The title of the book refers  to the fact that humans, like some other primates, rats, pigs, chickens, bears, and a bunch of other species, are "omnivores," meaning that they (we) are generalized feeders that can eat both animal meats as well as plant foods for our nourishment. Other species have a more specialized diet, and can only survive by either eating meat (carnivores) or plant foods (herbivores).  While being an omnivore gives distinct advantages, allowing for a wider assortment of nourishment, the flip side of this increased number of choices is the problem or dilemma of what to eat.  Koala bears know they can eat eucalyptus leaves, and that's it.  Omnivores have to figure out what they can eat, making sure not to eat something poisonous, and also trying to determine the most nutritious animals or plants (or parts of these) so that they don't waste their limited capacity to consume and fill up on ones that aren't as very nourishing. Also, since we've developed culture, language, philosophy, and religion, we also need to deal with the decision of what we should eat.  Should we eat meat, for example, or is that "immoral."  Should we eat by the rules of kosher or halal?  Should we eat organic or conventional?  Should we eat something that authorities tell us will eventually be detrimental to our health despite no immediate or obvious danger?  These questions, although they perhaps only infrequently come up for most of us, are ones where we differ from other species, and Pollan demonstrates throughout the book that these decisions can be at times very difficult ones if one really chooses to contemplate them seriously.

 The first section of the book details industrial agriculture.  Specifically, it describes everything about the biggest single crop that the U.S. produces - corn, or more accurately the species zea mays.  The history of corn is a fascinating one as Pollan tells it.  He describes how in the last fifty or so years it has become part of an absurdist spiral that has bankrupted huge numbers of farmers, made the U.S. one of the most obese countries on the planet, and has usurped the vast majority of our arable land.  Most of this, Pollan writes, is due to government subsidies that compel farmers to grow corn over anything else.  Government regulations also favor corn, industrial methods of farming, and the largest of operations.  These regulations are no doubt affected by the lobbying dollars spent, and campaign contributions given, to government officials on behalf of the manufacturers of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and huge industrial farms. 

Corn has become such a cheap commodity, Pollan tells us, that new ways are constantly being devised to deal with the ever-increasing yields and surpluses that would otherwise rot on the silo floor.  So corn goes into all processed foods for various purposes - bulking, sweetening, preserving, or adding this or that quality.  Sweetening, of course, is one of its main functions, as high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) found in soft drinks and desert foods and in many other non-desert foods that one wouldn't expect it to be in.  The escalating consumption of soft drinks with HFCS has been proposed by many as a major causal factor in the U.S. epidemic of obesity and diabetes - especially childhood diabetes.

In addition to corn, Pollan also tracks a steer he purchases that will eventually be slaughtered in a factory farm, or has the industry calls it, a Confined Area Feeding Operation, of CAFO.  The steer gets to have a happy few weeks with his mother, eating a natural diet of grass, after which he is shipped to the CAFO and subsequently made to eat a completely unnatural diet of corn, soy protein, and the fat from fellow slaughtered cows.  Corn is the carbohydrate of choice, of course, because it is so cheap, but also because it fattens the cow very quickly (not unlike how it fattens us), and produces the marbling affect that the USDA uses one of its two main variables in how it rates rate cuts of meat.  Such cows are routinely given antibiotics as part of their regular diet due to the unsanitary conditions of the industrial feed lot as well as their unnatural diet.  They are also pumped full of hormones to speed their growth even more.

Aside from the humanitarian, health, and economic issues involved, there is even one of geopolitics.  This is because industrial farming is based around petroleum, and according to Pollan accounts for 20% of the United States energy expenditure!  Not only does this industrial system involve shipping food products across the vast distances of our country, but the fertilizer itself requires a great deal of petroleum to produce.  While technology like genetically modified organisms and new farming methods have made the yield per acre of corn very high indeed, the efficiency of producing it in terms of resources needed is still low.  According to Pollan, it takes something like 50 calories of energy (mostly from oil) to produce a single food calorie from corn.  Of course, all this government subsidizing, and hence cheapening of corn, means that corn and the animals raised on it have become much cheaper to eat.  But, Pollan argues, there is a tremendous hidden cost, or costs, the two major ones being public health and our increased dependency on foreign oil.

The second part of the book is devoted to "industrial organic."  This might seem like a contradiction in terms and Pollan argues that this may be the case.  He describes the origins of the organic movement in the 60's and 70's and how part of the tenets of the movement was about "sustainability" - the ability for a farm to sustain itself without a significant amount of outside "inputs" - chemical fertilizer, pesticides, etc.)  The first farms of this movement grew haltingly, but eventually took off, mainly in the 1980's, after which their products were in such high demand by national chains like Costco that their demand could not be bet via the original ideals of organic movement.  So a more "industrial" approach was adopted.  Still, neither the animal feed nor the crops grown for human consumption via industrial organic can use chemical fertilizers or pesticides.  Antibiotics can only be used in case of an illness rather than as a preventative, and hormones cannot be used at all.  While this takes care of many of the problems of pure industrial farming, it does not deal with the problem of sustainability that was a major part of the movement's initial focus.

The third part of the book centers around the self-labeled "beyond organic," movement, which aims to reinvent the original movement's ideals, although some of its origins hark back even further to the 1940's, when industrial farming was really starting to get started, and chemical fertilizers and pesticides were starting to be used.  The movement preaches sustainability and imitating nature in the closest way possible within the confines of a managed system.  The practice is exemplified by the colorful farmer Joel Salatin in his 100-acre farm in Swoope, Virginia, about two and a half hours west of me here in the Washington DC suburbs.  Salatin has been a tireless crusader for the rights of small farmers like himself, who are often given the short end of the stick because they do not have the lobbying dollars of the industrial organic sector, let alone the non-organic industrial.  Pollan actually spends a week working at Salatin's farm, "Polyface ," for a week, involved in many of the aspects of farming, even including the slaughtering of chickens.  As Pollan describes it, just about everything at Polyface is sustainable.  The Cows graze on a given pasture and fertilize it with their manure, then they are moved to another pasture and chickens are brought in as a "clean up crew" eating the larva that has been growing in the manure.  The chickens in turn deposit their own waste, and in another day or two the grass has grown back to the point where another group of cows can be brought in to feed.  This cycle where different plants and animals participate in a system that helps all involved without the need for external materials or forces (except the farmer to move the animals) is such a huge savings in terms of fuel, raw materials, etc., that one can really see how incredibly wasteful  the industrial systems are in comparison.

The final part of the book concerns itself with Pollan's efforts to make a meal that he has hunted and gathered himself.  A friend mentors him both in hunting feral pigs as well as finding wild mushrooms.  Much of this portion of the book is devoted to Pollan's own philosophical and moral meanderings about whether he can justify killing an animal and eating it.  Pollan corresponds with Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation , and has debate both with Singer and with himself about whether eating meat is justifiable.  He does end up going on his hunt, and we get to experience the exhilaration that this brings, as well as the disgust when it comes time to dress his kill.  Foraging for mushrooms, does not elicit any moral dilemmas, but does provide some interesting information about an organism completely separate from both that of the animal and plant kingdoms, and one which we apparently know comparatively little about.

On the whole, The Omivore's Dilemma is a fascinating book that will make many people rethink their entire relationship with food.  The vast majority of us think little about food other than perhaps the cost, the calorie content, the taste, and occasionally the number of grams of fat or carbohydrate contained in it.  This book provides some great insights into aspects of the food chain that most of us know little about, perhaps enough to prompt those who read it to start thinking and caring how the food on their plate got there enough to ask more questions about that food, be it from a grocery store or a restaurant.  Perhaps some will even start to demand more from the restaurants and food shops they patronize.  And perhaps some will even ask themselves more about what they are willing to sacrifice in an effort to eat what they think will be healthy for them, the country, and the planet.

As much as I enjoyed The Omnivore's Dilemma, I did have a couple of problems with the book, and I'm apparently not alone, given some of the reviews on Amazon.com .  Let me first mention that I listened to this book as an audio book downloaded from Audible.com , so my experience is, I'm sure. slightly different from those reading the book in paper form.  Nonetheless, one of the main complaints about the book I would have to agree with - I think Pollan could have gotten his point across within 3/4 of the pages it actually took, perhaps even less.  The first parts about industrial non-organic,  and industrial organic, are very informational.  In the third part, Pollan puts himself into the story, which in itself is fine and gives us some of his personal insights by letting us experience what he did on the farm, but at a certain point, especially around the issues of killing, Pollan becomes so entangled in his own conflicting emotions and tortured thinking about it, that eventually gets repetitive and you feel like you are reading the diary of a tortured soul.  This continues and perhaps even worsens in the final part of the book, where Pollan debates vegetarianism with himself and with Singer, tries to deal with the guilt over having fun while hunting and killing his pig and his revulsion during the dressing of the animal.  Although these moral musings aren't prevalent in the chapters on hunting for mushrooms, Pollan seems to find other things to wax philosophic about, fluffing the pages out way beyond what they should be, especially at the end of a long book.

Aside from the length issue and some inaccuracies and inconsistencies pointed out by other reviewers on Amazon, my other major issue with Pollan's book is one that might not be an issue for most.  It relates to Pollan's ridicule of restricted carbohydrate diets - Atkins in particular - and disdain for fat in general and saturated fat in particular.  I find it disappointing that Pollan can debunk so much of the standard line about food, even about the "organic" label that marketers would have you believe is the healthiest food there can be, yet he seems to accept all the old dogma about low-carb and saturated fats despite there being tremendous evidence that supports the healthfulness of that way of eating.  Instead he more or less calls Atkins a "quack" and bases this, it seems, on the oft-repeated erroneous claim that Atkins eliminates an "entire food group" - by which he means carbohydrates.  This of course is incorrect, but Pollan, like many, seem to have a bias against diets, and specifically towards Atkins that clouds objectivity and careful research.  This bias seems to infect other ideas of Pollan's.  The most blatant example of this bias (perhaps also combined with some sloppiness that Pollan shows elsewhere when dealing with other technical subjects) is when he claims that the human brain can get glucose only from carbohydrates.  Any first-year biochemist will tell you that this is false, and that protein can easily be converted to glucose as well - Eskimos have survived for hundreds of years on a diet of pure protein and fat (from seal and caribou) for hundreds of years.

Finally, as at least one Amazon reviewer points out, Pollan doesn't really fully deal with the issue of the price of doing things in an organic and sustainable way.  Organic, and "beyond organic" foods are generally much higher in price than their conventional competition.  That's not to say they aren't worth that price for those who can afford them, but Wholefoods, CSA's, and Farmers Markets are often more patronized by those on the upper end of the income scale.  Those who make minimum wage, or even a bit more, would probably have to spend a huge portion of their paycheck in order to buy most of their food as organic.  They simply don't have much choice in the matter.  Pollan suggests that Pollyface's customers didn't seem like the well-healed customers of Wholefoods.  Still, Swoope is a pretty  rural part of Virginia, and so those more well-to-do people just aren't there in large numbers, and those who are probably are not trying to stand out as such. 

Theoretically if the government would stop subsidizing corn and instead used that money to support small sustainable farmers so that their food could be sold less expensively and locally(but without the regulatory requirements that often come with such funding), the food supply might be turned on its head.  This of course, is a pipe dream.  I'd love for it to happen, but how practical is it in a country as large as ours?  Can all the farmland be reconverted into lots of Polyfaces that could serve the entire country?  Even if it could be done, the monumental market forces needed for getting this change to occur just aren't there.  It would take a huge rethinking on the part of most of citizens of this country about the food they eat.  Even if everyone read Pollan's book (which I don't think is a bad idea), there would still be plenty of hold outs who simply don't care about their own health, let alone the health of others, the environment, or the health and well-being of the animals they eat.  I think the best we can hope for, at least for the foreseeable future, is just a level playing field, where small farmers are given the same rights and opportunities as the giant industrial ones and still get to produce their crops and livestock in the way they choose with as little regulation from the government as possible.  This is all that Joel Salatin wants, according to Pollan, and I don't think it's something unreasonable to ask for, even from those who couldn't care less about "organic," "beyond organic," or any other fancy label we might choose to give our food in the future.

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For a long time with a mapping program I've wanted the ability to figure out exactly how far something was from me.  I try to walk for exercise when I can, and we also sometimes walk to nearby stores instead of driving when the weather is nice, we have the time, and we're not exhausted from the myriad of chores and duties that keep us busy most days.  Using a standard mapping interface like Google Maps itself doesn't quite cut it.  For one thing it means knowing the address of where you are coming from and going to, which is not always known, so you have to spend extra time looking this information up, and it might not even be completely accurate (for example, according to most mapping programs which use the same data source, my house is actually almost a block from where it says it is!).  Secondly, there's no guarantee that the mapping program will design a route that is the same as the way you walk.  It often chooses some other route that it deems faster by car.  Of course, this doesn't even account for some routes which cars simply can't traverse because of a road that's one way in the wrong direction or even no road at all!  I've always wanted something akin to a graphics program where you draw a polymer by clicking multiple times to form the shape.  In my mind, the lines would automatically stick to the roads that were closest to them.

More recently, I've been trying to get more exercise in during the day, and since it's been so nice and unseasonably warm here this week, I decided to skip lunch and just walk around the neighborhood.  I was wondering how much I walked, but other than the amount of time and a vague sense of how fast I was going, I really couldn't gauge much.  So I thought I'd start looking for something akin to what I've described above and maybe, just maybe I'd find something.  Well, I was shocked that I found something perfect almost immediately! 

Gmaps Pedometer is the site/hack, and it is great for anyone just wanting to know how far it is from one point to another on a map, to someone who wants to get detailed information for a walking program, a cycling route, etc.  You can very easily create a walking path and Gmaps Pedometer will show you dynamically not only what the distance is, but even how many calories you will burn on this path.  I'm not sure about how accurate the calorie count is, though, since my 3-mile path I created around my office was rated at 368 calories, which seems a bit high.  Gmaps Pedometer even gives you a graphic of the elevation levels your path is traversing, but as much as I'd like to believe it, I don't believe elevation is taken into account for calories.  The only forum message from the author about this on the site mentions not wanting to use the elevation markers for anything else because elevation data is not available everywhere - it seems to be available mostly for the U.S. 

If you can time your walk, and Gmaps Pedometer gives you an accurate measurement of the distance, you can figure out your speed and then you can plug that, the time, and your weight into some other tool to get a more or less accurate representation of you calories burned.  I tried to find such a calculator on the web, but all the ones out will only let you plug in pre-specified numbers for your pace, like 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, etc. mph.  I did find one shareware application you can download that does seem to have the degree of flexibility I was hoping for.

In addition to what I've mentioned so far, Gmaps Pedometer also lets you save a given route, so for example, this is one route I created .  Also, it lets you export to GPX format with a third party bookmarklet .  GPX is a format for sharing GPS data, so potentially you could load this into your GPS and use it as a way to navigate.  This might be very valuable for hikers, or just walkers or cyclists who are unfamiliar with an area and want to make sure they are taking the right path.  Theoretically, one could use Gmaps Pedometer to design city walking tours and make those available for people to download, along with a set of MP3's for each of the points of interest on the path.  Really, the possibilities are endless with this thing!

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1. Sustainability: this is definitely an interesting dilemma. I often wonder whether organic methods would provide more sustainability, but I don't know the answer to that. Still, I'm not sure if it is relevant exactly. The question of something being healthy for the individual and sustainable for the planet if everyone ate a particular way are two seperate issues. I wrote recently about new efforts to produce meat in the lab without actually raising cattle, but that's in very early stages...


2. Plenty of people develop cardiovascular disease and diabetes who are also in the normal weight category. Their premise is that obesity causes these diseases, but the alternate view (of which the Paleo and other similar diets adhere to) is that obesity is simply another symptop of insulin resistance, which is the real culprit that leads to diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and host of silimilar problems. While eating less and exercising does lower insulin levels and thus improves these problems, it doesn't always solve the underlying issue. But also, they never really talk about why one would opt for the caloric control model other than that's what is recommended by most nutritionists. Why would doing this be "better" than living in a way that, supposedly, our bodies were designed to eat?


3. Study: while they call this study "recent," I'm curious why in the 5 years since I've been low-carbing and reading all the battles in the press about low-carb pro and anti, that I've only now heard of this study? I'm curious to actually read what it has to say, but so far this is the only study that I've ever heard of that has something bad to say about low-carb. Yet, Atkins has been around for 30+ years, so you would think there would be some more evidence that such diets were bad for you over the long haul. I'm all for having scientific studies on these issues, but as we all know, just pointing to a study doesn't necessarily mean it holds water. It has to be peer reviewed, and even then often from what I've seen the conclusions sometimes ignore the obvious because they preconceptions of the authors refuse to consider a possibility that they don't want and so dismiss results that don't fit those preconceptions.


4. McDougall: I've heard of McDougall, but I can't place where exactly. Anyway, a couple of points. First, the Zone isn't a low-carb diet, as far as I can tell, it is way too high in carbs. It may be higher protein than what is recommended by nutritionists, but the amount of carbs that are consumed on such a diet can be harmful for those who are insulin resistant. Secondly, the whole Japanese issue was tackled I think, in Protein Power. The problem with his argument is that it ignores the fact that when Japanese come here and adopt our diet, they are also adopting a new lifestyle, which may increase stress. They also may be eating a diet that has just as many carbs here, less fish, more junk food, etc. Epidemiological studies that purport to prove what healthy eating is by looking at different populations are notoriously unreliable because they just can't account for all the variables from one population to another. Much more reliable, but still shakey is looking at the same population and making conclusions based on a range of diet and lifestyle variables. McDougall's quote "If high-protein diets, which means meat, egg, and dairy products, were so good for us then people who subsist on these foods (most Americans) would be the thin and healthy, and vegetarians would be fat and sick. In general, the opposite is the case." belies some real problems with logic. He doesn't seem to understand that people who eat based on the concepts of a "high protein" diet, are also not eating all the refined carbs and sweets that "most Americans" eat. As for vegetarians, I've seen many an obese vegetarian. Now, when it comes to vegans (perhaps this is the group he really means to talk about because he includes dairy as part of his collection of "high protein" foods), I would agree that most are skinny. In my mind, though, this is not because their diet is somehow better. Skinny does not always equal healthy and in fact until the latter half of last century it was equated with the opposite!


5. Excess: are you sure excess protein is excreted? My sense is it still needs to be digested and depending on what the body needs, it will be converted up to 50% as glucose, which then, if not needed, will be stored as fat. This is one reason why it's still debated even in some low-carb circles whether eating too much protein may eventually slow weight loss. But the actual digestive process whereby protein is broken down, is very inefficient. It needs more energy than what protein provides in caloric needs (conversion to glucose), so probably eating just too much protein is not going to do much. Besides, protein has been showd to be a much more "self-limiting" macronutrient than either carbs or fat, so you are much more likely to stop at a "reasonable" level. But the other question we should ask is this - why do we need to limit ourselves to only what our body "needs." Needs in what sense? To survive or to thrive? And this is going to vary a great deal depending on the individual, their activity level, their size, etc. The nutritionists suggest we only need a very small amount of protein, and we shouldn't go over that amount but I think it's much less an issue if we get more than enough because protein helps our body maintain it's vital functions and parts. There has been no ill effects shown from those eating excess protein, except for the limited cases where a person has preexisting pathologies of the kidneys.


6. Water: yet again, this old saw is brought up. Yes, initial weight loss on most diets is mostly water. But someone who loses 50 lbs over a year (or more) is not losing 50 lbs of water! So why even bring this up when this is true of most diets?


7. Calories in vs. Calories out: again, this is the main battle cry of nutritionists - "The only way to lose weight is to use more calories than you consume. For most people this means a sensible, low calorie diet with regular aerobic exercise." Says who? The problem with this thinking is that it does not work for "most people." Or rather, it does not work long-term. Anyone can lower there caloric intake and exercise a lot and lose a bunch of weight. I've done this numerous times, but like many, the weight always came back. What this approach does not consider is that what we eat and our digestive process itself has an effect on this caloric balance. In other words, metabolism! Not only do different people burn calories at different rates, but you as an individual will burn at a different rate depending on how much muscle you put on (or take off). The added muscle needs more calories and uses them to maintain the muscle mass. In addition to this, there's something called the "dynamic action of foods" which I alluded to above. This says that different foods (or really different macronutrients – carbs, fat, and protein), have different energy requirements in digestion. Protein is "inefficient" because it takes more energy to digest it that in provides the body. Carbs and fat are much more easily digested and so most of the calories they contain are used by the body either for energy or stored as fat. So a simple calories in vs calories out is really incorrect and incredibly oversimplified.


8. Toxins: toxins are a problem in our food supply in general, but I'm surprised that it's brought up in relation to free-range meats. Cattle or other animals that are fed an unnatural diet of grain (and probably genetically modified grain), do not have some of the beneficial qualities of free-range/grass fed cattle. I agree that this is something to be concerned about, but where are the studies or the information about such toxins being in meat? Fat is supposed to be the carrier, but a lot of free-range meat is actually lower in fat than its farm-fed counterparts, and again, where are the studies backing this theory up?


9. Disease: the last point of the counterpoint section shows again a point that is made which really effects a very small number of people:
   
   

   "One of the strongest counterpoints to the Paleodiet is when the dietary recommendations it contains would directly worsen a pre-existing medical condition. Individuals with conditions like liver disease, renal insufficiency or kidney failure or certain metabolic disorders like phenylketouria (PKU) could be caused significant harm by the high protein content in the Paleodiet. As always, discuss any planned dietary changes with your medical doctor before beginning new eating habits."

   
   
   PKU is exceedingly rare, and liver and kidney disease is not very common either. It goes with out saying that if you have a serious illness or condition like one listed above, you should learn as much as possible about what foods you need to be careful about ingesting. But this is like saying that "one of the strongest counterpoints to eating shrimp is that some people suffer allergies to shelfish." If you go by that logic, than we would have an extremely limited diet, because for almost every food you could probably find someone who is allergic or at least claims to be.

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Update: Well, it seems like there are still some issues with the new version that they are working out.  No word on when we may see it, but I'll try to warn you when it does finally go forward...

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I've written before about this before, but basically I think that the huge explosion in popularity of low-carb is somewhat akin to the internet "bubble" of the late 90's. It was the hot new thing. People were throwing money at you if you had the most idiotic business plan as long as you talked the lingo, could hype things up to grandiose levels, etc. Companies were becoming valued overnight in the billions while having made absolutely no money. Low-carb really began to build steam in 2003 with a number of studies indicating that not only was it not harmful, but it seemed more effective for losing weight and shockingly actually improved cholesterol numbers despite critics claims that it would cause massive coronaries overnight. The beginning of 2004 was when things really exploded. For the last part of 2003, much of the U.S. had been ignoring diet news and dieting itself as it stuffed itself during the annual tradition known as the exteneded holiday season!. Now that the time of reconning had come, guess which diet was the new trendy one to be on? A new book called The South Beach Diet took advantage of the growing interest and was eaten up by the masses of seasonal dieters. Of course the old stalwart Atkins New Diet Revolution was as well.

The big food manufacturers started coming out with low-carb versions of many different products, from candy to yoghurt. Even those foods that had been around for years started carrying "low-carb" labels if they happened to be low-carb. It was all eerily similar to the low-fat frenzy of the early to mid-90's, which was now largely defunct. But low-fat took a long time to go away, and never really did completely. There are still lots of big low-fat advocates out there. It was rather a steady decline as people realized that the losses were often temporary because eating low-fat meant they were constantly hungry and needing to eat more, thus making maintaining their weight difficult. Likewise health issues sometimes went along with low-fat, like hypoglycemia, low LDL cholesterol, and high triglicerides. With the low-carb movement, it all happened much faster - the bubble began to burst as early as the summer of 2004. Because many new companies had cropped up in 2004 and even started retail establishments specializing in low-carb fair, the assumption was that this big market that had developed overnight would be around for a long time. Unfortunately, this was not to be.

I have my own thoughts on what happened and why, but it seems that the professional low-carb community is trying to make sense of this and sharing their thoughts with the public. This Friday at 3pm, at the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, California, Low Carb Luxury, a popular online store for low-carb products, is sponsoring a press conference entitled Low Carb Lives, featuring some big names, including my personal favorites, Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades (authors of Protein Power and many other books), Dana Carpender, and Fred Pescatore, and others. Andrew DiMino, owner of another low-carb online (and bricks and morter) store, Carbsmart, is also on the panel and told me that he is hoping to publish an audio version of the conference via a podcast he will be starting up soon. I'll post more details when I get them. I'm very hopeful that this conference will provide a lot of great insight from those on the front lines as to what happened during the bubble and it's aftermath.

In addition to the conference, much of the panel will be autographing books at Andrew's retail outlet in Huntington, CA, the next day, Saturday March 19.

My sense is that just like the Internet bubble, after all the dust has settled, the reactionaries will lose credibility and the valuable lessons will be learned in order to move on. People didn't just stop using the Internet once the bubble burst, rather people use it more every day. Companies like Google, Yahoo, and Mozilla are making headlines in the mainstream press, and it's not about hype. Likewise we are seeing the stirrings of things that might seem unlikely at best given the supposed condition of the low-carb industry. I still see low-carb products I haven't seen previously.

Even more surprisingly, The Eades are not only coming out with a new book about staying on your low-carb diet for the long-haul, but they are actually going to have their own low-carb cooking show on PBS. I have long thought that their measured, sensible message of eating a diet rich in natural and organic whole foods that are low in carbs is one that the media has ignored because it isn't "exciting" enough. PBS, with their lack of a need to sensationalize everything in order to keep massive audience shares that attract advertizers, may be the perfect place for this kind of message. The Eades approach is also very scientifically based. It delves into our genetic, anthropological and evolutionary history as a species. I believe it appeals more to those who are willing to do a lot of reading themselves and not just accept the dogma foisted upon us by the American Dietetic Association and their minions of registered dieticians spouting the party line of low-fat, despite real proof that that approach results in long-term weight and health gains, while they criticize low-carb for not having similar proof and also for a slew of potential risks which are mere theories and have never been proven or indicated by real-world data. With the ability to explain their compelling experiences as doctors as well as some of the real scientific underpinnings of low-carb in a relaxed time-frame (rather than having to give scintillating sound bytes or doing some high-pressure promotion), it might finally sink into some that this approach deserves some attention.

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There's nothing particularly bleeding-edge about eating the hamburger but not the bun, now that low-carb dieting has gone mainstream. But low-carb diets do appear to hold a special attraction for hackers, programmers and other close-to-the-machine dwellers. For some geeks, the low-carb diet is itself a clever hack, a sneaky algorithm for getting the body to do what you want it to do, a way of reprogramming yourself. Programmers, who are used to making their computers serve their will, are now finding that low-carb diets enable the same kind of control over their bodies.

The article is about how hackers have taken to low-carb dieting for a number of reasons.  Who knew that people like Cory Doctorow and Doc Searls were big low-carbers?  Not me!  Personally speaking most of the people I know who low-carb are not programmers, except for myself of course!

Basically, the article contends that hackers see low-carbing as "hacking" their bodies - to burn calories at a different rate.  I think Searls is spot on when he is quoted as saying that he doesn't think it's a hack at all, but rather a "feature" - something we are supposed to be doing - eating the way our bodies are meant to.  This may sound preposterous to those who are only familiar with the common stereotype (repeated in this article) of low-carbing being about eating a diet of only bacon cheeseburgers without the bun, but if you consider modern hunter gatherers and their overall diets being meat-based, you will get more of an idea of what Searls may be referring to.

The article, as most, only meantions one low-carb diet - Atkins.  But Atkins never talks about the evolutionary and anthropological clues scientists have dug up regarding how our ancestors ate, which seem to suggest, as I mentioned, a primarily meat-based diet, such as is discussed in the Protein Power Books, Neanderthin, the Paleo Diet, and others.  Since most hackers are scientifically minded, I think they would probably find even more interest in these theories than anyone.

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The one problem I've seen with this foundation is that among others who are animal welfare advocates, one of the organizations participating is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).  PETA has a stance that mimics most extremist vegana and vegetarian and animal rights movements - the complete elimination of animals being used for food, period.  This is the dilemma that is faced by most vegetarians and vegans who become so for ethical reasons.  In their minds, killing animals for any purpose is wrong, whether done painlessly or not, and whether the quality of their lives was good or not.  Also, the eating of "flesh" or even dairy or eggs from animals is repulsive to them.  So, any effort among omnivores to make the lives of animals better is seen as disingenuous or simply meaningless in the face of our ultimate sin, that of eating meat.

I'm not sure exactly what to say to those people.  I firmly believe that eating meat - naturally raised, not factory-produced - is enormously healthy for you and while one can certainly live on a completely vegetarian or even vegan diet, most people don't really thrive.  Some do, of course, but many don't.  In any case, I'm not willing to sacrifice my health because some people feel its unethical of me to eat meat.  These people are of course entitled to their opinion, but as long as they keep it at that, I'm perfectly fine with that.

I do, however, think that despite some of these people's tunnel vision, that some vegetarians respect other people's right to eat the way they choose and they are all the more happy that some of us carnivores are thoughtful enough about animals and the environment to want to promote farming and animal-husbandry practices that support better lives for animals and more sustainable land management.

The extremists seem to not even understand what would be most beneficial to their movement.  But extremists often cannot see the forest for the trees.  They tend to be so subsumed by their ultimate goal that they cannot fathom even steps in that direction.  If I were in their shoes, I'd be big supporters of these types of movements because it will make more people familiar with the problem in general without having to be shouted at by people on the corner waving graphic blown-up photos of mangled animals.  Extremists don't understand that this shock treatment only serves to alienate and anger most people.  But maybe their stance is not conducive to rational argument?  More likely, it is just a lot easier to shout and show graphic stuff that ANYONE would be disgusted by, then to actually defend a position in a rational way.

To repeat, I'm not trying to feather all vegetarians or vegans as extremists.  I know some personally who do not look down on me for eating meat (at least that I know), and whose decision is a personal one which they choose not to inflict on others.  But these are folks with friends and family who are 98% meat-eaters, and they probably have made a conscious decision that if they were to try to proselytize, many of those people would simply not want to have much to do with them.  Of course extremists on the other hand view their cause as more important than anything else, so would basically rather lose all ties to friends and family who eat meat rather than associate with such horrible people.  They can, after all, form new relationships within their extremist communities, right?

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Now there's this report that suggests that low-carb has had a new surge after New Years.  It has been credited to the usual surge of new dieters during this time of year, but it neglects to relate this to the whole story behind dieting trends and continues to use loaded terms like "craze."  Here's what seems obvious to me: 

1. The low-carb movement came to critical mass at the beginning of 2004.  Part of this was due to the growing number of studies that were giving more legitimacy to the method of weight loss.  Part of it, no doubt, was due to Gary Taubes' high-profile defense of the low-carb movement and theory in the New York Times the previous year.  Part of it was due to the notoriety of Dr. Robert Atkins death and the controversy created around the misinformation and privacy invasions perpetrated by PCRM animal rights activists.  Part of it was due to a new low carb book (which the author continually claims is not a low-carb book) called The South Beach Diet.  And finally, part of it was based on food companies finally sitting up and taking notice of a new potential product category that they could get in on the ground level now that low-fat products had by and large sunk to unprofitability.
2. There are constant articles in the press about how popular low-carb is becoming and this just snowballs to create more and more interest.  People buy primarily only two books about low-carbing, the Atkins book, or the South Beach book, which may not even be particularly about low-carbing.  Some of these people make a genuine effort, lose weight and even adopt truly healthy eating patterns - they aschew most of the processed low-carb foods for the bounty of "legal" whole foods like vegetables, meats, fish, poultry, nuts, eggs, dairy products, and even some fruits.  Many more people, though, either don't read the books, or read only the menu sections, and get a very scewed idea about what low-carb is about.  They believe that low-carb is, as the press and critics have painted it, about eating all meat, fat, and cheese, no vegetables, no fruit, etc.  Likewise they get the impression that all of these new products labeled low-carb are ok to eat in whatever quantity they want.  Actually, anything low-carb (like meat, cheese, etc.) is considered to be an all-you-can eat affair.  Despite these misconceptions, some of these people succeed in losing a lot anyway.  Many others don't.  Of the people who succeed, eventually they get sick of eating the same thing over and over because they mistakenly believe that low-carb is only about eating a few types of food.  They also don't understand why or how low-carb is supposed to work to make them not only thinner but also healthier, and so their motivation to continue goes out the window.
3. By this point it's probably the summer, and most people are more active anyway, so the weight doesn't fly back on, and people aren't eating huge meals in summer heat either.  But neither are they buying anymore low-carb products, and so we start to hear rumblings in the press about low-carb being on its way out.
4. A few months later and even more of the bandwagon-jumpers have jumped back off and then people start gearing up for the holidays.  And by gearing up I mean they start to give themselves much more leeway in what they eat.  Everyone else is getting lax during this time, so it becomes much easier to let yourself go because you aren't alone in your guilty pleasures!  Even many old stalwart dieters are slackening during this period, but of course the polling taking place makes the argument that this slackening indicates a definite trend in relationship only to low-carb dieting and not an overall pattern for all dieting over many, many years.
5. Finally the New Year comes and many of our resolutions are about getting back on that horse at least for the moment and thus, yes of course, the polling now indicates that.

What I think is important to stress here is that low-carb dieting is not any different in terms of dieting trends than other diets out there.  It's the new kid on the block, or at least newly respected (by many but not all) kid on the block, so it's going to get more attention.  However, the issue, I don't think, is so much about low carb being something that people can only do for 6 months before getting bored, as critics would say, but that the whole tradition of dieting in this country, and many others, is a very seasonal one.  We expect every year to be tempted through much of November and December at Holoween, Thanksgiving, Christmass, New Years, and umpteen holiday parties spread throughout.  The weather is getting colder and there's this sense that it's more forgivable to put on a little more "insulation" for the cold.  Then there's the obligatory concession of guilt and resolution to be good again once the New Year has arrived.  Because this is a pattern that so many of us fall into, it becomes easy to ride the wave so to speak.  Sharing your life experience with countless others (whether friends or strangers) even if that is not a healthy one, is a lot less lonely than being one of the few different ones.

Another part of this as I've mentioned above, is also that many of us are either to busy to feel like we should really learn how and why to go about eating and/or exercising.  We want quick summaries and the most basic information to just "do" the diet.  "Just tell me what to eat" I've heard from countless people itching to start low-carbing.  They don't want to read a book, even if that means they will have a much better idea of what they can eat, why, and whether eating a certain way actually makes sense to them.  Nope, in this world of instant gratification, even dieting falls prey to this mentality of just cutting to the chase to get the most dumbed-down directive about how to eat.

So, in other words, I'm really sick of hearing about how trendy low-carb is or isn't.  The fact of the matter is that it shouldn't matter!  The only thing that should matter is whether low-carb works for you.  If it doesn't so be it, but just ask yourself if you really know whether you know what low-carb is about.  Read a whole book, or better yet read a couple or a few and get some different information about the theories and facts behind low-carb eating and decide whether it makes sense and whether if you've done it in the past, were you doing it in the best way?  Any diet can be adhered to technically, but also not optimally.  For example, I could eat a low-fat diet full of lean protein, but I could also eat a technically low-carb diet with almost no protein, no vegetables, or fruit.  I could eat just spaghetti with low-fat margarine, low-fat candy, etc.  I could also eat low-carb based on the misinformed critics' idea of mountains of fried pork topped with mounds of cheese with a liter of grease thrown in for effect!  But, after reading a couple of books, it became very apparent to me that eating reasonable portions of a combination of different foods including meat, poultry, fish, nuts, eggs, vegetables, and even fruits was just as technically a low-carb diet, just not one that low-carb critics want to admit are allowable.

For years, critics have been painting low-carb diets as "fad" diets, but really most diets are fads to one degree or another.  Diets come and go and while there is a diet that is officially recommended by nutritionists and the medical community which has changed over the years, that could never be labeled as a "fad," right?  Fads are bad because they are ostensibly about irrational reasons for doing something.  It's fasionable or popular, but may not have any legitimacy.  However, just because a diet is popular or becomes very popular and then not so much doesn't make it good or bad.  What really matters is whether it works to help you lose weight healthfully and actually makes you more healthy.  As I'm sure you know by now if you didn't already, I am very much believe in the data that suggests that eating low-carb (in the healthy way I mention) can be very healthy.  But if we keep concentrating on what the critics, the media, or pollsters say is or isn't popular when that shouldn't be an argument for or against anything, we will continue to maintain this really skewed understanding of eating and also our wacky and unhealthy traditions of seasonal dieting trends.

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Going through the guide, I noticed that much of it was basically the same old advise that we've been hearing for year, but which either haven't worked, or more likely which have only resulted in the U.S. getting even more obese.  But let's look on the bright side for the moment - here are the only valuable additions to the recommendations:

1. Avoid Trans Fatty Acids:  hooray, the USDA has finally come out with a recommendation to avoid these harmful things found in processed baked goods, shortenings, margarines, and some dressings.   The problem is that no specific recommendation is made.  Instead it is just recommended to consume "as little as possible."  But who knows how much is "little"?  Of course previous documents have basically said that there is really no safe minimum level, and hopefully the new labeling laws that will require these to be listed on labels will maintain the momentum that is motivating food companies to rid their products of these.  The other problem I saw is that Trans Fats were lumped in with saturated fats and cholesterol as items to avoid in order to avoid congestive heart disease.  Considering that plant-based saturated fats like coconut oil are now being seen as healthful in many quarters, and the fact that dietary cholesterol has been shown not to be a major factor effecting cholesterol levels in the blood, it's disappointing that Trans Fats were grouped with these other two.
2. Increase fruits, vegetables, and whole grain consumption.  Most people would agree that vegetables and fruits provide a great source of nutrients.  With most vegetables these even come without the added risk of large dense carbohydrate or sugar loads that effect insulin levels and subsequently can cause health problems in some who are sensative.  Fruits are a bit more prone to having large amounts of sugar.  Grains, of course, are high in carbohydrates, but the recommendation is to increase whole grains, which have much more fiber which is not converted into sugar thus raising insulin levels.  However, if you look at the recommendations, they basically suggest increasing whole grains by about 200-300% from the 2000 recommendations, and to keep the refined (they call them "enriched") grains the same.  So while you may be getting more fiber, they are actually increasing your total carb load.

And that is one of my big problems with the recommendations.  Despite all the recent studies which suggest merit with decreasing carbohydrate levels, at very least refined carb levels, the new food guide recommendations still is basically a low-fat/high-carb diet.  Not that I expected anything different.  After all, the USDA's main purpose it to support the agriculture of the United States.  That agriculture is primarily grain-based, and so there is an obvious interest in promoting grains – and thus a horrible conflict of interest.  The USDA's food pyramid is nowhere to be seen within the current recommendations, but apparently it is in the process of being modified to match the new recommendations.  But I can't really see how it will change much.  The base will still be about grains, the top will still be fats and sugar.  Perhaps they will rewrite the portions recommendations so that it doesn't look like you need to eat 11 bowls of pasta per day in order to meet the requirements for grains, but we'll see.  The previous pyramid has developed a great deal of criticism except for the old guard nutritionists who basically use whatever the USDA puts out as their bible.

The unfortunate thing is that this will do nothing to educate or help those who know little about what to eat.  Their recommendations are a set of basic guidelines (misguidelines if you ask me) which don't really teach people why they should eat a certain way, but just tell them to. 

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I've always been more of a "salt" person than a sugar person, but given the right sweets, I'll suck deserts down with the best of them.  This can be problematic if you're watching your weight, or simply trying to avoid huge swings in insulin that could bring on insulin resistance and eventually diabetes (or of course if you already have one of these conditions).  Of course, if you're on a low-carb diet, sugar is not exactly your friend.

So, people have turned to the sugar "substitute" or "artificial sweetener."  Saccharin was the grandady of these, having been discovered in the 19th century.  Concerns about cancer in rats who consumed their own weight in the stuff per day caused Canada to ban saccharin in 1977, while the FDA simply mandated warning labels (since removed).   Other than the potential health risks, saccharin also had the disadvantage of having a somewhat bitter aftertaste.  Saccharin's trade name is "Sweet N' Low."

Aspartame, which became the main sweetener used in diet soft drinks starting in the 1980's, has had even more controversy.  Firstly it approved by the FDA despite concerns that it might cause brain tumors allegedly because of influence of its owner, the giant Monsanto agribusiness.  There have also been concerns that aspartame is a neurotoxin due to its component parts and many people have reported migraine headaches and other physical ailments that are similar to those reported by some consuming MSG.  The trade name of aspartame is "NutraSweet" and it's sold as a substitute in packets by the name "Equal."  Aspartame's big improvement over saccharin was in its lack of a bitter aftertaste, although it still contains some aftertaste.

The newest big contender in this market is Sucralose, which has approved in the U.S. only in 1998, although in Canada it was approved over ten years ago.  The Sucralose molecule basically takes some of the atoms in a sugar molecule – hydrogen and oxygen groups called hydroxyls,  and substitutes chlorine, which is thought to make it indigestible by the body.  It is thought to taste the most like sugar of all of these substitutes and unlike the others it can be used in cooking.  So far there have been no major health concerns with sucralose, despite it's being studied now for almost 20 years after being discovered almost 30 years ago.  It goes under the commercial name "Splenda." Due to aspartame's dominance in this category for a decade or two before sucralose came on the scene, it has had a somewhat difficult time supplanting aspartame despite it's seeming advantages.  Only one major soft drink brand (Diet Rite) has adopted its use, and it is still rarely seen accompanying the other two major sugar substitutes in restaurants, although this is starting to change.  One factor that has driven a great deal of Splenda's success is its adoption by low-carb dieters who saw it as a much less risky and better-tasting substitute for something that is basically unacceptable at any level on their diet – sugar.  Recently, we've heard that not only is Splenda in tight supply due to the surge of popularity, but the company that makes Equal, Chicago-based Merisant, obviously feeling its market share threated, is suing the maker of Splenda for false advertising.

Speaking of low-carb, in order to continue to eat sweets, many low-carbers have turned to low-carb sweets like candies, and even attempt their own baking creations.  Many of the packaged "low-carb" sweets use primarily what are termed "sugar alcohols."  Splenda might be a better choice, but in the quantities needed to sweeten candy and other deserts, it would be so prohibitive that the products could not be sold except in very high-end gourmet specialty stores in Beverly Hills!  Xylitol, sorbitol, and maltitol are just some of the many of these sugar alcohols.  The theory is that they are only partially digested (different ones get absorbed at different rates and these rates also depend on the person consuming them), and that they do not raise blood sugar levels and the accompanying insulin levels.  But just because they don't raise these levels does not necessarily mean that they don't count in terms of calories or carbs, and thus the controversy.  The main problem with these substances other than this is that they have, to varying degrees and depending on the consumer, a laxative affect, especially when consumed in anything more than a small quantity.

So much for better living through chemistry!  As I've mentioned here before, I adhere (most of the time, although this holiday season is kicking my ass) to a diet based on the Protein Power books by Dr.'s Michael R. and Mary Dan Eades, and have done so for over four years now.  While their diet is low in carbs, they have a much more holistic view of eating and health than simply eating a certain way to lose weight.   So, they recommend organic produce, free-range or grass-fed animals, lots of fresh veggies, and some fruits as well.  While one can certainly eat plenty of veggies on Atkins, the tone of his earlier books, I think, gave some people (including his critics), a misconception that it was only about eating meat, cheese, and fat.  The Eadeses, on the other hand, are clearly about eating a varied diet full of vegetables in addition to meats, fish, dairy, nuts, seeds, fruits and other whole foods.  Low-carb dieters, I feel, get a bad rap because they seem to be doing something "faddish" by eating foods that the "experts" have been recommending against for so long.  Of course some people do jump on the bandwagon because they hear about it as being popular, effective in producing some quick results, and with the added benefit of allowing you to eat foods a  whole lot tastier than celery and skim milk.  Some of these people don't take the time to learn about how to eat or why to eat one way as opposed to another, so when they get sick of their skewed perception of what the diet should be, they go off and regain the weight. 

It may seem odd to some that their might be some folks like myself who are both big low-carb advocates and at the same time big organic, whole foods advocates, but there are plenty of us out there, and I think the Protein Power books were influential for many of us.  That being said, I wanted to discuss a couple of other sugar substitutes that adhere more to this holistic approach to eating as opposed to the more synthetic and processed approach taken by much of the food industry (including many low-fat products).

Tagatose is probably the newest sugar substitute, or at least the newest one to be approved by the FDA – only last year (2003).  It goes by the commercial name "Naturlose."  It's been used so far in 7-Eleven diet Slurpies, but otherwise has not garnered much commercial notice, perhaps due to cost issues.  Tagatose, while not nearly as sweet as the other substitutes – in fact it is a little LESS sweet than sugar – is also the most similar to sugar in taste, texture, behavior when cooked, etc.  That's probably because it essentially IS sugar, but just a mirror version of it called an isomer.  It's sometimes referred to as "left-handed sugar" due to its molecular orientation.  For some reason the body doesn't recognize this as real sugar and only absorbs about 25% of it.  It actually occurs in nature, but in fairly small quantities.

Stevia is a substance that comes from a plant and has been used for centuries as a sweetener in South America, although it occurs in other parts of the world as well.  The extract can be 200 or more times as sweet as sugar.  Depending on the source it can contain some degree of bitterness that has a licorice flavor. While natural, there have been some indications that in large doses it causes infertility in rodents, but otherwise there seems to be no indications of health issues.  Nevertheless the FDA deemed it "unsafe" as a food additive and so one can only buy it as a "dietary supplement" and use it personally to sweeten foods for your own consumption.  The recent explosion of popularity of low-carb diets has meant that Stevia has gotten more visibility lately and one can now find it more readily in natural food stores at least.

Because I subscribe to a more natural, holistic way of eating, my personal leanings mean that I try to eat substances that are more "natural."  But what does this really mean?  While Stevia exists in nature, I doubt it exists in the concentrations that are available in commercial extracts.  There's also the oft-heard rebuttle from those who poo-poo natural food advocates that not everything "natural" is good for you – such as poison mushrooms, arsenic, etc.  While this may be true, the fact of the matter is that these artificial chemicals are potentially even more risky because they do not occur in nature and so the human body has never evolved to deal with them.  Maybe some like Splenda will turn out to have no ill-affect, and certainly others like Aspartame while potentially dangerous to some, are completely harmful to others.  With natural products, there is at least a slightly better chance that the body can handle them appropriately, the theory being that those who ate something that was potentially harmful had a disadvantage in surviving and so eventually died out.

Up until fairly recently, I had basically taken the position that because none of these substitutes was necessarily perfectly safe as far as we know, that the only thing to do was to avoid all sugar and substitutes.  And this is a viable option for some. I took this approach for a while and after a while you do get used to it and your taste buds adapt.  You are much better able to taste the natural sweetness in foods when your taste buds aren't being pounded by huge amounts of sweetness.  Of course most coffee is not goint to ever taste at all sweet, no matter how long you've gone without sweeteners.

So with this in mind I set out recently to try out some Stevia and found it to be pretty affective.  The only thing that I sweeten personally is coffee or occasionally tea, so I'm not sure how it would taste in other foods.  I tried two different kinds, one I picked up from Trader Joe's and is called "Superior Source Sweet 'n Natural Powder."  One thing about both Stevia and Splenda is that because they are so much sweeter than sugar, they cannot be packaged in pure form.  The granuals or whatever their natural form takes would be so miniscule for a single serving that you'd need tweezers to add it to your food!  So, manufacturers have generally settled on two methods of packaging.  The first, and most prevalent way, is to use a "bulking agent" that is mixed in to dilute the agent and thus allow for larger mass per serving.  Unfortunaly the bulking agents used add carbs and calories to the mix, somewhat defeating the purpose.  The other method is to use a bulking agent which adds no carbs or calories – water.  Obviously, this is less convenient in many ways than a solid buling agent since you can't make "packets" like sugar, Equal, etc.  I guess you could make them, as they do this with more liquid items like katsum, mayo, mustard, etc, but perhaps the cost would make it impractical?  In any case, liquid Splenda, while first available in the U.S. several years ago, is no longer.  In any case, the Superior Source Sweet 'n Natural Powder uses a solid bulking agent – that of lactose.  Half a teaspoon is plenty to sweeten 8 or even 16 oz's of coffee as far as I'm concerned.  The consistency is something like confectioners sugar – very fine grained "powder." 

The fact that the bulking agent was a sugar made me consider trying one of the water-suspended Stevia products.  So I recently went to my local Whole Foods and bought one of the several brands they had available, Sweetleaf's Stevia Clear Liquid Stevia.  It was quite expensive at about $18 for 120ml, but the serving size of 2 drops indicated that I could get 1200 servings, which I thought was a great deal for $18.  However, I found I could not taste those two drops in the least.  In fact, in order to even get close to the effect of the ½ tsp. of the powder, I had to put in at least 15 drops, which lowered the number of servings to around 150, or more than $.10 per serving.  Nothing astronomical, but certaintly not cheap either.  I'm curious to try other brands to see if their potency is any better, but for now I think the powder has won out.

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I’ve been doing a bit of research lately on fish and thought I’d share some insights.  Fish is a great source of protein and it’s one of the few foods that almost all people will agree is good for you – except some vegan extremists – with the caveat that you have to be careful about where the fish comes from and what kind it is.

So, the benefits that are ascribed to fish is that it is high in protein, relatively low in fat (except for a few fatty varieties), and high in Omega-3 fatty acids.  Omega-3 fatty acids are praised by just about everyone.  They are so called “essential fatty acids” because your body can’t create them on its own, but needs at least the building blocks, and even then it is better to have the actual DHA and ALA instead of making your body do the additional work.

The main problem with fish is the toxic contaminants that fish absorb from the water.  This is mainly the pollutant dimethyl mercury, although I’m sure there are others.  Mercury has been linked to cognitive problems, especially when eaten by pregnant or nursing women and young children.  Autism and Alzheimer’s disease have also been linked to mercury ingestion by some.

When it comes to figuring out what kinds of fish are best to eat the two factors I list above (Omega-3 and Mercury) are of prime importance, but a third critical issue is that of whether the given fish is endangered in any way.  There are lots of groups out there monitoring various fish populations and how the fishing industries are overfishing or using good management practices.  A great site to get info on this is stuff is the Monterrey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.

As for Mercury, the current theory holds that the higher a fish is on the food chain, the more likely a fish will have mercury.  This is because not only does the fish deal with the mercury in the water, but also with the mercury in it’s food supply, and I guess mercury is absorbed and held by other fish much more so than plant or other foods that are not fish.  So, smaller fish generally are better in this regard, with the smallest being the best – sardines, anchovies, and the like.  But the other factor is where the fish comes from, since mercury content differs from location to location.  It’s hard to find an exhaustive and easily digestible (no pun intended) chart of where the most and least contaminated areas are, but the closest thing I found was a fact sheet put out by the EPA which has advisories by state.  Unfortunately this doesn’t cover the large amounts of fish that isn’t caught within a state, but rather in the Atlantic, Pacific, or even foreign countries like Iceland.  I did find this page on Dr. Mercola’s site which references the Environmental working group, but I am not familiar enough with this group to be able to vouch for them, and you always have to take things on Mercola’s site with a grain of salt.

The other facet of the fish industry which I haven’t mentioned yet is the whole distinction between wild-caught fish and farm-raised fish.  The mercury concerns are only for wild-caught fish as fish farms are able to provide water without any contaminants.  The main problem with farm-raised fish, however, is that they generally have much lower levels of Omega-3 fatty acids, thus removing one of their key benefits.  In addition, there are concerns that pollutants find their way into salmon via their food, which is basically ground pellets made up of other fish.  Other concerns relate to the inbreeding that could be creating a genetically inferior fish prone to disease that if allowed to escape to the wild could contaminate the wild fish gene pool.

In some ways it’s a discouraging situation that doesn’t offer a lot of good solutions.  There are fish populations that look to be managed well and free of mercury, such as wild Alaskan salmon, and again, probably sardines and anchovies are ok, but eating any of these more than a couple times a week may not be without some risk.  One way to get around this a little bit is to take a supplement that provides Omega-3 fatty acids.  Flax seed oil is consumed by some, although I’ve heard both plusses and minuses about flax seed, which does not provide the actual essential DHA and ALA but rather the “building blocks” for your body to make it.  Fish oil capsules, while ok in some cases, according to Dr.’s Michael R. and  Mary Dan Eades, authors of various diet and fitness books including Protein Power, it can also go rancid, and there’s no way you will know because the telling stink of rancid oil is shielded by the capsule.  Rancid oil can actually be really bad for you health.  The Eades recommend a fish-oil or cod-liver oil that you take in liquid form with a spoon.  This may sound horrible to some, but they actually now come with flavoring that hides almost all of the fishiness.  The brand the Eades recommend is Carlson’s wich apparently is highly rated and known for it's lack of fishy taste.

There’s a concern that the mercury and other contaminants will even get into this fish oil and with that in mind, this one lab tested 21 different brands of fish oil supplements and found no unsafe levels of various contaminants (mercury, PCB’s, and dioxins), although I can’t tell exactly what they were specifying as safe and unsafe – you need to subscribe in order to see the full report.

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