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Old Thu, Feb-15-18, 08:51
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teaser teaser is offline
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Posts: 15,075
 
Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154 Male 67inches
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
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I think one problem here is that they've genuinely been given a straw man to knock down, they didn't even have to build it themselves.

If I say "bread makes people fat, sick, etc.," I'm making a harder to support statement than to say, "once a person is fat, sick, etc., a low carb approach, which generally includes low or absent bread intake, has been shown to be an effective intervention." The first statement invites people to look for exceptions, for populations where bread didn't seem to be harmful, at least vs. populations eating the SAD diet, and these exceptions really aren't hard to find.

A similar thing can be said for rice. I can't say "rice causes disease" with all that much certainty, but again I can say that a low carb approach, that greatly reduces rice as well as all digestible carbohydrate intake has been shown to be effective. The first statement invites people to look for exceptions, healthy populations that eat or ate rice. Not that hard to find. The second statement--people might infer that invitation, but it's not really implied. A well-composed low carb or ketogenic diet being therapeutic and healthful does nothing in itself to suggest that there aren't other dietary patterns that could be therapeutic or healthful. I sort of disagree with the phrase "Good Calories Bad Calories" now, I could agree with "Good Dietary Pattern Bad Dietary Pattern." The mainstream sort of misapplies this, talking about healthful dietary patterns while still insisting on the same old dietary villains and heroes--a good dietary pattern is one with healthy whole grains, high in fiber, low in butter and sugar etc. Nonsense, you can have a good overall diet that includes a fair amount of butter, perhaps where the butter itself, within that pattern, contributes to health. Or you could have a bad pattern, with lots of butter, in a context where the butter actually worsens the effects of the rest of the diet.

This is one reason why I hate the expression "just eat real food." It's the "just" I have a problem with. If it only meant "only eat real food" that would be fine, but often what seems to be meant is that the one quality of food that you should concern yourself with is its realness. Quality matters, and quality goes beyond the individual ingredients to the total composition of the diet.

Did Atkins ever say, if you eat less bread, you'll be healthier? I think he said something more along the lines of, if you reduce your carbohydrate intake under a certain person threshold, you'll be healthier.
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