ExRx.net

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/5 ... et-554120/

This isn't necessarily one of the worst, but I constantly see articles that have no scientific backing and/or have scientific evidence proving the complete contrary.

Tell me if I'm just overreacting, but is anyone else annoyed by things like this?

It annoys me! It's as if they get paid to promote carbs! Some of the points they mention have relevence but not if you're eating the amount of carbs that most people eat. A word that annoys me so much is 'fattening'. I think it's the worst word EVER. If something is high in fat, it's fattening. That's what it comes down to from the public. In my halls, a girl asked if vodka is 'fattening'. The guy next her picked up the bottle and said 'naa there's no fat in there.'

There should be a word called carbening! I hate the way that the amount of fat in something correlates with the amount of fat your gonna put on from the general public.

Another pet hate: 'That meatball marinara sub is so bad for you!'

erm.. why? not many foods are bad for you by themselves, (unless they're empty calories or trans fats etc.) so when people tell me somethings bad for me while I'm eating it, I feel like saying,
'do you know my whole diet then? This is only bad if I didn't want to gain weight and this was causing me to be in a calorie surplus, but the fact is I want to gain weight and this is helping! So yes it might be bad for someone who's eaten a lot throughout the day, but you can't just label foods as 'bad' and think it'll cause you to gain waeight by eating it!

Yea, all that Yahoo stuff is BS. I don't look at it anymore. I think there is money involved.

I also hate the whole good/bad thing. Much of it depends on your body and what you ware trying to do. Eating a subway sandwich is really bad for a fat insulin resistant endomorph trying to loose weight. While a skinny guy trying to bulk up would be very much advised to eat them. He could eat six footlongs on whole wheat with double meat, plus a couple shakes and that would be a good day for him. That and some heavy lifting will help achieve his goals.

It's relative too. If you replace 2 big macs and a large fry and a large coke, with a footlong subway on wheat and a diet coke, chances are you'll lose a few pounds.

The worst part of that article was based on "The Serotonin Power Diet" which has to be the worst crap published in recent years. It was also taken out of context. The idea with the book is to eat small low cal snacks about 1 hour prior to a meal in order to curb your apetitite. The article doesn't mention that little tidbit. In fact it goes on to recommend 400 cal sandwiches.

The pasta article suggests a serving is 1/2 cup. That makes it a side dish to have with veg and meat, not a meal in itself. 1/2 cup of pasta is less than 100 calories. The link takes you to 400 calorie pasta meals. I didn't look at all of them but the first few all had 1 cup pasta per serving. Again, something is lost in the translation.

If the article can't even be internally consistant, how can you take it seriously?

This article is from prevention magazine which is one of the most read health books out today. Go to any hospital or doctors office and every room is littered with them. People take it as gospel and that makes it all the more damaging.

A nutritionist mentioned that to me one time as well. I wonder if that's a contributing factor to why I felt like my energy levels went up a little when I switched to eating paleo. Strangely they're saying that's an argument -for- spiking your insulin? Seems like an argument -against-, if anything.

my roommate legitimately thinks I'm going to die of a heart attack at 30 because I eat a ton of chicken and very few grains.

It says in the article to not cut out entire food groups- then goes on to mention starch and dark chocolate as food groups. I had no idea chocolate was a food group!

Seriously tho, I think the article should be rephrased to say "here are some foods you can eat a little bit of when trying to loose weight", as opposed to saying not ditching, cause it leads me to believe they advocate eating a lot of these foods, which most of us know is just silly. Like Stuward says, these foods should be a side dish (and a smaller one at that), not the main course.

And I agree with Ironman saying its all relative. Some people can eat a little and its perfectly fine.

Yes, except that dark chocolate really is good for you, it's fat, fiber and protein. Of course the problem is that you really need it to be truly dark, and mainstream candy often claims dark, but is really a wad of sugar with a dash of chocolate added as an afterthought.

You're right, to have any positive benefit, it has to be about 85% cocoa. That is really an aquired taste. It's very bitter. What most people think of as dark chocolate is 60-70% and most people find that bitter, but at that level the sugar impact already far outweighs the benefit from the chocolate.

I have acquired the taste and I am getting through about 150g of 85-90% cocoa dark choc a week .

It's not bitter if it's well crafted. I've had 65% or so that was more bitter (and still way too sweet) than 90%. Not sure how they do it...

Same with low fat yogurts. They are usually full of sugar to give them taste. WTF? When will people realise that it is not the thin layer of butter on their toast that makes them fat but the 25 slices of bread they eat for breakfast.