In SANE we’ll chat about the natural balanced way we ate for 99.8% of our evolutionary history. Natural because it’s all about eating foods found directly in nature. Balanced because eating foods found directly in nature enable us to automatically get about a third of calories from carbs, a third from fat, and a third from protein—aka balance vs. The Food Guide Pyramid’s horribly imbalanced 65% carbs, 20% fat, and 15% protein diet.

But let’s say the bureaucrats’ brainwashing really hit us hard, we’re still on the fence about eating a mathematically balanced diet (33:33:33) instead of a mythically balanced diet (65:20:15), and we feel obligated to follow bureaucrats’ nutrition guidelines. Well, the USDA isn’t the only bureaucratic organization making dietary recommendations.

For example, the Subcommittees on Upper Reference Levels of Nutrients and the Standing Committee on the Scientific Evaluation of Dietary Reference Intake published Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids in 2005. These guidelines recommend we get up to 35% of our calories from protein and up to 35% of our calories from fat. That leaves 30% of our calories coming from carbs. Ta da even bureaucratic organizations think a natural balanced diet is good for us.

More goodness. The National Academies’ Institute of Medicine recommends adults get 20–35% of their calories from fat and 10–35% from protein. If we go to the high end of each of those, we end up with a 35% fat, 35% protein, and 30% carb diet. Or most simply, consider the following from the Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids from the National Academies:

“The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for carbohydrate is set at 130 g/d for adults and children based on the average minimum amount of glucose utilized by the brain.”

130 grams of carbs a day is 520 calories worth of carbs…aka less than 25% of calories in the average 2,200 calorie diet.

Point being, bureaucrats playing biologist = bad. But if we feel obligated to listen to bureaucrats, there’s plenty of them recommending a mathematically balanced diet (33:33:33) instead of a mythically balanced diet (65:20:15).

PS Remember, it’s not about low-carb. How’s getting a third of our calories from carbs “low” carb? By that logic, a 33% carb, 33% protein, and 34% fat diet is a low-carb-low-protein-low-fat diet. That’s nonsense. So is calling a natural balanced diet a low-carb diet.

Sampling of sources

1. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10490&page=769
2. http://www.iom.edu/
3. Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids. Washington, DC: National Academies, 2005. Print.