Returning to that James McWilliams article:
The Evidence for a Vegan Diet, The Atlantic, January 18, 2012
Where he said:
"Here is a comprehensive list of what I ate, in one form or another, on the day I wrote this:About that list, he said:
Kale, mustard greens, carrots, celery, onions, mushrooms, quinoa, amaranth, pinto beans, beets, parsnips, turnips, yellow peas, brown rice, kimchi, purple cabbage, butternut squash, blueberries, a banana, hemp seeds, flaxseed oil, snap peas, an apple, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pistachio nuts, garlic, broccoli, raisins, granola, avocado, polenta, salsa, a few saltines, a piece of raisin toast with apricot jam, tofu, coffee, olive oil, harisa, chickpeas, tomatoes, a small handful of chocolate chips, a couple of beers ... and a vitamin."
"Forty-three discrete plant foods, a couple of processed items, a little alcohol and caffeine, very few carbs, a B-12 pill."About that "very few carbs" point he made, do you agree with him? That he ate very few carbs?
I've run into this at work and on a few forums. Some people equate, say, bread with carbs. Or cookies, pancakes, muffins, pretzels, pasta. Those are carbs. But an apple? Even though 95% of its calories come from carbohydrates, some people don't think of it as a carb. Pure lemon juice is 95% carbs. Carrots and tomatoes are about 90% carbs. Cabbage is 85% carbs. Even greens like kale get about three quarters of their calories from carbs. A vegan diet, especially a low-fat one, is in all likelihood a high-carbohydrate diet. I get into trouble when I say high-carb diets can be healthful because some people think I'm saying it's healthful to eat a lot of processed grain products.
Imagine telling the average Juicer about all the processed carbs they are drinking.
ReplyDeleteBut in unprocessed foods, there's less carbs in absolute terms, and a big part of these are fiber, that total amount of carbs and a big part of these are fiber, that are digested by bacteria in the gut and transformed in fat.
ReplyDeleteBut in unprocessed foods, there's less carbs in absolute terms, and a big part of these are fiber, that total amount of carbs and a big part of these are fiber, that are digested by bacteria in the gut and transformed in fat.
ReplyDeleteThe author is an historian with no training in nutrition or dietetics.
ReplyDeleteMany of the foods in his list contain "carbs" in the form of sugars and starches. In fact, a high percentage of the calories in those foods come from sugars and starches, which means that it's a high-carb diet.
When nutritionists calculate "carbs," they mean the sugars and starches that will be digested and absorbed by the time the meal leaves the small intestine. The carbohydrates that don't get digested and absorbed by that point (eg, cellulose, hemicellulose, and pectin) are called dietary fiber. Some of the dietary fiber will be broken down by bacterial action into metabolizable energy, especially in the form of volatile fatty acids such as butyric acid, in the large intestine. Butyric acid is the preferred fuel for the cells that line the large intestine. Gorillas that don't eat enough fiber are prone to ulcerative colitis because their colonic mucosa cells are literally starving. I think the same thing happens in humans with ulcerative colitis.
http://wheredogorillasgettheirprotein.blogspot.com/2009/11/salad-deficiency-causes-ulcerative.html