Why Trying to Eat Smaller Portions is Futile.
Earlier, we compared 100 calories of greens with 100 calories of meat. Notice we did not contrast them by weight or by portion size, as is more customary.
We compared equal caloric portions because it is meaningless to compare foods by weight or portion size. Let me provide an example to explain why this is the case. Take one teaspoon of melted butter, which gets 100 percent of its calories from fat. If I take that teaspoon of butter and mix it in a glass of hot water, I can now say that it is 98 per cent fat-free, by weight. One hundred percent of its calories are still from fat. It didn’t matter how much water or weight was added, did it?
In fact, if a food’s weight were important, it would be easy to lose weight, we would just have to drink more water. The water would trigger the weight receptors in the digestive tract and our appetite would diminish. Unfortunately, this is not the way our body’s appestat — the brain centre in the hypothalamus that controls food intake is controlled. As explained earlier in this site, bulk, calories, and nutrient fulfilment, not the weight of the food, turn off our appestat. Since the foods Americans consume are so calorie-rich, we have all been trying to diet by eating small portions of low-nutrient foods. We not only have to suffer hunger but also wind up with perverted cravings because we are nutrient-deficient to boot.
We must consume a certain level of calories daily to feel satisfied. So now I ask you to completely rethink what you consider a typical portion size. To achieve superior health and a permanently thin physique, you should eat large portions of green foods. When considering any green plant food, remember to make the portion size huge by conventional standards. Eating large portions of super-healthy foods is the key to your success.
Nutrient-weight ratios hide how nutrient-deficient processed food is and make animal-source food not look so fatty. Could this be why the food industry and the USDA chose this method ? Could it be a conspiracy to have consumers not realize what they are really eating?
For example, a Burger King bacon double cheeseburger is clearly not a low-fat food! If we calculate its percentage of fat by weight and include the ketchup and the bun, we can accurately state that it is only 18 percent fat (over 80 percent fat-free). However, as a percentage of calories it is 54 percent fat, and the hamburger patty alone is 68 percent fat. McDonald’s McLean burger was advertised a few years back as 91 percent fat-free using the same numbers trick, when in fact 49 percent of its calories came from fat.
Likewise, so-called low-fat 2 percent milk is not really 2 percent fat. Thirty-five percent of its calories come from fat. They can call it 98 percent fat-free (by weight) only because of its water content. Low-fat milk is not a low-fat product at all, and neither are low-fat cheeses and other low-fat animal foods when you recalculate their fat on a per calorie percentage basis. This is just a sad trick played on Americans. Incidentally, 49 percent of the calories in whole milk come from fat.
Using weight instead of calories in nutrient-analysis tables has evolved into a ploy to hide how nutritionally unsound many foods are. The role of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was originally to promote the products of the animal agriculture industry. Over fifty years ago, the USDA began promoting the so-called four basic food groups, with meat and dairy products in the number one and two spots on the list. Financed by the meat and dairy industry and backed by nutritional scientists on the payroll of the meat and dairy industry, this promotion ignored science.
This program could be more accurately labelled “the four food myths.” It was taught in every classroom in America, with posters advocating a diet loaded with animal protein, fat, and cholesterol. The results of this fraudulent program were dramatic — in more ways than one . Americans began eating more and more animal foods. The campaign sparked the beginning of the fastest-growing cancer epidemic in history, and heart attack rates soared to previously unheard of levels!
For years and years, the USDA resisted lowering cholesterol and dietary fat recommendations in spite of the irrefutable evidence that Americans were committing suicide with food. Heavy political pressure, lobbyists, and money blocked the path to change. Promoting nutrient analysis of foods by weight instead of by calorie became a great way to keep excess calories, cholesterol, and saturated fat in the diet — a terrific strategy to create a nation with an epidemic of obesity, heart disease, and cancer. Some foreign enemy out to destroy America could not have devised a more effective and insidious plot. How ironic that this was the program designed by our own government , promoted with our own tax dollars, and justified on the ground that it served the public interest!
With all the scientific data available today, including massive investigatory studies on human health and diet, you would think that people would know which foods are best to eat, but most people are still confused about diet and nutrition.
Why?
Part of the problem is that most of us are slow to make changes, especially when they involve personal habits and family traditions. Most people do not embrace change. They are more comfortable with familiarity and cling to long-held but incorrect information. In spite of a vast increase in nutritional information, much of it is contradictory and has led to only more confusion.
The US government spends over $20 billion on price supports that benefit the dairy, beef, and veal industries. This money is given to farmers to artificially reduce the cost of crops used to feed cows, thereby helping to reduce the prices we pay for dairy foods, fowl, and meat. Fruits and vegetables grown primarily for human consumption are specifically excluded from USDA price supports.
Out of one pocket, we pay billions of our tax dollars to support the production of expensive, disease-causing foods. Out of the other pocket, we pay medical bills that are too high because our overweight population consumes too much of these rich, disease-causing foods. Our tax dollars are actually used to make our society sicker and keep our health insurance costs high!
