Fast Food vs Clean Eatin'!

[Steve Shafley]

I found this abstract to be interesting.

Bray GA et. al. Hormonal Responses to a Fast-Food Meal Compared with Nutritionally Comparable Meals of Different Composition. Ann Nutr Metab. 2007 May 29;51(2):163-171 [Epub ahead of print]


Background: Fast food is consumed in large quantities each day. Whether there are differences in the acute metabolic response to these meals as compared to 'healthy' meals with similar composition is unknown. Design: Three-way crossover. Methods: Six overweight men were given a standard breakfast at 8:00 a.m. on each of 3 occasions, followed by 1 of 3 lunches at noon. The 3 lunches included: (1) a fast-food meal consisting of a burger, French fries and root beer sweetened with high fructose corn syrup; (2) an organic beef meal prepared with organic foods and a root beer containing sucrose, and (3) a turkey meal consisting of a turkey sandwich and granola made with organic foods and an organic orange juice. Glucose, insulin, free fatty acids, ghrelin, leptin, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol were measured at 30-min intervals over 6 h. Salivary cortisol was measured after lunch. Results: Total fat, protein and energy content were similar in the 3 meals, but the fatty acid content differed. The fast-food meal had more myristic (C14:0), palmitic (C16:0), stearic (C18:0) and trans fatty acids (C18:1) than the other 2 meals. The pattern of nutrient and hormonal response was similar for a given subject to each of the 3 meals. The only statistically significant acute difference observed was a decrease in the AUC of LDL cholesterol after the organic beef meal relative to that for the other two meals. Other metabolic responses were not different. Conclusion: LDL-cholesterol decreased more with the organic beef meal which had lesser amounts of saturated and trans fatty acids than in the fast-food beef meal.

I pull a lot of abstracts from Lyle McDonald's newsletter, which is weekly or bi-weekly, and not full of just advertisements. He's a friend of mine, whom I've met in real life, and I consider him one of the "good guy".

His newletter sign up is here, and I'm only putting this in because some folks might find it worthwhile to check out.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/newsletter.html

[Dave Van Skike]

Is he a dick in real life? Don't get me wrong, his writing is dead nuts on the sciencetifical yet easy to read at the same time. It's just his forum posting style is kinda abusive.....albeit from what I've read of the population there, many of them crave that sort of attention.

[Steve Shafley]

I enjoyed meeting him, and we had a good time sitting in Dan John's living room yakking it up for 2-3 hours. He doesn't pussyfoot around, and will call bullshit, bullshit, but he's not afraid to say that he's wrong about something.

[Dave Van Skike]

Originally Posted by Steve Shafley

I enjoyed meeting him, and we had a good time sitting in Dan John's living room yakking it up for 2-3 hours. He doesn't pussyfoot around, and will call bullshit, bullshit, but he's not afraid to say that he's wrong about something.

Fair enough.