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

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

#61

Post by TomGullen »

elrzn wrote: post #54
TomGullen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Nope, not sure where you get that idea from. > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Alternatively if you're trying to lose weight, you can simply cut out the sugar. Exercise is of…

> So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Doesn't it? The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating. The reason some folks work so well on lowcarb diets is because sugars make it easy to overeat, but that's just a way to create a caloric deficit for them. Now, I bet most folks here on HN are much more quantitative oriented tha…

> The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating.

> sugars make it easy to overeat

Those are issues, for sure! And great reasons why when dieting, a good foundation is exclusion of carbs.

But that's only scratching the surface. Let me give you another downside. Eating sugar causes arterial inflammation. When your arteries inflame, your body packs it with oxidized LDL which can lead to heart problems and strokes due to constriction in your arteries. Guess what causes arterial inflammation?

There's more as well. We need to brush our teeth because of our high carb diets. It causes tooth decay and gum disease. Before high carb diets, our ancestors had healthier mouths than we do today. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/24/172688806/ancient...

> "You're walking around with a permanent immune response, which is not a good thing," says Cooper. "It causes problems all over the place."

More as well! It turns out that calories is an oversimplified model of dieting. Here's a recent interesting study that paints it clearly: http://www.dietdoctor.com/overeating-carbs-worse-overeating-...

But there's more! Garry Taubes explains a lot of reasons very well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vpFV6Wkl4

There are so many reasons carbs are bad for you, not just from a satiation point of view but also from long term health points of view.

I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on. All the information, studies and evidence is out there.

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

#62

Post by np422 »

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.

This is a somewhat interesting anecdote ... http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-cha...

tl/dr; Guy eats 5800 kcal every day of fat for 3 weeks, gains 1.3 kg and loses about an inch from his waistline, same guy eats 5800 kcal from carbs every day for 3 weeks, gains 7.1 kg and about 10 cm on the waistline. Exercise is supposed to be the similar in both cases.

Yes, it's just an anecdote, but an interesting one. And imho a reason to be a little humble about the things we think we know about how the human body responds to different kinds of foods. More research is needed.

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

#63

Post by tensor »

Dewie wrote: post #49
TomGullen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Nope, not sure where you get that idea from. > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Alternatively if you're trying to lose weight, you can simply cut out the sugar. Exercise is of…

> Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways. You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves. But it seems that the constant chanting of no pain no gain has left a lot of people with the conviction that, when it comes to health, things should not be easy nor simple.

> You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves.

I sincerely hope not. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be interested in working hard to solve difficult problems important to the world.

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

#64

Post by tensor »

Dewie wrote: post #47
elrzn wrote: post #32

Wow at the low-carb comments. Way to reject a dogma with another dogma. I have a daily intake of 400g of carbohydrates. According to you I'd be overwheight and dying of diabetes, cancer, metabolic syndrome and whatnot. Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves.

It's not dogma if it actually works for them (though it might be dogma if they are very insistent that it definitely will work for everyone). > Exercise daily, provide adequate protein intake and watch out the calories. That's it. No need to blame food but yourselves. That sounds like a nice middle ground, but there's no reason to take a middle ground if something more radical works better for you.

I fail to see how this latest fad diet is any different from any previous fad diet. In every case, people chanted "but it works for me!!!!!"

There is way more hyperbole behind these diets than science as far as I've seen.

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

#65

Post by NotOscarWilde »

TomGullen wrote: post #41
nawitus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'How much suffering am I going to reduce from a low carb vegan diet?' I don't know. 'How well does this diet work for someone like me who needs 3400 calories to build muscle?' Well. 'Unethical is a strange term of eating animal products.' I don't find it strange to call the slaughter of animals and mistreatment of animals unethical.

Admittedly I do think it probably is unethical to eat animals. However one thing I've always wanted to ask a vegetarian, these animals I'm eating would not exist without demand for them. So so long as I make more efforts to buy organic and well treated animals - is this still unethical? If I had a choice, be born as a chicken on an organic farm or not exist at all I'd definitely pick the chicken option.

> If I had a choice, be born as a chicken (...) or not exist at all

Consider all the sperm or eggs you're "wasting" by waiting for the right moment to be a parent -- you are consciously choosing to not give life to many such entities.

Surely those entities, if they had the chance, would try to convince you to create them?

(My point is that this kind of "bad existence vs. no existence" thinking is rather absurd.)

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

#66

Post by sputknick »

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.

I want to ask this in the most respectful way I can, because I always try to appreciate different points of view: why would people need an "excuse" to consume animal products? That wording sounds like you think of it as a priori a bad thing. I get my beef and pork from a farm where the animals live in fields eating wild foliage until the day they are slaughtered. Would you argue that is unethical? I intend this question in the more respectful way possible, I just want to know if vegans are aware that their are (what I think of as) ethical ways to eat meat.

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

#67

Post by danmaz74 »

np422 wrote: post #62
danmaz74 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

This is a somewhat interesting anecdote ... http://live.smashthefat.com/the-21-day-5000-calorie-carb-cha... tl/dr; Guy eats 5800 kcal every day of fat for 3 weeks, gains 1.3 kg and loses about an inch from his waistline, same guy eats 5800 kcal from carbs every day for 3 weeks, gains 7.1 kg and about 10 cm on the waistline. Exercise is supposed to be the similar in both cases. Yes, it's just an anecdote, but an inter…

I'm not the one claiming to know the truth ("fats are good! carbs are bad!")

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

#68

Post by DominikR »

nawitus wrote: post #14
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…

>Eating lots of eggs, bacon, steak The problem with that is that the consumption of animal products is unethical. You should consider switching to a vegan low-carb diet to decrease suffering.

>The problem with that is that the consumption of animal products is unethical.

I fail to see why it is unethical to eat animals or how your comment adds anything to the discussion.

It's just your opinion, not some moral standard in our society.

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

#69

Post by Dewie »

tensor wrote: post #63
Dewie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Doesn't sound fun, or easy at all. There are other ways. You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves. But it seems that the constant chanting of no pain no gain has left a lot of people with the conviction that, when it comes to health, things should not be easy nor simple.

> You'd think, with the title of this webpage, that most would be interested in ways of elegantly and easily solving problems that are important to themselves. I sincerely hope not. This is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be interested in working hard to solve difficult problems important to the world.

Thankfully I am not so selfless that I will choose to try to save the world over maintaining my own body.

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

#70

Post by elrzn »

TomGullen wrote: post #61
elrzn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So I can eat a few chicken breasts a day, and then 1,500 kcal of mars bars? Sounds great! Doesn't it? The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating. The reason some folks work so well on lowcarb diets is because sugars make it easy to overeat, but that's just a way to create a caloric deficit for them. Now, I bet most folks here on HN are much more quantitative oriented tha…

> The only issue with sugars are the null effect on satiety and promotion of binge eating. > sugars make it easy to overeat Those are issues, for sure! And great reasons why when dieting, a good foundation is exclusion of carbs. But that's only scratching the surface. Let me give you another downside. Eating sugar causes arterial inflammation. When your arteries inflame, your body packs it with oxidized LDL which can…

Assuming LDL is a bad thing, low carb diets (which are usually high fat diets) tend to spike it up as well, and at a greater rate.

People on ketogenic diets and below maintenance calorie intakes end up reporting high levels of LDL, with high levels of HDL to balance it out. Now, give them a hundred more calories above maintenance and things start to get funny.

Calories in vs calories out might be an oversimplified model, but so is blaming everything on insulin as Taubes does, as he still believes it's the only factor promoting fat storage.

> I'm confident this post has actually done a disservice to the question why should we eat less carbs, but hopefully it's something you might find interesting and read more about and maybe change your opinion on.

Been there, done that. I've been in keto for years until I crashed. Not anymore.

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