Live Blogging from the Paleo Summit VI: Nora Gegaudas

Link:  Nora Gedgaudas
Title:  Safe Starches: To Eat or Not to Eat?

Ratings:

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☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼  Content

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Summary:

Nora Gedgaudas takes on Paul Jaminet's rationale for including safe starches in the diet.  Her arguments boil down to the oft repeated meme that we humans have no dietary need for glucose because we can make all we need.  She goes into Paul's arguments for starches from his breast-milk composition, body composition and food reward perspectives.  The remainder of the substantative part of the interview is spent trying to find other reasons why many folks start to decline on long term VLC diets.  Enter theme I'm seeing parroted by TWICHOOBs in comments about the ever increasing list of low carb bloggers jumping ship:  we're all just addicts.  With a chuckle (joined by Sean) Nora wonders if methadone is to heroine as "safe starches" are to sugar.  You see, we're all addicts now.  After that, the remainder of the (way too long) interview is spent hemming and hawing and patronizing to make sure to list areas of agreement with Paul Jaminet and a little fawning from Sean over Nora's knowledge and intellect.   If you're pressed for time and inclined to listen at all, you won't miss much after the 40 minute mark.

IMPORTANT ALERT:

I have made no secret of my opinion of Nora Gedgaudas.  In my opinion, nobody who misrepresents basic physiology/metabolism in the manner she does should be taken seriously.  Coming from the LC community I had heard of her but didn't really bother much because, unlike Gary Taubes, I wasn't constantly being bombarded with the "as Gary Taubes tells us ..." education from various folks in the course of discussions.   As I've become immersed more in the paleo world I've discovered that she's a pretty big name and high on the lists of organizers of various paleo meetings such as AHS.  Her book is highly regarded in paleo circles.  I don't get that because a friend sent me her copy of PBPM so I could see for myself.  It's not well organized, referenced in a way that makes it difficult to attribute certain statements she makes to the original source so as to confirm their validity, etc.   This all boils down to the following from her website: 

4. I feel sleepy or tired after meals or I may crave dessert.

These symptoms are “classic” signs of insulin resistance. This may also be indicative of food sensitivities, or possibly even both. Eating a meal is not supposed to fatigue you or make you sleepy/groggy. Many people think it is natural to feel sleepy after a meal. It is not.  Eating is supposed to fuel you, if anything. So why would you be fatigued? Your body tries to take sugar from a meal out of the bloodstream as quickly as possible. The first order of business is to send glucose to your cells for immediate energy.  If those cells are insulin resistant, then the sugar has to go somewhere (and energy cannot get into the cell).  Your body sends some glucose to storage in the liver and muscle as glycogen. The rest of the glucose (i.e., most of it) goes to the liver to get converted into triglycerides so it can get sent to storage as body fat.  Unless you have a very high rate of metabolism (not necessarily a good thing) you are likely to gain unwanted weight. This conversion to fat from sugar is a labor intensive process metabolically and takes a LOT of energy to accomplish. –It takes even more if a lot of fat was eaten at the same meal as the carbohydrates. Since burning the carbs off is priority #1 (and because it is impossible to burn fat AND sugar at the same time), whatever dietary fat is there also must be first converted to sugar before it can be re-converted to triglycerides and finally stored as body fat(“All body fat is made from glucose”—Basic medical Biochemistry).  This is a very energy INefficient process and takes an enormous amount of energy to do. Finally, foods to which one is sensitive generate stress and inflammation in the body that may also be fatiguing.  Ultimately, one must deal with the insulin resistance to address these symptoms, as well as possibly perform an elimination/provocation diet as a means of determining possible food sensitivities.  (See pages 78,88, 99, 105 and 167 in PB-PM).

This is WRONG.  Gedgaudas did not backtrack on this when I asked her about it in email.  Rather than an hour on safe starches, and what Paul Jaminet supposedly doesn't fully appreciate, understand or misinterprets about less settled topics, I'd like to hear -- for however long it takes -- her explain the basic biochemistry of glucose and fatty acid metabolism. 

Recommendation:

I don't think there is any reason to get Nora's take on safe starches in order to decide for yourselves whether or not starches should be a part of your diet.  Skip this one.

Running Commentary:

• Discusses Paul's breast-milk rationale for glucose citing the lactose content of human milk vs. other mammals.  Nora suggest this may be a greater need to store more body fat, babies are pudgie, because we don't have fur.  She then cites the Textbook of Basic Neurochemistry that newborns make significant utilization of ketone bodies reading the following quote:  "Significant utilization of ketone bodies by the brain is, however, normal in the neonatal period. The newborn infant tends to be hypoglycemic but becomes ketotic when it begins to nurse because of the high fat content of the mother's milk."  This is an interesting citation and there's some information that bears going into at a future date.  For now I'll include the sentence that follows that quote:  "When weaned onto the normal, relatively high-carbohydrate diet, the ketosis and cerebral ketone utilization disappear. Studies have been carried out mainly in the infant rat, but there is evidence that the situation is similar in the human infant."  OK, remind me about those rodent studies again ;-)  

This prompts Nora to ask: 

"if the baby's brain was making use of all this glucose then why are babies in a state of ketosis?"

Note that you cannot dispute there is glucose in the breast-milk and yet they are hypoglycemic according to that study so where does the glucose go?  I have more thoughts on this for another day. 

• Claims that our brains can get up to 85% of our energy from ketones.  Cite?  If it is the aforementioned citation, then one must look at the context of their discussion on ketone utilization which they describe as passive, and make considerable references to what's going on with prolonged starvation and comatose states.  Relevance??
• Nora:  "We're able to manufacture as much as we need from glycolysis (sic) and gluconeogenesis" -- I include this quote because it is nothing new, but for the "typo".  I used the "sic" there because in this one instance I'm willing to give a pass and presume she means glycogenolysis
• Next up she discusses Paul's version of Food Reward.  Basically Paul says cravings for certain foods are seeking behaviors to meet nutritional needs.  Nora says cravings are a sign of addiction.  She then repeats her assertion that sugar eating would be to a need to store body fat (because in her own description this is such an efficient way to do so!)
• Did you know potatoes are devoid of nutritional value?  
• How can Paul promote eating post-agricultural foods like potatoes and rice.  Someone take away his paleo badge before someone gets hurt!

• Nora launches into a somewhat lengthy discussion of gluten sensitivity and how many people find rice is "cross-reactive" with gluten (potatoes too, but mostly they are evil because they are night shades).  Oh ... and autoimmunity.  This is why I enjoyed O'Bryan's interview so much -- he isn't baffling with BS, he defines and describes what he means by everything.  Unfortunately Sean doesn't interrupt and ask Nora about this.  Paul went to great lengths to look at this for PHD if memory serves.  Hopefully he'll address it on his blog.

One nugget we learn from Nora is why the Asians don't get fat on all that rice.  They don't eat a lot of it.  They are minimalists who don't overeat (so much for the carbs make you eat more outside of your control stuff) so they are healthy in spite of the fact that they do eat a bit of rice.  

Nora had chronic appendicitis and nixing potatoes cured that. 

She now launches into hyperbole mode equating gluten sensitivity with a life-threatening condition citing O'Bryan.  He referred to how celiacs can't have just a little gluten and those with gluten sensitivity as well.  This is not the same as saying that anyone with a gluten sensitivity will even be sensitive to *trace* amounts of gluten.  And yet she tries to say that trace whatever in rice could be potentially life-threatening.

• Low stomach acid affects 90% of the population -- so much for all those billions Big Pharma is making off of pills to shut down stomach acid production ....  These are attributed to stress, low thyroid, zinc or B1 deficiency, drinking too much with meals, and lastly combining starch and protein.  Ah well, this is why I now consume oatmeal because I learned in Wheat Belly that it will create sulfuric acid in my tummy.  
• Did you know that hypoglycemia is only damaging if you are metabolically and unnaturally adapted to a dependence on sugar as your primary source of fuel?  Neither did I.  But here's the kicker:  "or if they have excessively depressed cortisol levels which can excessively depress either glycolysis or gluconeogenesis".   There's a lot wrong with this one but there it is again -- glycolysis -- not a miss-speak after all.

• Now she launches on the immune system angle and takes a jab at Paul for any assertion that LC diets may suppress the immune system.  "I've got news for him, everyone does [has suppressed immunity] these days".  Of course LF would be worse than LC, but Nora gives us no reason why other than to cite how drinking sucrose lowers neutrophil phagocytosis for 90% for up to two hours of ingestion.  (Ringsdorf, W., Cheraskin, E. and Ramsay R. Sucrose,Neutrophilic Phagocytosis and Resistance to Disease, Dental Survey. 1976;52(12):46_48.)  Sigh.  Nora herself goes on mini-fasts to dampen any kind of insulin response at all if she's feeling even borderline under the weather.
• Discussion of auto-immunity etc.etc.
• Jimmy listen up!  In a total aside she launches into a discussion of low T that goes something like:  low testosterone because testosterone reacts with aromatase in fat cells in the presence of insulin converted it to estrogen ... take T therapy, feel better for a bit, but then it too is converted to still more estrogen in a wicked cycle.  Adding insulin is not a good thing. 

• So ... there's got to be another reason all these people report feeling like crap on an LC diet.  It must be something else.  Next up on the blame podium is eating too much protein.  Protein is turned to sugar so there are all these low carbers who aren't fat burners after all.  This, Nora says is not natural because all animals are fat burners.  Even cows are because carbs are turned to short chain fatty acids in their bodies.  Paul makes this argument too, and I find it one of the more ridiculous ones floating out there.  SCFA's are not "burned as fat" like MCT and LCT's.  That is, they are not broken down by beta oxidation to release energy.  We're note even sure exactly how butyrate is metabolized for energy exactly, but cows are fat-makers, not burners.  Those SCFA's mostly become substrates for denovolipogenesis to make body fat for us humans to wallow in!

• You might not even be craving the carbs you know.  It's all those critters within you that you're starving and killing off that are staging a mutiny!

• I got totally turned off when she mentiones the long time heroine addict.  Yes folks, you are just a long-term sugar addict if you don't thrive on a VLC diet.  A slide in the presentation is created as Nora asks:

are safe starches just another form of methadone for the previously carb addicted? 

Snicker snicker, "I don't know" -- Sean joins the chuckles here :(  Nora regains composure to adopt a very concerned tone as she discusses her concern.  But here we go with another dig:

"I think offering some form of absolution for carb addicts with the term 'safe starches' is going to put a lot of people on a really slippery slope."

• OK folks I'm going to wrap this up with one long rambling bullet point because the above is just over the top nonsense.  She goes on to say that carb consumption makes no sense from an evolutionary sense and talks about cropolites.  Those are fossilized feces as we all know and human cropolites contain no evidence of plant fiber.  There are pics of some pretty substantial "dumpers" there, but I can't in my naivete wonder if there's no plant fiber because that's what the bacteria eat/ate?  Whatever.  So then Nora's voice changes tone and her volume lowers perceptibly.  Gone is the confidence and whatnot and now she fears she's offended someone or said too much so she -- in somewhat stuttered fashion -- begins to rattle off a list of agreements with Paul, compliments, qualifications of statements, "I don't pretend to have the final word".  She says that "not enough attention is paid to the ways glucose is regulated in the body" {paraphrase}  and brings up methadone again as a bandaid.  That's some chutzpah from someone who has no clue how glucose is metabolized in the human body.   At least Nora doesn't claim to think horizontally, but she pats herself (and Paul) on the back for being outside-the-box thinkers (I'm coming to dislike that phrase) so at least they aren't being too simplistic.  Only Paul's argument is too simplistic.  But he's a smart guy don't get me wrong.  Hem ... haw ... hem ... haw.  She wraps up any science with a short disscusion of glycation and saying that our bodies produce ROS too but we wouldn't want to add extra ROS.  So too then we don't need to add glucose because we can make all we need.  

• Sean asks, is there ever a need for starches?  This one deserved it's own bullet point.  Why yes Sean, athletes, those preparing for triathlons, or the Olympics ... ya know elite athletes who need to keep replenishing their glycogen stores {somebody tell Nora she's got this all wrong, athletes are all going keto these days because fat burning metabolisms especially don't need no stinkin carbs}.  But anyway, if you're an elite athlete Nora gives you absolution to eat sweet potatoes and bananas.  Those won't do too bad a job on your insulin and you won't have to "pay for it later".  Minimize the damage by going Durianrider right before your workout (or after) so you burn it all off.  Maybe if you're preggers more carbs too.  But then she sounds almost like she got scared -- oooh oh oh but I don't think they are essential.  We must always and forever remember that!!!  But you ladies, take one for the human team and go ahead and risk potential suicide by insulin for the sake of procreating.  It's only for 9 months after all, and we thank you. 

I get that Nora is trying to make an evolutionary argument for the "fact" that humans ate no carbs to survive Ice Ages and basically ate fat.  The Inuit show us this is how humans thrive but sadly Weston Price never managed to "can" the magic of all that.  But if that fails she's happy to convince us that we're all just hopelessly sugar addicted and anyone who doesn't feel good eating this supposed diets of our ancestors is just paying homage to the glucose god at the methadone clinic.   Maybe Kruse is onto something and we all just need to construct giant walk in freezers in our homes, and in honor of Nora let's install tanning beds in there too.  Hmmm ... I'm even willing to say that an evolutionary argument of the "paleo man ate this or that" variety is pretty weak for both low carb or otherwise.  But I think you have to be horribly biased to keep having to find excuses why Okinawans are so long-lived and so many human populations have thrived and multiplied on diets predominated by starch consumption.  If the Inuit is all the paleo low carbers have to fixate their fat dreams on, it's getting pretty desperate out there.  

 

So, here I thought one of the things that the Ancestral Health folks were trying to do was to expand paleo to the notion of a "template" and broaden the discussion to traditional cultures and ways of eating as well.  Surely the other work of Weston Price did not escape Nora's notice?  WAPF-style diets include grains even, which is not to say paleo should necessarily embrace them, but there's evidence of grain consumption far predating the 10K year threshold we so often hear bantied about, and our paleolithic Founding Fathers certainly ate plenty of starches, safe or otherwise.  I think Paul would agree that his goal in formulating PHD was to construct the "perfect diet" -- in full knowledge that no diet is best for everyone.  But that diet to consist of foods available to us today to optimize health.  Not to recreate a paleolithic diet, whatever the heck that was anyway. 

As the interview closes out, Sean fawns over Nora (as he did in the introduction).  He's mesmerized by her knowledge.  Wow that Nora is really smart.  Nevermind that she gets the basics of human metabolism so wrong.  Nah ... let's all look the other way on that one.  Personally I struggle to fathom Nora's popularity even moreso than Jack Kruse's sudden notoriety.  Her book is a mediocre read at best, contains numerous blatant errors, and at times more than whiffs of plagiarism.  It's gotten a facelift (I have the original) but I really wonder how many of her fans have read it.  Many Amazon reviewers found it as difficult to read as I did, some were even more harsh.  In the end for me, I can never get past someone claiming that all body fat comes from glucose, and then defending that position when challenged rather than correcting it.  It's almost as if she's talking about species from another planet.  Chylomicronots maybe?  Well ... she has appeared on Coast to Coast with George Noory ...