The Whole 30 Effect

GUESS WHAT. The end of the semester has finally arrived! I survived, you survived, and now we have two weeks to catch up on sleep before the next semester. It truly is a wonderful time of life full of sleep-deprivation, stress headaches, and 'eat the frosting out of the can with a spoon' type of days.

Speaking of frosting, I wanted to take a few posts to discuss fad diets (see what I did there?That is called a textbook transition. Maybe I should be a writer after all). Anyways, back to the topic at hand, if I have introduced the topic enough at this point so that there is a topic to go back to. 

In one of my classes this semester, the last couple of weeks were devoted to debunking the top 20 fad diets in the United States. We answered questions such as these:

1. What makes them successful or not successful?

2. How easy is it to follow the diet long term?

3. How safe is the diet from a medical and nutritional standpoint?

4. What are the educational backgrounds of the creators of the diet?

And last, but not least:

5. Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims of the diet?

As you can probably all already guess, I am going to start by discussing the Whole 30 diet. As you can probably additionally guess, this is the diet I was assigned to study and present to my peers. This diet is one of the greatest 'hot button' topics in the fad diet world right now. This diet has gained popularity the past year and is now one of the more common diets. Before I begin discussing the diet, I want to disclaim something: everything I quote in the following paragraphs comes from the Whole 30 website. Some of the quotations can be interpreted as offensive, and I didn't want any reader to think that was purposeful...they are simply strongly worded quotes. Now...here we go! 

The overall purpose of the Whole 30 diet is to heal. According to the creators, it is a "reset" for the body and targets aches and pains, weight gain, fatigue, and a number of different medical conditions. It is claimed that the Whole 30 "cures" (the word used on their website): high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, asthma, allergies, sinus infections, bipolar disorder, lupus, Lyme disease, Celiac disease, and many others. It seems to imply that if you are taking medication for a condition, there is no need to do so anymore after this diet due to its healing properties. 

Now that we have discussed the claims behind the diet, what actually is the diet? What does it consist of (or in this case, not consist of)? The Whole 30 diet is a month long eliminations program that eliminates, "psychologically unhealthy, hormone-unbalancing, gut-disturbing, inflammatory food groups." In case you had no idea what these food groups were (myself included), here is a list of the foods that are eliminated in this diet: added sugar, real or artificial, which includes honey and agave; alcohol, even for cooking; grains, either processed or whole; legumes (beans, peas, chickpeas, lentils, peanuts, soy); dairy; carrageenan, MSG, sulfites; baked goods, junk foods, or treats with 'approved' ingredients. Now, though this is a long laundry list of foods to avoid in the first place, I want to focus on the last one on this list. No baked goods, even with 'approved' ingredients, is a bit confusing to understand. The example they give on the website is a coconut flour pancake. Though the pancake is made with coconut flour, "a pancake is still a pancake...which is what got you into health troubles in the first place."

It is claimed that eating any of these foods, even in minuscule amounts, upsets the healing process, and the person is required to start the Whole 30 diet over. The motto of the Whole 30 is, "when in doubt, leave it out." The foods that are accepted on the diet are: meat, vegetables, some fruit, and poly/mono-unsaturated fats.

The makers then go on to explain, "this diet is not hard. Don't you dare tell us this is hard. Beating cancer is hard. Birthing a baby is hard. Losing a parent is hard. Drinking your coffee black is. Not. Hard. You've done harder things than this, and you have no excuse not to complete this program as written...we would hope that you stopped succumbing to peer pressure in 7th grade."

And here enters the greatest issue with the Whole 30 diet: psychological shaming. We will get to the nutrition aspect in a minute, but it is clear that the psychological consequences of this diet can be severe. It seems to say that if you can't do this, then you aren't healthy. You don't have self control. You don't care about yourself and "the only physical body you will ever have in this lifetime." 

It reminds me of that part in Pride and Prejudice where Darcy explains to Elizabeth that he thinks an accomplished lady should be able to sing, dance, draw, know all the modern languages, walk with poise, be dignified in tone and expression, and read extensively. Darcy explains that he only knows half a dozen women who fit the title of 'accomplished.' Elizabeth shoots back by inquiring how in the world he knows any women who fit the description. And so it is with the Whole 30. With these criteria, nobody is healthy! The best diets in the world can't compete with what the creators of the Whole 30 are trying to get people to do. But apparently it is easy, and we are all psychologically weak if we cannot go 30 days without anything that adds joy, variety, and excitement to life.

Now that the psychological aspect of the diet has been discussed, lets move on to the nutritional. I came up with a meal plan that fit the requirements for the Whole 30, and I uploaded it into a diet analysis program, specifically looking at nutritional adequacy. The other members of my group (4 in total) did the same, and we averaged out our meal plans to get a more accurate look of the nutrients the Whole 30 provides and doesn't provide. We concluded that the nutrients that are a challenge to get enough of are: calories, carbohydrates, calcium, and iron. However, this may be a bit misleading. Since the main staple of the Whole 30 is vegetables, we run into the problem of bioavailability. There are many vitamins and minerals that aren't as readily absorbed from vegetables as they are from the food groups the diet eliminates. Therefore, it is probable that many of the nutrients the diet analysis program indicated were adequately consumed actually were not.

Now that we have discussed the nutrition shortfalls of the Whole 30, let's discuss the nutrition excesses.The nutrients that are easy to get too much of are: cholesterol, saturated fat, Vitamin A, sodium, and selenium. In the short term, this may not be an issue. But long term, these nutrients (specifically cholesterol, sodium, and saturated fat) are linked to a number of different chronic diseases and problems. To me, this is what boggles my mind the most. The Whole 30 is supposed to heal you by curing a number of different conditions and diseases. But in our nutrient analyses, all four of us were well above the recommended intake for these nutrients, which is a risk factor for many chronic diseases. Perhaps this was just a coincidence, but I also feel that it shouldn't be ignored.

Lastly, I wanted to quickly discuss the creators of the Whole 30 and the scientific evidence to support their claims. The vast array of educational backgrounds included in the founders are: journalism, American history, art, entrepreneurship, business administration, education, graphic design, and one certified sports nutritionist. Most of the creators live in Salt Lake city with their husbands and children, and all have a "passion" for nutrition. In terms of scientific research...there isn't any. Now, this isn't necessary because the Whole 30 is complete quakery (which it is, but that's not the point), but more because it is a fairly new diet and research takes a lot of time to complete. However, there has been a lot of research connecting excessive added sugar intake (greater than ~50g/day) to inflammation, and this research has been validated multiple times. It is also common for people to experience short term weight loss on this diet, though most gain it back plus more during their post diet crash, where they eat all the coconut flour pancakes their tummies can hold. Which nobody can hardly blame them for. All in all, most nutrition experts rate the Whole 30 diet, as my professor puts it, "at the bottom of the barrel" in terms of safety, nutrition adequacy, and long-term adherence. 

As always, do what works for you. If you tried the Whole 30 and find that it is working for you, then I am not going to stand in the way of you feeling better about yourself! On the other hand, I would never recommend this diet to anybody who was looking to improve your health. I hope this has been insightful for you, and please be on the look out for another debunked fad diet soon!