Hi mynie:

Just for discussion, there is another take on vegetables. It is a fact that carbs are not necessary for human survival. Vegetables are carbs. However, today many people eat a very high carb diet with many of those carbs coming from processed carbs. Exaggerating for illustrative purposes only, if you view processed carbs as poison, and vegetables as simply neutral – neither poison nor in any way particularly nutritionally positive – and you have a diet high in veggies, which means lower in poison, you should have a better outcome because you are eating less poison, not because veggies are so inherently good for you.

You are right veggies are not superfoods, and this report even suggests that they may be harmful in a perfect world:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2972548/Why-5-2-diet-works-Study-shows-feast-famine-DOES-help-live-longer-long-stay-away-superfoods.html

I have nothing against vegetables. I don’t think they are harmful. They taste good if properly prepared and I eat them all the time because I like the taste better than that of sugar and bread, pasta etc. My simple point is what people believe to be the absolute truth today, may turn out to be incorrect when new knowledge is gained. There are few ‘universal truths’. Except that fat and protein are necessary for human survival, so make sure you eat enough of them!

Hi Happy:

I read it first in a scientific journal and the Daily Mail report was accurate. The way you put it is exactly right – humble veggies – nothing special one way or the other.

As I said, I don’t think they are dangerous, just that they are not anything special. Certainly not worth elevating to some kind of top of food pyramid status as some people seem to believe.

Another interesting thing on the study is that the types of food eaten did not seem to matter – fat/protein/sugar all were eaten and the results were still positive. I still have not seen any research that shows that time between meals matters when talking about mere hours and humans, but this did show that calorie restriction seemed very important. Pretty much all current research does support severe caloric restriction as the key to gaining ‘other health benefits’.

It also seems to give some support for the concept weight maintainers might gain some benefits from continuing their diet days and overeating on their non diet days to keep their weight up.

It is interesting that there are more and more studies like this on intermittent fasting. Dr. M’s program and book seems to have speeded up interest in the matter.

All good!

Hi Happy:

The study was designed to measure results with CR, nothing else. With any study, you cannot look at the results and ‘assume’ that something or another happened or was a cause unless the study was designed to compare/eliminate a certain factor that was being studied.

For this study, for instance, you might assume that you could have gotten the same results if you ate foods high in vitamins C and E, instead of taking supplements. But unless you do a study to confirm that, it is just an unproven assumption.

As I continue to point out, I am aware of no human studies focused on short times between eating. To see if there were actually any benefits, and to eliminate any CR effect, such a study would have to have the participants eating to their TDEEs every day and weight loss would not be a variable. Among many other things.

Current research does show that if time between eating is measured as several days, not hours, there seem to be benefits. Animal studies predict this. But no studies have showed benefits from mere hours between meals. Perhaps there will be such a trial some time, and then we will have some more data.

Hi Happy:

For instance, go to Dr. M’s original program. The first segment was on a gentleman that was practicing calorie restriction – but eating several times a day. He was doing fine without eating just once a day. Dr. M in the same show seemed to have good numbers eating both breakfast and dinner. Dr. Varady’s research shows good results with people eating three times a day. Dr. Longo’s research has people eating several times a day, and he personally eats twice.

You place too much emphasis on my comment on veggies – I said ‘in a perfect world’. It was just a comment to point out that veggies may not be the perfect food the poster seemed to think they were. I made it clear that I do not think veggies are in any way bad or dangerous.

Please take the post for what it was, a comment that veggies are not perfect foods. There is nothing wrong with them, but they are not necessary for human life.