Do you buy organic grains/rice/beans?

[BRUTE]

obesity is actually a protection mechanism against toxic, chronically high blood sugar. so obesity protects against diabetes. some humans don't have obesity genes, so they get skinny diabetes. Singapore recently had a study coming out about that, since they seem to have many humans with skinny genes, but lots of those are getting diabetes.

[vexed87]

@brute, if you eat purely sugar or refined carbs and intake is balanced with energy consumed, the law of thermodynamics dictates you cannot gain body fat. If given free reign over consumption, it's however likely that weak willed humans will gain weight, not because they ate carbs and had insulin in their blood stream, but because a diet based purely on refined carbs will likely lead to overeating caused by poor satiety, as you rightly point out... but this is because the high presence of blood glucose will result in overproduction of insulin and eventually crash the glucose levels in the blood, which drives the individual to eat again in order to raise glucose levels as quickly as possible. This behaviour will certainly contribute to T2D over the long term.

@beyond the wrap, no one is advocating a sucrose, glucose or fructose only diet, it's not so much an issue that sugar is consumed, but insulin resistance is more to do with the severe peaks and troughs in insulin production and wild gyrations in blood glucose levels. I hazard a bet you could drip feed cane sugar constantly over a long period but in low enough quantities not to cause severe blood glucose spikes. It's the unnatural swings in blood glucose that leads to insulin resistance. We are not well adapted to eat refined sugars, these are not found easily in the wild. Carbs however are and have formed the basis of our diet as long as we have walked the planet.

Unrefined carbs do not release all their energy into the blood stream immediately and are broken down over longer periods than refined carbs, think whole porridge oats that keep you full for longer than say, a slice of white bread. This reduces the severity of spikes in glucose levels and therefore insulin production. Pair brown rice with lots of veg, you have the same effect. Your insulin levels shouldn't spike like when you consume refined sugars, the other foods in the gut act as a buffer to instant glucose hits that cause blood glucose and insulin to spike.

the only reason it would be unable to access those reserves is high insulin, caused by carbs.

I think this is perhaps the key misunderstanding, carbs don't have to trigger high insulin response if done right. Stick to unrefined carbs, or buffer refined carbs with other low glycemic index foods.

[steveo73]

Vexed - I don't think you can explain this to Brute factually. He has a paradigm in relation to nutrition that doesn't fit the facts (science and empirical data) as we know it and he can't break out from that paradigm.

There isn't much you can do to discuss it.

[BRUTE]

It's the unnatural swings in blood glucose that leads to insulin resistance.

while the swings are problematic from a hunger/mental performance perspective (nothing like keto to have a clear mind), what causes insulin resistance is chronically elevated insulin, caused by chronically elevated blood sugar. it doesn't matter if carbs are unrefined - all carbs are sugar. some are just more complex sugars and take a bit longer to be broken down.

in the cane sugar drip example, if the constant flow of sugar into the blood is small enough, not much will happen. but eating tons of unrefined complex carbs is like having a very slow, but very high inflow of cane sugar into the blood. it will still elevate blood glucose and therefore insulin, and lead to insulin resistance.

[vexed87]

@brute, what you quoted there is not correct, its one of the contributing factors, not the only cause, sorry for that error, I should have been fact checking.

Yes relative chronic high levels of blood glucose will contribute to insulin resistance. However low GI diets do not result in chronic high blood glucose levels, and therefore a diet high in complex carbs does not necessarily contribute to insulin resistance or lead to T2D. If you eat just two or three meals a day, there's no reason why an individual would have a chronic high glucose level throughout the day. The rate at which complex carbs are broken down to glucose is the crux, the slower the release the lower the GI index. The slower the release, the less likely the glucose levels will increase to danger levels.

I suspect the body is resilient enough to cope with the odd occasion throughout the day with relatively high levels without any long lasting effects, high doesn't equate to chronic. You were part way there, but its chronic high exposure that is detrimental. Not many people consume foods all day long, at least, not the slim ones.

There's lots of evidence that high carb plant based diets reverse T2D. I'm not sure how you can intelligently dispute that?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27476051

[BRUTE]

therefore a diet high in complex carbs does not necessarily contribute to insulin resistance or lead to T2D. If you eat just two or three meals a day, there's no reason why an individual would have a chronic high glucose level throughout the day.

..

There's lots of evidence that high carb plant based diets reverse T2D. I'm not sure how you can intelligently dispute that?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27476051

sure, eating one gram of complex carbs won't cause insulin resistance or T2D. most foods aren't inherently healthy or unhealthy, but only in the context of the entire diet. replacing all the crap carbs with an equal amount of complex carbs on a SAD diet will do marginal good at best. a diet that otherwise controls insulin very well can probably tolerate some complex or even simple carbs without causing T2D.

brute couldn't read the study linked, only the abstract - which doesn't describe the diet given, or the study setup.

in brute's experience it's possible to control insulin and T2D with a plant-based diet in some humans - but it has nothing to do with the plants. it's because eating a paleo-type plant based diet ("whole food plant based" instead of junk carbs) controls satiety, hunger, and even insulin relatively well. eating a metric ton of vegetables is less likely to cause diabetes than eating a metric ton of sugar.

many diets can help control insulin. but "plant-based" isn't designed to control insulin, it's designed to consist of plants. low-carb and keto are specifically designed to control insulin. if the goal is insulin control, there's no reason to stick to plants, unless one finds them especially delicious or has objections to eating animals.

[CS]

Back to the organics discussion -

I would stay away from non-organic corn because of the Monsanto Round up spray. My understanding is that GMO's are not inherently bad, it's what they are GMO'd to endure that causes the problem - at least in this particular case. The plant might be fine with glyphosate. Humans are probably not. (Humans ingest the chemical from the plant, either through harvest time spraying, or earlier, when the plant stores the toxin within itself, that we later eat).

[EMJ]

Another reason to buy organic is to minimize the use of pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers and growth hormones, regardless of whether you see ingesting these substances as a problem or not.
Look at the guidelines for pesticide application - why subject others to that risk?

[7Wannabe5]

The problem with GMO use is that it is (once again!) a practice that favors production and efficiency over resilience. Like making every man a superman with the caveat that EVERY man will then be vulnerable to some unknown unknown kryptonite. Organic is good, but not good enough. It's a designation/set of regulations which some very good farmers might not be able to earn or choose not to worry about. One reason being that there are sensible steps a farmer can take to safely grow on soil that does not earn organic label status for a variety of reasons. For instance, the amount of heavy metals taken up by a particular crop is just one level more difficult to ascertain than a simple measure of these metals in the soil. If a well-meaning farmer is not able to make a profit while reclaiming poor soil then that soil will not likely be reclaimed, and an ecosystem that is not yet under production may be claimed instead. Also, problems such as algal bloom which kill a wide variety of species due to run-off from fertilized crops is not dependent on whether the fertilizer is organic.

Best practice, (which I do not yet follow myself by a long shot!!!) would always be to know the people who grow/harvest/process/preserve the food that you eat and the water that you drink. For instance, if you currently budget an extra $240/year to buy organic label, and you make $48/hour selling your life energy on the open market, you could choose to spend 5 hours this year attending meetings of your local water board instead. I'm not even advocating a totally locavore practice. One of the wonders of the modern world is that you could actually "know" somebody who grows your coffee beans, even if you live in Wisconsin. People who simply blindly trust food commercials produced by multi-national corporations OR documentaries advocating further government regulation without doing a bit of simple investigation of the conditions under which the food they eat actually made its way to their mouth are rendering themselves similarly fragile.

[CS]

For that matter, if you grow your own food, make sure you know the history of your land. I grew up over a landfill (the garbage would work it's way up somehow). At least it was a pre-microwave landfill but still - very few rules on what garbage people could dump.

[enigmaT120]

Ick. I hope you didn't have spring water like I do.

[jennypenny]

Back to the organics discussion -

I would stay away from non-organic corn because of the Monsanto Round up spray. My understanding is that GMO's are not inherently bad, it's what they are GMO'd to endure that causes the problem - at least in this particular case. The plant might be fine with glyphosate. Humans are probably not. (Humans ingest the chemical from the plant, either through harvest time spraying, or earlier, when the plant stores the toxin within itself, that we later eat).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 5/#CIT0022

Glyphosate might be responsible for increasing rates of celiac disease and gluten intolerance.

[Farm_or]

"Health is better than wealth."

How about a farmer's perspective? My farm was leased by an organic farmer for six years. It was certified the last four years, so I had the option of continuing. I immediately dropped the designation.

I am surrounded by farm land. Much of it is owned and a growing amount is leased. Every farmer is different, but there are some generalizations that I have made to come to my own conclusions.

Organic farmers can use approved chemicals. Organic farmed soil is not necessarily more healthy (greater variety of natural nutrients and organic matter). Often case, organic farmed soil is more depleted.

Some chemicals are worse than others. There's a lot of emotion in this topic so so​be careful to weigh the actual data more than the emotional opinions. Generally speaking, insecticides are much worse than herbicides. And herbicides can be ordered from most unhealthy and down.

With all chemicals, the poison is in the dose. So the more that you know about your produce, the better. I think it's more important to shop local than organic. Case in point, the difference between renters and owners that i have observed first hand.

Owners have a tendency to care more for the land. They are usually more discriminating and conservative regarding chemicals use. They can time their spraying optimally to get maximum effect with the minimum application. Renters don't typically take the same approach.

Renters want maximum return from the land. Most of their management decisions are short and profit based. Their timing is usually less than ideal so they compensate by greater dosage. The "big ag" practices practices are most of the cause for concern.

One example is grain. Take wheat for instance. I personally grow and sell wheat. It doesn't require much chemicals. I'm on this website, tribute to my conservative conservative nature. It will be sprayed once in late spring, that's all. But I know of other practices that go overboard. For instance, many big ops will spray pre harvest to get that little extra yield.

I believe the subject is very important and the dialog is healthy. There's a lot of room for improvement. The by gone days of the small family farm is much of the problem. But an emphasis on buying local can bring back the responsibility to all of ag. They won't produce what the market doesn't want.

[jennypenny]

Martenson posted a podcast on the dangers of glyphosate yesterday ... https://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/ ... -any-plate

Here is the report they are talking about: Glyphosate: Unsafe On Any Plate