A science question or two regarding proteins and oils

[SIE]

Hi, Jeff, (Post was originally in Jeff's category)

My wife and I are about 3 months into WFPB nutrition and have had generally great results so far.
We owe you all big-time for setting us on the right track.

I'm posting today because I have a couple questions that I can't find already brought up in this particular manner within the forum

The first one concerns some thoughts on the fine details concerning oil:

We've eaten plain soybeans, a couple times a week, typically using them where the texture adds variety to the food. I'm assuming that's OK, many recipes in the McDougall cookbook use tofu, and plain soybeans are less calorie and fat dense.

We eat a few whole olives from time to time - but avoid all concentrated oils - tough for us since one of the best olive oils in the world comes from right where we live. Friends and professional contacts think we are crazy for that - and point out that there are studies to back up their opinions from impartial sources - and per capita here they use about a liter a month - but I digress...

Anyway - Soybeans - to my surprise are 40% fat. Of that, 14% is saturated, 23% is monounsaturated, and 63% is Polyunsaturated. So far as I know, that's a lot of fat - no known benefit from that fat, either.

by comparison, Olives - 15% saturated fat, 73% monounsaturated fat, 12% polyunsaturated.

1 cup cooked soybeans, and 3 ounces of plain olives, both about 140 calories as fat

I assume that the main issue with olive oil or other liquid oils is that they are concentrated and thus a rapid delivery of lipids ensues when they are consumed.

So, though we don't do it these days, the idea of putting a teaspoon of olive oil in 5 cups of flour, and making bread, would pass the concentration test - after all, the fat concentration in the finished bread would be far less than in the soybeans or olives.

(Baking 3 ounces of sliced olives into a loaf of bread is ok - but the equivalent volume of pure oil in that loaf of bread can kill?)

(Nutrition perspective - 2300 calories of flour, 50 calories of oil - a fat increase of 2%.)

Meanwhile, soybeans, avocados and nuts are deemed safe, just an issue to the extent that they might cause fat gain... ?

I've come to realize I just don't fully understand this.

A few possibilities, each of which leads to a different conclusion:

1. Any oil is intrinsically dangerous - if so, don't eat any oils, olives, soybeans, avocados, nuts etc.

2. Only oil locked in whole foods is safe? If so please explain difference between tofu mayo and bread dough with some oil?

3. The oil restriction is there to prevent over-indulgence. If so, what sort of real world guidance would be more accurate?

4. Other - that I simply do not yet understand.

A little help here, please.

..............................................................

Question 2 is easier, I hope - and probably old hat to you.

I'm not suffering from the protein delusion, thankfully.

I understand that the McDougall plan recommends 30-80 grams a day.

So far, so good. RDA at 0.8g/kg for a 200 pounder is 72 grams, and that is based on 2x the need, so 36 grams is cool.
IMHO, being overweight should not count, certainly I don't need to feed extra protein to maintain body fat.
If my best guess at final weight is 150 pounds, I'd gauge protein by that figure instead, and just 27 grams would do.

Shouldn't be a problem.

Well, we've rolled along cheerfully losing fat, never hungry, it's all working as planned. So far, so good.

Meanwhile, we're active and lift weights - not bodybuilders by any means but certainly trying to maintain or even add some lean mass as we age as opposed to giving the nod to sarcopenia. Calls for consistent, gentle load bearing exercise. So far, so good.

As pounds come off measurements get smaller, and we wonder if the losses are all or mostly all fat, or not.
Of concern is rapidly falling appendicular dimensions - likely a good bit of intramuscular fat to be lost, but still...?
At 2AM I start to wonder if we're losing lean mass.

I'm down 25+ pounds so far, but have lost perhaps 10% circumference on arms. That's a loss of 20% of the cross sectional area. Prior appendicular fat was 24%. In theory, possible without lean mass loss - but I'd be dead lean at this point - and I am far from it.

I've therefore begun to count protein grams to see where we stand - and since we work from fresh ingredients and don't buy anything processed, our daily protein seems to be coming up around the low end of the McDougall range, or less.

While it's great that we aren't eating fat and we are using up fat stores, as a result we aren't really hungry just yet. Thus, our food intake is to the low side. This exacerbates the shortfall with 20-30 grams protein a day being typical.

I'm wondering if that needs a tweak.

As far as I can see, yourself have been known to suggest following along the lines of the ADA position paper, or a little less, that 1-1.25 grams/kg protein is a good goal if trying to add some lean mass. (ADA=1.2-1.7)

https://jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/Entr ... _Need.html

We're a far cry from those guidelines. At my current bodyweight, that's 90-112 grams a day.
At my best guess at ideal bodyweight, that's still 70-85 grams a day, not 20-30 grams.

My question - we came into this without a lot of lean mass to spare, and with a fair amount of fat to lose.
At this point, we could simply stay the course, or adjust up toward that 1-1.25 g/kg range.

If so, I'd need a whole lot more legumes, and might have to resort to some plant based protein supplements until we get to goal weight and feel the hunger to eat more like maintenance calories.

I'm not in love with the idea of losing half our skeletal muscle during the fat loss phase, then needing to jump through hoops later trying in vain to replace missing muscle mass.

It's a lot harder to replace lost muscle than it is to not lose it in the first place.

Thoughts?

Thank You!!!!!

[SIE]

Also - did test lean mass, coming in a bit reduced.

[Cihong]

"Medical definition of vegetable oil: an oil of plant origin"

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... Dictionary

"In nature there are no 'free' vegetable oils [i.e., plant oils]; all are obtained by man-made processing. These important nutrients are bound within the substances of plants and in this complex form are essential for good health. When these oils are processed free of their surrounding fibers, vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals, they become medicines at best, and toxic at worst. Some of the common consequences of consuming these so-called 'good fats,' even flaxseed and fish oil, are obesity, type-2 diabetes, bleeding, immune system depression and cancer."

Source and related articles: https://www.drmcdougall.com/articles/nu ... fish-oils/

Why a Little Bit Can Hurt http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougal ... 030200.htm

[SIE]

Good answer as far as it goes... and this part is the message we all have heard.

But - this leaves us faced only with conclusions 1 or 2:

1. Any oil is intrinsically dangerous - if so, don't eat any oils, olives, soybeans, avocados, nuts etc.
2. Only oil locked in whole foods is safe? If so please explain difference between tofu mayo and bread dough with some oil?

Thus, #1 suggests we don't eat any oil that can find its way into the circulatory system - avocado, olives, nuts - or, if you do - please don't listen to the advice to chew them thoroughly since for example chewing an olive processes it and releases that dangerous oil into your digestive system without any vegetable matter attached. (Only whole olives pass through unscathed....?)

and,

#2 suggests that unless you can pick tofu off a tree, flush every recipe that uses it in the McDougall, Esselstyn and China Study cookbooks...

Somehow, I think there has to be more to it than that.
If it isn't speed of delivery of the oils, then oil in the bloodstream is oil in the bloodstream - no?

[michaelswarm]

Hi, Jeff,

A few possibilities, each of which leads to a different conclusion:

1. Any oil is intrinsically dangerous - if so, don't eat any oils, olives, soybeans, avocados, nuts etc.

2. Only oil locked in whole foods is safe? If so please explain difference between tofu mayo and bread dough with some oil?

3. The oil restriction is there to prevent over-indulgence. If so, what sort of real world guidance would be more accurate?

4. Other - that I simply do not yet understand.

If you want to address Jeff Novick, you might try the Jeff Novick, RD sub forum.

Evolution (and our bodies shaped by evolution) works well for abundant common natural foods: grains, legumes, roots, fruits and vegetables. Less well for scarce and artificial foods. Fats locked in common foods are ok. Refine the oil and now artificial. Evolution (and our bodies shaped by evolution) does not regulate so well for naturally scarce and uncommon foods, such as nuts and seeds. These are generally healthy, but can be over consumed. And still need to care for high proportion of saturated fats.

Olives are scarce in nature, more rare and more difficult to produce. Thus their position as luxury food. Before modern industry, olive oil was occassional even in olive producing regions, because of effort and yield of production.

For most of history, oil was luxury used only by the rich. Peasants did without, and their cooking did not suffer in the least.

Real world guidance? Eat abundant common staples, as peasant farmers did 200 years ago. Go light on scarce luxury foods, even the healthy ones.

My breads are all straight doughs, just whole grain flour, yeast, water and touch of salt.
I might have baked tofu on occasion, or hummus with toasted ground sesame seeds, again, ocassionally.
Hope that helps.

[SIE]

Thanks for the reply, michaelswarm.

Actually I DID try the Jeff Novick subforum - a couple weeks ago - this thread never got a reply there, and then it disappeared.

I found it got moved, for reasons that puzzle me, to the "Health Issue" section...

Anywhoo, I started out with two simple questions.

The first was the mystery of how we can eat a whole avocado safely, or use tofu cream cheese safely, but it's not safe to put a teaspoon of olive oil in 5 cups of bread flour.

This defies logic. The avocados at the grocery store total 300 calories - 250 of it is pure, raw fat. It's 83% fat.
Six teaspoons of oil in a big black avocado. Tofu cheeses and nuts don't fare a lot better - 1/3 to 2/3 fat.
The commercial ones add liquid oil, too.

That said, my bread and for that matter yours is similar though you probably don't use our ancestral wheat - the only fat is from the wheat itself - still 7% of total calories.

If I throw 5 cups of flour into a batch, it's 2600 calories, only 182 of them fat. Six fatty acids in order of quantity, linoleic palmitic oleic linolenic stearic and palmitoleic. Can we really make the case that it goes from healthy food to death bomb, if we add a little more of these same fatty acids by throwing in 60 calories of olive oil, with the same fatty acids? The flour itself varies more than that in composition from year to year... and absorbing what amounts to a calorie a slice of oil containing those self same fatty acids cannot possibly make a measurable difference.

"Real world guidance? Eat abundant common staples, as peasant farmers did 200 years ago. Go light on scarce luxury foods, even the healthy ones."

I like the idea as far as it goes, has an almost paleolithic ring to it, but 200 years ago we may have been peasants but we had lots of olives and oil. Olives grow on trees here, and I've trees older than that in my back yard. Use of the fruit and the oil on these shores dates back at least 8,000 years, with the amphorae to prove it. All it takes to get olive oil is to smack fresh olives with a mortar and pestle - or chew them. None of the solvents, heat, chemicals etc. used to make canola or sunflower oils.

Olives are preserved in open amphorae. A cup full of that over a bed of greens and a big piece of fresh bread is a traditional lunch in these parts. Except we ourselves don't partake, anymore. The neighbors, including the ones in their nineties who've used olive oil all their lives, give us strange looks - but whatever, I get it.

For us avocados are the newbie foreign fat bomb. So, it's true the rest of the world didn't have access to affordable olive oil until recently - but then again, people here didn't have rice or potatoes until they were imported from the other side of the planet. Matter of perspective.

Feels more like food religion to me than food science.
Of course, off on another tack, Caldwell Esselstyn would prefer we don't eat sugar to protect endothelial lining.
If we follow ALL the guidelines, things rapidly get interesting...

All that said, ok - I get it not to eat a kilogram of olives a day. I don't get the science behind not rubbing a bit of olive oil on my hands before I knead the dough so I don't end up so sticky I can't break free.

Question two, still no answer... whether falling below even the bottom end of the McDougall protein range is an issue while losing fat mass - and thus it is wise to nudge it back up a bit, perhaps make it a point to eat a lot more legumes.

That was what I originally asked Jeff - and put in his part of the forum - since really both are nutrition related questions.
I'm beginning to think answer one is to simply accept that not all things are logical, and answer two is "Son, you're on your own".

Anyway - maybe I'm overthinking things WAY too much...

[JeffN]

maybe I'm overthinking things WAY too much...

Amen!

[SIE]

Fair enough...

There's always a danger when you overdo analysis - and the key part is in the first syllable of that word.

[MikeyG]

All that said, ok - I get it not to eat a kilogram of olives a day. I don't get the science behind not rubbing a bit of olive oil on my hands before I knead the dough so I don't end up so sticky I can't break free.

Question two, still no answer... whether falling below even the bottom end of the McDougall protein range is an issue while losing fat mass - and thus it is wise to nudge it back up a bit, perhaps make it a point to eat a lot more legumes.

That was what I originally asked Jeff - and put in his part of the forum - since really both are nutrition related questions.
I'm beginning to think answer one is to simply accept that not all things are logical, and answer two is "Son, you're on your own".

Anyway - maybe I'm overthinking things WAY too much...

These might help, if you haven't seen them (or perhaps overlooked these points):

"... So, there you have it. Now realize the .8 gram/kg is based on a persons healthy weight, and includes a fairly liberal safety margin. Nitrogen balance studies have shown adults can maintain nitrogen balance on as little as .5-.66 gm/kg though no one needs to shoot for the minimum. Patients who must limit their protein intake due to kidney issues are usually put on a diet that limits protein intake to around .5-.6 grams/kg and studies have been shown you can actually build strength and muscle at that level too with a proper resistance exercise program..

The simple answer is this, as long as you consume adequate calories to maintain a healthy weight from a variety of whole plant foods, (and not from junk foods and/or just fruit) you will get in all the protein and amino acids that you need."

https://jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/Entr ... ments.html

I hope that helps.

On a potentially related note, in the event you ever dip significantly below a BMI of 18.5, which seems to be the widely accepted lower range of healthy BMIs, you might want to consider increasing the overall calorie density of your diet or eating more food. The former would likely be more rapidly effective than the latter, and doing both might be a little too effective If protein intake is a concern, you might consider increasing caloric density at that point through flour products (or less water rich cooked starches, like making oatmeal/grains with less water,) as they're more protein dense than other calorie dense choices (nuts/seeds, or dried fruit).

[That seems to be the recommendation that Dr. McDougall made in the past for weight gain in general, too: https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2003nl ... weight.htm ]

However, I believe Dr. McDougall (and Mary) have commented in some of their YouTube videos that Mary often sits a little below an 18.5 BMI, and since she's otherwise healthy, neither of the McDougalls are concerned. As I believe Jeff Novick has repeatedly stressed, while BMI is often considered a valuable marker for health, it's only one marker that needs to be taken as part of a more comprehensive health picture.

In addition, and importantly, what BMI are you using to calculate your daily protein needs? I would think the safe bet is to use a BMI of 18.5, and even then, as with Mary's example, you could likely go lower and still not have any issues.

[Edit: ... and on a side note, accurately counting calories; weighing; and measuring food, especially food components; seems to be almost impossible outside of strict laboratory settings:
https://jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/Entr ... ories.html

Therefore, I would think as long as you're eating enough of the recommended foods to not be starving (through rapidly falling below a BMI of 18.5), and are not overindulging in the non-recommended foods (since oil and olives aren't particularly protein-rich, especially not the former, which is 100% fat), you would be fine, just like all the other people who have been following these evidence-based guidelines for at least the last 30+ years ]

I think Jeff's discussion on "The Continuum of Evil" might be pertinent here, too:
https://www.drmcdougallforums.com/viewt ... 17#p619417

While small indulgences in less healthy foods might not matter in the grand scheme of health and longevity, for those with health problems, I would think those unhealthy indiscretions are probably worth avoiding, especially if they make it more likely for someone to overindulge. For most, it seems easier to quit cold turkey, and keep the unhealthy items out of their environment, than it is to try to take in minimal amounts consistently.

We've seen far too frequently in these forums that many people who think they are making minor exceptions to the program recommendations are, in reality, very far beyond the 5% daily calories of "junk" (or "off-plan foods") that we often hear is the maximal threshold of unhealthy calories we should try to remain below. (I believe Jeff has also commented that we should also focus on getting the 95%+ right far more than we should focus on the 5% we can get wrong Unfortunately, many of his clients, especially the ones that are struggling, seem to focus far more on what they can get away with, or what unhealthy items they are unwilling to give up, than on how well they are following the guidelines <3)

The Myth of Moderation Pt 3: Is Your Diet Exceptional?
Jeff Novick, MS, RDN
https://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/ ... ional.html

For many, the MWL (Maximum Weight Loss) program is often the most effective because when we inevitably make mistakes or have challenges in a society that surrounds us with highly promoted unhealthy foods and unhealthy habits, we're still doing pretty well, and are usually just now in the territory of the normal McDougall program's guidelines. However, if we consistently aim lower, and we falter, we are that much more likely to be in much less healthy territory. Furthermore, once we're in that unhealthy territory, it may be that much more difficult to recover our healthier position.

In addition, it often seems that when people focus on the minutiae, they not only miss the bigger picture and more important aspects of the program, but they also miss one of the overall goals of healthy eating and living in general:

Jeff Novick, MS, RD
"Get a Life"
https://www.drmcdougallforums.com/viewt ... 42#p579542

"Keep your overall program and menu simple. Look for variety within each of the food groups by using different varieties of vegetables, fruits, legumes and whole grains over the course of a day or a week.

As a mentor of mine once said, "this program (healthful living) is not supposed to become your life, it is supposed to give you your life back"."

I hope that helps Thanks for all the good that you do.

[As always, thanks to Jeff for his dedication to the forums and for providing us with all of this valuable content. (Thanks, especially, for his generosity in choosing to do all of that for free <3 )]

[SIE]

Thanks for the additional information, MikeyG.

Certainly right that it is almost impossible to accurately measure intake - for all the reasons Jeff gave in the post you cited, as well as a whole lot more - and human energy use varies with food availability and activity.

Still, I've been using cronometer to figure protein intake, and confirmed that in our case that we were indeed well below the minimum. No big surprise in retrospect as calorie intake and density is low at this stage. If I use a bmi of 18.5 to determine protein intake, I still don't reach the 0.5 cutoff point. It's fixable - and I think I should do so. Plus a little more, I'll explain.

BMI is convenient, but it is probably not the best measure for this.
I'd like to take a shot at that more comprehensive picture Jeff speaks of in this post.

At the 18.5 cutoff, a 5 foot 6 man weighs 115 pounds - as does a 5 foot 6 woman, of course.
In Dr. McD's article you mentioned, we see Kempner suggests 117 for her and 125 for him, clothed.

The first thing that becomes apparent is that it underestimates the man's weight a bit to use 18.5 BMI.

BMI makes no correction for frame size, muscle mass, or gender. Body composition is more important than scale weight.
You can use BMI to say "you should weigh 115 pounds" but the real questions are 115 pounds of exactly what, and is that correct?

I'd suggest skeletal muscle mass index is more appropriate. (SMI)
As it's tough to determine without specialized equipment, perhaps fat free mass index would do. (FFMI)

A 115 pound woman with 25% body fat is an entirely different person than a 115 pound woman with 16% body fat.
At 25% she'd have 86 lbs fat free mass, at 16% she'd have 96 pounds, and the difference would be about 10 pounds extra fat, and 10 pounds less fat free mass, mainly muscle. Approximately half of the fat free mass is muscle, so the fatter version is not only toting around 10 pounds of extra fat, she's toting it with perhaps 20% less muscle. This distinction gets important as we age and sarcopenia looms on the horizon and the risk of being too weak to do things unassisted increases.

One of the things that can happen with weight loss is loss of muscle. Since lean body mass drives metabolism, the less the muscle the fewer calories you need to maintain. Put another way, you end up eating less and less. Fat is easier to accumulate. All too easy to end up a much smaller version of yourself, yet still with about the same level of body fat.

While I'm not suggesting that every man and woman become a professional bodybuilder, it does IMHO behoove us to make sure we don't let body composition go to pot along the way. There is a middle ground here.

A good example of this is my wife - who would weigh 110 lbs at a BMI of 18.5

As we've moved into our McDougall adventure we have a good bit of fat to lose, me more than she, and she's coming down from about 145 pounds to as of this morning 128. There's another few pounds to go, but she is closing in on stage-ready leanness. By the time she would reach 110 lbs, she'd be either dipping below essential fat levels or losing muscle mass, or perhaps both.

At this point, I'd say 118-121 would be a good numbers for her, maybe 15-17% body fat and about 100 pounds lean mass.

It's a low-normal BMI, for what that is worth.

To put this in perspective, there's about a 25 pound difference between a female couch potato and a female bodybuilder, and the extra 8-10 pounds puts her in the above-average condition category, nothing more. Visible muscle, but wouldn't pass a military fitness test by any means.

So - long way to the answer to your question - if I used BMI to determine protein, I'd use 20-21 for her since that seems to be about her ideal weight.

Me? I'm a little complex. Big frame and also too heavy at the moment to tell where I'll end up.
I'm basing my guidelines on a similar process, and a weight equating to a conservative 24 BMI for the time being.

When I get in striking range, I'll fine tune it.

Nota Bene: it happens to be quite close to the protein recommendations, 54 and 44 grams respectively.

Add an extra cup of beans, mix well...

Who'd a thunk it?