http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...5062001056.html
To Cut Fat, Eat Less Meat

By Sally Squires

Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page HE01

To reach a healthier weight this summer, consider throwing some portobello mushrooms, veggie burgers and fish on the grill in place of steak, hot dogs and chicken.

A new study of some 55,000 healthy, middle-aged Swedish women finds that those who ate little or no meat weighed significantly less than their more carnivorous counterparts. The findings are some of the first to show a direct link between a plant-based diet and a lower body mass index, or BMI.

This doesn't mean that you have to forgo juicy steak and other animal-derived foods all the time. The study found that while lacto-vegetarians -- who ate dairy products but avoided meat, poultry, fish and eggs -- had the lowest BMI, those following a somewhat less limited diet also scored better than the meat-eaters. "The take-home message is that individuals who have the lowest risk of being overweight or obese are consuming a mostly plant-based diet." said P.K. Newby, lead author of the study and a scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston.

Numerous studies have demonstrated health benefits of eating a diet rich in plant-based foods, from fostering healthier blood pressure levels and reduced blood cholesterol to a lower risk of heart disease, diabetes and certain types of cancer.

The latest findings are drawn from healthy women in a large mammography trial conducted by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Participants answered questionnaires and submitted food records in 1987 and then again in 1997. As the authors note, such cross-sectional studies have limitations, so the findings will need to be confirmed by more rigorous trials.

The study found that 40 percent of women who ate meat, poultry, fish, eggs and dairy products as well as plant-based foods were overweight or obese, as defined by having a body mass index of 25 or more. (That's equal to a person 5 feet 6 weighing 155 pounds or more.) Compare that to 29 percent of the self-described vegans, who ate no animal products, and semi-vegetarians, defined as skipping meat, poultry and eggs but eating dairy products and fish. The leanest women were the lacto-vegetarians: 25 percent of this group were overweight or obese.

One surprise for the research team was that all the participants who considered themselves vegetarians or vegans reported on food records that they ate some animal products from time to time.

Meat-eaters took in the most calories, consumed the highest amount of protein and the most saturated and mono-unsaturated fat and "had significantly lower carbohydrate intake than did any of the three vegetarian groups," the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The authors note that the results are likely "generalizable to younger women and to men."

Even so, Newby and other nutrition experts note that not all vegetarian foods are healthy. A steady intake of sweetened soft drinks, french fries and candy bars qualifies as vegetarian, but is loaded with saturated fat, unhealthy trans fat and added sugar. Plus, it's high in calories and lacks fiber and many essential nutrients.

Here are a few simple ways to add plant-based foods to your daily fare and to make smart choices about animal foods:

Go semi-vegetarian sometimes . You may be doing it already. Breakfast on shredded wheat with berries, slivered almonds and skim milk. Have a large Greek salad with feta cheese and a crusty bread for lunch. Snack on fruit and yogurt and eat a couple of bean burritos with a little low-fat cheese and some rice for dinner. Have fruit for dessert and you've had a semi-vegetarian day.

Try some meatless options. Gazpacho, pasta with pesto or tomato sauce, bean soup, vegetable lasagna, hummus, a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich on whole wheat, a stir-fry with tofu or a grilled cheese sandwich(with reduced fat mozzarella) are some tasty options. Plus, there is a growing number of meat substitutes, from Boca burgers and "chicken" nuggets to Smart Dogs (made with soy), textured vegetable protein and meatless breakfast links.

Choose the leanest cuts of meat and poultry. Meat-eaters in the study consumed about 30 percent of their daily calories as fat, nearly half of it from saturated fat. Fat intake for the vegetarian groups, which ranged from 23 to 26 percent of total calories, contained 11 to 13 percent saturated fat, both close to the 10 percent limit recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. Trim unhealthy fat by consuming flank steak instead of porterhouse, skinless chicken or turkey breasts instead of fattier wings or dark meat and very lean hamburger in place of ribs. Marinades and low-fat sauces can boost flavor without adding unhealthy fat or huge amounts of calories.

Have healthy carbs . All three vegetarian groups ate two servings daily of whole grains, about a serving of cereal, two servings of fruit and nearly three servings of non-starchy vegetables. They had nearly a serving per day of potatoes and ate the least amount of refined grain foods, which are low in fiber. These results and others "suggest that a high-carbohydrate diet may be protective against obesity if the carbohydrates come from fiber-rich foods, such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains," USDA researcher Newby said. High-fiber choices include berries, especially blackberries and raspberries; beans and legumes; broccoli and leafy green vegetables; whole-grain bread, pasta, unsweetened cereal and crackers.

Use some dairy products. Just make them nonfat or 1 percent fat. All three vegetarian groups reported eating dairy products, even the vegans, who had about two servings daily. But lacto-vegetarians, who had the least rates of overweight (21 percent) and obesity (4 percent), reported consuming four servings daily of dairy products -- one more than the three daily recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines. ·

I know that this article sounds terrible to anyone who has had a great success with low carb dieting and eats alot of meat like myself.

But, according to my opinion, the advantage of a low carb diet shows only when your carb intake is between 0-100 grams per day. Since almost everybody she is talking to or talking about goes beyond this range, I consider this article non offensive to me.

Note, tucked neatly deep into the bottom, they mentioned that the leanest people ate the least refined carbs.

So the meat eaters ate more refined carbs. Bread and rolls for their sandwiches, etc. . .

Of course, the headline is all about meat. Even though that was NOT the only difference between the groups.

That's Sally Squires for you. Feh.

The statistic that the article cites at the beginning, warrants some discussion. Why do vegetarians weigh less than their meat-eating counterparts? I personally don't think the answer to this question is as simple as "vegetarianism is better for you than meat eating".

Here are some more complicated possibilities.

1. Vegetarians are people who are more concerned about their health, and therefore are more likely to engage in a variety of activities that benefit health, in addtion to diet. And they are less likely to engage in nonhealthy activities like smoking or drinking.

2. Vegetarians are scrawnier due to lack of proper nutrition. Less overweight does not always equal better health.

3. The meat eaters were eating carbs as well, and we do know taht the combination of high fat AND high carb is deadly. So it may be legitimate to conclude that vegetarianism is better than high carb/high fat. However, it says NOTHING about the comparison of vegetarianism versus carnivorous LC.

4. Vegetarians may well be doing a lower carb diet than there SAD counterparts. As we know, it is possible to do LC the vegetarian way, and it might be that some people gravitate naturally to the lower carb plant alternatives. They are certainly the healthier options, those green and leafy veggies.

That is mostly how I ate in the years that I gained the most weight and ended up with blood chemistry problems.

from the abstract of this study:

so if i got this right, that means that essentially 98% of the people in this study were omnivores (is the sample size even large enough to make their results statistically significant [P<.5]?) that means that we have no idea what these people are eating. why didn't they simply ask how many considered themselves low-carbers? then we could get a better idea of what the omnivores were consuming. what we do know for sure is that 25% of even the most extreme vegans are overweight; and these are people who are obviously conscious of health issues (however misguided their efforts might be).

I think it's hilarious they'd even consider classifying the french fry/soda pop/candy bar diet "vegetarian." It should have its own classification. How about the Junk Food Death Diet?

But the bottom line is always the same: overconsumption of refined carbs and transfats is really, really bad for your body.

I've traded my bacon and egg breakfast for a flaxseed/wheat bran/whey protein cereal concoction I really like. With berries. This is a good idea for many reasons, but "eating less meat" wasn't one of them.

Nice work eepobee.

The relatively tiny number of lacto-ovos and vegans make the numbers very sketchy indeed.

You could also spin this to say "The study found that only 119 lacto-ovo vegetarians were of normal weight, compared to 32,217 omnivores who were of normal weight."

tomsawyer:

I think you nailed it. I'm looking for the cite, but in the so-called 'Western Diet' they always talk about, big meat eaters actually eat a LOT of refined carbs, and very few vegetables. It's basically burgers and fries, sandwiches on rolls, meat and potatoes, steak and baked potatoes. Sausasage sandwiches. Spaghetti with meat sauce. Hot dogs and coke. Tacos. Bread and meat have high correlations in most patterns.

I'd guess that virtually every study trying to show the 'bad effects' of meat is actually based on this pattern. It ain't the meat, it's the lack of good veggies. It ain't the meat, it's the bread and potatoes piled around it.

The 'heavy meat eater' stuff is clearly NOT the general LC pattern of meat and non-starchy vegetables. Plenty of studies show that when you drop the starches out of things, weight drops quickly. Even with plenty of meat.

In fact, this correlation meat/starch correlation is so strong, that you could easily interpret those 'sat fat is bad' studies as . . . 'lotta potatoes, no veggies is bad'. Like this Willet study below. (See the first table) Note that heart attacks INCREASED with decreasing veggie consumption -- which just so happened to be linked to the sat fat because of the typical American diet pattern. Nothing here shows that it's the sat fat that is bad. . . or fattening.


http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/313...type=1,2,3,4,10

These studies are at best meaningless for many reasons:

1) no control of all the variables. As if it was possible to do while having a sample of 55 000 people. Hence the muddling of high meat with high refined carb. They should have studied the incidence of overweight on primitive Eskimos (uncivilized) or on primitive Masai if they wanted to see the effects of meat on weight.

2) The very source of the info is a questionnaire. Which is unreliable at best, especially in the general population where people barely pay any attention to what they eat.

3) as was pointed out, bias concerning which factor is responsible for the observed associations, in that case meat. NO INFO from this study allows anybody to conclude that meat per se is responsible for the alleged crimes it causes.

4) Subtle ways of implying that correlation somehow equates causation. You see it all the time in epidemiology:
quote: The findings are some of the first to show a direct link between a plant-based diet and a lower body mass index, or BMI.

Implying, of course, that vegetarian diets lead directly to lower body mass. WHen in fact it was a measly correlation that was observed, a relatvely weak one also.

Also, note the anti-saturated fat bias in this quote:

A steady intake of sweetened soft drinks, french fries and candy bars qualifies as vegetarian, but is loaded with saturated fat, unhealthy trans fat and added sugar. Plus, it's high in calories and lacks fiber and many essential nutrients.


Where is the saturated fat in soft drinks (pure sugar), french fries (hydrogenated veg oil) and candy bars (except from the sat fat in cocoa butter, which is rare in commercial candy bars)?

Yes saturated fat is singled first as the villain in these particular food items.

Reporters and columnists don't seem to do any research to understand what they are reporting/commenting on.

On the front page of this mornings paper (Boulder Daily Camera) is a story about the heat wave. One of the sentences has this fragment "...and his crew worked in the 100-degree heat from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,". Now in Boulder, even though the high hit 100 degrees, at 6:30 in the morning the temperature was 64 degrees. Obviously, the crew did not spend their entire shift working in 100 degree heat.

If the reporter can't understand daily temperature fluctuations, how could he understand a more complicated subject like human nutrition?

Well, it's true.

And trees cause wind, you know. After all you never have wind unless the trees are moving.

I work directly with a strict vegetarian who is a few years younger that me. He is quite thin, he also has no cold (temperature)tolerance and seems to get every cold and virus that is around and I haven't had a cold for over 3 years. My study says vegetarians are unhealthy, do I get my grant now? Nyah Levi

Dodger: ""...and his crew worked in the 100-degree heat from 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.,". Now in Boulder, even though the high hit 100 degrees, at 6:30 in the morning the temperature was 64 degrees. Obviously, the crew did not spend their entire shift working in 100 degree heat.

If the reporter can't understand daily temperature fluctuations, how could he understand a more complicated subject like human nutrition?"


TheOldLady: "Well, it's true.

And trees cause wind, you know. After all you never have wind unless the trees are moving."



You guys are cracking me up! Thank you, I needed that! This actually reminds me of this funny thing on the radio a few years back. Cops making radar measurements of the speed of cars past a certain spot needed two reference points for their radar equipment to measure against. One of them had the real bright idea to use a convenient shadow.

Guess his mother never taught him that the sun moved in the sky, eh? The result, of course, was that the cars drove FASTER and FASTER throughout the day!!!!

Sometimes I wonder what is wrong with people...

A country that has very, long, cold, dark winters, can not be compared because their diets need to be different.
In the summer they will need to eat all the fresh fruit and veg they can.