You know, I can talk about the problems with too much carbohydrate, cite the many scientific studies, talk about how promoting a low-fat diet is problematic - I can do all this until the cows come home, and very few people are going to pay any attention at all. Even among my readers, my writing about science is not very popular. But when Andrew Weil says it, let's face it: more people are going to sit up and take notice. So I was literally cheering when I read this piece in the Huffington Post: Fat or Carbs: Which is Worse?Weil takes us on a trip to the Heart Attack Grill near Pheonix, Arizona. The implication in the restaurant's name is that eating there could kill you with its "Double Bypass Burgers" because of the saturated fat therein. But Weil has a different take: it's not the burgers that could kill you, but the buns, the fries, and the sugary sodas. "The saturated fat lauded in this menu won't kill you", Weil says, "It may even be the safest element of the meal". He then goes on to talk about the report about saturated fat in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition earlier this year. This important study in a mainstream, well-respected journal has been mostly ignored in the media. Weil also recommends people read the book Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes, which explains how we were plunged into the idea that "fat is bad and carbohydrate is good", and the damage that this has done to the health of those in the U.S. I couldn't agree more!
Weil himself has been edging his way slowly towards this stance. I think this is the way a lot of experts and organizations are going to change - very slowly. Partly this is comes from not paying attention to emerging information that contradicts the status quo, and partly because it would be too embarrassing to suddenly do an about-face. ("Oops! You know that thing we said about the fats and carbohydrates! We got the two mixed up!")
It's happening slowly, but it IS happening!
Photo: Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Related Resources:
Mark Hyman, MD, who also writes on HuffPo has another article on the subject as well!
Oh! The link to the article doesn’t work. Can you fix? I almost fell off my chair to hear that even Dr. Weil is thinking carbs are worse
While Taubes really hits the nail on the head re: Lipid Hypothesis, I would caution if you do read GCBC, take his other hypotheses with a grain of salt. Here’s a thorough critique of part of Taubes’ work. http://weightology.net/?p=265
Why does anybody eat at the Heart Attack Grill? After all, would anybody eat at the Swine Flu Grill? Is it possible that even people who pay verbal homage to the low fat idea know that is wildly exaggerated? Is it possible that they think that up-tight ascetic nutritionists who are eager to tax you into behaving correctly couldn’t possibly be right? Of course, they would be happier if they could get some real information but it seems likely that we all know that the lipophobes as Michael Pollan calls them have completely given up on science and common sense.
Also, Dr. Weil has always been relatively non-doctrinaire. He has always emphasized what he likes and what he recommends rather than what he dislikes. I once challenged a spokesperson for the American Diabetes Association on exactly that point saying that they were stronger on what they don’t like (low carb diets) than what they do like. She admitted that that was a fair criticism. Remember, many people are happy with low fat diets or drugs instead of lifestyles but they should be given the choice. I personally think that low carb diets should be the default therapeutic diet, that is, the one to try first, but it is mostly making all the information available that is important.
Thanks, Bernadette – I fixed the link!
This guy is a junk food lobbyist! Should be in jail for promoting garbage food that kill or ruin millions of Americans every year!