Staple food is too short-lived Zhang Baotong 2017.12.28

After reading a new research report in The Lancet, "How Staple Foods Are Short-lived", I was very surprised and puzzled. Because I'm a staple food eater myself. Every morning I have a steamed bun and a packet of milk, rice and porridge at noon and evening, sometimes noodles and steamed buns, and some vegetables and fruits. I didn't eat pork since I was a kid and usually only ate a very small amount of beef or chicken. However, the results of the Lancet study show that high carbohydrate intake is associated with higher mortality, total fat and partial fat can reduce total cause mortality, fat is not related to myocardial infarction, cardiovascular disease, and saturated fat may reduce the risk of stroke. The meaning is clear: eating more staple foods such as rice and noodles (the main source of carbohydrates) may make you die earlier.

If this research report had been published in some other journal, I might not have thought so, but The Lancet is currently the most authoritative academic journal in the world's medical community, and its influence in the medical community even exceeds that of Nature and Science. So, I can't doubt it.

I immediately found the "Chinese Dietary Guidelines" on the Internet, the text of the Chinese diet with a 5-layer pagoda illustration, from the base of the pagoda to the top of the pagoda for the first category of cereals and potatoes: cereals include rice, noodles, grains, etc., potatoes include potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, etc., mainly providing carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber and B vitamins. The second category is animal food: including meat, poultry, fish, milk, eggs, etc., mainly providing protein, fat, minerals, vitamin A and B vitamins. The third category is legumes and their products: including soybeans and other dried legumes, which mainly provide protein, fat, dietary fiber, minerals and B vitamins. The fourth category is vegetables and fruits: including fresh beans, roots, leafy vegetables, eggplant, etc., which mainly provide dietary fiber, minerals, vitamin C and carotene. The fifth category is pure caloric food: including animal and vegetable oils, starches, edible sugars and alcohol, which mainly provide energy. Vegetable oils also provide vitamin E and essential fatty acids.

Next, I looked for dietary guidelines for Americans. USDA guidelines recommend a significant increase in the amount of cereals, bread, vegetables, and fruits per person per day, and a significant reduction in the demand for dairy products and meat, which include the following: cereals and refined, fortified cereal products, bread, hot or cold cereals, pasta, rice: 6-11 servings a day. 1 serving is equivalent to 1 slice of bread or half a cup of rice. Vegetables: Dark leafy greens, yellow or orange vegetables: 3-5 servings a day. 1 serving is equivalent to 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables (4 large leaves) or 6 ounces of vegetable juice. FruitsCitrus, tomatoes, or other fruits rich in vitamin C: 2-4 servings a day. One serving is equivalent to 1 medium fruit or 6 ounces of fresh juice. Dairy milk, cheese, yogurt and other dairy products: 2-3 servings daily. One serving is equivalent to a cup of yogurt or milk or 1 ounce of cheese. Meat beef, beef, pork, mutton, fish, chicken, animal liver, eggs, meat substitutes: 2-3 servings a day. One serving is equivalent to 3-4 ounces of animal protein, which is generally about the size of a deck of cards, or 1/4 cup of nuts. Fats, oils, and sugars should be used sparingly as much as possible. Clearly, the Dietary Guidelines for Chinese are roughly the same as the USDA's guidelines. Perhaps the dietary guidelines for Chinese are formulated with reference to the dietary guidelines of the United States Department of Agriculture in combination with the dietary habits of Chinese. These two dietary guidelines are by no means arbitrary, they must have been formulated after a lot of research and scientific experiments.

I compared the dietary standards of China and the United States with this article in The Lancet, and found that both sides agree on the health benefits of eating more vegetables and fruits, but they contradict each other when it comes to eating more staple foods and fats. The Lancet article shows that eating more staple foods is short-lived, while fats are good for health. From 2003 to mid-2013, the Lancet research institute surveyed and recorded the food intake of 135335 adults aged 35 to 70 in 18 countries, and focused on investigating and studying the relationship between cardiovascular mortality and diet. But I still think that the dietary standards of China and the United States are more suitable for the health of Chinese and Americans.

The average life expectancy of Chinese has increased from 57 years in 1957 to 68 years in 1981 and 73.5 years now. Although the living standards of Chinese have improved, their eating habits have not changed much, and rice noodles are still the main food. Chinese have a history of civilization for thousands of years, and there are many theories and summaries on the relationship between diet and longevity. Moreover, the long-term dietary habits of Chinese people basically pay attention to coarse tea and light rice, which should be beneficial to the health and longevity of Chinese.

In this article in The Lancet, it is also highlighted that a low-carb diet is not only less likely to gain weight, but is more likely to make you live longer. But what makes people sigh is how many people in China, especially the elderly, dare not eat more meat after a few bowls of noodles and several bowls of rice a day, and in the end, heart disease is getting worse and worse, diabetes can never be cured, and the problem of stroke is getting more and more serious. The article explains this situation: In the United States and other developed Western countries, the risk of diabetes, heart disease and other metabolic diseases is getting higher and higher, why? Because the poor can only afford cheap carbohydrates, foreign dishes are very expensive, especially vegetables, which are frighteningly expensive. Chinese food is relatively cheap, most Chinese can still afford to eat vegetables, at present, the most difficult thing is to persuade Chinese adults to change the diet structure, most Chinese people will feel that do not eat rice, do not eat noodles, this day has not been made.

But in fact, the reason why there are too many obese people in the United States is not that they can't afford to eat vegetables, but that they eat too much meat. Not to mention Americans, even Chinese eat too much meat, and they are also prone to obesity. We can now see that many Chinese children are also obese, but they are not because they eat too much meat? If you go to the poor mountainous areas of China, if you go to Uganda and South Sudan, are there many obese people there? The elderly in China have a lot of heart disease, diabetes and stroke, but this is not just because they eat rice and noodles every day. If they were not allowed to eat rice and noodles, but meat every day, I am afraid that there would be many more sick elderly people in China. Americans eat more meat, and there must be no fewer people suffering from heart disease, diabetes and stroke than Chinese. We can recall that before the 80s, Chinese was still on the subsistence line, and urban residents could only buy two catties of pork a month with their tickets, and there was no meat to eat, and there was not a single fat person on the street, and how could anyone have heard of diabetes and stroke? At present, there are many heart diseases, diabetes, and strokes among the elderly in China, and it is not that the elderly in China eat more rice and noodles and eat less meat, but there are many reasons.

I remember that in the past, all the people who lived around my mother's house were the leaders of our railway engineering department, and only our family was workers, and at that time, my father's monthly salary was 70 yuan, and he supported a family of 8 people. The surrounding neighbors are all cadres at or above the section level, with a monthly salary of more than 120 yuan, and there are not as many children as in our family. At that time, Hunan Miluo was the land of fish and rice, and fish and vegetables were also very cheap, so the neighbors lived well and often bought fish and meat. And our family is more difficult, often a plate of water spinach fried at a meal. However, more than 10 years ago, all my mother's neighbors passed away, and only my mother is still alive, 89 years old. In fact, they are all two or three years younger than my mother. If you look at some of the people around us who are in their 40s or 50s, they're dying. They either ate and drank without restraint, or they suddenly fell ill and died. On the contrary, there are some people who live a regular life, eat lightly, pay attention to exercise, and are still healthy when they are eighty or ninety years old.

Judging from the above examples, I think that the dietary standards of China and the United States are more conducive to the health of their own people. The dietary habits of the Chinese are gradually formed over thousands of years, because China is a large agricultural country, rice is grown in the south, wheat is grown in the north, and China has a large population, and daily consumption is mainly rice noodles. The dietary standards set by Americans are because Americans consume too much meat and too many calories, resulting in too many obese people, so people are required to eat more grains and less meat. I used to go to the countryside and grow vegetables. The cost of growing vegetables is not very high, and the yield can also be relatively high, such as bamboo shoots, eggplant, greens, winter melon and pumpkin, etc. Therefore, the argument that you have to choose to eat rice noodles and meat because the price of vegetables is too high is really untenable. Think about how much grain and vegetables you need to feed a pig to raise a pig. If we eat less meat on a regular basis, we will save more food and vegetables. The increase in the consumption of meat reflects the improvement of people's living standards.

Nowadays, the living standards of urban residents in China have generally improved, not because they do not eat well, but because they eat well, and most people have consumed more nutrients and calories than the human body needs. Therefore, China's dietary guidelines are also guiding people to eat more grains, fruits and vegetables, and less oil and meat. If some people don't believe it, you can look at the people around you and you will find that most of the people who eat lightly and pay attention to exercise are healthy and full of energy, while those who eat and drink and eat and drink are many people suffering from one disease or another. The large number of cancer patients in China has increased, and eating too much meat is one of the main reasons. Therefore, I think that this article in The Lancet, if not to say that it is misleading, at least it is not suitable for the Chinese.

In the ranking of life expectancy in the world, Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Australia are the top four. The dietary habits of these four countries and regions are very different. Although the dietary habits of Hong Kong, China and Chinese mainland people are roughly the same, Hong Kong ranks second in terms of life expectancy at 82.8 years, while the average life expectancy of Chinese is only 73.5 years, ranking 83rd. It can be seen that the average life expectancy of a country or region is not entirely determined by diet, but also by the degree of development of industry and civilization and the advantages and disadvantages of medical and health conditions in a country or region. In fact, it is mainly the lifestyle and environment that determine the life expectancy of people. The more developed countries and regions, the higher their level of civilization and people's literacy, and the better people's literacy and living conditions, the longer people's life expectancy.

Human nutrition comes from many aspects, including cereals and potatoes, animal foods, legumes and dairy products, vegetables and fruits, and pure calorie foods as pointed out in the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese", of which cereals, potatoes and fruits and vegetables are the mainstay, and some meat, eggs and dairy products are added. In order to avoid the monolithic nature of the food, these foods should also be colorful and varied. At the same time, you should also pay attention to the reasonable combination and reasonable intake of these foods, coupled with the right lifestyle and physical fitness, so that your life will definitely be much longer.