Fad Diets

I would would guess the Standard American Diet would have a lot more oil. I must confess that the beginning of this video was annoying. I thought that it was a rather typical defense of the standard American diet, often called SAD. But the presenter was providing a basic history of diet theories, and as she progressed I found more and more agreement.

One area of disagreement is the current mania to include more grains in the diet. While there is some difference in how the body handles the digestion of grains that are whole grains versus grains that are not, the difference was surprisingly small. Also the amount of fiber in these whole grain products are not as large as one might think. The high fiber cereals one can purchase are artificially constructed to include extra fiber. I am not necessarily against this, but it does run counter to one of my assumptions, that natural is better than artificial. But then again I did just finish a Quest bar which I eat for the almost full daily allotment of fiber each bar contains.

While I do try to incorporate some starch, I find that to do so I end up reducing my vegetables. This is not what I want to do.

One area of strong agreement is her conclusion that different diets work for different people and that in fact one is better off not to diet at all. But I will leave that for the next time I talk about health.