WheatBelly - Another Review
- POSTED ON: Feb 11, 2013

WheatBelly – a 2nd Review

I’ve previously posted my own review of “Wheat Belly”
however, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D., who I often quote,
has just posted his own well-thought-out review,
which I’m going to include in DietHobby.

Dr. Freedhoff’s review contains an amusing video he created, as well as several relevant links which I am also including here at DietHobby. If you are interested in seeing exactly WHAT a person CAN eat on the Wheat Belly diet, check out the list at the very bottom of this post.

Diet Book Review: Wheat Belly 
              by Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, M.D. 
                                  posted 2/11/2013 at WeightyMatters

You know I've been blogging now for 8 years, and while diet books have come and gone, I've never had more requests to review one than I've had to review Wheat Belly. So last week, while I was on vacation, I hauled Wheat Belly with me.

Before my review, here's what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel and criticize the science or lack thereof. Not because there's nothing to explore, but rather because others have already done so, and they've done so well.

Here’s Melissa McEwen of Hunt, Gather, Love on some of Wheat Belly's many claims,
here's Professor Julie Jones' academic's take,
here's psychiatrist and blogger Dr. Emily Deans on Dr. Davis' claims regarding wheat and mental illness, and
here's my good friend Tim Caulfield and Dr. Davis debating Wheat Belly on CBC's Q.

What I'd like to discuss is the diet itself.

So is it really, "Lose the Wheat Lose the Weight" like the book jacket says? No. It's lose the wheat - and also most other carbs and a bunch of other foods - and lose the weight, because according to Dr. Davis, if you lose the wheat but replace the wheat wit...

In Defense of Food - A Book Review
- POSTED ON: Nov 15, 2012

In Defense of Food” (2009) was written by Michael Pollan who is a Professor of Journalism at University of California at Berkeley. Pollan is not a doctor, a scientist, or a nutritionist - he’s a journalist.

Pollan's message is:

Go back to nature, eat whole foods. Don’t diet.
Don't overeat; instead eat slowly, and enjoy your meals.
Our curse is processed food.
Artificially 'improved' foods and natural foods have very little in common..

The best-selling, "In Defense of Food" provides a guided tour of 20th century food science, a history of "nutritionism" in America and a snapshot of the marriage of government and the food industry. It then works as a hard-sell for the “real food” movement.   Pollan's arguments are basically:

• High-fructose corn syrup is the devil's brew. It must be removed from one’s diet.
  
  
• Avoid any food product that makes health claims, these mean it's probably not really food.
  
  
• In a supermarket, don't shop in the center aisles. Avoid anything that can't rot, anything with an ingredient you can't pronounce.
  
  
• "Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does." Avoid buying foods sold at mini-markets.
  
  
• "You are what you eat eats too." One must pay attention to what is fed to one’s food.
  
  
• "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." By which Pollan means: Eat natural food, the kind your grandmother served because the food industry had not yet learned that the big money was in processing, not harvesting. Use meat sparingly. Eat your greens, the leafier and more varied the better.
   
• In short: Kiss the Western diet goodbye. Look to the cultures where people eat well and live long. Trust your gut. Literally.

 In all this, Pollan insists that you have to save yourself. He says that the government is so overwhelmed by the lobbying and marketing power of the processed food industry that the American diet is now 50% sugar in one form or another, and calories that provide "virtually nothing but energy." Politicians are terrified to take on the food industry. And as for the medical profession, the key moment, Pollan writes, is when "doctors kick the fast-food franchises out of the hospital".

Pollan is a not a scientist, 

Are GMO's Frankenfoods?
- POSTED ON: Nov 13, 2012

“We cannot actually say on the basis of truly conclusive evidence what specific dietary pattern is best for human health, because definitive head-to-head comparison trials have not been done, and almost certainly won’t be.
Would you sign up to be randomly assigned
to a specific dietary pattern for the next several decades?
Only if thousands were to answer “yes” would such a trial be feasible
– with the enormous costs and daunting logistics still standing in the way.”

This is an insightful statement by Dr. Kantz, who is one of the current High Priests of “Healthful Eating”. However, just like the rest of them … despite the lack of such conclusive evidence,… Dr. Kantz chooses to form his own “expert” opinions and to share them with as many as possible, as often as possible.

Recently he spoke out about his own position concerning GMOs.
GMOs is a term for genetically modified organisms. Those who are strongly opposed to them have coined the term: “Frankenfoods”, to negatively describe them. The term is based on the novel, Frankenstein, published in 1818 by Mary Shelley about a creature produced by an unorthodox scientific experiment

Dr. Kantz seemed to take a Thoughtful and Balanced approach to the issue of GMOs, so I’ve decided to share his article here at DietHobby.

Seeking Perspective on Genetically Modified Foods
          by David Katz, M. D. , 
                          Director, Yale Prevention Research Center.

The topic of genetically modified foods is buffeted by deep passions from the one side, and deep profits from the other.

Images of scientists inserting eye-of-newt genes into escarole, or wool-of-bat genes into walnuts, stalk the nightmares of pure food proponents, and up to a point, rightly so. Even if the intentions of those tinkering with foods are good -- such as putting antifreeze genes from amphibians into oranges so they are not destroyed by an early frost -- the law of unintended consequences pertains. There is ample reason, in principle, to be wary of Frankenfoods.

There may be reason in epidemiology as well. We are substantially uncertain about why rates of gluten intolerance and celiac disease are rising; genetic modification of food may be a factor. Some go so far as to declare modern wheat a "poison," lest sugar get all that negative attention! Genetic modification may be a factor, as well, in everything from food allergies, to irritable bowel syndrome, to behavioral and cognitive disorders occurring with increasing frequency in our children.

I feel we need a more balanced perspective on this topic.

Genetic modification is not all bad. There, I've said it.

Without it, we would not have broccoli or navel oranges. We would not have pink grapefruits. We would not have amaranth or quinoa. And for that that matter, we would not have our dogs, our tea roses, or -- arguably -- our children.

Opposition to genetic modification comes easy in principle, but is a slippery, treacherous, obstacle-strewn slope in practice. If we consider sexual reproduction a form of gene...

The End of Overeating - A Book Review
- POSTED ON: Nov 09, 2012

 The End of Overeating (2010) by David Kessler is a compelling, in-depth analysis of why we eat the way we do. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner shares how our brain chemistry has been hijacked by the foods we most love to eat: those that contain stimulating combinations of fat, sugar, and salt.

Drawn from the latest brain science as well as interviews with top physicians and food industry insiders, The End of Overeating exposes the food industry’s aggressive marketing tactics and reveals how we lost control over food, and gives suggestions on how to regain personal control.

Kessler pores through the research and details the physiological and psychological reasons for why we are drawn to overeat, and the way that big corporations use this research to make food products that are guaranteed to tempt us to over-indulge. It all boils down to sugar, fat, and salt, and how companies spend millions of dollars developing recipes and chemicals that will entice us, to over-ride our natural "homeostasis" that would normally keep us at an even weight.

The first part of the book deals with the physiological research, then the psychology behind overeating, and finally, at the end of the book are chapters devoted to dealing with these triggers in order to help one get beyond the temptations and stay at an even weight. 

 It is certainly true that the obese in our culture are in a Catch 22 situation. Marketing Interests in Society do everything possible to entice us to overeat, and yet we are also stigmatized by Marketing Interests in Society when our bodies become obese as a natural result of overeating.

Of course, … also … that stigmatization of our obesity creates even more marketing opportunities for those same food Marketing Interests as well as a for variety of others, in the form of “diet or non-diet” information and programs; a multitude of “healthy” foods, supplements and drugs; the “health” services of medical professionals, including surgeons, psychologists, nutritionists, trainers; as well as “health related or exercise” facilities and equipment etc

I was not impressed by Kessler’s “solutions” to the problem of obesity. This best-selling book’s primary value to me was its presentation of interesting detailed facts about how Marketing Interests use their best efforts to entice us to eat as much as possible.

Kessler’s presentation represents a popular theory about the current “obesity epidemic”, however, there are also opposing theories.  Mike Gibney, author of a recently published book, “Something to Chew on”, (11/2012) says that when Kessler writes that the incidence of obesity soar...