and insulin-resistant are frequently deficient in the nutrients refined out of food such as B12, D, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. Could diabesity be the consequence of our craving refined foods which should contain what we are deficient in?
I'm sure you're right that insulin drives the train but I'm not sure the mechanisms are mutually exclusive -
AI says "obese individuals have high rates of micronutrient deficiencies" and zinc/B12/D/magnesium deficiencies both "can lead to a loss of appetite" <b>and</b> "deficiency is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes".
Only "Calcium deficiency can cause poor appetite and cravings for calcium-rich foods, which can lead to weight gain"
Hi Gary! You are one of the very few people writing these days were I actually get excited about new ideas. I have to take notes of all the ideas that get sparked off. And because of Substack I can communicate the ideas to you and your readers, which is also very exciting! Sure beats writing a "letter to the editor," lol.
You'd think all these scientists like Willett and Hall would get excited by new thoughts, too? Instead of dismissing everything? They reject new ideas so completely you wonder how they managed to stumble into science as a career at all. (Or should science be a vocation?)
First, one major confounder that seems obvious in these short experiments is that "new" food is always exciting and I think many people will eat "too much" of a new food, because you want to try new things. (Isn't that why cruise ships have a buffet with 100s of items, and also a dozen or more additional restaurants?) So you run an experiment giving people all kinds of new foods, and tasty UPF at that, and of course they eat more of them at first. Over time they eat less, because it's not "new" anymore. Just like on a cruise, by the 10th day people are complaining that the food is "boring" and "not that good." To do this properly, you would have to expose everyone to the experimental foods ahead of time, so that by the time they got to the lab they'd be like, "Sara Lee Cheesecake AGAIN?!" And now we see how much they eat. Also, you can easily make the "natural foods" disgusting so that no one will eat them, even if hungry. Overall I agree with Willett that the experiment was meaningless.
1--Is anyone studying ultra-processed foods WITHOUT sugar/carbs in them? It seems like all the studies are desperate to prove that sugar is ok....
2--The reasoning is all so circular -- "UPFs make you eat too much and we know it's too much because you get fat." How is "too much" defined? As making you "fat." And the people who eat UPFs all day long and don't get fat? Mystery. Are UPFs "good" for you, as long as you don't eat "too much" and get "too fat?" Science is all to complacent about all these "mysteries" these days.
3--It's a shame that Hall doesn't try so hard to prove that sugar is the problem. Why doesn't Hall just do a simple corn syrup vs. butter experiment? Maybe it's not a challenging enough issue for him? Because it's pretty obvious -- the CICO theory fails on every level, all the time, and the "it's the sugar, dummy" theory explains pretty much all the observations that we see here "on the ground." The hoops and mental gymnastics and "paradoxes" and "mysteries" all disappear when you look at carbs and insulin. Yes, even the "but Asian people eat rice!" problem can be pretty easily explained. (If you would like to do a post JUST on the "rice problem" and how to answer it, many of us would be very grateful, as that is the thing that comes up the most often in daily conversations -- "Yes, but the Japanese!")
4--The "energy density" thing is just utter BS. So skinny people have an "energy-density-o-meter" in their brains that doesn't get "tricked" by UPFs? And fat people don't? What if the fat people switch from Cheetos to just plain, unsalted, butter? Are they still going to eat too much of the "calorie dense" food? Or is it only "calorie dense UPFs" where the meter is broken? When it comes to just butter, the meter works just fine. (Are we supposed to presume that it's like Red Dye #40 that causes some people, and not others, to overeat JUST UPFs and if these same fat people were to switch to some "Whole Foods Cheetos without the additives" they would lose weight? It boggles the mind.
You might also find Columbian (the country) pediatritian Jairo Echeverry Raad's 'A falsehood that has been repeated many times becomes true, the origin of the diabesity pandemic, the most lethal of the 21st century?' article worth reading. https://medcraveonline.com/JDMDC/JDMDC-11-00276.pdf
While neither author homes in on the actual cause of the global diabestiy epidemic, they do explain why confusion as to the cause exists and persists.
In 2019 interview, Barry Sears came close to explaining to Gary Taubes what causes the inflammation associated with obesity. Unfortunately, Sears characterized inflammation as an omega-3 deficiency problem when it is better understood as an omega-6 toxicity problem. Sears says, "...we're basically inducing more inflammation in our bodies, and we've taken out dramatically the one entity, the one nutrient that can reduce inflammation: the omega-3 fatty acid.” https://s3.amazonaws.com/crossfitpubliccontent/Barry_Sears_Interview_with_Gary-Taubes.pdf
Ah, but one can also reduce inflammation by reducing arachidonic acid intake. Steve Blechman says, "The Mediterranean diet is low in arachidonic acid and rich in healthy fats such as monounsaturated fats found in extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), nuts and omega-3 fatty acids from fish, which has been shown to lower the risk of inflammation, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, and other degenerative diseases." https://advancedmolecularlabs.com/blogs/news/new-red-meat-study-controversy
Norwegian animal science researchers tell us that "Chicken meat with reduced concentration of arachidonic acid (AA) and reduced ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids has potential health benefits because a reduction in AA intake dampens prostanoid signaling, and the proportion between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is too high in our diet."
They also say, "Combining reduction of the intake of AA with enhancement of the intake of oleic acid will, moreover, also be a better strategy for reducing the total extent of in vivo lipid peroxidation, rather than adding more EPA (with 5 double bonds) and DHA (with 6 double bonds) to a diet already over-abundant in arachidonic acid and linoleic acid. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2875212/
Purdue university researchers note that nobody has checked to see how over weight people would respond to decreased chicken consumption. "Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates the consumption of lean unprocessed chicken as a primary dietary protein source has either beneficial or neutral effects on body weight and body composition and risk factors for CVD and T2DM. Apparently, zero randomized controlled feeding trials have specifically assessed the effects of consuming processed chicken/poultry on these health outcomes.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10459134/
The trees (oh my God, so many, many trees) obscuring the forest here is that this is not an either/or question. Manufacturing tweaks (i.e. ultra-processing) make problematic, obesigenic foods hyper palatable and possibly even addictive. Take highly refined carbohydrate, break it loose from fiber, and then spend a month tinkering with it, a Twinkie is born. It's not the processing OR the food, it's the combination that's deadly.
What I find puzzling ... Isn't this the same Gary Taubes who illuminated the idea that a calorie is not a calorie, it's macronutrient dependent? Or is that too 20th century? Because following That rabbit hole caused me to lose 40 pounds, years ago, and keep it off.
No problem. Yes, same Gary Taubes. I've answered some of this above, but one way to think about it, as Hall actually suggests in these articles, is whether you can learn what makes a UPF unhealthy so you can make healthy versions. For instance, if it's the sugar and the refined carbs (as I think), then you make UPFs without them. if it's the number of additives, then you reduce the number. if it's the lack of fiber, add fiber. Etc. Hence you could make a healthy Twinkie, but you'd have to know why it's unhealthy. The current UPF thinking and Hall's experiment would say the Twinkie is unhealthy because all that tinkering led to it exploiting your cravings and so you eat too many Twinkies or at least too many calories because of the Twinkies you do eat.
This is simplistic, but I wonder if the GMO corn subsidized by US government and added to so many foods is a contributor to obesity. Corn is pushed into so many foods, just as GMO soy is.
What is striking is when I buy UPFs, most especially salty foods that are not potato or vegetable chips, after eating a few handfuls, all I seem to taste is corn. It's at a point that when I want to eat salty junk food, I avoid anything that is corn-based. Needless to say, but that ubiquitous corn taste is not something I crave.
And don't get me started on corn syrup added to sweet UPFs. Or corn fed to cows that shouldn't be eating grains.
Even our gasoline-powered tools and cars can't handle too much corn in their fuel.
I've read much (most?) of your published stuff, and none of it is ever brief. In a way reading your writing it is kind of like listening to a long Trumpian speech, something he himself calls "the weave". Abandon all needless hope of future brevity is what I'd advise.
That aside, have you read Simpson and Raubenheimer's published work (e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Nutrition-Unifying-Framework-Adaptation/dp/0691145652/) that shows that most of human eating is driven by our basic need for protein? According to their experimental results, modern daily diets that are largely made up of foods that are low in protein (averaging about 15 percent protein or less) appear to require much higher total daily calorie consumption rates to meet basic human protein needs, thereby dragging in much excess carbohydrate calories (~1000 extra calories/day) as a matter of course. (The Simpson-Raubenheimer mechanism provides a pretty neat explanation of why low-carb, high protein/fat diets work so well as a defense against obesity.)
Of course, the Simpson and Raubenheimer explanation of modern day obesity could become a bit more complicated if there are other scarce nutrients out there that also necessitate calorie overconsumption. For example, corn chips like those dangerous Doritos are reportedly rich in certain biochemically important polyamines that are rare in most human food stuffs.
I'll do a post on the Simpson-Raubenheimer hypothesis in the not too distant future. I don't buy it for reasons I've explained to them. Among others, the experimental support in humans is almost non-existent.
Admittedly, there has been little experimentation with humans to see if the hypothesis is applicable to humans, but that is not at all the same as not having any experimental support. The results of their (?) grad student's Rachel Badley's small clinical test of the hypothesis is pretty convincing. I worked up her raw data into ternary diagrams that demonstrates a very consistent calorie-added/calorie-dropped effect under low protein and high protein feeding. That work-up can be found here: https://grundvilk.substack.com/p/modern-homo-sapiens-as-a-protein. I do look forward to reading your reasons for disagreement with Simpson and Raubenheimer.
Isn't eating out also a major cause of obesity in this country? No time to cook, huge number of restaurants, large serving sizes, and hyper-palatable foods cooked up by chefs to entice people. Everything deep-fried, all-you-can-eat buffets, menus that go on for pages, desserts offered that may have more calories than the meal...It is possible to choose healthier items at a restaurant but it takes careful thought and knowledge most of the time.
I think this is the same logic as the UPF story. Yes, certainly you can get enormous portions at restaurants, but I've lived in Europe where and when the population was lean and you could get large portions if you picked your restaurants right. When I grew up, my mother cooked family style, which meant, essentially, she'd cook enough for all of us to have multiple helpings (and we did). One of the questions you have to ask yourself is whether who are people are very heavy, athletes or not, tend to eat a lot because their bodies are heavy, or whether they got heavy because they eat a lot. I believe the former.
And consider one thought experiment: imagine if you did an experiment and randomized 20 subjects to eat out every night at an all-you-can eat buffet at someplace like Applebye's or at a Brazillian churrascaria where all the choices were meats and fish. At the latter, no matter how much they were eating, they'd be eating a ketogenic diet and so a weight loss diet. What do you think would happen to the two groups. (And, yes, Kevin Hall could do that kind of experiment but it would have to last for a few months to be meaningful.)
I wonder if financial value plays a psychological role in restaurant meals.
Prior to the recent dramatic rise in the cost of dining out, I would have at least partially bought into the dining out argument. When I did a keto diet, I discovered pretty quickly how much carb content is loaded onto those big plates when I only meant to eat the animal protein portion. So people dining out are eating a large portion of carb content.
But since the rise in cost, I've found myself at restaurants staring at the last 1/3 of my meal thinking, "I'm not really hungry anymore. But the leftovers aren't enough for any kind of meal. But I'm spending so much money, that its a shame to waste it." And then I eat at least a little more of it (hey! it's alluringly tasty!), because darn it, it's kind of expensive.
I'm less thrifty than most people (more profligate even). But a lot of people are extremely value conscious and I can see some psychological process where the value of money ends up trumping appetite. And given the typical macronutrient profile of a restaurant plate, there's a lot of carbs there to finish off.
What we need is an experiment run where a restaurant serves their normal portion size at normal prices and measure the mass of the uneaten leftovers every day for a month. Then cut the menu price to an extremely low cost, like $3. Do that for a month and measure the mass of the leftovers.
Will people be more likely to stop eating before their plate is empty if the meal is an extremely good value?
I'm pleased to see this analysis (I had thought about unpacking the weaknesses in the current UPF taxonomy myself). It appears that the authors of the current taxonomy were force-fitting a few apriori criteria rather than being guided by the empirics of metabolism and biochemistry.
We're probably in agreement. The apriori criteria seemed to be whether or not you could buy the food at a convenience store or a fast food restaurant. Hence, a hamburger became a UPF or a pizza, almost regardless of the ingredients.
NOW the Wellness Bitches are trying to kill alcohol. SurgeonGeneral want labels saying alcohol give you CANCER. FOOD & BEVERAGES are for PLEASURE and some calories to run your brain and other organs. ADULTS are NOT growing. Nutrition is bad regardless. Take a vitamin pill if you are worried and read ANTI-WELLNESS DIET on Amazon. One hour. FUNNY and YOU might have to find another angle-- many influential people will read this. 90 page book.
I have no problem with the length of your articles, despite Mark Twain apologizing for a long letter, saying he did not have time to write a shorter one. But I understand the need for brevity. I am retired. I sat down in my recliner and read this slowly, absorbing as my capabilities allow, feeling sated after. I wondered why researchers go to such lengths to go around some points that must be addressed if they are being honest: Why were obesity and diabetes not problems before they became problems? The answer surely lies in the diets then and now. What is different? When I was in high school, my medium-sized home town had but one pizzeria and no McDonalds, though a few burger joints were around. Our choices were limited and most cooking was done at home. Those meals in my house were always meat (except Friday), a vegetable, milk and often enough potato. Dessert was for weekends. Soda pop was limited to two bottles weekly. Nowadays I avoid sodas and anything potato, the only difference. I am trim and not ill in any way, knock on wood.
Hi Mark, Thanks. The answer may be the difference in the diets then and now, but it could also be in the difference in the generations prior, when a process called fetal programming (which I discuss in The Case Against Sugar) would have led to ever greater obesity and diabetes rates. The mothers' diet and metabolic health when pregnant programs, in effect, the children's metabolic health as they age. So a change of diet in the post-WW2 era could explain the explosion in obesity rates one or two generations earlier.
One of the issues I had with the NYer article but (thankfully) left out was his suggestion that the diet could influence health via effects on microbiome, which is the fashionable thinking, while not mentioning this fetal programming scenario, which is much better documented.
gt
By the way, speaking of nightly vegetables, Mom felt a need to give us variety rather than peas and then green beans and then corn ... to this day I cannot eat Lima beans. But she tried everything at least once.
I enjoy the long articles, and I fear that shortening them by much would leave a lot of important information out. They are long, but energy dense. :-)
Thanks, John, and nice pun. One of my readers suggested a simple solution in the future, which is cut these articles into two (or more) parts, and post separately. That's the easiest fix and I might opt for it. Another academic friend suggested a box up top with the major points in the article to help folks follow, and I might try that as well.
gt
Another illuminating article! Thank you.
Please send me an email at mollysouthworth@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Molly
Molly B. Southworth, MD, MPH, MACP
Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine
Adjunct Professor of Medical Education, University of Alaska Anchorage/ WWAMI
Endocrinologist, retired, Alaska Tribal Health System
Past Regent, American College of Physicians
I appreciate the thinking on a very nuanced issue! Crucial questions.
But I did struggle to follow the arguments in this article. Seems like the points of view could've been laid out simpler. Might be that I'm new to these topics.
Just some (hopefully) constructive feedback. I will keep reading!
I agree. It’s like he started in the middle of things, expecting us to know all the players and their viewpoints beforehand. I felt like I was reading a CJ Cherryh novel.
Thanks, Pete. Good point. I have different audiences here, from the folks who have read all or some of my books and then followed the progress in the years after to folks who are new to these issues. I'm also writing what interests me, which means I'm going to be erring on the side of the kind of expectations you discuss. Still, your critique is a good one and I'll keep it in mind. (Although I don't know CJ Cherry, and now you've made me think it might not be worth it.)
As it happens, I have read a couple of your books -- Good Calories, Bad Calories, and The Case Against Sugar. My own health/fitness weight loss journey probably proceeded along lines you'd generally approve of -- I cut sugar almost completely (except for rare treats), and I eat meat, fish, and vegetables that actually look like plants. I am not religious in my opposition to potatoes and pasta, but they are two to three times a month items, not every night items. That, together with an intense strength training program augmented by some cardio has produced good results for me.
I am inclined to agree with most of what you say. I just could have used a summary of who Hall is and what position he's staked out, before going on to the rest of the discussion.
CJ Cherryh is a science fiction/fantasy writer, and a very acclaimed one, winning multiple Hugo Awards back when that award actually meant something. Whenever I hear other science fiction fans discussing her work, it seems fascinating and exactly like something I'd love. Unfortunately, I often find that I'm halfway through one of her books, and I realize that I have no clue what is going on. I realized later this was intentional -- she writes with a very tight perspective on the viewpoint character, so we as readers know only what the viewpoint character sees or hears or feels, and the only thoughts we are privy to are those of the viewpoint character. Since her main characters are often put in very difficult and confusing situations, it is not surprising that I was confused. Her protagonists are equally confused, as well as being terrified most of the time. If you are a science fiction fan, she's worth trying, but if inhabiting alien worlds is new to you, she's probably not the most approachable way to start. Her pen name is spelled "Cherryh" with an "h," but her real name is Cherry -- one of her first editors said it sounded like a romance writer, which she very definitely is not. Also, she used "CJ" rather than "Carolyn" because in the 70s when she started, most science fiction writers were male, and she was worried that guys might not buy her books if they knew she was a girl. For as long as I've been an SF fan, everyone knew she was female.
There. Far more than you needed to know.
Anyhow, I mostly like your writing, but I found that one article a bit confusing. Perhaps I'm just easily confused.
What is this about? You weren’t kidding about not keeping it short.
Thanks, Richard. I always appreciate your thoughtful comments.
I meant that I don't see the conclusion. Your piece and the article in the Times seem to be all disclaimers. What do you actually believe?
As I see it, Mr Taubes wrote this article as simply and briefly as he could, consistent with not omitting important facts or misleading readers. I have read a couple of his books, and as a retired professional writer and editor I can say that he is one of the clearest writers I have come across.
It seems to me that the story Mr Taubes tells is that of a hopeless maze of error, misunderstanding, and a generous helping of deliberate obfuscation. To start with, human nutrition hardly seems to be a true science at all, though it uses and refers to many scientific methods and tools. Many of the participants - as in so much modern science - may be biased in one way or another. With such huge industries and such vast flows of money in play, even a slight nudge can have large effects. Moreover, as a layman I cannot help reflecting that the scientists and others participating in these journalistic tournaments have their own special interests: as long as they keep producing articles, papers, and speeches, they go on being well paid and respected even if they never come to any definite useful conclusions. How often do we heard the battle-cry "More research is needed!" with its silent implication "... so give us more money!"
Reading the article, my immediate response was "why eat pizza and burgers with buns in the first place?" I have avoided bread, cake, and other floury concoctions for years and I believe that has done me good. I eat as much plain grass-fed meat as possible, and that too seems beneficial. It seems somehow artificial to see highly-paid professionals arguing in the pages of leading periodicals about the fiddling details of which junk food is worse.
Moreover, I was jerked back to Mr Taubes' Nutrition Science Institute and the high hopes I had for it. As far as I could make out, it was doomed by the sheer complexity of trying to apply rigorous scientific methods and techniques to such a ramified subject - but also by the difficulty of hiring staff who could agree even at a basic level. (I may be quite wrong about that, in which case I apologise).
Tom, thanks for those kind words. The NuSI story was an interesting one and I will discuss it at some point. In the meanwhile, the Harvard Business Review did a case study on NuSI half a dozen years ago and the authors did a pretty good job (although you might have to pay for it). https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51464
I'd be interested in your thoughts on intermittent fasting.
Dr. Jason Fung's Obesity Code describes how he helps people reverse type 2 diabetes by using fasting to restore their insulin sensitivity. It also helps with weight loss. In a nutshell (and as I understand it), if we don't stop eating long enough to let our insulin levels drop back from their post-eating spikes, the insulin keeps telling the body to store the glucose we keep adding when we eat more.
Only when insulin is low enough does our body burn fat. And it only gets low enough after a good long pause from consuming calories. Two or three hours isn't a good long pause. A 16-hour fasting period with an 8-hour eating period helps me lose pounds when I'm in a calorie deficit. Fasting means no calories and only black tea or coffee w/o additions.
Some people fast for a whole day to achieve weight loss, (which sounds quite difficult).
I've seen people note that we snack more now than we did before the obesity epidemic. That fact appears consistent with Fung's results.
Just wondering if you might look at this or whether you've already addressed it? Thank you for your work.
Insulin "doesn't tell the body to store glucose". Insulin hormone promotes fat to be stored in fat cells (adipose tissue) and it also inhibits lipolysis, which is fat mobilization from fat cells. Excess of glucose can be converted by the liver into fat that can be stored in fat cells too.
As for Intermittent fasting, Gary mentioned that he practiced it himself. Also, he had a number for interviews with Jason Fung which you can find on YouTube.
Thank you. As a layperson, I happily stand corrected, and I'll check him out on YouTube.
And thank you both. I might do a post on intermittent fasting as the clinical trial data is interesting but not at all conclusive. And, yes, I do it myself in that I stopped eating breakfast as an experiment circa 2017 or so and I found I had more energy than otherwise. I also lost a dozen pounds I didn't think I had to lose. So I've kept it up. It's certainly one of those things for which you don't need a clinical trial in that you can see if it works for you (also a subject of a future post).
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Thank you, and, yes, it seems to work for many.
I think the forest lost for the trees here (oh my God, so many, many trees) is that foods manufactured to be hyper palatable are almost always ALSO hyper dense with a macronutrient profile (high carb but no fiber, or fiber artificially broken away from sugar so the glucose hit is immediately available) that's intrinsically problematic and obesigenic. This is not an either/or situation. Manufacturing tweaks, i.e. ultra-processing, make unhealthy, fattening foods much tastier and possibly even addictive.
Industry wouldn't be doing it's job if it didn't try to make its foods tastier. It's a competitive business. Whether the foods are addictive is a different issue. Having been addicted to nicotine and caffeine, I am biased to think that eating a bowl or bag of chips when available is an entirely different phenomenon. When you find yourself wandering out at 6 in the morning to buy Doritos because you don't have any in the house, or wandering into a snowstorm at 10 at night because you've eaten your last chip, I'll buy the addiction concept.
Ultimately, the questions are:
1. Are they unhealthy and fattening?
2. If so why?
That's what the post is about, although I get the trees for the forest problem.
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The obese and insulin-resistant are frequently deficient in the nutrients refined out of food such as B12, D, calcium, magnesium, and zinc. Could diabesity be the consequence of our craving refined foods which should contain what we are deficient in?
Thanks, Jonathan, but I doubt it. Or rather I think there are better (and simpler) hypotheses to explain it.
I'm sure you're right that insulin drives the train but I'm not sure the mechanisms are mutually exclusive -
AI says "obese individuals have high rates of micronutrient deficiencies" and zinc/B12/D/magnesium deficiencies both "can lead to a loss of appetite" <b>and</b> "deficiency is associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes".
Only "Calcium deficiency can cause poor appetite and cravings for calcium-rich foods, which can lead to weight gain"
Nicely stated.
Thanks, Pat. And that last clause.... too true. LOL.
Hi Gary! You are one of the very few people writing these days were I actually get excited about new ideas. I have to take notes of all the ideas that get sparked off. And because of Substack I can communicate the ideas to you and your readers, which is also very exciting! Sure beats writing a "letter to the editor," lol.
You'd think all these scientists like Willett and Hall would get excited by new thoughts, too? Instead of dismissing everything? They reject new ideas so completely you wonder how they managed to stumble into science as a career at all. (Or should science be a vocation?)
First, one major confounder that seems obvious in these short experiments is that "new" food is always exciting and I think many people will eat "too much" of a new food, because you want to try new things. (Isn't that why cruise ships have a buffet with 100s of items, and also a dozen or more additional restaurants?) So you run an experiment giving people all kinds of new foods, and tasty UPF at that, and of course they eat more of them at first. Over time they eat less, because it's not "new" anymore. Just like on a cruise, by the 10th day people are complaining that the food is "boring" and "not that good." To do this properly, you would have to expose everyone to the experimental foods ahead of time, so that by the time they got to the lab they'd be like, "Sara Lee Cheesecake AGAIN?!" And now we see how much they eat. Also, you can easily make the "natural foods" disgusting so that no one will eat them, even if hungry. Overall I agree with Willett that the experiment was meaningless.
1--Is anyone studying ultra-processed foods WITHOUT sugar/carbs in them? It seems like all the studies are desperate to prove that sugar is ok....
2--The reasoning is all so circular -- "UPFs make you eat too much and we know it's too much because you get fat." How is "too much" defined? As making you "fat." And the people who eat UPFs all day long and don't get fat? Mystery. Are UPFs "good" for you, as long as you don't eat "too much" and get "too fat?" Science is all to complacent about all these "mysteries" these days.
3--It's a shame that Hall doesn't try so hard to prove that sugar is the problem. Why doesn't Hall just do a simple corn syrup vs. butter experiment? Maybe it's not a challenging enough issue for him? Because it's pretty obvious -- the CICO theory fails on every level, all the time, and the "it's the sugar, dummy" theory explains pretty much all the observations that we see here "on the ground." The hoops and mental gymnastics and "paradoxes" and "mysteries" all disappear when you look at carbs and insulin. Yes, even the "but Asian people eat rice!" problem can be pretty easily explained. (If you would like to do a post JUST on the "rice problem" and how to answer it, many of us would be very grateful, as that is the thing that comes up the most often in daily conversations -- "Yes, but the Japanese!")
4--The "energy density" thing is just utter BS. So skinny people have an "energy-density-o-meter" in their brains that doesn't get "tricked" by UPFs? And fat people don't? What if the fat people switch from Cheetos to just plain, unsalted, butter? Are they still going to eat too much of the "calorie dense" food? Or is it only "calorie dense UPFs" where the meter is broken? When it comes to just butter, the meter works just fine. (Are we supposed to presume that it's like Red Dye #40 that causes some people, and not others, to overeat JUST UPFs and if these same fat people were to switch to some "Whole Foods Cheetos without the additives" they would lose weight? It boggles the mind.
If you are looking for something new to get excited about, try University of Oklahoma economist Tyler Ransom's "Are Vegetable Seed Oils Fueling the Obesity Epidemic?' article. https://tyleransom.github.io/research/obesity-seed-oils.pdf
You might also find Columbian (the country) pediatritian Jairo Echeverry Raad's 'A falsehood that has been repeated many times becomes true, the origin of the diabesity pandemic, the most lethal of the 21st century?' article worth reading. https://medcraveonline.com/JDMDC/JDMDC-11-00276.pdf
While neither author homes in on the actual cause of the global diabestiy epidemic, they do explain why confusion as to the cause exists and persists.
In 2019 interview, Barry Sears came close to explaining to Gary Taubes what causes the inflammation associated with obesity. Unfortunately, Sears characterized inflammation as an omega-3 deficiency problem when it is better understood as an omega-6 toxicity problem. Sears says, "...we're basically inducing more inflammation in our bodies, and we've taken out dramatically the one entity, the one nutrient that can reduce inflammation: the omega-3 fatty acid.” https://s3.amazonaws.com/crossfitpubliccontent/Barry_Sears_Interview_with_Gary-Taubes.pdf
Ah, but one can also reduce inflammation by reducing arachidonic acid intake. Steve Blechman says, "The Mediterranean diet is low in arachidonic acid and rich in healthy fats such as monounsaturated fats found in extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), nuts and omega-3 fatty acids from fish, which has been shown to lower the risk of inflammation, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, and other degenerative diseases." https://advancedmolecularlabs.com/blogs/news/new-red-meat-study-controversy
Norwegian animal science researchers tell us that "Chicken meat with reduced concentration of arachidonic acid (AA) and reduced ratio between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids has potential health benefits because a reduction in AA intake dampens prostanoid signaling, and the proportion between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids is too high in our diet."
They also say, "Combining reduction of the intake of AA with enhancement of the intake of oleic acid will, moreover, also be a better strategy for reducing the total extent of in vivo lipid peroxidation, rather than adding more EPA (with 5 double bonds) and DHA (with 6 double bonds) to a diet already over-abundant in arachidonic acid and linoleic acid. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2875212/
Purdue university researchers note that nobody has checked to see how over weight people would respond to decreased chicken consumption. "Limited evidence from randomized controlled trials indicates the consumption of lean unprocessed chicken as a primary dietary protein source has either beneficial or neutral effects on body weight and body composition and risk factors for CVD and T2DM. Apparently, zero randomized controlled feeding trials have specifically assessed the effects of consuming processed chicken/poultry on these health outcomes.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10459134/
The trees (oh my God, so many, many trees) obscuring the forest here is that this is not an either/or question. Manufacturing tweaks (i.e. ultra-processing) make problematic, obesigenic foods hyper palatable and possibly even addictive. Take highly refined carbohydrate, break it loose from fiber, and then spend a month tinkering with it, a Twinkie is born. It's not the processing OR the food, it's the combination that's deadly.
What I find puzzling ... Isn't this the same Gary Taubes who illuminated the idea that a calorie is not a calorie, it's macronutrient dependent? Or is that too 20th century? Because following That rabbit hole caused me to lose 40 pounds, years ago, and keep it off.
Sorry, this was a repost of something above because it disappeared for a while.
No problem. Yes, same Gary Taubes. I've answered some of this above, but one way to think about it, as Hall actually suggests in these articles, is whether you can learn what makes a UPF unhealthy so you can make healthy versions. For instance, if it's the sugar and the refined carbs (as I think), then you make UPFs without them. if it's the number of additives, then you reduce the number. if it's the lack of fiber, add fiber. Etc. Hence you could make a healthy Twinkie, but you'd have to know why it's unhealthy. The current UPF thinking and Hall's experiment would say the Twinkie is unhealthy because all that tinkering led to it exploiting your cravings and so you eat too many Twinkies or at least too many calories because of the Twinkies you do eat.
I don't buy it. Per the article (and the trees).
This is simplistic, but I wonder if the GMO corn subsidized by US government and added to so many foods is a contributor to obesity. Corn is pushed into so many foods, just as GMO soy is.
What is striking is when I buy UPFs, most especially salty foods that are not potato or vegetable chips, after eating a few handfuls, all I seem to taste is corn. It's at a point that when I want to eat salty junk food, I avoid anything that is corn-based. Needless to say, but that ubiquitous corn taste is not something I crave.
And don't get me started on corn syrup added to sweet UPFs. Or corn fed to cows that shouldn't be eating grains.
Even our gasoline-powered tools and cars can't handle too much corn in their fuel.
Sorry for my corny rant!!!!
LOL. I don't mind a good rant, although even if it is the corn, then what is the corn doing?
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I've read much (most?) of your published stuff, and none of it is ever brief. In a way reading your writing it is kind of like listening to a long Trumpian speech, something he himself calls "the weave". Abandon all needless hope of future brevity is what I'd advise.
That aside, have you read Simpson and Raubenheimer's published work (e.g., https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Nutrition-Unifying-Framework-Adaptation/dp/0691145652/) that shows that most of human eating is driven by our basic need for protein? According to their experimental results, modern daily diets that are largely made up of foods that are low in protein (averaging about 15 percent protein or less) appear to require much higher total daily calorie consumption rates to meet basic human protein needs, thereby dragging in much excess carbohydrate calories (~1000 extra calories/day) as a matter of course. (The Simpson-Raubenheimer mechanism provides a pretty neat explanation of why low-carb, high protein/fat diets work so well as a defense against obesity.)
Of course, the Simpson and Raubenheimer explanation of modern day obesity could become a bit more complicated if there are other scarce nutrients out there that also necessitate calorie overconsumption. For example, corn chips like those dangerous Doritos are reportedly rich in certain biochemically important polyamines that are rare in most human food stuffs.
I'll do a post on the Simpson-Raubenheimer hypothesis in the not too distant future. I don't buy it for reasons I've explained to them. Among others, the experimental support in humans is almost non-existent.
Admittedly, there has been little experimentation with humans to see if the hypothesis is applicable to humans, but that is not at all the same as not having any experimental support. The results of their (?) grad student's Rachel Badley's small clinical test of the hypothesis is pretty convincing. I worked up her raw data into ternary diagrams that demonstrates a very consistent calorie-added/calorie-dropped effect under low protein and high protein feeding. That work-up can be found here: https://grundvilk.substack.com/p/modern-homo-sapiens-as-a-protein. I do look forward to reading your reasons for disagreement with Simpson and Raubenheimer.
Isn't eating out also a major cause of obesity in this country? No time to cook, huge number of restaurants, large serving sizes, and hyper-palatable foods cooked up by chefs to entice people. Everything deep-fried, all-you-can-eat buffets, menus that go on for pages, desserts offered that may have more calories than the meal...It is possible to choose healthier items at a restaurant but it takes careful thought and knowledge most of the time.
Hi Caryl,
I think this is the same logic as the UPF story. Yes, certainly you can get enormous portions at restaurants, but I've lived in Europe where and when the population was lean and you could get large portions if you picked your restaurants right. When I grew up, my mother cooked family style, which meant, essentially, she'd cook enough for all of us to have multiple helpings (and we did). One of the questions you have to ask yourself is whether who are people are very heavy, athletes or not, tend to eat a lot because their bodies are heavy, or whether they got heavy because they eat a lot. I believe the former.
And consider one thought experiment: imagine if you did an experiment and randomized 20 subjects to eat out every night at an all-you-can eat buffet at someplace like Applebye's or at a Brazillian churrascaria where all the choices were meats and fish. At the latter, no matter how much they were eating, they'd be eating a ketogenic diet and so a weight loss diet. What do you think would happen to the two groups. (And, yes, Kevin Hall could do that kind of experiment but it would have to last for a few months to be meaningful.)
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I wonder if financial value plays a psychological role in restaurant meals.
Prior to the recent dramatic rise in the cost of dining out, I would have at least partially bought into the dining out argument. When I did a keto diet, I discovered pretty quickly how much carb content is loaded onto those big plates when I only meant to eat the animal protein portion. So people dining out are eating a large portion of carb content.
But since the rise in cost, I've found myself at restaurants staring at the last 1/3 of my meal thinking, "I'm not really hungry anymore. But the leftovers aren't enough for any kind of meal. But I'm spending so much money, that its a shame to waste it." And then I eat at least a little more of it (hey! it's alluringly tasty!), because darn it, it's kind of expensive.
I'm less thrifty than most people (more profligate even). But a lot of people are extremely value conscious and I can see some psychological process where the value of money ends up trumping appetite. And given the typical macronutrient profile of a restaurant plate, there's a lot of carbs there to finish off.
What we need is an experiment run where a restaurant serves their normal portion size at normal prices and measure the mass of the uneaten leftovers every day for a month. Then cut the menu price to an extremely low cost, like $3. Do that for a month and measure the mass of the leftovers.
Will people be more likely to stop eating before their plate is empty if the meal is an extremely good value?
I'm pleased to see this analysis (I had thought about unpacking the weaknesses in the current UPF taxonomy myself). It appears that the authors of the current taxonomy were force-fitting a few apriori criteria rather than being guided by the empirics of metabolism and biochemistry.
UPF needs to go to 2.0.
We're probably in agreement. The apriori criteria seemed to be whether or not you could buy the food at a convenience store or a fast food restaurant. Hence, a hamburger became a UPF or a pizza, almost regardless of the ingredients.
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NOW the Wellness Bitches are trying to kill alcohol. SurgeonGeneral want labels saying alcohol give you CANCER. FOOD & BEVERAGES are for PLEASURE and some calories to run your brain and other organs. ADULTS are NOT growing. Nutrition is bad regardless. Take a vitamin pill if you are worried and read ANTI-WELLNESS DIET on Amazon. One hour. FUNNY and YOU might have to find another angle-- many influential people will read this. 90 page book.
There are two kinds of people: those who eat to live, and those who live to eat. Guess which ones have a better chance of longevity?
Living to EAT is about PLEASURE. Which is good. NOT bad.