What's become of Mediterranean Diet Central?

A lot has changed since the famous Seven Countries Study, in which Ancel Keyes creatively presented data that would support his hypothesis that a diet high in saturated fat leads to heart disease, and that a diet low in saturated fat protects against it.

Rosenthal, who evidently hasn't read Good Calories, Bad Calories, mistakenly dates the identification of Crete as an exemplar of good nutrition from the early 1990s, but Keyes put forth his views in the 1950s.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/europe/diet.php

Flood of junk food puts Greeks at risk
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
Published: September 24, 2008
International Herald Tribune (an international version of the New York Times)


Excerpt:

KASTELI, Greece: Dr. Michalis Stagourakis has seen a transformation of his pediatric practice here over the past three years. The usual sniffles and stomachaches of childhood are now suddenly interspersed with far more serious conditions: diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. A changing diet, he says, has produced an epidemic of obesity and related maladies.

Small towns like this one in western Crete, considered the birthplace of the famously healthful Mediterranean diet - emphasizing olive oil, fresh produce and fish - are now overflowing with chocolate shops, pizza places, ice cream parlors, soda machines and fast-food joints....

The conversion of a raw vegan family

In the UK Independent:

"How our vegan diet made us ill"

By Natasha Mann
June 17, 2008

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/healthy-living/how-our-vegan-diet-made-us-ill-848322.html

Excerpt:

One morning over breakfast, Holly Paige looked at her daughter and realised things weren't right. Lizzie should have been flourishing. Instead, her cheeks were pinched, she was small for her age, and although she had skinny arms and legs, her belly was big and swollen. When Lizzie smiled, Paige suddenly noticed her upper front teeth were pitted with holes.

"I was absolutely horrified," recalls Paige.

At the time, Paige was feeding them what she thought was the most nutritious diet possible. They had been raw vegans for three years, and ate plenty of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, soya and pulses, but no meat, fish or dairy.

Thanks to renegadediabetic at livinlowcarbdiscussion.com forum for the tip.

Epidemiologist Paul Marantz criticizes dietary guidelines

Here's the Feb. 13 podcast of Scientific American.

Fat Chance: Do Dietary Guidelines Actually Contribute to Obesity?

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=13BE8F96-CC52-62E0-362994556CDDD508

Paul Marantz criticizes the dietary guidelines to reduce dietary fat, as well as the standard practice of treating markers for disease (cholesterol levels, blood pressure) rather than the diseases themselves. Here's he's interviewed by Steve Mirsky in the weekly podcast, Science Talk.

The link above will take you to a written transcript, as well as a link to the audio podcast.

Thanks for laughingW on the Protein Power forum for mentioning it in this thread about whole grains.

http://proteinpower.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4760

Pro-Low-Carb article on ABC News!

This article was written by Adam Campbell, features editor for Men's Health Magazine and apparently a force behind that magazine's favorable stance towards dietary fat.

Five Reasons You're Still Fat
Five Weighty Mistakes That Many People Make -- and Advice For Shedding Pounds
April 15, 2008

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Fitness/Story?id=4649098&page=1

Michael Pollan interviewed on Democracy Now

This is a transcript of Amy Goodman interviewing Michael Pollan about his newest book, the bestselling In Defense of Food.


http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/76987/?page=entire


I wonder whether Pollan has read Taubes, specifically Good Calories, Bad Calories. I wonder what those two think of each other. For all the great insights Pollan has, he still seems to be under the impression that red meat is not good for humans to eat. But maybe that's because he hasn't come upon the same source materials in the course of his work that Taubes has.

He does, in this interview, use words like "probably" when talking about whether it's good or bad, and he exonerates cholesterol early on here. However, the mantra of "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much" (other articles call it a mantra; I didn't come up with that myself) is what people quote over and over.

His idea of "nutritionism" as ideology is priceless.

A link to an MP3 audio file of this interview can be found in the third (non subthreaded) comment.

Gary Taubes at Stevens Institute of Technology

Gary Taubes gave a talk earlier this month at Stevens Institute of Technology.

You can watch it on Google video via this link.

Calorielab on why eating fat is good

Calorielab.com isn't a low-carb site, but it covers much that's of interest to low-carbers, Here's an article, whose sidebar headline is "Eating Fat is Good For You," by Sara Ost of Mark's Daily Apple.

The lipid-phobe’s guide to dietary fat: 11 ways fat can help you (and 4 ways it can’t hurt you)
http://calorielab.com/news/2007/05/21/the-lipid-phobes-guide-to-eating-fat-11-ways-fat-can-help-you-and-4-ways-it-cant-hurt-you/#comment-194965

I wish I could tell you the article's date, but, annoyingly, CalorieLab does not display the post/publish dates of its items. This is especially frustrating when reading sentences of the type, "Last month, Company X discontinued the product."

Lowcarbarama posted the following comment today:
Lowcarbarama says:
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:34 am

“this wasn’t Atkins (I’m all about the greens), but…”

For several decades, Dr. Robert Atkins promoted eating regular, generous quantities of low-starch vegetables, including greens, as an important part of his nutritional approach. The company he founded continues to do so.

Crabby,
“Fat, while really good for you, adds up fast when compared to boring but filling alternatives. So some people might need to concentrate first on adding lots of bulk in terms of veggies to their diets before they go to wild slathering on the butter and cream sauces, or even the olive oil and nuts.”

This is a common misconception. Lowfat bulky foodstuffs fill the stomach, but don’t satiate. High-fat, low-carb, moderate protein (for instance, 50%-70% fat, and no sugar or starch) will satisfy and satiate at much lower caloric totals. Try it, you’ll see. When you cut the carbs and up the fat, it’s much harder to overeat.

The delicious truth that Sara discovered is that, as long as you restrict sugar and starch, when you allow yourself to eat all the fat you want, you’ll find that you’re eating no more than you should.