For a couple of decades, there has been an ongoing argument regarding the issue of “is a calorie a calorie” in terms of changes on body composition and other parameters. In that vein is the idea that the body will respond drastically differently to the intake of “fast food” compared to similar meal from organic foods.
To examine this, I want to look at a recent paper titled:
Which actually made the comparison. Let’s see what happened.
Yeah, a Calorie is Pretty Much a Calorie
Fundamentally, my belief is that, given identical macro-nutrient intakes (in terms of protein, carbs, and fats) that there is going to be little difference in terms of bodily response to a given meal. There may be small differences mind you (and of course research supports that) but, overall, they are not large. And certainly not of the magnitude that many make it sound like.
It’s worth nothing that there are a couple of built-in assumptions to my argument, all of which are detailed in the article I linked to above but I want to briefly reiterate them here.
A tediously typical argument of the “a calorie isn’t a calorie” types is usually something along the lines of “Clearly eating 3000 calories of jelly beans isn’t the same as eating 3000 calories of chicken breast and vegetables.”
Well…no shit.
But at that point, the argument is about more than food quality, it’s also about the macro-nutrient content. And of course the diet containing zero protein will be bad. But, again that has zip to do with it being clean and everything to do with there being no protein.
My basic assumptions in this argument are that both protein and essential fatty acid requirements are being met. Beyond that, I find most of the obsession over food quality to be pretty pointless. At the extremes it might make the tiniest of differences. In the big picture, it really doesn’t.
Now it’s worth noting that a great deal of the difference seen between “eating clean” and “eating unclean” has to do with caloric intakes. I’ve pointed out repeatedly that, and this is especially true when people are not counting their calories, certain eating patterns tend to make people eat more than others. It’s easier to overeat donuts than broccoli.
Clearly, someone eating a 2000 calorie fast food meal will obviously get a different response than someone eating a 500 or even 1000 calorie clean meal. But as with the argument above, at this point there is more than one variable changing. It’s not just about clean vs. unclean, you’re comparing meals of drastically different caloric value.
A far more logical comparison would be to look at “unclean” vs “clean” meals containing the same caloric value and the same macro-nutrient content; by controlling those two variables, the only thing being examined will be the quality of the food (rather than the total quantity or the macro-nutrient profile).
Especially when you’re talking about bodybuilders and athletes who are typically controlling their caloric content. Under those conditions, I argue that there will be no significant difference between the two. Given identical macros and calories, there is simply no real-world difference in a clean vs. unclean meal in terms of its effects on body composition (health and other effects such as hunger control are separate, albeit important, issues).
However, even there the clean freaks will make the counter-argument: they contend that even if the macros and calories are identical, the unclean meal will still be worse. This is usually based on an assumed difference in hormonal response (usually insulin).
So who’s right?
Unfortunately, very little research has actually examined this topic in any sort of controlled way (there are at least two studies showing that high sucrose diets generate identical weight and fat losses as lower sucrose diets). Until now.
Comparing the Meals
The study’s explicit goal was to see if the metabolic response to a fast-food meal would differ to a ‘healthy’ meal of similar macro-nutrient and caloric value.
Towards this end six overweight men and two women were recruited to take part in the study although the data in the women was excluded due to the low number and possible gender effects.
Each subject consumed each of the three test meals on different days with one week in between trials. A standard breakfast was provided at 8am and the test meal was given at exactly 12pm and blood samples were taken every 30 minutes for the first 4 hours and every 60 minutes for the next two hours. Blood glucose, blood lipids, insulin, leptin, ghrelin and free fatty acids were measured.
The test meals consisted of the following:.
- Fast food meal: A Big Mac, french fries and root beer sweetened with high fructose corn syrup purchased at the restaurant itself.
- Organic beef meal: this meal used certified organic rangefed ground beef; cheddar cheese; hamburger bun made with unbleached all purpose naturally white flour, non-iodized salt, non-fat powdered milk, natural yeast, canola oil, and granulated sugar; sauce made from canola mayonnaise and organic ketchup; organic lettuce, onion and dill pickles; French fries made from organic potatoes and fried in pure pressed canola oil; and root beer made with cane sugar.
- Organic turkey meal: this consisted of a turkey sandwich made from sliced, roasted free-range turkey breast with no antibiotics or artificial growth stimulants; cheddar cheese; 60% whole wheat bread made with whole wheat and unbleached all-purpose naturally white flours, non-iodized salt, non-fat powdered milk, yeast, vital wheat gluten, canola oil, and granulated sugar; pure pressed canola oil and canola mayonnaise, stone ground mustard; organic lettuce; accompanied by a granola made with Blue Diamond whole natural almonds, Nature’s path organic multigrain oatbrain flakes, wholesome sweeteners evaporated cane juice, Spectrum Naturals pure pressed canola oil, clover honey, Sonoma organically grown raisins and dried apples. The beverage was an organic orange juice.
So the study was comparing a commercial fast food meal to two carefully designed organic meals (one beef, one turkey) from the above list of ingredients.
The Meal’s Composition
I’ve shown the overall macronutrient composition of the meals below.
It’s important to note that while the meals were similar, they were not identical in composition and this is a shame since it makes for a very easy criticism or outright dismissal of the results. I’ll be honest that I don’t understand why the researchers didn’t put a little more effort into equating the macronutrient composition.
Differences Between the Meals
The biggest difference between meals had to do with the fatty acid composition: the fast food meal contained twice as much saturated and nearly 8 times as much trans-fatty acids with half of the oleic acid compared to the organic beef meal (which is no surprise).
Interestingly, the fast food meal actually contained more linoleic acid than the organic beef meal. The turkey meal had less saturated fat but similar amounts of linoleic and linolenic acid to the fast food meal, with the lowest amount of trans fats.
Hormonal Responses to the Meals
In terms of the blood glucose and insulin response, no difference was seen between any of the meals and this is true whether the data was presented in terms of percentage or absolute change from baseline. The same held true for the ratio of insulin/glucose, no change was seen between any of the meals.
Let’s put it in bold for emphasis.
The blood glucose and insulin response were identical for all three meals despite one being a fast food “unclean” meal and the other two being organic “clean” meals.
Fatty acid levels showed slight differences, dropping rapidly and then returning to baseline by 5 hours in the beef meals but 6 hours in the turkey meal. Blood triglyceride levels reached a slightly higher peak in the organic beef and turkey meals compared to the fast food meal but this wasn’t significant.
Changes in leptin were not significant between groups; ghrelin was suppressed equally after all three meals but rose above baseline 5 hours after the fast-food lunch but returned only to baseline in the other two meals.
The only significant difference found in the study was that LDL cholesterol decreased more after both of the organic meals compared to the fast food meal, HDL and total cholesterol showed no change after any of the meals. This was thought to be due to differences in the fatty acid content of the meals (saturated fat typically having a greater negative impact on blood lipid levels than other types of fat).
However, beyond that, there were no differences seen in the response of blood glucose, insulin, blood fatty acids or anything else measured.
Limitations of the Study
Now, the study does have a few limitations that I want to mention explicitly.
- The study only looked at a single meal. It’s entirely possible that a diet based completely around fast food would show different effects to one based around organic foods.
- The sample size was small: 6 overweight men and two women. It’s possible that differences would have shown up with more subjects. Would a leaner individual respond differently? I tend to doubt it. But it needs to be studied directly.
However, with that said (along with the fact that the meals weren’t exactly identical), the basic fact is this: the metabolic response between the three meals was essentially identical. There were no differences in either insulin or blood glucose, the fatty acid profile makes perfect sense given the composition of the meals and blood lipids showed basically no change.
What Do These Results Mean?
This study basically backs up what I’ve been saying for years: a single fast food meal, within the context of a calorie controlled diet, is not death on a plate. It won’t destroy your diet and it won’t make you immediately turn into a big fat pile of blubber. And, frankly, this can be predicted on basic physiology (in terms of nutrient digestion) alone. It’s just nice to see it verified in a controlled setting.
It’s not uncommon for the physique obsessed to literally become social pariahs, afraid to eat out because eating out is somehow defined as “unclean” and fast food is, of course, the death of any diet. Never mind that a grilled chicken breast eaten out is fundamentally no different than a grilled chicken breast cooked at home. To the clean eater/orthorexic they are somehow not the same.
Except that it’s clearly not. Given caloric control, the body’s response to a given set of nutrients, with the exception of blood lipids would appear to be more determined by the total caloric and macro content of that meal more than the source of the food. This is honestly just basic physiology.
In terms of the hormonal response, clean vs. unclean just doesn’t matter, it’s all about calories and macros.
Which is what I’ve been saying all along.
Similar Posts:
- Meal Frequency and Energy Balance
- Insulin Levels and Fat Loss
- The Dieters Paradox
- Meal Frequency and Muscle Mass Gains
- The Problem with Dieting by Percentages
Lyle, what do you think about the study that came out recently testing subjects with a Paleo diet?
They controlled the calories in the diet to make sure the subjects were not losing weight. All individuals in the diet, after the week or whatever they were on it, had improved a whole bunch of health parameters.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 Feb 11.
Metabolic and physiologic improvements from consuming a paleolithic,
hunter-gatherer type diet.
Frassetto LA, Schloetter M, Mietus-Synder M, Morris RC Jr, Sebastian
A.
Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco School
of Medicine, San Francisco, CA, USA.
Background:The contemporary American diet figures centrally in the
pathogenesis of numerous chronic diseases-‘diseases of civilization’.
We investigated in humans whether a diet similar to that consumed by
our preagricultural hunter-gatherer ancestors (that is, a paleolithic
type diet) confers health benefits. Methods:We performed an outpatient,
metabolically controlled study, in nine nonobese sedentary healthy
volunteers, ensuring no weight loss by daily weight. We compared the
findings when the participants consumed their usual diet with those
when they consumed a paleolithic type diet. The participants consumed
their usual diet for 3 days, three ramp-up diets of increasing
potassium and fiber for 7 days, then a paleolithic type diet
comprising lean meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts, and excluding
nonpaleolithic type foods, such as cereal grains, dairy or legumes,
for 10 days. Outcomes included arterial blood pressure (BP); 24-h
urine sodium and potassium excretion; plasma glucose and insulin areas
under the curve (AUC) during a 2 h oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT);
insulin sensitivity; plasma lipid concentrations; and brachial artery
reactivity in response to ischemia.Results:Compared with the baseline
(usual) diet, we observed (a) significant reductions in BP associated
with improved arterial distensibility (-3.1+/-2.9, P=0.01 and
+0.19+/-0.23, P=0.05);(b) significant reduction in plasma insulin vs
time AUC, during the OGTT (P=0.006); and (c) large significant
reductions in total cholesterol, low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and
triglycerides (-0.8+/-0.6 (P=0.007), -0.7+/-0.5 (P=0.003) and
-0.3+/-0.3 (P=0.01) mmol/l respectively). In all these measured
variables, either eight or all nine participants had identical
directional responses when switched to paleolithic type diet, that is,
near consistently improved status of circulatory, carbohydrate and
lipid metabolism/physiology.Conclusions:Even short-term consumption of
a paleolithic type diet improves BP and glucose tolerance, decreases
insulin secretion, increases insulin sensitivity and improves lipid
profiles without weight loss in healthy sedentary humans.European
Journal of Clinical Nutrition advance online publication, 11 February
2009; doi:10.1038/ejcn.2009.4.
PMID: 19209185
Lyle,
Great stuff, as usual. Just curious, but even in light of this type of information, would you take issue with an individual who was still inclined to “work around” a fast food or restaurant menu by ordering 2 burgers or chicken sandwiches and tossing aside the buns along with a side salad (in the case of the former) or a lean cut of meat and steamed veggies (in the case of the latter)?
Occasionally I go with the tastier and so-called “unclean” foods, but often I find myself roughly approximating what I could prep myself when eating out. It’s literally become second nature as opposed to a burden, but I certainly don’t want to stray into even quasi-orthorexic territory.
Thanks for this. I am amazed at how the medical world treats its research so differently. A study with a sample size of six or eight patients would likely never see the light of day, unless it is merely a low-level case series of a rare disease or procedure. I wonder why the researchers don’t do large numbers, and I suspect funding is the issue.
a single meal sure not but we all remember Super size me
totti: Yeah, and he gained a ton of weight because he was eating too many calories. Please read the article again, I addressed this very fact a couple of times; the confound is that when people eat fast food they usually EAT TOO MANY CALORIES. You can fuck up your health just as badly eating too many calories from ‘healthy foods’ because gaining fat tends to fuck up health.
That’s not what I’m talking about. Anther guy lost weight and improved his health parameters doing the same thing because he ate less calories. He did a documentary called Bowling for Morgan detailing his experiences although his website seems to be down right now. It’s the calories, not the quality.
Bryan: Yes, I did see that study although I haven’t read it in full. And I mentioned explicitly that this was only a single meal study which is different than the Paleo study you’re talking about. Then again, compared to the standard American diet (which sucks), the results don’t surprise me at all.
Of course, as I knew it would to somebody, you seem to be reading this article as advocating that people eat a 100% junk food diet. Which isn’t the case and not at all what I’m saying. I’m simply pointing out that the type of dietary extremism (and moronic claims) made by the ‘clean eating brigade’ have little to no basis in reality: as this study shows (within its limitations), the hormonal response and pretty much everything else is identical given the same calories and macros.
Bryan
So I got ahold of the full Paleo study and here’s part of what’s going on. From page 4
“The usual diet had a calculated K/Na intake ratio of 0.6±0.3 and averaged 18% of calories from protein, 44% from carbohydrates and 38% from fats. An analyzed paleolithic diet composite had a K/Na intake ratio of 4.3 (Po0.0001) and contained 30% of calories from proteins, 32% from fat (mainly unsaturated) and 38% from carbohydrates.”
So the overall macro content of the diets were different. Protein went up 12%, carbs went down 6% and fats went down 6%.
So, in the way that totti is getting thrown by the confound between food quality and TOTAL CALORIES, this paleo diet study is confounding food quality and MACRONUTRIENT CONTENT.
The diets aren’t directly comparable because, the two macro contents are different. Which I also directly discussed in this article because it’ the other common confound in this discussion. Which is why I brought it up in the article itself.
Because of course if you lower carbs and increase protein, blood glucose and insulin will tend to be lower, the blood pressure is a potassium/sodium issue, etc. Without comparing paleo foods to modern foods in a diet with an identical macronutrient composition, it’s not addressing what this article of mine is addressing.
Yeah, the macronutrient ratios are similar to that of a isocaloric diet, in that Paleo study. I’d like to see an accurate comparison like you said.
If you look at the list of foods in that study, they actually had to feed them a tonne of honey and carrot juice to even get the carb levels that high. It’s really hard to get an “average person’s” amount of carbs on the paleo diet. A lot of blogs criticized the study for having so much honey and carrot juice, and for having low amounts of saturated fat.
In my experience, the thing about the Paleo diet is that you become so full with meats and vegetables, you naturally reduce your calories. That’s why people lose weight on it.
Sure and that’s a potential benefit and brings us right back around to issues I’ve raised in other articles: the rules change when you are looking at spontaneous/ad-lib food intake (e.g. people eating without counting calories) vs. counted calories. Which is all discussed ad nauseum in the Is a calorie a calorie article on the site.
I did giggle at the paleo article when they rationalized that although mayo and carrot juice weren’t paleo foods, they were close enough to be included. Yeah, whatever guys.
And of course the real reality is that
a. there was no single paleo diet in the first place. Humans are absurdly adaptable in this regards and diets ranging from every extreme to the other were probably consumed at one point or another.
b. the foods that existed then (especially in terms of fatty acid profile of meats) don’t exist.
As well, some folks contend that the benefits from the ‘paleo’ vs. the modern diet has far less to do with food quality and far more to do with quantity. This is the other huge confound; in general losing weight improves health parameters and gaining weight hurts it. Of course, this particular study, even if it didn’t keep the macros consistent did avoid weight loss as a confound. But many studies on this topic do not.
As well, there was a hell of a lot more to the ‘paleo lifestyle’ than most folks realize. It wasn’t just the diet that was involved in whatever benefits were obtained. Activity, stress, overall lifestyle all played a role but those seem to be downplayed as often as not in the various dietary arguments that go on.
Lyle
I don’t eat fast food either, but i don’t think lyle is saying to eat it all the time. He is just saying that if you are under maintenance, you are going to loose weight regardless. Therefore , one will be healthier because he/she is loosing weight.
Lyle,
I know this comment is lagging the article by a few months, but wanted to say thanks for the insight. I think, as you eluded to, the larger problem with eating fast food is controlling the macros and the total caloric intake. While this certainly happens at home (people underestimate or don’t know what they are eating), fast food tends to come in packaged meals and people feel obliged to eat all of it since they paid for it.
Totally agree. A calorie is…for the most part a calorie. Eating out bad once in a while (especially dieting) would probably be more beneficial than bad.
My opinion.
1) Your mind will get a break from eating clean.
2) More people tend to bust ass because that ate that double cheese burger instead of the steak and sweet potato. (which will generate more fat loss, or possibly muscle gain)
3) People who cheat end up sticking with a program for fat loss, and tend not to binge and destroy their diet
Hell, if you are busting your ass 5 days a week with weight training and cardio…and the calories are the same. Have some ice cream! Were only human.
Interesting information – as a trainer myself, I’ve run hundreds of metabolic assessments with a New Leaf analyzer. Through gas exchange, collecting VO2, VCO2 and VE – we’re able to determine the clients RMR. We also run an exercise assessment determining their AB and AT. BUT – what I wanted to share was that I always start my clients off by simply staying within the caloric boundaries that we get from their assessment information. Trying to change too many habits at once is bound to end in falling off “the wagon” early on in the game. Once they have the habit down of staying within those boundaries, then we can talk about eating cleaner – or at least better than they have been. I’ve also always preached that A brownie, never made someone fat. Eating the entire pan and then cleaning out the freezer of any ice-cream in a sitting is what makes you fat. Anyway – back to my point, what I found was that it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. My clients that eat clean within the caloric boundaries get the same great results as the ones that don’t.
Carrie –
https://carriepartna.wordpress.com/
Lyle,
This to me sounds like your point of view, correct me if I am wrong:
The hormonal profile, which was the variable being studied, was the only thing they compared. It could not possibly address things like fullness, length of time it takes to eat, and such. Basically, the marco nutrient breakdown, especially protein intake, is going to be the most important part of your diet along with total calories obviously. So, when those two factors are controlled for, there is really not that big of a difference. The idea is that in the long haul, those junky/processed type foods generally have too many fat/carbs/caloric density, as that is their very nature, think about most desserts or guilty treats.
I think that most people eat shitty diets, standard American fare, which pretty bad given our obesity rates. And so, for people without a genetic disposition to being leanish, or those that have good eating/fitness habits, they get fat. Because of just how prevalent fastfood is, it is our country’s cultural dish basically.
My question is this: Say you had two clones, one of them ate a diet of mostly fast and processed food, while the other ate mostly organic, grassfed/free range if applicable food. However, the diets were controlled for protein/fat/carbs/calories. Would there be any other mechanisms by which their quality of life could be affected by some property of the food across their lifespan?
Except there’s one problem with eating out.. Most restaurants don’t give out nutritional info on their food. The ones that do are big fast food chains. It will be nice if the regular restaurants hopped on that vagon as well
Which has exactly NOTHING to do with this article but thank you anyhow.
The study addressed what it addressed and that’s what it addressed.
And the two twins/two clones question is an idiotic thought experiment. You’re looking for a way to justify your preconceived belief that fast food is bad. This data clearly doesn’t change your mind. Fantastic. I don’t have the energy to address dumb questions since nothing anybody says will change your mind. Be happy, eat clean, go with god.
This is gold.
And Lyle McDonald is a god.
That is all.