Friday, July 16, 2010

Going Bananas

I got an "interesting" comment on my last post about Denise Minger's critique of "The China Study". It's the one from "durianrider" - check it out, particularly his "challenge". I've already answered the challenge, but invite others to also provide information about any elite non-vegan athletes they may know of. I have no illusions that we'll change durianrider's mind, or that of any "true believer", but the way to counter misinformation is with good information. Individuals need all the information they can get to make informed decisions, so let's make sure they get it, and support their right for informed choice. Personally, if you choose to be a vegan, that's fine with me. I have no stake in your personal lifestyle choice, but I do want to help people at least make that choice an informed one, rather than one based the propaganda of zealots.

And T. Colin Campbell, if you're out there, let's see if you have the courage of your convictions. I have a Ph.D. and was an academic research scientist for many years, so I should be "worthy" of scientific discourse with you. And discourse is at the root of scientific progress. How can you expect to educate people like me on your views if you are unwilling to discuss them with opponents in a public forum?

Related note: durianrider is also one of the principals of the 30bananasaday.com site, along with "freelee". Some of the discussion on the post "Debunking the China Study Critics" is pretty interesting, from a sociological point of view. I am going to try registering for the site, and see if they have any willingness to let in opposing views. The registration page and forum guidelines make me suspect they are intolerant of those who might not agree with them, e.g. this quote:

We will not tolerate "anti-fruit" posts or advice that recommends calorie restriction/or the suggestion that others are "overeating on fruit", also recommending others restrict their water intake will not be supported on 30BaD, these threads will be deleted and you will be given a warning. This advice is not only unproductive but dangerous to the health of our members.


One of the best signs of dogmatic belief is the intolerance of information which contradicts said belief. I'll reserve judgment on 30bananasaday.com until my application gets accepted or rejected, as I plan to make it quite clear that I will be providing evidence that runs counter to their mission.

For my part, I welcome discussion from all corners, provided it is reasonably civil (i.e. contains actual information rather than emotional spewing). The definition of rationality is that two people with the same information will draw the same conclusions. But the only way those two people can achieve the same state of information is through communication. Even if you completely disagree with my views, there's a reasonable chance that I will learn something from you which may help me make better choices. So bring it on!

54 comments:

Chris Kresser said...

Hey Dave,

I got the same exact comment from Duriander on my blog (The Healthy Skeptic). He's going around spamming all of the paleo/primal type blogs. He has no intention, I'm sure, of engaging in a dialogue because his convictions are based not on facts, but faith. And as I'm (perhaps overly) fond of saying, you can't fight faith with facts.

One of the lamest arguments at the Bananas site that is repeated in various forms is "everyone knows meat is bad for you, therefore meat is bad for you."

This brings to mind another of my favorite quotes:

"Even if 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France

I stopped responding to comments from people like Duriander a while back, because it was such a waste of time. 9 times out of 10 they don't respond, because they never intended to start a dialogue. Their comments are more like hit-and-run jobs, or the equivalent of an preacher standing on a soapbox with a bullhorn.

Chris said...

Durianrider put exactly the same challenge to me on my post about the china study - http://tinyurl.com/38kptzr. It was pointed out to me that it is basically spam - he isn't interested in a discussion.

He comes across as a bit stupid

Michael said...

DurianRider's post seems to be something he is posting everywhere on blogs that have featured Denise Minger's review of T. Colin Campbell's work. There are other posters doing the same thing.

His comment got through my moderation system because I approved Freelee as a commenter and he commented from the same IP address. I would have left it up if it was unique to my blog, didn't have a ton of links, dealt at least somewhat with Minger's review, and I thought he was interested in some real conversation (which I don't).

I would have left up an edited version and answered him appropriately except apparently my new paid commenting system doesn't allow me to do that, so I am already looking for a replacement.

Drs. Cynthia and David said...

You are brave to take on this zealot. I've enjoyed his website for its absurdity, and all I can think is let's see how he is doing after he reaches 40 years old. My health was adequate eating the SAD until I was 40too.

I don't know of any athletes who are truly vegan- the ones who profess to be also utilize plenty of supplements to deal with the deficiencies, so I'm not sure that counts really. And even they would not support a fruit only diet. Plenty of athletes try to go vegan because they believe (from the hype) that it is healthier, but then they discover their teeth are falling out, get stress fractures, and end up including cheese or minimal animal foods anyway. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but my impression is that a vegan lifestyle and esp. a fruitarian one, is self-limiting, but it may take years to see the long term deleterious consequences. In the short run, it may be a perfectly acceptable diet for losing weight for some people.

I'm fond of fruit too, but could never tolerate as much as those guys encourage- I'd be racing for the toilet every 2 hours, plus I'm not fond of turning my gut into a fermentation vat.

Good luck!

Cynthia

Dave said...

Hi All. Thanks for the encouragement. Note that I have no illusions that durianrider is rational, or will engage in discourse (though I'd love it if he did - one of my hobbies is bludgeoning people with their own dogma). I suspect his tactic of spamming this on paleo/low-carb/metabolism blogs will backfire, as it gives many opportunities to demonstrate how nonsensical the whole 30bananasaday.com is to those not yet indoctrinated (I'll bet eating 30 bananas a day does wonders for one's capability for irrational thought). Note that he actually spammed 30BaD with this same nonsense, which seems like an extreme version of preaching to the choir.

Also check this out: even other raw vegans find this guy to be over the top.

I cross-posted my reply to durianrider's blog, and encourage all others whom he spammed to do likewise. It's good for driving search engine traffic the "right" direction, if nothing else :-) If 30BaD approves my registration (current guess is 100:1 against), I will also post my reply there, and see how long it lasts. You never know, sometimes (rarely) people surprise you...

Dr. B G said...

The dude is just hopeless. He appears clearly 'high'...!! (on fruit... DURIAN)

I got spammed too. You know my diabetic individuals have blood glucoses of 300-400s easily with one banana...

ONE.

Does one think that is healthy? No fruit can be brain-damaging just like candy... um yeah.

He argued where are the meat-eating body builders (and I deleted)? Um again yeah -- has he checked out CROSSFIT??! Or any paleo/evo/primal site. wtf.

I got a good laugh!

durianrider said...

I never said 'show me an elite non vegan athlete' I said 'show me an elite athlete that eats a high fat diet aka paleo diet. Ive trained with Lance Armstrong, he aint no vegan but he doesnt eat a lot of animal either and eats a super low fat diet. So I know there is plenty of drugged up non vegan athletes but we wont find one that eats a high fat diet. Thats my point.

Even Jonas himself eats a high carb diet.

I talked with Jonas yesterday on email. This what he said when I asked what % of his diet is carbs/fat in terms of total calories, Jonas said "Hey,
I have no idea what so ever. I don´t concern myself with that but rather
concentrate on getting the best quality possible in my diet.
It would also differ greatly on what kind of day I´m having and what I´m
doing. The more training I´m doing the more carbs I´ll be having but the
actual percentage may still be relative as "more" only relates to some days
when I´ll be having virtually no carbs.

Sorry I can´t give you a more specific answer.

Jonas is a great guy no doubt but he trains a lot and hence eats a lot of carbs.

Any real athletes you can show me that eat a high fat diet? Didnt think so. :)

durianrider said...

You's are not getting my point..Paleo diet is about zero to no carbs yet all these athletes you mention are eating a diet high in carbs. Even Joe Friel who co-authored the 'paleo diet for athletes 'eats about 70% of his calories from carbs judging by his latest blog.

Show me the 'true paleo athlete that forgoes carbs and lives soley on fat and protein'.

Does that make sense?

Sure i put up the same post, just cos I dont have 23 hours to write individual ones. Its not spam but an invite to show me, durianrider, the zero carb paleo athlete.'. I did a youtube about it and have thousands of hits on it. Not one taker so far..

Peace.

durianrider said...

I put up a youtube video about how to cure hypoglycemia/diabeties on a high sugar diet. You should check it out sometime..

How come NONE of these bloggers can run even a 10k as fast as me? :)

Dave said...

@durianrider,

Thanks for replying, and bringing us some entertainment from banana-land. I wanted to be sure that people understood that your version of reality is, well, "interesting", and you couldn't have fulfilled my plans any more successfully. It's fairly telling that you can't collect your thoughts in a single comment. Did I count 13? A little scattered, don't you think? Try to be more prepared next time. My high-fat diet makes me so tired, and I have to click the check box on every comment. It's brutal. If only I had some bananas...

I especially enjoyed your insinuation that Denise Minger isn't a real person. You've used your prodigious intellectual powers to deduce that she is, in fact, an alien from the planet Egjolk, brought here by the great and powerful empire of the Weston A. Price Foundation to create Excel spreadsheet analyses to annoy intransigent vegans. No dice, eh? I suppose we'll have to resort to using actual scientific evidence.

Oh wait, already did that.

And how about spamming your original comment across multiple paleo blogs? Is this part of some coordinated strategy to educate people, or just electronic penis waving?

Maybe you didn't get enough bananas before setting a new world record in the 10K. Here's what you said, only yesterday:

"Come and see if ANY of you guys can out bench press/dead lift us"

Did that. Your best guy barely stays in front of my paleo friend who does power-lifting recreationally. As he says, "weak sauce, dude".

I'm very impressed that you trained with Lance Armstrong. Did you get to share his banana? I'm curious about your commitment to the vegan lifestyle, though. How come "Lance" doesn't follow your lead into this "optimal" way of eating? Indeed, you seem to be rapidly back-pedaling from your vegan stance, particularly in terms of athletic performance.

I guess that the Jonas Colting in this interview is also a WAPF zombie? Since you're such good buddies with Jonas, please have him drop by and tell us about his diet.

I see you haven't taken me up on my intellectual challenge. Wise choice. But if you change your mind and want to go one-on-one, come prepared with your metabolic pathways and cellular biology, not to mention a healthy dose of open mind and rationality.

Are you going to approve my registration for 30BaD? Or is your banana not stiff enough to stand up to some open discussion?

In all seriousness, if you want to discuss science, I'm all for it. If you want to prove your manhood to me, you'll have to show up at my doorstep. I'll happily post any further ravings just to reinforce the point that your touch with reality is tenuous, but any further two-way discussion will need to be on scientific topics.

e4e said...

Durianrider is way off-base on a lot of stuff. His base assertion that paleo = zerocarb is the start of his strawman. But there's a germ of an interesting discussion in here.

If we believe the press reports, many world class athletes do eat high-carb fairly unhealthful diets.

So I wonder if some of them would do even better if they went in a more paleo or lower carb direction. Probably the intensity of the sport matters, i.e. sprinters and powerlifters need full glycogen, whereas marathoners who could adapt to lower carb might actually have a huge benefit from burning more fat.

Insulin does help the body assimilate protein as well as fat, so in the peri-workout periods, some carbs might help body composition (muscles soak up the sugar as glycogen, insulin helps absorption of protein).

It is an interesting issue: How does a diet that maximizes health correlate with a diet that maximizes athletic performance?

I feel highly confident that a raw vegan diet has very little overlap with either. I believe that a paleo diet is pretty close to the optimum for health, and I suspect that paleo with some additional judicious carbs thrown in around training and competition would be closer for many sports.

Cheers,
Tony

Chris said...

Durian. You are embarrassing yourself. Since when was a paleo diet about "zero to no carbs".

durianrider said...

But who is this high fat eater that can dead lift that much? Get him to do a youtube on his daily diet, otherwise he is just someone you made up.

I emailed Jonas and he eats a lot of carbs when he is training lots, which for Jonas,is all the time.

Anyone can ask Jonas the same question I did and get the same answer.

How come there is no high fat athlete we can objectively refer too? :) They are always 'I know a guy, and I heard someone that heard of someone that just ate lard alll day and could bench press double the world record he good, or maybe it was triple the world record..'

enough chinese whispers and faceless faces..lets see some lifting and eating blogs on youtube like i have put up with my sports and diet.

Michael said...

Actually I think DurianRider has a point, there are very few elite athletes in any sport eating a high fat paleo diet.

On the other hand, he proves too much, as there are very few if any elite athletes eating a low fat raw vegan fruitarian diet - the diet he champions.

If he wants to argue that zero carb is not done by any elite athlete that we know of, I will concede the point.

If he wants to argue that high fat low carb is done by very few elite athletes, I will concede the point.

But if he wants to argue that therefore his low fat raw vegan fruitarian diet is superior, I won't concede the point, as he has committed the classic non-sequitor, i.e. it does not follow logically or in actual practice that those carb eating elite athletes are following his diet. In other words, eating high carb doesn't mean eating LFRV is superior.

All his posts appeared beneath articles detailing Denise Minger's work, which did not in any way deal with the optimal diet for an athlete. They are in fact a refutation of the claims that Campbell made based on the raw uncorrected correlations in The China Study. Nothing more, nothing less.

So the attempt to change the discussion to whether or not elite athletes are eating a high fat low carb paleo diet is a straw man, especially since no elite athletes are following his recommended diet.

What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Not to mention there are "paleo" groups who do eat a high carb diet.

http://bit.ly/bhvvJr

Dave said...

Ah, how I love the law of unintended consequences. durianrider's attempt to sow FUD has allowed our little community to exhibit my favorite trait: an open-minded an ever-changing view of how nutrition and health are related, driven by new information.

When I first experienced major benefits from a low-carb diet, I extrapolated this incorrectly: since low-carb was so good for me, then carbohydrates were intrinsically bad for you. Some of you may have shared a similar experience. But I had no stake in pushing a specific philosophy - I wanted to maximize the health of myself and family. Your valuation of different choices depends on your information about the future. Once upon a time, we thought aspartame was a relatively benign replacement for sugar or saccharine, making it a relatively more valuable choice. Today, not so much.

Michael's example of the Kitavans is a good one, and learning of them certainly was the watershed moment for my thinking. Clearly it was not simply total dietary carbohydrate at the root of metabolic disease. Our new information about the high-carbohydrate Kitavan diet caused us to update the relative weights we assigned to different hypotheses, as well as explore hypotheses not yet widely conjectured. Maybe other aspects of Kitavan life were protective. Maybe specific forms of carbohydrate or fats (I believe most of the Kitavans' fat intake is SFA from coconuts) were more/less harmful. And so forth.

The point is, as our information about the world was updated, so were our beliefs. THAT is the scientific process at work, the understanding that you can't possibly know everything perfectly, and hence can never assign absolute truth to any belief about the real world (mathematics has "truth" built in by definitions). We embrace and incorporate new knowledge, realizing that (on average) appropriate updating of our beliefs will lead us toward truth, even though we may never actually get there. We could have hid our heads in the sands over an ideological challenge like the Kitavans (BTW, durianrider, how's that approval of my 30BaD registration progressing?). Instead we revised our view of the world to incorporate this new information.

Enough gushing - point is, I like it. If things had worked like this when I was a professional scientist, I still might be one today. So thank you, durianrider, for reaffirming that I picked the right team (and get on that approval). :)

Anonymous said...

The definition of rationality is that two people with the same information will draw the same conclusions.

Really?! I've frequently been accused of black-and-white thinking, and even I think you've mis-defined what rationality is. I can have a perfectly rational debate whose conclusions differ from mine, based on the same set of data.

For example, it's documented that people with a greater capacity for self-deception (as measured by the amount of white matter in the prefrontal cortex and responses to a questionnaire of embarrassing intimate questions) also test to be happier than those who have fewer illusions. One could reasonably argue either that we should all practice a moderate amount of self-delusion or face reality more squarely, and accept less happiness as a result.

As a fictional TV character once said, "the evidence is just the evidence. You need a skilled interpreter to arrive at the truth." And reasonable people can civilly disagree about what any given set of evidence means. That said, the absolute lack of skewing of, and fabrication of evidence by the pro-carb establishment is another matter entirely.

Dave said...

@Anonymous

All information is not data. There is other information locked in your brain that I do not contain in mine, and vice versa. We can both be rational and arrive at different conclusions because we started at different information states. If we want to rationally arrive at the same conclusion, we must start at the same state of information, which requires communication.

I like physics examples, because they're simple (and I'm a physicist). Suppose we're going to do an experiment where we drop a ball off of a building. Each of us is going to predict how long it takes for the ball to hit the ground. To do so, we must have two things: a model for the ball's trajectory as a function of time GIVEN initial conditions (height, speed, etc.), and the values of these initial conditions.

We find our predictions to be different. How could this difference arise? One of us could have made a calculational error, easily checked. We could be using different models. Or we could have received different values for the initial conditions. Both the latter represent information. If we have the same information (model and data), and nobody made any math errors, we'd better get the same answer.

Scientific inference should be no different. "Rational" here means nobody made any calculational errors, in essence. We both applied a logically consistent analysis. The precise steps in reasoning may be different, but ultimately must be equivalent. Otherwise there would be no point in doing science in the first place.

Dave said...

@e4e,

Agreed there's plenty of fodder for discussion. I'm even willing to entertain durianrider's banana hypothesis, if he wants to discuss it from a metabolic standpoint.

Richard Feinman makes a good point about one size not fitting all when it comes to diet. Elite athletes likely have different requirements and tolerances than people like me who spend most of their time sitting at a computer, or who have damaged their metabolisms with prior poor nutritional choices (like uninformed vegetarianism). A power-lifter likely creates a massive sink for both glucose and insulin, between having large muscle mass and anaerobically respiration. Their response to a glucose challenge is likely far different than mine.

And glucose delivers greater power (energy per unit time) than does fat, though of course fat has a lot more energy density in its stored form. In principle, you could replenish glucose stores via gluconeogenesis, but this may occur too slowly for a competition athlete. And as you point out, insulin is required for growth of lean tissue, and other growth hormones come along for the ride.

So lots of discussion fodder. The CrossFit Football site has some interesting stuff, see here:

http://www.crossfitfootball.com/page/index.php?menu=nutrition&page=nutrition

I haven't gotten into the details yet. The goals of maximizing health and maximizing athletic performance may or may not have much overlap. The degree probably depends on the time period, i.e. if you want to have peak performance over an extended period of your life, you probably need to be health. Extreme example would be steroid users, who certainly achieve considerable performance, but also do considerable damage to their health in a relatively short time.

durianrider said...

Chris, just read Sissons, Vonderplanitz and Cordains carb phobic blogs.

'Paleo man lived on meat!'

durianrider said...

Good point Tony, but as an ELITE ATHLETE MYSELF!:) I can tell you that with out sufficient daily carb intake, we cant train at the intensity/volume/frequency and or duration we need to to reach our goals.

Show me the high fat,low carb elite athlete..exactly. This is my original point that peeps seem to be missing..

Even Sisson and Cordain have a gut thesedays..thats why they circulate old school photos of emselves..

durianrider said...

Some of you guys gotta get out of ya head and into your heart and start living instead of thinking about living..

follow your heart
increase the peace
go vegan! :)

durianrider said...

you guys talk a lot but dont say much or play much.

get outside and get some sunshine on those atrophied muscles!

I did a 90km epic mountain bike ride today whilst you's thought about going outside or not..

life's short,make it worth it! :)

durianrider said...

Michael, there is many elite high carb,low fat eating vegan athletes.

Rich Roll (ultra athlete)
Michael Arnstein (marathon)
Carl Lewis (Track and field )
Scott Jurek (Ultramarathon athlete)
Brendan Brazier (Ironman triathlete)
Kenneth Williams (Bodybuilder)
Prince Fielder (Major League Baseball player)
Tony Gonzalez (Baseball player)
Jonathan Daniel (Major League Baseball relief pitcher)
Edwin Moses (track and field)
Pat Neshek (Baseball player)
Mac Danzig (Mixed martial arts fighter )

but can anyone show me one high fat,low carb elite athlete? didnt think so..

how come cordain and sisson have guts thesedays and never have any elite athletes on their programme..its sounds like its just a diet programme for fat couch potatoes that will always be fat cos they dont eat right/exercise.

Dave said...

@durianrider,

You still haven't approved my registration for 30bananasaday.com. I've shown you the courtesy of posting your comments here, even though I disagree with your views (and despite their lack of scientific content; "look at my dick" doesn't count as science). And given the volume of comments you've posted, you clearly have plenty of free time to click the check-box and approve my application.

Censorship has no place in science, and if you block alternative views from your site, you clearly indicate your commitment to dogma, and an unwillingness to participate in the scientific method.

Dave said...

@Chris Kresser,

Just re-read your comment while typing in the comment box, and thought I'd comment :-)

I know what you're saying about "hit-and-run" posters. Here's why I respond:

There are two possible outcomes when I respond to a comment like this. The commenter can basically vanish (as usually happens), which then demonstrates their true motives to any other readers. Or they can respond, in which case we have two more possibilities: they either show themselves to be irrational babbling idiots, or they contribute something useful. In all cases, I (and other readers) come out ahead.

That's a lot of my point about communication, information, and science. We can disagree about what some data means, but for science to progress, we need to get at the root of that disagreement. One possibility is that one (or both) of us is reasoning inconsistently. The other is that we have different information, in which case we have something to learn from each other.

A good example is my interaction with Monica Reinagel from NutritionData.com. She and I disagree on many points, but are also willing to communicate our reasoning behind that disagreement. I won't presume to say if I've changed her beliefs at all, but she has caused me to think more deeply on more than occasion, e.g. leading to this post on how insulin provides a unifying model for apparently disparate fat-loss approaches.

Dave said...

Right in line with the topic of accepting new information and changing beliefs: Jonny Bowden has a nice post on how Dr. Andrew Weil has reversed his stance on saturated fat and disease. Kudos to Dr. Weil for caring more about the health of his followers than preserving ideology.

Logan said...

Durian,

I've started simply skimming your many and nonsensical posts, but FYI- Tony Gonzalez is a professional football player (not baseball), and is a former vegan, not current. He added animal protein back into his diet because he found he was not able to get enough protein in his diet any other way.

I think the better way to think of the handful of athletes you mention is that they are successful despite of their diet, not because of it. Also, no paleo-advocate has ever said that you can't be a vegan and an athlete. Absolutes are for extremists those people with inflexible minds.

Dave said...

@Logan,

Nice. How much do you want to bet that durianrider responds along the lines of "I never said...".

Alex said...

"Michael, there is many elite high carb,low fat eating vegan athletes."

Michael specifically questioned how many elite athletes eat YOUR low fat raw vegan fruitarian diet, and you responded with a list of vegan athletes. I Googled the first six, and it appears that at least three of them eat cooked food. I only saw one out of the six that appeared to be part of the 80/10/10 LFRV fruitarian crowd. Padding your list with athletes who eat more conventional vegan diets does not refute Michael's claim that very few elite athletes eat YOUR diet.

Dave said...

Maybe the first thing we need in this discussion is to get some idea of how the goal of maximizing athletic performance aligns with the goal of maximizing "health". I put "health" in quotes because we also need to define that, to some extent.

In the same vein, what measure of athletic performance is relevant? From an evolutionary standpoint, is there much advantage to being able to run a long distance a little faster than the next guy? Or is it better to have explosive strength/quickness? Which of these most increases the odds that you will successfully propagate your genes?

Walter said...

Charles Washington would be an example of an endurance athlete who eats zero carb - see his blog for details.

Athletic ability and health are two separately things - athletes take risks to achieve performance and a high carb diet is one of those risks.

Dave said...

@Walter,

But an interesting question is whether or not those risks are required to achieve the desired level of athletic performance.

Sue said...

Yes, its an interesting question. But the majority of folks are just looking to eat the best they can for health. I can't see how eating fruit only achieves this.
I don't care how much I can bench-press or how fast I can run. I just want health.

Durian, stop it with the "you's" - it makes me wince everytime I read it. What sort of work do you do or are you a dole bludger?

Walter said...

@Dave

Might not be - I can't remember if it was primal wisdom, conditioning research, or this site that talked about the study that showed (think it was primal wisdom) that after adjusting to fat burning endurance athletes performed the same on fat as carbs, but that carbs would help an explosive movement.

Since my weight lifting is about health first and fitness second I don't care what my 1 rep max is.

Squats I don't ever intend to go below 10 reps, if I want to go heavy I deadlift and then never below 3 reps. Bench and rows usually 10 reps and rarely below 5 reps, etc.

Endurance work does more to tear the body down than it does to build it up - sets of 15-20 and the occasional sprint is sufficient for health.

Dave said...

Hmmmm, I still am not able to log in to 30bananasaday.com. They said approvals can take up to 48 hours, but it's been several days now. Is it possible that what they promote is basically religious belief, dietary dogma, such that "non-believers" must be silenced?

I'd better watch it before I wind up the subject of a "banana fatwah"...

Dave said...

@Walter,

Nice points.

If I remember correctly, glucose delivers 3 times more power than fat (e.g. energy can be produced at 3x the rate). That's great if your goal requires that you max power output. But like you, when I work out I'm looking to achieve a specific end not related to impressing the durianriders of the world. I want to burn out my glycogen to promote insulin sensitivity in my muscle tissue. The quality matters less than the quantity, all I really want to do is achieve burnout in a fairly short time.

I like Dr. Richard Feinman's point: you are not what you eat, but what your body does with what you eat. Metabolism is a process of transformation. Your body can transform protein+fat into glucose, and you can crank up glycogen stores just by eating steak and sitting on your ass. Conversely, following an 80-10-10 diet as advocated by 30BaD results in a good chunk of the 80% carbohydrate being converted into saturated fat by the liver, probably mostly stored. The precise macronutrient ratios may not make much difference to an endurance athlete, simply in terms of how much glycogen vs. how much fat is stored, since a healthy body can transform back and forth as required. It may make a difference in terms of tuning the metabolism to use a range of fuels. If I remember correctly, in the interview linked above, Jonas Colting claims that by staying low glycemic he has an easier time transitioning from burning glucose to burning fat during competition, and has less of a "wall" to break through when his glycogen is exhausted.

On the other hand, if you're looking to "get huge", you probably want the whole range of macronutrients, and in large quantities. You obviously need protein to build muscle, and the carb+fat combination will maximize insulin production (fat amplifies insulin output). CrossFit Football recommends whole milk for similar reasons: "Increased IGF, hGH, insulin, testosterone come from drinking whole milk."

Hmmm, I wonder what eating 30 bananas a day would do to IGF, hGH, insulin, and testosterone?

Melissa said...

High fat bodybuilder Mr. Labrador a few years ago, just from one quick web search that Durian could certainly have found himself had he looked:

http://www.thegeorgian.ca/Sports/2008-06-17/article-1527430/Benoit-makes-bodybuilding-history/1

Dave said...

@Melissa,

Nice one, thanks.

I have a feeling we won't be hearing from durianrider again. For him to continue commenting here while keeping me shut out of 30BaD would further reinforce the dogmatic nature of his beliefs.

But if he did reply, I'll bet he'd say something like "I emailed Benoit, and he eats tons of carbs" etc.

@durianrider - are you going to step up here or what? Or are you paralyzed by cognitive dissonance?

durianrider said...

I had to give up animal products cos I was close to death. Ive lost family and friends to diet of animal products. Heart disease,cancer,obesity, depression, chronic fatigue..the list goes on and on.

Gonzalez couldnt get enough protein on a vegan diet? Maybe he should talk to the more muscle bound vegans at www.veganbodybuilding.com

durianrider said...

Ive got a youtube channel too people, so feel free to spam my channel if you think Im spamm'n yours. :)

Check out my latest vid..and the other recent ones..

'durianriders' is the channel name.

durianrider said...

Thats what some paleo promoters are spout'n these days.."You only get heart disease from farmed animals..' but this is simply more lies with fries.

We only have to look at 'royalty' from the past that lived in times of no hotdogs, burgers etc to see that heart disease was still rampant amongst them. Royalty that could afford to eat animals products and in amounts that 'poor' people couldnt. Looks like the 'poor' lived healthier, fitter lives but in ignorance that they have health and the royalty only wealth.

Eat grass fed, organic, wild animals just like they did hundreds/thousands of years ago and get the heart disease that they did. Here is a link to evidence of heart disease in mummies.

Walter said...

@Dave

In line with "you are what your body does with what you eat", I was just reminded that when you eat non-meat products 1) bowel movements are more frequent and 2) they are larger.

Why put the waste products in the system to begin with?

Going back to low carb from zero carb might have been a mistake. Not a horrible mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

Cognitive dissonance is easily transformed into cognitive rigidity - probably even has its own biochemical pathway.

Dave said...

@durianrider,

I think you're going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to the paleo/low-carb movement. Keep up the good work, providing a shining example for people to avoid.

You forgot the link to the "mummies evidence", along with a lot of punctuation and grammar.

What's the status of approving my registration on 30bananasaday.com? I've got some great info for the people there.

Asclepius said...

"Looks like the 'poor' lived healthier, fitter lives but in ignorance that they have health and the royalty only wealth."

Historically, whether the poor had superior heart health to the wealthy is debateable.

But even if the poor DID have generally superior heart health, this might have had more to do with intermittent fasting and/or calorie restriction than the wealthy engaging in more meat eating.

Certainly I doubt the poor of 'Merrie Olde Englande' ever ate bannanas never mind 30 a day!

Dave said...

The rich also had greater access to refined carbohydrates.

I would note that all refined carbohydrates are "plant-based", which makes this term pretty pointless in relation to health. You could eat a "plant-based" diet consisting of white bread topped with sugar. I suspect even eating 30 bananas a day would be more healthy ;-)

Michael said...

@durianrider

Chris, just read Sissons, Vonderplanitz and Cordains carb phobic blogs.

When did Vonderplanitz become carb-phobic? Anyone who has his followers downing extracted juice is not carb-phobic. However he is certainly cooked food "phobic" but you obviously need to diss him since he eats.....alarms bells ringing...raw meat.

Michael, there is many elite high carb,low fat eating vegan athletes.

I didn't mention anything about high carb low fat eating vegan athletes. I specifically referenced athletes following your diet - which is low fat raw vegan.

Further, the list you posted is disingenuous, as anyone who Googles each individual will soon find out.

At best, only one person on that list is following your diet, which is exactly my point. Rare.

@Walter

Charles Washington would be an example of an endurance athlete who eats zero carb - see his blog for details.

I don't think he fits in the category of "elite" as we are using it here.

athletes take risks to achieve performance and a high carb diet is one of those risks.

High carb diets per se are not risky.

durianrider said...

I guess its hard to have debates with people that are not up to date with the latest breakthroughs in nutritional science.

Look at today's front page of the largest veg site on the planet with over a 100 000 hits day.. www.vegsource.com.

How come none of the paleo/primal/high fat eater crew have any blood tests on youtube like I have? :)

Asclepius said...

"The rich also had greater access to refined carbohydrates."

Yep, and one presumes the poor were more malnourished.

Lots of death from multiple causes. Not sure how we can tease out the 'meat eating gave royalty CHD' argument from this!

(Following Durianrider around the blogosphere has actually been a blessing. I've just spent an enjoyable couple of hours reading your past posts. A very imformative stuff Dave.)

Dave said...

@durianrider,

I guess it's hard to have debates with people who are not open to debate. How come none of you 30BaD people will approve my registration to your site?

Dave said...

@Asclepius,

Thank you. I'm glad you got something positive from the blog.

Walter said...

@ Michael

Don't think Charles is an elite athlete, just mentioned him as an example of how an endurance athlete who is adapted to fat-burning does not need carbs.

While a paleo diet that is high carb might not be risky, high carb diets as typically done by athletes often lead to type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc.

Sue said...

Durianrider how come you don't mention that you had B12 shots on that blood test results you tube?
Paleo eaters don't feel the need to do a you tube on their blood test results because they are not expecting deficiency results like with a vegan diet.
I think I'll pass using vegsource.com as my "source" of intelligent information.

Unknown said...

In the interest of sharing useful nutritional information, here is a link to an organization that encourages rational discourse about vegetarian diets and some of the many problems that long-term vegetarianism faces. It is put together by contributions from long-term vegetarians whose aim is to dispel some of the more blatant mis-truths being promulgated by the various extremist "gurus". If you choose to adopt a vegetarian diet, be informed. Whether your eating as an omnivore or a fruitivore, ignorance is your worst enemy. Here is the link: http://beyondveg.com/billings-t/open-lett/open-letter-f-1a.shtml

Dave said...

@Michelle,

BeyondVeg is indeed a great resource, one I wish more people on both sides of the debate would look at.