Obie & wife ain't socialists, they be a Stalinists (Maoists...whatever you like).

This will turn you off manufactured chicken for the rest of your life...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2OK6xDd7Hs

As the Instapundit would say,

"Tar. Feathers. Some assembly required."

The girl's turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs - including in-home day care centers - to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

WTF.

How does a lunch consisting of a turkey (meat) and cheese (milk) sandwich on white wheat bread (grain), banana (fruit), potato chips, and apple juice (fruit) not meet the federal guidelines?

And when did we become so submissive that a federal agent rummaging through a child's lunch box doesn't have the peasants storming the castle?

Outrageous. Even if the USDA guidelines were right (they aren't--there's zero need for grains and dairy in the human diet, and there's no scientific basis for the guidelines), the government busybodies and meddlers sound like they're violating the 4th Amendment.

she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a "healthy lunch" would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.

Oh, and by the way, you now owe us money for doing something you didn't want us to do in the first place.

Homeschooling is looking more and more like the only good alternative to full government indoctrination.

"The craziest thing is, the government mandates one serving of grain."

No, the craziest thing is that a state employee has nothing better to do than rummage in a 4 year old's lunch and there's no public outrage.

This makes me really angry. I mean, furious. The fact that someone can just deem your food "Not Good Enough" and force feed your kids government approved garbage (a turkey sandwich seems infinitely desirable over chicken nuggets, to my mind) is mind-blowing. Even if mom is packing nothing but Fruit Loops and Beef Jerky, to me there's a line to be drawn at rooting through home-packed lunches.

"...the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes"

Whatever job this is, it does not need to exist.

Whatever regulation this is, it does not need to exist.

Smaller government has got to start somewhere. Here's a good place. The USDA has no mandate within state borders anyway - ignore them. The problem is: in order to do this, you would have to make your child's life miserable, because they would be a pawn in the inevitable power struggle.

This is infuriating. What gives anyone, let alone some "state employee" the right to tell me what I can and can't feed my kid?

It's especially infuriating because of the government's insistence that we eat "healthy" grains and avoid the evil "saturated fat." Now it's law that I have to feed my kid according to some guidelines that I don't even agree with? Absolute BS.

This sent me into orbit. Explain to me how a school force feeding a child food they do not want isn't abuse?
And what about children who for religious reasons don't eat school lunches? (kosher, or, like my friend Anjina, Hindu and vegitarian) Are the government run schools going to start violating childrens' First Amendment rights if their home made lunches are deemed "not nutritional"?'

I remember when my father used to send me to school with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a Twinkie and a soda. And the soda would smash the bejeezus out of the PB&J until it was a sloppy mess. I wonder how that lunch would fly today.

What these 'tards are missing is that even if the mother had sent her to school with a bag full of Jolly Ranchers, a shitty lunch one day doesn't speak for overall nutrition. It might just make the kid a little unruly that afternoon.

While the intention is good, this would be a lot less intrusive if schools would just take note of overall health: Is the kid taking a lot of sick days? Is she in the normal range for weight and height? Then make suggestions if those things fire off red flags. And keep their noses out of it unless the home seems abusive or neglectful.

Realize that the public schools are the Democrats empire. There is where you see how life is when they have complete one party rule.

You know they would send food inspectors, er make that, nutrition consultants, around to your house at dinner time if they thought they could get away with it.

It is of passing interest to remember which party is always accusing the other of being a bunch of Fascists who want to tell everyone else how to live. This story should expose who the real American Taliban are.

And the grain thing; grain is the sacred cow of US politics. Now that the Ethanol Subsidy has been rolled back, look for an extra helping of grain to show up in the mandatory diet guidelines.

Mandated chicken nugget consumption is the mark of a healthy society, producing healthy children.

Big, fat, healthy children who need bigger school furniture.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/15/health/bigger-kids-bigger-sizes/index.html?hpt=hp_c1

"This will turn you off manufactured chicken for the rest of your life.."

Only if you have to listen to Jamie Oliver when you eat chicken nuggets.

And the chicken isn't manufactured. It is, however, very cost effective and with a minimum of waste.

But that's not what we're trying to make people feel guilty about. This week.

@UW Girl: "Explain to me how a school force feeding a child food they do not want isn't abuse?"

It's worse than that. Explain to me how the mindset originated that would allow someone to think they had a right to root through a kid's lunch and say, basically, "Sorry, Junior, your parents are doing it wrong?"

Granted, I'm sure there are people working in that school system who are extremely reluctant to do something as intrusive as probing lunch bags. But this was somebody's bright idea, somebody who thinks telling people what to do is the most fun you can have with your pants on. Is that attitude a prerequisite for employment at the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services?

Countdown 'till this kills a kid with a food allergy...

What I like to do is mash food up and then reshape it as the exact same food.

Pringles sold for $2.7 Billion, so apparently I'm not the only one who does this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17046698

And while I'm on a roll, consider this quote from the linked article:

While the mother and grandmother thought the potato chips and lack of vegetable were what disqualified the lunch, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child Development said that should not have been a problem.

"With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that's the dairy," said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. "It sounds like the lunch itself would've met all of the standard." The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said.

So apparently, the spokeswoman was big enough to admit that maybe a mistake was possibly made by someone somewhere, but I wonder if it dawned on her or anyone else that it was none of their business in the first place?

As Michelle said, what happens if a kid has an allergy or food intolerance that they can't articulate that because they're only three or four years old? You could wind up with a kid in the hospital or worse. Even under normal circumstances it's incredibly traumatizing to a four year old to have their lunch examined, criticized, then forced to eat a food they may not like. I'm pretty sure that if this happened to me at age four I would have been so upset by experience that I'd never want to go back to school. I can also see this policy easily being abused in a racist way ie the Indian kid with "weird" food is always forced to eat the school lunch. And maybe I could understand the logic if the policy was applied to preschoolers who were consistently bringing in doritos and Mountain Dew, but fruit, a juice box, and a turkey sandwich? That is literally the lunch that most elementary schoolers eat every day of their lives, and it's certainly better for you than chicken nuggets and the other crap that school cafeterias serve.

Behind the Gaia Fascist policy is a cafeteria that's not making any money. What the kid brought in the paper bag is not relevant: they were shaking her down for lunch money.

In Jefferson county, colorado a man spent half a day in prison for not having a dog license on the same day that this girl was caught by the food police. Jefferson just spent $10 million on a new animal shelter and they need to finance the debt. “He’s a service animal for my autistic daughter,” which is perfect for showing that the state has no mercy on anyone, ever when they are shaking you down for money. http://tiny.cc/du32x

Don't try to apply logic about the quality of the food or the de facto abuse of children. Give them money or they will hurt you.

After all that, the kid was not only too scared to eat the lunch from home but did not eat the school-supplied vegetable either.

Oh, and the USDA provides "guidelines," it was the State that made them mandatory. Probably because the Federal school-lunch prorgam funds it - and the State legislators do not ask just where that money comes from in the first place.

Ask the Center[s] for Disease Control about the Dept. of Agriculture's recommendations...

So let me see if I've got your POV right here Amy:

Government interference to make sure kids are eating healthy food despite at school is bad. But government interference to make sure that parents are buying healthy food with food stamps is good.

I sure wouldn't pay for it.

Gaia Nazis be damned! Red State Senator Ralph Shortey of Oklahoma has introduced legislation preventing Americans of any age from eating fetus-based foods:

"No person or entity shall manufacture or knowingly sell food or any other product intended for human consumption which contains aborted human fetuses in the ingredients or which used aborted human fetuses in the research or development of any of the ingredients.
SECTION 2. This act shall become effective November 1, 2012."

Admire him via the interwebs:

http://www.ralphshortey.com/

Either the principal is a dimwit, or he is trying to distract and awe...

The school principal, Jackie Samuels, said he didn't "know anything about" parents being charged for the meals that day. "I know they eat in the cafeteria. Whether they pay or not, they eat in the cafeteria."

Really? The cafeteria? Like, the room with the entire purpose of providing a place to eat? If a school district, ultimately taxpayers and parents, still chooses to employ this goofball, no wonder they are sending Federal authorities to poke around the lunchboxes...I'm questioning the principal's ability to feed himself too, much less preschoolers under his care.

Per Balko: Chillax, ev'erbuddy.

"Per Balko: Chillax, ev'erbuddy."

*Sigh* Interesting article Balko links to. Certainly it makes the incident look far less outrageous than the one described in the Carolina Journal. But still -- the little girl brought lunch from home. What exactly was the point of offering her the chicken nuggets except as an indication that the little girl's lunch was somehow unsatisfactory?

Real?

Radley again:

The buyer gave Labrecque a positive review and shared the news.

There is a thing.

OMFG, can I win the lotto so I can buy an island somewhere and get away from the crazy? PLEASE?????

I haven't read the piece, because that would be tawdry. And it would be mundane. Apparently...

I mean, this has got to be one of the best comment streams of 2012, and it's only February.

Time to torque it up, seekers! Competition is ON.

Fact:
You can buy candy and soda with food stamps, but not vitamin supplements. The manufactured food supply demands supplementation for its dearth of nutritional quality, yet the government denies access to vitamins like B complex, known to help brain and nerve function.
Hmmmm.
And:
As long as an absent parent pays the minimum legal reuirement of child support, they can abandon the children they co-created leaving their physical care to whomever is left. Their reason: "The government does not want to micro-manage families."
Really?
Then get your hands off our lunch.
And:
If you're not going to actually lead by good example and sound decision, get out of the way.
Or:
Simply wait for the peasants to storm the castle.

So apparently, the spokeswoman was big enough to admit that maybe a mistake was possibly made by someone somewhere, but I wonder if it dawned on her or anyone else that it was none of their business in the first place?

Exactly.

Food allergies was the first thing I thought of when I read this article. My co-worker has a daughter that will be three soon, and she has several food allergies that if consumed cause a great deal of discomfort and distress, and her reactions are getting more severe. She's allergic to dairy, eggs, wheat, oats, and possibly more. At four years old, if this child was sent to school with a lunch that was packed by her mother, which was deemed unfit, I can't imagine she would question an adult giving her breaded chicken nuggets, which would give her a severe allergic reaction!

Not to mention the many other things that are wrong with this story!

"Outrageous. Even if the USDA guidelines were right (they aren't--there's zero need for grains and dairy in the human diet, and there's no scientific basis for the guidelines), the government busybodies and meddlers sound like they're violating the 4th Amendment."

Exactly. What if a child is being raised on a vegan diet, per the parent's beliefs? Are they now going to be forced to buy chicken nuggets every day? I can't imagine anything WORSE for kids than chicken nuggets.

I've just finished reading Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes, and I'm trying his low fat vegan diet, which is working amazingly well for me (I've read Eades rebuttal of it too), and I think I've figured out the whole food debate!

Grains aren't bad. Carbs aren't bad. The Asian diet was full of grains and carbs, yet they had almost no obesity or diabetes until around 1980 when McDonalds and other fast foods came into play.

The difference is that they didn't eat high amounts of fat with their carbs. So, here's my theory:

If you're eating high carb, keep fats low.
If you're eating low carb, keep fats high.

People can lose amazing amounts of weight and fix all kinds of health problems, including diabetes, on EITHER diet. Just as people can screw up either diet by eating things that aren't really low fat or low carb, just labeled that way but loaded with sugar or sugar alcohols.

That's why these diets fail for some and get criticism, but just because you're eating HC or LC doesn't mean you're not loading up on too much fatty, processed food.

The key is when to eat fat! You can't mix it with carbs, which is why Americans are so obese. It's not the carbs themselves, but what we put on them (mac and cheese, fettucini alfredo, cheeseburger and bun, pizza, etc). Almost everything in our diet is a mixture of carbs and fat!

You can eat fat fine by itself or with protein and still lose weight. You can also cut the fat and eat carbs/grains and lose weight. Both diets work if you deal with fat properly.

I just wanted you all to know I've solved the diet debate. My book will be coming out shortly. :)

I don't think it's the grains, Amy. It's what we put on them - fat. Hardly anyone eats a bagel without adding butter or cream cheese. Hardly anyone eats pasta without some kind of fatty, cheesy sauce.

I, for one, slathered olive oil or butter on most carbs because I thought they're "good fats", which they probably are in moderation, but mixed with carbs, they're just fattening. So, if you study people who are eating "whole grains" and see they get fat and have insulin increases, you have to consider what they're eating the grains with.

On Barnard's diet, I keep oils to a minimum, and almost no fat, so I can consume low glycemic carbs and still lose weight! That's something I didn't think was possible before, but that's because I was almost always mixing fats with my carbs.

The carbs probably aren't the culprit, which makes sense when you consider the Asian paradox of eating tons of rice and noodles, while staying thin. That's because their diet is basically low fat/high carb.

But it's true low fat - not let's sugar up the product and take out the fat and call it "low fat", which is the American version, and why it doesn't work.

We've done the same thing, to a lesser degree, with LC diets. Have you looked at all the Atkins bars and LC shakes? Sure, they're low carb, but most have sugar alcohols and other bad ingredients. If someone were to eat those all the time, they'd say LC doesn't work.

Let's just say for argument's sake that LS's theory is right - that both low carb/high fat and high carb/low fat diets work, and the problem is just the combining of fat & carbs. I can't imagine why anyone would choose high carb/low fat. Why would anyone want a tasteless cardboard diet instead of rich, creamy, juicy, satisfying food? A piece of bread without any kind of fat just plain sucks. Or you would need to use some kind of sugar, like jelly, to make it taste good, which is certainly a bad idea.

It's the grains, period.

Atkins vs Furhman, et al - one is high animal product, the other low -- but they both steer you clear of floury wheaty high-calorie low-nutrition foods.

That processed grain stuff will mess you up bad.

KarenW, there are spreads (like homemade hummus, or bean dip) that you can use. I wouldn't plain bread either. I'm learning there are lots of low fat alternatives and substitutes.

It depends on how someone likes to eat, which is sort of my point. Proponents of these diets bash each other and villanize the others methods, but, from what I've seen and experienced, they both work. Tons of people have reversed their diabetes on Barnard's vegan diet, many being able to go entirely off medication.

I've simply been wondering why, and it's just a theory, and totally my opinion, but we know that, of the three macronutrients, the body prefers to burn fat and carbs, so if you're eating low carb, you'd need more fat. But if you're eating high carb, you'd need less fat.

Giving your body BOTH carbs and fat would lead to an abundance of fuel, so the excess is more likely to be stored as body fat.

Our typical American diet is a mixture of carbs and fat, which is probably what leads to obesity.

Seen in this light, I don't think we need to characterize grains/carbs as "bad". It's the mixture that really makes them unhealthy.

Some people do have a gluten allergies, but I suspect this is mostly the latest fad. A true gluten allergy isn't as common as we're being lead to believe.

Also, Barnard only recommends Rye or Pumpernickle bread. I don't really eat much bread yet. I'm still too afraid of it. I was a nervous wreck eating beans and rice pasta (in low fat tomato sauce) for the first time in a long while. I thought I'd gain 5 pds overnight, as that had been my experience whenever I tried to add carbs back in, but, lo and behold, I lost weight. Keeping the fat out works!

LS, seriously? There is a great deal of scientific evidence for the healthiness and weight loss potential of low carb / high fat diets and vice versa. Did you actually read Good Calories, Bad Calories? It's not one professional's opinion, it's 500+ fine print pages referencing countless studies by many different people over the past century. It covers, among other things, primitive low fat vs. low carb diets. It's well and good if you're personally satisfied with Barnard's diet. But the evidence very strongly suggests that a diet consisting primarily of carbs, even unrefined, low-glycemic ones, is neither healthy nor conducive to wealth loss for most people.

Also, there are a lot of holes in the so-called Asian paradox, but the biggest is probably low consumption of sugar, the worst carb of them all.

But as long as we're trying to turn anecdotes into data... I eat lots of fat and moderate carbs, e.g. daily breakfast is two eggs + bacon or salami AND a piece of bread, sometimes even fruit, and my weight has held steady on this for months. I found that eating super low carb made me too skinny (mom got worried, boyfriend was afraid he'd break me). I felt good but it seems I look better at 125-130 pounds than 115, plus I don't get as cold. If on a given day for some reason I eat high carb and not a lot of fat, I feel sluggish and get a lot hungrier. I'm sure I would gain weight if I maintained that. Back when I regularly ate high carb / low fat, I weighed up to 145.

So no, keeping the fat out does NOT work... not even anecdotally.

That reminds me of this. Look for a surprise at the end, for those who don't know!

2000 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award Winner Magazine Writing on Diet, Nutrition, and Health Gourmet, November 1999

The Lunch Box as Battlefield
By Perri Klass

Once, in my older son's day-care class, a little boy traded away his winter coat (in Massachusetts, in midwinter, with snow on the ground) for an Oreo cookie. He was being raised in a white-sugar-free zone, so he monitored the contents of the other three-year-olds' lunch boxes
with an attention bordering on obsession. He made his successful trade, and, of course, immediately ate the Oreo. At the end of the day, when the situation was discovered, the other child refused to return the coat. ("We traded, he wanted to trade, and he already ate my cookie!") And, needless to say, the white-sugar-free mother had nothing in her bag that would pass as legal tender with any self-respecting child. Eventually, after some intense parental pressure, the coat was repatriated. ("I promise we'll go to the store right away, darling, and get a whole bag of Oreos if you'll only tell us where you hid his coat!")

So the day-care center, prodded by Mrs. No-White-Sugar, came up with an idea: "Unhealthy" foods should be banned from all lunch boxes, thus
removing temptation from those children being raised along nutritionally correct guidelines. No more cookies, no candy, no cake, and, heaven forbid, non of those packaged things like potato chips.

I think things have eased up a little over the past few years. My younger son, who's four, now attends a day-care center that actually allows "unhealthy" foods (or, as we call them, treats), though there is a rule, my son tells me righteously, that you have to eat your "healthy" food first. I don't have a problem with that; it is essentially the same rule we have at home, after all, and it can easily be gotten around by any child with a reasonable salting of sense and
slyness.

Still, Halloween can be a problem. I knew a set of parents who waited until their little girl was asleep on Halloween night and then went through her trick-or-treat bag and substituted carob candies and granola bars for everything good - and guest what? She noticed! She complained about it to her friends, and these public-spirited parents suggested that the rest of us might want to practice a similar policy of substitution so all the kids could have healthy stuff together.

I have a message for you all: Stay out of my child's lunch box; stay away from his plate! You are, of course, free to take the whole-grains-and-lentils route, or to raise your children to think that anything highly spiced is strange and icky and likely to lead to immoral behavior. It may turn out to be an extremely clever strategy,
for which you'll pat yourselves on the back someday when you realize you've created adolescents who can act out full-scale rebellions merely by scarfing down Mounds bars. But you can't remove temptation from your child's path by legislating what mine can eat.

It's a misguided idea anyway. The food choices that children will grow up to make have to be choices - if there is a food you don't want
your child to eat, she has to be able to watch someone else eating it without going into a frenzy. She may, if a food allergy is involved,
even have to be able to say, "No, thank you" to certain things.

But this is not really about nutrition. As with so much else along that fine line between child-rearing and child-interfering, we are really
talking about manners. Yes, of course we have to teach our children about food, about the rich and varied experiences of eating, and, yes, about balance and health and sense, as well as about sensation and sensibility. But there are other important lessons to be learned over the lunch boxes, lessons about eating as a social activity and meals as high spots in the day (not to mention the true value of an Oreo). And as far as I'm concerned, one primary lesson for kids and parents alike is this: It's rude to comment on what someone else is eating.

(end)

Perri Klass is a famous pediatrician/novelist. I'm a bit surprised that, as recently as 1999, she doesn't mention the awful obesity rates in children, but then the mother in question is clearly an arrogant control freak anyway.

"But the evidence very strongly suggests that a diet consisting primarily of carbs, even unrefined, low-glycemic ones, is neither healthy nor conducive to wealth loss for most people."

Nobody is talking about a diet consisting PRIMARILY of carbs. That's like the same old criticism of low carb being primarily a diet of high protein and no vegetables. That's not the kind of diet Taubes or Eades recommends, nor is an all-carb diet what Barnard recommends. It's not fair to classify his diet as such. Both types of diets are much more balanced and healthy than that.

And both diets, whether you believe it or not, are backed up by multiple studies, and have lots of success stories. There is no clear, definitive consensus about which is best.

All I'm saying is that I've done LC, and I had success on LC - I'm not anti LC - but all along I haven't quite bought the "grains are bad" rhetoric thrown from the other side. I thought there must be something else going on.

Plus, I hate eating that way. It's fine if you love steak and bacon, but not everybody does. I couldn't stand having to give up so many of the foods I enjoyed because they were supposedly unhealthy. I'm more of a natural vegetarian.

I don't bash anyone else's taste buds. I'm happy for those of you who love steak, eggs, and bacon, but, for me, looking at living life like that long-term in order to maintain my weight is seriously depressing. One of the joys of life is eating, so any diet needs to be something the participant can derive some pleasure from, even with restrictions.

So, I've been experimenting and looking at other options, and I've found this fat/carb relationship and just wanted to share it for those who, like me, might ocassionally enjoy some beans, rice or pasta. Knowing that keeping the fat low might help some people enjoy those foods without gaining weight.

Nobody is talking about a diet consisting PRIMARILY of carbs.

Since Barnard promotes a low fat vegan diet, I'd say you are.

Power to you if you prefer to eats lots of veggies and grains, but

Both diets, whether you believe it or not, are backed up by multiple studies

I can't blindly accept. Barnard's approach, and indeed most low fat, high carb diets, are based on the assumptions that saturated fat and cholesterol are unhealthy, and these assumptions and the diets themselves are indeed often supported by "studies." However, Taubes--who is a researcher promoting facts, rather than a particular diet--plus more and more other scientists have found serious flaws in the methods and interpretation of many such studies.

I'd be interested to read about some of the studies Barnard references. But sometimes, it's about who you want to believe. The Physician's Committee Against health fraud has a lot to say about Barnard. Barnard is also one of the biggest critics of the Atkins diet, and sneakily obtained and released Robert Atkins' confidential medical record to the papers to show that he had heart disease when he died. He almost certainly knew that the particular type of heart disease was actually caused by viral infection and had nothing to do with either Atkins' diet or death from severe head trauma. But of course Barnard chose not to share that information with the public, and though Atkins' widow and doctors came forward, the shadow of suspicion this cast on Atkins' reputation lingers today.

Finally, in case you missed it in the first link, Barnard served on the board and continues to write for PETA. If his association with that irrational, meat- and people-hating cult doesn't make you wonder about him, nothing will.

"(It's sometimes a little weird when it seems like my boobs are snoring like an old man.)"

People would pay to see that...

-----

Don't forget the genetic predisposition. Just because a billion Chinese eat something doesn't mean you can do it. It's not like you live like they do, either.

Consider the cow.

The Zuni tribe was split by the Gadsden Purchase. The American side has an appalling diabetes rate and is uniformly overweight. Their poor cousins, getting no food stamps or US Government dietary oversight, have no such problem.

The girl's turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,

That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

***

Wait a sec...

one serving of meat - She had turkey
one serving of milk - She had cheese
one serving of grain - presumably her sandwich was made on bread
two servings of fruit or vegetables - she had a banana and apple juice

Does apple juice not count as fruit?

Also, how is this legal? What do strict Hindus, Buddhists, or other vegetarians do? Or people with milk allergies?

"Don't forget the genetic predisposition. Just because a billion Chinese eat something doesn't mean you can do it. It's not like you live like they do, either."

Well, then let's not bother to try and understand it then. We KNOW it's either genes or grains. It couldn't possibly be how they eat them. Yet, it makes perfect sense to look at the Inuits because they're totally like us (note the Inuit diet would prove my theory - they ate their fat with protein, not carbs).

My ancestors were Irish potato farmers, so maybe I just have a genetic predisposition, except that I'm telling you all that until trying Barnard's diet, I couldn't eat a carb without gaining weight. Not a couple of slices of pizza even.

I hear this commonly in LC forums. People on LC diets often plateau and become extremely carb sensitive, and that was happening to me.

But, now I think it was because whenever I ate carbs I was still doing it with the "fat is good" mentality of LC. And that may have been what spiked my weight - eating the carb loaded with FAT - not the carb itself.

Maybe the carb or grain isn't the main problem. Otherwise, no one would lose weight on Barnard's diet. No one would be able to reverse their diabetes. If it was all whole grain's fault, they'd gain weight and get worse. Yet, read the reviews of his book on Amazon.

I understand veganism is a radical choice for most people. It is for me. I just decided to have an open mind and try it for 3 weeks as he suggests, and I'm ending week 2 and have already lost 3 pds, while enjoying some of those evil grains I'd been unable to enjoy. I'm not (as far as I know) diabetic, but if I was, I'm sure those numbers would be falling too.

I don't know if I'll stay vegan, but this experience suggests something besides the "carbs spike blood sugar, which leads to weight gain" viewpoint.

Besides, it's hard to study whole grains in a truly low fat environment. Do they make participants in the whole grain group eat only dry bread? I think not. They let them eat whole wheat and grains, without regard for what fats they might be mixing in. They could be having whole wheat pasta with cheese sauce, which is precisely the combination of fat and grain that could be at the heart of our obesity problem.

Re: Low Fat v. Low Carb Diets

Some reasons why some people have a honeymoon period on a LF raw vegan diet (according to nutritionist Julianne Taylor) include cutting out common allergens, improved nutrient intakes and autophagy. See http://paleozonenutrition.com/2011/03/26/why-i-dont-recommend-a-low-fat-raw-vegan-diet/

Per research by Jeff Volek, PhD, RD and Stephen D. Phinney, MD, PhD, low fat diets can work for people who aren't insulin resistant. People who are insulin resistant don't see much benefit from them, but see much better results from a LC diet. See The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living.

For diabetics, a low-fat diet is a disaster since, by definition, it's a high carb diet--and diabetes is a disease of carbohydrate intolerance. Diabetes researcher and author Jenny Ruhl has this to say about vegan proponent Dr. Bernard:

"Barnard, in case you've been living under a rock, is a vegan activist who heads the PETA front group misnamed Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. His books claim that the cure for diabetes is a vegan, extremely low fat/high carbohydrate diet--a diet that leaves most people with diabetes fighting ravenous hunger, rollercoastering blood sugars, and advancing complications.

"Barnard has no training in endocrinology. He's a psychiatrist who doesn't appear to have practiced much in his specialty. But he is a genius at self promotion and over the years he has promoted himself to where he is on peer review committees funding diabetes research and is a darling of the American Diabetes Association. This should be no surprise. The ADA is so invested in the low fat/high carbohydrate which it has promoted to people with diabetes for decades that they gravitate to anyone whose charisma might postpone the day when America discovers how poorly it has been served by the organization whose flawed advice, maintained in the face of decades of evidence against it, has been killing their loved ones with diabetes.

"What you won't find on Barnard's TV show is any advice about testing after meals to see what foods raise your blood sugar, of course. But he's convincing (as so many psychopaths are). So Barnard will retire a multi-multi-millionaire and tens of thousands of people with diabetes who see him on legitimate looking TV shows will end up with unnecessary compliations as a result of eating the diet of grains, fruits, pasta, and soybeans he has convinced them are a healthy diet."

See http://diabetesupdate.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-celebrity-doctors-who-prey-on.html

Re: the point about post-meal BG testing, it's post-meal BG spikes that cause the problems. It doesn't necessarily show up in fasting BG--and fasting BG can take years to get into a high range, even in diabetics.

Wheat isn't just a matter of gluten. Cardiologist William Davis writes that the genetically modified version available on the market now (as in, it's everywhere) has gliadin (an appetite stimulant), amylopectin A (a blood sugar jacker-upper), and lectins, which can cause autoimmune and imflammatory responses. See http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/2012/02/my-letter-to-the-wall-street-journal-its-not-just-about-gluten.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Ftpzx+%28The+Heart+Scan+Blog%29.

Gluten intolerance isn't all in people's heads. A study using frozen blood samples from over 50 years ago indicates gluten intolerance is much more common today.
See http://www.vitamindwiki.com/tiki-index.php?page_id=745

I wouldn't trust anyone who would call him a psychopath. How juvenile. One thing I've learned from being vegetarian is that the very notion seems to bring out the crazies in people who are committed meat eaters. I'm not surprised Barnard has rabid detractors. That doesn't make him wrong.

The reputable studies between LF and LC aren't that compelling. The weight loss is usually quite similar between the two, shockingly so if LC was really the miraculous panacea, and grains alone were the evil obesity culprit. You'd expect the low-carbers to lose much more weight and the low fat dieters all to gain and develop diabetes, yet I haven't seen any study with those results.

And the real problem is that between both groups, it's hard to tell what they're really eating!

With LC is easier since the diet itself pretty much mandates staying away from highly processed food. Meat, eggs, cheese, etc are the mainstays and that's pretty straightforward.

But for the low fat group, it's much trickier. I can go to the store right now and bring home "low-fat" crackers and cakes and call that eating a low fat diet. For all we know, the comparison is between people who are eating highly processed food and those who aren't, which could explain the relatively minor benefits reported in most studies.

If there's a study comparing a truly healthy low-fat diet - of low glycemic grains, fresh veggies and fruit, with no processed junk (similar to Barnard's, but with meat) - that would be more telling comparison of the two diets.

Gotta take my dog to the vet, but I'll read your links later. Thanks.

Regarding the vegan honeymoon, I'm not eating a raw vegan diet. Often, people equate the two, but they're not the same. One of my friends does eat raw, and I'm concerned that she's not getting proper nutrition. All she seems to eat are green smoothies. It's precisely because she's not eating grain or much of anything else in her diet that concerns me.

Going raw is very limiting, but I think it's unfair to use raw food extremists, who don't eat well enough to maintain good health, as a condemnation of an entire diet, just as it would be to suggest that people who live on low fat potato chips and diet soda are representative of a low fat diet. There are people who make themselves sick on any diet. Again, we don't know what they're eating.

I think the most sensible diet is one that you can stick to and feel satisfied, while maintaining a healthy weight and your health in general. No type of diet can work long-term if you're constantly feeling deprived, and, although it's hard for meat lovers to fathom, that can happen on an low-carb diet too.

After 5 years of a diet of eating basically meat, cheese, and LC vegetables, I was feeling terribly restricted. I just read about one study of low fat vs low carb, and while participants in both groups lost roughly the same amount of weight after a year, the low carbers reported being more unhappy. I can relate to that.

I'll probably always be cautious about carbs, but I just can't live fearing grains and beans anymore. This just seems way overblown to me. Many parts of the world have different diets that are successful. Much of India is basically vegetarian, with certainly a diet based heavily on grains. Why aren't they all morbidly obese and developing diabetes?

In fact, it seems Indians are one of the thinnest populations with some of the lowest rates of cancer (except esophageal, for some reason. Smoking?). So, we have the Chinese paradox and the Indian paradox. Couldn't it possibly mean that grains aren't the real danger?

Much of India is basically vegetarian, with certainly a diet based heavily on grains. Why aren't they all morbidly obese and developing diabetes?

They are. "70% of the current cases of diabetes occur in low- and middle income countries. With an estimated 50.8 million people living with diabetes, India has the world's largest diabetes population, followed by China with 43.2 million."

http://www.worlddiabetesfoundation.org/composite-35.htm

Re: studies on LC v. LF, there are a gaggle of tricks researchers use to rig studies to come out in favor of LF. Reading studies without that knowledge is like trying to learn physics by watching a magic show. Dr. Richard Feinman often blogs on this subject.

Anytime I'm bored with my diet, I open a book called 500 Low Carb Recipes by Dana Carpender. In the absence of food sensitivities, there's no reason for low-carbers to restrict themselves to meat, cheese and LC veg.

As for your friend not getting enough nutrients on vegan smoothie diet, we're in complete agreement. But sometimes all you can do is let someone go down the path they've chosen and let them go where it leads.

I keep hearing that parents don't know how to feed their children.

I don't get this...Feed their children...to what? Crocodiles? You just take them to the pen and throw them in.

Cute, Patrick.

Lori, is the diabetes caused from our western diet, fast food, etc evading their cultures? I thought there was very little diabetes in China before our western diet reached them. It seems the same would be true for India, especially since the diabetes is mostly in the poorer segments of the population that would gravitate towards fast food.

I meant invading, obviously.

@LS, if you have a serious interest in the causes of diabetes, here's a place to start:

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046739.php

In addition, there's a school of thought that metabolic syndrome is caused by magnesium deficiency. (Grains, esp. when not traditionally sprouted and soaked, have nutrient blockers that bind to certain minerals.)

Fast food doesn't cause diabetes or weight gain. Yes, you can buy bad fast food, but you can buy junk at the grocery store, too. Google Restaurants, Regulation and the Super-sizing of America. See also Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes and the documentary Fathead.

Regardless of the cause, diabetes is a disease of carbohydrate intolerance. In the days before injected insulin and medications, a limited carb diet--in a hospital if necessary--was the only way, and the standard way, of controlling diabetes and avoiding amputation and blindness. Nowadays, anyone can test fasting and one- and two-hour blood sugars with an inexpensive meter.

Re: diabetes in Asia, it's possible that many people had beta cell burnout from one cause or another, but weren't eating enough of anything to cause high blood sugars and therefore complications. Indeed, there have been studies on low-calorie diets "curing" diabetes. (Don't try this at home.) Basically, they're low-everything diets.

Gary Taubes has suggested sugar as a culprit; I think it may have something to do with wheat.

Yes, Lori. My interest isn't so much diabetes, just my own weight loss. But I thought others before Barnard, such a Pritikin, also had success treating diabetes with a vegan diet?

Let's say grains are bad. Realistically, most of us can't or don't want to avoid them entirely. Just as we know sugar is bad, but occassionally, we'll have a slice of cake or other sweet treat.

If I thought I'd stumbled upon a way for you to eat that cake which might mitigate some of the negative effects, such as weight gain, I'd share it, which is what I've done here.

Purely anecdotal, but I'm losing weight, while enjoying carbs I wasn't able to before without the scale going up, which is amazingly common among long-time LCers.

I'm not talking about a lot of carbs. Yesterday, I had a slice of sprouted grain bread and a bowl of black bean soup. Very little, but, on the LC diet, that would've totally undone my weight loss efforts.

There's only two reasons I can think of that this works:

1) Eliminating meat, cheese, and oils has dropped my overall calories enough so that I can lose. This alone might be the reason. Eades says calories do matter, especially for thin people like me, who are very close to their goal weight.

2) There's something in the mixture of fat and carb that causes more of a gain than a low fat carb mixture.

I'm not diabetic, so I don't have a meter to test, but in the reviews of Barnard's program, several diabetics claimed that foods which had before sent their blood sugar skyrocketing no longer did.

If anyone has a meter, they could test this theory. Better yet, try Barnard's diet for 3 weeks and see if it helps blood sugar control, as it seems to have done for many.

I have no personal interest in it. I'm just happy to enjoy some sprouted grain bread and still fit in my skinny jeans. :)

Also, Lori, since you're obviously very knowledgable about this, maybe you can explain why so many people plateau on LC diets?

I'm on a lot of LC forums with frustrated people. Weight loss is rapid and easy at first - some have lost over 100 pds - but then it slows to a crawl. It seems to me this is usually when people are about 50 pds or so from their goal weight. A whole bunch are stuck around 30 pds from goal.

They can lose weight, but they just can't get THIN. And worse, if they slip up and even taste a carb, they bounce back up and gain, erasing their previous progress sometimes (it seems) in one sitting!

Personally, I've been struggling with these damn 10 pds or so for the past 3 or 4 years, and I've actually had a net gain of 3 pds on LC. I just don't understand it, and I've heard no real satisfying answers for the carb bounce phenomenon (carb grams hold more water, your body needs to to adjust to a set point, etc).

I've known a lot of people who've lost weight on LC but few who have maintained it or actually reached their goal weight. Why should it slow down like that? If you're improving insulin resistance, why should that carb bounce even occur?

Some possible causes of weight loss stall on a LC diet. Not all of these will apply to all people, of course.

Carb creep. A piece of bread here and some french fries there add up. If you're eating packaged food (cereal and pasta are good examples of this), serving sizes listed on the package are *tiny.* You'll need a food scale ($10 at Target) to know exactly how many grams you can eat.

Hidden carbs. Dreamfields Pasta, Splenda with dextrose and hamburgers cut with soy are a few good examples. Get a cheap blood glucose meter ($10 at Walgreens) and test your blood sugar right before the meal, one hour later and two hours later. (With pasta, the spike comes four or five hours later.) Try to avoid foods that send your BG over 100.

Still too many carbs. Atkins wrote in Atkins' Diet Revolution that there are some people for whom even his recommended two small green salads per day are too many carbs.

Calories. It's not as simple as calories-in, calories-out, but for some people the calories still matter. (My dog is an easy gainer, and I have a food scale and spreadsheet to watch her weight.) Yes, if you whack back the calories enough, you'll lose weight. But it's possible to eat so few calories that you also acquire nutrient deficiencies and psychological problems. See the book The Great Starvation Experiment or go to my blog and search for Vintage Starvation Diet. There's also some evidence that you can actually gain some weight (but not become obese) by taking in too few calories. Search for Undereating on my blog.

Protein. Jenny Ruhl of the Diabetes Update Blog and the Eadeses recommend eating enough protein; there are calculators out there to help determine how much you need.

Dairy. In some people dairy can spike insulin, leading to fat storage. Likewise, there's some evidence that foods that are sweet but calorie-free (think diet soda) spike insulin in some people.

Intermittent fasting. Some people swear by this for breaking through weight loss plateaus. Do this only if you're adapted to a LC diet and in excellent health. Probably not a good idea for hypoglycemics or anyone who's ever had an eating disorder. OTOH, not everyone does well on this (myself included). Do some research first before tring this.

Strength training. Some people find this helpful; if nothing else, it will make everything higher and firmer.

Paleo diet. Cookbook author Dana Carpender, who says she normally gains weight while writing cookbooks, says she hasn't gained while furiously working on her current paleo cookbook. Jimmy Moore lost some weight on his beef/eggs/coconut oil diet.

Nutrients. In Why We Get Fat, Gary Taubes cites a boatload of evidence that obesity is a disease of malnutrition. Try some vitamins, eat some liver, go to my blog and search for Stop Shooting Yourself in the Foot.

Thyroid. If your thyroid is off, you can diet 'til doomsday without losing weight. It's been suggested that even low-ish thyroid numbers can affect you. I think ZRT Labs offers a DIY thyroid test by mail.

Leptin. Leptin is a hormone that helps control appetite. The blogger Exceptionally Brash has been working on resetting her leptin; her results are here: http://exceptionallybrash.blogspot.com/search/label/leptin%20reset

Re: LF v LC diets (again)

Volek & Phinney's research indicates that people who aren't insulin resistant can lose weight on a LF diet. (See The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living.) If we're using anecdotes here, I lost weight several years ago on a LF, high protein diet while eating more than I did before. Then I gained all the weight back (and developed some other problems) on the same diet and workout plan. Doing some research, I concluded that I'd become insulin resistant.

The PCRM's vegan how-to for diabetes page recommends cutting out sugar, white potatoes, white bread, and most cold cereals (which are basically flour and sugar). That alone is going to help a diabetic eating a standard American diet that includes 300 grams of carb per day, much of it nutrient-stripped junk. But the fruit and starchy foods the PCRM recommends still break down into glucose in the digestive tract and enter the bloodstream. In someone with a healthy metabolism, the pancreas produces sufficient insulin to send the glucose to muscle and fat cells (or it's burned off with exercise).

But if you're insulin resistant, it'll probably be sent to fat cells since muscle tends to become insulin resistant before fat (although fat can become insulin resistant as well. One of my cousins was so insulin resistant she was losing weight due to uncontrolled diabetes). Some people will produce so much insulin that within a few hours their BG comes crashing down; others (like my mother) have high BG levels for several hours.

Other foods: your body can make glucose out of protein through gluconeogenisis; I don't know of any way that it can make it out of dietary fat. If anything, fat slows down digestion and blunts BG spikes.

I wouldn't presume to suggest what balance of fat and carb is optimal for an individual. That seems to be something every person has to work out for himself.

Amy, it's my pleasure. I've watched my mother suffer the ravages of diabetes--which indirectly included being assaulted in a nursing home. I'm happy to help anyone who will listen to avoid what she's gone through.

Thank you, Lori, for all the info.

Many of the reasons for plateaus I've heard before, and I know some, such as carb creep, are kind of hot botton issues among stalled LCers because they blame the dieters, rather than the diet. Of course, I can't know what they're eating, but, for myself, when stalled, the tendency was to restrict carbs even more.

Can you post any studies that prove that the LC diet actually IMPROVES insulin resistance in people of normal weight? Not in obese people, because, obviously, any weight loss will improve their numbers, but in people who start out with only a 10-30 pounds to lose?

The reason I ask is that I began the LC diet when I was actually at an almost ideal weight - only 5 pds or so beyond what I weighed in high school. I'd maintained this weight for almost 20 years, through having 2 children, and, to top it off, I was basically a vegetarian, eating grains/carbs, and rarely eating meat.

Both my parents were thin well past mid-life, and neither was diabetic. I had a physical not long before I began, and my blood pressure was low and cholesterol levels normal.

So, I'm quite certain that I began this diet NOT insulin resistant, which is probably very different from how most people begin an LC diet. They are usually insulin resistant and obese.

My experience has been one of increasing carb sensitivity, which suggests to me (and as Barnard would suggest) that the diet was making me insulin resistant. Foods that my body had easily handled for nearly 20 years no longer could be consumed without immediate weight gain.

I mean, after 5 years on LC, I've actually gained about 8 pds I figured out today. Now, to be fair, I'm 5 years older, and perhaps some weight gain was inevitable, but overall, I'm not convinced that the LC diet is one which thin, normally functioning people should undertake for vanity pounds.

It works great, at least initially, for people with lots of weight to lose. But so many of them seem to stall and develop this "carb bounce" at some point.

And this seems odd to me because most of the LC diets suggest that, as you near goal weight, you should be able to add MORE carbs into your diet -to a "maintenance level".

However, that may be the party line, as they say, but who can actually do this?

1) Very few reach goal weight
2) the longer they LC the less carb tolerant they are.
3) Most carbs are deemed unacceptable and unhealthy, so they're not advised anyway.

It seems a little like false advertising. I never would've begun an LC diet if I'd thought it meant I could never enjoy grains ever again. But that's your message, as well as, I suppose, most LC advocates. Instead of a "maintenance level", it's basically, "never eat carbs again because they're unhealthy and cause diabetes".

Yet, if LC diets really work, shouldn't they address the root cause of the insulin resistance and actually improve it?

@LS, LC diets reduce the *need* for a big bolus of insulin. Ask a diabetic who's been able to reduce or eliminate insulin shots with a LC diet.

Please show me where I said you can never eat grains or carbs again on a LC diet. As for carbohydrates causing diabetes, I see you didn't read the link I posted on the various studies on causes of diabetes.

You say you gained eight pounds over five years on a LC diet. It's not unusual for people to gain quite a bit more than that in middle age. Did you read my comment on LC diet stall? Have you read any of the links I've posted or Googled the articles I've mentioned? I doubt it. I have the impression you're here to promote veganism.

If we're going by personal anecdotes, I've been LC for two years, and I've kept off 20 pounds. I weigh close to what I did in high school (117 then, 121 now). At age 43 I take no medications. And I'm from a family full of diabetes where hardly any woman over 30 is less than 200 pounds. A friend of mine is 58 and lost 20 pounds by reducing her carbs; her fiance is 50 and has started losing weight and reducing his acid reflux just by cutting out sugary drinks. My 82-year-old mother has improved her blood sugars with a LC diet.

However, if you're happy with the results of a vegan diet, jolly good.

Lori, yes, I read the links, and all of it is information I already know. As I said, I was pretty hardcore LC for 5+ years, so I'm aware of what both sides say, and they each have studies to back up their positions.

Again, I'm not anti-LC. I just have some concerns about the diet. Like almost everybody, LC worked great for me at first. I lost the 5 pds I wanted, so I stayed on it as a way of life. After awhile, it became increasingly more of struggle, especially consuming ANY carb.

I don't accept that this is completely due to age. My mother died in her 60s (smoker), but she was probably under 100 pds, and my father is also very thin. Genetically, we're a naturally thin family, even in middle age.

So, I'm almost certain that my body's ability to process carbs deteriorated over time on the LC diet. If I was alone in this, I'd figure it was some anomaly unique to me, but too many other long-term LCers have expressed that they, too, have experienced the same unbreakable stalls and carb bounces.

My concern is that, over time, carb sensitivity seems to grow worse, not better. This suggests to me that, although LC dieters lose weight, the underlying problem of insulin resistance has worsened, not improved. Yet, nobody really addresses this! The only option that's given is to restrict carbs even further trying to reach goal weight, which becomes harder and harder.

When they fail, it's blamed on carb creep and the other reasons you mentioned, but never on the possibility that there's something about the diet itself that's causing this phenomenon.

I mean, especially since I was thin, healthy, and not suffering insulin resistance or carb sensitivity before the diet, I'm annoyed that no one seems willing to explore the possibility that the diet worsens these factors in healthy people, at least. Of course, a morbidly obese person will improve, but if a healthy person worsens, the diet isn't perfect.

This is a very devisive issue. People who are LC advocates often don't want to hear any other viewpoint or questions about it. In their minds, this is the right diet, period, and anyone else who chooses to eat another way is taking a dire risk with their health.

Although you didn't directly say never to eat grains, you certainly inferred it was risky and foolish, and Amy said she would only eat them if forced to do so in prison!

Therefore, it's quite clear what the real LC attitude is towards grains. They're "bad"; they're dangerous, and they almost certainly lead to diabetes. So, how could there be a "maintenance level" of carbs if that's how they're viewed?

It may be mute since people rarely seem to reach a "maintenance level" anyway - unless they have only a small amount of weight to lose. But if they stay highly restrictive of carbs for a period of time, the increased carb sensitivity requires that they avoid carbs indefinitely or they'll gain their weight back.

That's fine for someone who never wants to eat a grain again, but it's a concern for me, as a non-meat lover. I tried being LC vegetarian for awhile, and some people manage to do it, but, to me, it's as difficult as going raw. There's almost nothing to eat out anywhere except salad.

So, I hope that I can repair whatever changes have occured within my body that has created such negative reactions to carbs, and, so far (quack that he may be), Barnard's diet is actually allowing me to enjoy what most LC diets promise - a MAINTENANCE level of carbs. I don't care if he's vegan, and I doubt I'll stay vegan, but it's offering me some hope of getting off this weight loss/carb bouncing/stalling vicious cycle.