The Carb-Sane Asylum

BUMP:  This post is over four years old (original publish date:  11/17/10).  It came to mind a day or so ago when someone linked me to Sam Feltham's latest DISinfographic and accompanying video. If what Feltham is saying (and I can't for the life of me understand how he "borrows" this from Bailor w/o any complaint from Bailor ... even his book title is similar to Bailor's former one!), the results in this study shouldn't have occured. So the original (short) post, unedited, and some commentary afterwards in how some things have changed in my knowledge, understanding and thinking about all of this.

Hey all ... just a quick note. It's been one of those weeks and all where I've started like a half a dozen blog posts and gotten distracted or needed to do some "cleanup" on them so I've held them in the draft bin. Lots going on in real life in addition to the online side. But as often happens when I'm writing about a topic, a related paper pops up and something catches my eye. Such was the case when I looked into some of Dr. David Ludwig's work on the glycemic index for background on a post, and another study was mentioned along with his work. Studies such as this one from Ludwig --  High Glycemic Index Foods, Overeating, and Obesity  -- and, frankly, common sense to a degree -- paint high glycemic index foods as "bad" because: The rapid absorption of glucose after consumption of high-GI meals induces a sequence of hormonal and metabolic changes that promote excessive food intake in obese subjects. And this makes sense, and i...

A few days ago, I alerted the blog on actions taken by Quest Nutrition vis a vis some videos they had partnered with Jonathan Bailor on.    In the comments section, Kevin posted a link to Bailor's response to the situation.   His main response was: The calorie myth is the idea that we must consciously count calories to avoid obesity and disease. To which I would respond that perhaps he should have titled his book The Calorie Counting Strawman .   I cannot think of a single person who believes that the laws of thermodynamics do indeed apply to the human body, myself included, who also believes people MUST necessarily count calories.  Not a one.  I believe that one would be hard pressed to find a person amongst the successes in the National Weight Loss Registry who will say that calorie counting is a requirement, even if they, themselves, must count calories in order to maintain their personal achievement in that regard.

Those who don't Facebook perhaps missed one of the best things to happen in a long time in the nutritional world.  You see, Quest Nutrition had teamed with Jonathan Bailor to produce a video series:   The Quest to End the Calorie Myth .  I didn't get to watch the video, but apparently we get yet another rehash of the clogged sink nonsense from Bailor.  Alan Aragon discusses what went down Welp, science won today, and here are the Cliffs of what transpired : Quest Nutrition decided to do a video series with Jonathan Bailor, a program manager for Microsoft who recently authored a diet book. Bailor spewed a colorful bounty of nonsense involving "hormonal clogging" and claimed that quantity of calories doesn't matter, but quality does. The Quest audience has a high concentration of folks who value scientific evidence, and a resounding uproar ensued. No attempt was made by Bailor to defend his position when challenged by myself & many others on Quest'...

Jonathan Bailor has earned himself a high dishonor of his own blog post linking to the bad science in his books.  He earned this because he has perpetuated past 2010 the flawed alpha glycerol phosphate aka glycerol 3 phosphate aka G3P part of Gary Taubes' fairy tales on obesity.  

It seems like non-profits are quickly becoming *the* way to go in the IHC.  The most ballyhooed among them is NuSI which should provide an income stream for founders Gary Taubes and Peter Attia, and some degree of gravitas to boost the waning enthusiasm over the whole carbs = insulin = obesity meme, for years to come.   There are others, like Adele Hite's low carb front supposedly out to change the national nutritional recommendations.  I have to snicker, sorry, because so long as Gatewing (Adam Kosloff --depicted here with his KKKonfederacy of Dunces benefactor) is their outreach guy, I simply cannot take such an organization seriously.   But today I learn that Jonathan Bailor is launching his own non-profit, called Slim Is Simple (SIS) today.  There's not much there yet, as of this posting, with the exception of a logo -- portraying women through the ages, apparently -- that is nominally to highly offensive, depending on how long one scrutinizes it, and...