Sugar and Starch

Sinisterene Says:

Apr 23, 2011 - You're screwed, sorry.I know it can be desirable to not take lives to sustain your own, but that's the way nature is: life consumes life.

frosted1030 Says:

May 20, 2011 - Consult your doctor before changing your diet. Avoid high starches and grains. Eat lots of vegetables, and lean meats, nuts and seeds, drink lots of water. Avoid anything fried, and don't eat oils if you can help it. No one ever got fat eating vegetables. Your carbohydrates should come from vegetables, not grains. Get exercise daily, 20 minutes minimum and weighted exercise additionally 2 to 3 times a week. You will lose 1 to 2 lbs a week this way. Meat is not bad.

HaloofCurls Says:

May 29, 2011 - You might also want to look into some of the "eating clean" cookbooks. "Eating clean" diets are often geared toward athletes, so they contain less carbs from the start.

qwertasdcfghjklmo24z Says:

Jun 11, 2011 - Aspartame, Saccharin and High Fructose Corn Syrup are poisons!

aleterra Says:

Jun 13, 2011 - Tom, why didn't you include this part in your documentary???

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jun 13, 2011 - If I put everything I found interesting in the film, it would've been a mini-series. This section and some other good interview footage is in the bonus track on the DVD.

aleterra Says:

Jun 15, 2011 - I rmember the first time I watched one of your videos I thought "what a heck??" and now I follow a paleo lifestyle :)

Hello59239 Says:

Jun 16, 2011 - Maybe not be a vegan? "The Vegetarian Myth" is a good read.

bolognaslam Says:

Jun 19, 2011 - I've never understood diets, vegetarian ideals, food fads, etc... I've always ate what I've craved I'm a 6 foot, normal weighted, active, intelligent, healthy person with zero health problems, and this is coming from someone who INHALES candy during holidays. I think I'll heed the carbohydrate advice though. Is there a bullet point page on the health points from the movie?Now I want bacon.

lunaldo9 Says:

Jun 29, 2011 - mistake. high carb. keep your fat intake under 10%, be fit lean and happy

PumpkinMelonJuice Says:

Jul 2, 2011 - Even hunter gatherers ate lots of grain and fruit. hunting was hard work and not like you can kill for meat every single day.

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 2, 2011 - Which hunter-gatherer societies consumed grains? Other than cultures living near the equator, how did they eat lots of fruit, which is only ripe in the autumn? Same for grains ... assuming hunter-gathers would even bother living in one place to tend fields, how did they manage to eat grains all year, since grains are harvested only in the autumn and require processing to be edible for humans?

tamborcillo84 Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - What about beans? I do notice my blood sugar (and sugar and food cravings) dissapear for a while. It's also something my culture (mexican) has been eating before the conquistadores came so i'm kind of confused....

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - Beans contain carbohydrates, but they're the kind that are slowly released and don't spike blood sugar.

therunningpianist42 Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - In response to the first doctor, from what I've read, there are plenty of societies that exist(ed) on primarily carbohydrate. The Kitavans, a native tribe in New Guinea, get 70 percent of their calories from carbohydrate. I feel like there's been somewhat of a shift to the opposite extreme in nutrition, where for the past forty years fat has been the most demonized dietary substance but now it's carbohydrate. The conventional low-fat and low-carb ideas are far too simplified in my opinion.

therunningpianist42 Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - Oh, I loved your movie and presentations by the way.

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - The Kitavans live largely on sweet potatoes, which are a low GI food. If the rest of us had never been introduced to Coca Cola and Captain crunch and screwed up our metabolisms, we would perhaps be capable of doing well on their diet. Or we may not ... my ancestors aren't Kitavans and didn't evolve on their diet.  Either way, their diet would be a disaster for me now.

therunningpianist42 Says:

Jul 6, 2011 - : Regardless of glycemic index, wouldn't their daily diet still be more than that cup and a half of sugar that we'd get from all that carbohydrate? My point was it's still a VERY starchy diet, yet it didn't cause problems for them. I don't claim that their diet wouldn't cause problems for you or other individuals who seem to have tried it before, but Kitavans obviously contradict the idea that carbs WILL cause weight gain, high fasting insulin, diabetes, etc. in any human.

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 7, 2011 - Yes, it would all eventually turn into blood sugar, but 1) it will enter the bloodstream slowly, so it's less likely to cause glucose spikes, 2) the Kitavans are physically active people who likely burn up the glucose as quickly as it's being produced. It's a bit like when people point out that Michael Phelps consumes 10,000 calories per day, most of it carbohydrates ... true, but he works out for hours at a time and burns it off.

therunningpianist42 Says:

Jul 7, 2011 - Really? I read on Whole Health Source that they weren't particularly active...they're probably up on their feet more, but they're not like athletes or anything. I wouldn't see it as the carbohydrates are okay for him since he burns them off, but that he literally needs them to be able to perform and train like he does. Carbohydrates are conditionally essential to his diet- plenty of them. It's probably not good for him in aspects other than swimming, however.

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 7, 2011 - The comparison given was to a "moderately active Swede." Frankly, I'm not sure what that means, but they don't appear to be sedentary, nor are they getting their carbs from sugars and refined grains, which are the worst. Like I said, if we were raised on that diet, we'd probably never become insulin resistant. I noticed their fasting insulin was very low.Yes, I would imagine some who trains like Phelps has to fuel up constantly.

therunningpianist42 Says:

Jul 7, 2011 - Anyways, I just don't want Kitavans and other contrary evidence to some of the low-carb ideas to be considered irrelevant. It might be irrelevant to our own diets for some of us, but it's something worth examining more than we have. We don't want to pull an Ancel Keys on our hypothesis, right?

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 7, 2011 - No, I don't think we can just dismiss the Kitavans. They lend support to Dr. Lustig's hypothesis that excess fructose is more responsible for driving insulin resistance than anything else. Same goes for cultures where rice is a dietary staple but sugar is almost non-existent. You don't find many diabetics in those cultures. Take away the sugars and refined flours, that may be most of the battle.

tamborcillo84 Says:

Jul 13, 2011 - so would it be ok to eat them even though they're carbs? I know they're not admitted in the paleo diet =/

FatHeadMovie Says:

Jul 14, 2011 -  it would depend on your tolerance for them. I don't do well with beans, but some people do. If you eat them, make sure they've been soaked to neutralize the lectins.