dietary research, and dietary changes
Dec. 31st, 2007 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI've been doing a little digging around about the glycemic index (part of the research for the New Year's Resolution). I was pleased to discover that the University of Sydney has a really great website with access to the research and a lot of information about GI and GL. Amazingly, it has a memorable name:
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
I'm still not sure what I think about glycemic index and glycemic load, other than that I continue to be absolutely certain that this country's researchers have done an inadequate job of participating in the work done in this area. This is a major organizing principle of nutrition and metabolic research in the rest of the English speaking world and we seem to mostly ignore it or treat it like some kind of wacko fad. Strange.
I have also been attempting to improve my understanding of "good" vs. "bad" fats. I'm not happy about what I'm finding. Yes, I get that trans fats are bad, but some of the major crusaders in that area seem to think that saturated fats have been unfairly vilified. I find that basically implausible. I would particularly be interested in something written by current researchers in the area who are careful to factor in _how_ a given oil is produced (that is, how much heat/cracking it has been subjected to). Ideally, they'd also be looking at whether or not GE/GM sourcing had any impact on the resulting oil (cause I'm betting it does, and I'm equally certain that information is going to be a bit tough to come by).
A lot of this is intended to feed into changes I'd like to make over the course of this upcoming year (see New Year's Resolution post). I'm also very wary of making big changes to diet for a very simple, and difficult to plan around reason: I know a lot of people who used to be macrobiotic/vegetarian/vegan/etc. who got sucked into the high-fat/high-protein craze of the last decade. Now, I recognize that this kind of stuff is cyclical -- I've read a lot of food history and I know that what I'm proposing to do is every bit as follow-the-trend as anyone who hopped on to the South Beach, Zone, Atkins or other wagon when it came to town. Heck, there's a Betty Crocker whole grains cookbook. I've been doing a little asking around of those people/people who know those people, trying to understand why the change happens, because while we are indeed all buying T-shirts that cover our hips now, and hip young kiddies are buying jeans that fit close to the ankles and kinda bunch up there, I like to think there's a little more to it than that when it comes to food.
Here are the current theories for why people USED to be whatever, and aren't any more:
(1) Social Effects: They used to hang out with a lot of people who were whatever, and now they don't hang out with those people, maintaining it interferes with their new social context so they gave (most of) it up. Could be vegetarianism. Could be a low-fat lifestyle with a lot of artificial sweeteners. Could be macrobiotic. Whatever.
(2) Too Damn Much Work: Anything that is impossible to get as a convenience food, or go to a restaurant and eat is at risk of being done in by life/work/children/etc. balance issues.
(3) Poverty: Surprise, surprise. Some people used to eat beans because they couldn't afford meat. They can afford meat so they won't have the beans. Ditto with some people who once had a big garden (altho that's a huge amount of work and time as well). Etc.
(4) Craving (missing something in their eating pattern?): Over the years, I've been told repeatedly by then-recent ex-vegetarians that they had just an incredible meat craving and once they started eating it, they couldn't go back.
I believe, quite firmly, that if someone else runs into a situation, I will too. So here's my plan for dealing with this you-start-but-then-one-day-you-stop problem:
(a) No hard-and-fast restrictions. No "bad" foods. No "illegal" foods. Etc.
(b) Follow the craving (you knew this was coming).
(c) Be lazy: it's all well and good to spend exorbitant amounts of time doing the fun stuff of learning about how to do something, but once you're just doing it day in and day out it had damn well better not take much time or energy.
(d) Make it adjustable -- whatever I'm eating had better be at least potentially interesting to the people around me. Altho I'm perfectly happy to set up a don't-socialize-over-food rule. I have in the past in the interest of weight loss and I found it to be a good one.
http://www.glycemicindex.com/
I'm still not sure what I think about glycemic index and glycemic load, other than that I continue to be absolutely certain that this country's researchers have done an inadequate job of participating in the work done in this area. This is a major organizing principle of nutrition and metabolic research in the rest of the English speaking world and we seem to mostly ignore it or treat it like some kind of wacko fad. Strange.
I have also been attempting to improve my understanding of "good" vs. "bad" fats. I'm not happy about what I'm finding. Yes, I get that trans fats are bad, but some of the major crusaders in that area seem to think that saturated fats have been unfairly vilified. I find that basically implausible. I would particularly be interested in something written by current researchers in the area who are careful to factor in _how_ a given oil is produced (that is, how much heat/cracking it has been subjected to). Ideally, they'd also be looking at whether or not GE/GM sourcing had any impact on the resulting oil (cause I'm betting it does, and I'm equally certain that information is going to be a bit tough to come by).
A lot of this is intended to feed into changes I'd like to make over the course of this upcoming year (see New Year's Resolution post). I'm also very wary of making big changes to diet for a very simple, and difficult to plan around reason: I know a lot of people who used to be macrobiotic/vegetarian/vegan/etc. who got sucked into the high-fat/high-protein craze of the last decade. Now, I recognize that this kind of stuff is cyclical -- I've read a lot of food history and I know that what I'm proposing to do is every bit as follow-the-trend as anyone who hopped on to the South Beach, Zone, Atkins or other wagon when it came to town. Heck, there's a Betty Crocker whole grains cookbook. I've been doing a little asking around of those people/people who know those people, trying to understand why the change happens, because while we are indeed all buying T-shirts that cover our hips now, and hip young kiddies are buying jeans that fit close to the ankles and kinda bunch up there, I like to think there's a little more to it than that when it comes to food.
Here are the current theories for why people USED to be whatever, and aren't any more:
(1) Social Effects: They used to hang out with a lot of people who were whatever, and now they don't hang out with those people, maintaining it interferes with their new social context so they gave (most of) it up. Could be vegetarianism. Could be a low-fat lifestyle with a lot of artificial sweeteners. Could be macrobiotic. Whatever.
(2) Too Damn Much Work: Anything that is impossible to get as a convenience food, or go to a restaurant and eat is at risk of being done in by life/work/children/etc. balance issues.
(3) Poverty: Surprise, surprise. Some people used to eat beans because they couldn't afford meat. They can afford meat so they won't have the beans. Ditto with some people who once had a big garden (altho that's a huge amount of work and time as well). Etc.
(4) Craving (missing something in their eating pattern?): Over the years, I've been told repeatedly by then-recent ex-vegetarians that they had just an incredible meat craving and once they started eating it, they couldn't go back.
I believe, quite firmly, that if someone else runs into a situation, I will too. So here's my plan for dealing with this you-start-but-then-one-day-you-stop problem:
(a) No hard-and-fast restrictions. No "bad" foods. No "illegal" foods. Etc.
(b) Follow the craving (you knew this was coming).
(c) Be lazy: it's all well and good to spend exorbitant amounts of time doing the fun stuff of learning about how to do something, but once you're just doing it day in and day out it had damn well better not take much time or energy.
(d) Make it adjustable -- whatever I'm eating had better be at least potentially interesting to the people around me. Altho I'm perfectly happy to set up a don't-socialize-over-food rule. I have in the past in the interest of weight loss and I found it to be a good one.