121–130 of 152 posts
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"grain fed" IS conventional as in "in accordance with general practice; customary", it isn't conventional as in "traditional". Conventional is a poor word choice for this usage. Buying grass raised beef is difficult or expensive in most of North America.
The world is bigger than North America.
- The article mentions data collection issues in nutritional research. My understanding is that, generally, most of this data is collected at an aggregate level (economic I/O, based on overall production and consumption), or via the FFQs mentioned. Self reporting can be unreliable and is heavily subject to biases and the placebo effect.
- The studies linked about TMAO[0] seem to follow a couple trends in nutritional research that food companies rely on to sell more food. First is; diet is holistic, but applying pharmaceutical methodologies to individual nutrients while ignoring the overall dietary habits (again, data collection is hard) can lead to opportunities for companies to market unhealthy food as "healthy". I see that red heart[1] on some of the most sugary cereals, still. Second is; heightening the focus of specific nutrients over food sources in general as a method of dietary confusion. It is more confusing, and more favorable to industry, to say "avoid foods containing cholesterol and saturated fats," than it is to say "avoid meat". Studies that focus on nutrients reinforce these claims and make sound dietary advice inaccessible.
- The article fails to disclose the author's own biases[2] while calling out the "conflicts of interest" that the other studies' authors have with P&G. Commenters are quick to say "follow the money." However, a disclosed conflict-of-interest is not necessarily a bad thing, nutritional professionals need to work and the food industry is a, well... industry that hires food professionals. Do the conglomerates that fund nutrition-research often times leverage studies in bad-faith in order to sell more product? Yes, absolutely. Should you discredit all nutrition research backed by a corporation, probably not.
- Dietary advice is intended for populations, not individuals. If I were to say something like; "avoid having more than 24g of sugar a day"[3], I'm saying that targeting 97% of a population. This advice is also influenced by the goals of the organization/administration[4] releasing the advice and overall health concerns for the population. Most of the leading causes of death, in the United States, are linked with overconsumption. As an individual, genetics and lifestyle play a role and shift your needs. A person will probably need more than the recommended amount of salt on the day-to-day than average if they exercise.
On a separate note:
@dang I'm tired of reading political op-ed pieces that quote bad studies as proof of... whatever, especially those related to health. Is there a blocklist and can (unsettledscience.substack.com)[5] be added to that list? Also, out of curiosity and possibly related to this submission, what sort of mechanisms does HN employ in order to moderate submissions from suspect users? Thanks for all you do by the way.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylamine_N-oxide
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Heart_Association
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz
[3] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/a...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Guidelines_for_America...
[5] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=unsettledscience.subs...
This may be only tangentially relevant, but the author is known to be a pro-meat lobbyist ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz ).
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Regarding your point B, the current US government guidelines that the current article rails against as not being scientific enough actually say: > The core recommendations of the Guidelines state that a healthy diet for all Americans should include vegetables, fruits, grains (half of which should be whole grains), low or non-fat dairy, and a variety of protein foods, including seafood, lean meats and poultry, eggs, l…
Low fat/non fat dairy is not healthy, nor is most low fat/non fat replacements because sugar is added to increase flavor.
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This is only a study of raw meat consumption, which is comparatively rare among humans. If it turns out — and this study acknowledges this limitation — that the predominant causal agent here is cancer-casing viruses, that would have pretty irrelevant impact for humans. There are so many confounds here that it’s hard to draw conclusions for humans except maybe what’s worth future study. FWIW, I have no horse in this r…
The 2012 plenary session in the biggest cancer conference in the world was about cancer causing viruses in red meat that wasn’t cooked to a certain temperature. It hasn’t really panned out since. In any case, the bottom line remains that red meat can cause cancer. Preparing it a certain way might reduce the risk but not to zero. Humans still eat a lot of non-virally sterile meat. Yes we can spend the next 100 years s…
Even if red meat increases your lifetime chance of cancer even by a few percentage points, then one should probably spend more effort reducing other risks, like moving further away from the highway, filtering your air, etc. Definitely don’t fry anything, and probably stay away from grilling too?
Likely depends what else is in your diet too.
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it seems weird that you would talk about supposed shortfalls of plant nutrition and then in the next sentence talk about cheeseburgers (who considers these healthy?) and multivitamins (which are not considered a substitute for proper nutrition[1][2]) 1. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi... 2. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/do-multivitamins-work
I consider a cheeseburger healthy. The custom of serving them with french fried potatoes and a milkshake or cola gives them a bit of guilt by association, but meat, some cheese, some vegetables, and a serving of bread? Don't see an issue at all.
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The human body is poor at processing cellulose. You need a lot of plants to equal the nutrients from meat. You can do it, but a cheeseburger, a multivitamin, adequate sun, and good exercise is also a healthy lifestyle.
There's a lot of evidence that multivitamins don't actually do much: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/do-multivitamins-...
Depending on their diet, some supplements may be life-saving for some people or completely useless for others.
I wonder how many of these studies become self-fulfilling prophecies. Imagine the following scenario. A study claiming red meat is harmful is widely reported in the mainstream media. After reading about this study, health conscious people cut back on red meat while people who don't look after their health continue to eat the same quantity red meat. As a result of these changes, studies conducted years later find a st…
I’m having trouble locating it at the moment, but an article was shared here a few months ago that suggested something similar happened with health and dietary fat, back when it was still considered harmful. The correlation gradually disappeared after enough studies debunked the causality hypothesis.
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10% reach 60. No numbers above that. They are healthy while alive, but don’t live longer than people from developed nations. Look, the discussions around bad health effects of meat consumption all resolve around heart disease and cancer. The numbers are pretty irrelevant for people below 60 or so. We are essentially optimizing lifespan and are wondering what causes diseases in old age, like 70+. It makes zero sense t…
> the paleo fairy, because most of them die earlier than most people in developed nations I require a source on the average timespan of paleo fairies.
I have often wondered: A - Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? [1] B - If meats are so unhealthy, why are the bushmen superfit and incredibly healthy into old age despite having a significant amount of meat ~25% in their diet? [2] & [3] I recognize that some animals raised on healthy grass-fed diets may have health profiles mor…
> Are meats unhealthy, or, is it the food fed (grains on a foodlot) to the animal that negatively influences the health profile? I think there's a difference between healthy food, okay food, and unhealthy food. Something ultra processed, high in sugar, and low in other macro and micro nutrients is probably unhealthy. I think "red meat" is unlikely to be very unhealthy - in the same way a Twinky is. But maybe pepperon…