"The Diet Debacle"

What's wrong with our "food" supply?

Robert H. Lustig

Our metabolisms started to malfunction when humans began consuming fat and carbohydrates at the same meal. The liver mitochondria could not keep up with the energy onslaught, and had no choice but to employ a little-used escape valve called “de novo lipogenesis” (new fat-making) to turn excess energy substrate into liver fat.

Liver fat mucks up the workings of the liver. It is the root cause of the phenomenon known as “insulin resistance” and the primary process that drives chronic metabolic disease. In other words, neither fat nor carbohydrates are problematic – until they are combined. The food industry does precisely that, mixing more of both into the Western diet for palatability and shelf life, thereby intensifying insulin resistance and chronic metabolic disease.

Is Lustig right about every point that he makes? Probably not. But he's right about a lot of it. What is becoming more clear by the day is that the nutritional advice promoted by the US Federal Government is bad advice.

Read it all...

Is Sugar Toxic?

For some of us, the answer is clearly, "yes." The real question is, is that true for just some, or is it true for all?

Gary Taubes, whose work I wish I had discovered before last December, continues to publish important information.

It’s one thing to suggest, as most nutritionists will, that a healthful diet includes more fruits and vegetables, and maybe less fat, red meat and salt, or less of everything. It’s entirely different to claim that one particularly cherished aspect of our diet might not just be an unhealthful indulgence but actually be toxic, that when you bake your children a birthday cake or give them lemonade on a hot summer day, you may be doing them more harm than good, despite all the love that goes with it. Suggesting that sugar might kill us is what zealots do. But Lustig, who has genuine expertise, has accumulated and synthesized a mass of evidence, which he finds compelling enough to convict sugar. His critics consider that evidence insufficient, but there’s no way to know who might be right, or what must be done to find out, without discussing it.

If I didn’t buy this argument myself, I wouldn’t be writing about it here. And I also have a disclaimer to acknowledge. I’ve spent much of the last decade doing journalistic research on diet and chronic disease — some of the more contrarian findings, on dietary fat, appeared in this magazine —– and I have come to conclusions similar to Lustig’s.

It's a long piece, but it's important. Read it...


And here's the Lustig lecture that he references. It's definitely worth watching...