A supremely cool scalable graphic of the known universe.
America's "School Nutrition Assocation" might know about nutrition, but they don't know the difference between a published peer reviewed study, and a non-published Big Milk press release.
Wanna get rid of your fruit flies?
And if you want to hear me lose my cool, have a listen to the show I taped last week with my friend and colleague Dr. Barry Dworkin where at the end a caller called in to tell me that I was wrong, that the environment's not the issue, that people are just weak willed and lazy. Not my proudest moment but she sure did manage to push my buttons.
Posts
Dr. Freedhof
ReplyDeleteThis is not relevant to your post, but I wondered if you could help me out anyway. Recently I was visiting my GYN. I'm not sure how we got on the topic of nutrition, but his comments surprised me. He basically said vegetables are very good for you but fruits have been overhyped and have little nutritional value and too much sugar. He said he had compared the sugur content of a Snickers bar and a fig and a fig had more suger than the Snickers.
My question: how do vegetables and fruits compare nutritionally, and isn't a fig better for you than a Snickers bar? I eat lots of fruit -- should I try to consciously cut back on fruit and eat more vegetables instead (I have doubts as to this would actually happen in my case). Does my GYN have any idea what he is talking about?
Thanks
Marilyn
Hi Marilyn,
ReplyDeleteNot sure I'd agree with your GYN. The thing about the calories and sugar in fruit is that they're packaged with a great deal of water and certainly ample amounts of vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals etc.
While we may not know which vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals are the ones responsible for the health benefits seen in folks who report consuming higher amounts of fruits and vegetables, we do certainly know there are benefits.
Regarding your GYN's figs, I imagine he's bought some sugar sweetened figs because when I check 1 medium sized fig has 37 calories and 8gr of sugar whereas a Snickers bar has 280 calories and 30gr of sugar.
Regards,
Yoni
Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSo where did you "lose your cool" in that last call? I got all excited, expecting some "Jerry" moment and all you managed to do was get some woman upset because you schooled her. I read that you "lost your cool" on your blog at work and got all excited thinking, "What? Dr.Freedhoff? Get angry? No way!! I gotta hear this!!" Since I couldn't get streaming audio at work, I waited all day to get home and listen. I listened to the whole show. Although I got a few giggles out of it, it was definitely not as dramatic as I was hoping for. How disappointing.
ReplyDeleteHi Patti,
ReplyDeleteI think I definitely over-reacted with the last caller. While certainly I think her opinion to be quite ill informed, I think my comments to her about, "finding someone else to pick on" and my sarcasm in regard to her intelligence were uncalled for.
Regards,
Yoni
I must have misinterpreted your comment about her intelligence. I thought you were making a point, not an insult, even though it was sarcastic. She was blaming others for not being smart enough to use common sense, when she herself is not or knowledgeable enough to know that common sense isn't the problem.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, I wanted to comment about the suggestion you gave the man who was on the atkins diet who lost weight and wanted to learn how to eat a more well-rounded diet, but still lose weight. Your advice was to find a dietician. I don't think you could have really given him any better advice. However, I think the point should have been raised (or maybe just brought up as a topic in the future) that we really don't have enough good medical clinics for the treatment of obesity in Canada like the BMI clinic in Ottawa. This especially applies to the people who would need help managing the hunger increase that would occur when carbs are introduced back into the diet.
There are plenty of places to go to pay to lose weight and be successful, but they are not life-long solutions. If you don't have a life-long solution, you just yo-yo, which is stressful for your body.
I had a bunch complications coming off of the a modified Atkins diet after 2.5 years (ie. muscle loss from rapid weight loss, weight gain from hunger increase). I really benefitted from having the fitness instruction, the dietician AND the doctor advising me on all aspects of my life that affect my weight and health. You can't get all that from just a dietician and you can't trust every dietician 100%.
Yoni,
ReplyDeleteI think it's about time you get a newsletter server setup. I would much appreciate a daily e-mail of your blog since my personal reading habits tend to gravitate away from single-author blogs but the e-mails would be VERY convenient.
Dre - it's already available. Look to the top right hand side of the blog at the very top and there's a place to sign up for emails.
ReplyDeletePatti - you're right, not all RDs will give great advice (nor will all MDs) but as you noted, there really aren't reproducibly useful resources out there.