Are grains killing us--or at least, killing our New Years Resolution to lose some weight? Karl Smith looks at this infographic and wonders:
As always, no one disputes that wedging will result in weight loss. That is driving calories-in and calories-out in opposite directions will lower the caloric content of the body. Excluding water there is a rough relationship between caloric content and mass. For most fat, which is our primary concern in obesity, the relation is about 3500 calories per pound.The tendency of all animals is to try to get calories-in and calories-out to move in harmony. If you have to wedge then that means that this system has failed. At a minimum we would like to know why.
Historically people worked a lot more than they do now. They also ate a lot more than they do now. From the year 1400 to 1970 average calories expended fell dramatically but so did average caloric intake. Obesity was never a severe problem. The system did not fail.
Then from 1970 to 2010 average calories expended actually rose but calories consumed rose more and obesity exploded. The system failed.
If you go and look at the actual graph though, you can see Gary Taubes's thesis on display. This is natural since the dataset used to make the graph is one of Gary's favorites. First you see meat falling, then fat falling/stalling, then sugar falling as various healthy eating theories rose to prominence.
The only thing that rises consistently is grains. Gary insinuates and sometimes outright says that obesity was caused by the encouragement international health authorities for people to eat more grain. The naturally tendency is for people to eat more meat as calories become easier to obtain. He suggests that consciously overriding this mechanism led to an excess of insulin and possibly deficiency of peptide YY, which are key regulators of caloric balance.
I am skeptical of this theory, but it is one that at least recognizes the underlying theoretical problems.
I too am skeptical of this theory, and here's why. It's totally true that if you look at the change in the American diet since the 1960s, grain consumption has gone up dramatically, growing right along with our waistlines. The problem is that this is only true for the 1960s. Check out my sadly less snazzy infographic showing the caloric contribution of various elements to the US food supply since 1910:
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