New article in Scientific American JAN 2003:

"Rebuilding the Food Pyramid" by Walter C. Willet and Meir J. Stampfer.

The dietary guide introduced a decade ago has led people astray. Some fats are healthy for the heart, and many carbohydrates clearly are not.

Researchers have found that a high intake of refined carbohydrates such as white bread and white rice can wreak havoc on the body's glucose and insulin levels. repalcing these carbohydrates with healthy fats - monosaturated or polysaturated - actually lowers one's risk of heart disease.

Very good article - I have not read the whole thing yet but certainly appears to support LC dieting from a respected scientific publication.

I had to give it two thumbs up because I keep reading it as I am writing here - all good stuff! Good summary of latest thinking. Please Enjoy it!

Someboby more savy than me can post the link for this featured article now at www.sciam.com.

Rebuilding the food pyramid.

The article is rather long so I won't post it here, but here's the link

Rebuilding the food Pyramid

If anyone is interested, Dr. Willett wrote a book called Eat, Drink, and be Healthy . I found it very interesting. He explains all of the research that has been done to date and the result. His explains his recommendations and how they are based on the studies done to date. His comment about Atkins is that long term studies have not been done in order to determine any long term affects so he is not comfortable recommending it.

My plan is to use the Atkins diet to lose the weight and break my carbohydrate addiction and then slowly swith to his new food pyramid. As with all things: moderation, moderation, moderation.

:-)
You know.. because if its effective.. you will get healthy and you will get slim :-)
Poofie!

But keep in mind that Dr. Willett is anti-saturated fat. There is no good science to support his position. This forum has many references to the case for saturated fat.

The Berkeley Wellness Letter is now praising tropical oils, which are mostly saturated fat. See the thread in this section.

Sheldon

I do understand that for sure :-)
I also understand there seems to be no real scientific evidence out there about why all the bizarre phobia about saturated fats.
More interesting though, is the fact that we keep seeming to want a "quick" fix.. thinking of atkins and low carbing like that.
Moderation is also an interesting term.. isn't that what all the high carb low fat people say alot?? I mean .. I hear it every morning with denise austin as she suggests that diet wise we pour a whole glass of sugar ( ie orange juice) into our veins and follow it up with a sugar chaser ( a bowl of cereal with a cup of skim milk).
Isn't Moderation also in the view of the beholder??
Dr Willett is interesting though, and a step in the direction that we are needing to go.
Poofie!

I am having a psychological problem. After years of being told that fat is bad for me, I am having a difficult time of loading it on. I am concerned that Atkins might be too much. I am going to buy Protein Power to see if I am more comfortable with it. I am comfortable with the fact that I should eat less carbohydrates and a better quality of them. As I progress I am hoping that my psychological problem will go away.

Thanks

Unfortunately, my psychological issue equates to a physical repugnance. Oh well, I will keep trying.

I have posted this before. If anyone has a problem with saturated fat one can certainly avoid it and still do Atkins. I posed this point to the food cops Center for Science in Public Interest and the person there had to agree with me even though they are Atkins bashers. What is unhealthy about eating a diet of mostly fish, chicken with all other LC aspects reduce sugar white bread, rice, potatoes? For all this controversy in the media, I feel like I am eating more balanced and healthy than ever because I learned how to control my carbohydrate intake. I am in maintenance and I don't go out of my way to eat tons of saturated fat but it is nice to know I don't have to avoid it as I eat my four strips of bacon on Sunday morning.

The reason to not avoid saturated (primarily animal ) fats is because your body needs them. Things like bone density are dependant on them. If you try to follow Atkins without them, You are eating a lot of mono- and poly- unsaturated oils for fats. Contrary to the propaganda of the last 50 years, large amounts of polyunsaturated oils are bad for you. I strongly urge you to do the research, starting with Dr. Mary Enig's work. DLB

I have to agree with bluesmoke. According to my reading (Enig and others) poly- and monounsaturated fats in the absence of saturated fat can create health problems. When the anthropologist Stefansson lived with Eskimos, eating nothing but meat and fish, he got sick when all he could eat was lean meat. Eating fat cured him quickly.

The Eadeses, authors of Protein Power LifePlan, are advocates of saturated fat, although they advise cutting back if you are not losing weight. Otherwise, they are all for it.

Diane Schwarzbein is also in favor of saturated fat. So are most low-carb authors.

One or two are not, such as Loren Cordain, author of the The Paleo Diet.

Seeing the benefits of saturated fat, of course, does not mean one should gorge oneself with it or make it 100 percent of the diet. It just means it should be part of a balanced-good-fat program.

The other thing to keep in mind is that there is less saturated fat in beef than you may think. More than half of a porterhouse steak is monounsaturated fat. Of the saturated fat, most is stearic acid, an antioxidant. Steak also has some polyunsaturated fat.

One last thing: even the fat-phobes at the Berkeley Wellness Letter say coconut and palm oils, which are mostly saturated fat, are harmless or good for you

Sheldon

I think a new pyramid ought to have at the top, all very high carbohydrate processed food. Secondly, processed meat, tofu, perhaps certain cheeses, frozen foods. Then not so processed grains and milk, followed by fresh vegetables, and then animal foods.

Think we could come up with a better pyramid. Can you guys make corrections to this or come up with a better one?

The government and the researchers have let us down. Let's do it from grass roots!

- Libertarian at heart

As someone who spent 15+ years doing small scale animal farming on the side I can tell you that the current food pyramid is almost exactly the same carb, protein and fat proportions that I used to buy to fatten hogs for market. Seeing as pigs are very close to us in digestive terms, maybe the government has a plan to reduce the deficit by selling citizens to cannibals. Nyah Levi

Folks are very paranoid of the wrong thing.
saturated fat truly is not the thing landing on our thighs and gumming up the arteries.
Its that sugar.. pure and simple..whether you get it from flour or potatoes or the real thing
And yes blue.. I knew about the diet to fatten animals.
So you would think we would SAY.. WAIT A MINUTE!
Why do you need to fatten me!
Poofie!