The Not-So-Funny Bloopers of Jane Brody

Celebrating decades of dietary confusion from the New York Times nutrition writer.

By Anthony Colpo.

March 25, 2004.

For decades, Jane Brody has been espousing the virtues of low-fat, high-carbohydrate nutrition from her syndicated column in the New York Times, one of the world's most widely-read newspapers. Reading one of her more recent columns reinforced in my mind just why so much of the population is utterly confused about what constitutes a healthy diet.

I present the following gems of wisdom from Brody's March 23, 2004 column, Sane Weight Loss in a Carb-Obsessed World - High Fiber and Low Fat.

"Name this product", begins Brody. "The ingredients label says it contains the following: "Water, ultrafiltered fat-free milk, calcium caseinate, cream, buttermilk, tricalcium phosphate, salt, disodium phosphate, mono- and di-glycerides, carrageenan, locust bean gum, natural flavor, sucralose (Splenda), acesulfame potassium, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3."

No, it's not some weird dessert. It is Hood's Carb Countdown Dairy Beverage, a low-carb substitute for real skim milk that claims to provide "75 percent less carbs and 50 percent more protein than whole milk." A half-gallon of the Hood's beverage sells for $3.99, compared with $1.48 for the same amount of real, unadulterated fat-free milk."

Brody's description of "...real, unadulterated fat-free milk" is an oxymoron if ever I've heard one! Does Brody know that milk comes from cows, and that in nature there's no such thing as a cow that produces fat-free milk? Does she know that when fat is removed from milk, so too are crucially important fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin A and D? That's why synthetic vitamin A and D - "vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3" - are added back to low-fat and skim milks!

If Brody is attempting to state, in her own clumsy way, that a healthy diet should be based on whole, minimally-processed fresh foods, regardless of whether it is low- or hi-carb, then I am in full agreement. But alas, that does not appear to be what she is saying at all. Brody proceeds to denigrate the whole low-carb concept, beginning her attack with a misleading interpretation of a recent study that appeared in the January 26 edition of the Archives of Internal Medicine:

"As a recent 12-week study of 34 men and women in their 60's so clearly demonstrated, those who consumed, without caloric restrictions, a diet high in fiber-rich carbohydrates (63 percent of calories, with 26 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories), low in fat (18 percent of calories) and moderate in protein lost more weight and a higher percentage of body fat than did those who ate the same number of calories of a typical American diet, that is, one high in fat (41 percent of calories) and relatively low in carbs (45 percent of calories).

The study showed that a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet could result in weight loss and reduced body fat while preserving muscle mass, even without any change in caloric intake, as long as the carbs were low in added sugars and refined starches. And the weight is lost without having to avoid delicious, health-promoting fruits and instead eating lots of fiber-free and fat-laden eggs, cheese and meats.

How can this happen? It happens because fiber-rich carbohydrates offer three major benefits to the weight-conscious eater: they hold water in the gut, take longer to digest and some of their calories are eliminated unabsorbed. In other words, they can fill you up before they fill you out."

I have to wonder if Brody even read the full-text of the study, or simply relied on the highly-misleading press-releases sent out by the study's authors; if she did the former, she would have discovered that the study participants in the high-carbohydrate groups actually consumed about 400-600 calories less per day than those in the control group! Over the 12-week period of the study, the high-carbohydrate subjects consumed around 33,000 to 50,000 calories less than the average subject in the control group.(Hays NP) It's no surprise that they lost more weight!

Sure, eating fiber-rich, starchy-carbohydrates can increase satiety, and consequently reduce calorie intake, when compared to the calorie-dense junk that dominates the average American diet; a number of studies have already attested to this. However, in order to increase satiety and reduce one's calorie intake, one does not need to suffer the anti-social consequences of turning one's intestines into a methane-production plant by eating a diet high in whole-grains and legumes! Numerous studies have found that subjects placed on low-carb diets, who are told to restrict carbs but to eat protein and fat without limit, unintentionally reduce their total calorie intake to the same levels seen among dieters explicitly instructed to limit their overall calorie intake!(Brehm B)(Foster GD)(Samaha FF)(Yudkin J)(Westman E)(Westman EC)

The control diet by the way, with a 45% carbohydrate content, was in no way a low-carb diet. Brody skirts around this issue by labelling it as "relatively" low in carbs, but she could have cited the numerous studies that have indeed compared truly low-carb and high-carb diets for fat loss. The overwhelming majority have found either greater weight loss or no statistically significant difference in weight loss between low- and high-carb dieters.(Rabast, et al. 1981)(Baron JA, et al. 1986)(Wadden TA. 1993)(Foreyt et al. 1993)(Alford BB, et al. 1990)(Golay A, et al. 1996, 1996)(Lean et al. 1997)(Torbay et al. 2002)(Sondike et al. 2003)(Volek et al. 2002)(Fleming RM. 2002)(Brehm et al. 2003)(Foster et al. 2003)(Samaha et al. 2003)(Wien et al. 2003) Only one study has ever found greater weight loss on a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, and that study just happened to be authored by Richard Fleming, the Nebraska cardiologist and avowed low-carb hater who is currently in doggy-doo over his shonky acquisition of the late Dr. Atkins' death report. I have already explained at length why Fleming's study is a highly questionable piece of literature.

"How many people know, for example, that one pound of uncooked pasta is meant to serve eight — yes, eight, not four or two — people? And how many examined the nutrition facts label on fat-free cakes and realized that a serving was still the same size as the full-fat version, and that the calorie savings per serving was minimal?"

Jane, the blame for the rise in calorie-intake that has occurred over the last thirty years can be placed squarely at the feet of the low-fat movement, whose voluminous anti-fat propaganda led us to believe that, when it came to diet, fat-restriction was the be-all-and-end-all of weight loss. Oh sure, low-fat advocates are now complaining that that was never the intention, that people should have realized that they needed to cut fat intake and total calorie intake in order to lose weight. Maybe the low-fat establishment should have given that a little more thought before enthusiastically embracing and giving "heart-healthy" ticks to high-carbohydrate, fat-free garbage (like the fat-free cake Brody attempts to apologize for); garbage that possesses low satiety value and creates rapid surges in blood sugar, followed by hypoglycemic lows that send dieters running straight back to the pantry for another blood glucose-raising carb-fix.

"A diet high in fat and low in carbs has yet to be tested for long-term safety and effectiveness."

You've got to be joking! High-fat, low-carb diets - comprised of freshly-killed meats, and gathered non-cereal plant foods (nuts, fruits, vegetables) - have been subjected to the longest trial ever known: human evolution. This ongoing trial has so far lasted 2.5 million years, most of which has been spent on what is known as the paleolithic or hunter-gatherer diet. Depending on geographical location, this diet varied from high-carb, low-fat to high-fat, very-low-carb. Low-carb, high-fat diets tended to predominate in colder regions far from the equator, where edible vegetation was far less abundant than in tropical regions. Radioisotope analyses of paleolithic skeletal remains - which tend to be far more robust than those of modern humans - show that meat comprised a significant portion of our ancestors' diets. Depending on the stage of evolution, at least a portion of the earth's inhabitants subsisted on a low-carb, high-fat diet; in colder eras, such as the Ice Age, paleontologists believe that the majority of the population was, by necessity, consuming low-carb diets. Despite the politically-incorrect eating habits that humankind kept throughout much of its evolutionary history, humans have out-survived many other species that have long since been rendered extinct. And we did it all without fat-free cakes, white rice, pasta, or non-fat milk, Jane!

"What do I and my slender friends eat? Mostly — but not exclusively — whole grain breads and cereals; lots of vegetables, salads and fresh and dried fruits; poultry, fish, meat and dried beans and peas and skim milk. But we also eat mostly white rice and pasta, potatoes, winter squash, avocados, regular cheese, eggs, cookies and ice cream and an occasional piece of cake or pie."

Well Jane, I'm glad it works for you. The unfortunate reality is that countless other folks have tried a similar approach, and failed dismally to achieve their health and/or weight loss goals. I'm one of them. Throughout most of the nineties, I followed a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet, based on so-called "healthy" complex carbohydrates like whole-grain breads, rice, rolled oats, sweet potato, and ate only the leanest meats I could find. As anyone who knew me back then could attest, I followed this diet religiously, so it wasn't my lack of willpower or discipline that failed me - it was the diet. After several years of eating a diet that I now realize humans were never designed to eat, my blood pressure had risen, my blood sugar metabolism had gone to hell, and I developed a rather impressive array of food sensitivities.

If readers are thinking that maybe I was just unlucky and an isolated case, they would do well to read Beyond Pritikin by Louise Ann Gittleman. Gittleman used to be a Director of Nutrition at the Pritikin Longevity Center, and for years she counselled people to follow the low-fat, high-carbohydrate, grain- and legume-based diet espoused by the late Nathan Pritikin. She left after seeing how the diet was continually failing people. She observed significant improvements when people first began the Pritikin program, but noticed during their follow-up visits that many patients were experiencing weight regain, fatigue, ravenous hunger and food sensitivities. What sort of dietary regimen does Gittleman recommend nowadays? A low-carb diet for weight-loss, and a moderate-carbohydrate diet for weight-maintenance!

"The second and equally critical factor in our ability to keep our weight down is regular physical exercise. I mean regular. We walk briskly for an hour each morning and, in addition, I swim three-fourths of a mile nearly every day. My friends and I walk to and from appointments where most other Americans would ride, and I do most of my shopping on foot or bicycle. And, I assure you, none of us view this as a life of deprivation and self-denial."

Ah, now you're talking, Jane! Ladies and gentleman, no matter what diet you follow, physical activity should be a regular part of your schedule. However, while exercise has been shown to at least partially counter some of the hyperglycemic and hyperinsulinemic effects of a high carbohydrate diet, it's no guarantee of protection, as running enthusiasts Jim Fixx and, more recently, Brian Maxwell unfortunately found out. Indeed, intense daily workouts did little to stop the deleterious effects of my own copious complex carbohydrate ingestion.

Upholding The Tradition

I'm hardly the first person to highlight the nutritional nonsense emanating from Brody's NYT column. Back in 1991, Dr. Russell L. Smith pointed out a number of Brody Bloopers in his outstanding tome, The Cholesterol Conspiracy, including the following from her November 15, 1986 column: "It is not advisable to consume large amounts of polyunsaturated fats because, while they lower the damaging LDL and VLDL cholesterol in the blood, they also reduce the protective HDL cholesterol." Less than a month later (December 10, 1986), Brody was reportedly telling readers that "Experts recommend substituting unsaturated liquid vegetable oils (corn, safflower, sunflower, soybean [all rich in polyunsaturates] and olive oils, for example) for saturated fats. Unsaturated fats help to lower cholesterol levels in the blood."(Smith RL)

Smith went on to quote a few more contradictory Brody-Bytes; "A problem results from overconsumption of polyunsaturates, which can interfere broadly with immune responses. Too much total fat, particularly too many polyunsaturates, can also promote the growth of cancers of the breast, colon, and prostate...a wise consumer would stick to a low-fat diet and keep consumption of polyunsaturates to a minimum level." These words were printed in the NYT on March 11, 1987; four days later, Smith reports, Brody authored an article in Family Circle advising readers that: "Polyunsaturated fats help lower cholesterol levels in the blood and, thus, offer protection against heart disease ... you'll want to look for a margarine that lists a higher proportion of polyunsaturates than saturates." Then in the October-November 1988 issue of Modern Maturity, Brody reportedly told readers to: "Try and use as little fat as possible and, when fat is added, primarily use vegetable oils such as olive, corn oil and safflower oil, and margarine."

Brody complained in a 1986 column, "the dozens of letters I have received in response to recent columns on fats and cholesterol in foods indicated that many readers remain uncertain about how to choose a heart-healthy menu." No kidding! If I relied on Brody's columns for dietary advice, I'd be pretty damn perplexed too!

More recently, nutritionist Sally Fallon and biochemist Mary G. Enig, PhD, were driven to write a letter to the editor of NYT (which remains unpublished, but can nonetheless be read here) after reading some rather remarkable claims in Brody's July 15, 2003 column (Cholesterol: When It’s Good, It’s Very, Very Good).

Wrote Fallon and Enig:

"According to Jane E. Brody, your nutrition “expert,” the human anatomy “more closely resembles herbivores like cows and deer, strict vegetarians consuming only plant-based foods”... If this is the best the New York Times can do, the public is in serious trouble. Even school children know that the human digestive tract is completely different from that of ruminants like cows and deer, which have multiple stomachs, do not produce hydrochloric acid and have extremely long intestines compared to humans. The human digestive tract is much more like that of a dog than any herbivorous animal. If Brody is so wrong on this elementary fact, how can we trust anything else she says, including the merits of the plant-based diet she espouses? The Times is just emerging from the scandal of a journalist who made up news reports, but in your health section your most prominent health writer is still passing off falsehoods as fact."

That someone like Brody can have her Keystone Cop-like nutritional bloopers published in a major paper like the New York Times is a sad, sad indictment on the pitifully low standards that most media outlets demand of the nutritional information that graces their pages. As Dr. Smith wrote back in 1991:

"It is unfortunate for the American people that they have been and continue to be influenced by columnists who claim to be authorities but who are, in fact, not experts at all but purveyors of a montage of contradictory and inconsistent nonsense."

Smith's words are even more relevant today than they were back in '91, given the increasingly desperate behavior of low-fat proponents. As recent events have shown, these folks are not above misquoting studies and even telling outright lies in their attempt to suppress the rapidly rising popularity of low-carb nutrition (for recent examples of some rather bizzarre and misleading behavior by so-called low-fat experts, click here, and here).

References

Hays NP, et al. Effects of an Ad Libitum Low-Fat, High-Carbohydrate Diet on Body Weight, Body Composition, and Fat Distribution in Older Men and Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2004; 164: 210-217.

Brehm B, et al. A randomized trial comparing a very low carbohydrate diet and a calorie-restricted low fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in healthy women. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2003; 88 (4): 1617-1623.

Foster GD, et al. A randomized trial of a low-carbohydrate diet for obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2003; 348: 2082-2090.

Samaha FF, et al. A low-carbohydrate diet as compared with a low fat diet in severe obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2003; 348: 2074-2081.

Yudkin J, Carey M. The treatment of obesity by the "high fat" diet: the inevitability of calories. Lancet, Oct 29, 1960; 2; 939-941.

Westman EC, et al. Effect of 6-month adherence to a very low carbohydrate diet program. American Journal of Medicine, Jul, 2002; 113 (1): 30-36.

Rabast U, et al. Loss of weight, sodium and water in obese persons consuming a high or low carbohydrate diet. Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism, 1981; 25: 341-349.

Baron JA, et al. A randomized controlled trial of low carbohydrate and low fat/high fiber diets for weight loss. American Journal of Public Health, 1986; 76 (11): 1293-1296.

Wadden TA. Treatment of obesity by moderate and severe caloric restriction. Annals of Internal Medicine, Oct. 1993; 119 (7, Pt. 2): 688-693.

Foreyt JP, Goodrick GK. Evidence for success of behavior modification in weight loss and control. Annals of Internal Medicine, Oct. 1993; 119 (7, Pt. 2): 698-701.

Alford BB, et al. The effects of variations in carbohydrate, protein, and fat content of the diet upon weight loss, blood values, and nutrient intake of adult obese women. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1990; 90: 534-540.

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Golay A, et al. Similar weight loss with low- or high carbohydrate diets. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 1996; 63: 174-178.

Lean ME, et al. Weight loss with high and low carbohydrate 1200 kcal diets in free living women. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Apr. 1997; 51 (4): 243-248.

Torbay N, et al. High protein vs high carbohydrate hypoenergetic diet in treatment of obese normoinsulinemic and hyperinsulinemic subjects. Nutrition Research, May 2002; 22 (5): 587-598.

Sondike SB, et al. Effects of a low-carbohydrate diet on weight loss and cardiovascular risk factors in overweight adolescents. Journal of Pediatrics, March 2003; 142: 253-258.

Volek JS, et al. Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet. Metabolism, July 2002; 51 (7): 864-870.

Fleming RM. The Effect of High-, Moderate-, and Low-Fat Diets on Weight Loss and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors. Preventive Cardiology, 2002; 5 (3): 110-118.

Brehm, et al. A randomized trial comparing a very low carbohydrate diet and a calorie-restricted low fat diet on body weight and cardiovascular risk factors in healthy women. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2003; 88 (4): 1617-1623.

Foster GD, et al. A randomized trial of a low-carbohydrate diet for obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2003; 348: 2082-2090.

Samaha FF, et al. A low-carbohydrate diet as compared with a low fat diet in severe obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, May 22, 2003; 348: 2074-2081.

Wien MA, et al. Almonds vs complex carbohydrates in a weight reduction program. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, Nov 2003; 27 (11): 1365-1372.

Smith RL. The Cholesterol Conspiracy. Warren H. Green, June 1991.

Source: The Omnivore