The Food Guide Pyramid..... is a crock of shit

Disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, nor do I ever plan on being one. I'm not a dietitian either... I don't want to waste my time learning the bullshit they teach in most universities about the subject. I'm just an asshole with an internet connection and a keyboard. I will not be citing any references, nor will I be referring to any particular studies. I am basically going off of what I consider general knowledge, things I have learned along the years due to my interest in such a fascinating subject. If you want to call bullshit on me, please do. I believe in the Socratic way of thinking, so don't hesitate. I will say though, that despite my lack of credentials, I've sat and read more boring studies and journals and articles about nutrition and training methodologies and anything else you can think of dealing with strength sports and fitness, than any person ever should, for the simple fact that it fascinates me so much. Good thing I'm gonna be a history major, huh?

I'm not really writing this for the meatheads out there. The information I'm about to present is pretty much already well known to most of you. This is more for the lay person who is following my incoherent babbling. It's about diet in general and really meant for people that don't compete and just looking for overall health and well being. So disregard if this stuff all seems basic to you, but unfortunately, this is like fucking rocket science to a majority of the population.

Let's begin, shall we? Since you, or I, can remember, the mainstream media and "authority figures" alike have been trying to teach us how to be healthy. We've been drilled since we were in kindergarten about the importance of a well balanced diet and the importance of the ever vigilant "Food Guide Pyramid". Well, I'm here to tell you that that has all been a load of shit.... the kind of shit you get from someone on a high protein diet.

A quick history lesson. Back in the early 20th century, there was a guy named Ancel Keys. He, along with a couple other scientists, developed a theory (keyword, theory) called the lipid hypothesis (Actually, it was devised a while before these guys, but they made it popular). Through their studies (and by studies, I mean they found a couple things that backed up their theory and left out MOUNDS of information that proved them wrong) they came up with the idea that dietary fat and cholesterol had a direct influence on heart disease and other fun things that kill us. They found that in countries with a low intake of dietary fat, there was also a low occurrence of heart disease and obesity. Sure, it makes sense right? I mean, if you eat a lot of fat, then you'll get fat and clog your arteries. Well, its not that simple. What they neglected to inform the public about, is that there were many other countries who's fat consumption was THROUGH THE ROOF (I'm talking about countries where a dudes lunch was salami on a block of cheese, slathered with butter), and yet, they had very little heart disease and obesity. Out of site, out of mind right? So, when this was presented to the US Government, along with the influence of farming lobbies, ie corn and wheat (which we subsidize the SHIT out of) they thought, "GREAT! Now we have beaten heart disease and we can make a butt load of cash, too!" (The food guide pyramid wasn't really created until the late 80's early 90's, but their were other government guidelines like the RDA and that shit... but that's neither here nor there.. same concept)

Well, lets fast forward a couple decades later. Heart disease has increased, obesity has increased, diabetes has increased and it just keeps getting worse. But wait a minute, I thought that low fat diet was good for us? Well, it can't be that, it must be the evil corporations like McDonalds forcing us to eat shitty food. If you believe that, then please learn how to work a shotgun with your toe, rent a gun and buy a bullet.

Ok, so lets recap. About 60 years ago, scientists found out that cholesterol and fat were bad. Low fat diets with a lot of grains were good, but diseases related to these subjects keep rising.

Let's go back in history one more time. This time, about 40,000 years, before the development of agriculture. The human population was probably in the 10's of millions (maybe?) and people were hunting and gathering. Now, I'm not one to argue with mother nature, but for some reason, the only food she gave these people to eat were, fruits, vegetables, tubers (yams and root vegetables), and... duh duh duh (that's supposed to be a suspenseful prelude) animal meats, full of fat! Why would nature provide us with stuff that causes heart disease, and in abundance?! Oh, wait, that's right... because it doesn't.

Now, lets go back even FURTHER this time... about a couple million years. Humans, or human like creatures, are roaming the earth. We're not that bright yet, but we're smarter than Yogi. Our brains still have some evolving to do, and we'll get to that, but lets talk about how we're going to make that happen. Well, our brains are made up of two fatty acids called EPA and DHA
(of course, its more complex than that, but we won't get into it)... if you haven't been living in a cave, you'll notice that they're enriching everything with this shit nowadays, especially baby formula. You know why? Because it leads to healthy brain development! Yup, the horrible fats in the dead animals we eat are full of fats that are beneficial to our brain. Now back then, we were more than likely scavengers. We hadn't figured out how to make weapons to defend ourselves or hunt, so we ate the left overs of another predator's kill. Usually, the eyeballs, the brains, and internal organs. All of which are full of fatty goodness. So after millions of years of doing that, our brains evolved, and we became smarter. So what does this tell us? Well, the horrible meat that is supposedly killing us actually made us evolve into smarter organisms.... crazy right? "But Zach, if we're supposed to eat meat, then why can't we eat it raw?" This argument pisses me off so much. If you really think humans can't eat raw meat, than hit yourself in the head with a tack hammer. Of course we can eat raw meat. There are still dozens of cultures that eat raw meat all the time. The reason we invented cooking was merely as a time saver. You ever try to eat a steak raw? Its pretty fucking tough and chewy. It would take you hours to eat at Outback, but because of our now super advanced brains, we figured out that cooking tenderizes it and makes it easier to consume.

Ok, so for millions of years, we were eating tons of meat and veggies and other shit we could find laying around. But then, about 40,000-20,000 years ago (depending on who you ask) a break through occurred. We developed agriculture. We figured out how to grow and utilize grains to make food in mass quantity. Great right? Sure, for the development of civilization's sake, but not for our own physiology. Humans had never eaten grains before this, not in mass quantity anyway. Almost instantly, in terms of evolution, (and you can find the anthropological data online) we became shorter, fatter and probably dumber, but cities became larger and more populated and fast forward to today, and well, the rest is history.

So now, onto why the food guide pyramid is bullshit. We're told that in order be healthy, we need to consume a low fat diet, rich in whole grains. Ok, so we're doing that, but why are we getting fatter and dieing younger from heart disease? I'll tell you why, because we fucked with mother nature. We're not supposed to eat low fat diets or eat whole grains. For millions of years we did neither and thrived physiologically (anthropoligical evidence shows that humans, before agriculture, were taller, had larger brain capacity, better teeth, lower instance of disease, lived just as long as we do today, and were probably stronger) and then in a fraction of the time we've been on this earth, we've changed our diets to some sort of weird bullshit that goes against everything nature intended. Humans are supposed to ingest fats and proteins in abundance. We're not supposed to eat carbohydrates like we've been told since ol' Ansel and his friends came up with their silly hypothesis. (Who trusts anyone named Ansel? He sounds like a Nazi to me) Humans, as nature intended, are supposed to eat fruits, vegetables, meat and fish. Basically think of it this way, anything that a cave man could have eaten. (Now, if you're an athlete or something, as previously stated in the introduction, we have manipulated ways to make different diets work for us, so this doesn't really apply to us for performance reasons; that is until we've given up said sport and we're just eating to live)

Ok, so where's my proof? Lets look at the 3 main macro nutrients found in food. There are fats, protein and carbohydrates. If I asked you who would live longer, a person eating only fats and proteins or a person eating only carbs and protein, which one would you choose? Well, if you picked fats and protein, you'd be right. Here's why... The human body makes a lot of things that it needs to survive on its own.. these are called non-essential items, but there are other things the human body needs that it must get from an outside source, these are called essentials items. The human body needs essential amino acids (protein) and essential fatty acids (fats)... guess what it doesn't need? That's right, there are ABSOLUTELY ZERO essential carbohydrates. "But Zach, what about glucose, that's a sugar that the body needs to operate" You're correct. The thing is though, in the presence of protein and fats, the body can produce its own glucose through a mechanism called "gluconeogenesis". Now, I've argued with people who have told me that that is an inefficient mechanism, but they were all fucking idiots. It's very efficient. Another argument I've heard is "well that creates ketones and can put you in a state of ketoacidosis" Again, fucking idiots. The production of ketones in the body when you don't consume carbs and the life threatening diagnosis of ketoacidosis, something usually only found in diabetics, do not go hand in hand.

Ok, so what about cholesterol and fats in the blood stream. Don't they clog up your arteries and make you have a heart attack? Uhh, no. My guess to how that theory came about is that they were looking at high fat intake, but neglected to record the intake of simple carbohydrates along with those fats. Fat is an essential macronutrient that the body MUST have in order to operate. The amount of functions your body does that require fat is incalculable, well, to me on my keyboard at this moment anyway. You're body is a very efficient machine. Don't let anyone fool you... the human body is fucking amazing and I've seen it do phenomenal things first hand. On that note, it is also very, very, very efficient. When you take in an abundance of fat and simple sugars, of course your body is going to burn the simple sugars first. I mean, 4 calories is a lot easier to burn than 9 right? But, carbs are not the fuel of choice for the human body, its just the fuel it reverts to when it has the choice of doing less work. Its like putting rocket fuel in a space ship vs. the shit you buy at Exxon. The Exxon gas may be cheaper, but it definitely isn't the best choice. On the other hand, when you take in fats without a ton of unwanted sugars and other carbs, your body has no choice but to burn the fat and it runs very smoothly. So, what have we learned so far? Our brains our made up of fat. Fat is a very good fuel source. Fat is needed for the body to live. Fat is good. Fat doesn't make you fat. So what makes us fat? Insulin resistance. Eating too much sugar. Eating too many refined carbs in our low fat milkshakes. Its just bad shit, don't eat it.

As for cholesterol. "Zach, I've been eating cheerios to raise my good cholesterol, that's whole grains, aren't I moving in the right step?" No. Here's a little bit of fascinating information. LDL and HDL aren't even cholesterol. Cholesterol is cholesterol is cholesterol. That's it, no ifs, ands or buts. LDL and HDL are "Low density lipoproteins" and "high density lipoproteins"... that's right, they're proteins. See, cholesterol is a lipid and it doesn't mix well with blood, so it combines with a protein so it can move through the blood. So, the lipoprotein's only job is to ship and receive cholesterol to wherever the body desires it. The LDL brings it to where it needs to be and the HDL comes and cleans it all up and takes it away. Why do we need cholesterol? For lots of shit. Hormones, cell function, blah blah blah. We need it, and despite what they tell you, your body is very good at regulating it. If you eat too much, your liver (your own bodies production center for cholesterol) doesn't make as much, if you eat too little, your liver will produce more. (Its only in cases of certain liver diseases that it can get out of whack). So what does this mean to us? Nothing really. The correlation between cholesterol levels and instances of heart attacks is pretty much null, but newer research has been linked to a raise in LDL (the bad lipoprotein) from the over consumption of sugar. Basically what happens, without getting too into it, is sugar can cause a chain of chemical reactions which create low density lipids. There are actually 2 kinds of LDL, one that is good and does its job efficiently, and then there is another one that is bad and clogs up our arteries.

So now the question arises, why do we get heart disease and diabetes? Well, A LOT of research is starting to come out verifying that these are caused by inflammation due to an increased consumption of sugar! That's right. Sugar is an inflammatory substance to the human body. Think about it this way... you ever met someone with diabetes that got it from eating too much steak? Me neither. We need the fat and cholesterol for so many things to happen in our body that keep us healthy and vibrant (Q-Tip just popped into my head). We don't need sugar, or hydrogenated oils, or high fructose corn syrup, etc. All of these processed things that we eat in our "Super brand new low-fat salad dressing" are fucking killing us and causing disease. They are linking so many diseases to sugar and processed foods that if it isn't clear to us by now, then it probably never will be.

I mentioned insulin sensitivity before. When you ingest sugars, or any carb for that matter, your pancreas releases insulin which goes into the blood stream to shuttle the carbohydrate to where it needs to go. When you eat carbs in such an abundance, you overwork your pancreas, causing it to get out of whack and your body becomes insulin resistant. Its a lot more complex than that, but its basically what happens. Insulin resistance, if you haven't caught on, is bad and it contributes a whole fuck load to your body storing fat.

Crazy huh? The diet that's been pushed on us for years is killing us. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but its kind of hard not to notice that the same people who are pushing this diet on us are also the ones pushing lipitor. Maybe its just me, I don't know.

What about protein. Well, if I really have to go into the benefits of eating protein, then I just wasted the past hour of my time. Its the building block for everything in our bodies. Eat more of it. Oh yea, don't worry about it damaging your kidneys. You know that study that your one friend told you about that said that a high protein diet will damage your kidneys? Well, first off, your friend is a fuckstick and second, that study was only conclusive in people with PRE-EXISTING kidney problems.

So now comes the question, what should you eat? Well, I'm a fan of the Paleo diet. There is enough info on it out there that you should be able to find out what I'm talking about. (no, I don't get any money for this, otherwise I would be in my apartment writing this, not at the school's library... but that doesn't mean I won't take donations.) Basically, to sum it up... well, I summed it up before. If a caveman couldn't eat it, don't eat it. The biggest and most important factor is, don't fucking worry about dietary fat and cholesterol! Just steer clear of sugar and... you know what, fuck it.. don't eat carbs unless they come from vegetables, fruits, legumes, or tubers (yams and sweet potatoes). eat full fat meats. dairy if you can handle it. I guarantee you won't only look better, but you'll feel about a trillion times better when you stop eating all that low fat processed bullshit... and ohh yea, focus on PROTEIN! You don't even have to weigh out your foods. Your body will know when its full and it will tell you with vengeance. Don't believe me? Go buy a rotisserie chicken right now. Sit down and eat the whole thing. Don't fucking pussy foot around it. I'm talking skin, breasts, thighs, wings... eat it all. Unless you're like me and you've trained yourself to eat that much, there is a good chance you'll get halfway through before you throw in the towel.

And one last thing before I leave you, because my fingers are starting to hurt. Drink water! Like, a lot of it. Fuck that 8 cups a day bullshit. 64 ounces? That's cool, if you're a 120lb chick. But if you're not, you should drink at the minimum, half your body weight in ounces of water a day. Your body needs water or it will die.