Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma • Hacker News Board

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#21

Post by TomGullen » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:22 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

StacyC wrote: post #7

My wife and I have been on a very low carb / high fat diet for the last 4 months, and we have never felt better. Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak, butter, some veggies and fruit. We both lost weight too. Also cut out processed food, sugar and grains — bread, pasta, rice, cereal — basically a ketogenic diet, which adapts the body to burning fat more readily. We both have also noticed that we just feel more mental cla…

My wife and I are also on the keto diet; I attribute our success to /r/keto on reddit.

Also on /r/keto, down nearly 30kg :) My life is absolutely turned around.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#22

Post by TomGullen » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:23 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #16

felixfurtak wrote: post #10

I would highly recommend watching the BBC documentary "The Men Who Made Us Fat". This reaches broadly the same conclusions. Fat is fairly innocuous, but the real danger food is Sugar, and artificial sweeteners tend to make things worse.

Why do artificial sweeteners make things worse? Are 2 little sweetener pills in my coffee really worse than two cubes of sugar?

I don't know too much about it but when I was looking at sweeteners to see if they would work on my keto diet I found that they are very high carb generally.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#23

Post by jonnathanson » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #11

The problem with low-carb diets is that most people use it as an excuse to consume animal products. A vegan low-carb diet is fine.

Other than ethical reasons, what's the issue here?

Not being snarky; just legitimately curious. I would love to see some hard science and longitudinal studies behind the ostensible benefits of a vegan diet, or the drawbacks of a diet high -- but not overly high -- in animal protein.

I realize cooked animal protein and preserved/processed animal protein contains carcinogens, and that too much protein (regardless of source) can cause a variety of problems ranging from kidney impairment to gout. But plant-based sources have their costs as well (phytoestrogens, antinutrients, oxalates, etc.).

I've never felt better in my life, and my various lab stats have never looked better, than when I went on a Paleo-esque high fat, low carb diet that was quite rich in animal sources, but which also contained a healthful amount of vegetables (and no fruit). I took the diet as far as ketosis, and after breaking through the ramp-up hurdles, I settled into it and got into fantastic shape.

Anecdotal, yes. But I've struggled with "skinny-fatness" for much of my life, and this particular combination made a remarkable improvement on my physique without any changes in my exercise routine. Maybe my caloric consumption shifted a bit, but if anything, it probably shifted north.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#24

Post by aguynamedrich » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #13

unoti wrote: post #3

Fat is not the enemy. Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy. An overabundance of carbs is the enemy! It's hilarious to me that people who think nothing of downing a 48 oz Dr Pepper, then getting a refill, after a dinner featuring potatoes, pasta, and bread will thumb their nose at having a 12 oz glass of whole milk. Those carbs, especially when consumed late in the day, go straight into fat. The nutri…

"Fat that you eat can be converted handily into energy" What is this supposed to mean? That an overabundance of carbs is bad, while an overabundance of fat isn't? This is getting ridiculous.

I didn't see anything in there advocating overabundance on either side, simply the irony of selling an alternative to one overabundance to a mass of people willing to engage in an equally or similarly harmful overabundance of something else.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#25

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:25 PM UTC

TomGullen wrote: post #21

toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I are also on the keto diet; I attribute our success to /r/keto on reddit.

Also on /r/keto, down nearly 30kg :) My life is absolutely turned around.

/r/keto'ers, unite!

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#26

Post by coldcode » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:27 PM UTC

Everyone's an expert on food. If I ate what all the different experts told me to eat I'd be on a different diet every day. I bet a different group of nutritional scientists would take a look at these studies and find a completely different conclusion (and likely have). There is nothing special about Sweden to make me believe they know more about food than any other country.

It's great if you feel good with your diet, as it's your body. But it's a single data point. Trying to build a diet that works for everyone is like trying to find a single programming language for everyone. A diet that works for you over a few months isn't enough time to discover its true benefits, just as a terrible diet's effects aren't obvious potentially for much of a lifetime.

There are plenty of people around the world's whose diet is not high fat, low carb (the Mediterranean for one) but still remain healthy so that isn't a great indicator that there is strictly one way to eat.

I took enough biochemistry and nutritional chemistry classes in college to know how complicated our processing of food is, and how difficult it is to make guidelines for how people should eat.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#27

Post by coldcode » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

gabemart wrote: post #15

This article misrepresents the underlying research and seems to invent some facts from whole cloth. > Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice. Where is the evidence that Sweden has developed "national dietary guidelines"? All the sources link back to the paper [1][2] entitled "Dietary Tr…

As my other comment said, it's very hard to build any diet that works for everyone. But that doesn't stop people from trying.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#28

Post by TomGullen » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:28 PM UTC

nawitus wrote: post #11

The problem with low-carb diets is that most people use it as an excuse to consume animal products. A vegan low-carb diet is fine.

As long as you get enough protein and fat. It's a lot harder to get those sources of protein and fat when you exclude meat (do-able of course but you're a lot more restricted)

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#29

Post by nawitus » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:29 PM UTC

jonnathanson wrote: post #23

nawitus wrote: post #11

The problem with low-carb diets is that most people use it as an excuse to consume animal products. A vegan low-carb diet is fine.

Other than ethical reasons, what's the issue here? Not being snarky; just legitimately curious. I would love to see some hard science and longitudinal studies behind the ostensible benefits of a vegan diet, or the drawbacks of a diet high -- but not overly high -- in animal protein. I realize cooked animal protein and preserved/processed animal protein contains carcinogens, and that too much protein (regardless of so…

Ethical reasons are enough.

Re: Sweden becomes the first country to reject low-fat diet dogma

#30

Post by TomGullen » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 9:30 PM UTC

robabbott wrote: post #5

Ok, bacon, sausage, and egg omelette it is for dinner, then!

Sounds like a good meal, I regularly eat those foods. When I was losing the most weight, for dinner sometimes I was eating 500g fried mince meat, covered in about 100-200g of cheese. Very filling lol! Diet food can be delicious and grimy.