Posted on 05/28/2015 8:35:16 AM PDT by Drango
“Slim by Chocolate!” the headlines blared. A team of German researchers had found that people on a low-carb diet lost weight 10 percent faster if they ate a chocolate bar every day. It made the front page of Bild, Europe’s largest daily newspaper, just beneath their update about the Germanwings crash. From there, it ricocheted around the internet and beyond, making news in more than 20 countries and half a dozen languages. It was discussed on television news shows. It appeared in glossy print, most recently in the June issue of Shape magazine (“Why You Must Eat Chocolate Daily”, page 128). Not only does chocolate accelerate weight loss, the study found, but it leads to healthier cholesterol levels and overall increased well-being. The Bild story quotes the study’s lead author, Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D., research director of the Institute of Diet and Health: “The best part is you can buy chocolate everywhere.”
I am Johannes Bohannon, Ph.D. Well, actually my name is John, and I’m a journalist. I do have a Ph.D., but it’s in the molecular biology of bacteria, not humans. The Institute of Diet and Health? That’s nothing more than a website.
Other than those fibs, the study was 100 percent authentic. My colleagues and I recruited actual human subjects in Germany. We ran an actual clinical trial, with subjects randomly assigned to different diet regimes. And the statistically significant benefits of chocolate that we reported are based on the actual data. It was, in fact, a fairly typical study for the field of diet research. Which is to say: It was terrible science. The results are meaningless, and the health claims that the media blasted out to millions of people around the world are utterly unfounded.
Here’s how we did it. The Setup
I got a call in December last year from a German television reporter named Peter Onneken. He and his collaborator Diana Löbl were working on a documentary film about the junk-science diet industry. They wanted me to help demonstrate just how easy it is to turn bad science into the big headlines behind diet fads. And Onneken wanted to do it gonzo style: Reveal the corruption of the diet research-media complex by taking part.
I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How.
The call wasn’t a complete surprise. The year before, I had run a sting operation for Science on fee-charging open access journals, a fast-growing and lucrative new sector of the academic publishing business. To find out how many of those publishers are keeping their promise of doing rigorous peer review, I submitted ridiculously flawed papers and counted how many rejected them. (Answer: fewer than half.)
Onneken and Löbl had everything lined up: a few thousand Euros to recruit research subjects, a German doctor to run the study, and a statistician friend to massage the data. Onneken heard about my journal sting and figured that I would know how to pull it all together and get it published. The only problem was time: The film was scheduled to be aired on German and French television in the late spring (it premieres next week), so we really only had a couple of months to pull this off.
Could we get something published? Probably. But beyond that? I thought it was sure to fizzle. We science journalists like to think of ourselves as more clever than the average hack. After all, we have to understand arcane scientific research well enough to explain it. And for reporters who don’t have science chops, as soon as they tapped outside sources for their stories—really anyone with a science degree, let alone an actual nutrition scientist—they would discover that the study was laughably flimsy. Not to mention that a Google search yielded no trace of Johannes Bohannon or his alleged institute. Reporters on the health science beat were going to smell this a mile away. But I didn’t want to sound pessimistic. “Let’s see how far we can take this,” I said.
SNIP
http://io9.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800
1 oz. per batch (which is based on 1 28-oz can of tomatoes, 1 to 1.5lb ground beef, 1 large green pepper , 1 large white onion, and 1 chili pepper) - we usually make a double batch in the large crock-pot. Winds up adding less than 1g net carb per portion.
Fake sugar is bad stuff. Cane sugar is perfectly okay, IN MODERATION. Fake sugar is stupid eating.
But again, coming from a long, long line of trim people that others accuse of "being able to eat whatever they want and not get fat," carbs are not the problem. It's STARCHY carbs like white flour, corn, pasta, and supposedly potatoes, though potatoes don't put it on me the way bread does, not even close, so my own jury is out on that. ONE STARCHY CARB per meal -- if you're having a sandwich on bread, skip the potato chips. If you're having pasta, skip the garlic bread. If you're having rice, skip the corn. If you're having corn, skip the potatoes and skip the rolls. But non-starchy carbs as those from fruits and veggies -- eat all you want, always.
Come to one of my family reunions where you see three and four generations of trim people who all eat basically this way, and always have -- a farm family where it was always understood and taught that good eating habits are the KEY to pretty much everything. The only fat folks at the reunions are in-laws who didn't learn how to eat right.
Man ... MMMMMM ... I can’t wait to try this!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
Maybe there are some “fad” high-protein, low-carb diets out there, but if you’re talking about the Atkins diet, I think you’re a bit off-base.
First of all, it’s not “no carb”, it’s “low carb”. It (or more appropriately, the phase that most people think of when they hear “Atkins”) is not intended to be a long-term prospect either.
The Atkins plan has four phases - some people get confused by Phase 1, which is simply a 2-week “detox” period. Even then, if you’re following the plan, it REQUIRES you to eat 2-3 cups of vegetables per day, preferably of the green leafy variety (spinach, kale, most lettuces and cabbages).
Phase 2 is the weight-loss phase. here, you worry about “net carbs”, which are the carbohydrates in food that actually affect blood sugar levels. Fiber does not count, as well as some other categories (such as citric acid and alcohols). Here, you have more flexibility, but it’s expected (and most effective) if you get the majority of your net carbs from vegetables - I’m in this phase now, consuming about 15-20 net carbs per day with 10-12 of them from vegetables (green beans, asparagus, peepers, onions, tomatoes, carrots, etc.). You can add fruits at this point too, but we’re talking about low-sugar, high-fiber fruits - berries and certain melons; not high-sugar fruits like grapes, apples, oranges, bananas, and the like.
Once you start approaching your target weight, you enter Phase 3. At this point, you start adding additional foods back into your diet one by one, focusing on foods low on the glycemic index (such as whole grains) to ensure that by adding that food, you don’t start gaining weight again. This is a transitionary phase that essentially teaches you what foods your body reacts to well and poorly for your long-term health.
Phase 4 is ongoing monitoring. You take the Phase 3 lessons you learned and stop counting so closely, but you also keep an eye on your weight - if it starts creeping up, back to Phase 3 until you get back under control.
I’m old enough to remember when he was a quack. Now his nutritional ideas are conventional wisdom. But he rarely gets credit.
I think there was that “fad” point in the early 2000’s, too, where people who needed to lose maybe 20 pounds were doing “low-carb”. It’s really not a good plan for that - it’s better for those who are significantly overweight and need to retrain themselves how to eat healthy food.
For some reason, it also seems to work better for men than women, which makes sense since the sexes have different biologies, but I’ve yet to see any good research into what specific biological differences come into play on that score.
The paleo fad was more FAT, less carbs. And as paleo people have evolved according to the science of who runs our health, our buddies the gut bugs, now the newest thought is: HEALTHY fats, in normal amounts, enough protein for your life (most for young people still growing, a lot for athletes and physical laborers, and less for sedentary seniors), and plenty of vegetable carbs with fiber, root veggies and the rest, some fruits too.
Low carb is dead wrong. Low processed carbs, low grains, is fine. Gluten free is a good direction for everyone. Gluten is FANTASTIC for holding together and making food containers (pies, breads, tortillas, buns). It is useless for anything else. There is absolutely nothing health promoting in wheat, the current modern form of it.
If the food pyramid were built today, May 2016, by the top real food scientists, it would probably have as its base COOKED AND COOLED ROOT VEGETABLES. Good starches that feed the gut bugs. White rice, cooked and cooled, would be included.
Next up would be ANIMAL PROTEIN FROM HEALTHY ANIMALS, WITH ITS NORMAL FAT. Of course, fish, eggs, dairy included. You can add some butter, lard, or coconut oil to it as needed to cook. Next would be all the OTHER VEGETABLES AND FRUIT. Last would be HONEY and FERMENTED FOODS.
Maybe next year the most nutritious pyramid will look different but this is the top of the info we have today.
-- usually ONE starchy carb in a meal -- rolls/bread, OR corn, OR rice, OR pasta, OR tortillas, OR potatoes, breakfast being an exception where two carbs was okay because BIG hearty breakfasts were encouraged (as a kid I was shocked early on when I went to the homes of friends and saw for dinner three and four starchy carbs served in one meal, but soon learned that that was the norm in MOST households, where folks were constantly going on diets and overweight)
-- cane sugar, honey, molasses, maybe corn syrup on occasion, and at that only in home-made desserts and on porridge
-- candy and soda was forbidden in my home and in my aunties' and gramma's homes except candy for special occasions, soda pop totally verboten
-- protein, protein, and more protein, fat fat fat, real butter, lard, bacon bacon bacon -- plus all the fruits and veggies (barring starchy carbs) you wanted or could eat -- LOTS and lots of fresh fruits and green vegetables. LOTS -- all you could eat, and always, all the whole milk you could drink.
I have one suggestion for you and the wonderful cook missus -- stop using fake sugar and use real cane sugar or molasses or honey or something like that. Use it sparingly, but STOP with the fake sugar. I used to drink a lot of fake sugar sodas and used fake sugar in some foods, and when I stopped, I felt so much better physically that it was amazing.
Fake sugar, like fake animal-based fat (hydrogenated vegetable "solids" like Crisco and margarine) is bad for your body and metabolism, flat out BAD, much worse than what they replace, regardless of what doctors and nurses tell you. Doctors and nurses very rarely "get" good nutrition. The best nutrition is simple, whole, pure foods, including wrongly demonized ones like eggs, lard, and whole dairy. See my post #10. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I so quickly LOST weight (four pounds is significant on my muscular 5-4 then 132-lb frame) by switching from non-fat to whole milk.
God bless you and yours!!!
I’ve eliminated the fake sugars, for the most part. (I still like an occasional sugar-free Jello, and not being a coffee drinker, my one self-allowed vice is diet soda.) Mrs. kevkrom eliminated them entirely.
When I need a sweetener, I use a natural sugar alcohol like xylitol or eryitherol. (Maltitol and sorbitol do bad things to me.) Or stevia extract. There’s also a zero-cal soluble fiber that’s naturally sweet that goes by the brand name FiberFit that I use.
Atta boy!! I’ve upped my consumption of Jello, but I make my own with unsweetened fruit juice and unflavored Knox, and it has really, really helped with what used to be an achy spine around the neck. I think the gelatin helps the body rebuild cartilage and all that, who knows, but I do know that improvement was swift and I’ve been making it a point to up my consumption of gelatin ever since! Your missus sounds like a wise woman!
Oh — and also, I drink sugar-free soda pop on special occasions, all day long sometimes if it’s a big party, because I don’t drink booze (I’m allergic ... I break out I handcuffs). So fake sugar is okay on occasion, I just cringe when I see people depending on it every single day, the way I used to drink diet soda pop every single day. *shudder* Now it’s just special occasions.
Both your anti-gluten and low-carb stereotypes are probably doing well for their health by cutting out the simple carbs of breadstuffs and other similar foods that wreak havoc on blood sugar.
Yes, non-starchy vegetables are very good for you—and few anti-gluten or low-carb types avoid them. Some fruits can deliver sugar shocks if eaten in quantity, and I’m not so sure that fried olive oil is even as good for you as butter, lard, or other animal fats.
Chocolate without the sugar and fat would do well for dieters...it’s darned near unpalatable!
why cooled? and why do you think white rice is so good?
How could any person honestly believe this? Then again, these are members of the human race, so I guess it’s plausible.
bfl
Lazy journalist believed it hook, line and sinker.
Journalists as a whole are a stupid bunch.
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