OT: Paula Deen

Janknitz wrote:(a.k.a. chemical whip). Yum!

I've got bad news for you. It's all chemicals, anyway. Including "organic" whole wheat, and pure spring water.

Then there's all the nice, natural things like caffeine, nicotine, crude oil, coal, asbestos, sugar, etc.

Yes, lots of nasty things come out of the laboratory. Lots of bad things come out of nature, as well. Despite the myth, your body can't tell the difference. If N-butyl-polywhatsitate is bad for you, it's bad for you whether it comes from bazuba berries or if it's synthesized from crude oil.

And don't drag out the argument that we're adapted to eat natural foods. We evolved on the plains of Africa in pre-agricultural conditions. We're evolved to eat meat and fruit or whatever our ancestors could scrounge in the savanna and/or jungle. Our ancestors lived short lives. They evolved to live long enough to bang out the maximum number of descendants. Evolution doesn't care what happens to them after they get past childbearing age.

Plants "try hard" to evolve into something that's toxic to their predators. Animals evolve to adapt, but there's always a battle going on.

Even when an animal has evolved to be able to eat some particular food source, that doesn't mean that food doesn't still have serious side effects on the animal. It just means, that in the environment the animal involved in, the abundance of the food source vs. the risks were good enough for that animal to grow its population.

Wolves living on their natural diet in the wild live a lot shorter lives than wolves fed commercial "all-unnatural" dog food. Even excluding deaths from fights or accidents.

People tend to think, "mmm... All natural." If you drink fresh squeezed orange juice instead of drinking water too often, you're going to get fat.

Everything we eat is chemicals. Yes, eating a bad mix of chemicals will kill you, no matter whether it's from the test tube or "mother nature."

And don't get me started on Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Therapist wrote:

jnk wrote:If yer gonna go after the people who seem to profit from promoting or enabling unhealthy lifestyle choices, go after them all, I say, not just the diabetics among them.

<- Knowing what to do for himself but still wanting "some broad entity" to protect him from himself.

I believe you misread my words, perhaps unintentially. So I will clarify.

Personally, I would not choose to "go after" ANY of them. But if YOU choose to go after them, I suggest anyone doing so go after them all, equally, instead of singling out only those who happen to have diabetes, such as Ms. Deen.

Archangle, my sincere apologies for maligning chemicals!

Nevertheless, I have NO desire to put these things in my body:

CORN SYRUP*, HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE OIL, SODIUM CASEINATE, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, XANTHAN AND GUAR GUMS, POLYSORBATE 60, SORBITAN MONOSTEARATE, SODIUM POLYPHOSPHATES, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM AND ASPARTAME** (SWEETENERS), BETA CAROTENE (COLOR).

I have been where Paula is now. It is NOT fun, especially with some peoples attitudes toward type 2 diabetics. There are still lots of people who feel sorry for type 1's but think type 2's are stupid people who "ate their way into" this disease. Not true. Current thinking is that the insulin making function of the pancreas diminishes slowly in type 2's; it stops very suddenly in type 1's.

In any event, I'm sorry that Paula felt the need to hide the truth. But, it doesn't surprise me -- the psychological adjustment to this diagnosis is difficult. Way worse than adjusting to OSA.

There is NO shame in being diabetic. It is not a conscious decision. It is a chronic disease that can wreak terrible damage on the body. If it is well managed, the damage can be lessened. This is true for ALL diabetics. It is true for me, a type 2, first one in my overweight family. It is true for my daughter-in-law's sister, a type 1 since grade school. It is true for Paula, too. I wish her well in her journey.

I still have triglycerides of plus 700. I am now taking 4 lovaza twice a day.

RetroDave, if you do have one of the genetic causes of high triglycerides, I hope you’re seeing a lipid specialist. There are several genes involved and specific treatments to target each gene pattern, so that you aren’t necessarily “screwed”. A primary care physician’s shot in the dark approach is not the best treatment—hopefully you can get a referral to a specialist. There’s a lot of good info on the genetic forms of elevated triglycerides on the Heart Scan blog at http://www.trackyourplaque.com. And you may be one of the rare genetic types who still has to avoid fats in the diet, but for most people the medical establishment’s guidelines make NO sense.

For people without those genetic issues, don't you think it's interesting that the medical establishment will tell you not to eat fat, especially saturated fats, and then sell you pharmaceutical grade Omega 3 fatty acids (Lovaza is glorified fish oil)???

From the PubMed Website about Lovaza at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0000414/.

"Omega-3-acid-ethyl esters may work by decreasing the amount of triglycerides and other fats made in the liver" And this gem:

"What special dietary instructions should I follow?
Eat a low-cholesterol, low-fat diet, which includes cottage cheese, fat-free milk, fish, vegetables, poultry, and egg whites. Use monounsaturated oils such as olive, peanut, and canola oils or polyunsaturated oils such as corn, safflower, soy, sunflower, cottonseed, and soybean oils. Avoid foods with excess fat in them such as meat (especially liver and fatty meat), egg yolks, whole milk, cream, butter, shortening, pastries, cakes, cookies, gravy, peanut butter, chocolate, olives, potato chips, coconut, cheese (other than cottage cheese), coconut oil, palm oil, and fried foods."

In other words, eat Omega 6's (Poly unsaturated oils and seed and nut oils) and DON'T eat any of the very best dietary sources of Omega 3's (cold water wild caught fish, pastured whole dairy, eggs, and meat, coconut oil, olive oil). Huh????

(I'm not trying to say that shortenings, pastries, cakes, cookies, gravy, and potato chips are good for you, but they have mixed them in with healthy Omega 3 sources—they don’t seem to understand the difference!).

Ideally you want to minimize Omega 6’s and increase Omega 3’s in the diet to deal with elevated triglycerides. You should do everything possible to MINIMIZE added Omega 6's in your diet. And dietary Omega 3 is the way our bodies were designed to get it, not from some pharmaceutical product. Some people need to supplement if they are not getting enough Omega 3's from their diet, but they want you to eliminate them from your diet and get them only from the pharmaceutical source???? What kind of sense is there in that?????

Anyone blaming any other person fore their eating habits or their diabetes is deluding themselves. Whatever PD said to cook and eat has nothing to do with it. Anyone who takes instruction on what and how to eat from a TV cooking show host needs to wake up and take responsibility for their own health!

Who can I blame for my health problems? That's a really poor question to ask yourself. It for darn sure shouldn’t be a TV cook!

Jim

Isn't it refreshing to witness the explosion of a paradigm first hand? We've been fed this baloney about dietary fat being bad for you for so long, many of us accept it as truth, when all the evidence is pointing to the contrary. Fortunately many people get it now.

I heartily recommend everyone interested get a copy of Fat Head the Movie and watch it. It's available on the web in pieces and with 'limited' commercials, but Tom Naughton did such a great job putting it together, I bought two copies to give to friends.

http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/

(I love the scene where he's interviewing people on the street and one young woman he stops says she's from Russia. Without flinching, Tom asks her, "Can you say 'Moose and Squirrel' for me?" I just about fell out of my chair. My kids didn't get it. So I had to get them the collected Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.)

archangle wrote:
And don't drag out the argument that we're adapted to eat natural foods. We evolved on the plains of Africa in pre-agricultural conditions. We're evolved to eat meat and fruit or whatever our ancestors could scrounge in the savanna and/or jungle. Our ancestors lived short lives. They evolved to live long enough to bang out the maximum number of descendants. Evolution doesn't care what happens to them after they get past childbearing age.

For humans it does because it is the group that benefits. The longer a woman lives the more surviving grandchildren she has, because she helps her daughters out . So groups with post menopausal women came out ahead. It doesn't work for guys except that human data storage is valuable to the group, the group that had an old fart who remembered the water hole that didn't dry up 40 years ago will also come out ahead.

chunkyfrog wrote:Maybe she will come up with decadent-tasting low carb desserts..
A girl can hope. . .

chunkyfrog - there are a whole bunch of the most awesome, low-carb desserts on the ADA forums - created by a couple of the wonderful cooks/chefs amongst the regular posters.

Awesome cheesecakes, flourless (rich) chocolate tortes, pies, cookies etc.

cheers,
xena

archangle wrote:

Janknitz wrote:(a.k.a. chemical whip). Yum!

I've got bad news for you. It's all chemicals, anyway. Including "organic" whole wheat, and pure spring water.

Then there's all the nice, natural things like caffeine, nicotine, crude oil, coal, asbestos, sugar, etc.

Yes, lots of nasty things come out of the laboratory. Lots of bad things come out of nature, as well. Despite the myth, your body can't tell the difference. If N-butyl-polywhatsitate is bad for you, it's bad for you whether it comes from bazuba berries or if it's synthesized from crude oil.

And don't drag out the argument that we're adapted to eat natural foods. We evolved on the plains of Africa in pre-agricultural conditions. We're evolved to eat meat and fruit or whatever our ancestors could scrounge in the savanna and/or jungle. Our ancestors lived short lives. They evolved to live long enough to bang out the maximum number of descendants. Evolution doesn't care what happens to them after they get past childbearing age.

Plants "try hard" to evolve into something that's toxic to their predators. Animals evolve to adapt, but there's always a battle going on.

Even when an animal has evolved to be able to eat some particular food source, that doesn't mean that food doesn't still have serious side effects on the animal. It just means, that in the environment the animal involved in, the abundance of the food source vs. the risks were good enough for that animal to grow its population.

Wolves living on their natural diet in the wild live a lot shorter lives than wolves fed commercial "all-unnatural" dog food. Even excluding deaths from fights or accidents.

People tend to think, "mmm... All natural." If you drink fresh squeezed orange juice instead of drinking water too often, you're going to get fat.

Everything we eat is chemicals. Yes, eating a bad mix of chemicals will kill you, no matter whether it's from the test tube or "mother nature."

And don't get me started on Dihydrogen Monoxide.

Finally archangle made a post that I mostly agree with and don't have the time to debate the smaller points.

Never thought it would happen.

Regarding what's "natural" for humans to eat, there are a bunch of videos from the Ancestral Health Symposium that was held at UCLA in Los Angeles (that's why it's called UCLA) last August that are worth looking at. It was sort of a Who's Who of the low-carb/paleo world. The videos are well worth looking over.
http://ancestryfoundation.org/Schedule.html

The presentation videos can be viewed from here: http://vimeo.com/ancestralhealthsymposium which you can use if you need to recharge your winter reading list. Amazon.com did quite well off of me last Fall.

One of the presenters that I'm particularly impressed with is Loren Cordain, Ph.D. of CSU, Ft. Collins. http://thepaleodiet.com/ He makes a good case for early Man's diet being more meat-based than has been generally accepted, and you can read his original research on his website if you mouse around a bit.

As far as mankind's physiology having been determined by living conditions found on the African savanna, Cordain and others have pointed out that when the descendents of what became the European peoples left Africa, their numbers were winnowed down to a very small population. Geneticists have known that for some time, so that's not new news. However the surviving population was further whittled down by the Pleistocene ice age. The diet of these people wasn't the same as that of their ancestors, which makes sense of the differences between lactose tolerance and the propensity to develop diabetes that is more prevalent in some racial/ethnic groups than others. It's interesting reading, and food for thought, to re-use the pun.

The next Ancestry Health Symposium will be held at Harvard Law School on August 9-12, 2012.