Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–86 of 86 posts

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#81

Post by Fezzik »

pmarreck wrote: post #50
Fezzik wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read the studies here: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2673150 and here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22468 They are both thorough, easy to read, and contradict Taubes’ primary claims. A third was supposed to occur (I think) but the funding, surprisingly, was withdrawn. Edit: there were three studies done, all of which contradict Taubes’ claims. You can read his wonky…

Neither of those first 2 studies contradicts Taubes' claims. (What do you believe ARE Taubes' claims, anyway? That's probably important to establish, because my initial impression is that you have not read an entire Taubes book.) Not only that, he cites far more studies than 3 to support his claims, so your cherry-picking is possibly just that. Either that or you are a vegan or vegetarian. Whenever I encounter someon…

Avid hunter and meat eater here. Getting in to spear fishing next week. I cited to those three studies because they were directly funded by Taubes’ foundation and designed to prove Taubes’ claims and failed to do so.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#82

Post by conception »

alvah wrote: post #39
conception wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? My guess is the opposite. Everyone knows what they are supposed to eat but doesn’t. I don’t believe anyone on this site couldn’t recommend a healthy diet.

There is, at the very least, plenty of conjecture that the over-reliance on grains and grain-derived foods in the USDA food pyramid is better for the profits of agribusiness than the health of the nation.

I think Asia would disagree on keeping grains as a staple.

Processed grains perhaps but again I would be surprised if someone here was shocked that processed grains aren’t great for you.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#83

Post by viridian »

chubot wrote: post #77
viridian wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This really seems like touchy-feely, granola-mom type thinking, sprayed with a thin veneer of empiricism to sway the skeptics who don't look too closely. Your two sources, as well as the Canadian heart and stroke center (the top google result for ultra processed food), all define ultra processed food differently, which lead to different outcomes to a question as simple as "is ice cream ultra-processed?". (the answers…

Some ice cream is ultra-processed, and some isn't. Just like some corn is grown in a dead soil with nitrogen fertilizer, and some grown in live soil (regenerative, with crop rotation, etc.) I agree it's not easy to tell -- it took quite me a while, and also a lot of "unlearning" See my other replies in sibling comments for more color -- the fundamental issue is that processed food is cheaper, and that the processing…

Hall isn't who I'm talking about, more the general cultural movement around defining things as, and avoiding, ultra processed foods. It resembles a lot of other niche, contradictory diet movements I've seen, all backed by at least a handful of studies (and almost always with some well spoken PhD at the forefront), whether it's this, ketogenic metabolizing, avoiding poly unsaturated fatty acids, multi day fasts with supplements and salts, intermittent fasting, etc.

These generally tend to appeal to, and also cause massive schisms among the aforementioned granola mom types, much like say, how babies and kids sleep should be handled.

The reason I don't consider these movements all that valuable or useful is that they all seem to don the cloak of empiricism post hoc, after they have decided what they believe, and when it comes to pushing the idea, any relevant study will do, because the research result is effectively a marketing headline, similar to the original article for this thread.

And while Hall may be somewhat convincing, if I lived my life by the advice of every convincing talk I'd ever heard, I'd have to follow a lot of mutually exclusive advice, and with regards to dieting, between Kevin Hall, Ray Peat, and David Sinclair, I'm not sure they'd let me eat enough calorie dense food to survive.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#84

Post by pmarreck »

Fezzik wrote: post #81
pmarreck wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of those first 2 studies contradicts Taubes' claims. (What do you believe ARE Taubes' claims, anyway? That's probably important to establish, because my initial impression is that you have not read an entire Taubes book.) Not only that, he cites far more studies than 3 to support his claims, so your cherry-picking is possibly just that. Either that or you are a vegan or vegetarian. Whenever I encounter someon…

Avid hunter and meat eater here. Getting in to spear fishing next week. I cited to those three studies because they were directly funded by Taubes’ foundation and designed to prove Taubes’ claims and failed to do so .

you did not yet clarify what you believe Taubes’ core claims are

as I tried to say, you cannot claim a claim is disproved, without elucidating that exact claim as precisely as possible, first.

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#85

Post by pmarreck »

safety1st wrote: post #54
pmarreck wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet willpower has not decreased in that time. So something about the food must have become more addictive or hunger-inducing.

It could just have gotten more calorically dense. Nearly half of our increased caloric intake since 1961 is in the form of vegetable oils which are very calorically dense, and you might not even notice when you're eating them. Portion sizes are probably a factor. Anecdotally they're a lot bigger than they used to be. Calories are cheaper to produce and restaurants put bigger plates in front of their patrons because i…

vegetable oils are a fat, and no one who only eats fats, gains any weight; in fact they lose weight, which is the whole principle behind Atkins and keto. The idea that people gain weight from fats, is thus false.

if all you did was eat fat calories, you would lose a ton of weight, because ketone bodies cannot be stored inside fat cells, only glucose fructose, etc. can.

If all you did was eat protein calories, then yes, you could gain weight via gluconeogenesis (conversion of protein to glucose, again for fat storage and energy needs), although it would probably take more calories than carb calories to do so (since conversion likely results in molecular and energy losses); there is no such biochemistry available for ketones from fat

Re: 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Point Blame at Fat (2016)

#86

Post by Fezzik »

pmarreck wrote: post #84
Fezzik wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avid hunter and meat eater here. Getting in to spear fishing next week. I cited to those three studies because they were directly funded by Taubes’ foundation and designed to prove Taubes’ claims and failed to do so .

you did not yet clarify what you believe Taubes’ core claims are as I tried to say, you cannot claim a claim is disproved, without elucidating that exact claim as precisely as possible, first.

Again, from Taubes’ own webpage: “In Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes tries to bury the idea that a low-fat diet promotes weight loss and better health. Obesity is caused, he argues, not by the quantity of calories you eat but by the quality. Carbohydrates, particularly refined ones like white bread and pasta, raise insulin levels, promoting the storage of fat.”

The studies he acquired funding for came to conclusions contrary to this very claim.

Post reply on HN