August
1

Two Nutritional Boogy Men to Watch Out For

Let’s look at a common thing found in hydration drinks – high fructose corn syrup . I read a great article a few years ago that everyone should check out regarding this prevalent carb source (I’ll link to it below). In a nutshell, just like trans fatty acids when man tries to introduce an unnatural food source into the food supply, hormonal havoc usually ensues.

It is also pretty ironic that high fructose corn syrup and grain fed beef became so prevalent around the same time that the obesity rate and chronic disease rate began to skyrocket.

This stuff is very prevalent in our food supply and despite the large amount of money spent by the food lobby trying to convince us that it is alright for us to ingest, it seems to do some bad things to our metabolism. It is very readily stored as fat compared to other carb sources, it actually can damage DNA and collagen and it is especially problematic for the 10-30% of the population that is already insulin resistant. All in all, I’ve made it a point to avoid the stuff.

Click here to read the original article on the effects of corn syrup.

The second thing I want to bring up is beef. Now, I love beef and I think that it is pretty obvious that we were meant to eat meat (we have canine teeth for a reason). The problem is, though, that the beef we eat to day is not the beef your grandparents ate. Few people realize it but grass fed vs. grain fed beef makes a HUGE impact on the nutritional profile of the end product.

Grass fed beef actually has the same fatty acid profile as salmon. That’s right, eating a burger made from grass fed beef is a lot like eating a piece of one the most healthy fish in the world. Grain fed beef, on the other hand, has a very messed up fatty acid profile. In fact, most of the health risks associated with red meat are not from red meat, per say, but from the screwed up fatty acid profiles brought on by mass produced grain fed beef.

Here is a great blog post from Mike Boyle on this for those of you that want to read some more on it. Click here to read the article on Grass vs. Grain Fed Beef.

It is also pretty ironic that high fructose corn syrup and grain fed beef became so prevalent around the same time that the obesity rate and chronic disease rate began to skyrocket. Big food is a lot like big tobacco was – lots of money being thrown out there to combat the mounting evidence that their products are actually killing people.

Anyways, hope this gives some of you some food for thought, so to speak. What you eat really does matter on more than one level. Spend a bit more on the food you eat and you’ll be much healthier for it in the long run.

-James Wilson-

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  1. Richard Chamley says:

    Hi James, don’t know if you’ve had similar documentaries in the US but the BBC over here made a series of very interesting programmes about the risks of ‘low fat’ diets, high fructose corn syrup and the like and the reasons they’ve become so prevalent
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-H__aIEFE

    Reply • August 1 at 11:58 am
  2. Constantine says:

    For the first time in my life, I have seen a person from the cycling industry talking openly about the rubbish we eat every day, well done James!!

    Reply • August 1 at 1:56 pm
  3. Heith says:

    “Wheat Belly” by: William Davis is a great read and I believe wheat should be added to this list. Wheat is another product that changed in the early 80′s to a hybrid,genetically modified product that is not the same as what our grandparents ate.

    Honestly that book has done more for my cycling than any other one thing.
    Quick story
    I’ve always wondered why no matter how much spinach, red meat, and b-complex vitamins I took, why I couldn’t get my o2 saturation above 95% in the mornings when I take my HR. I also wondered, how, no matter how much exercise I did, while eating very good for the most part. Why I couldn’t get to sub 13%BF.
    I read the book, cut out wheat and a few other grains. Within 2 weeks I dropped 7 pounds. I don’t believe it was fat but mostly retained water from inflammation along with fat. My O2 saturation slowly climbed to 99% over a 3 week period.

    Reply • August 1 at 2:26 pm
    • bikejames bikejames says:

      The grain based diet is another thing to look out for. Some people have an allergic reaction to the stuff – particularly gluten – and getting away from refined carbs can make a dramatic physical impact. I’d assume you were one of those people given you reaction to cutting them out.

      The book The Omnivores Dilemma is a fascinating and scary look at the food policies in this country have been developed based on political wrangling and government subsidies of certain foods (namely corn) and not on what is healthy.

      Reply • August 2 at 10:46 am
  4. HundredDollar says:

    No Gatorade product that I know of contains HFCS. Only dextrose, or in the case of G2, sucrose (regular table sugar).

    Reply • August 1 at 3:44 pm
    • bikejames bikejames says:

      Noted, I changed my reference to it. To be honest this is a reprint of an article from a few years back and since I got into the habit of not drinking Gatorade because of the HFCS I never noticed they changed.

      Reply • August 2 at 10:46 am
      • HundredDollar says:

        I wonder when they changed this. I didn’t know they once had that as an ingredient.

        Reply • August 3 at 2:04 pm
  5. Joe says:

    Watch the Documentary “Forks over Knives”. By two doctors, one a prominent heart surgeon, the other raised on a diary farm.. both arriving at the same conclusion even though they did not know each other at the time. Very good. Drop what your are doing and go watch it. Yep, serious.

    James… I don’t believe humans are born to eat meat because of what you call “canines”. Humans are Herbivore’s.. not omnivores or carnivores. The secret is in looking at the intestines and how it processes food. the humans intestines are almost 30 feet, with millions of small ridges to absorb nutrients from plants. It is very similar to other plant eating animals. In contrast, a carnivore has very short smooth intestine, where the meat does not hang around long. Just think when you eat meat, it sits in your intestines rotting at 98 degrees for days :) Yummy.

    An argument can be made that humans are “omnivores” and this will probably be the case in the future (thousands of years from now, if we are still around ? ) as humans are evolving… but not there yet. You are right about one thing.. the meat people are eating now is no way close to what people ate many, many years ago. No thanks.

    Reply • August 1 at 3:50 pm
    • bikejames bikejames says:

      The only problem I see with that theory is that our brains would not have developed in the nutritional environment provided by a vegetarian diet. From what I understand about the evolutionary biology behind it the amount of calories needed to develop and support our greatest asset – our brains – was substantial and our early ancestors ate a lot of fatty fish as well as the brains and marrow of animals to fuel it.

      Given that I’d have to say that we are, indeed, omnivores. We may have leanings towards the herbivore side of things but I think, based on my understanding of the big picture, that we need and can handle meat. I’d also have to challenge the notion that meat just sits in the gut for days, that was something being talked about in the 80′s as a reason not to eat red meat and my understanding is that is not the case with most people.

      I do agree, though, that we should eat more like an herbivore and a carnivore. Meat shouldn’t be a huge part of your overall nutrition strategy but it does have a place.

      Reply • August 2 at 10:53 am
    • HundredDollar says:

      I gotta go with James on this one. There’s no argument that humans are omnivores. Well, there is an argument, but it usually involves extreme animal rights activists (they call us meat eaters “vivisectionists”!) or people who didn’t take high school biology.

      Reply • August 3 at 2:18 pm
  6. Mike Tuttle says:

    Joe is correct. Carnivores have a very short digestive system. When humans eat meat it actually putrefies (rots) rather than digests properly because it stays in the digestive tract for so long. Knowing this, I still eat meat but only grass-fed, pasture-raised, organic.

    About 80% of the wheat, corn and soy grown in the USA is GMO. Avoid any of those unless organically-grown. Wheat is ok if it has been sprouted, first. Ezekiel bread is a good choice.

    Fruit should always be eaten alone, on an empty stomach otherwise it ferments, which is not good. It digests in less than an hour which makes it an easy habit to get into.

    Ok, I’m getting off my soapbox, now. :)

    Reply • August 1 at 4:38 pm
    • bikejames bikejames says:

      While I agree with most of your recommendations check out my response to Joe about the carnivore thing, I’m not sure that is really the case.

      Reply • August 2 at 10:57 am
  7. Jon Laterveer says:

    Ok let’s not blame obesity on the food! We are doing things, actually not doing things people did years ago.

    Reply • August 1 at 6:47 pm
    • HundredDollar says:

      I agree. Sure. We have a lot of diabetes and obesity in this country, but is it because of what specific kinds of ingredients people eat, or is it because people just eat too damn much food, period, then go ahead and sit on their butt all day? I have a feeling that if, every day, at every meal, I swallowed two cups of pure sugar, I’d still get fat and contract diabetes. Even if that sugar is all natural, HFCS free, cane sugar grown on a sustainable farm using only natural hemp based tools and equipment, which regularly rotated their crops with grass fed cattle and daisies, I’d still have diabetes.

      Reply • August 3 at 2:42 pm
  8. James says:

    Humans Herbivore’s … really . we have been eating meat for thousands of years . our bodies get many good things from meat . yes processed food is not good for you , but that covers everything not just meat . we should be eating as much natural and balanced food as possible . You should be able to get evrything you need from the food you eat and not need to rely on vitamins and supplements in pill form . most food rots in some way in the body which is why you produce waste . So balanced diet meat poltery fish fruit veg nut and seeds . drink plenty of water and allow yourself some treats and your body will be fine

    Reply • August 2 at 2:14 am
  9. damien says:

    “Fruit should always be eaten alone, on an empty stomach otherwise it ferments, which is not good. It digests in less than an hour which makes it an easy habit to get into.”

    that sounds like a myth and an incorrect statement to me. it takes weeks, not hours to ferment something with the correct pH which I doubt the body provides. food decomposes in the gut but that’s not the same as rotting or fermenting. it’s a natural part of the process and supposed to happen. either way, fermentation is a good thing. it’s a great natural preservative and provides good bacteria that the body needs (wild fermented veggies, soy, kraut and bevies (!!) have been around for millions of years – check out S.Katz-The Art of Fermentation)

    look at our biological design and it proves we are omnivores. it means we are CAPABLE of eating almost anything, but it doesn’t mean we always should. we overeat sugar and meat (see Forks over Knives) because that is the food that has been made most easily available. FoK even compares meat consumption of various groups and does not prove there is anything inherently wrong in meat, just shows there is a problem when there is too much of it.
    The key is to eat a balanced, natural diet. The problem is that we have been so skewed by money, advertising, politics and misconstrued cultural ideals that we no longer do so.

    Reply • August 3 at 9:02 pm
  10. Eric says:

    Hey James,

    What are your thoughts on the Paleo Diet for mountain bikers? I just read the books The Paleo Diet by Robb Wolf and The Paleo Diet for Athletes. Both books make great arguments for the Paleo diet. I am particular drawn to the benefits in weight loss and reduced inflammation. Have you ever trained anybody that followed the Paleo diet?

    Thanks

    Reply • February 20 at 6:34 am
    • bikejames bikejames says:

      Paleo works well for some people but if you don’t have the allergies they talk about – and not many people really have them that bad – then any sensible diet that asks you to cut back on the refined carbs and eat more natural foods will work. The details are used to sell the diet but if you look at the principles they are similar to any successful diet. The important thing to to be consistent with it, that will get you further than the specific diet you use.

      Reply • February 20 at 10:13 am

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