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How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

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Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#131

Post by jonnathanson »

Shivetya wrote: post #105
bad_user wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we are talking anecdotes and make-beliefs, I'll add what I saw with my own two eyes ... My grandfather was eating between 5 and 10 eggs per day, every day. He also drank at least 1 liter of home-made red whine per day, while being a big consumer of dairy products (also made in-house). Of course, because my grandparents lived on a farm and consumed what they produced or traded with neighbors, half of a normal we…

Look towards your grandfather's daily activities and not just his diet. My grandparents too lived to a ripe old age eating foods that make so called experts cringe. The real difference between them and our generation was that they never led a sedentary lifestyle. Sometimes I believe the office style of work that many celebrate; because it freed them from the fields and such; probably is the least beneficial change we…

Chronic stress and sleep deprivation are known to have horrible effects on personal health -- up to, and including, fat storage and cardiovascular fitness. The extent of these effects has not received enough attention, and may be greater than we currently realize. I strongly suspect that, in the next ten or so years, we'll see a surge of scientific studies documenting the importance of these factors on health.

Over the last few decades, much fuss has been made over the societal switch from whole foods to processed foods. But people have been getting less and less healthy every decade, obesity rates have been increasing each decade, and food hasn't grown all that substantially more processed in the last few decades. (People in the 70s and 80s ate nearly as much processed junk as we do, and they were healthier on average. People in, say, Japan eat a metric fuckton of foods processed beyond our recognition, and they're healthier than we are).

Processed foods are probably to blame for our obesity crisis in some respect, but they're not the single issue. We should be taking a closer look at lifestyle factors, especially sleep and stress. Americans don't sleep enough, and lead more stressful work lives, than the citizens of almost any other developed country on the planet. (It's actually debatable if we're more or less sedentary than other nations, too. Pretty much everyone in white-collar work is sedentary these days, by the clinical definition of the term, and working out even an hour a day is not going to completely mitigate the effects of sitting on one's ass for the following 10 hours).

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#132

Post by Fuzzwah »

nzjames wrote: post #106
progrock wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of talk of soy here on this thread. Is this a US thing? What soy are you eating? It's not that big in the UK. You can get soy milk and it's mixed in with some meat products and found in veggie burgers - but it's not that mainstream. I buy frozen 'fresh' soybeans, which are quite hard to find. They're nice.

Check the ingredients on anything that you think is mostly wheat. It will have soy in it. All bread from the super market for example.

Not here in Australia. Our wheat = American corn. Subsidised and used in everything. Its terrible for coeliacs.

Though as my fiance found out while living in the US, over there things can be sold as gluten free which have oats in them. Bad news for 1 in 4 coeliacs.

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#133

Post by Xodarap »

latch wrote: post #36

While it's really interesting to debate whether you should eat potatoes or beef, the real battle for the western world is that we stop eating processed foods. Wheat vs eggs seems like a silly debate when people are living off of Coke, Oreos and Capt'N Crunch. Whenever I hear these arguments, I feel like these scientists aren't living in the same world as me. "Eggs are ok, declare scientists" reads the headline while…

You should see US News' annual survey of dieticians.[1] They agree with you, it's just an odd publication bias that gives these "alternative" diets traction.

1. http://health.usnews.com/best-diet/

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#134

Post by rb2k_ »

julianz wrote: post #98
scythe wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've observed rather different things. The people I know who eat the most meat are the Crossfitters around me. They are, in almost all cases, healthy. I have a roommate who drinks fat-free milk and eats lots of salad and pasta, who avoids meat like the plague. He's been struggling with his weight for as long as I've known him. I drink coconut milk -- which contains nothing but fat -- and a meal usually consists of so…

Yep, after more than 10 years of eating "healthy whole grains", reduced fat, loads of fruit and veg and doing various different kinds of exercise -- all without seeing huge results -- I, my wife and several friends started eating in a much more primal/paleo style a year ago. All of us have seen major, effortless weight loss, muscle gain and all feel dramatically better. It's a no brainer.

exactly the same for me

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#135

Post by thomas11 »

ioquatix wrote: post #87
xlevus wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's interesting and satisfies (at least my) curiosity.

Sure, it may be so, but what does this have to do with hacker news?

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

You could at least read the site's guidelines before complaining.

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#136

Post by analog »

BSousa wrote: post #128
analog wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basal metabolic rate varies between individuals. One study of 150 adults representative of the population in Scotland reported basal metabolic rates from as low as 1027 kcal per day (4301 kJ) to as high as 2499 kcal (10455 kJ) [1] Your metabolism also slows noticeably as you get older. In my 20s I could eat anything (and lots of it) without being able to gain any weight. Now in my 40s I have to lift weights (to i…

According to the study, only 26.7% difference wasn't explained by age/sex/weight. Which means for almost 75% the values were somehow dependent on sex/age/weight. And the difference between the top 5% and bottom 5% of the outliers was around 30% (which means for a 2000kcal average BMR, the bottom needed only 1700 and top 2300). This, in my opinion, is not enough for people to tout slow/fast metabolism for weight gain/…

Even if you're eating just 300kcal over what you need every day you will become overweight eventually.

Edit: for reference 300kcal is about what you'd burn off with a 4 kilometer run.

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#137

Post by chucknelson »

rubashov wrote: post #41
latch wrote: post #36

While it's really interesting to debate whether you should eat potatoes or beef, the real battle for the western world is that we stop eating processed foods. Wheat vs eggs seems like a silly debate when people are living off of Coke, Oreos and Capt'N Crunch. Whenever I hear these arguments, I feel like these scientists aren't living in the same world as me. "Eggs are ok, declare scientists" reads the headline while…

> people who favor fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes over beef, pork and fatty foods are healthier I have two eyes and that doesn't square at all. The fat people eat packaged food and restaurant food, which are very skimpy on meat and real animal fat. The main thing I notice about fat people is they eat very often. Thin people eat moderate meals and don't snack. Fat people continuously have handfuls of crap l…

> Thin people eat moderate meals and don't snack.

You had me until "don't snack". My experience is that moderate snacks help to ensure meals are also of a moderate size - otherwise you get that urge to gorge at your next meal...

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#139

Post by dr_ »

latch wrote: post #36

While it's really interesting to debate whether you should eat potatoes or beef, the real battle for the western world is that we stop eating processed foods. Wheat vs eggs seems like a silly debate when people are living off of Coke, Oreos and Capt'N Crunch. Whenever I hear these arguments, I feel like these scientists aren't living in the same world as me. "Eggs are ok, declare scientists" reads the headline while…

I agree with you entirely. The problem with some of the responses you've received, as well as an issue which Taubes seems to ignore, is that when you look outside the USA, it's a different story. In many Asian countries, rice is a staple and eaten with almost every meal. Noodles are heavily consumed as well. Yet they don't have the obesity issues we do. The major difference being they don't eat heavily processed foods (at least not until recently). They do consume all types of meats but their portions are not astronomical. Pasta, rice and potatoes are not the culprit, depending on where they come from. But soda is. And its not just the chemicals involved in processing food, it's also the abundance that the technology creates - lots of food for relatively cheap prices.

Re: How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?

#140

Post by manmal »

MDS100 wrote: post #125
manmal wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You rant about non-correlations and such, and then end your post by jumping to a conclusion of your choice ("The problem is..."). Either you allow arguments by others (you are no biochemist either I guess?), or you stick to it, and leave it where it is - there is no scientific consensus about what "is the problem in our society". We can only argue about that, without facts. I can't find the paper, but I read that hig…

Regarding Insulin, you'll probably love reading this: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319 Agree, but eating healthy isn't that much more expensive than eating processed foods. Or at least doesn't have to if you buy the right things (bulk frozen veggies, meat etc.).

Oh, by healthy I also mean that the animals I eat have eaten healthy :) E.g., beef quality is really bad if cattle are not fed grass, but corn and soy instead (or animal meal, shudder). Same with chicken/turkey which are fed mostly corn instead of grains, seeds, worms, etc.

If organic is too expensive for you (here in Austria organic farms have a huge financial overhead because of cert. programmes -> products are almost twice as expensive), you can still by meat of good quality, e.g. grass-fed beef. Because you will find residuals or even large quantities of their fodder virtually everywhere - mostly stored in the fat.

Another thing is the way animals are kept - if they are kept in crowded rooms, then you need antibiotics for them to survive until they are slaughtered. Those antibiotics residuals reportedly act like estrogens in our bodies, reducing sperm count and testosterone level. That's the actual reason why I consider organic meat the only meat worth buying - at least in Austria, organic means there is a minimum of available space for animals, they have to be fed a certain percentage of natural fodder, they must not be fed antibiotics, etc.

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