Wheat Belly on Acid
I used to read Dr. Davis' blog back in the days participating on Jimmy's forum, it was cited rather frequently. His writing back then seemed well grounded. Then about a year or so ago, the posts started getting sensationalistic. Ahh ... he got a book deal for Wheat Belly. I blogged previously on one of the more bizarre amongst them: Bacon, Eggs & Battery Acid. On his anti-oat campaign, Davis wrote:
Sulfuric acid is among the most powerful and potentially harmful acids known. Get even a dilute quantity in your eyes and you will suffer serious burns and possibly loss of eyesight. Ingest it and you can sustain fatal injury to the mouth and esophagus. Sulfuric acid's potent tendency to react with other compounds is one of the reasons that it is used in industrial processes like petroleum refining. Sulfuric acid is also a component of the harsh atmosphere of Venus.
This folks really is over-the-top rhetoric, and if Davis has a shred of credibility it is totally undermined by nonsense like this. I'm just surprised he didn't mention Drano! Leaving aside, for the moment, whether the sulfuric acid content of foods is something to be concerned about, trying to equate minute amounts in foods with even dilute sulfuric acid solutions is worse that comparing apples and oranges. The atmosphere on Venus? Ingesting sodium metal will probably kill you (sodium is highly reactive), as will inhaling chlorine gas, but sodium chloride not so much. Let's check out the MSDS (material safety data sheet) for hydrochloric acid at right. {click to enlarge} Pretty dangerous stuff! Well, this turns out to be the acid in your stomach, produced by your body. Gastric acid is pH 1 to 2. I've never taken a piece of litmus paper to a bowl of plain oatmeal, but I'm thinking it's not going to be too acidic. Do you think adding oatmeal to your stomach contents is going to make you acidic? Eat out your intestines? Un huh.
Unlike all other foods derived from plants, grains generate acidic by-products, the only plant products to do so. Because wheat is, by a long stretch, the foremost grain in most Americans' diet, it contributes substantially to the acid burden of a meat-containing diet.
HYPERBOLE ALERT!!
Sulfuric acid in plants is killing plants now! Disrupting reproductive behavior of aquatic animals?? Oh no! Someone ought to have told the doctor about his little math error. You see, the table he gets his doom and gloom from lists SA as mEq/100g protein, not per 100g food. Put into context, two slices of whole wheat toast contains 8g protein so 69.4*(8/100) = 5.6 mEq (and no doubt some of the protein comes from ingredients other than wheat). Meanwhile 2 large eggs contains roughly the same calories but 12g protein so 79.6*(12/100) = 9.6 mEq. All of which falls into the category of irrelevant anyway because, for example, I love vinegar. Vinegar is acetic acid. I also get on the lemon water kicks every now and again. To be sure I would not be putting either in my eyes but they make for fine food.
He doesn't show this table in the book, or on his blog because to do so would show that many favorites he advocates eating on a very low carb diet contain more SA than grains. This is junk science folks. Needed, I suppose to flesh out a book with alarming "facts" your evil government and Big Agra don't tell you, but that should not be accepted from anyone. If Joel Fuhrman (a big vegetarian advocate), Dean Ornish or Dr. Oz were to try to pull this crap to demonize animal proteins the low carbers would be all over them for it.
Next, blogger OnePointFive took a look at this whole issue of obesity and wheat: Wheat and Obesity. If you look at the plots, the US ranks rather low on wheat consumption, yet we are the most obese. And what the heck is going on in Pakistan? They must be leeching bones down the loo with all that wheat consumption yet they are the least overweight and have very low obesity. Look, wheat is cheap. If it is addictive because of it's unique protein content or somesuch, why is it not addictive to the Pakistanis? (Somehow I can't get the mental image of Michael J. Fox reading the letters to the illiterate in Doc Hollywood out of my head).
Lastly, let me take on this notion of the visceral fat. I won't be buying this book but I can get some of the references from Google Books and may have a look. But in answering a question on DNL and fructose, I came across this study: Consuming fructose-sweetened, not glucose-sweetened, beverages increases visceral adiposity and lipids and decreases insulin sensitivity in overweight/obese humans. I haven't had a chance to read it thoroughly but something caught my eye. When they overfed (by 25%) either fructose or sucrose the subjects gained weight equally, but the distribution of the weight gain differed. The fructose consumers gained visceral fat, while the glucose consumers did not. It would seem that these participants got Sugar Belly. (IMPORTANT NOTE: In that study, subjects consuming fructose received around 125 g/day of isolated fructose sweetened beverages. The dietary relevance of this to consuming fructose even in the form of HFCS in sodas, is highly suspect. Further, participants all gained weight and fat because they did not compensate for the beverage calories and ended up eating excess calories. But, wheat is a source of glucose, not fructose, so this study would argue against this whole notion of a "Wheat Belly").
Look, wheat is one of those things that has many confounders. Sort of like the omega 6 fats. I think eating plain bread and pasta with a homemade marinara or primavera sauce is not going to make you fat. What gets you is the butter on that bread and the creamy sauces or lots of melted cheese and such. When folks give up wheat they are giving up huge calorie vehicles along with foods that are easy to overconsume. They'll often reduce sugar intake as well unless none of the wheat is in the form of pastries and such. When my mother wanted to lose a little weight, she did so by cutting back to one slice of toast for breakfast ... with that went whatever butter and jam she would put on it too.
Cutting wheat can therefore be a viable weight loss strategy. But as with cutting anything else, if you just find replacements it will fall short of expectations. Don't waste money on books filled with junk science. It really is a shame that so many will tolerate such from their favorite guru.
Comments
I also have to share, that while you, CarbSane, and I know that salt is NaCl, a lot of people don't. I remember telling my dad, who has an engineering degree, that salt isn't just sodium, but sodium chloride. He was shocked. He's not the only person that I've shocked with that info either. So... apparently that isn't something a lot of people know.
Davis is treading in Mercola land with this stuff. While there may or may not be reputable info on Mercola's site, I find a lot of it unnecessarily alarming: e.g. Splenda and chlorine. I actually worked on an artificial sweetener in my days with the pharm company and most of that involved seeing how it was metabolized, tissue accumulation and all that. If Splenda was metabolized to chlorine in its toxic form, or somehow led to chlorine accumulation it never would have made it out of animals.
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Oz pushes alt-med and various forms of woo with apparently zero personal repercussions.
IMHO Oz is chOPRAH in drag & white makeup.
He's Mercola but with undeserved credibility.
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When I first went low-carb I followed his blog, but when he started attacking dwarf wheat as a mutant that was a potent killer, I tuned out. I knew better than to believe that junk science.
"A recent narrative review claimed: “acid-yielding diets (cereal grains and most dairy products) cause urinary calcium loss [and] accelerated skeletal calcium depletion...” [17]."
I wonder if Davis selects his refs from them?
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/pdf/1475-2891-10-41.pdf
I believe Dr. Davis has diabetes, but I am not sure of which type. So if he looks a liitle metablolic that may be relevant
This may also explain, but certainly does not excuse, his ridiculous and clinically unsupported hysteria about postprandial hyperglycemia.
He has actually said that it is a reasonable goal to have ZERO elevation of blood glucose after every meal. Unless you are eating zero carb, this is rare if not physiologically impossible. There is absolutely nothing pathologic about mildly raised BG after a CHO rich meal. This is easily confirmed by spending 15 minutes on pubmed.
He is scaring the shit out of people by having them monitor blood glucose levels and telling them levels in the 120s are glycating their proteins, etc.
All this is simply the "fear of hyperinsulinemia of the CIH" squared.
And I don't know the current status of his diet recommendations, but a year or so ago he was recommending huge rancid PUFA from nuts in order to limit saturated fat from animals. Bass ackwards, IMO.
Giant doses of fish oil for high trigs and treating any TSH above 1.5 as "hyperthyroid" in order to correct laboratory values that are "causing" ahterosclerosis is more pseudoscientific nonsense.
I suppose I will be forced to read this book to see just how bad it is.
But I suspect it will set back any real arguments against wheat substantially..
I think drinking milk can make you overeat, but it helps no one to claim milk causes cancer like Loren Cordain still thinks.
I believe that wheat flour can be minimized in the diet with nothing but beneficial effects, but I don't get the acid argument.. Is he saying it leaches calcium? Phytic acid binding minerals yes, acid/base no.
The pissing away your bones thing is nonsense, whether coming from the paleos or the vegans.
I've come around to this idea after not believing it for a long time, but this is still a very minor issue for me.
as an analogy, some of the best coaches in the world were never award winning athletes. It's simply a different skill set.
Similarly, dieting successfully is a different skill set from being able to distill the literature into useful advice for laymen. So IMHO one should MOSTLY concentrate on the evidence, not the advisor's own results (IOW, "do as I say, not as I do" can be valid)
The difference with great coaches is that athletes tend to understand that peak performance involves the application of knowledge and very hard work. Coaches don't necessarily have to be able to do the work, if they have the knowledge (and perhaps the motivational ability). I don't know if any of this applies to the wheat cracker or not.
_________
agreed ... in fact for popular books and popular diet schemes I would say "most", not "many" (unfortunately), and at that point, their personal success becomes a bigger issue, as well as the success of anyone they've had as a personal client.
It is probably not always fair, but it IS the impression that people will have.
Let me extend a welcome if you're new here! Yeah, Cordain has said some questionable things. Admittedly I've not read a whole lot of his work.
I do tend to agree with him on one theme (assuming we can know with any certainty): It may be more important to try to mimic macro/micro profile than specific foods as virtually all of our foods, animal and veg, have been bred beyond recognition of wild. Wild caught seafood being an exception.
Jimmy "More Food" Moore knows to stay away from the naughty grains, so that powerful knowledge will enable him to lose weight eating all the oil and nuts he wants on top of all the meat he wants. Paleo babeeeeeeee!
Look at this weight loss example - macadamias instead of grains, and you magically lose weight!
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/my-version-of-the-luscious-lemon-squares-recipe-in-the-paleo-comfort-foods-cookbook/11735
Yum yum, say no to oatmeal and eat those macadamias, oils, and eggs. Lose weight until you realize you aren't have to go on a fast!
Or do an egg fast, and then when you make yourself sick, eat carbs to feel better.
http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/fun-filled-friday-jimmy-gets-sick-with-walking-pneumonia-styled/8235
” I was going to go off of that in an effort to shake things up. Amazingly, I felt pretty great after doing that and don’t feel bad about doing it one iota.”
http://lowcarbmenu.blogspot.com/2010/06/june-12-2010-low-carb-menu.html
“I decided to have an all-out carb-fest on purpose. Yep, the more carbs, the merrier. So I opted for things I haven’t eaten in years… but I wanted it and quite frankly I needed it after going through this past week the way I have.”
“Believe it or not, eating all those carbohydrates actually made me feel better and I started feeling strong enough to start typing here at my menus blog.”
- Jimmy "MORE FOOD = lose weight" (in your brain?) Moore
@Kurt: Have a fun read! I've read some snippets on Google Books. It's enough for me.
Hey Christopher, yep, is all I can say.
@DT: If Jimmy were losing weight eating paleo bayybeeeeeeeeeeee we'd be hearing about it. So now honey is in for him. If those lemon squares cause weight gain it will be the honey, not all those nuts, yolks and ghee.
It's insane. Some of the commenters try to point that out but like anyone in the depths of a delusion, he's impervious to reason.
I mean, if you want to eat carbs, why not try an apple? And not a fried one? What the hell is a fried apple anyway?
Chicken & Dumplings/svg. 730 cals 35gFat 55gC 48gP
Hashbrowns 155c 7gF 17gC 5gP
Fried Apples 185c 9gF 28gC .5gP
Pecan Log 200c 9gF 28gC 2gP
Assuming a single portion eaten of each item = TOTAL For the meal: 1300 cals & 60gF 128gC 56gP
(I did the quick math & calculated the cals based just on the macronutrients estimated the calories as being closer to 1100, but why quibble)
Listed as eaten earlier:
3 Eggs: 210c 15gF 18gP
...cooked in 2T butter: 220c 24gF
Dark Choco Perfection Bar: 200c 18gF 16gC (14gFiber) 1gP
Steve's Original Paleo Crunch: 200c 13gF 16gC 7gP
TOTAL = 830 cals 70gF 32gC 26gP
So TOTAL for the day (rounding off):
2200 cals 130gF 160gC 82gP
http://southernfood.about.com/od/apples/r/bl80905e.htm
If you ever lived in the south, you would know that if you can eat it, someone has figured out how to fry it.
And how many squares does one eat at a sitting? Of course, we all know what the answer is: unlimited.
Here is UCTV's page with a lecture including celiac. I believe this is the one where the doc says that by parent claims, ~9% of kids have celiac but actual diagnostic standards make the true figure half that.
http://uctv.tv/immunesystem/
Since it's a social trend, doc visits will likely climb. Luckily, those who truly do suffer from it will find it easier and cheaper to find gluten free foods. And diagnoses of actual cases will be quicker. I know someone who went a year or more before getting a diagnosis in the 1980s. Until getting the answer, the med advice to her for the GI upset was something like 'stick to 7Up and Graham crackers'. Knowledge marches on... usually.
Besides tracking plaque, you can track interest in the book:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22wheat+belly%22
Or, on the more distasteful side:
http://www.google.com/trends?q=gary+taubes
@Evelyn: you do have here the best bunch of commenters on the internet :)
A quick trip to the nutrition calculator brings the tray in at appox. 5540 calories and 100 grams of carbs. That's just over 8 grams of carbs per square, and a hefty 460 calories per.
In terms of calories, one bar is a little bit more than you would get if you ate three pounds of strawberries (my favorite nightly treat, but I have closer to a cup). And a square isn't really low carb, unless you simply count percentage intake. For a treat, 8 grams in a single bar would kill a very low carb diet.
And, as I said before. It just isn't paleo either. I'm not an expert on cavemen or hunter/gatherers, but even I can figure out that they weren't eating much artificial sweetener or clarified butter. The best I can figure, these are probably really yummy, but they don't fit into any rational diet that I know about.
Even funnier, as far as I'm concerned, is the notion that you would use Stevia at all in this recipe. The amount called for is the equal of about 1 tbs of sugar. That would add 45 calories and 12 grams of carbs to the recipe. Yep, its those extra sugar calories and carbs that end up making people fat...
I was halfway joking about the fried apples (and I did realize it made me sound like the quintessential snotty NYer) because I remember during my Orthodox Low Carb days feeling guilty about eating fruit, esp. apples. To a degree I still see an apple as a big fat honking package of eeeevil carbohydrates spiking my blood sugars, sending me into frenzies!!!
I mean, an apple is "candy from a tree" isn't it?
Actually, listening to my body, something that Eades tell us not to do, eating an apple is very satisfying.
Of course Jimmy felt great after eating a carb heavy meal, because his body was starved for carbohydrates. I just wish he would try eating carbohydrates in their natural form. The kind Paleolithic people ate: in the form of the plants all around us. He might try taking a walk in the countryside and trying to identify everything that is edible. It's a surprisingly large amount, even today.
Cattails:
"The young shoots are cut from the rhizomes (underground stems) in the spring when they are about 4 to 16 inches long. The raw young shoots taste like cucumber and can also be made into pickles. When the young shoots are steamed they taste like cabbage. The base of the stem where it attaches to the rhizome can be boiled or roasted like potatoes. The young flower stalks can be taken out of their sheaths and can be boiled or steamed just like corn (Roos-Collins 1990; Clarke 1977).
Cattail pollen is a fine substitute for flours. It is a bright yellow or green color, and turns pancakes, cookies or biscuits a pretty yellow color (which children love)."
http://www.gardenguides.com/taxonomy/broadleaf-cattail-typha-latifolia/
And:
"Evidence of preserved starch grains on grinding stones suggests they were eaten in Europe 30,000 years ago."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha
Here's the facts. If there is a calorie to be wrung out of it, people have eaten it.
Assholes. Complete and utter assholes.
Absolutely... I was once an orthodox low-carber as well, and I'm now convinced that LC/paleo has far more in common with another "O" word: orthorexia. I haven't read the lemon square book in question, but from looking at some of the recipes I have to wonder what ANY of this has to do eating "unprocessed, whole foods". Were artificial sweeteners popular in paleolithic times? Which begs the question of why do LC/primal eaters even need sweeteners in the first place? I'd always heard from the LLVLC gang that the "taste of sweet" was one of the main problems in the first place - and, what's more, that it was entirely unnecessary if you were following any of these plans correctly. There are far more questions than I have answers for (or even much feel like asking). Why so many people accept this stuff uncritically I'll never know.
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