New read: Fat Chance

I've just started reading a new book by Dr. Robert Lustig: pediatric endocrinologist of You Tube fame.   It's called Fat Chance Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Foods, Obesity and Disease, and it might just change the way you think about eating - as if Angela's recommendation Wheat Belly wasn't enough to do the trick!  So far it is a scientific read (lots of medical terms) but fascinating.

For instance, I've always been taught that "a calorie is a calorie," and that to lose weight we simply need to burn more calories than we eat.  Dr. Lustig challenges both assumptions.  Consider this example refuting the idea that "a calorie is a calorie" from an interview:

Perfect example: almonds. You consume 160 calories in almonds. How many of those do you absorb? It turns out 130. Thirty of those calories are going to get metabolized by the bacteria in your intestine because the fiber in the almonds will deliver more of the nutrient down the intestine so that the bacteria can get it.

And that's good because that means you actually absorb fewer calories than you eat. Again, a calorie is not a calorie. So fiber is one of our - the best things the best things that we can do for ourselves. Fiber is the stealth nutrient. Fiber is maybe the single most important thing we've got in our natural food diet, and of course fiber is the thing that the food industry removes for its own purposes.

As if I needed more reasons to pick almonds as a snack!