Breakfast
So today's post will be a gross understatement of correct facts about nutrition- starting with the most absurd myths that directly correlate to your level of health and are therefore critical to know about.
Notice I said gross understatement. The field of nutrition/eating properly is overflowing with complete bullshit, so don't let your education end here.
1. Fat makes you fat.
Fat does not make you fat. Let's repeat that- fat does not make you fat. By this logic, eating less fat will not get you "ripped", it will probably prevent a reduction in body fat if anything.
Fat is a necessary component of a healthy body. It should make up the bulk of your calories every day. Proper levels of saturated/monounsaturated fat have actually been show to increase testosterone levels, and can help you build muscle- which is the only way to actually lower your body fat percentage.
The only inherently "bad" fats are trans fat and hydrogenated oils. "Partially"hydrogenated oils being even worse than fully hydrogenated oils.
Additionally, anytime you cook with oil other than tropical oils- such as coconut and red palm- the oil begins to oxidize. They are the only oils worthy of cooking, even olive oil-a monounsaturated oil- falls short drastically short of being a *good* cooking oil.
Polyunsaturated oils are especially bad to cook with-including the omega 3 rich flax seed oil. They do not resist changes in temperature and quickly oxidize into trans fat.
Examples of polyunsaturated oils include soybean/vegetable oil. Most "olive oils" you find at restaurants-including Designer Greens- are actually mixtures of olive and soybean oil. Surprise, it's cheap, and no one gives a shit about your health.What else is new?
2. Saturated Fat and Cholesterol should be eliminated or drastically reduced from the diet
This is a myth 5 decades in the making that has absolutely no substantial evidence to back it, and hordes of common sense-not to mention unbiased research- to counter it.
But before we get into the common sense, lets talk briefly about science.
Unprocessed saturated fat has a net postive effect on heart health and cholesterol levels. It raises your HDL-*good*-cholesterol more than it raises your LDL-*bad*-cholesterol.
This includes animals fats, eggs, nuts, and tropical oils-assuming the animal products are as close to "natural"as they can be, which means the omega 3:6 fatty acid ratio is somewhere between 1:1 and 1:5.
So basically, if you want shitty heart health, stay AWAY from saturated fat.
Dietary cholesterol is another nutrient that's been defecated on by morons in lab coats for a few decades.
Cholesterol-of all kinds- is used for a limitless amount of bodily processes, hormone production being one of them. And yes, this includes testosterone production.
It's so essential to your body that your liver makes about 1,000 mgs a day of the stuff. And here most people are avoiding it like the plague-meanwhile filling up their diets with foods that damage the heart and promote increases in LDL cholesterol.
Do yourself a favor and eat more egg yolks/meats. And for the love of god smack anyone you see making an "egg white omelet".
3. Whole grains and milk are a necessary part of a "balanced" diet.
Here's more utter nonsense that's been pushed for far too long. Whole grains and -heavily processed- cows milk are a necessary part of a balanced diet.
Just take a look at what most moms feed their kids every morning before school-esentially a giant bowl of sugar. Every drop of it is packed with sugar. There's almost nothing in it, but sugar.
The milk is packed with sugar, the starch is coated with sugar, and oh wait-starch IS sugar. It just doesnt tatse sweet on it's own becuase the molecule is too long to fit into our taste buds.
Fun fact, we thrived for hundreds of thousands of years on
Nuts
Eggs
Meats
a few seeds
vegetables (non starchy)
fruits
Notice cow milk, grains-of any kind- and beans are not included in there. Only over the past ~10,000 years have we started to eat milk/grains/beans.
Makes you wonder where common sense fits into the picture.
1,000,000 years of evolution versus 10,000 years of agriculture. I''m lost. Can someone help me? It seems like most of the developed world is obsessed with eating heavily processed foods that are entirely foreign to our stomachs.
Where does rational thought fit into this picture? Including governments recommending the majority of the diet come from these foods. Stupidity at best.
Fun facts- fiber is great, but relaitvely insignificant, and abundantly found outside of grains. Additionally, "whole" grains only have a marginal vitamin content benefit over white flour and related products.
Over 3/4 of the protein in milk is caesin, not whey. Caesin is basically a glue and is incredibly hard to digest. Calcium is abundantly found in nuts/vegetables, and it shouldnt come with large quantities of lactose (milk sugar).
Vitamin D comes from the sun. Roll with the windows down and walk to class, you'll get inifintely more than you will from the sun than the synthetic vitamin D in milk.
Worst of all, these foods -starchy vegetables/grains/beans/milk- spike insulin levels. What is insulin? The fat storing trump hormone. People that are OBESE do not get that way from from over eating, or "not burning enough calories", they get that way because their body has no idea how to assimilate the mass quantities of carbohydrates they eat every day.
Then again, how should it?
1,000,000+ years of evolution, 10,000 years of agriculutre. We've barely had a hershey squirt worth of time to adapt to new foods, no wonder we're having problems.
Diabetes falls into the same boat as obesity. It's not so much "genetic"as it is eating a ton of sugar/starch and your body having NO IDEA what to do with it.
4. Organic/free range foods are "special" and expensive and conventional foods are "normal" and affordable
That's like saying a life time of breakfast/lunch and dinner at McDonalds will save you money. Short term maybe a little, but long term you'll end up spending tens of thousands on medical expenses-if not hundreds of thousands like my best friend Curtis before he died of cancer at 22.
The reality is foods that are raised without chemicals/added growth hormones/antibiotics are a hell of a lot closer to their natural state, but they are still not as intended to be. A wild turkey will have a significantly different nutritional content than a free range/organic turkey that's allowed to roam around.
Think of it this way.
Wild food-awesome, but rarely feasibly on a grand scale.
Organic/free range food (grass fed beef, eggs, turkey, chicken)- great for you, but not as good as wild. The food quality reflects the price. Very feasible on a large scale.
"conventional" food- most of it sucks. Plant food not so much, but animal products? Yikes. If you're not ready to take growth hormones and anabolic steroids, then I don't understand why you would eat conventional animal products.
The same goes for girls who wont use birth control but eat conventional meats every day. Its 100% hypocritical and makes absolutely no sense. Avoid synthetic hormones only to eat them in foods every day.
On price- take a step back and think rationally. While this is an over simplification and I do not eat anywhere near 100% organic, most conventional foods are cheap, in price and quality. Organic foods are NORMAL, and the price reflects that.
5. Eating 5-6 times per day will significantly help you burn fat
I'm not arguing that eating more times per day is an inherently bad idea, I'm saying that its a misguided focus and highly over-touted.
In a nut shell, weight loss comes from muscular hypertrophy, eating the correct foods, and eating a little less-in that order.
There are little things that can help, and eating more often is one of them. However from what I've seen, people tend to eat more calories overall. Eating half a dozen times a day can do this...
And when you are already eating the wrong foods, your amplifying the problem. Hence I find the notion that eating more times per day is an inconvient waste of time, and ridiculous if you aren't
-Building muscle
-eating the right foods in the first place
I also dislike how eating at a higher FREQUENCY is emphasized more than chewing your foods well and taking your time-and breathing-while eating (although I've been known to scarf down some Jasons Deli =D).
6. Massive quantities of protein need to be eaten to build muscle
The is one of the most absurd notions of all, however I don't find it as imperative as the earlier points of interest.
Protein is the building block of muscle, yes. But without essential fatty acids, you're wasting your time. A little more in the diet is not a bad idea- if it's coming from whole foods in their natural state- but eating ridiculous quantities of it is just absurd, and an easy way to undermine your health.
Eating hundreds of grams of protein every day in the form of powders/supplements puts an incredible stress on your liver-among other organs- and has been linked to an assortment of long term problems. Not to mention the array of chemicals used to product/store these supplements.
Eat more eggs if you want more protein. They are the standard in amino acids that all other sources are compared against-including red meats, poultry, and fish.
The list certainly doesn't end here with absurd notions about nutrition, but I feel this is a good start-or continuation/repetition for some of you.
Ill dive into exercise/bodybuilding next
I welcome all comments =)
-Dream
