Fri, Jan-26-18, 01:53
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Senior Member
Posts: 6,498
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Plan: VLC, mostly meat
Stats: 202/200/165
BF:
Progress: 5%
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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If anything, low-carb diets advocate to eat more veggies, not less. It turns out several veggies contain folic acid already.
On the other hand, considering that some populations thrived on meat diets, it's likely that the association between folic acid and birth defects isn't due to a dietary folic acid deficiency, but to some other factor that instead interferes with folic acid metabolism in some way, resulting in a physiological folic acid deficiency. Fortified foods merely compensate, even then barely. Incidence dropped only by 30% since fortification began. This means either fortification is inadequate, or whatever other factor is still strong enough to overwhelm fortification, or both.
Wouldn't it be ironic if the very foods we fortify are the same that interfere with folic acid metabolism? If so, then a low-carb diet - which omits these fortified foods - should actually improve rather than worsen the problem. Consider wheat flour, it's fortified with a few things, but there's no problem with any of those with low-carb, aside from folic acid if we are to believe the paper here. Well, cutting out wheat is probably the most noticeable thing we do on low-carb in terms of beneficial effects. There's even a book called Wheat Belly. If it was more accurate, it would be called Fortified Wheat Belly, cuz that wheat flour we cut out, it's fortified, ya?
Finally, fortification also suggests that the foods we used to eat before they were fortified, weren't actually good for us to begin with. The common argument in favor of fortification even says so - milling destroys or removes certain nutrients. A few exceptions perhaps - salt fortified with iodine for example. Salt is essential, so is iodine. I wonder if there is such a thing as fortified meat or fortified veggies. I mean, we got processed meat made with wheat flour and Ceasar salad made with croutons, maybe all that wheat makes it better for us. Nah.
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