Debunking Michael Greger

For those questions and discussions on the McDougall program that don’t seem to fit in any other forum.

Moderators: JeffN, f1jim, John McDougall, carolve, Heather McDougall

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby Steelhead » Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:37 am

cron-o-meter:

1 T cocoa powder: Calories 12.3 g; carbs 3.1 g; Fiber 1.8 g; Fat .7g.

I think .7g of fat (.4 being saturated from plants) is an irrelevant amount of fat.

I'm not referring to nibs, or sweetened chocolate, but just the cocoa powder (and not Dutch).
No matter what genes we inherit, changes in diet can affect DNA expression at a genetic level." Michael Greger M.D.

Certificate in Plant-Based Nutrition - eCornell & T. Colin Campbell Foundation.
User avatar
Steelhead
 
Posts: 294
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:01 am
Location: Seattle WA

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby AlwaysAgnes » Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:56 am

I have two cans of baking cocoa in my pantry. One is Kroger 100% cocoa, and one is Hershey's special dark 100% cacao. Let's see what they say.

1 tbsp (5g) Kroger: calories 20, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 1g, protein 1g. Iron 4%. Vit C 4%.

1 tbsp (5g) Hershey's dark: calories 10, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 2g, protein 1g. Iron 10%. Vit C 0.


At those levels, I don't see the problem with this ingredient. If someone's going to make a dessert every day using 1 ounce of cocoa (or 5 tablespoons) and eat the whole thing, then maybe there would be something to worry about. How much of the fat in potatoes is saturated fat? How many potatoes does one need to eat in a day before it becomes a problem? How about brown rice? When does its saturated fat content become a problem? Perhaps when it's added to cocoa and soymilk and made into chocolate rice pudding and eaten by the gallon with a cup of almonds on top? I dunno, but now I'm wondering if my cocoa is expired. :duh:
You don't have to wait to be happy.
AlwaysAgnes
 
Posts: 3436
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:45 pm

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby frozenveg » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:23 pm

AlwaysAgnes wrote:I have two cans of baking cocoa in my pantry. One is Kroger 100% cocoa, and one is Hershey's special dark 100% cacao. Let's see what they say.

1 tbsp (5g) Kroger: calories 20, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 1g, protein 1g. Iron 4%. Vit C 4%.

1 tbsp (5g) Hershey's dark: calories 10, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 2g, protein 1g. Iron 10%. Vit C 0.

At those levels, I don't see the problem with this ingredient. If someone's going to make a dessert every day using 1 ounce of cocoa (or 5 tablespoons) and eat the whole thing, then maybe there would be something to worry about. How much of the fat in potatoes is saturated fat? How many potatoes does one need to eat in a day before it becomes a problem? How about brown rice? When does its saturated fat content become a problem? Perhaps when it's added to cocoa and soymilk and made into chocolate rice pudding and eaten by the gallon with a cup of almonds on top? I dunno, but now I'm wondering if my cocoa is expired. :duh:

OK, on my Nestle's can: 1Tbsp. 15 cals, total fat 1 g, calories from fat 5 (although 1 g fat = 9 cals), so this cocoa is 33% fat according to their Nutrition Facts, or 9/15=60% fat, according to the rough measurement.

I am not really nitpicking, but Agnes, many people on here have come from a place in which "OK" means "allowed" means "good for me" means "all I can eat!" I'd rather be forewarned about cocoa powder, and I really don't know why the labels and nutrition facts vary by 1000%, but I have a feeling there is a misplaced decimal in the labels.
5'3", 74 YO. Started Jan. 11, 2010
Starting weight: 222.6
Current weight: 148.2.0


Success Story:
https://www.drmcdougall.com/articles/st ... -rockwell/
User avatar
frozenveg
 
Posts: 3194
Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 1:39 pm
Location: Corvallis, Oregon

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby VeggieSue » Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:33 pm

Where is everyone buying their Wonderslim cocoa? The on-line store I used to buy it from no longer carries it, and Amazon wants $42/3 cans, more than I would use in 3 years! I've looked at a few other on-line stores and shipping for one can was almost as much as the product itself.
User avatar
VeggieSue
 
Posts: 3505
Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:34 pm
Location: gritty urban NJ

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby Chile » Sun Aug 05, 2012 3:42 pm

I've seen Wonderslim cocoa at Whole Foods and Sprouts. Outrageously priced, though, so I don't buy it. I rarely use cocoa anymore.
User avatar
Chile
 
Posts: 2742
Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby AlwaysAgnes » Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:32 pm

frozenveg wrote:
AlwaysAgnes wrote:I have two cans of baking cocoa in my pantry. One is Kroger 100% cocoa, and one is Hershey's special dark 100% cacao. Let's see what they say.

1 tbsp (5g) Kroger: calories 20, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 1g, protein 1g. Iron 4%. Vit C 4%.

1 tbsp (5g) Hershey's dark: calories 10, total fat 0.5g, sat fat 0g, total carb 3g, fiber 2g, protein 1g. Iron 10%. Vit C 0.

At those levels, I don't see the problem with this ingredient. If someone's going to make a dessert every day using 1 ounce of cocoa (or 5 tablespoons) and eat the whole thing, then maybe there would be something to worry about. How much of the fat in potatoes is saturated fat? How many potatoes does one need to eat in a day before it becomes a problem? How about brown rice? When does its saturated fat content become a problem? Perhaps when it's added to cocoa and soymilk and made into chocolate rice pudding and eaten by the gallon with a cup of almonds on top? I dunno, but now I'm wondering if my cocoa is expired. :duh:

OK, on my Nestle's can: 1Tbsp. 15 cals, total fat 1 g, calories from fat 5 (although 1 g fat = 9 cals), so this cocoa is 33% fat according to their Nutrition Facts, or 9/15=60% fat, according to the rough measurement.

I am not really nitpicking, but Agnes, many people on here have come from a place in which "OK" means "allowed" means "good for me" means "all I can eat!" I'd rather be forewarned about cocoa powder, and I really don't know why the labels and nutrition facts vary by 1000%, but I have a feeling there is a misplaced decimal in the labels.


Whatever the %fat in cocoa powder, the overall calories are low, and it's an ingredient and generally not a food item one eats in large amounts as a meal. If you know what I mean. Some perspective is required. (I always have to go back to the big picture, because that's the only thing that makes sense for me.)

As for the numbers, manufacturers follow the labeling guidelines and round up and down by 0.5 for fat. So, if something has less than .5g fat, they'd round it down to 0. If it has more than 0.5 for fat they'd round up to 1g.
http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplia ... 064932.htm So, if the fat cals are 5, I would guess that your Nestle cocoa has just over half a gram of fat in a tablespoon.

From http://www.livestrong.com/article/26726 ... nal-facts/ :

"Although whole cocoa beans contain about 50 percent fat, about 75 percent of these fats are removed in the process of making cocoa powder. One tablespoon of Nestle Cocoa Powder only contains about 0.5 g of fat. The main types of fat in cocoa beans are the saturated fatty acids, palmitic and stearic acids, and to a lesser degree, the monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid."

I wouldn't say you're nitpicking. Not any worse than I am, anyway. 8) It's fine to take a closer look at individual food items so we can understand them (and how they fit into the bigger dietary picture), but sometimes people get distracted and stuck there under the microscope and forget Dr. McDougall's fundamental message: Eat more starch. Like the good doctor says, "This is not an all or nothing program." Some may choose to buy Wonderslim cocoa powder. That's fine. I never have. I don't use cocoa that often. (My one can of cocoa has a sell by date of 2008. :shock: )

Oatmeal has fat. Quinoa has fat. Barley has fat. Even sweet potato has fat. Almost all foods are a combination of carb, protein and fat. Cocoa powder has fat...about 6 calories worth in a tablespoon. I wonder how many tablespoons cocoa powder one would have to eat in order to gain a pound of body fat.... :duh: Sorry. This does not compute. :lol:

Here's the usda nutrition data for cocoa powder:
http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6039

:mrgreen:
You don't have to wait to be happy.
AlwaysAgnes
 
Posts: 3436
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:45 pm

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby Chile » Sun Aug 05, 2012 5:44 pm

AlwaysAgnes wrote: Oatmeal has fat. Quinoa has fat. Barley has fat. Even sweet potato has fat. Almost all foods are a combination of carb, protein and fat.


Even iceberg lettuce is 9% fat. :D
User avatar
Chile
 
Posts: 2742
Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby patty » Sun Aug 05, 2012 7:18 pm

Aloha Vegan Hunter..

I totally get what you have said:
They are a holocausted people"..... So tragic, yet powerful.

I also agree with the concept that the world can only begin to heal itself when we decide to become one with nature again. How do we do that? I can't help but to think we are beyond turning back. We have such a rabid, swelling need to consume, and it would appear as a country develops they follow our model of consumption.


I love this picture from Speaking with Elephants.
http://www.deenametzger.com/

Image

I have always loved your avatar. When we align with nature we become aligned. Elisebit Sahtouris, a evolution biologist and futurist tells the butterfly story from Norle Huddle's "Butterfly".. that gives hope

A caterpillar can eat up to three hundred times its own weight in a day, devastating many plants in the process, continuing to eat until it’s so bloated that it hangs itself up and goes to sleep, its skin hardening into a chrysalis. Then, within the chrysalis, within the body of the dormant caterpillar, a new and very different kind of creature, the butterfly, starts to form. This confused biologists for a long time. How could a different genome plan exist within the caterpillar to form a different creature? They knew that metamorphosis occurs in a number of insect species, but it was not known until quite recently that nature did a lot of mixing and matching of very different genome/protein configurations in early evolutionary times. Cells with the butterfly genome were held as disclike aggregates of stem cells that biologists call 'imaginal cells', hidden away inside the caterpillar’ all its life, remaining undeveloped until the crisis of overeating, fatigue and breakdown allows them to develop, gradually replacing the caterpillar with a butterfly!

Such metamorphosis makes a good metaphor for the great changes globalisation, in the sense of world transformation, is bringing about., as Norie Huddle first used it in her beautiful book Butterfly. Our bloated old system is rapidly becoming defunct while the vision of a new and very different society, long held by many 'imaginal cell' humans who dreamt of a better world, is now emerging like a butterfly, representing our solutions to the crises of predation, overconsumption and breakdown in a new way of living lightly on Earth, and of seeing our human society not in the metaphors and models of mechanism as well-oiled social machinery, but in those of evolving, self-organizing and intelligent living organism.

If you want a butterfly world, don't step on the caterpillar, but join forces with other imaginal cells to build a better future for all! http://www.sahtouris.com/#1_0,0,


In "EarthDance: Living Systems in Evolution" Elisebit Sahtouris tells how bacteria has created the first Worldwide Web.

Modern bacteria have obviously been able to change very quickly in ways that protect them against our lethal antibiotics—in Greek, ‘against life.’ To do this, they have to make changes in their DNA. Life, it seems, does not just wait around for lucky accidents to solve problems and improve things, but is quite inventive, especially under survival pressure. But just how do bacteria do it?

We can easily see with modern microscopes that bacterial DNA is a very long complex molecule formed into a loose loop inside the tiny creature. We can also see that bacteria come very close to one another and then dissolve parts of their cell walls long enough to create a hole through which they exchange bits of DNA. One or both of them leaves this encounter with a new combination of DNA from the two though no reproduction had taken place.

This information exchange, or communication system, of ancient (and modern) bacteria is at least as remarkable as any of their other inventions and no doubt is what made the rest of their innovations possible. We are just beginning to learn how it works and to recognize it as original sex!—something we thought had been invented much later in evolution.

Sex is by definition the production of creatures by a combination of DNA from more than one individual. Every time bacteria receive bits of DNA called genes from others, they are engaging in sex by making themselves the product of two bacterial sources even though they are not reproducing. This sexual communication system apparently belongs to virtually all bacteria of all strains, so that bacteria can—and do—trade their DNA genes with one another all over the Earth to this day! Thus these tiny ancient beings actually created the first WorldWideWeb of information exchange, trading genes as we trade our own messages from computer to computer around the world. We have speeded up their web by carrying them around the world on our ships and airplanes, to make contact in far places they might not have reached by wind and waters so quickly.

All bacteria can be thought of as one great holon with a common pool of DNA genes—a single live network or system covering our entire planet, even extending deep under its polar ice covers and into its below-surface fissures. Throughout this system the bacteria trade and recombine genes according to need and experiment. And their ‘Internet’ probably includes larger creatures, including ourselves, as we can see bacteria (and viruses, which may be their survival devices) coming into plants and animals to trade bits of DNA. Even before we made this discovery, we knew that no other form of life could survive today without bacteria. Why this is so will become clear as we watch the dance of life develop.


Watch your dreams.... Aloha, patty
patty
 
Posts: 6977
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 11:46 am

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby VeggieSue » Mon Aug 06, 2012 3:26 am

Chile wrote:I've seen Wonderslim cocoa at Whole Foods and Sprouts. Outrageously priced, though, so I don't buy it. I rarely use cocoa anymore.


Well, WF is over an hour drive through congested NJ traffic and I don't think Sprouts is anywhere here, I guess I'll continue to do without. TY.
User avatar
VeggieSue
 
Posts: 3505
Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:34 pm
Location: gritty urban NJ

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby VeggieSue » Mon Aug 06, 2012 3:35 am

Remember also that Wonderslim is *caffeine-free*, too. Dr. McDougall tells us not to drink beverages with caffeine and I'm sure that included foods made with caffeine, too. It's not just the fat.


And to get back on the topic of Dr. Greger, Dr. McD thinks so highly of him that his site is one of only 4 links on the Important Links page on the McDougall web site:
http://drmcdougall.com/links.html
User avatar
VeggieSue
 
Posts: 3505
Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 3:34 pm
Location: gritty urban NJ

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby Nettie » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:00 am

VeggieSue wrote:And to get back on the topic of Dr. Greger, Dr. McD thinks so highly of him that his site is one of only 4 links on the Important Links page on the McDougall web site:
http://drmcdougall.com/links.html


Thanks for that reminder, VeggieSue. Dr. Greger is one of my favorite people, and I love the service that he provides for the public.

Nettie
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always be what you've always been.

Star_McDougaller

Image
User avatar
Nettie
 
Posts: 1166
Joined: Tue Nov 07, 2006 3:55 pm
Location: South Carolina

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby AlwaysAgnes » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:54 am

VeggieSue wrote:Remember also that Wonderslim is *caffeine-free*, too. Dr. McDougall tells us not to drink beverages with caffeine and I'm sure that included foods made with caffeine, too. It's not just the fat.


And to get back on the topic of Dr. Greger, Dr. McD thinks so highly of him that his site is one of only 4 links on the Important Links page on the McDougall web site:
http://drmcdougall.com/links.html




The ad I saw http://www.thebetterhealthstore.com/ite ... 3115630002 (is this the right product?) says it's 99.7% caffeine free, so I guess technically it has a touch of caffeine. :wink: But the caffeine content of Hershey's cocoa is actually low per this http://www.hersheys.com/nutrition-profe ... omine.aspx which lists the caffeine in 1 tbsp at 8mg. Also, looking at the nutrition label at the first link, adding up the calories in protein, carb and fat grams, we find they don't add up. Maybe there's a tad more carb and protein, or maybe there's a touch of fat left in the product. Micrograms. They're what's for breakfast. :lol:

I wonder how much additional processing a cocoa bean has to endure before it's eligible for wonderslim status.

I don't know what Dr. McDougall thinks about caffeine today. The message seems a little mixed to me. In this 2004 newsletter article on tea, he has this to say about caffeine:
"One of the attractive qualities of tea, even green tea, is that it contains a desirable stimulant, caffeine, which relieves sleepiness and fatigue in most people."

In the free program, he steers people away from coffee, decaf coffee and black tea and suggests cereal beverages and herb teas. The suggested sub for chocolate is carob. :\

http://nutritiondiva.quickanddirtytips. ... carob.aspx

o/~You take the good. You take the bad.
You take them both, and there you have
the facts of life. The facts of life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd6wEeKj ... re=related

As for Dr. Greger...
How much, if any, of the scientific research that Dr. Greger examines actually contradicts Dr. McDougall's general recommendation to eat a starch-based diet? All the minutia is worth what it's worth to whomever it's worth something to, but for me it always comes back to that. Apparently, I've brainwashed myself. :lol:
You don't have to wait to be happy.
AlwaysAgnes
 
Posts: 3436
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 12:45 pm

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby elbow » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:49 pm

VeggieSue wrote:Remember also that Wonderslim is *caffeine-free*, too. Dr. McDougall tells us not to drink beverages with caffeine and I'm sure that included foods made with caffeine, too. It's not just the fat.


oh, that makes it tempting to me because the caffeine in cocoa powder bothers me. I see that it's processed with alkali. I've heard to avoid cocoa processed this way but don't remember why. Anyone know?

-barb
elbow
 
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:14 pm
Location: Madison, WI

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby GeoffreyLevens » Mon Aug 06, 2012 5:01 pm

elbow wrote:I've heard to avoid cocoa processed this way but don't remember why. Anyone know?

Won't hurt you but the process removes much of the antioxidents
GeoffreyLevens
 
Posts: 5871
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2010 6:52 pm
Location: Paonia, CO

Re: Debunking Michael Greger

Postby elbow » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:11 pm

GeoffreyLevens wrote:
elbow wrote:I've heard to avoid cocoa processed this way but don't remember why. Anyone know?

Won't hurt you but the process removes much of the antioxidents


ah, thanks. maybe I'll stick with carob powder. I actually like the taste and I think that's got good stuff in it too.

-barb
elbow
 
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2012 4:14 pm
Location: Madison, WI

PreviousNext

Return to The Lounge

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 11 guests



Welcome!

Sign up to receive our regular articles, recipes, and news about upcoming events.