If you ask the average American to name a whole grain product, most will answer "whole wheat bread."
Indeed, the USDA puts brown rice and whole grain bread into the same nutritional category--and promotes these "whole grain" foods as being better for you than refined grains such as white rice and white bread.
As Andrew Weil pointed out in his remarks this morning, this is in grave disservice to public health. Foods made with flour--whether whole grain or refined--have a higher glycemic load than whole, intact grains. He makes a good point.
Our current dietary guidelines would rank the following four foods from best to worst like this:
1. Brown rice
2. Whole wheat bread
3. White rice
4. White bread
And yet it would probably be more appropriate to order them like this:
1. Brown rice
2. White rice
3. Whole wheat bread
4. White bread
What do you think? Would it be more useful to teach people to emphasize intact grains rather than advising them to choose foods made from whole grain flours?
In trying to come to terms with the twin threats of obesity and diabetes, most of the attention is focused on diet. Are we eating too many carbohydrates? Too little protein? Too many calories? Too little fiber?
Sometimes, the spotlight is widened to include exercise: Do we need more physical activity? More intense exercise? More frequent sessions? Longer duration?
But there's a third spoke to this wheel--one that we rarely consider. Maybe we're not getting enough sleep.
There are plenty of other reasons to give sleep its due. Sleep deprivation increases stress hormones, inflammation, oxidative stress, and other biomarkers of aging.
Are you skimping on sleep? What would it take for you to make sleep quality as big a priority as healthy diet and exercise?
Last week, I announced a new policy on the Diet and Weight Loss Blog: Reader comments would be reviewed before appearing on the site in order to reduce the number of marketing and nuisance comments. Because of the subject matter, this blog seems to attract more than its fair share of these.Of course, this means that that there may be a delay before comments appear on the site, which could potentially slow down the pace and spontaneity of the discussion--but it seemed like it might be a worthwhile trade-off.
I was a little surprised by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to my announcement. This comment was typical: "I'd much rather have a delay or a little wait time than have to deal with spam, marketers or misinformation."
So now I'm wondering whether readers of THIS blog might also prefer that comments be moderated. I'm not talking about filtering comments from readers who don't agree with my point of view. If you read this blog regularly, you know that lively debate is a regular feature. In fact, that's one of the things I like best about this blog: It's not one of those discussions in which all participants already agree. Who learns anything from that?
Moderating comments might slow the exchange down a bit but it would help keep the discussion civil and on topic. As one comment on the Diet and Weight Loss Blog put it, it would also allow us to "weigh in on comments that, while legitimate or well-intentioned, may be perceived as "fact" or science-based when in fact they are spreading misinformation."
So, what say the readers of this blog? Would you see this as a positive development? Weigh in below.
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Food and Drink, Nutrition and Health Conference, Policy and Regulation
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Andrew Weil, Brown Rice, Dietary Guidelines, Disservice, Email Inbox, Flour, Glycemic Load, Grain Flours, Grain Product, Health Conference, Health Foods, Market Research, Nutrition And Health, Nutrition Data, Online Surveys, Public Health, Refined Grains, Usda, White Bread, White Rice, Whole Grain Bread, Whole Grain Foods, Whole Wheat Bread 
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