Breakfast is Overrated
dilbert.com
dilbert.com
Healthy eating, good body weight, and regular exercise sharpens the brain.
Edit: The number of people jumping on board with this "theory" in his blog comments makes me despair for the state of nutrition and health education.
Learn you a physiology: http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/carbs.html
On Common Sense:
The human brain/body evolved to run on minimal glucose. Of the past 2million years of human evolution, only 10,000(from the agrarian revolution) of those years have we consumed excess carbohydrates in the forms of grains etc. Prior to that we were hunter gatherers and ate copious amounts of fat and meat with some vegetables (very low in carbohydrates) and every now and then fruits when they were in season.
We also didnt have the luxury of eating as soon as we woke up, we had to hunt for our food, so missing breakfast would have happened more times than not. Again our bodies adapted to that.
On All Research:
As mentioned in comments below our bodies run perfectly well in states of ketosis. With ketone-bodies providing a much more efficient longer energy burn than carbohydrates. (Think of carbohydrates as kindling and ketones as the logs). Many athletes (particularly the CrossFit athletes) run on ketogenic diets and get better performance. Here are some papers/articles etc. I dug up quickly, but there are many more.
[1] Your brain on ketones
[2] Weston price Foundation, Lots of references
[3] Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance
[4] The metabolic effects of low-carbohydrate diets and incorporation into a biochemistry course
[5] Report picking apart the latest dietry guidelines.
[1] http://evolutionarypsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/08/your-brai...
[2] http://www.westonaprice.org/
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524027/
[4] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmb.2005.49403302...
[5] http://www.nutritionjrnl.com/article/PIIS0899900710002893/fu...
edit: formatting
But the caveman explanation for health and nutrition always leaves me cold. Yeah ok we can pretty much gauge what proto-humans ate and why it was good for them, but what if it made them miserable? It's romantic to think that early humans lived in the garden of lo-carb eden, but what if it really fucking sucked? What if they were just plain hugnry all the time, it was miserable and only the strong survived?
Don't get me wrong I think most of the conclusions are right, but I prefer evidence collected from modern people to justify those conclusions. Appealing to evolutionary biology is only valid for survival and reproduction. It doesn't say anything about happiness, fulfillment, etc.
I seem to recall some crackpot theory that low-calorie diets (ie., borderline starvation) increase your lifespan. That would certainly jive with the caveman hypothesis, but does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home? That's probably a false dichotomy, but you get the point.
Not sure the 'crackpot theory' pejorative is appropriate. Calorie restriction (with adequate nutrition) has been documented to increase both median and maximum lifespan across a number of species. I believe primate studies are in progress now.
I agree that perpetually hungry (and cold) sounds like an unpleasant way to go through life, but that doesn't make the adherents crackpots.
No you don't. You want to reconfirm your bias. (I assume by "Evidence" you mean something that lives up to scientific standards. If it doesn't, I have no idea what you are talking about).
> It doesn't say anything about happiness, fulfillment, etc.
Science almost never has anything to say about these (or anything else which is this subjective).
> I seem to recall some crackpot theory that low-calorie diets (ie., borderline starvation) increase your lifespan.
But that is very well supported by science (on mice and fruit flies; not on humans YET). If you were interested in evidence, you wouldn't call it "crackpot", especially not considering ...
> does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home?
By this standard, you should be doing booze and drugs all day. I've heard they're really fun (and they cut off those long years of old age!)
I really can't understand people whose thought process can emit things like:
> That's probably a false dichotomy, but you get the point.
"I can't find an example that supports my point. So I'm making one up that is probably wrong. That's totally legit, and we should continue the discussion assuming my made-up example is fact"
I think the point is that regardles of being miserable, hungry or happy, the bodies adapted to the circumstances. Now what happens if you take the body that is best adapted to being hungry for periods of time and place it in the limitless food environment? Chances are that you will get a very happy and a very overweight person, with a shortened lifespan.
That would certainly jive with the caveman hypothesis, but does it sound like fun? How miserable are we willing to make ourselves for a few extra years in a nursing home?
I think that's a good point and not quite a false dichotomy. There probably are not enough studies to confidently state that "reducing calories by X% lengthens lifespan by Y%" but if the choice is "eat everything that will make me happy" and "be alive from my 80th to 85th birthday", different people would make different choices.
Always remember - poison ivy is natural, pants aren't.
Anecdotally (I hate anecdotes about health, but argh) I used to need to eat constantly to keep my energy up. I'd have breakfast, and by the time lunch came around I had to eat, or face passing out. These days I can skip breakfast (or just have a coffee with lots of cream) and that will keep my going until 2-3pm where I will have a lunch. You have no idea how liberating it is not to always be thinking about food.
[1] Marks Daily Apple (Website and forum a wealth of information)
[2] Nora Gedgautis Book Primal Body Primal Mind
[3] Robb Wolfs The Paleo Solution Book
[4] PaleoNu - A doctor who pushes a paleo style diet.
[1] http://www.marksdailyapple.com/primal-blueprint-101/
I totally agree to that. Those sources changed the way I was thinking about human health and nutrition completely. To be quite honest, I was not thinking about these topics very much before. I would also add a source that kind of got me started:
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/
Stephan appears to be a very knowledgeable guy, he is probably the least "radical" in his approaches, writes on a variety of topics and is not afraid to change his opinions when faced with contradicting evidence.
Also, blog of Dr. Mike Eades http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/ and Hyperlipid http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
Actually, most of the brain's energy needs can also be met with ketone bodies, which come from fat (either stored or dietary). So it's possible that he may be running on ketones in the morning, after a night's fast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet#Diet
That said, I agree with you that his theory is based almost entirely on speculation, and should be treated as such.
If the diet is changed from a highly glycemic diet to a diet that does not provide sufficient carbohydrate to replenish glycogen stores, the body goes through a set of stages to enter ketosis. During the initial stages of this process, the adult brain does not burn ketones; however, the brain makes immediate use of this important substrate for lipid synthesis in the brain. After about 48 hours of this process, the brain starts burning ketones in order to more directly utilize the energy from the fat stores that are being depended upon, and to reserve the glucose only for its absolute needs, thus avoiding the depletion of the body's protein store in the muscles.
If there's not enough glycogen in the liver and/or muscles and you are not getting any sugar from food, the body starts degrading your bodies' protein to convert glucogenic aminoacids to glucose, and thus maintain blood glucose levels and avoid fainting.
But if you have dietary glucogenic aminoacids, they will be converted to glucose and not your body protein.
I would adjust your comment above: "and you are not getting any sugar or glucogenic aminoacids from food"
"The ketogenic diet is not a benign, holistic or natural treatment for epilepsy; as with any serious medical therapy, there may be complications."
"Long-term use of the ketogenic diet in children increases the risk of retarded growth, bone fractures, and kidney stones. "
In other words, it does not seem that the body should be run this way long term.
Basically, your body runs on glucose. Everything else is a stop gap for you to get more glucose.
But don't forget that the body can make quite a lot of the glucose using a process called gluconeogenesis. And substances like amino acids, glycerol or products of fatty acid oxidation are used as precursors.
So, in essence - yes, it runs on glucose, but glucose does not necessarily come from dietary carbohydrates.
You can go on a ketogenic diet and eat plenty of healthy fats and some vegetable produce.
I searched this page for "gluconeogenesis" but did not find it. So basically they completely ignore the fact that the body can produce glucose from amino acids, products of fatty acid oxidation etc?
Edit: Also, the brain only needs a certain amount of glucose - somewhere in the 30-60g per day area. And if the blood sugar is low, the brain will have priority uptaking glucose from blood. So yes, it needs glucose, but one does not need to consume half of his calories or more from carbs - a mere 100g per day or even less would probably be enough.
100g (or about 400 calories) should be the upper limit of your carbohydrate consumption. Your body will run fine on it.
Most people on the internet have no idea what they're taking about when it comes to food, nutrition, and diets. The same applies to medical advice.
Many people read one thing and repeat it elsewhere, which is an issue if the source was incorrect. Also people love talking about their personal experiences. That's a problem seeing as it's not scientific (no control experiment, only one individual involved, etc...).
A big part of this is that the nutritional industry is not regulated by any body, such as the FDA. You end up with lots of products and advice that adds up to little more than snake oil. Hence fad diets.
What's the best advice to take? That from a doctor, dietitian, or nutritionist. Not some yahoo on the internet.
Well, that's a good advice in theory, but did you notice how many doctors, dietitians and nutritionists have contradicting points of view?
Most doctors are essentially statisticians doing something like this:
1) Formulate a list of patient symptoms, ensuring credibility (e.g. are you lying/hiding/unaware-of something?).
2) Match those up with whatever diagnosis is statistically most likely.
3) Take "medicine X" and see what happens.
4) Cured? If not, go to step 2, repeat.
Step 2 can be subjective, especially if there are several likely causes. This can lead to different doctors giving different diagnosis. The more times a doctor has seen the same problem, the more likely he/she will be correct the first time. Specialists come in handy here, gathering lots of experience regarding only specific conditions.
For rare diseases, hard to diagnose, or those which aren't fully understood, repeating steps #2 - #4 is going to be more likely. This is where you'll find the greatest differences of "opinion".
Step #1 can be repeated too if conditions change, of course.
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Regarding dietitians/nutritionists, I'm not sure how they work. I'd imagine most of their disagreements come from studies contradicting one another. Results of studies can be questioned as well.
There is some overlap with the statistical nature of doctors, though. Pinpointing food allergies/intolerances requires eliminating foods, one-at-a-time, from your diet and seeing what happens. I'm sure there are blood tests which can be done too.
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In general though, it's not wise to discredit professionals just because they may disagree on certain things in their field. Unless the field is fully understood (I'm not aware of one which is!), you'll see that.
Perhaps I should rephrase my advice:
What's the best advice to take? That from "multiple" doctors, dietitians, or nutritionists. Not some yahoos on the internet.
A second or third opinion reduces the likelihood of errors, while limiting received advice only from those educated and qualified to give it.
I'd say that the field is quite poorly understood. Here's an article (long!) that kind of sums it up.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....
What's the best advice to take? That from "multiple" doctors, dietitians, or nutritionists. Not some yahoos on the internet.
A second or third opinion reduces the likelihood of errors, while limiting received advice only from those educated and qualified to give it.
I found out that even after that, I'm tempted to try and do some of my own research, and then apply the advice to myself and see how well it works ...
While I do like some of the messages and ideas Michael Pollan (author of linked article, plus Food Inc.) is promoting, I always take him with a grain of skepticism. He's correct sometimes, and incorrect or questionable others. A common symptom of someone who's not a doctor or researcher in the field.
I personally classify him in the same arena as Michael Moore. Not to be ignored, but instead to be questioned for every made claim, requiring non-cherry picked studies and scientific research to back him up.
Here's what I do: I eat whenever I feel like it, whatever I feel like, as much as I feel like. But when I'm full, I stop.
For breakfast this can be:
- yogurt with banana and jam and sugar
- slices of bread with cheese and tomato and olive oil heated in the oven
- a bar of chocolate
- bread with boiled egg and mayonnaise
- bread with butter and cheese/jam/other
- nothing
- pizza left over from the previous night (home cooked of course ;)
- any other left overs
- fruit
- when I'm hungry, a bowl of pasta
Don't obsess over what you eat until there is clear evidence. Eat things you like to eat.
What I personally would be worried about is the long-term effects. Unfortunately, these would be very hard to pinpoint as it would be virtually impossible to get enough people to volunteer eating a certain diet, without much fluctuation, for some 30 years or so. And even if such a study would happen, the endless argument would start: "But the diet A contained X, and diet B lacked Y, so obviously we can conclude ..." etc.
Not overeating (and undereating) is like 10 times more important than what you eat, as long as you get enough of all the nutrients you need.
This may or may not be true, and also we could argue about the factor forever. I would say it's way less than 10, especially in the long-term, but I have no way to prove it of course.
Don't obsess over what you eat until there is clear evidence. Eat things you like to eat.
Well, there is the "classic" - "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" by Weston Price. (Available online at http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/pricetoc.html) He traveled around the world and watched what happened to primitive societies when they introduced western foods in their diets. I read it briefly, and he made an emphasis on dental health, but literally introduction of white flour, sugar, polished rice and canned food produced a huge drop in dental health.
Perhaps you don't need to force people to eat certain things. You can observe what they eat and how healthy they are. If you have a large enough sample set you may be able to reach some conclusions. The internet and recent developments on it like things like Facebook may help a lot: if people start recording what they eat on a regular basis you may be able to get a huge and diverse sample quite easily.
> I would say it's way less than 10, especially in the long-term, but I have no way to prove it of course.
From what I've seen I disagree. I know people who eat healthy according to conventional wisdom, but they eat too much. As a result they are fat and unhealthy. I also know people who get at least half of their calories from things that are considered unhealthy like sweets, coke and potato chips, but because they don't overeat they look healthy. Now it's true that body weight is not the only aspect of health, but it is a very big one and the only one that you can measure by looking at somebody...
> I read it briefly, and he made an emphasis on dental health, but literally introduction of white flour, sugar, polished rice and canned food produced a huge drop in dental health.
It's an interesting study but this is not surprising, since bacteria love these things too. Fortunately we have toothbrushes.
That said the study is highly biased. The "native" people are always laughing in the photos and the "modernized" people are looking sad.
But this doesn't explain away the order-of-magnitude differences in dental health Price found everywhere he went between people living on traditional diets (who typically didn't have toothbrushes, either) and those living on processed diets.
Have his findings been independently verified? Especially his claims that the bone structure is better in the individuals on native food, for which he provides almost no evidence.
Also, have you actually checked what the FDA nutritional recommendations are? They are really terrible advice that goes against actual science.
Look above for another question I answered, similar to this one, which I posted shortly after you posted yours. :)
Also, have you actually checked what the FDA nutritional recommendations are? They are really terrible advice that goes against actual science.
Any examples?
I think you meant USDA nutritional recommendations:
http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DGAs2010-DGACReport.htm
In my root comment, I meant regulation of nutritional supplements (which is handled by the FDA). This is different than dietary recommendations (e.g. what quantity of vitamins/minerals to eat).
I'm not aware of any problems there are with the USDA's nutritional recommendations, though I'm sure there are some here and there (please share, I'd love to know!). It wouldn't be fair to discredit the entire document if there is an error, however.
It's a living document too, being updated every few years (the 2005 version should be replaced with the 2010 version soon). As more studies are done and more is learned about nutrition and humans, it gets revised.
Try getting a second opinion from 1 or 2 other, unrelated doctors. Do they come to the same conclusion or not? Doctors aren't always 100% correct the first time (see my longish-response to another comment in this root thread).
My dietitian has type 2 diabetes yet still pushes to eat a grain filled breakfast and my nutritionist wants me to go on a cleansing diet of nothing but vegetables and fruits.
Lack of communication between the two? I'd get them in the same room together and watch them debate. Also this is another area where a second or third opinion would be good to have.
I guess you need to be lucky with your physicians.
If people wanted something naturally, the government and industry wouldn't have to run ads incessantly promoting it.
Personally, I've made the discovery that breakfast is the only meal of the day I can skip. By the morning, my body is adapted to running off my stored energy reserves and it's not screaming at me that I need to eat.
The fact that so many authorities are constantly screaming "eat breakfast", "eat breakfast" suggests to me that there's a hidden agenda to push breakfast foods, just like the U.S.D.A tries to push cheese on people.
I personally tend to have trail mix and a low calorie sports drink for breakfast, but I'm weird like that.
You should despair for it. It's mostly a religion somehow connected to pseudoscience, and definitely a far cry from science.
The two basic axiom that almost everything is founded on (weight diff = calories in - calories out; and prot=4Kc/g, carb=4Kc/g, fat=9Kc/g, alc=7Kc/g) are disproved every other day, in the sense that even though they do apply in many cases, there is at least one robust study in which they do not apply to every 4 in which they do apply.
Something fundamental is being totally ignored.
It's like saying "it is scientific that people go to work and school every day", and ignoring the existence of weekends.
I have many crackpot theories. Today is no exception. Let's test today's theory, unscientifically.
There is no hidden motive here, he is just sharing an observation he has. Everyone has crazy ideas that are often unfounded and incorrect - I find it interesting to see them shared.
What point are you trying to make with your comment? Yes, he is making an unfounded and probably wrong statement. He readily admits this in the post. What is the problem?
It's like conversations you have with some random person in the barstool section of a bar. Subject matter varies, but generally it ends with you both talking like "experts" about some random subject neither of you really knows much about, besides maybe a few "factoids" here and there.
Edit: i didn't mean that he is unable to analyze. I meant that analysis, whatever he presents, if any, isn't the primary thing in his blogs, and isn't really there for the analysis purposes per.se. It is more of unspecified association lines thrown in to hyperbolise the possibility of real and interesting connections between the things and to trigger you to look for them yourself.
By the way, Adams would have said, "continuously making" and not "constantly making." Your grammar error doesn't prove that you're the one who is "usually wrong," but it's the only data point I have. Just sayin'.
Best way to polarize people. When you say that "I might get down-voted", people agreeing with you are forced to up-vote.
Edit : Wording
You need to be on the edge of hunger to be creative, not into full-blown hunger. Eat a small breakfast and you'll start to get hungry before lunch. Eat a reasonable lunch, and you'll start to get hungry before dinner, etc.
I usually go without breakfast (only coffee). When I do eat it then I'm ravenous by lunchtime. I put it, completely unscientifically, down to waking up your metabolism. Breakfast for me would be cereal of some sort with raisins and milk or granola with milk.
In this case, however, I wonder what is the tail and what is the dog. For me, when I'm in the zen of creating something, I can't be bothered to take time to eat. So, I am hungry when I'm creative, but I've always assumed it was an effect, not a cause.
I know the plural of anecdote isn't data, but i'm volunteering to be a datapoint :)
Also, w.r.t. the eagerness to write off how half-baked Scott Adams is: There's empirical observations of a black box, and there's the attempt to explain what's inside. You might get causality backwards, or explain the correct behavior in the wrong way, but who cares if the real goal is to maximize the behaviors of the box, right? I mean, who cares if the explanation for putting off lunch is ridiculous, as long as the behaviors it explains really exist.
[edit to clarify -- i don't really care if his explanation is accurate. He so accurately described my mental cycles and my diet that it was interesting to read his hypothesis]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting has some links to studies.
Many creative caffeine users do their best work while all jacked on caffeine. I know I do. That's often first thing in the morning, and sometimes even before I eat. Caffeine is anorexic, as well, causing loss of appetite as part of the effect.
It's still a better idea to eat. Many years ago, when I took prescription amphetamines, I would force myself to eat at noon, grimly and efficiently munching down a sandwich or burrito. Otherwise I would start hating life.
Normally, I eat a piece or two of fruit with tea for breakfast, followed by second breakfast (often a bagel with hummus and avocado) a few hours later. This gets me through the creative rush I think Scott's referring to, without the obligatory post-lunch hard crash.
The point of these studies is to remove these other factors and test one thing at a time.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Estimates for how much computation a human brain is doing start at 10^14 flops and only go up from there (Kurzweil, known for his optimism, puts the brain at 10^16). Current record-holding supercomputers, BTW, are just barely at 10^15 or so.
And the brain does this on a watt or two, not 1.3 megawatts (http://www.top500.org/lists/2008/06/highlights/power).
[1] http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/JacquelineLing.shtml
"Einstein's brain weighed only 1,230 grams, which is less than the average adult male brain (about 1,400 grams). .... However, the density of neurons in Einstein's brain was greater. In other words, Einstein was able to pack more neurons in a given area of cortex."
Personally for me, that completely confirms my theories. Moore's Law for the brain :)
Otherwise I'm going to claim that a glass of water has more than 10^20 flops, which is what you need to simulate the waves on it to a certain degree of accuracy.
You compare it to even more recent and even more inefficient devices - computers, which themselves are just very primitive products of human brain.
The equivalent French saying has a bit more more innuendo...
"A good rooster is never fat"I just think that people who are creative or actively creating stuff don't have time to eat much or sleep for that matter.
Not to put myself in that category, but I often forget to eat and when I do, I wolf down my food so I can get on to more 'interesting' things ... also ... sleeping annoys me ... it seems like such an inefficient way of recharging my body/brain (inactivity for 30% of the day ... wtf?!?!), at one point I'd only get 5 hours of sleep because it felt like such a waste of time ... after having some health issues because of it, I'm closer to 6/7 now ...
Not trying to yank anyone's chain, but I know people who make a huge deal out of breakfast. They make a huge meal out of it, from which they also add a large lunch and diner, and then question why they cant lose weight.
I worked as an electrician at 17 with a licensed electrician. We never did new construction so all our work was after-fact and involved a ton of creative work arounds (I was like 200+lbs, you think I'm crawling in loft space in the eave of a house? No fucking way - genius kicks in fast). I currently work doing siding, windows, soffit and eavestrough. Not only do you have to be able to make your own cappings, but our instructions are literally - "[x] inch insulation, and [x] type siding" for a full house with windows, vents, gas and hydro stacks, pipes, and all sorts to work around. Seen a badly sided house? It looks horrible, and worse you get leaks in your house.
I'm 22, in 5 years the only thing I'm unsure about doing in making a house is the foundation. I've done everything else or know I can without a doubt without ever doing it - roofing for example, cover your nails and stagger, I've worked with roofers and they literally aren't that smart. If you can't roof - find a god and pray for help.
In my free time I still write, on a nearly daily basis. Either blogging, or working on a novel or short stories. This writing is usually fed with beer, sometimes rum, always a sugary liquid like pepsi or coke on my non-alcohol nights. I'd feed my other work with booze if I could, but a drunk guy up a 32ft ladder is a bad idea.
I think creativity involves the ability to jump to tools you barely know and to still excel.