The health world, the blogsphere and everything in between is full, absolutely full of myths. Close to 100% of the medical studies that are published are funded by the industry or company looking to sell their product. Take for example the overused flax seeds or chia seeds which promote a good amount of omega-3 and are a “good source of fat”- or so you read, right? Not so much. Flax seed hinder women’s ability to reproduce, as do chia seeds. Enter the ever-so-bloated fiber seed eater around the net and see if they are actually receiving any of these so-called benefits from their sprinkling. To start with, if you’re mixing chia on a sugar laden yogurt/oatmeal concoction you are actually hindering your body from absorbing any of the nutrients your taking in. Or you could be a fish oil or salmon eating proponent. Well, oily fish is good for you because the Omega-3’s are healthy but they are only “healthy” because everyone has so much omega 6 in their diet it is ludicrous. But oily fish is bad because it can be contaminated with heavy metals.

While you are eating those “healthy fats” and avoiding the ‘artery clogging animal and saturated fat’ NEEDED by the body, you have probably come across good-ol-boy Ancel Keys Seven countries studies. If there was EVER a more fundamentally flawed study, it was by this punk. Ancel keys set out to publish this study with one mission. He was convinced, without proof, that dietary fat was the promoter, cause and reason for heart disease. Keys studied over DOZENS of heart disease rates in DOZENS of countries. He needed support for his hypothesis. After depicting enough countries, he finally was able to correlate heart disease with saturated fat- or did he? Of the 21, yes 21 countries keys studied he only reports statistics from 7 of them. Why? Because only 7 of those countries met he ever-so-wrong hypothesis. THIS MEANS that 14 of the countries in the study were scratched, not reported in his analysis and 14 of these countries showed little to NO correlation with the saturated fat-heart disease link.

Let’s think on that…over 66% of the countries studied ate saturated fat freely with no heart disease. Only 33%, which was reported” had some sort of link between eating saturated fat and heart disease. Does anyone else NOT get this? This means that eating saturated fat leaves you with a BETTER CHANCE OF NOT developing heart disease. Keys however, chose to only focus on the ‘evidence’ that supported his cause. The 7 countries studied was a good study but done with such reckless abandoned that you would actually think saturated fat did cause heart disease if you read about it. Nothing could be further from the truth. And for the record, trans-fat and excess unnatural omega-6 with fructose causes heart disease.

Richard at Free the Animal (he has amazing recipes for good food as well!) put it nicely when he said

To test this hypothesis, scientists have been studying the relationship between saturated fat consumption and heart attack risk for more than half a century. To judge by the grave pronouncements of our most visible experts, you would think these studies had found an association between the two. It turns out, they haven’t.

The fact is the vast majority of high-quality observational studies have found no connection whatsoever between saturated fat consumption and heart attack risk. The scientific literature contains dozens of these studies, so let’s narrow the field to prospective studies only, because they are considered the most reliable. In this study design, investigators find a group of initially healthy people, record information about them (in this case what they eat), and watch who gets sick over the years.” – http://freetheanimal.com/

http://www.circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/115/14/1858

‘The investigators examined the fat composition of red blood cells in people who had suffered a heart attack, versus an equal number who had not. Participants who had heart attacks had less omega-3, more long-chain omega-6, and particularly higher Trans fat in their red blood cells. In fact, 96% of the heart attack patients had elevated trans fat levels, compared to 34% of those without heart attacks. This is consistent with a number of other studies showing a strong association between blood levels of trans fat and heart attack risk’

–Whole Health Source

This is just one, of so many flawed studies to show you that the industry does not and while the big bucks are involved in our capitalistic society, never will have your best interest at heart. You need to learn for yourself. You need to understand nutrition yourself. A good starting place- try Nourishing Traditiions by Sally Fallon, then get The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. Both books, one based on traditional cooking and the other on health, are amazing easy reads that enlighten the reader with true, hardcore historical information on food.

The ADA…I love how so many people support the American Dietician Association which is most likely run by overweight people taking their own horrendous advice(that was mean, bless their hearts!). now, if you think these people have your best interest at heart then sweetie, you are one sadly mistaken sucker. The ADA is in existence as a guide for the public people to promote health, disease-free, attractive strong and lean humans. Wow, they’re doin a hell of a job, eh? These registered dieticians are being paid by the country, not the WORLD’s leading food producers and companies. People like Kellog’s, General Mills and the good ol oatmeal man. These companies are the reason for the cheap prepackaged sugar laden highly processed form of “food” you find in the aisles of grocery stores. OBVIOUSLY, considering who is paying the ADA, they surely are not going to start telling you that the skim milk you put in your wheaties every morning with ‘splenda’ or some other chemically altered substance is causing the obesity rate, the tooth decay, and the mental illness among Americans. The wondrous multi gazillion dollar soy industry will never tell you that the reason for puberty at ridiculously young ages in girls and the under sizing of boys genitals is from their products. SOY KILLS PEOPLE, please understand this. And check some labels out. Soy is IN EVERYTHING. It has a million different forms, names and labels.  

Taken from Mark’s Daily Apple website are 4 VERY basic premises…you should read these and say duh, but for what it’s worth some will still be gym-bound thinking it is making a HUGE difference on anything but a personal MENTAL well-being.

1) 80% of your body composition will be determined by your diet. Yes, exercise is also important to health and to speed up fat-burning and muscle-building, but most of your results will come from how you eat. Suffice to say, people who weigh a ton and exercise a ton, but eat a ton, still tend to weigh a ton.

2) Lean Body Mass (LBM) is the key to life. lean mass (muscle and all the rest of you that is not fat) is directly correlated with longevity and excellent health. Since other organs tend to function at a level that correlates to muscle mass, the more muscle you maintain throughout life, the more “organ reserve” you’ll have (i.e. the better the rest of you will work).

3) Excess body fat is bad. Most human studies show that being significantly overweight increases your risk of nearly every disease (except osteoporosis – because ironically it responds to weight-bearing activities).

4) Excess insulin is bad. Chronic excess insulin may be even worse than excess sugar (and we know how bad that is). All animals produce insulin, but within any species, those that produce less insulin live longer than those who produce a lot. Eat to keep insulin low.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

I am sure many recovering anorexics, or health conscious individuals have heard of the Minnesota Study so I will spare the details and simply let you know they basically starved a bunch of dudes and came to the conclusion that energy restriction had numerous adverse effects including: “They experienced dizziness, extreme tiredness, muscle soreness, hair loss, reduced coordination, and ringing in their ears. Several were forced to withdraw from their university classes because they simply didn’t have the energy or motivation to attend and concentrate.” Hmm, sounds like similar symptoms of anorexia doesn’t it? There’s more: the subjects of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment developed all the visible signs of starvation: “sunken faces and bellies, protruding ribs, and edema-swollen legs, ankles, and faces. Other problems such as anemia, neurological deficits, and skin changes became apparent.” The men lost interest in sex, and had no functional energy.
You have heard that fasting and calorie restriction promote long-life right? This is true ahah I am not lying. But you need to understand they did not eat any unnatural food to come to this conclusion. So no larabars, no granola, no oatmeal. Dietary required food is used by those “caloric restrictors.” So if you want to spend you life obsessed about food, your next meal, numbers, and being cold, depressed, preoccupied, hungry, and weak with no expression toward the world whatsoever, then go ahead.

Yeah, I choose food, and real food, and to eat it- when I am hungry. This bring up my next point-of rant here. Wake up eat, starving in 3 hours, snack, lunch, snack, dinner snack. This is how the majority of Americans live. We are all truly convinced that if we don’t eat breakfast and say 18 hours go by and we have no eaten that OH MY GOODNESS my body is shutting down, I am in starvation mode, my bones are eating themselves, my electrolytes are gone. People eat, live and breath by the ‘eat every 3-4 hours’ motto. Pre and post gym nutrition. Afternoon protein satisfying health bars. THIS IS ALL BOGUS BULLSHIT. The body does not first of all, randomly go in and out of starvation mode. You do not need to eat every 3-4 hours. If you do, then you don’t eat enough to begin with. It takes months, up to years to live in a body in “starvation” mode. You can be hungry really, it won’t kill you. You can eat too, I have learned and trust it will not kill me either.
This whole I need 3 meals and snacks all day was never in existence until the death-dawn of the agricultural revolution. Wouldn’t you know this is the same time period we all inherited and started living off a high carbohydrate diet. Bread, pasta, flour, soybean oil…the list goes on and on and on. Look at where it has gotten us! It has been great right? Not at all, we are a fat nation, a diseased nation, and an overpopulated undernourished lazy and screwed up society. If you do follow conventional wisdom then it is no wonder considering you are running and living life on high insulin surges that drive you to eat every couple hours because God forbid you run low of sugar, you NEED carbs right?! Not at all. The dietary requirement by the human body for carbohydrates IS ZERO. I love how I see people say “I need my carbs” the body needs carbs, you can’t live healthy without carbs. Then WHY, please inform me, is it the ONLY nutrient of the 3 every single human being can survive without. Look in any, ANY anatomy textbook, or hell even most nutrition textbooks and you will learn that the dietary requirement for carbohydrates is nonexistent.
Frequent eating causes rollercoaster fluctuations in blood sugar and insulin surges. This promotes daytime fatigue as energy goes into digestion, activating the parasympathetic—rest and digest—nervous system. Aka, you have oatmeal for breakfast and it “doesn’t do it for you” and you are famished 2 hours later…there is a reason for this.

Don Matez at Primal Wisdom needs credit for what he wrote at Primal Wisdom http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2009/05/top-ten-problems-with-applying.html

There is no evidence in the entire medical industry that says we must eat every few hours to avoid a depression of metabolic rate. Studies of fasting have shown that people can go at least 72 hours without food with no decline in metabolic rate, and no loss of lean tissue, and, once the fat starts flowing, no loss of energy. Webber and McDonald even found an increase in metabolic rate after 36 hours of fasting [Br J Nutr. 1994 Mar;71(3):437-47].

We also have no evidence for the claim that you must eat protein several times daily to prevent loss of muscle, or promote gain of muscle. In fact, Stote et al showed that when people ate all their daily caloric requirement in one meal (in a four hour period) daily for eight weeks, they gained muscle and lost fat, whereas when they ate the standard three meals daily they did not experience this body recomposition. The infrequent feeding regimen also reduced cortisol levels, suggesting a reduction in physiological stress.

During a 24 hour fast GH output increases markedly; the frequency of GH pulses increases by 25%, the peak amplitude of GH pulses doubles, and the interpeak serum GH levels quadruple [read this and this]. A study by Norrelund et al indicates that the protein-retaining effects of GH inhibit muscle-protein breakdown during fasting. Fasting-induced increases in GH may therefore account for the increase of lean mass found in the Stote et al study mentioned above.

And I will leave you with this well done Interpretive Summary of a good study: Although three meals per day support rapid growth in children, it may not be the healthiest eating pattern for adults. The rising obesity epidemic usually occurs among individuals consuming several large meals per day. Overeating is widely accepted as a cause of premature death from cardiovascular disease and diabetes, but few studies have determined how meal frequency affects health risk. Despite a general perception among the public that it is important to eat three or more meals per day, there have been no controlled research studies that directly compare the effects of different meal frequencies on human health. A pilot study was conducted to determine the feasibility of controlled meal frequency in normal weight, middle-aged men and women. Participants consumed all of their required calories either in one meal per day or three meals per day for eight weeks. Results showed that the majority of the study participants were able to consume total calories in one meal per day. Consumption of one meal per day versus three meals per day increased the participants’ blood pressure but had no effect on heart rate, body temperature and the majority of blood tests measured. Scientists and nutritionists interested in the effects of eating patterns that may influence health may find this information useful.

SO…. Rant end here. It was raining, hailing, windy, and tornadoing here all day and I needed to rant… the point, eat real food, eat lots when your hungry, stop freaking about 6 mini meals a day. Stop freaking about needing all these vitamins, minerals, carbs, fat and protein. If you eat REAL FOOD you can grow or kill in your backyard then you will be just fine.