Low Fat or Low Carb or Neither?

When I found TVP (textured vegetable protein), it made getting protein from non-meat sources much easier for me.

I tend to eat low fat, not for weight loss reasons, but because it's hard for my body to process fatty foods. I get sick and it's not fun!

I on the other hand think that TVP and other processed soy foods are dangerous foods.

I get most of the fat in my diet from non-animal sources, mainly nuts and olive oil. I try to avoid fats that are hydrogenated, as those are even worse than saturated fats. I guess it's just common sense....low-carbers that eat a lot of fish/nuts are going to be healthier than those that eat lots of cream/fat/etc. Just like people that eat low-fat will have better results if they get their fat from plant sources instead of "fake" fats that are in a lot of "fat-free" processed foods.

>>>>Women who showed a much lower rate of heart attacks tended to get their protein from beans, legumes, oatmeal, whole grain, tofu and brown rice,

That's quite a leap from the data which showed the majority of their protein was from animal sources 58g a day of the 83g total protein (in the plant-based calorie analysis, which was not low in carbohydrate)....the group ate the same servings of red meat, fish and poultry as those at an increased risk - the major difference was their intake of nuts - 4x as many in the reduced risk group.

Regina, that is a good point. Remember the research a while ago that showed eating just one single walnut when eating saturated fat reduced cholesterol, in spite of the other fat ingested? I think what you pointed out shows the difference really is the nuts.

Jan...it's not necessarily the nuts per se, in this data the subjects with reduced risk just happened to eat more nuts - in another set of data it might have been higher consumption of fish, or flaxseeds, or any other food that provides a nice mix of essential fatty acids -- the data clearly shows that the group with reduced risk consumed enough PUFA to meet EFA requirements, where the comparison group did not eat enough to even come close to meeting EFA requirements.

Totally being ignored in the media though - no surprise.

Help me out here, Jan. What is the problem with TVP?

You are right, EFAs as a whole, but in this study in particular, nuts.

Dr. J, I love how all the soy-lovers are always talking about how healthy soy is, and that Asians are healthier because they consume lots of soy. That is true. But notice that Asians are not eating TVP and soy lattes and products made with soy protein isolate, which contain way more phytoestrogens than the products they are consuming, which are mostly very low on it, like edamame, misso, tempeh, soy sauce. Out of the products used regularly in Asia, tofu is the only one that contains phytoestrogens in a significant amount, and like any other "meat" in Asian cooking, it is used very sparingly, maybe 4 pieces of it diced in a meal that is mostly vegetables and rice.

Then we eat Western amounts of Western processed soy foods thinking they'll have the same health benefits as the different foods and amounts eaten in Asia, without giving a second thought to the side effects of it.

Thanks Jan! I eat TVP in small amounts. I sometimes look at it and think ,"I'm eating dog food!" I've been looking on the Internet for information on the 'processing'.

"Asians are healthier because they consume lots of soy."

The figure I heard was about 8 or 9 grams of soy protein per day. That doesn't seem like much to me. Most of their soy consumption is from fermented sources, which negates most of the antinutrients and so forth.

Soy is something I am extremely cautious about eating. It has been shown to lower testosterone levels, as it may be somewhat equivalent to pumping estrogen in your body. It also can block the absorption of certain minerals. As a bodybuilder, this is a real problem for me. I eat less grains, even whole grains, for this reason too.

My protein comes from meat, milk, and eggs. I don't eat protein without a fat source along with it. For example, when I consume my milk-and-egg protein powder, I combine it with raw eggs to get the egg yolks and something between whole milk and heavy cream to restore the butterfat. I use a high fat, moderate protein, lower carb diet. I avoid stepping into keitosis though. It's working really well for me. I feel great, and I am always progressing in my weight training.

Note though that my nutritional requirements are much different from most people, I'm following a pretty controversial diet, and my goal is not to live super long, only well.

Ryan,
I'm truly scared for you. The only time I've ever heard that soy lowers testosterone levels is from watching those macho meat commercials like for the burger king whopper ... not the most legitimate source. And saying that you don't eat animal proteins without a fat source is obvious ... they all contain huge amounts of fat. I don't think you need to be adding more. Try eating a vegetable instead.

RIP Dr. Atkins -- he had it right all along!

Ann: Oh, that's not to say fruits and vegetables aren't important. I try to eat as many of them as possible. However, due to their low calorie content and high thermic effect, there's no way I can get my calorie requirements with them (I'm losing weight on over 3,000 calories a day). There are two ways to get a significant amount of calories: grains, legumes, and animal products. However, after reviewing the facts, I've decided that more animal and less grains/legumes is better for my particular needs.

If you read around on soy, you can find enough legitimate sources to show that it may not be something good to eat. Personally, I think it's a very poor food very well marketed. Not that I won't eat it, but I eat its fermented forms to help avoid the damaging chemicals in it; it isn't just some macho thing. I wouldn't even consider myself macho. I'm a software engineer out of a top 25 college. I eat animal products because, from what I know about nutrition, I believe it to be healthy. Despite my diet or because of it, my cholesterol levels always remain at 180 or less. The only time I've ever gone over that is when I ate less meat to save money in college.

From the sounds of it, you're a fat phobic that trusts the diet dictocrats, and so I'm truly scared for you.

Oh no it's yet another study low carb is good for you!

Quick! Block your ears people & start yelling 'lalalalalalalalalalala!!'

or else you might be influenced! *shock!*

I don't think small amounts of tofu or TVP are dangerous for people that are in good hormonal health for starters. The problem is that as a society, we are on soy overload. If you buy for example a pre-seasoned frozen chicken breast, it will contain soy. Eat a protein bar? Soy. Everything contains soy nowadays, so you have to be mindful.

That said, I think soy products are delicious. I'd drink a liter of soy milk everyday if I could.

And if my careful stance on soy makes me macho, then I guess I'm a macho woman. For vegetable protein, I love all kinds of beans, esp. fava beans, chickpeas, lentils, and lupine seeds. Lupine seeds are especially good cause they can be eaten as a snack, and they are made of mostly protein and fiber with just a bit of carb for energy. 1 cup contains 3g carb. Perfect to eat when you are also gonna have fruit.

I forgot to say: I eat fermented soy products freely. I just watch the amount of tofu, and I've cut out all the soy "frankenfoods", the western ones, no matter how tasty they are.

Wow...i agree with Dave. All these concepts of low carb, low glycemic, eating less refined sugar, eating less white flour, face it folks...this is all Atkins talk.

In fact, everyone talks of these ideas, but cannot mention his name for giving him CREDIT. He preached low carb, cutting out all processed food, and eating fiber dense vegetables. He didn't care whether it be animal or vegetable fat, but he sure hated trans-fats.

His induction phase may be controversial, but so was he. It just seems he is proving to be more right than wrong.

Good day all, I've got to get my fat butt out for a walk.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day about health issues. She is a very fit personal trainer. She said, "Study the habits of successful people to see what works!" We also had a talk here by the author of the book, Younger Next Year. I don't like the title much but his talk was very well received and I believe much of his advise is correct.

The most importent thing is u should control on ur eating habit to control ur weight.

James, your statement assumes all overweight people overeat. A lot don't, they just eat the wrong things, but in total volume of food eaten in a day, they eat the same or less than a person on a healthy diet eats.

Ryan,
I think you're forgetting that there's a big difference between highly processed soy products and those that aren't. Highly processed just about anything isn't going to be good for you. But the whole soy bean is one of the healthiest foods on the planet.
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-too-much-soy.html

Ann said:
But the whole soy bean is one of the healthiest foods on the planet. [...]

Ann: I avoid natural soy too, for the reasons I named above. For my nutritional needs in particular, I really don't want more estrogen or estrogen-like things in my body nor do I want my body depleted of minerals, particularly zinc and magnesium. Once again though, fermented soy is much better, as most of the toxins in it are destroyed by the process. Here's the other side of soy:
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/soydangers.html

This is extremily true to our beliefs, and that the healthiest of diets arn't vegetarian, nor atkens, nor south beach doets.

The best diet is a balanced diet inriched with everthing...Fish, red meat, white meat, fruits, vegtables, whole grains, fermented soy, dark chocolate, acai juice, alcohol-free red wine or açaí juice...But few exceptions: No fried foods, no trans-fatty pasteries or baked goods, and no artificial sweeteners or trans fats.

Now let's get the facts:

Too much red meat does raise the risk of developing cancer, while too little red meat increases the risk of developing anemia, especially low-red blood cell anemia.
While too much saturated fats clogs up your arteries and gives you bad cholesterol, not enough saturated fats raises the risk of developing vitamin D deficiency and osteoprosis and osteoartheritis, as well as illness from bad cell membranes and hemmorage strokes.

Like I said, Bob Barker had health problems starting in 1991, due to 12 years, when he complained of blurred vision. Since then, he's had three strokes, one in 1991, another one in 1999, and the third in 2002. Bob Barker is retiring from The Price is Right due to his failing health, stating that his job "is taking a toll on his physicialogical health", and that his last show will be on June of 2007.

Yes, as much as I hate the slaughtering of animals, the fact is, you need to put some animal-based protein in your diet, and in variety of meats, like fish for protein and omega 3s, chicken and turkey for good quality protein, and red meat for iron, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin B12. The catch here is: high amounts of sea-food with moderate amounts of other meats (perferrably, white meat a couple times of week and red meat about once a week.) Chimps do eat meat (birds, small mammals, and even fish), so we do need to eat some meat in our diet.

I think the right-on diet is: a diet centered on plants and sea-food, with a moderate amounts of pultery and red meat, eggs, and anti-oxident rich sources such as dark chocolate, but stay away from fried foods, processed foods, fast foods, and pasteries that contain trans-fats (partially hydrogenated oils). Yes you can have your cake or brownie or pie and eat it too, so long as it is not cooked in oils laden with trans fats (Hydrogenated margarines, shortenings (partially hydrogenated oils), or anything hydrogenated.) Instead, bake your cake using coconut oil, unhydrogenated lard, or butter.

James said:
While too much saturated fats clogs up your arteries and gives you bad cholesterol[...]

And what would you say is bad cholesterol? In the beginning, we only looked at total cholesterol. The correlation was weak, so we tried to fine-tune it. We now have this HDL and LDL classification right now, but the correlation is still weak. There is only one type of cholesterol to worry about, and that's a class of small, dense LDL particles that may get stuck in your artery walls and turn rancid. This will cause damage and inflammation. So you could say there is "good LDL" and "bad LDL". HDL particles vary in their helpfulness as well. Knowing your total cholesterol, and even your HDL and LDL tells you very little.

I don't believe, at this point in time, that saturated fat clogs arteries. If you want to worry about your cholesterol, eliminate refined carbohydrates and vegetable oils first.

Ryan--here's a little bit more info on cholesterol for you. HDLs are high density lipoproteins. They are a protein molecule that binds cholesterol and transports it to the liver where it is metabolized and turned into various hormone precursors and utilized for various other structures (such as myelin) for the body. LDLs are low-density lipoproteins. These also bind cholesterol in the blood, but they don't transport it to the liver; they deposit it on artery walls. VLDLs are very low density lipoproteins that also bind cholesterol, but deposit even more of it on the artery walls than LDLs. Then there are chylomicrons, which are essentially balls of cholesterol trapped in a very thin layer of protein that circulate in the bloodstream until they bind with a LDL or HDL. How do you come to the conclusion that avoiding refined carbs affects the levels of these at all? A lot of it is genetics, you know. Some people are missing receptors on their HDL proteins that predisposes them to high blood triglycerides. Some people are born with a lot of HDL proteins and never have cholesterol problems.

Spectra: I know the structure of cholesterol particles in the blood. The only deposits on artery walls are scars. When you get a cut on your finger, the process of inflammation begins. Cholesterol (as well as other things) rushes to the site of the cut, the blood clots, and so forth. You can't make new cells without cholesterol. In the end, it heals up and you are left with a scar. The same thing happens in your arteries, but we call the scar tissue "plaque". Arterial deposits actually contain very little cholesterol.

Cholesterol is (somewhat) correlated with heart disease, but we must not confuse correlation with causation, as is often done in medical science. Gray hair and aging are correlated too. We could just as easily say that gray hair causes aging, or perhaps there is something causing both the gray hair and the aging. Repeated damage to the arteries leads to chronic inflammation which leads to higher cholesterol as your body is trying to heal the damage done to it.

I've heard two things about refined carbs. The first is that cholesterol is used to carry glucose through the blood stream. If you consistently induce large spikes of blood sugar, your body will learn to consistently keep more cholesterol around. I've also heard that the liver will make fats from the sugar that are damaging for the arteries when it is trying to deal with the excess carbohydrates coming in. Regardless, people who eat a lot of refined carbs will get dramatic drops in serum cholesterol levels when they stop eating them. Search around and see for yourself. I'm not saying genetics don't play a big part too though.

Add to that the fact that the heart attack triad is: high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and high blood pressure. Reducing the amount of carb, esp. refined carb, can reduce triglycerides by as much as 400% in a single month, so it dramaticaly reduces the risk of a heart attack even if your cholesterol levels (both of them) stayed exactly the same.

Ann said:
Ryan, I'm truly scared for you. The only time I've ever heard that soy lowers testosterone levels is from watching those macho meat commercials like for the burger king whopper ... not the most legitimate source. And saying that you don't eat animal proteins without a fat source is obvious ... they all contain huge amounts of fat. I don't t[...]

Well Ann then I feel truely scared for you...

If you really believe a soybean is the healthiest food on the planet then you obviousely have not done much research...

Ryan I hope you enjoy your animal fat, I do!

Oh, I have to add to this comment earlier posted.

It's not necessarely the meat that Americans are eating, but I think it's primarely the junk food high in trans fats, sugar, and refined starches that are making us sick.

A very low carbohydrate diet is more effective than a low fat diet for short-term weight loss but no differences in long-term. The short-term safety is proven but the long-term safety and efficacy of both diets remain unclear. Complications such as irregular rhythm of heart rate, heart failure, sudden death, osteoporosis, kidney damage, increased cancer risk, impairment of physical activity and lipid abnormalities can all be linked to long-term restriction of carbohydrates in the diet.

OHHHHH EMMMM GEEEEEEE! I am so fat~ what should I do? I weigh 365 pounds and I'm only 5 foor 2?
I've tried diet and excersize but nothing seems to work. lol this is weird

Low fat or low carb... Well, There were conflicting reports about every diet that is out there. But I have a red flag about the recent findings about the low carb atkins diet.

Claim: Low Carb Diets can damage your arteries and cause heart attacks.

FLAG: What type of low carb foods were they eating? Did the low carb diet consist of processed meat (Sausages, hamburgers, pies with sugar alcohols?

They did not look at what specific low carb foods they eat. There is a healthy low carb diet consisting of oily fish, eggs, nuts, legumes, lean meats, including moderate amount of lean red meats, vegetables and high potassium fruits (Apples, bananas, pears), and high antioxident dark fruits (blueberries, açaí berries, cranbarries), skim milk, and natural fats and oils (butter, olive oil, fish oil, clean animal fats, hempseed oil, krill oil, and natural blend margarines including smart balance, promise, and benecal).

Here's the unhealthy low carb diet, which consists of sausages, hot dogs, highly fatty meats, processred fats (Hydrogenated, fractionted, RBD, and interestrified oils, and hydrogenated margarinese like Country Crook, Parkay, and Crisco ), and processed low carb foods. That may be what they are talking about that damages your cardiovascular system.

And as allways, there are unheathy low fat diets, like eating processed low fat, high sugary foods. People who ate low fat diets eat low-fat crackers, low-fat cakes, as well as low-fat hot dogs and such, as well as white rice, white potatoes, and high glycemic starcy foods.

Excess omega 6 fat intake is the real big killer. This is found in grains, and in the animals that eat grains.

Also, if you want to lose weight, you might want to improve your body's fat metabolism. You do this by eating fat, thereby getting better at metabolizing it! A caloric deficit will then cause the body to go more readily into it's own fat stores, to meet the rest of your energy needs.

Cavemen did not eat grains. Carbohydrates were from fruits and roots, nuts and seeds. Fats came from animals and fatty vegetables such as coconut, olives or avocado. Not from corn or soybean! And protein came from meat, eggs and nuts. Not textured vegetable protein, soy or whey extract.

Get with the times people... That is, the times in which your body evolved. Pre-agriculture. Pre-industry. Pre-historic.

I weigh 430 pounds and I would never do a high carb diet I just started Nov. 5th so far I lost 30 pounds on my 4x4x5 diet.

it is common sense people. a balanced diet is one that consists of complex carbs, dietary fibers, the right fats (vegetable or seafood) and lean meats. the less processed a food is, the better it is for you. and of course there is that word moderation.

if it's too good to be true, it is. any extreme is not good for you. lazy people buy into fad diets looking for an easy way out. anyone can manufacture a study to support want they want they want to sell.

we are not cavemen. last i checked we have progressed since then. i think we are a little smarter about health and medicine. we live a lot longer than cavemen that's for sure.

jan, thank you for your informative posts.