Cravings vs. Appetite

[Kaylee]

Kaylee, I hate to rain on your anti-glutamate parade, but Glutamic acid is an amino acid that is in just about everything.

NP casebro, I was expecting to get some disagreements on this one.

I probably should have written my post differently so that all my quotes were at the end of what I had to say. Some of my comments, buried in between the quotes and links, got lost no doubt.

Like I said in my earlier post, I don't have any problem with the glutamates naturally in foods -- I just don't want to eat them in the form of food additives. It hasn't been difficult to cut back on them.

I just switched brands of foods that I use to buy and I also buy fewer processed foods. I eat a little simpler now. I'll still buy canned soups (with MSG) when I want to make a casserole though.

As for restaurants -- I can't prove whether I'm still eating MSG and/or HFCS although I have my suspicions. There is one restaurant in particular where I always leave even hungrier than before I entered. So why do I eat there? Because it's where I have a monthly meeting and it would be a real hassle to get everyone to agree to a different place.

Before I had read up on MSG and HFCS I just thought I had a strange reaction to food. (I was almost always constantly hungry.) I didn't realize that this was within the range of a normal reaction to foods high in HFCS and MSG. I have since revised my grocery lists, recipes and some of the restaurants that I've gone to, and I'm a little more comfortable now. It's nice not to be ravenously hungry less than 20 minutes after I just finished eating a big meal.

 

[ysabella]

Kaylee, thank you for the kind words about my blog.

I've looked at the MSG thing before, and I'm not really convinced that it's dangerous. I mean, I don't eat buckets of straight MSG, but I also don't worry about it.
I will say, though, I think if people want it to be clearly indicated by labeling, I don't see anything wrong with that. I think people should know what's in their food!

It's nearly impossible, and can be quite misleading, to draw conclusions just from the abstracts of studies - but I did go look at all of these:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=9252497&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_docsum

The mice were implanted with "osmotic minipumps" - I don't think that is ingested MSG, it sounds like it's right into the blood. Hopefully someone with lab experience can correct me if I'm wrong there.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...uids=16463577&query_hl=11&itool=pubmed_docsum

"Parenteral" means it was not ingested - possibly injected. They mention the "highest oral dose" but we don't know how much that dose was - it might have been enormous. Even if I could get the full text, it's in Spanish, and I don't know Spanish.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...uids=15925301&query_hl=13&itool=pubmed_docsum

That one is actually oral, but (a)quite a lot of MSG (100g per kg of body weight - that would be pounds and pounds of it for a human), and (b)a fiber-rich diet counteracted the effects. That would seem to me like reason not to worry so much...?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=3823160&query_hl=24&itool=pubmed_docsum

This was injected MSG, again.

None of these seem to be reasons to worry about the small amounts that occur in foods. Getting a reasonable variety in your diet probably offers plenty of protection against the occasional restaurant meal.

I am glad to see you don't worry about the naturally occurring glutamates. I had someone argue with me about that before, how even the small amount of annatto used to color butter is supposedly dangerous. He felt that every speck of glutamate (of any kind) crossed the blood/brain barrier and acted "just like cocaine," an excitotoxin. His reasoning was that we all suffer damage to the blood/brain barrier whenever we run a fever...I don't think that's true (I'm hardly an expert, although my mother was with me on that, and she's a neurologist).

I should write this up for the blog, really. Just been a little busy lately.

 

[Kaylee]

Thanks for taking the time to go through and comment on those abstracts Ysabella!

I agree with you that the label regulations should be changed and that people should be able to know if additional glutamates were added to their foods.

I also agree with you that it can be risky to draw conclusions from abstracts rather than the entire article. Unfortunately it’s a matter of time and money. I don't have time to go to the library where I could access some of thoe articles for free and its not practical for me to subscribe to a lot of professional journals.

What I usually do is research the topic I'm interested in on the net, try to draw some conclusions, and then see if I can back it up with the abstracts on PubMed. But that can be risky, I agree.

So you, Casebro and the FDA may be right and perhaps MSG in normal dosages does not directly cause obesity or even overeating in most people. (I think its fair to say that the science community agrees that it would in abnormal dosages.) As time permits I will try to see if I can find (again -- I think I had found some last summer) any double blinded studies on the negative effects of normal quantities of food additives with MSG or other forms of glutamate on people. Maybe I'll even go to the library if I find any promising abstracts.

However, in the meantime, I think it's worth remembering that food manufacturers are willing to take on the cost of adding food additives with glutamate in their products because they believe it will make their products more desirable to the public. If I already have an issue with food and like to eat too much, why do I need to buy food treated with something designed to make it even more appetizing to me? I obviously don't need any help in that department. YMMV.

Regardless, I would probably have a diet low in MSG additives anyway because I have more than one reason to do so. For years I have tried to have a low-sodium (or at least a lower sodium ) diet. If a diet is low in sodium, chances are that it will be low in MSG. IIRC, adding MSG additives to food also increases the sodium percentage in food (I don't know if that is true for all forms of glutamate and I'm in the middle of trying to find that out. If someone already happens to know -- pls post!).

My grandparents had high blood pressure and I decided to be proactive about this a long time ago and buy foods low in sodium. Did it work? It's hard to say. So far I do have normal blood pressure (thank goodness!) but my sibs have had high blood pressure for years now. Now do I have normal blood pressure because I started altering my diet in my late 20s* or because regardless of what I ate, I never would have gotten high blood pressure? There's no way for me to definitively answer that question.

Also in regard to your friend who believes that glutamate can cross the blood brain barrier -- I think that's dependent on how much sodium is in the blood at the same time. I just skimmed this very quickly, but I think that is the gist of this PubMed abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10736373&dopt=

Anyway, if my interpretation is correct, this could be another reason why mono sodium glutamate is problematic.

As an aside, I think its great that your mom is a neurologist and you can bounce ideas off her.


* What I starting doing in my late 20s (I'm 48 now) is watching the sodium content of foods that I ate or drank on a regular basis. I would still buy some processed foods high in sodium that I only ate occasionally, reasoning that my daily sodium consumption was still low.

Starting last summer when I intentionally avoided foods with MSG, my sodium consumption went down even more. The main difference in my grocery list is I stopped buying canned chicken and meat soups. Its not a big deal, I have a very simple recipe for a meat soup, it literally cooks on its own and I just make a few big batches a few times a year.

FWIW, I've found that I'm satisfied with one bowl of my soup** and I never was satisfied with one bowl of the canned soups.


** After I substituted tumeric and other spices for the bouillion cubes (lots of MSG!).

 

[ysabella]

I dropped the canned soups (for the most part) years ago, when my boyfriend at the time mentioned growing up on a farm (in Union Gap, WA) and how the least-healthy chickens with tumors and such would be sold to Campbell's Soup. Yeah, that'll put you off for life.

 

[Kaylee]

I dropped the canned soups (for the most part) years ago, when my boyfriend at the time mentioned growing up on a farm (in Union Gap, WA) and how the least-healthy chickens with tumors and such would be sold to Campbell's Soup. Yeah, that'll put you off for life.

Hmmm,perhaps that's why I can't find any meat soups in the health foods dept. of my grocery store. They carry varieties of (low sodium and no MSG) vegetarian soups but no meat or chicken soups. Hmmm....

I always thought the chickens with tumors went to the pet food manufacturers ... good to know. I'm feeling a bit nauseous now, but still good to know.

ETA Guess this is another reason why some non-Jewish people buy kosher foods. I don't think chickens with tumors are considered kosher.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I think that it's more important for a specific population - people who have diabetes or pre-diabetic problems like insulin resistance. I'm not sure long-term studies have been done that have taken that into account.
Here is a meta-analysis that discusses "metabolic syndrome" and restricted carb diets.
I know people for whom, say, Weight Watchers has worked very well, which was restricting calories, and restricting fats more than carbs. It clearly works. All I'm trying to say is, for some people, the low-carb model works better.


Anecdotally, I hang out on a site with plenty of long-term low-carbers, but it's of course a self-selecting population. (Actually, some researchers ran a survey via the site, that might be of some interest.)
I have been there since I started with Atkins in January, 2003. I have not stayed on Atkins, but I have never gone back to the way I was eating before January, 2003. Even when I'm not trying, I eat a moderate-carb diet of mostly whole foods.


I'm hoping the meta-article I linked at the top has some interesting references for now, as right now I need to finish some work. I'll see what else I can find of interest.
Also: I mentioned something earlier in the thread about how previous testing of high-fat diets were really high-fat high-carb diets - here is a discussion of that. It's mostly mouse models we're talking about in that case; most lab mouse chow is high-carb, so then when they feed the mice extra fats, they are getting both.

The studies didn't say people failed on one diet and did better on another. According to the lecture (I'm still sorry not to have sources) people did the same regardless and tended to migrate back to a more typical mix of carbs fat and protein after time.

Looking at your link, it was hard to find the percentage of people who lost the 30 or more pounds and kept it off. Do you know how many did?

I also noticed :

Competing interests

MCV has held a consulting relationship with Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.

but that doesn't mean the data is necessarily suspect. It didn't seem to be. And I notice you migrated back toward your usual mix just as has been found with most people. It's hard to stick to those diets which again suggests a biological drive to eat a certain mix of carbs, fats and protein.

There is nothing wrong with eating a low carb diet as long as it is a relatively healthy diet. Atkins has the cardiologists in an uproar. I have no opinion one way or the other because I haven't looked into it.


The thing that many people (not just in this thread) aren't looking at is how few people succeed in losing weight. Everyone isn't weak willed. Thin people might simply eat less, but calorie consumption is not simply easy to control. You can hold your breath, but only for so long. When you breathe again, you body breathes to catch back up it doesn't just start from the 02 deficit and not compensate.

1) Bodies have a set weight point.
2) It's easy to overeat for a number of reasons from psych to social to environmental to genes. (Comforted by eating, clean your plate and family serves big portions, see food eat food, and pregnancy are respective examples.)
3) The body resists losing weight. It doesn't resist gaining though it doesn't alone cause all weight gain. In other words, fat or thin, most people reach some set weight and maintain it even if they gain weight intermittently.
4) When you restrict calories, your metabolism slows.
5) After initial weight loss, typically water loss mostly, your body wants more calories. It is almost as hard to resist eating more as it is to resist breathing.
6) Your metabolism doesn't catch up as fast as your eating.
7) You gain more than you lost.


What is the evidence the biological drive to maintain weight is as strong as the biological drive to breathe? The extremely low success rate of people who lose weight and keep it off. The whole population of humans does not consist of 95% weak willed people. There are few if any other ways to explain what we observe.

 

[Kaylee]

I dropped the canned soups (for the most part) years ago, when my boyfriend at the time mentioned growing up on a farm (in Union Gap, WA) and how the least-healthy chickens with tumors and such would be sold to Campbell's Soup. Yeah, that'll put you off for life.

Hmmm,perhaps that's why I can't find any meat soups in the health foods dept. of my grocery store. They carry varieties of (low sodium and no MSG) vegetarian soups but no meat or chicken soups. Hmmm....

I always thought the chickens with tumors went to the pet food manufacturers ... good to know. I'm feeling a bit nauseous now, but still good to know.

ETA Guess this is another reason why some non-Jewish people buy kosher foods. I don't think chickens with tumors are considered kosher.

Ysabella, I've been thinking about this post (I guess I must be a nerd ) and I suspect that your former boyfriend was just teasing you.

What made me decide to revisit this is because it's one thing for people (including research scientists) and organizations to disagree upon at which point a dosage of food additives becomes a problem, and another thing to suspect that unhealthy animals are being intentionally permitted into the human food chain. For the former I'm definitely on the conservative side, but I can't be counted in the latter group, not yet anyway!

Here's a link for the USDA Poultry Grading Manual: http://www.ams.usda.gov/Poultry/resources/PYGradingManual.pdf

See pg. 4, paragraph in upper right column that discusses the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 and the Wholesome Products Inspected Acts of 1968. Basically if its been processed for human inspection in the USA, it's been inspected by the USDA. I didn't see any exceptions in the manual for poultry designated for soups.

For factors that affect grading, see pg. 7, second paragraph under the subheading "Standards of Quality" in the left column.

I would suspect that the chickens that get bruising and broken bones (hopefully after slaughter and not before) end up in the canned soups. And of course the scrawnier ones.

If a chicken is diseased (which I assume would include those that have tumors) it gets classified as Grade 4D and is sold to the pet manufacturing companies. Link: http://www.flint-river-dog-food.com/pet_nutritional_needs.htm.

 

[Kaylee]

...According to the lecture (I'm still sorry not to have sources) people did the same regardless and tended to migrate back to a more typical mix of carbs fat and protein after time.

... It's hard to stick to those diets which again suggests a biological drive to eat a certain mix of carbs, fats and protein.

...

The thing that many people (not just in this thread) aren't looking at is how few people succeed in losing weight. Everyone isn't weak willed. Thin people might simply eat less, but calorie consumption is not simply easy to control. You can hold your breath, but only for so long. When you breathe again, you body breathes to catch back up it doesn't just start from the 02 deficit and not compensate.

...

What is the evidence the biological drive to maintain weight is as strong as the biological drive to breathe? The extremely low success rate of people who lose weight and keep it off. The whole population of humans does not consist of 95% weak willed people. There are few if any other ways to explain what we observe.

I agree with you that its difficult to lose weight and that people who have switched to a lower carb diet often gravitate back to eating more carbs after a while.

However I think the following is pretty much accepted as facts:

1. The USA processed foods starting adding far more sugar, especially corn syrup and HFCS starting in the early 1980s.
2. Americans became fatter at about the same time.
3. American immigrants gain weight when they change their traditional diet and start eating processed American foods.

I'd provide links, but I think this is common knowledge and has survived attempts to debunk it.

Food manufacturers have claimed that they can't be blamed for the obesity epidemic because all carbs "are equal." But there are research studies that show that they are not. For example fructose does not set off the satiating effect according to a link in my OP. Per Dilb's post (#6), HFCS is mostly fructose.

It's difficult to permanently lose weight because the amount of monitoring and self-discipline to keep high amounts of processed sugar out of one's diet is difficult. It's in many processed foods, not just the snacks.

When I see adults at the appropriate weight, they almost always have different eating habits. Almost always they are the ones who are passing up the birthday cake in the office, not finishing their oversized portions served in the restaurants, turning down the take outs and eating their own snacks instead -- which often includes fruit.

They are the rare ones who can successfully buck the tide, which these days is mostly high fructose corn syrup.

IMHO they are also successful at resisting the social pulls to eat more food. Almost every social gathering includes eating food, and people tend to eat more when they are eating with others. Link: http://www.ediets.com/news/article.cfm/cmi_1630887/cid_1

(see section under Crowd Appeal)

My conclusion -- cut back on foods with HFCS and it will be easier to discipline one's eating habits. But it will still be very difficult because so much of our social lives revolve around food, food which more likely than not has a lot of HFCS in it.

(ETA: I also think that some people are more sensitive to the effects of MSG food additives, additives added for the sole purpose of making food more appetizing. I already discussed studies on MSG in earlier posts.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

There's no doubt portion sizes, adding sugar to everything (try to find commercial spaghetti sauce without sugar in it), and advertising to eat eat eat have all contributed to consuming more calories than we expend. So in that sense avoiding all that extra and/or hidden ingredient sugar is important in weight loss.

I'm not sure however that avoiding carbs is the same thing as avoiding extra carbs.

However, no one should stop a diet that works for them and regardless if the results with each type of dieting diet overall have equal success rates. Clearly people's individual situations might lend to a specific diet working for them.

My only point is when the assumption is made xyz is the magic diet. The research suggests there is no magic diet. But some diets works for some people for some as yet unknown reason. The variables are in there somewhere. More research is needed to figure out what those variables are.

 

[ysabella]

The studies didn't say people failed on one diet and did better on another. According to the lecture (I'm still sorry not to have sources) people did the same regardless and tended to migrate back to a more typical mix of carbs fat and protein after time.

So, what's typical?

A minor point here, but many of the low-carb diets have that progression built in. Atkins for example starts with a very low daily ration of carbs and has people slowly add them back in. I know Schwarzbein is like that too, I think a couple of others are. Most have some kind of Maintenance phase that goes on forever which includes starchy vegetables and grains, but still not free eating of sugar, white flour, potatoes, etc.

Looking at your link, it was hard to find the percentage of people who lost the 30 or more pounds and kept it off. Do you know how many did?

I don't.

And I notice you migrated back toward your usual mix just as has been found with most people. It's hard to stick to those diets which again suggests a biological drive to eat a certain mix of carbs, fats and protein.

I haven't stayed on a very-low-carb plan, no. But again, it didn't work for me at all to be very low-carb.
My own plan is still miles from what I used to eat prior to 2003. 70-100 g/day of carbs is definitely in the class of low-carb according to most sources. Low-carb, but not very-low-carb.

There is nothing wrong with eating a low carb diet as long as it is a relatively healthy diet. Atkins has the cardiologists in an uproar. I have no opinion one way or the other because I haven't looked into it.

It's not even the weirdest thing out there. Some of the people trying to eat "paleo" are probably the weirdest. Eating raw animal fat and letting meat rot in the fridge or dry with a fan, drinking glasses full of raw egg yolks...just strange. I think that every dietary change brings some energy with it, some placebo effect, and it causes some people to get weirder and weirder with their food. That, and they often think they are very clever for eating such a special diet.

The thing that many people (not just in this thread) aren't looking at is how few people succeed in losing weight. Everyone isn't weak willed.

It's nice to hear someone say that. So many people act like it's a moral failure to be fat.

Thin people might simply eat less, but calorie consumption is not simply easy to control. You can hold your breath, but only for so long. When you breathe again, you body breathes to catch back up it doesn't just start from the 02 deficit and not compensate.

This is part of why I have planned 'free meals.' Supposedly a carb/calorie hit will help convince my body that I'm not starving the rest of the week. Also, it helps psychologically, because if I'm craving something horribly on Tuesday, I know I can have it Sunday.

1) Bodies have a set weight point.
2) It's easy to overeat for a number of reasons from psych to social to environmental to genes.(...)

Still and all, I've been told it's my fault since I was about 8, by people and by doctors. Although the doctors I have now all seem a little more chill. For one thing, since I've done a few triathlons, they can hardly assume I'm a couch potato.

What is the evidence the biological drive to maintain weight is as strong as the biological drive to breathe? The extremely low success rate of people who lose weight and keep it off. The whole population of humans does not consist of 95% weak willed people. There are few if any other ways to explain what we observe.

But there are plenty of people out there who can put on 5 pounds or so, decide to get rid of it, and drop it fairly quickly by cutting back on the lattes or whatever. And it's people like that who look at someone like me and assume I'm just eating everything in sight every day of my life.

 

[ysabella]

Ysabella, I've been thinking about this post (I guess I must be a nerd ) and I suspect that your former boyfriend was just teasing you.

He always did talk a lot of bollocks, when it came to his sea storied (Coast Guard) but he didn't say this in a joking way or anything. He's a little older than I am, so doing the math about when his family moved away from the farm, he was talking about the early-mid 1960s.

What made me decide to revisit this is because it's one thing for people (including research scientists) and organizations to disagree upon at which point a dosage of food additives becomes a problem, and another thing to suspect that unhealthy animals are being intentionally permitted into the human food chain. For the former I'm definitely on the conservative side, but I can't be counted in the latter group, not yet anyway!

I think a lot more chicken is eaten now than was back then, really. And safeguards have been made stronger.

Here's a link for the USDA Poultry Grading Manual: http://www.ams.usda.gov/Poultry/resources/PYGradingManual.pdf

See pg. 4, paragraph in upper right column that discusses the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957 and the Wholesome Products Inspected Acts of 1968. Basically if its been processed for human inspection in the USA, it's been inspected by the USDA. I didn't see any exceptions in the manual for poultry designated for soups.

This would be after 1957, but before 1968, that he would've been talking about.

I would suspect that the chickens that get bruising and broken bones (hopefully after slaughter and not before) end up in the canned soups. And of course the scrawnier ones.

I run into broken bones all the time, especially in wing drummettes.

If a chicken is diseased (which I assume would include those that have tumors) it gets classified as Grade 4D and is sold to the pet manufacturing companies. Link: http://www.flint-river-dog-food.com/pet_nutritional_needs.htm.

That's good to know. I am not sure my appetite for the soups will ever come back, though.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'll have to hunt for what the usual mix of carbs fats and protein was because I cannot recall.

Losing 5 pounds isn't really losing body weight. It's mostly water. So the first 5 pounds is the easiest.

I can't tell you how many people have argued with me on these forums about weight loss being a will power issue. They ignore the evidence. A lot of doctors are learning what the research is showing but they are not exempt from that false belief about willpower either.

Have you seen the National Weight Control Registry? You might find their research links interesting.

 

[ysabella]

Well, I meant for someone near goal weight, who has put on just a few pounds. Really people who don't have trouble controlling their weight. It's just a typical thing to assume everyone's body behaves like your own, so it's hard for some people to understand that there are those who would get different results with the same behavior.

I had seen the NWCR before, but not recently. Thank you for the link!

 

[jon]

On that note, is there any evidence for the same working in reverse (people tending to lose weight beyond a certain point)? I've been trying to put on a bit of weight, but keep going back to the weight I started at...

 

[Kaylee]

You don't have a sweet tooth, eh? Lucky you.

I would think adding avocados and some varieties of nuts and seeds to your diet would help. Lots of fat along with those calories, but the healthy kind I believe.

You might want to PM El Greco. People that work out a lot usually have to figure out healthy ways to keep their weight up -- IIRC they usually go for protein shakes.

Years ago, before I wreaked my knees, I often played racquetball and volleyball and would sometimes get underwieight.

Milkshakes (the regular variety, not protein ones) fixed that right up. I use to have a large one every day with my lunch. But because it has a lot of the "unhealthy fats" I'm not going to recommend it.

 

[ysabella]

You could try a big ice-cream milkshake before bed. Apparently that's one trick that Renee Zellweger did to gain weight for the Bridget Jones movies.

Weightlifting, and eating sufficient protein, can put muscle on. But that requires a lot of eating to keep up.

 

[jon]

yeah, weightlifting and eating lots has let me gain some weight; just need to shovel a bit more food down if I want to gain any more weight, I think... Was surprised how much it's possible to eat while maintaining (or losing) weight, though.

Now, if only I could figure out a way to market my 'eat 3,000+ calories/day and lose weight' diet plan...

 

[Modified]

yeah, weightlifting and eating lots has let me gain some weight; just need to shovel a bit more food down if I want to gain any more weight, I think... Was surprised how much it's possible to eat while maintaining (or losing) weight, though.

Dieting is a good way to gain weight. That is, dramatically restricting calories for a few days can increase your appetite for months, and make it easier to eat enough to gain in the long run.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

On that note, is there any evidence for the same working in reverse (people tending to lose weight beyond a certain point)? I've been trying to put on a bit of weight, but keep going back to the weight I started at...

Actually either there is no research in this phenomena or there is no evidence it happens. My guess is people with a 'thin gene' have just not come to the attention of researchers for obvious reasons.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Dieting is a good way to gain weight. That is, dramatically restricting calories for a few days can increase your appetite for months, and make it easier to eat enough to gain in the long run.

That's a very interesting hypothesis for him to try. See if what happens to overweight people trying to lose weight will also happen in different circumstances. In principle, it makes sense. But we don't know what the genetic dynamics are for thin people who can't seem to gain weight.