The Carb-Sane Asylum

Tom Naughton has weighed in with some random musings regarding ketosis:   Reactions To Arguments About Ketosis .    The more Fat Head talks about nutrition the more evident it becomes that he really has no idea what he is talking about, and really ought not to be educating anyone no matter how entertaining he thinks he is.   Ketogenic diets are stupid because everyone apart from diabetics should be able to consume at least 150 grams of carbohydrate per day. I don’t think the everyone should eat starch argument makes any more sense than the no one should eat starch argument. All humans have the AMY1 gene, which makes it possible to digest starch. That’s one of the many reasons I believe our paleo ancestors ate starchy plants. But some clearly ate a lot more than others. Let’s review a quote from Denise Minger’s book Death By Food Pyramid : It turns out the number of AMY1 copies contained in our genes is not the same for everyone. And the amount ...

Fauxtrage I: Background on Julian Bakery & Jimmy Moore

There is sooooo much going on in the IHC these days that it's overwhelming at times deciding what to spend my time blogging on.  I've decided to weigh in on Breadgate 2014 to kick things off.   If you follow me on social media, you are no doubt aware that Julian Bakery, which now also conducts business under the name Paleo Inc.,  was served with a warning letter from the FDA, available here .    For the record, here is Julian Bakery's response to the FDA. IMPORTANT NOTE:  Nothing in this blog post is intended to be in support of either side of the "Low Carb Consumer" vs. Heath Squier/Julian Bakery/Paleo Inc. debate.   I will link to both sides whenever I have ready access to those links, though I suspect this will turn out to be rather long and I might not be as thorough.  As always, the comments section is open here for anyone who wishes to provide more regarding their side to the story.   I may offer my opinion from time to ti...

Part I Fattening Things: (It's been a little while, sorry) ... Before continuing (and completing) this discussion, let me preface this post by saying that there is no single food or macronutrient that is inherently fattening in and of itself.  For any food -- let's say pizza because that is blamed quite often -- you can find obese people that are not big fans, and you can find bean poles who basically live off of the stuff (and wash it down with Coke).   But I do believe certain foods have demonstrated themselves to be problematic for a large enough proportion of the population so as to be designated:   potentially fattening . Try as some may to rationalize against it, the bottom line is that if you eat too much of anything, the body's long term storage facility for that is fat tissue.   Your most potentially fattening foods, therefore, are: Those (generally fat + carb combos) highly palatable foods that are easy to eat a lot of in and of themselves...

Links to scientific background and calculations below.   Oh ... and more teaspoons :-)

1.  It is known that the adult human brain consumes roughly 23% of total daily caloric expenditure for the "average person".  Glucose utilization by the brain has been determined to be at least 100 g/day, the most common figure I've seen is 125-130 g/day, and I've seen up to 150 g/day.  In light of this (and absent rare brain GLUT transporter deficiency disease), wouldn't EVERY human have a "carbohydrate tolerance" of at least 100 g/day?   2.  Low carb advocates like to focus on the fact that there are approximately 1 to 2 teaspoons or somewhere between 4 to 10 grams of sugar (glucose) dissolved in circulation at any given time.  However normal individuals "clear" several times that amount in fairly short order (an OGTT runs 50 to 100 grams of glucose).  The "insulin resistance" paradigm implicates a backlog of glucose in the blood stream due to cells with filled up glycogen stores.  This sounds like common sense.  Why, then, do...

Those who follow me on social media know that I broke down and purchased a copy of Keto Clarity .   I'm deciding on whether to bother with a formal review of the book or Jimmy Moore's contribution.  With respect to Jimmy Moore, this is a second volume of convincing himself and the world that his crazy diet schemes are healthy rather than unhealthy, as if repeating it often enough will make it so.   But for the rest of the world, it is more Dr. Eric Westman's stamp of approval and co-authorship that is problematic for his credibility.  In Cholesterol Clarity , he signed off on a book where Jimmy's horrific lipid panel including, at times, LDL-P over 3000, LDL-C over 300, TC over 400.   In Keto Clarity , the fact that Jimmy Moore's biomarkers did NOT improve, despite a temporary weight loss of almost 80 lbs, is magically presented as a healthy dietary lifestyle.  

Dr. Westman is the director of the Lifestyle Medical Clinic at Duke University Medical Center. He is the President of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians.  He is co-author of The New Atkins for a New You .  He has published clinical research mostly treating diabetics on an Atkins Induction-style low carb diet.  He knows obesity.  He knows many obese people.  He has treated some to great success.  No doubt he has observed countless others that are not as successful.  He has been on Jimmy Moore's low carb cruises, and most recently he has lent his name and reputation to highly questionable health claims and advice made by his former patient and friend in their books Cholesterol Clarity and Keto Clarity.   One thing that I hope we can ALL agree on is that crazy crash diets are not a long term solution to the problem.  In Keto Clarity Westman criticizes marketing schemes and diet book gimmicks (from pgs 115 and 177)

image link Jimmy & Sean in April 2013 Last week, Jimmy Moore paid a visit to the Underground Wellness radio show/podcast hosted by Sean Croxton . Jimmy Moore has a new book out, set to be released today.   Keto Clarity it is called, and in addition to the various therapeutic uses, sure to be over-hyped, this book will include the story of Jimmy's personal triumph over regaining roughly half of his LC weight loss despite remaining true to livin la vida low carb.

I have to give credit where credit is due. In his zeal to dismiss the role of calories in weight (fat) gain or loss, Ian Lane makes a pretty good case for why alcohol is not likely to be the carbon source for accumulated fat .  In doing so, however, he accidentally all but exonerates the lowly carbohydrate.  I don't think he meant to do that ...  The particular post in question was the subject of a couple of blog posts recently, see here and here .   It would appear that it has now been officially (in the title line) "revised" to eliminate all of the overt scientific inaccuracies, and focuses on ethanol, which makes it easier to direct readers of this post to just the part in question!  Ian writes: The molecule I'd like to highlight, which, from my perspective, cannot realistically be stored as body fat, is ethyl alcohol , or ethanol . (That’s not to say that ethanol can’t possibly aid in fat accumulation somehow — see below — rather, the calories in etha...