Dieting and Ignorance

It's possible they're on a diet that's aiming for slower absorbtion -- if so they're trying to ask about glycemic index.

That means your answer -- real whole fruit -- tells them they're getting something with complex carbohydrates and fiber rather than sugar (or high fructose corn syrup).

If so, "real fruit" is actually a relevant answer.

P.S. -- here's something you won't find on your Ingredients label, but probably should:

"Contains Nonbinding Recommendations"
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/2lg-6.html#common
Guidance for Industry
A Food Labeling Guide
Chapter VI. Ingredient Lists

Dunno, maybe I'm giving people too much credit, but I wonder if you think the difference between whole fruit and added sweetener matters to the customers.

I recall a co-worker who decided he needed to lose weight (he was correct, probably to the tune of around 100 pounds.) So, he decided he should "eat healthy food". I watched him prepare a midafternoon snack for himself in the break room. It consisted of:

* About a cup of wheat germ (400+ calories)
* A similar quantity of whole milk (~ 150 calories)
* Somewhere around a quarter-cup of sugar (350 calories, maybe?)

Now, aside from the sugar, it was probably still better for him than a handful of candy bars, but still, the guy had NO idea whatsoever about portion control. I doubt he'd ever considered eating an apple or a carrot or even a small portion of cereal with skim milk, instead of turning a few items of reasonable nutritional value into something with a fat and calorie count approaching that of a Big Mac.

I used to know about carbs, but since I've had fuel injection I've forgotten most of what I knew.
The ingredients in industrial foods can be confusing. When I buy cereal, for example, the list of ingredients tells me the package contains sugar, more sugar, yet more sugar, and still more sugar. A pint of milk consists of 14 ounces and a pound can of coffee holds 11 ounces. Brand X says "210 calories from fat" and brand Y says 180, but the serving size is different. The energy drink contains 0 calories. I think I'll stick to beer and ice cream.

I had a friend who was on a low carb diet. She would not eat any bread or pasta but she would buy a low carb candy bar. It did have a lower carb count but contained a high amount of sugar. She figured since the wrapper said "low carb" it fit with her diet.

I don't understand the dieting industry, I guess. Why would anybody go on a low-carb diet? Asian diets seem to be very high in carbs, yet those populations remain thin (relatively). On the other hand, the French eat a relatively high-fat diet, and also stay thinner than the US population.

Isn't it true that the only healthy way to lose weight is to eat a balanced diet and exercise religiously? Are the various low-carb, low-fat, or high-protein diets shown to be effective and healthy over the long term? Do different diets work for different people?

I once had a conversation with the fittest person I know. He expressed disgust with the offerings available in our workplace cafeteria. I said it wasn't bad if you just ate a salad from the salad bar. He was dumbfounded. "Why would you just eat salad?" From his point of view, eating salad was a huge waste of energy. Your body would have to work to process the salad, and you got nothing out of it. For him, the best diet was high in carbs, high in protein, and moderate in fats.

It worked for him. We once went to get our body fat tested (bioelectrical impedance test), and he was at 4%, I think. He was so low, the accuracy of the test was probably in question. I'd have thought that 4% was low enough to affect brain function, but he is also one of the brightest people I've ever met.

I don't know why people are so worried.

I mean, as long as you drink a Diet Coke with your meal, you can eat *anything*

-your brother the diet expert.

Well, it's not all hype. My personal experience with the Atkins diet was that it was pretty effective: I dropped 30 pounds in about 8 months, without changing my activity level.

It is, however, a somewhat boring diet, in particular if there are vegetables you don't like and you find yourself going out to restaurants (or wanting to go out to restaurants but dreading the hassle or repetitiveness of what you order). It did not in the end work for my wife (it generally works better for men than for women), and that's tough to go separate meal prep.

You also can't cheat. At all. A piece of cake might not totally spoil an exercise regime, but it knocks out the effect that Atkins is relying on for days.

There is a bit of a low-carb cottage industry - certain companies took it a bit more seriously - and the treats were certainly a welcome break from the monotony, though they almost always tasted like pale imitations of the real thing. Low-carb brownies in particular.

Let me also warn you all about ingesting much in the way of sugar alcohols. Oh god.

I remember an anti-sucralose activist, Dr. Mercola, post someone's complaint on their page that they ate two bags of sugar-free Jelly Bellies (which are filled to the brim with sugar alcohols) and felt awful, bloated and gassy, and they blamed it on the sucralose - *headdesk*.

A couple of store burglaries put the one good local source of such treats out of business, though, and that sapped the last of my will to stay on the diet.

I also really missed potatoes in particular over that entire period. Om nom nom nom. Being Scottish and not having potatoes... was nigh unnatural!

I remember one of the odd things about the diet was that I couldn't sprint, not for the life of me. I imagine that my glycogen stores were... rather depleted.

*laugh* I knew some Diet-Coke-forgives-all-sins folks. That doesn't work ;)

Hank is spot on with the comments about glycemic index. Berries raise blood sugar more slowly, and low-carb diets take that into account by allowing them sooner in the proceedings.

It would be nice if we knew why some diets work for some people. We know we're not living in ancestral human conditions right now, and everyone has different adaptations to starvation and plenty, rest and exercise.

Fad diets could disappear with a sufficient level of biochemical understanding which we do not yet possess.

Michele -> I know some of the "low-carb candy bars". Take a closer look at the package next time. Sugar alcohols like maltitol and sorbitol are listed under carbohydrates, but believe my formerly gassy ass that they don't absorb well (like oligosaccharides in beans :) and low-carb diets treat sugar alcohols as either zero or a fraction of their value "effective" carbohydrates.

Both diabetics and those diagnosed with hypoglycemia are warned against eating large quantities of carbohydrates. There are various rules of thumb that they employ, including subtracting grams of fiber from grams of sugar to get some kind of effective carb content.

" ... asked me if the fruit smoothies that I'm selling are "low-carb". When I tell them that the drinks are real fruit smoothies, containing lots of real fruit, a distressingly large percentage of them say something like "OK, I'll take a large strawberry banana."

It doesn't seem like you are helping them. Here they ask you a very simple, very clear, and very direct yes/no-type question (are these low-carb?) and despite the fact that you know the answer, you give them an evasive answer that requires a higher knowledge base to comprehend.

It's good salesmanship, and probably harmless, but it's kind of tacky to blog about their ignorance after taking their money for a product you knew they didn't want to buy, and would not have bought if you had given them the answer you would have given your sister if she was the one who asked.

I'm trying to get from two-mumble-mumble to something in the neighbourhood of two hundred pounds. I've never really tried to diet before.

But after a quick survey of the available literature, medical writings, and pharmacology of weight loss I discovered an amazing secret:

Eat ... less.
Exercise ... more.
Lose ... weight.

And it works. Regardless of carbs, sugars, trace elements, microcrystals, or photon content.

Believe it or not, I've managed to lose a fair amount of weight over the last few months without watching what I eat. (much.) It's all about the exercise. I've gone from moving from bed to the sofa a minimum of once daily to swimming for 30-60 minutes a day. At some point the weight loss is going to flatten out and I'll have to spend more time worrying about the diet side, but it hasn't happened yet.

Eating sensibly and exercising regularly take a lot of sustained effort. It seems that a lot of dieters want to simply *be* in shape, and skip the *getting* in shape part. As for fad diets, even the ones that work (Atkins, for instance) require that you *never* cheat and *never* go off the diet. I'll stick to exercise. thanks.

PS: Strawberry-Banana smoothies kick ass.