(Pictured above is a sample breakfast consistent with the new Dietary Guidelines: approximately 88 grams net carbohydrates, very low in fat, a breakfast guaranteed to trigger high blood sugar flagrantly. Just check a fingerstick blood sugar 30 to 60-minutes after consuming and you will witness just how awful this advice is.)
The 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans have just been released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), both charged by Congress to deliver dietary advice to Americans. You can view the Executive Summary here.
Their comments begin with this statement:
“. . . rates of chronic diseases—-many of which are related to poor quality diet and physical inactivity—-have increased. About half of all American adults have one or more preventable, diet-related chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and overweight and obesity.”
In other words, they open with the suggested implication that, no matter how hard the HHS and USDA try to give people sound diet advice, Americans too often give into poor diet and sloth—in other words, the epidemics of obesity and overweight, type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are the public’s own fault. They thereby make it clear that it’s not the fault of HHS and USDA, but yours.
The guidelines do indeed make some important changes. Among them:
—There is no need to limit dietary cholesterol. Hallelujah: they finally concede that the science never showed a need to limit dietary cholesterol in the first place. (What about all those “Low in cholesterol!” products on store shelves?)
—There is no need to limit total fat. This is huge and so wildly overdue, as the world of low-fat is a big part of the equation that toppled the health of the country. Now they quietly retract this ridiculous advice, never grounded in science in the first place, a result more of personal agendas and politics than any clinical trial. Even though the Dietary Guidelines time after time reiterated the cut-your-fat advice, there was no apology offered for such destructive advice.
—Consume less than 10 percent of calories per day from added sugars. About damned time. While those of us on the Wheat Belly lifestyle would find this an excessive quantity of sugar (around 12.5 teaspoons of sugar per day), it is a huge leap down from the “everything in moderation” previous approach. And they deserve some credit for including this limitation despite intense lobbying against it from the sugar, processed food, and soft drink industry.
Yes, some progress. Unfortunately, conventional dietary thinking still reigns supreme with continued urgings to:
—Include plenty of grains, at least half of which are whole grains while not acknowledging, of course, that grains, processed or whole, raise blood sugar to sky-high levels, block nutrient absorption (esp. iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium), initiate autoimmune diseases, underlie an explosion in allergy, and have other severe health consequences.
—Consume less than 10 percent of calories per day from saturated fats even though, as with total fat, the data fingering saturated fat as a cause for cardiovascular disease are equally flawed, misinterpreted, or misrepresented.
—Include fat-free or low-fat dairy, including milk, yogurt, cheese, and/or fortified soy beverages. There is just no way to account for this bit of idiocy. Let’s ignore all the issues with dairy, in other words, such as high hormone content (e.g., estrogens), bovine growth hormone residues, the insulinotrophic effect of whey, the immunogenic effect of casein beta A1 in North America, and, of course, lactose. Let’s just focus on the most benign, healthy component of dairy, i.e., the fat, and urge Americans to cut the fat and get more of the other components. Incredible.
You can see what the combination of more grains, less saturated fat and more fat-free or low-fat dairy does to breakfast (above), for instance, making it a virtually pure carbohydrate meal that is guaranteed to provoke high levels of insulin, insulin resistance, inflammation, visceral fat growth, and high blood sugars.
It is impossible to reconcile their arguments: more and more people are adhering to their dietary and exercise guidelines, yet more and more Americans are gaining weight and becoming diabetic:
Adherence of the U.S. Population Ages 2 Years and Older to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines, as Measured by Average Total Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) Scores
Percentage of Adults Meeting the Physical Activity Guidelines (Aerobic and Muscle-Strengthening Recommendations)
You see, the logic behind the Dietary Guidelines is quite clear. You are fat and diabetic because, unlike the elite healthy-eating athletes who were our parents and grandparents, you are just too darned gluttonous and slothful. If you would just adhere more closely to the guidelines, everything would be fine!
Alright, I got my dose of sarcasm in for the day. But it is hard to swallow just how ridiculous the Guidelines were, now just incrementally better. Remember: as we often have to say in the wheat- and grain-free lifestyle, less bad should never be regarded as not good.
All in all, there are some important steps taken towards something more closely resembling a healthy diet. But don’t any of you follow such outdated, compromised, largely misinterpreted, industry-friendly (outside of sugar restrictions) advice, despite what the conventionally-minded doctors and dietitians say on morning/evening news, the obedient sheep who haven’t had an independent dietary thought in 30 years. After all, these are the same people who embraced the ridiculous USDA food pyramid and food plate for many years, wondering why their patients were gaining weight, developing type 2 diabetes, acquiring one or more autoimmune diseases, and were generally deteriorating in health. It must be the fault of their patients–yeah, that’s the ticket.
Dear Dr. Davis,
I am a 23-year-old nurse, healthy type 1 Diabetic and 3x marathon runner. I have tried to cut out all wheat as a 16-year-old high school student… 3 months yielded no results…. guess what, still need daily insulin injections. You are: 1.Obviously not diabetic .2. Have little experience dealing with actual vulnerable patient populations and .3. Discouraging generations of adolescents that (I hope do not) pick up your book or read this horrific internet post titled: “You’re fat and diabetic and it’s your own fault”.
Shame on you. You are obviously a brilliant man who has done plenty of research, but until you spend any number of minutes with a 12-year-old diabetic teen struggling with body image, hormones, and a chronic illness your opinions don’t seem valid. I understand you want to give hope to certain populations of patients, but Diabetic shaming is not the way to do it. I hope you can find a way to change your mission statement research to include the mental health aspect of diet and autoimmune diseases because Diabetes is NOT this black and white, and I’m sorry but neither is life.
Elizabeth wrote: «I am a 23-year-old nurse, healthy type 1 Diabetic…»
Do note that Dr. Davis was pretty clear about “developing type 2 diabetes” in the article. As you know, T1D (and LADA) and T2D (and GD) might as well be completely different ailments.
As I often put it, T2D is an optional ailment that is trivially avoided with diet, and fully reversible with diet to the extent that any complications are.
T1D is another matter. It can be managed, using minimum meds, via diet and lifestyle (Dr. Bernstein, The Diabetes Solution, is the pioneer on this). Remission is rare, but not unheard of:
https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2013/04/type-1-diabetes-cured/
«I have tried to cut out all wheat as a 16-year-old high school student… 3 months yielded no results…. guess what, still need daily insulin injections.»
What else did you do besides cut out wheat? You are speaking of 7 years ago, which would have been prior to the publication of the original Wheat Belly book, so unless you were following Bernstein, it’s unlikely that you were very low net carb (or ketogenic), and probably would not have known about other dietary adjustments that might influence the etiology of T1D, such as cutting all grains, remediating gut microbiome and reducing inflammatory industrial seed oils.
«You are: 1.Obviously not diabetic…»
Dr. Davis is a former T2D.
«Discouraging generations of adolescents that (I hope do not) pick up your book or read this horrific internet post titled: “You’re fat and diabetic and it’s your own fault”.»
Did you read beyond the title? The base article here is about the still-disastrous DGA 2015, and the post title is the implied message from the government based on DGA’15, not from Dr. Davis, who clearly writes “Alright, I got my dose of sarcasm in for the day.”
«…but Diabetic shaming is not the way to do it.»
I’m beginning to think you didn’t read the article. We don’t do any kind of shaming here. It doesn’t work – quite the opposite really. Character is not a factor (other than being willing to recognize how destructive consensus advice has been).
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Ingestion of plant-based carbohydrates, along with associated proteins, teams up with gut bacteria and host immune genetics to destroy pancreas beta cells and cause type one diabetes. It’s a safe bet that never introducing these plant carbs and proteins would result in healthy beta cells and the lack of type 1 diabetes.
Once beta cells are destroyed is it possible, by total plant carb and protein elimination, to grow new beta cells? I don’t know of any studies which have attempted to answer this question. Do you?
Type one diabetes is characterized by a shortage of insulin, the release of pancreas beta cells. Cells use insulin for importing blood glucose. I think one could safely assume that a diet which places no glucose into the blood would be an effective ongoing treatment for type one diabetes. I haven’t seen any studies which disprove this reasonable assumption. Have you?
The idea would be to totally replace carb ingestion with animal fat and protein ingestion. Ingestion of animal protein would be problematic for a type 1 diabetic, as the liver can turn ingested proteins into blood glucose. However, the liver will not perform this task if it perceives that the host is ingesting NO carbohydrates.
The differences are between carb-adaptation and fat-adaptation. As a Nurse so familiar with dealing with type one diabetes I’m sure you’ve tried total fat adaptation. Right?
Unccle Roscoe wrote: «…teams up with gut bacteria and host immune genetics to destroy pancreas beta cells and cause type one diabetes.»
It is known that T1D parents are at increased risk of having children that develop T1D. However, this apparently cannot all be put down to genetics involving HLA complex.
A recent study (mice, but still suggestive) indicated that acquired microbiome distortions are heritable. And can take 4 generations to resolve. Epigenetics is conjectured as the mechanism.
Of course with humans, the kid’s diets are going to be informed by the parent’s diets, and if something in diet is a factor in T1D, that’s another mechanism. Some 90% of new childhood T1D cases do not involve T1D parents, so the major cause of T1D is still at large. Infant microbiomes get a rough start these days, with parental guts being suboptimal, Cesarian birth, lack of breast feeding, gratuitous antibiotics, and infant diets distorted in multiple directions.
Notice also that I had to say “childhood T1D”. It used to be that T1D was “childhood onset” diabetes, and T2D was “adult onset”. Nowadays, anyone of any age can get either, and both are at out-of-control levels.
What changed? Well, taking a serious look is politically incorrect. While searching in this today, I hit a page on “Top 10 Things to Never Say to a T1D Parent”. Most are common sense, but #2 and #6 reveal a denialist mindset.
2. “Have you tried this natural remedy?”
To which the T1D parent is advised to counter:
“…right now, the only treatment for type 1 diabetes is insulin…”
6. “Should she be eating that?”
To which the T1D parent is advised to counter:
“…people with type 1 diabetes can eat whatever they want as long as they take insulin for any carbohydrates.”
Parents with a T1D child want a “cure”, but only if it meets their agenda, which is apparently that it must be convenient: perhaps a magic med, and allows diet to be ad libitum. They really don’t want to hear that the T1D was due to something they might have done differently (had they known; but from whom? – the USDA and ADA will be the last to tell them).
My understanding is that T1D can be managed with minimum insulin on a very low net carb or perhaps ketogenic diet, and perhaps no insulin at all if there is any beta cell function remaining.
«Once beta cells are destroyed is it possible, by total plant carb and protein elimination, to grow new beta cells? I don’t know of any studies which have attempted to answer this question.»
A few rare cases that might be that scenario are in the lit, and have been mentioned previously on this blog. Catching the onset as early as possible, and remediating diet promptly, appears to be key. Auto-immune-enabling wheat needs to be the first to go.
It’s worth doing at any time after diagnosis, of course. Here’s an interesting comment from another blog on “Do Type 1 Diabetics Need Ketogenic Diets?”:
“Type 1 here. Is it required? NO. Is it optimal to controlling your blood sugars…YES! I have been off any medicine for over a year now, and yes, I’m GAD and Islet Antibodies positive. Being ketogenic gave my Beta Cells enough time to recover and now I have just enough endogenous insulin to cover a ketogenic diet. If I ate any other way I would require insulin.”
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I don’t mean to steer off topic, but does anybody know of better methods to make chicken or vegetables stick to wheat belly flours/meals, parmesan, or other WB safe ingredients? It seems without the gluten or “stick” of regular flours, ingredients slide off when I’m coating a chicken breast, zucchini (or other vegetables) in almond flour or Parmesan for oven-cooking or pan-frying. I tried the WB onion rings but the flour seems to peel off immediately regardless of how much you soak the onion rings first. I use buttermilk, egg and tried xanthan gum to coat food before (as well as following the onion ring recipe as is) but I’m wondering if there’s a better way to make the “breading” or coating stick.
Dust it with a “flour”, then dip, then coat.
Hello Bob –
Just an aside here that has nothing to do with the guidelines.
I recently sprained my back pretty badly, and for whatever reason it killed my appetite. But for whatever reason, I started eating my wife’s Special K with berries (delicious). That junk I could eat. Eggs, animal fats and the other good stuff was out.
Because my calorie consumption was down, I lost a couple of pounds. But at the same time, I noticed a bloating in my stomach, which I believe did not exist prior to my injury.
Could I be imagining this? I lost weigh but my stomach was sticking out more?
Thanks.
Eric wrote: «…started eating my wife’s Special K with berries…»
In the US, that would be (for the “Red Berries Cereal”):
Rice, whole grain wheat, sugar, wheat bran, freeze-dried strawberries, soluble wheat fiber, contains 2% or less of brown sugar syrup, salt, malt flavor. Vitamins and Minerals: Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), reduced iron, niacinamide, vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), vitamin B1 (thiamin hydrochloride), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin A palmitate, folic acid, vitamin B12, vitamin D3.
The net carbs for the stated 1 cup portion size is 24 grams, or 160% of the WB whole meal target, and that’s without considering the liquid added.
We could expend at lot of blogspace analyzing this mess, but let me just note how they have dithered wheat into 3 separate ingredients. Although rice appears to be the main ingredient, that may not actually be the case. This could easily be a mainly-wheat confection.
«I lost a couple of pounds. But at the same time, I noticed a bloating in my stomach, which I believe did not exist prior to my injury. Could I be imagining this? I lost weigh but my stomach was sticking out more?»
That’s the literal “belly” in Wheat Belly. See, for example:
https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2011/10/why-wheat-makes-you-fat/
“Insulin resistance causes fat accumulation, specifically in abdominal visceral fat…” and it can do that without net weight gain.
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Could someone please show these people a “whole grain”? My horses have trouble eating a “whole grain”…..if there was a whole grain in THAT bagel, NO person could eat it!!
Since no consumers even KNOW what a ” whole” grain looks like, they can continue selling finely ground particles as whole….hmmm.
Greentree wrote: «Could someone please show these people a “whole grain”?»
“Whole grain” is a term of art that doesn’t mean “intact kernel”. It just means that the whole kernel (bran, endosperm and germ) was present when ground up. “Refined grain” omits the bran and germ.
«NO person could eat it!!»
True enough, which is why whole grains are cracked, ground, puffed, rolled or steel cut to ensure that you get their full toxic load.
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You can buy “whole grains” if you want to do so:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDB2IQ2?psc=1
That’s about as whole as you can get unless you grow it yourself.
The new guidelines certainly have their deficiencies. A revolution would have been better than an evolution. They already have an energy mention with calories. It would have been nice if they came out with a voltage mention, maybe a GL reading. That along with diet I suspect could be helpful at preventing cancers – but maybe not detection.
Soul wrote: «A revolution would have been better than an evolution.»
That wasn’t in the cards. There are multiple forces at work here, all of which prevent any prompt shift to sanity:
• competing industry agendas in the lobby (farm, grains, meat, dairy, pharma)
• competing political agendas in the lobby (environmentalists, vegans, etc.)
• implications for related dogmas (an LCHF shift threatens ADA/AHA/AMA)
• liability (any apology for previous error might bestir the lawyer class)
• face saving – as Planck reminds us, science often progresses one funeral at a time. We have to wait for all the unrepentant low fat, whole grain, move more, eat less, CICO pseudo-scientists to succumb to their own advice. This could take a while.
The DGA process is inherently, hopelessly politicized, and is always going to be corrupt. The government has no more business providing nutritional advice than it does for, say, shopping advice for consumer electronics. People need to laugh at it, and completely ignore it. If you want to write to your representative on the matter, request that HHS and USDA simply be defunded on nutrition.
«It would have been nice if they came out with a voltage mention…»
Voltage?
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It’s very difficult to sue the government, even when it’s wrong. In this case, too, there is evidence (no matter how weak) that they believed the guidelines to be “correct” at some point.
Personally, I’d like to see an apology: Sorry for telling you that natural saturated fat and dietary cholesterol were bad for you, and that completely unnatural plant oils and “whole” grains were good for you. Also, we really have no idea about the amount of salt you should be or should not be eating. No clue, really — and we’ve never had a clue. We may have — and likely have — caused and continue to cause more disease through our guidelines. So sorry about that.
BobM wrote: «It’s very difficult to sue the government, even when it’s wrong.»
True enough, but the DGA is parroted by many other organizations that don’t have the benefit of sovereign immunity.
One can easily imagine earnest conversations whilst putting on the 17th hole:
“You can’t change it that fast. We’ve been pushing your former lethal nonsense for decades now. Plus our MD membership enrollment is already in the toilet. Substantial sums are at stake here.”
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I concur!
But am not sure about this statement – “less bad should never be regarded as not good.”
Could you perhaps mean to say – less bad should never be regarded as good?
That would be the right statement!
just a typing fault I think!
Marcie Daniel Budden
Wheat belly has been a blessing in 2015, and I will forever be grateful to Doctor Davis for showing us this vital information to get my health and happiness on track.
In September 2014, weighing 232 pounds, tired and lacking energy to even sleep soundly through the night. I began the steps to get my health back by finding the weight loss support group and preparing myself with a new way of eating.
I decided that 2015 I was going to give Wheat belly my full attention and to try and follow this. I do have to tell you that it was not easy at first- I did not realize how addicted I was to wheat products.
I now sleep better at night and have alleviated foot pain along with heartburn. I just love walking now with a minimum of 10,000 steps each day and find that I can fit more projects into my daily tasks with increased energy.
One of the surprising things I noticed since going wheat free is how my skin has cleared up. I no longer have a rash rimmed around my face and my arms are no longer covered with hives and rough.
Another surprising aspect of cutting out wheat is my ability to eat certain foods again without a reaction to them.
I now feel very healthy at 146 pounds and I know that being wheat free gives me the freedom to be healthy and happy.
How do I update my progress?
Marcie Budden wrote: «How do I update my progress?»
Can you be more specific?
And by the way, congratulations on the spectacular progress.
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