I saw somebody refer to Taubes on here as "mainstream," which I don't think is correct. The paleo/low carb/keto bunch are more popular and visible than Peating but they're still insurgents against the establishment and not a part of it.
Obviously low carbing and Peat-inspired are not compatible, but what is interesting to me is that despite coming from two completely different angles there is very significant overlap. Even if it is based on different rationales the two are mostly in agreement on a number of types of foodstuffs.
Some of the Taubes/low carb aspects that I appreciate:
-- They have caused a debate and have forced the establishment to defend itself. They're obviously not the only ones challenging the dogma, Peat has been doing it for longer, but for whatever reason they have been able to grow to the point they can no longer be ignored, and I think that's a good thing.
-- Their partly correct critique of the established dogma is enough to damage and unmask it. Even if their recommendation of what should replace it is not 100% correct, they do a good job of unmasking the corruption, the lack of curiosity, and the irrationality behind the harmful pro-vegetable oils, anti-saturated fat nonsense that is the mainstream, state-backed dogma that has zero answers for the continued epidemic of metabolic syndrome and is in fact its cause.
-- There are major points of overlap. Both the Peat and the Taubes camp are militantly against vegetable oils, and against grains. Peaters because of PUFA and aversion to seeds, Taubers because they are carbs. Both are heavily into saturated fat and coconut oil, albeit the low-carb camp seems relatively unconcerned with PUFAs and is into Omega-3s.
-- The big danger especially with keto (less so with paleo) is that your metabolic rate would be low. But even so, I think going from the standard diet over to low carb would probably be an improvement. You'd be giving up sugar, but you'd also be cutting vegetable oils and grains, so a worthwhile tradeoff.
-- Taubes, like Peat, is raising the awareness of Old World nutritionists in pre-war Europe, and the work they did in German, which is where the bleeding edge nutrition science was being made, before the war and Nazi persecution put an end to it and moved the epicenter to the United States and English. People do not understand that much knowledge was lost during this leap across the Atlantic and that American experts were relative charlatans by comparison.
-- Taubes, like Peat, rejects the notion that how we lose weight is that we count calories and make sure to expend more in exercise than we input with eating, and instead points to the primacy of hormones and the effect of what you eat has on your hormones, albeit Taubes is exclusively focused on insulin where Peat is looking at a host of them.
-- Without a doubt it is possible to lose weight quickly and without hunger on keto, and to maintain that weight without hunger. Question is if that is the optimal way but for those suffering in their lives because of massive excess weight, it can provide quick relief and the relief they will hear about at, and make a massive difference in their lives. The establishment offers them only diet suffering without results coupled with the unstated suspicion that they must be lazy or gluttonous.
PS. The vegans precede the low carbers by a few decades but personally, I don't see vegans as insurgents but simply as those who took the official low-fat dogma to its logical extreme. (Ie, if red meat and fatty meat is bad for you then how about cutting out meat entirely...)
Obviously low carbing and Peat-inspired are not compatible, but what is interesting to me is that despite coming from two completely different angles there is very significant overlap. Even if it is based on different rationales the two are mostly in agreement on a number of types of foodstuffs.
Some of the Taubes/low carb aspects that I appreciate:
-- They have caused a debate and have forced the establishment to defend itself. They're obviously not the only ones challenging the dogma, Peat has been doing it for longer, but for whatever reason they have been able to grow to the point they can no longer be ignored, and I think that's a good thing.
-- Their partly correct critique of the established dogma is enough to damage and unmask it. Even if their recommendation of what should replace it is not 100% correct, they do a good job of unmasking the corruption, the lack of curiosity, and the irrationality behind the harmful pro-vegetable oils, anti-saturated fat nonsense that is the mainstream, state-backed dogma that has zero answers for the continued epidemic of metabolic syndrome and is in fact its cause.
-- There are major points of overlap. Both the Peat and the Taubes camp are militantly against vegetable oils, and against grains. Peaters because of PUFA and aversion to seeds, Taubers because they are carbs. Both are heavily into saturated fat and coconut oil, albeit the low-carb camp seems relatively unconcerned with PUFAs and is into Omega-3s.
-- The big danger especially with keto (less so with paleo) is that your metabolic rate would be low. But even so, I think going from the standard diet over to low carb would probably be an improvement. You'd be giving up sugar, but you'd also be cutting vegetable oils and grains, so a worthwhile tradeoff.
-- Taubes, like Peat, is raising the awareness of Old World nutritionists in pre-war Europe, and the work they did in German, which is where the bleeding edge nutrition science was being made, before the war and Nazi persecution put an end to it and moved the epicenter to the United States and English. People do not understand that much knowledge was lost during this leap across the Atlantic and that American experts were relative charlatans by comparison.
-- Taubes, like Peat, rejects the notion that how we lose weight is that we count calories and make sure to expend more in exercise than we input with eating, and instead points to the primacy of hormones and the effect of what you eat has on your hormones, albeit Taubes is exclusively focused on insulin where Peat is looking at a host of them.
-- Without a doubt it is possible to lose weight quickly and without hunger on keto, and to maintain that weight without hunger. Question is if that is the optimal way but for those suffering in their lives because of massive excess weight, it can provide quick relief and the relief they will hear about at, and make a massive difference in their lives. The establishment offers them only diet suffering without results coupled with the unstated suspicion that they must be lazy or gluttonous.
PS. The vegans precede the low carbers by a few decades but personally, I don't see vegans as insurgents but simply as those who took the official low-fat dogma to its logical extreme. (Ie, if red meat and fatty meat is bad for you then how about cutting out meat entirely...)
