Why Nutrition Science is Often Confusing and Misleading [Infographic]

Nutrition science is often confusing and misleading

I subscribe to Precision Nutrition’s newsletter and today, they sent me a whopper of an infographic.

It gives 9 reasons why nutrition science is often confusing and misleading. I’d post the infographic here, but for some reason, it’s not rendering correctly on the page.

So here’s a link.

9 reasons:

1. Nutrition research is still in its infancy – vitamins were discovered just about a 100 years ago.
2. Funding goes to disease treatment – prevention gets very little funding.
3. Conflicts of interest – if a soda company does a study on sugar’s effects on health, what do you think the outcome will be?
4. Too many variables – the scientific method requires controlling all variables and making changes to just a few. There are thousands, maybe millions of variables and nearly none of them are controllable, or even known.
5. Nutritional studies are observational – they rely on people remembering or describing accurately what they ate a week or two ago.
6. Measurement tools have limitations – many food labels are wrong. So how do you know how many calories you consumed?
7. What you eat doesn’t affect you right away – it could take 30 years for a six-pack of beer a day habit to ruin your liver and jack up your metabolism.
8. A study’s findings may not apply to you – many studies rely on obese people, or extremely fit athletes – because they’re available for studies. The findings may not apply to you if you’re just 10 pounds overweight or lead a very sedentary lifestyle.
9. Reporting a study’s findings is very difficult – if you think the research is difficult, try summarizing the findings!

It’s a great graphic that shows exactly why you and I are both often confused when we hear or read about the “latest & greatest” in nutrition information.

Remember when whole eggs were bad for you? Now, not so much.

Remember “paper or plastic” bags the grocer offered you? Now, they charge you a dime for a paper bag and plastic isn’t even an option.

Remember when saturated fats were bad and polyunsaturated fats were good? Today, turn that upside down.

Crazy, right?

5 Quick and Easy Lunch Ideas

Lunch may be your most important meal

by Brian St. Pierre, CSCS, CISSN

Lunch is definitely one of those meals where people often have the best intentions, but things often go awry.

If you don’t prep and pack your lunch in the morning for the day, and instead, rely on your ability to make good decisions when you are starving and faced with multiple opportunities to stray from your usual intake, you are in trouble.

While some people do have an iron will, resist the temptation and make good choices, that is not most of us! This is where packing your own delicious and healthy lunch can come in and prevent that from ever being an issue in the first place.

Since time is always an issue, here are 5 quick lunch recipes that you can make in 10 minutes or less before you head off to work and take with you.

One quick note is that many of these recipes call for pre-cooked chicken breasts, as this can be a HUGE timesaver.

In a large Pyrex dish, cook chicken breasts that have been cut in half (so they are half as thick) or chopped at about 350°F for approximately 20 minutes, or until done. To retain moisture, cover dish with tin foil. Season these breasts to taste with sea salt, garlic powder, Montreal chicken seasoning, or anything you like prior to cooking.

Read more.

How to Consume More Protein Without Supplements

Food supplements can be very expensive. Whey protein powders are all the rage. They’re made from milk, are easily digestible, and hit the bloodstream very quickly.

However, they are fairly expensive.

For the guy or gal who wants to build quality, lean muscle mass, the typical guideline is to take in at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, preferably 1-1/2 to 2 grams in a mass-building or bulking up phase. Without breaking the bank (and all the banks seem to be broken right now, yes?), you can consume this much protein only by consuming a ton of milk (see these two articles, “Gallon of Milk a Day” program and GOMAD), beef, poultry, fish and… …the incredible, edible EGG.

How to Consume More Protein Without Supplements

Eggs are a complete protein, containing all the “essential” amino acids, and provide about 6 grams per egg. As far as food goes, eggs offer the highest “biological value” protein there is (this is a fancy way of saying that the protein is easily assimilated by the body). In short, eggs are a MUST HAVE menu item! Especially if you’re laying off on the expensive supplements. But how do you eat enough eggs to make a difference? Hard boil them.

Here’s How to Hard Boil an Egg

• Take a dozen eggs and a really big pot mostly filled with water.
• Place your oven on high. Put in the eggs and bring to a boil.
• Once the water is boiling, cook the eggs for 10-12 minutes.
• Then, pour out the water, replace with cold water and let stand for 15-30 minutes.
• Refrigerate.

Now, you can eat these just as they are (without the shell, of course) or you can add them to virtually anything, like salads, sandwiches, and as additions to your meals and snacks.

If you’re trying to add weight, eat them whole and eat 2 eggs with every snack. That will get you 6 eggs a day, or an extra 36 grams of protein per day.

This, in effect, replaces about one protein shake a day.

Of course, your snacks ought to add up to between 20 and 30 grams of protein (depending on body weight), so you’ll have to supplement with milk. Lots of it!

In fact, to get to 20 grams per snack, you’ll have to eat 2 eggs plus one 8-ounce glass of milk.

All other things being equal, you can replace 3/4 of a cup of milk with each egg while on the GOMAD program. Which means that you can really cut back on your milk consumption! (This is a good thing, for the most part.)

Alternatively, you can keep drinking your gallon of milk a day PLUS the eggs and you’ll gain more weight than ever before. If you do spring for some whey protein powder, you’ll be even farther ahead of the pack.

In the “old days,” trainers like Vince Gironda prescribed dozens of eggs a day for his pupils during their mass-building phases (3 to 6 weeks at a time, tops, plus every 4th day, go to a regular diet — see Cycling for more information on this important concept). Eggs seem to have an extraordinary anabolic effect on the body, increasing growth hormone production, and driving your gains like crazy. A few notes:

• Eat the whole egg. Don’t throw anything but the shell out.
• Space your meals to be 2 hours or so apart.
• If you do use food supplements, invest in digestive enzymes. Eating more than a couple eggs a day gives a lot of people some serious gas problems. The aid in digestion is worth the money. Your co-workers will thank you, too.
• Don’t fall for the “organic” nonsense with eggs. There is no proof that there is any difference between eggs produced by chickens in pens, free range, no hormones, or “extra hormones.” I have this theory: Chickens fed growth hormones probably pass those hormones to their eggs and consequently to those who eat them.

I do believe you can make serious gains without supplements. However, like anabolic steroids, you can “get there” faster with supplements.