Debunking food, fat, and fitness myths

[rachelmanija]

I would like your best recs for in-depth articles, studies, or books on the most cutting-edge current knowledge about nutrition, body weight, and health.

I am NOT interested in basic articles about very well-known ideas like fat will kill you, carbs will kill you, meat will kill you, anything your grandma wouldn't recognize as food such as everything but cabbage and turnips will kill you, etc.

I am also NOT interested in articles with a primarily political bent (i.e., "pushing diets on women is based on sexism/capitalism not science;") I agree with that, but I'm looking for stuff where the meat is science and the politics is the side dish rather than the reverse.

I'm looking for more in-depth, up-to-date information on topics including but not limited to...

- Do we actually know anything about nutrition, given the every-five-year swings between "eggs are cardioprotective/eggs are a heart attack on a plate," "fat is the Devil/carbs are the Devil," etc? If so, what is it and how do we know it?

- What is the actual science on grains (and no, I don't mean Wheat Belly)?

- What is the best and most cutting-edge knowledge on gaining strength?

- What is the actual science on the causes of Type 2 diabetes, why its prevalence has risen so much, and its association with obesity?

- What is the actual knowledge of the diet and health of "cavemen?"

- What is the actual science on being fat, thin, and in-between in terms of health? For instance, is it better to be fat and active than "normal weight" and sedentary? (I know the answer but I'm looking for something that goes into this in-depth.)

- What is the deal with "calorie reduction makes you healthier and live longer" vs. "dieting is bad for you?"

I'm already familiar with Michael Pollan, Barbara Ehrenreich, Mark's Daily Apple, Diet Cults, Body of Truth, and The Starvation Experiment. And lots more but those are the things I get recced a lot already.

Comments

[duskpeterson]

Okay, now you've got me wondering whether https://www.choosemyplate.gov (which is a revision of the Food Pyramid, which is a revision of the Four Food Groups, which is a revision of the Seven Food Groups) has any solid science behind it. Is it like climate change, where there's a consensus on the basics by 99% of the scientists, or is this a case where the U.S. government nutritionists threw up their hands and said, "Well, heck, this one looks good"?

[thomasyan]

solid science behind it

Well, I think companies have studied how to effectively lobby. So at least in that sense, there is probably solid science/experience. For the science we want, maybe not so much.

[duskpeterson]

Oh, I know that the reason we no longer have a Food Pyramid is because the meat and dairy lobbyists objected to meat and dairy being so small on the pyramid. But the concept of the Seven Food Groups was developed by nutritionists (mainly female nutritionists, actually) during World War II and was based on the actual science of the time. And everything since then has been refinements: "Okay, maybe it's not seven food groups, but the idea of food groups is solid . . . except whoa, it looks as though the food groups aren't all equal to one another, so we should show that visually . . . and hey, vegetarians and vegans haven't fallen down dead yet, so let's add in some alternatives to meat and dairy."

I was raised on the Seven Food Groups, learned about the Four Food Groups in elementary school ("Pepperoni pizza has all four food groups!"), and it's been interesting watching the evolution of government nutritional advice, but it looks to me as though the Seven Food Groups are still here, just in different wrappings and with alternatives.

Whereas I look at something like foodways (Mediterranean diet, Latin American diet, etc.), and that seems like a whole different approach, emphasizing, "This is what people in other cultures and times eat, and it seems to do them good." Of course you can meld a foodway with the food groups, but why have US government nutritionists fastened on food groups as the best approach for nutritional advice? Is it just because of the meat and dairy lobbies, or are there other reasons?

[elf]

I tend to think anything that separates "fruit" from "vegetables" is based on social goals and not science. The site doesn't define either of them, although it does have subgroups of vegetables.

As far as I can sort out, mushrooms are entirely outside of any of their food groups.

[duskpeterson]

They list mushrooms as vegetables here - or do you mean that scientists don't consider mushrooms vegetables? And are you referring to problems like "tomatoes are really a fruit"?

As a popular history writer, I tend to distinguish between research and presenting research results to the public. But then the question becomes: Did the USDA offer lay definitions because that was the easiest way to communicate with the public, or because they were working from bad research? I do notice that they have this page, so they seem to be aware that definitions can vary, depending on which group is using the word.

[elf]

Ah! I didn't see the fold-out charts, which don't display properly on my browser. I did a ctrl-f search for mushrooms but got no results because they don't show if you haven't clicked on the "+" markers.

And yeah, I meant tomatoes, bell peppers, olives, cucumbers... there aren't many that go the other way, but the casual classification seems to be based on sweetness rather than any other nutritional concerns.

I'm twitchy about any nutrition site that has a page called "All about the vegetable group" that doesn't tell you how it's deciding what a vegetable is. They've got no criteria for helping people decide what a fruit/vegetable not on the list falls under. (Lychee: Probably fruit. Jujube: Not certain; they're sweet-ish but no more so than cucumbers. Fruit-ish, though. Bamboo shoots: Probably vegetable; starchy? Or other? Mung bean sprouts: Vegetables? Or in the separate category that beans go in?)

It's not that I think the page/system is founded on bad science, it's that whatever science it's using is opaque to the reader.

[duskpeterson]

You've raised an important point I've never thought about: How are those borderline cases classified nutritionally? At the very least, the USDA should have a page listing how each food is classified for nutritional purposes. For example, is a gluten-free "grain" like quinoa nutritionally similar to actual grains?

I know that they've got more technical material buried in that website, but they need to put something about this on their front pages.