Modern Diet Myth No. 4: Fructose turns to fat

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Bill Shrapnel

Fructose – the dietary villain de jour – is currently giving rise to more myths than anything else and they all seem to relate to fat. Fructose supposedly leads to fatty liver and too much fat in the blood. To top it off, fructose is said to be uniquely fattening! Where do we start?

Fat in your liver

Most of the carbohydrate we eat ends up in the bloodstream as either glucose or fructose. The myth goes that glucose is the good sugar as it is used to power the brain, the muscles and most of the cells in the body. And the fructose is the bad sugar which is quickly taken up by the liver and turned into fat, giving rise to fatty liver.

Unfortunately for the myth-makers, no reputable health authority in the world agrees. Fatty liver is certainly a common problem but the experts see it as part of the metabolic syndrome – a cluster of abnormalities linked to central obesity and insulin resistance, where the cells of the body become less sensitive to insulin.

There is no recommended diet for fatty liver. Instead, health authorities encourage people with fatty liver to lose some weight and increase their physical activity, both of which improve insulin resistance.

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Modern Diet Myth No. 3: Seed oils cause heart disease

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Bill Shrapnel

There are lots of oils derived from seeds – sunflower, canola, soybean, cottonseed, sesame, flax, grape seed, peanut and safflower to name a few. The first thing that strikes you about these oils is not how similar they are but how different. Traditional sunflower oil is high in polyunsaturated fats, whereas canola has more monounsaturated fats, plus some omega 3. Flaxseed oil has lots of omega 3 and so on.

About the only thing that all these seed oils have in common is that they are relatively low in saturated fat, which is considered to be a good thing by every reputable nutrition and heart health authority in the world.

Of course, things are very different in the curious world of celebrity-driven nutrition advice where for some reason saturated fat is seen as desirable and coconut oil, one of the most saturated of all oils, is promoted a healthy choice.

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Modern Diet Myth No. 2: Legumes should be eliminated from the diet

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Bill Shrapnel

One of the more baffling pieces of nutrition advice wafting through the internet is that legumes should be eliminated from the diet. This stands in contrast to conventional nutrition advice which encourages intake of legumes. Who would have thought these humble edible seeds, which include beans, peas, lentils and peanuts, would be the centre of a controversy?

At first glance legumes appear to be rich sources of iron and zinc but their critics argue that this is misleading as the absorption of these nutrients is lessened by anti-nutrients, like phytic acid. Phytic acid in legumes binds to these minerals lowering their absorption from the gut. The iron and zinc in meat is more readily absorbed.

The other argument against legumes relates to protein. Compared to traditional ‘protein foods’ such as meat, poultry, fish and eggs, legumes generally have less protein and the protein is of lower quality. That is, some amino acids are in short supply.

So legumes are labelled as inferior foods, compared to red meat.

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Modern Diet Myth No. 1: Eating McDonald’s makes you fat and sick

Posted on February 2, 2015 by Bill Shrapnel

For years, the food served at McDonald’s restaurants has been used as an example of all that is wrong in modern western diets – it’s simple, fast, cheap and American, and therefore couldn’t possibly be good for us. In his 2004 movie Super Size Me United States film maker Morgan Spurlock set out to demonstrate that McDonald’s food actually makes people fat and sick, using himself as a guinea pig.

The Spurlock ‘experiment’

For 30 days Spurlock ate only McDonald’s food and documented the effects on his physical and psychological well-being on film. The effects were dramatic: he gained over 11 kilos in weight; his blood cholesterol went up; fat built up in his liver; and he experienced sexual dysfunction and swings in mood. At last, here was all the proof we needed that eating McDonald’s food makes you fat and sick!

In reality it was nothing of the sort. Proof comes from scientific experiments and Super Size Me bore no resemblance to science. When conducting dietary experiments researchers are careful to control for all the factors that might affect the result. If two things change in a diet, how do you know if an adverse effect is due to one thing or the other?

Spurlock gave his audience the impression that he was testing the QUALITY of McDonald’s food. However, during his 30-day ‘experiment’ he also changed the QUANTITY of food that he ate. In fact, he absolutely stuffed himself, doubling his calorie intake. This binge was why he put on so many kilos and probably why his blood cholesterol and liver fat increased.

The fact that he was eating McDonald’s food actually had nothing to do with his weight gain. Many dietary experiments have shown that diets with widely differing composition have exactly the same effect on body weight if calories are kept constant, and physical activity remains the same. These are the things that determine whether body weight moves up or down. Spurlock actually lowered his level of physical activity during his month-long feast, presumably to ensure the results were as bad as possible.

Image: source

Spurlock’s motive

What was Spurlock’s motive? If the intention had been to inform the general public of the facts Spurlock would have teamed up with some nutrition researchers and filmed a real scientific study into the effects of McDonald’s food. I suspect he was aware that the results would hardly have been big news.

At best, Spurlock’s movie may be an extreme case of white hat bias i.e. bias leading to the distortion of information in the service of what may be perceived to be righteous ends. But the predetermined outcome and the misrepresentation of its cause surely pushes ethics to the limit.

Alternatively, maybe Super Size Me was just a stunt designed to generate a lot of publicity and to tarnish McDonald’s name. Irrespective of what we think about the nutritional quality of McDonald’s food, wouldn’t we all be better off if we just heard the facts?

Declaration: Bill Shrapnel has no association with McDonald’s.