Anything we eat, if eaten to excess, causes problems.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...ce261c691e9f6ec
I have the full text if anyone is interested in reading it.

For most people switching to a low-carb diet stops or even reverses the "unremitting caloric surplus" without too much efforts. Plus the fact that you invariably start replacing crap by whole foods by going LC. This is what really prompts the amelioration of all health markers.

So "Why do lowfat vegans have good results?". Some do because low-fat is often synonymous with lower calories and whole foods. But as we can see by the anecdotes in this thread, low-fat by itself is no guaranty. It's the whole foods that makes them healthy, some of them eat low-fat vegan crap and they are not healthy at all. It's easy to overeat processed carbs to excess.

Patrick

oh please you have so much to learn we don't need carbs but we need fat and you need fat to burn fat. Our bodies can store way more fat than carbs so that's a great clue what to eat. The only way Ornish diet works is if you go there from a diet of soda, burgers and fries. Granted all diets work up to a point but the low fat diet is not sustainable at all

What we need is water, proteins, vitamins, minerals and usable energy (whether fat, carbs, excess protein or even alcohol does not matter that much).

Patrick

Your brain is at least 50% saturated fat and your heart is surrounded by saturated fat for easy energy and your membranes are made of saturated fat and all of your organs are surrounded by fat for communication and protection .

And our body can create all this saturated fat by itself from carbs and protein if it needs to. The only fats that we cannot create is Omega3 and Omega6. Omega 6 is already too high even in lean meats, so it's not a problem and we should all take Omega 3 supplements anyway. So I stand by what I said in my last post.

Patrick

Reread my post, I didn't say you need carbs. Ornish has been successful and sustainable for some people and has been a disaster for others. Same with low carb, works for some but not for all. Of course you would say it's the best way to eat if it's working for you but not every person responds the same way to low-carb. Some people feel better, look better, have less cravings and lose weight easier on lower-fat, higher-carb. I don't think every diet works for every person and if you think it does then that is more like a religion than a simple eating plan you're following.

I've lost 22 pounds over the last few months after ADDING french fries to my lunch everyday. Sometimes it's all a mystery.

I am not sure and this is what I vaguely remeember but supposedly the fat converted from carbs is the most simplistic fat which is palmitic acid which is also supposedly inflammatory. Also this fat doesn't build any tissues but is just stored for future energy expenditure. This would explain hunger after a carb heavy meal.

This is what we have to go through
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis

Hallelujah The next big religious war will be between the carnivores and the vegans.

May I step in here for a moment? I don't know any vegans personally, but yesterday I was picking out a protien powder and this lady came up to me, in her mid 20's. She was telling me the pros and cons of each powder and wich one she likes the best(highest carb one). I picked the one without carbs and she told me its the best but clumpy. Ok, as she's walking away, she tells me she's a vegan. I still remember my first thought when she walked up to me, she was pail, not lack of sun pail either. She was also a little overweight, but she seemed to have energy and was happy to visit and explain everything to me. She actually SKIPPED back to her father and got there prescriptions filled.

I didn't think she looked healthy, besides the pail face, I couldn't pin point anything. She does take protien power though, she told me thats the only way for her to get the protien she needs.

Is the protien in the soy/veg powders different than animal protien? Do we process it differently? I am starting to believe we do. I am using my powder as a supplament, but I think the animals have it all!

You are right, the fat from carbs' lipogenesis is not a good building block. However, fatty acids from cells turnover are mostly reused in the biosynthesis process.

Some readers might find this info relevant to our discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_membrane

Now regarding brain cells specifically.
http://www.benbest.com/health/essfat.html

Also, even if someone would try to eat no fat at all in their diet, they would still get an intake of fat of about 10% by calories, which would not be used as energy and which if combined with enough Omega3 intake is enough for our body to function properly.

http://rawfoodsos.com/2010/08/06/fi...-response-html/
Denise Minger as shown good evidence that low-fat vegans have good results, not because they avoid animal products, but because their diet eliminates other health-harming items.

Patrick

Relevant review study.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365984
I don't know where they get the info for that last bolded part, I don't have the full text, but I'm pretty certain I do not agree with it. As long as someone does not chronically consume energy above their daily requirement and as long as they get proper protein intake, I don't see why our body would care if the rest comes from fat or carbs. So this upper limit is BS IMHO, but the lower limit is probably based on something more substantial.

Patrick

The dietary fat that goes into structure isn't all "essential."

A common criticism of the low carb diet is that de novo fatty acid synthesis doesn't seem to be very active in humans, except in situations of extreme carbohydrate overfeeding. This is a straw man, carbs don't have to be made into fat to make you fat, they only have to prevent the oxidation of fat. Animals that naturally live on a high carb diet tend to be pretty good at synthesizing fat from carb; it's easy to measure in rodents, hard in man, although this may have more to do with rate of fat turnover than anything else.

But, given the difference in blood lipids between a very high fat diet and a very high carb diet, I think that it's fair to say that there is a very big difference in metabolism between the diets, and that there are important differences between the two that go far beyond considerations of vitamin absorption, essential fatty acids, and energy needs.

That bit about 30 or 35 percent fat intake depending on activity level is pretty hilarious. Good luck finding a study where that kind of difference had any sort of measurable effect on anybody.

Late to the party, but wanted to mention that I've never seen the low fat vegan lifestyle "work out."

Lierre Keith has written a whole book, The Vegetarian Myth, about how twenty years of vegan eating ruined her health.

The successful vegetarians I know aren't vegan. They eat eggs, or even fish, and consume dairy products, and thus avoid the serious health issues that arise from not consuming animal products, and their b vitamins and amino acids, at all.

I think the promotion of "healthy" vegan eating is propaganda, pure and simple. To me, the fact that vegetarians rely on very heavily processed food undercuts their health claims.

my daughter is reading this book now and is speechless at how unhealthy vegans really are.. she now has learned that she could make a fortune counseling people on the hazards of Candida from eating carbohydrates and lack of animal protein.

she is working at being a Holistic doctor and hoping to steer people away from a diet lacking in animal protein and saturated fats.