Originally Posted by rightnow

What I described was 'eating too much' carbs for that cycle to be like that, so your answer didn't contradict me that I can see.

Originally Posted by rightnow

I see your point however that an innocent carb standing alone never killed anybody. It's the massive over-ingestion of them that kills. And we don't yet know what causes that, though we have some ideas.

I know that if I take so much as one teaspoon of milk into my body I am craving dairy, sugar and carbs all day, and I'm "driven" about it. Eating grain-based foods won't have quite the same effect, it's more subtle but longer term, yet the same end result. With those factors out of my diet I don't care much about food except when I'm legitimately stomach-hungry. I can barely work up to 1500 calories a day since I eat mostly meat. Yet with either let alone both of those factors in my diet, my eating is pretty much limited only by the number of hours in a day, convenience and how much money I have. Of course it's possible these things are not affecting anyone else the way they do me, and that either these items or simply the 'internal body reaction' to something in the same way, is unrelated. It's taken me many years to gradually understand and be aware enough to recognize it. But our culture has managed to make nearly every meal into something containing one or both of those components, often in quantity. Our snacks contain one or both most the time (or serious sugar). I think if people grow up ingesting all this and considering it food, it's not surprising it's a hard habit to break.

I think that the whole definition of toxic, addictive substances as 'food', and having them so permeate the entire culture, has got to have at least something to do with the problems we see.

PJ

Originally Posted by Valtor

Martin, that's your definition of food. Here is what is more commonly used as a definition of food: "Food is any substance or materials eaten or drunk to provide nutritional support for the body or for pleasure."

Originally Posted by M Levac

...Enough with the stupid semantics...

Originally Posted by Valtor

Eating is also one of life's pleasure, no? It's normal to have pleasure eating. If foods is more and more pleasurable and more easily available than ever. Wouldn't that be enough to explain what is happening?

Originally Posted by Valtor

Agreed.

It's quite simple really. Humans are fully equipped to digest and absorb carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are part of what we call food.

Carbohydrates are a main part of many successful people's diet. People lean, healthy, strong and intelligent.

This is an observation Martin. Any valid hypothesis needs to explain all known observations!

Originally Posted by rightnow

No. Clearly you have no food intolerances whatsoever. Or reading on the neuro/physiological response to certain chemicals. No other way could you possibly think it's nothing more than gluttony-hedonism explaining the modern cultural health crisis.

PJ

Originally Posted by rightnow

No. Clearly you have no food intolerances whatsoever. Or reading on the neuro/physiological response to certain chemicals. No other way could you possibly think it's nothing more than gluttony-hedonism explaining the modern cultural health crisis.

PJ

Originally Posted by M Levac

You didn't answer the question...

Originally Posted by M Levac

...you say eating too much of this stuff makes us fat, sick, weak and stupid.

Originally Posted by M Levac

...I ask you again, how much food is too much?...

Originally Posted by M Levac

...I also want to know what food has to make it to special that it changes its nature when its quantity changes. Do you have any idea about that?

Originally Posted by Valtor

I was thinking of subconscious pleasure too, including "neuro/physiological response to certain chemicals" like David Kessler explains. I'm not trying to attribute the obesity epidemic to conscious gluttony alone.

Originally Posted by Valtor

I must have missed it.

When and where did I ever say this?

That is indeed a very good question for which I don't have a good answer. But I'm pretty certain that the answer is individual and contextual.

I have no idea what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by Valtor

Agreed.

It's quite simple really. Humans are fully equipped to digest and absorb carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are part of what we call food.

Carbohydrates are a main part of many successful people's diet. People lean, healthy, strong and intelligent.

This is an observation Martin. Any valid hypothesis needs to explain all known observations!

Originally Posted by M Levac

Oh now you say there's subconscious pleasure? You mean I could have fun right now and not know about it? Well that's rich. But seriously, pleasure is always physiological, even if you believe otherwise. Say, aren't you using a brain made of flesh to think these thoughts? See? Always physiological.

Wait, you're saying you believe there's unconscious gluttony? But Taubes said that. He said "overeating is the effect of hormones". It means "overeating is unconscious". It further means "overeating is not controlled by free will". You'll have to explain how overeating is a cause one second but the next becomes an effect. Should I expect an answer this time or are you just going to call this one a dead track too?

Originally Posted by ubizmo

Dictionaries are descriptive. They merely record dominant usages of words. To say that food sustains life is to say nothing more than if you eat it, you won't starve. To say that something is food is to say or imply nothing at all about its quality, just as saying that dirty limericks are poetry says nothing about their quality either. If you eat a box of Kraft mac & cheese every day, you won't starve. Your health will probably take a hit, but starvation won't be your problem. It's food.

To say that something is food is not to say or imply that it can be eaten in any amount, or eaten exclusively, without any ill effects, ever. Moreover, the words "protein", "carbohydrate", and "fat" do not, in normal usage, refer to foods. They are scientific words that refer to components of foods. Foods are things like pot roast, liver and onions, cucumbers, boiled eggs, and so on. Foods have protein, carbohydrate and fat, in varying amounts. To say that food consists of protein and fat, but not carbohydrate, is simply wrong.

Semantic revisionism does nothing for the credibility of the lowcarb diet. Insisting that carrots or onions are not food only confirms the stereotype that lowcarb is a cultish fad diet. Moreover, it's pointless to pretend that everybody who eats carbs, in any amount, becomes obese, diabetic, or sicker than people who don't.

Ubizmo

Originally Posted by M Levac

Stop play games Patrick. The only questions you missed were those you intended to miss.

Post 93, your words:

You posted this in reply to my post #92 but you quoted only this line:

You "missed" the text before and after that line. Would you like me to continue with this little expose about the questions you "missed"?

Don't you want to validate your ideas Patrick? If what you're saying has any value, it will stand the questions. If you don't want to answer the questions, then maybe you don't want to test these ideas anyway.