For quite a long time humanity at large had the concept that eating fat makes you fat, and thus if you eat less fat you won't get fat, and may in fact lose weight. This is quite logical thinking. After all, obesity is the accumulation of fat in the body tissues dedicated to storing said substance. Therefore it only makes sense that if you eat fat it will get stored, and if you don't eat fat, it won't and thus you will not gain weight.
Unfortunately, while logical, it's too simplistic, naive, and to a large extent incorrect.
While nutritional science has for many decades understood the role of carbohydrates in human metabolism, and its role in weight gain and obesity (as well as a myriad of other things), and while cursory knowledge of this is quite widespread and well known, the vast majority of people still largely ignore it and don't pay much attention to it, and instead they still live in this belief that avoiding dietary fat is the way to salvation, while stuffing themselves with boatloads of carbs, especially sugars.
Human metabolism requires a lot of energy to function, and to keep the body alive. It uses quite many sources for this energy. However, not all sources of energy are treated as equal.
Most prominently, and importantly, the number one primary source of energy used by the body is carbohydrates, before anything else. Carbohydrates are like a highly-concentrated super-fuel for the body. It's like nitrous oxide for a racing car. Whenever the body needs energy for whatever it needs, it will use carbohydrates first and foremost, and very little else. Only when carbs are getting low will it start using other sources of energy (such as fat).
Moreover, the body is a real sucker for carbohydrates. It's outright greedy about them. Whatever it can take, it takes. Carbohydrates are digested from the digestive system into the bloodstream really fast and efficiently. It's like the digestive system has been designed to take all the carbs it can. It doesn't matter how many carbs you eat, the body will essentially take all of it, as far as it physically can.
Moreover, and unlike with most other nutrients, the body does not throw excess carbohydrates away. As said, the body is extraordinarily greedy about them. If there are excess carbs in the bloodstream, the body will actually convert it to fat and store it in the fatty tissues. It wants it all, and it doesn't throw anything away. And this is the main problem with excess carbs and obesity.
I suspect that this has an evolutionary reason behind it. For millions of years carbohydrates were actually very rare in our diet (and overall the diet of most carnivorous animals). There aren't many sources of them in nature. Animal meat contains pretty much no carbs. They appear almost solely in plants. Fruits, berries and other such plant products have a moderate amount of carbs, but they haven't pretty much ever been the primary source of food for humans (or other carnivorous or omnivorous animals for that matter).
Thus, I suspect, over millions of years the organisms of animals, including humans, evolved into taking hold of and keeping as much as possible of this scarce energy-efficient fuel. Take all that you can, store it for later if you can.
For millions of years this wasn't really a problem. Food has always been relatively scarce, and humans have always had plenty of exercise by necessity. However, this started to slowly change when humans started developing agriculture.
Over the millenia, suddenly we started to have plenty of food sources very rich in carbs, which we didn't have before, like wheat, grains, root vegetables and, eventually, potatoes and other such plants extremely rich in carbohydrates. What's worse, we learned to isolate carbs from plants, in the form of raw sugar, which is just insanely powerful stuff, from the body's point of view. It's like a drug.
The main problem today is that we have way, way too much carb-rich food. We are overwhelmed with it. It's everywhere, and it's readily available and dirt cheap. It's hard to find any food product that's not stock full of carbs. It's part of our long history and culture. Things like bread are a fundamental part of human culture spanning millenia. It's absolutely entrenched in all cultures. And the richer a society becomes, the more of it becomes readily available and cheap.
From an evolutionary point of view, in the blink of an eye the situation changed from carbs being a very rare commodity to being available by the boatloads at almost no cost at all. And our bodies simply cannot cope with that. Over millions of years our body became a sucker for carbs, and now we are cramming as much as we can into it, and it simply cannot cope.
Excess carbohydrates in all of their forms, but especially in the highly concentrated enriched forms (eg. raw sugar) has all kinds of detrimental health effects because of its excessive amounts. Long term obesity is by far not the only one. Too many carbs in one meal causes insulin peaks, which in the long term have their own detrimental effects, and too many carbs over a very long period of time have other detrimental side-effects besides obesity, such as diabetes, caries and, more or less indirectly, cardiovascular problems, among others.
Of course the main problem, especially in rich western countries, is morbid obesity. It has become more and more of a problem in recent decades. The richer we become, the more we can afford to stuff ourselves with too many carbs.
At the same time, and quite ironically, we have been deluded into avoiding other nutrients that would be much healthier than the boatloads of carbs that we consume. We have, for example, been conditioned to fear and avoid dietary fat, even though it's not even nearly as dangerous nor detrimental as most people believe.
In fact, and quite ironically, avoiding dietary fat (and replacing it with carbs) only makes weight gain worse, in many cases. A common trick that farmers use to make pigs fatter is, and I kid you not, feed them fat-free milk and corn. In other words, a diet very rich in carbs and very poor in dietary fat. Ironically, if the fat-free milk is replaced with regular milk, the pigs don't get as fat, as unintuitive as that might sound.
Fat-free milk is a real killer, and is making people fatter. And it's almost the only type of milk you can find at many places. (Of course fat-free milk all by itself doesn't make people fatter, although it does have an unnatural proportion of carbs in the form of lactose, but the reason is that it tends to be coupled with a carb-rich low-fat diet otherwise, and it just makes the effects worse.)
Likewise butter is maligned because of amount of dietary fats it contains, while margarine is thought of as a healthier alternative. Yet it's exactly the opposite! (In fact, if you research the history of margarine you'll find that its alleged "health benefits" over butter were just a marketing ploy.) I myself have stopped using margarine for anything, because it's just horrible for your health. I don't exactly stuff myself with butter either, but I avoid margarine like the plague. Butter is, ironically, actually healthier than margarine, even though most people have been conditioned to believe the opposite. If I have to choose between the two for a meal, I'd 100% choose real butter.
Of course this doesn't mean you should start stuffing yourself with lard and butter. Your diet should be varied and nutritious, with a moderate (but non-zero) amount of dietary fat and protein, and a significantly reduced (but again, non-zero) amount of carbs. I would avoid bread, potatoes and, obviously, anything containing any significant amount of plain sugar. Even types of bread that are considered "healthier", such as rye bread, do contain a large amount of carbs.
Unfortunately, while logical, it's too simplistic, naive, and to a large extent incorrect.
While nutritional science has for many decades understood the role of carbohydrates in human metabolism, and its role in weight gain and obesity (as well as a myriad of other things), and while cursory knowledge of this is quite widespread and well known, the vast majority of people still largely ignore it and don't pay much attention to it, and instead they still live in this belief that avoiding dietary fat is the way to salvation, while stuffing themselves with boatloads of carbs, especially sugars.
Human metabolism requires a lot of energy to function, and to keep the body alive. It uses quite many sources for this energy. However, not all sources of energy are treated as equal.
Most prominently, and importantly, the number one primary source of energy used by the body is carbohydrates, before anything else. Carbohydrates are like a highly-concentrated super-fuel for the body. It's like nitrous oxide for a racing car. Whenever the body needs energy for whatever it needs, it will use carbohydrates first and foremost, and very little else. Only when carbs are getting low will it start using other sources of energy (such as fat).
Moreover, the body is a real sucker for carbohydrates. It's outright greedy about them. Whatever it can take, it takes. Carbohydrates are digested from the digestive system into the bloodstream really fast and efficiently. It's like the digestive system has been designed to take all the carbs it can. It doesn't matter how many carbs you eat, the body will essentially take all of it, as far as it physically can.
Moreover, and unlike with most other nutrients, the body does not throw excess carbohydrates away. As said, the body is extraordinarily greedy about them. If there are excess carbs in the bloodstream, the body will actually convert it to fat and store it in the fatty tissues. It wants it all, and it doesn't throw anything away. And this is the main problem with excess carbs and obesity.
I suspect that this has an evolutionary reason behind it. For millions of years carbohydrates were actually very rare in our diet (and overall the diet of most carnivorous animals). There aren't many sources of them in nature. Animal meat contains pretty much no carbs. They appear almost solely in plants. Fruits, berries and other such plant products have a moderate amount of carbs, but they haven't pretty much ever been the primary source of food for humans (or other carnivorous or omnivorous animals for that matter).
Thus, I suspect, over millions of years the organisms of animals, including humans, evolved into taking hold of and keeping as much as possible of this scarce energy-efficient fuel. Take all that you can, store it for later if you can.
For millions of years this wasn't really a problem. Food has always been relatively scarce, and humans have always had plenty of exercise by necessity. However, this started to slowly change when humans started developing agriculture.
Over the millenia, suddenly we started to have plenty of food sources very rich in carbs, which we didn't have before, like wheat, grains, root vegetables and, eventually, potatoes and other such plants extremely rich in carbohydrates. What's worse, we learned to isolate carbs from plants, in the form of raw sugar, which is just insanely powerful stuff, from the body's point of view. It's like a drug.
The main problem today is that we have way, way too much carb-rich food. We are overwhelmed with it. It's everywhere, and it's readily available and dirt cheap. It's hard to find any food product that's not stock full of carbs. It's part of our long history and culture. Things like bread are a fundamental part of human culture spanning millenia. It's absolutely entrenched in all cultures. And the richer a society becomes, the more of it becomes readily available and cheap.
From an evolutionary point of view, in the blink of an eye the situation changed from carbs being a very rare commodity to being available by the boatloads at almost no cost at all. And our bodies simply cannot cope with that. Over millions of years our body became a sucker for carbs, and now we are cramming as much as we can into it, and it simply cannot cope.
Excess carbohydrates in all of their forms, but especially in the highly concentrated enriched forms (eg. raw sugar) has all kinds of detrimental health effects because of its excessive amounts. Long term obesity is by far not the only one. Too many carbs in one meal causes insulin peaks, which in the long term have their own detrimental effects, and too many carbs over a very long period of time have other detrimental side-effects besides obesity, such as diabetes, caries and, more or less indirectly, cardiovascular problems, among others.
Of course the main problem, especially in rich western countries, is morbid obesity. It has become more and more of a problem in recent decades. The richer we become, the more we can afford to stuff ourselves with too many carbs.
At the same time, and quite ironically, we have been deluded into avoiding other nutrients that would be much healthier than the boatloads of carbs that we consume. We have, for example, been conditioned to fear and avoid dietary fat, even though it's not even nearly as dangerous nor detrimental as most people believe.
In fact, and quite ironically, avoiding dietary fat (and replacing it with carbs) only makes weight gain worse, in many cases. A common trick that farmers use to make pigs fatter is, and I kid you not, feed them fat-free milk and corn. In other words, a diet very rich in carbs and very poor in dietary fat. Ironically, if the fat-free milk is replaced with regular milk, the pigs don't get as fat, as unintuitive as that might sound.
Fat-free milk is a real killer, and is making people fatter. And it's almost the only type of milk you can find at many places. (Of course fat-free milk all by itself doesn't make people fatter, although it does have an unnatural proportion of carbs in the form of lactose, but the reason is that it tends to be coupled with a carb-rich low-fat diet otherwise, and it just makes the effects worse.)
Likewise butter is maligned because of amount of dietary fats it contains, while margarine is thought of as a healthier alternative. Yet it's exactly the opposite! (In fact, if you research the history of margarine you'll find that its alleged "health benefits" over butter were just a marketing ploy.) I myself have stopped using margarine for anything, because it's just horrible for your health. I don't exactly stuff myself with butter either, but I avoid margarine like the plague. Butter is, ironically, actually healthier than margarine, even though most people have been conditioned to believe the opposite. If I have to choose between the two for a meal, I'd 100% choose real butter.
Of course this doesn't mean you should start stuffing yourself with lard and butter. Your diet should be varied and nutritious, with a moderate (but non-zero) amount of dietary fat and protein, and a significantly reduced (but again, non-zero) amount of carbs. I would avoid bread, potatoes and, obviously, anything containing any significant amount of plain sugar. Even types of bread that are considered "healthier", such as rye bread, do contain a large amount of carbs.
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