The Carb-Sane Asylum

I really thought this was a joke, and a silent hat tip goes out to the person who brought this to my attention so's that I don't get them on anyone's bad list for contributing to such a post here at the Asylum.  But OMG . How Many Calories Does Mayo Have? ... now that Mark Sisson is whipping up wonderful mayo, I can get to work on the backlog of tuna salad, pea salad, and deviled eggs I’ve been denying myself. ... I thought I’d enjoy some tuna salad with two heaping spoonfuls of Mark’s zippy mayo—call it research for  lower calorie  meal plans for my new business, the FatBurn Factory.  With the addition of a few capers, instant lunch! But I need to know for, for the sake of my patients, ...    WHAT IS THE CALORIE COUNT OF THIS QUICK AND EASY MEAL  . Yeah I know what you're thinking.  What the heck is pea salad, and is there anyone else on the planet denying themselves of this dish?  

So ooooooooo ..... I wrote a post a couple days ago calling out Dr. Cate Shanahan for her blatant misrepresentation of Ancel Keys and his part in the advocacy of a low fat diet.  One could write volumes on the problems with Shanahan's " science "  and ideas, but hopefully this overnight guru phenomenon -- because some minor celebrity shill kingmaker deems them so -- is on the outs.  One can only hope.   The first image included in that post was this one below. Figure in Deep Nutrition

As I mentioned in my "opening post" on the matter of Ancel Keys, one of the inspirations was listening, for the umpteenth time, to a low carber blaming our ills on the "low fat diet" we were all duped into switching to by Ancel Keys.  In this case, it was Dr. Cate Shanahan: Reversing Diabetes ^ Knowledge Summit this past May. This woman wrote a book called Deep Nutrition with her ghost-writer husband Luke who has absolutely ZERO relevant background in the subject matter.  That book is an abomination.  Seriously.  As she possesses an MD (how she's board certified and practicing eludes me at this point!), the misinformation it contains on basic matters is even more potentially dangerous than that put out by some of the other diet gurus out there.   

I have decided to adopt the paleo template.  As anyone who reads this blog knows, just about any diet that doesn't involve dining with Marie (Callender), Debbie (comma Little), Ronald (McDonald) and Wendy can and will be *fit* into the paleo template!  Let's see there's: WAPF:  Eh, nevermind the sprouted grains and dairy of all manner, we're all on the same team. Vegan:  Well ... it is real food.  We can always try to convert them. Atkins:  What's a Quest Bar between friends?  Swap the Splenda for Stevia and we've got a deal. Zone:  The cause of every eating disorder including potentially Evander Holyfield according to the paleorati, but Sears cites Eaton so there's that. Mediterranean:  Well that's just really paleo low carb right? The Tequila Diet:  It IS paleo.  STFU! Perfect Health Diet:  Grok sooooo ate white rice and coconut oil! Carb Nite?:  Shhhhhhh he didn't really mean to front load junk food during ...

I changed the title of this post entirely for obvious reasons.   So, in T-minus 4 days the world will finally achieve Cholesterol Clarity !  Thanks to NYT Bestselling (hopeful is he) author Jimmy Moore.   The banner states that: So I looked at the list of experts and recalled this post highlighting how one of them, Dr. Cate Shanahan, blamed carbs for being turned into LDL and then make us fat.  You can browser search to "Skip to here!" and skip the intro stuff.   You might also be interested in my notes from the full presentation, HERE .  I've also had a chance to see what she says about LDL in her book Deep Nutrition, a whole 'nother theory there, and her interview with Jimmy  for the book was quite enlightening.  Beware the shaman lab tech and doctor trying to read your bloodwork tea leaves!  If you don't get hungry between meals you are a healthy fat burner ... don't worry, be happy.  

I don't follow Jack Kruse's antics much any more.  Every now and then, however, he comes up in a social media or email note.  He's still at it -- though there is no longer an answer at his practice phone number, so hopefully that means he's no longer actively performing neurosurgery.  From a Krusite on FB :   Humans are designed to eat an electron dense diet because they have a shortened gut and expanded brain that steepens their energy needs and restricts their sleep needs to 7.5- 8.5 hours. This implies that humans must have evolved around a diet high in electron density from food and their environment. It is hard to believe Jack has been talking this electron nonsense for going on two years now.  I suppose this is what happens in a community that fails to police itself when it comes to science ... but I digress. In any case, I have apparently missed the first however many incoherences Jack has created in his EMF series but since he's still on the ...

Confession time.  I found out about that recent LC v. LF diet study from Andreas Eenfeldt's blog.  Andreas seems woefully misguided into thinking that obese Americans got that way listening to US Government guidelines and eating a low fat diet.  Any and every study that shows some advantage for LC is rapidly added to his list demonstrating that LCHF is superior and LF diets are nothing short of criminal at this point.  I'll have some personal things to say about all of this at the end of the post.  Gossip Mongers can skip to there if you like ;-) (scroll down to line, or browser search on "And so now") In any case, in a blog post entitled  New Study: High Fat Food is Good for Diabetics , Andreas cites this "news" article:   High-fat diet lowered blood sugar and improved blood lipids in diabetics .  Another low carb advocate, Dr. Eades, also tweeted the following :   RCT shows better glycemic control & improved lipid labs seen in diabetic...

Can't seem to imbed yet:   LINK I haven't seen the whole thing yet so won't comment.  But thought I'd let my readers know the MRSA talk is up. Edit - Classic Kruse-ism at the end: Ideation without execution leads to deletion.

Link:   "Dr. Cate" Shanahan Title:  The Paleo Diet vs. Top-Selling Drugs: Who Wins? Ratings: ☼ ☼  ☼  ☼   ☼    Entertainment Value ☼ ☼  ☼  ☼   ☼    Content ☼ ☼  ☼   ☼   ☼    Informational Accuracy ☼ ☼  ☼     ☼   ☼   Overall Summary: Basically, just eat a low carb paleo diet folks and you won't get osteoporosis, schizophrenia and need cholesterol lowering drugs.  While Dr. Cate spends quite a bit of time discussing how diet can cure/prevent diseases, she goes into scant little detail as to what exactly she means by such a diet.  Shanahan's science is very poor.  If I were a parent I think I'd go nuts just worrying over my kid turning into a schizophrenic any day now after listening to Shanahan.  Just go paleo folks and skip all your meds.  Look, I'm on board with America being a WAY overmedicated society where doctors don't...

Link:  Dr. Jack Kruse ... Neuuurosurgeon! Title:  Leptin Circadian Cycles Ratings: ☼ ☼ ☼  ☼ ☼   Entertainment Value ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼   Content ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼  Informational Accuracy ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼  Overall Summary: Everything you'd expect in thirty minutes with Dr. Jack Kruse, or Leptin Man as we call him in these parts.  Ah what the heck, it's my blog.  Can we put up that slide Jeeves?   Thanks.  OK.  What you won't get is what's billed.  Leptin circadian cycles account for a couple minutes at most of the talk, and although Croxton promises us that Jack "shares how he lost 133 pounds in a single year by correcting the 'biological mismatches' that were once prevalent in his life" there's nothing about the Leptin Reset that comes out of Jack's mouth in this talk.   Aside from using the words like evolutionary a few times, and exclaiming that paleo fixes all (no grains, limited dairy), this wasn't r...

In  light of recent posts by Melissa McEwen (Hunt Gather Love blog) and Danny Roddy , I decided to dust this one off that got lost in the draft bin.  Melissa's post especially got me to go get this out of storage -- she cites a few quotes from Jack that are rather mind-boggling.  Folks over at PaleoHacks are well familiar with Quiltisms on all manner of things.     It seems that the selection of speakers for AHS12 has caused a bit of consternation in the paleo world, and for good reason, IMO.  I had considered entering a talk on eating disorders but figured it would be dead on arrival when I heard that some presenters from last year were rebuked.  So didn't waste my time.  I'm glad to see that others are speaking up -- hopefully more will -- about this disturbing trend in the paleo community.  Especially, as Melissa put it in her comments, how Jimmy Moore has now become some paleo guru kingmaker.  This as the man has now announced that...

Next up in our "how can he/she even say that?" series of blatantly erroneous things said by practicing physicians in furtherance of the carbophobic agenda ... I bring you, an Asylum favorite, Dr. William "Wheat Belly" Davis.  In the most recent post on his WB blog , Wheat Belly trips over himself trying to implicate wheat, specifically, in the diabetes epidemic.   But can we blame diabetes on wheat? Yes, absolutely, as much as you can blame poor oral hygience for toothlessness in West Virginia. Wow!  Gratuitous slam on WVa's aside, Dr. Wee Bee goes on  to list all the ways wheat causes diabetes: –Any food that increases blood sugar to high levels (i.e., high glycemic index) also increases insulin to high levels. Repetitive high insulin leads to insulin resistance, which leads to visceral fat deposition, more insulin resistance, inflammation, etc., eventuating in diabetes. –High blood sugar, such as that resulting from eating two slices of whole wheat bre...

As often happens with me, certain potential themes for blog series float through my head.  A stream of thought that connects things I see, read and hear about the web.  One of those themes lately has to do with the quality of information coming from a number of bloggers and otherwise-advocates of low carbing who are by all accounts actively practicing physicians.  Many of these physicians routinely chastise, mock and otherwise scorn their fellow practitioners in the course of promoting their views. This series will highlight the more ridiculous claims made by these doctors,  but not so much on the minutia of their entire pro-low carb message.  In other words, a bit less about the overarching erroneous themes, and a bit more about individual "schtick" or just what I would call absurd random statments they make.  And I guess with each installment of this series, I would ask: Why would (s)he even say that?