If you've read any internet discussion with more than three replies, you've no doubt stumbled upon people who eat a certain way and are immensely passionate about it. And by "eating a certain way", they're avoiding eating like a normal omnivorous ghrelin- and leptin-controlled human being and doing weird shit. Which is fine, except the "immensely passionate" part involves uncontrolled hostile hysteria that A. other people are doing it wrong and B. they MUST be convinced that they're doing it wrong and converted.
Exhibit A... A new zero carb follower who's given himself scurvy.
These are dietary cults. They may have some peer-reviewed evidence behind them encouraging some exploration, but as nutrition is a notoriously difficult field in establishing large randomized cohorts for study and finding any sort of significant result, they will pick and choose publications enabling their view and ignoring others.
No, the hallmark of dietary cults is hearsay and personal stories -- almost always focusing on weight loss, rather than other marks of general well-being, and really the product of the intention-to-treat principle. There are individuals who play some leadership roles in these cults: Dietitians gone rogue, nutritionists with vague and bogus qualifications, your average 100k+ follower Instagrams hawking shirts and oversaturated photos. Followers of these cults can range from the most diligent of fitness fanatics to chronically dieting Protestant moms herding around their 5 kids, but almost all of them share the common component of their capability to be obsessive and defensive of their lifestyle. (Note that this is in contrast to non-cultists, who adhere to the diet but make it their own business, and within reason.)
Dietary cults perpetuate themselves by creating insular communities where people jack off, in unison, to their adherence to the unbreakable rules and hiss about the heathens and apostates. However, they inevitably leak out of their little dens to hijack any discussion about food to make it weirdly emotionally-charged.
Paleo
The current bad boy of dietary cults. Really founded in the late 90's/early 00's by well-intentioned but ideologically stubborn people like Dr. Loren Cordain, it's gotten exponential press in the last couple of years as consequence of the "clean eating" movement. Its basic tenants are "eat like a caveman" -- which, in their eyes, involves cutting out all grains, all legumes, nightshades, probably dairy, anything "processed", and drastically reducing simple carbohydrates. In practice, Homo S. Sapiens in their early form had diets dependent on their region and we don't really have firm knowledge of what was available; whatever it was, it's likely awfully different to conventionally grown modern crops regardless.
Paleo people, for their love of cherrypicking evidence and converting the obvious conclusion from "a diet less in pasta is generally better for you" to "humans are being poisoned by bread, scientists who genetically modify crops are evil and somehow different than organic farmers doing the same thing manually, insulin is a delicate seesaw and every time you eat an mango you'll careen it off the rails like that speeding Amtrak", and so-on. In truth, Paleo takes a decent concept and ratches it up to be particularly orthorexic and anti-science.
Paleo communities include Mark's Daily Apple, Paleohacks, and /r/Paleo and every single popular baking recipe on the internet with a comment thread like "omg... this is so bad for you!" No shit, Catherine. It's cake.
Gluten-free
Gluten really is the glutelin and prolamin proteins found in the seeds of grains, particularly wheat. They're neat because they're the reason why flour exhibits elasticity when water is added to it, and why baked goods can rise. Nutritionally, gluten is a handy little additional source of protein in goods and also holds a bit of iron and calcium.
Some people legitimately exhibit an immunoresponse to gluten involving severe GI distress symptoms, which can actually be quite serious. This is called Celiac Disease.
About 0.5%-1% of the human population has Celiac Disease. Most gluten-free people are not diagnosed Celiacs. Instead, they espouse "gluten sensitivity", where they allege that very mild symptoms are alleviated by cessation of the consumption of gluten. Maybe it's because they're not eating a loaf of bread everyday, I dunno. Anyway, they blame the ails of the modern man to the consumption of gluten and are the people ruining your local baker and making their goods crumbly as hell. Naturally, all Paleo people are gluten-free.
Keto
Oh, boy. These people are something.
Let's look at KEGG, which is a great resource for examining metabolic pathways for a number of species. Here's us. You might recognize that big ol' circle as the citric acid, or Krebs cycle. It's how we synthesize energy from Acetyl-CoA. Now, you can see that human beings make Acetyl-CoA from the products of many different other metabolic processes -- glycolysis, fatty acid metabolism, amino acid degredation and even breaking down ethanol. The efficiency of glycolysis makes us favor that pathway, and as such we derive much of our energy from carbohydrates. When we don't have much glucose, we pick up those other options. We also produce glucose ourselves with gluconeogenesis, which is "essentially a reversal of glycolysis with minor variations of alternative paths" doing shit like creating fructose from oxaloacetate.
Keto involves eating so few carbohydrates -- think less than 30g a day -- that your body assumes it's perpetually fucking starved and switches into fatty acid metabolism and also breaking down the valine, leucine and isoleucine amino acids. This is known as ketosis. As you can see, you directly produce acetoacetate in the process so you smell fucking awful.
People get hooked on keto because while you drain your body of circulating carbohydrates, you lose the capability to store as much water and dehydrate (which eventually falls to a plateau). You also mess up your leptin/ghrelin signalling a bit, and fat is quite satiating -- so people allege suppressed appetite. They say it's a good thing. To some, keto can be a handy way to lean up for a competition with weight classes, or control an issue with insulin temporarily, or is a tool to be prescribed to epileptics. To many, keto is a lifestyle to be kept up until you die because all carbohydrates are poison and that any mild inflammatory response is clearly the sign of the end times.
Keto is prevalent with the Paleo crowd, but inexplicably popular with fit people (who would likely benefit the most out of anybody with a diet high in carbohydrates). Woe is anybody who is tasked for feeding one at a party.
Vegan
You know these guys. Once upon a time, vegetarians were radicals for cutting out chicken and sticking to their grassfed yogurts. Now, vegetarians are a group of mostly normal people who care a bit about animals (and that religious Indian guy you work with).
Veganism has a stronger ethical/moralistic component than other dietary cults; you'll find an existing thread here.
Raw
Absolute nutters. Expanding on the concept that "processing" is "bad", these people believe that cooking carrots makes them carcinogenic and that one achieves enlightenment by consuming goods that have never reached 115 degrees Farenheight (thus excluding anybody who has consumed produce that was on a truck passing Phoenix in summertime).
As their body lacks the capability to truly absorb the fiber-laden fruits and lettuces they gorge, the concept of calories and energy goes out the window (their assholes). Generally a front for an eating disorder, particularly considering female ones brag about losing their periods. Usually vegans but there are some brave omnivores going for it too, which actually might be more reasonable -- sans aforementioned scurvy for raw carnivores.
Others
There are a lot of other diet cults like people who fast (particularly intermittently, meaning they hate you for eating breakfast), to those who've turned a GI treatment strategy like FODMAPS into a "thing" of good vs. bad. Let's chat about the particularly egregious ones you see leak into mainstream discussion.
Exhibit A... A new zero carb follower who's given himself scurvy.
These are dietary cults. They may have some peer-reviewed evidence behind them encouraging some exploration, but as nutrition is a notoriously difficult field in establishing large randomized cohorts for study and finding any sort of significant result, they will pick and choose publications enabling their view and ignoring others.
No, the hallmark of dietary cults is hearsay and personal stories -- almost always focusing on weight loss, rather than other marks of general well-being, and really the product of the intention-to-treat principle. There are individuals who play some leadership roles in these cults: Dietitians gone rogue, nutritionists with vague and bogus qualifications, your average 100k+ follower Instagrams hawking shirts and oversaturated photos. Followers of these cults can range from the most diligent of fitness fanatics to chronically dieting Protestant moms herding around their 5 kids, but almost all of them share the common component of their capability to be obsessive and defensive of their lifestyle. (Note that this is in contrast to non-cultists, who adhere to the diet but make it their own business, and within reason.)
Dietary cults perpetuate themselves by creating insular communities where people jack off, in unison, to their adherence to the unbreakable rules and hiss about the heathens and apostates. However, they inevitably leak out of their little dens to hijack any discussion about food to make it weirdly emotionally-charged.
Paleo
The current bad boy of dietary cults. Really founded in the late 90's/early 00's by well-intentioned but ideologically stubborn people like Dr. Loren Cordain, it's gotten exponential press in the last couple of years as consequence of the "clean eating" movement. Its basic tenants are "eat like a caveman" -- which, in their eyes, involves cutting out all grains, all legumes, nightshades, probably dairy, anything "processed", and drastically reducing simple carbohydrates. In practice, Homo S. Sapiens in their early form had diets dependent on their region and we don't really have firm knowledge of what was available; whatever it was, it's likely awfully different to conventionally grown modern crops regardless.
Paleo people, for their love of cherrypicking evidence and converting the obvious conclusion from "a diet less in pasta is generally better for you" to "humans are being poisoned by bread, scientists who genetically modify crops are evil and somehow different than organic farmers doing the same thing manually, insulin is a delicate seesaw and every time you eat an mango you'll careen it off the rails like that speeding Amtrak", and so-on. In truth, Paleo takes a decent concept and ratches it up to be particularly orthorexic and anti-science.
Paleo communities include Mark's Daily Apple, Paleohacks, and /r/Paleo and every single popular baking recipe on the internet with a comment thread like "omg... this is so bad for you!" No shit, Catherine. It's cake.
Gluten-free
Gluten really is the glutelin and prolamin proteins found in the seeds of grains, particularly wheat. They're neat because they're the reason why flour exhibits elasticity when water is added to it, and why baked goods can rise. Nutritionally, gluten is a handy little additional source of protein in goods and also holds a bit of iron and calcium.
Some people legitimately exhibit an immunoresponse to gluten involving severe GI distress symptoms, which can actually be quite serious. This is called Celiac Disease.
About 0.5%-1% of the human population has Celiac Disease. Most gluten-free people are not diagnosed Celiacs. Instead, they espouse "gluten sensitivity", where they allege that very mild symptoms are alleviated by cessation of the consumption of gluten. Maybe it's because they're not eating a loaf of bread everyday, I dunno. Anyway, they blame the ails of the modern man to the consumption of gluten and are the people ruining your local baker and making their goods crumbly as hell. Naturally, all Paleo people are gluten-free.
Keto
Oh, boy. These people are something.
Let's look at KEGG, which is a great resource for examining metabolic pathways for a number of species. Here's us. You might recognize that big ol' circle as the citric acid, or Krebs cycle. It's how we synthesize energy from Acetyl-CoA. Now, you can see that human beings make Acetyl-CoA from the products of many different other metabolic processes -- glycolysis, fatty acid metabolism, amino acid degredation and even breaking down ethanol. The efficiency of glycolysis makes us favor that pathway, and as such we derive much of our energy from carbohydrates. When we don't have much glucose, we pick up those other options. We also produce glucose ourselves with gluconeogenesis, which is "essentially a reversal of glycolysis with minor variations of alternative paths" doing shit like creating fructose from oxaloacetate.
Keto involves eating so few carbohydrates -- think less than 30g a day -- that your body assumes it's perpetually fucking starved and switches into fatty acid metabolism and also breaking down the valine, leucine and isoleucine amino acids. This is known as ketosis. As you can see, you directly produce acetoacetate in the process so you smell fucking awful.
People get hooked on keto because while you drain your body of circulating carbohydrates, you lose the capability to store as much water and dehydrate (which eventually falls to a plateau). You also mess up your leptin/ghrelin signalling a bit, and fat is quite satiating -- so people allege suppressed appetite. They say it's a good thing. To some, keto can be a handy way to lean up for a competition with weight classes, or control an issue with insulin temporarily, or is a tool to be prescribed to epileptics. To many, keto is a lifestyle to be kept up until you die because all carbohydrates are poison and that any mild inflammatory response is clearly the sign of the end times.
Keto is prevalent with the Paleo crowd, but inexplicably popular with fit people (who would likely benefit the most out of anybody with a diet high in carbohydrates). Woe is anybody who is tasked for feeding one at a party.
Vegan
You know these guys. Once upon a time, vegetarians were radicals for cutting out chicken and sticking to their grassfed yogurts. Now, vegetarians are a group of mostly normal people who care a bit about animals (and that religious Indian guy you work with).
Veganism has a stronger ethical/moralistic component than other dietary cults; you'll find an existing thread here.
Raw
Absolute nutters. Expanding on the concept that "processing" is "bad", these people believe that cooking carrots makes them carcinogenic and that one achieves enlightenment by consuming goods that have never reached 115 degrees Farenheight (thus excluding anybody who has consumed produce that was on a truck passing Phoenix in summertime).
As their body lacks the capability to truly absorb the fiber-laden fruits and lettuces they gorge, the concept of calories and energy goes out the window (their assholes). Generally a front for an eating disorder, particularly considering female ones brag about losing their periods. Usually vegans but there are some brave omnivores going for it too, which actually might be more reasonable -- sans aforementioned scurvy for raw carnivores.
Others
There are a lot of other diet cults like people who fast (particularly intermittently, meaning they hate you for eating breakfast), to those who've turned a GI treatment strategy like FODMAPS into a "thing" of good vs. bad. Let's chat about the particularly egregious ones you see leak into mainstream discussion.
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