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Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

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Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#151
post #50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been taught that after olive oil, canola is the best to use for cooking. What am I supposed to use?!

Interesting. I've been taught the opposite due to the low smoke point of olive oil. I use Avocado oil; it has a high smoke point and seems healthier. Other oils are OK if you don't cook on high heat (use medium heat or lower).

Olive oil comes in many varieties, and some of them have a smoke point comparable to canola, or even higher. Even the unrefined varieties tend to have a fairly high smoke point. So unless you're searing, olive oil is just fine for cooking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoke_point

https://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/heating-olive-oil

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#152
post #5

In fact the trend to replace butter with vegetable oils has led people to ingest more trans fats which are provably more dangerous than saturated fat.

I just checked what the Finnish wikipedia has to say about trans fats last night, and it makes the claim that margarine's trans fat content is <= 0.5% while vegetable oils contain none of it, and butter contains 2%. All numbers are low enough that the trans-fat content isn't a concern, but butter is comparatively worse. Apparently studies show similar numbers in Sweden.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#153
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any references on that? I was under the impression being cold didn't really burn that many more calories. I'll stop wearing a jacket if I can burn hundreds of calories.

Just read hypothermics.com . Its author, Ray Cronise, has done a lot of measurements using proper equipment. And anecdotaly I have a co-worker who was into serious climbing. Before a high climb like over 6km he on purpose typically gained like 5 kilos of weight and still came back learner from the trip. And he knows for sure that that was due to coldness as on much more physically demanding trips at warmer altitudes…

My understanding is that you also burn more energy at altitude.

This has been given as one of the problems that Scott faced when man-hauling sledges on the Antarctic plateau at 3000m.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#154

I think that generalizations on fats in diets don't work for analyzing different diets because of other factors like how much processed foods, sugar, and meat are in a person's diet. My wife does well eating lots of butter and more meat. I do well by eating lots of vegetables. The only thing our diets really have in common is the avoidance of packaged/processed foods. It is some work, but people need to pay attention…

You inadvertently seem to be avoiding grains and carbs. Every livestock farmer knows nothing makes fat mammals quite like high grain intake.

Government dietary recommendations on grain intake have increased with excellent correlation to very little other than re-election donations by grain farmers.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#155

Cholesterol isn't bad, it's in fact very important for the production of testosterone among other things. The problem comes from the inability to use it because the body isn't healthy. Polyunsaturated fats will produce bad byproducts when it breaks down and over time makes the body sick. We crucially lack magnesium and potassium in our diet. There are tons of studies showing the benefits of magnesium against heart di…

Obviously, this is anecdotal and I'm not advocating that anyone else do what I did until they consult with their own doctor but this is my experience. I had some long term digestive issues. I began supplementing my diet with magnesium and within a week, the problem began to abate. Within a month, all of my abdominal cramping was gone. All of my constipation issues were gone.

This is a common and very natural treatment of constipation. The other treatments are very unnatural, because they amount to poisons that the body what's to reject (in the intestines). That's what my gastroenterologist told me 15 years ago.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#156
post #109
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we focus on diet over environment too much. It isn't just what you eat but how you get around that is vital to tackling the cardiovascular epidemic. The only evidence that I currently have available is the Netherlands. The only western country to have a reducing obesity index, by 2030, predicted to be 8.5% down from 10%. Their diet is a very typical western diet. However their transport system and their urban…

In Netherlands it is common to have rather cold temperatures in houses even if people can afford to pay for warmth. And cold requires body to spend much more energy that is coming directly from burning body fat unless one shivering from cold. In fact if one wants to loose like 10 kilos quickly, just climb to Everest. Most of that weight will be spent on body heating, not muscular work. That also explains why butter d…

Interesting. Is that on purpose, to help lose fat, or to get the body used naturally handling a wider range of temperatures (I've read yoga prescribes that to some extent), or something else?

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The classic example, since modern nutrition research started in the '50s, is Inuit/Eskimo. They eat a lot of whale blubber, yet have very low rates of heart disease. A good book that presents the case against nutrition research is "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat & Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."

I wonder if the Tibetans and Inuits benefit from the fact that their dietary fats come from animals who lived healthy, whole lives. Much of the US consumes dairy and meat that comes from animals who were shoved into dark, overcrowded, stressful, unnatural habitat and fed strange feed that they'd normally not eat such as corn and grain.

To argue that, you'd have to demonstrate that the fats in animals raised on what you call healthy food differ chemically from the fats you'd find in animals fed otherwise.

Related example: The glucose from sugar beets is chemically identical to and indistinguishable from the glucose from sugar cane or corn. Animal fat tends to be a more complex mix, but while no expert I suspect there's only so many different lipid compounds produced and stored in animal cells. After all, the energy currency in any animal's bloodstream is mainly glucose - the source information is lost.

There are excellent _ethical_ reasons not to mistreat animals as is today often the case. I'm not sure that there are chemical reasons related to nutrition.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#158

There is nothing wrong with butter. Oils can become rancid. Clarified butter or ghee is even better as they have longer shelf life.

There is: Butter contains 3 % trans fats. And even keto fanatics admit that trans fats are extremely unhealthy. You could say it doesn't have a huge impact and that might be true because it's only a small part of the diet. However, any amount of trans fat is dangerous. The body's enzymes can hardly remove any trans fat build up in the arteries.

From the studies I can Google, the jury still seems to be out on the dominated trans fat in animal sources, vaccenic acid, and related compounds known as conjugated linoleic acids. The later group of trans fats actually might be beneficial to human health: some studies have linked it to anti-cancer properties (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4964663/) and fat loss (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/85/5/1203.long), although as indicated studies are very preliminary at the moment, so you really can't conclude anything definitely about this.

I can even Google papers such as this -- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19935865 -- that seem to say vaccenic acid might not be that bad, which is contrary to the link you provided. Again -- this is more not to say vaccenic acid is good, and more that I believe the science is inconclusive right now.

Elaidic acid (the "bad" partially hydrogenated vegetable oil trans fat) is present in natural sources as well, but in much smaller quantities.

Small amounts of trans fats are pretty much found in any animal product, so it is difficult to avoid trans fats entirely unless you become completely vegan. Personally... my guess is that a small amount of animal based trans fat is not going to be a big deal overall, so a little butter is fine. The studies are most damning at the moment over partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#159
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have one. But I also never said it was better (!). I merely said that it works. People on a keto diet often say something along the lines of "Oh, keto is such a good diet. I lost 20 pounds with it". And I believe them. But that should not be the only measure of how good a diet is for you. Weight is important but not everything.

Ok, fair enough. I just figured that almost any very-low-carb diet would lead to a 15 or 20 pounds weight loss, due to the water loss. Due to the difficulty of the diet (for some), I just always have a hard time recommending it or bringing it up compared to a 'regular' low carb diet.

The water loss in the beginning is real, and accounts for most 1st month loss. After that comes the real progress. Some find the inital loss to be motivating, others feel the lull after is the opposite.

Re: Replacing butter with vegetable oils does not cut heart disease risk (2016)

#160
post #152
post #5

In fact the trend to replace butter with vegetable oils has led people to ingest more trans fats which are provably more dangerous than saturated fat.

I just checked what the Finnish wikipedia has to say about trans fats last night, and it makes the claim that margarine's trans fat content is <= 0.5% while vegetable oils contain none of it, and butter contains 2%. All numbers are low enough that the trans-fat content isn't a concern, but butter is comparatively worse. Apparently studies show similar numbers in Sweden.

Historically many margarines were made using partially hydrogenated oils. That was discontinued in recent decades.

Partially hydrogenated oils were also popular for deep frying (they last longer).

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