Saturated fat makes you fat? Tell that to this guy: http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
He certainly sounds unorthodox - serving puree of pig hearts casseroled in wine to his baby.
Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
31–40 of 40 posts
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
It can also be looked in this manner. It costs a society to have sick members, by taxing products that cause sickness the government can use the money raised to offset the cost of the sickness.
> It costs a society to have sick members, by taxing products that cause sickness the government can use the money raised to offset the cost of the sickness. Except that things aren't that straight forward. BTW - would you support a tax on child-bearing by folks who are likely to have "at risk" children? (It's pretty easy to identify those people.)
> Except that things aren't that straight forward.
Such as?
Re Babies:
There examples of both tax being charged and bonus being paid for having children depending on what is needed by the society. China has the One Child Policy, a successful attempt to reduce their burgeoning population. Australia has a Baby Bonus which pays parents of middle income or less families when they have a baby.
Babies are an interesting one as depending on the population growth they are either a public service or public menace.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone considering paleo, I'd be interested to hear what studies you thought well supported the claim that saturated fats aren't the problem and why you thought those studies were more reliable than the ones that indicte the contrary.
This guy is an interesting read, he's a medical doctor and there's a lot of technical stuff that you may need to lookup to see if hs's actually BSing or not - http://www.archevore.com/ There's a lot in there about why the Common Wisdom is built on bad science - the big one is the 7 Countries paper that cherry picked the countries to get the results they wanted, and ignored the 14 countries that didn't show the requir…
My experience: I went from 22% bodyfat to 12% in 4-5 months of archevore. I didn't do the diet to lose weight; that was just a nice side benefit (and the most noticeable/measurable effect). My exercise was consistently low over this period.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#34With all of the confusing misinformation out there, there is plenty that we do know, based on sound science. The Harvard School of Public Health is a great resource that distills what scientific research has shown us about nutrition (as opposed to what lobbyists have influenced the USDA to tell us about nutrition). More info here: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-... And an overview here: h…
The big thing that sticks out here, and makes all the science hard to prove or disprove, is that no-one actually sticks to the diet they are assigned in a trial!
Almost everyone agrees that you shouldn't eat the processed crap - but after that, the results become harder to get out of trials.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#35The internet seems to love the notion that fatty foods do not lead to fatty people. My personal experience is that it does. Fat is slower to metabolize than any other macro-nutrient. If you don't exercise, this might not apply. But if you do, you need carbohydrates for energy, and you don't need much fat. Any excess fat you do consume is harder to burn.
Go read Good Calories, Bad Calories to learn the real science behind nutrition (as opposed to "personal experience").
My personal experience is consistent with the simple fact-based reasoning that I laid out. I may give this book a read though. The missing factor that many people seem to miss is that exercise is a bigger factor in health than diet, and you can't exercise effectively (at least endurance exercise) without carbohydrates.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#36I never quite understood how people would come to the conclusion that eating fat makes you fat.
They're examining an insanely complicated biological system with all sorts of intricate feedback loops and then singling out one type of nutrient basically because it weighs less per calorie.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#37Welcome to the wonderfull life of socialist Denmark. Were you're sure the Government will control what is good for you and what is not good for you. The newly elected government in Denmark campaigned on the promise of NOT making some much needed reforms to the Danish social care welfare system (about half of the Danish population recieves benefits from the stated one way or the other), so now they are trying to gathe…
This is political FUD at its best.
The extra fat fee is results of a law passed in March, under the old conservative government. It's just coming into effect now starting October 1st. It's not an act by the the newly elected government. That government barely picked its cabinet 24 hours ago. Not even Stalin could manage to create, approve and roll out to all relevant parties a new set of rules within 24 hours.
If you dig into this page, you can see that it passed 102-1, with only the Liberal Alliance voting against: http://www.ft.dk/samling/20101/lovforslag/l111/beh3/16/forha...
So it was a law initiated by the Conservative side and with joint support of both left and right side parties (except the ultra liberal one and the far-left Good Looking Peoples' Party).
Obviously the new government is not going to cancel a law they voted for themselves but this is a conservative-initatied law.
As for new government "gathering money where they can", due to the inclusion of a famously centric party (amusingly called "The Radical Left", not to be confused with the right wing conservative party called "Left" which was part of the previous government) we're looking at a set of financial changes likely to benefit workers - tax on work will be decreased and the far left parties had to drop their ideas of an extra "millionaire tax".
Rather than go through with some weird vague idea of making everyone work 1 hour per week with no extra pay, the government will increase the retirement age as part of financing.
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#38While most danes don't mind high taxes in general, this is one of those taxes that only makes sense on the surface. I think it's fair to say the foundation is shaky at best - extra tax on olive oil and nuts because they are fatty? Really?
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone considering paleo, I'd be interested to hear what studies you thought well supported the claim that saturated fats aren't the problem and why you thought those studies were more reliable than the ones that indicte the contrary.
The book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" (Taubes) provides solid evidence (i.e. well-referenced studies) against various forms of the lipid hypothesis. While Taubes' own theory of obesity hasn't really stood up over time, the book contains a lot of good research.
"While Taubes' own theory of obesity hasn't really stood up over time"
can you elaborate on that?
Re: Denmark introduces fat-related food tax
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Go read Good Calories, Bad Calories to learn the real science behind nutrition (as opposed to "personal experience").
My personal experience is consistent with the simple fact-based reasoning that I laid out. I may give this book a read though. The missing factor that many people seem to miss is that exercise is a bigger factor in health than diet, and you can't exercise effectively (at least endurance exercise) without carbohydrates.
My personal experience is totally opposite to yours. Eating fats makes me more energetic and more fit at the same time.
However, I'm strict with the 'no carbs' thing. If you mix fat and carbs nothing you say is conclusive.