Dr. Mikes Eades' 2007 blog entry on Jack Lalanne versus Ansel Keys as they aged:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...-vs-ancel-keys/

Ahhhh...thank you. I see now what everyone here is saying...that the video doesn't prove anything because it is comparing apples and oranges - the formerly fat with the always fit. And they (and you) are right about that. However, after reading your post I thought of a couple more people who could fit into this discussion, on the vegan side - John Robbins and Rip Esselstyn. They are both "ripped and sexy", lol.

I guess (and a lot of people here will not agree with this) it all depends on what works for each individual.

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. Jack LaLanne was not a vegan, but he did eat a low fat diet. His good health was probably due to his devotion to exercise.

I agree with this actually. There seems to be way more individual variation than we have tolerance for our differences!

In the old days he wasn't low fat, he was "low cal". Before the Snackwell's era and salad dressings made of guar gum.

I love his video "Sample Meal Plan." He was all about low cal - no added fat and no processed starches and sugars. It looks exactly like Primal Blueprint! Well except he does say to scramble the morning egg in water. (gak)

The facts.

Pictures of diet book authors without any time stamp. Those are facts. But that's all the facts presented. Nothing else. Nobody knows what these people eat. They didn't even fill out a food questionnaire - the lowest form of "scientific" evidence. And that's another fact.

Do any of you believe those facts are enough to draw any conclusion about anything? We're smarter than this. We discuss science every day on this forum, we should know better than to be fooled by the simple association between a picture of an author and the book they wrote.

Gary Taubes is an author. He wrote Good Calories Bad Calories - a book we probably cite more than any other here. Yet we don't go around pointing out how he looks and say "oh look, he's not so lean after all, he mustn't be following his own advice then." Or worse, he mustn't know much about what he just wrote. After all, he wrote probably the single most significant book on diet and health. Why isn't he himself the single most significant example of that?

More facts.

Do any of you dispute the claims made by many posters here who said they found great success by following the advice found in the various books presented in the video? Do any of you dispute the results of the low-carb experimental studies that show low-carb is best in all things measured? Then we'll just admit those as facts too.

Between those two sets of facts, which one are we most inclined to base our own actions on? It's obvious to me.

Jack comes form an era when fat was not feared. So low-fat for him might have been higher in fat than most of us would eat, even on low-carb.

Martin, you're the one who, on another thread, said that Drs. Esselstyn and McDougall were lying when they claimed to have been eating a vegan diet for years. . Given that bias, why even worry about "facts"?

Oh, and if you want to make sure you're seeing recent pictures, google.

Are you suggesting that when I say they lie, I'm ignoring the fact of their health status? I'm not. Instead, I'm ignoring the assumption of their diet. Just like I'm ignoring the assumptions about the diet of the authors in the pictures of the video above. More recent pictures won't prove any of those assumptions either.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it has something to do with genetics as well.

I used to be a vegetarian. I ate according to Diet for a Small Planet, which was supposed to provide adequate protein while saving the planet, blah blah blah. I stayed overweight eating that way. Low carb seems to work much better with My Body. I too agree with the idea that each person should discover what works best for them. I've tried both approaches and one way is infinitely more successful and sustainable for me. Find your best approach, Happy LC, and each one of us will do the same.

I can understand your point, I really do.

I feel however that this video is clearly not intended to further discussion along health lines. A discussion as to what major proponents of either the vegan or LC camps are healthy or not certainly would be appropriate, but that isn't what THIS particular video is. If the person who uploaded this video DID intend to spark culturally significant, reasoned, evidence based discussion; they wouldn't be deleting comments that express views that oppose theirs.

No worries. I think it was a point worth making as clear as possible, as I think it was in danger of being overlooked. And I do really feel that it IS an unfair comparison as the camps are quite different. It doesn't mean vegans are right (or wrong) and it doesn't mean that LCers are wrong (or right!).

(And you're right, about John and Rip. Not sure why they weren't included.)



Nah, I think a lot of people here will actually totally agree with that. I know I do. It's just that the reason many of us are here is because we had to find that out the hard way, because we were often continuously being told that low-fat high-carb was THE ONLY WAY, even when it clearly wasn't working for us. The end result is that often we're a bit defensive of anything that stinks of dietary propaganda, because it was dietary propaganda that got us all in the position we're in!

Honestly, if vegans want to be vegans, if vegetarians want to be vegetarians, if DurianRider wants to (claim to) eat 30 bananas a day, and it works for them, I don't really care, and more power to them. If people can eat 60% carbs a day and stay healthy, more power to them, too.
But I don't go out seeking vegans to tell them how wrong they are, so I get a little defensive when they try to do the same to me.

Diet is a lot like religion, and every bit as touchy a subject to discuss. We all have our own sacred points of view, not always backed up by facts (even if we try to say otherwise) and we all cling to them obstinately in the face of all opposition. Hence, if we don't discuss diet carefully, it can often devolve very quickly into mud-slinging! (And in the same way, I don't go pushing my beliefs about religion on other people, so I get equally touchy when they try to do it to me!)



I think we only have a certain amount of info about LaLanne's diet (which I know changed over the years) and probably even less about Keys' diet (iirc he never pushed himself as an example of diet so never had to discuss much what he ate) but I think that Dr. Eades' original point is relevant. Which is that so many people say "well Keys lived past 100 so he must have been doing something right".

Not true. You only have to look at the guy and see how sickly and decrepit he looked in his final years to know he wasn't doing things right. Whereas LaLanne shows clearly that it's perfectly possible to be fit and full of vigor to your dying day. Now it's may be every bit as likely that both their conditions at that point were due to genetics, but it's still a very valid point about how making claims based on how long someone lives is not relevant.

I honestly don't understand what our obsession is with living as long as we possibly can, when these days we have simply exchanged quality of life with quantity of life. Who cares if you live to 100 if you spend the last 20 years of it sitting in a nursing home watching talk shows (that you're too deaf to hear now) in a darkened room all day and complaining to the nurses that your kids never visit anymore? Is that really living? Wouldn't you rather die at 80 but be living your life to the fullest up until that moment? I personally would, and rather hope I do. I don't have any pressing desire to live forever, or even for too long.

Therefore, whenever anyone says "oh Keys was right because he lived to 100", maybe it's time to take a step back and wonder how appropriate that statement really is, on a lot of levels.

Can we please put this in the "best posts" section? This is awesome.

Cynthia Kenyon discovered that diet has a significant effect on longevity by studying C. elegans worms. Depending on how much glucose she fed them, some of them lived 2 or 3 times longer, and were still as vigorous at the end of their life as in the beginning. So maybe it's genetics, but I can't help but draw a parallel between Jack and Ancel, and Cynthia's worms. I agree with you that longevity itself is not that relevant but for a different reason. Our longevity today is due in large part to medical advances.

You're right about that. I will never understand people who try to silence opposition. IMO, the more info the better.

This is what I don't understand, and what, I suppose, is the reason behind "headveg" deleting critical comments on the video. I've seen so many biased dietary studies and can't understand why researchers seem to be looking to reinforce their preconceived notions rather than looking for the truth. It's food! I completely understand your own sensitivity to being told you're wrong, but not why others feel a need to tell you you're wrong.