Odds stacked against you

[unixronin]

Last night, someone I know pointed me at a July 2007 blog article by a Dr. William Davis, talking about why excessive consumption of processed wheat products is bad for your health.  That includes breads, cakes (see, you always knew Ho-Hos were evil!), pasta, and even those breakfast cereals with the boxes plastered with logos telling you how heart-healthy they are.¹

It’s an interesting blog overall. The title of this post comes from part of Dr. Davis’ capsule “about” text:  “You’ve been playing the health game by someone else’s rules with the odds stacked against you.”

Davis stresses that he’s not dispensing medical advice, just sharing information and discussing health issues frankly as he sees them.  But it seems to me there’s a lot of good information here.

I’ve just syndicated his Atom feed here on LJ as heartscanblog.  If you want to become a little more of an informed player in the health game, you might want to pick the feed up.

[1]  Oh, wait, wait, most of them don’t actually come right out and say that they’re heart-healthy ... they usually wrap the insinuation in weasel-words like “Supa Wonda Brekky Bikkies can be part of a heart-healthy diet” and let you draw the conclusion they want you to, without ever actually making explicit claims.  Well, cellulose packing peanuts can be “part of” almost any diet you care to name, too, but I still don’t recommend eating them.

Comments

[smandal.livejournal.com]

I'm skeptical of his "fundamentalist" approach to wheat-based products -- one must draw a distinction between processed and fresh products. Daily-baked pumpernickel is nothing like Cocoa Puffs. The latter is engineered to give a sugar kick and encourage overconsumptions, not to mention attendant consumption of milk and being full of preservatives.

Fresh bread is an integral component of the Mediterranean diet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet).

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Heh. For reasons having more to do with the current contents of my larder than anything else, I cut out wheat a few days ago. Come to think of it, I do feel better.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

google "paleo diet"

short form: piece of protein about the size and thickness of your palm (not including fingers/wrist), slap it on a plate. cover plate with mixed veggies (esp spinach, broccoli, kale) until the protein is about invisible. consume. basically, no processed foods, at all if you can help it. NO grains. naturally balanced carbs, proteins, fats. hoo-yah.

seems to be advocated by performance oriented super athletes lately. seems to work for them too.

also, don't forget the vigorous exercise. daily. sleep too :>

i should talk, i've been bad for a month, but getting back to it.

#

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

discovered this spring i can't east wheat at all without icky side effects.
learned a month later my brother had the same problem.
now my little sister is wheat free too.

kinda' crazy. but i'm healthier than i can ever remember being. i blame the oils and oil soluble vitamins my body wasn't absorbing properly.

a mostly veggie diet is a little weird to adjust to at first, though.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

So bread isn't healthy?

Sheesh, the man comes off as a crank. He's also using his blog for marketing. (He is at least an actual MD--I checked.) Yes, of course you can eat too much bread (or anything else), and for some people that's easy to do. Yes, bread has a high glycemic index. There are also some people who are allergic to wheat. But claiming it's a major cause of obesity in the USA is just nuts: the biggest problem in the USA is over-consumption of refined sugar.