Study: Processed Carbs & High-Heated Fats are Addictive Like Cocaine

[PaleoPhil]

More evidence that processed carbs and high-heated fats are addictive like crack cocaine, alcohol and tobacco...

The Libertarian Paleo Dieter, Elliot of the My Weekly Crime blog, discusses a new study that adds to the evidence that processed foods, including processed carbs and high-heated fats, are addictive like cocaine:
  "Dieticians Wrong About Fat, Ignore Processed Carbohydrates," Sunday, March 28, 2010, http://myweeklycrime.blogspot.com/2010/03/dieticians-wrong-about-fat-ignore.html "Meanwhile, CNN stupidly ignores the role of sugars in an article titled 'Fatty foods may cause cocaine-like addiction.' .... Eat like our paleo ancestors did, whole foods including fatty meat, fish, vegetables, nuts, and fruit. Skip the packaged stuff."

Here's the study:

Dopamine D2 receptors in addiction-like reward dysfunction and compulsive eating in obese rats
Paul M Johnson & Paul J Kenny
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.2519.html
 "The cafeteria diet consisted of bacon, sausage, cheesecake, pound cake, frosting and chocolate...." [Note: the vast majority of cheesecake, pound cake and frosting these days is made with plant fats like vegetable shortening, so there's a good chance they used plant fats in the study, though they don't specify.]

The combination of high heating, refined carbs and fats is particularly bad, since Advanced Glycation End products are "formed external to the body (exogenously) by heating (e.g., cooking) sugars with fats or proteins." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end_product). Plus, Gary Taubes points out that "raising blood sugar will increase the production of what are known technically as reactive oxygen species and [advanced glycation end-products[/i], both of which are potentially toxic." (GCBC, p. 191)

See also:

NEW ZEALAND STUDY:
"Revealed: why some foods are addictive," http://www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/revealed-why-some-foods-are-addictive/2009/01/12/1231608617039.html
"The obesity epidemic: Is glycemic index the key to unlocking a hidden addiction?," http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(08)00305-8/abstract
"Are you a carb addict?," http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1106003/Are-carb-addict.html

NYT: Processed Food Is The Crack Cocaine Of Our Diets (http://www.psfk.com/2007/01/nyt_processed_f.html)

[Paleo Donk]

Nice finds. In The Vegetarian Myth, Kieth points out that when you eat a refined sugar food, amino acids are cleared from the blood except for tryptophan which is a precursor to serotonin and now has easy access to the receptors in the brain that call for it.

[TylerDurden]

The above claims are highly dodgy. The one about cheesecake being largely derived from plant-oils is utterly bogus. I've eaten cheesecake in the past(it was one of my all-time favourite foods pre-rawpalaeodiet), and it is rather heavily filled with heated animal fat, namely pasteurised dairy. Plant-oils-content is negligible by comparison.


*This isn't the right forum really for such studies. This forum is more activism-oriented. I'll move it to general discussions.

[Raw Kyle]

I think modern cheesecakes and other foods like cream soups, which are traditionally made with dairy fats, are more and more being made with cheaper vegetable oils like soybean.

[TylerDurden]

I think modern cheesecakes and other foods like cream soups, which are traditionally made with dairy fats, are more and more being made with cheaper vegetable oils like soybean.

I find that difficult to believe given my own experience. Then again, PP mentioned how the US routinely offers foods which are far more processed than any equivalent food found in Europe, so it's possible that the veg-oil-intake is higher over on your side.

[PaleoPhil]

The above claims are highly dodgy. The one about cheesecake being largely derived from plant-oils is utterly bogus. I've eaten cheesecake in the past(it was one of my all-time favourite foods pre-rawpalaeodiet), and it is rather heavily filled with heated animal fat, namely pasteurised dairy. Plant-oils-content is negligible by comparison.

*This isn't the right forum really for such studies. This forum is more activism-oriented. I'll move it to general discussions.

The vegetable shortening (like Crisco) is used in the pie crust (such as here http://www.recipelink.com/mf/31/39795), not the cheese part. I guess I should have specified that. Not surprisingly, the cheese part of cheesecake is made of cream cheese. Did you think I was trying to make excuses for dairy products? Don' t you remember that I do not consider dairy Paleo so I have no incentive to do so? I just figured that most folks already know that cheesecake contains cream cheese. It's not like I'm exactly hiding the dairy connection there, LOL. Whereas different fats could be used for making the crust. For example, in the old days Crisco was made of (pork) lard. Nowadays it's made of soybean (as Raw Kyle noted) and palm oils. The study didn't specify, but most studies use vegetable fats where possible, though they also often include butter in baked goods (but cheaper vegetable fats have been replacing more and more of the fats used in cooking/baking). So, in other words, the fact that there was cooked dairy fat in these foods was obvious and I was just pointing out that there was probably also cooked vegetable fats. (Note: the bacon and sausage include cooked animal body fats, of course).

That blog did argue a point, but I thought it was a valid one, since cake, frosting and chocolate obviously contains processed cooked carbs, whereas CNN focused on the cooked fats. Believe it or not, even bacon and sausage in the USA usually has some form of sweetener added. So CNN's only mentioning fat in their title was the real bit of activism that the blogger was just responding to. His blog is not even a diet-focused blog. It's more of a libertarian blog. Like many libertarians, he's probably skeptical of the anti-meat dogma of the leftwing media and government in the US. As a matter of fact, given your libertarian orientation, Tyler, you might like the blog.

So I think the news forum was an OK place for this thread, but it'll probably get more notice in the general thread anyway, so thanks for moving it.

[TylerDurden]

I'm happy to accept that veg-oils are used in the crust and that they are unhealthy, but, generally, the crust is only a very small part of the whole cheesecake, with the pasteurised dairy forming the main part. And since both are bad, then higher amounts of one than the other must be worse, IMO.  I don't personally  buy into the notion that veg-oils are 10+/100+(?) times more toxic than pasteurised dairy - (I'm not sure how much of the crust is actually just vegetable oil and not from other ingredients).

Anyway,  I'm not generally a fan of Taubes and the pro-SFA crowd given my past experience with cooked low carb, which is sort of why I  may have overreacted(sorry for the wordage re mention of  "bogus"!). Plus, Taubes appears to have dismissed the issue of heat-created toxins in cooked animal foods according to other sources, unlike more responsible cooked-diet gurus like Cordain, so I'm very wary of the pro-SFA crowd.  Obviously, though, the general establishment is also wrong re denying the harm done by refined carbs.

Interesting blog, by the way,  I find I rather like the rest of it.

[William]

responsible cooked-diet gurus like Cordain

Cordain is neither raw nor paleo. Troll.

[TylerDurden]

Cordain is neither raw nor paleo. Troll.

Cordain is indeed a well-known, well-respected palaeo researcher who has, every now and then, admitted that cooking does some harm to foods. So your comment is a trollish one.