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

In short: coconut oil (also palm oil) will be useful after you use it to fry, while olive oil will stop being olive oil after just some heating. In fact, do not fry anything with olive oil. Olive oil should be added to food in your plate only.

Shorel7• 14 years ago

All the people in /r/keto and /r/Paleo will say that you can't possibly eat something better.

(Those are subrreddits.)

waivej3• 14 years ago

Summary: bad science led to low fat diet craze. Reduce carbohydrates instead.

lwat5• 14 years ago

Taubes was right

elviejo• 14 years ago

Atkins was right too.

rmobin2• 14 years ago

Low-carb diets work for plenty of people (including me), but this is a must-read refutation of Taubes' carbohydrate hypothesis:

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

waivej3• 14 years ago

Try this for the video: http://vimeo.com/45485034

bhauer• 14 years ago

Thumbs up for Frederic Bastiat quote. Thumbs down for presumably hosting with WordPress.

dangrossman• 14 years ago

You presume correctly: http://eatingacademy.com/wp-login.php

Though all it'd take to fix is 3 clicks to install a caching plugin, usually.

robbiep2• 14 years ago

Our body doesn't posess the enzymes to dehydrate saturated fats, therefore we can't process them as efficiently, Additionally saturated fats lead to cell membrane instability and 'crystallisation' due to the straight-line chemical arrangement of the carbon atoms. Cis - (A type of) unsaturated fats by contrast, have kinks in the chains which induces fluidity into cell membranes. Interestingly Cholesterol is used to maintain membrane stability/'fine-tune' membrane fluidity when there are lots of Cis fats.

I haven't listened to the whole talk yet and take it the poster's angle is that there is a lot more to diet, nutrition and preventable diseases like Ischaemic heart disease than just 'saturated fats and cholesterol'. Yes. No doubt. But they are still terrible for you in high doeses, Epidemiological studies have shown this beyond a doubt and the basic science is sound.

blueSky1989• 14 years ago

Twelve years ago I had read too many peer-reviewed papers to know that low-cholesterol diets were a bad idea, and useless from the point of view of having a good blood-cholesterol profile.

Useless because, for example, population study after population study showed that low-cholesterol diets did not improve blood-cholesterol. Furthermore, it was common to find populations with high-cholesterol diets that had an excellent blood-cholesterol profile, and, conversely, populations with low-cholesterol diets and a bad blood-cholesterol profile.

A bad idea because, among other things, low-cholesterol diets will immediately lower your blood Testosterone. Recall that cholesterol is the most basic steroid; from it, all other steroids, including anabolic androgenic steroids such as Testosterone, are metabolized. A diet with a good amount of cholesterol is a necessary condition to achieve good levels of Testosterone.

Why would a hacker care about his Testosterone levels?? Some examples:

Males with high Testosterone perform better in arithmetic and mathematics than males with low testosterone. Males with high Testosterone levels have better short-term-memory. Males with high Testosterone have good mood; whereas low Testosterone causes depression, mood-swings, and angry reactions to minor things.

So, for at least 12 years, I have made it a point to have two jumbo eggs for breakfast. And that's not the only source of cholesterol and saturated fat in my diet. I do, however, make sure that I do not ingest too much saturated fat ... and there are too many more details to my diet to discuss here.

paupino_masano• 14 years ago

It has also been found that diets high in cholesterol and/or saturated fat also lowers testosterone [1,2,3]. I think the best course of action is to reduce rather than eliminate. i.e. "control" your intake of cholesterol and saturated fats. Blindly increasing your intake of either (above acceptable levels) goes against many scientific studies.

[1] http://www.drmirkin.com/men/1008.html [2] http://www.ergo-log.com/toomuchcholesterol.html [3] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/study-of-t...

sandGorgon2• 14 years ago

This is incorrect. I'm citing a NIH study that shows just the opposite.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6298507

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6538617

niels_olson2• 14 years ago

Non-correlation between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol would most likely be due to the fact that blood cholesterol, and blood lipids generally, are more strongly related to total caloric intake.

The correlation with testosterone is equally invalid. Low-hanging fruit: it is not the simplest steroid (1). But lets go a bit further: by this logic, men with hypercholesterolemia should be bulls among men. Clinically, this is not the case (FWIW, I'm a physician and have diagnosed a few of these). Yes, cholesterol is a precursor to testosterone. But it is also a precursor to estrogens. Most cholesterol is synthesized by the cells themselves. There is no essential dietary minimum of cholesterol. You can't really avoid it in your diet either, because all cells have cholesterol (broccoli, beef, rice, you choose). Never mind the thermodynamic equilibria of the various enzymes involved, the hormonal regulation of the adrenals and gonads, etc, etc. And if you want to walk the biochemistry back further, the cholesterol is derived from lipids, which can easily be assembled from carbohydrates, especially in an anabolic state (i.e.: growing).

Counterpoints on your "males with..." theories. Spatial reasoning differences disappeared in the only known study of two genetically identical societies where one was matriarchal and one was patriarchal (2). From a more consequentialist perspective, vegetarianism increases with income in developed countries. (3)

The cholesterol in arterial plaques is a red herring. That cholesterol represents something less than a rounding error compared to total body cholesterol, and even less when compared to the total flow of cholesterol that must pass over the plaques in named vessels. A plaque is like a scab of the arterial wall. The plaques are more likely due to repetitive macroscopic injury potentiated by weak connective tissue, due to the connective tissue molecular injuries (collagen cross-linking, glycosylation, etc) caused by excess free radicals and other high-energy intermediaries (introduced from, e.g., smoking, excess dietary calories).

The answer remains the same: eat less. If your weight is outside the normal range according to wolfram alpha, you probably need to visit bwsimulator.niddk.nih.gov.

I assure you, many of your forefathers on the Serengeti lived long lives without jumbo eggs, and still had some wicked hacks (like wheels, music, property rights, etc).

People want to hack their bodies. Hack your relationship to the society you're in, that's the problem: figure out how to eat in moderation despite all the messaging. Get rid of Earl K. Butts' stain on the farm bill. Get rid of the farm bill entirely. Quibbling about tenth-degree issues like the relationship between eggs and testosterone is just a win for Monsanto. They got you to talk about something other than the problem. The problem is there's too much food.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Steroidogenesis.svg

(2) http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/08/19/1015182108

(3) https://www.econstor.eu/dspace/bitstream/10419/50169/1/63222...

manmal2• 14 years ago

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 high insulin levels are the new devil. If that's true, then bread (remember, mass production started only during the industrial revolution), corn, and especially sugar, are to be restricted as much as possible. Alas, you in the US have a massive corn lobby (real sugar became scarce during the Cuba crisis), so it would be difficult to do away only with corn.

IMHO the root of the problem is not that there's too much food, but the industrialization of the food processing industry. Everything has both advantages and disadvantages - we can choose from 1000 bread sorts, but many of them are heavily processed and freed from all micronutrients. And like every system, the food industry can go haywire, and I think it already has. E.g., look at what kind of chickens KFC breeds for use in their products. Food has therefore become a comodity, and people treat it like that. We are just not used to paying large parts of our income for food anymore, but we really should be - it's an essential part of life, just like housing. They key is quality, and being nice to both animals and environment is important.

mamp• 14 years ago

This kind of thinking is simply not medically correct. The idea that eating a will lead to increase in b and then improve all these functions has no basis in evidence. The body is way more complex and the relationships between different proteins etc. is very complex and not well understood, yes, even despite all the work on micro-arrays and rapid DNA sequencing.

High blood cholesterol for example, has a large endogenous component, which is why statins work. It would be nice if the body was simpler and obeyed simple rules of cause and effect. But it's very complex and simple thinking like this aren't based in fact.

Trust me. I'm a doctor :-)

JohnsonB• 14 years ago

>This kind of thinking is simply not medically correct. The idea that eating a will lead to increase in b and then improve all these functions has no basis in evidence.

Well, sometimes it does, and I don't think the parent post made any sort of general point asserting that this was a universal principle. So if A is a necessary precursor to B and cannot be manufactured from more base components, we have a situation where low levels of B can impair some performance metric, and up to a point an increase in A will increase that metric. The body will maintain endogenous control of the various systems so long as it has the base inputs it requires. As an aside, even if A can be manufactured by cells e.g. cholesterol, there is the whole issue of whether the cells have enough energy/capacity to produce this compound in sufficient quantities at a given time along with all the other demands of them.

>Trust me. I'm a doctor :-)

You basically oversimplified the parent's post and presented it as a straw man, noting generically that we have low understanding of many processes in the human body without refuting his specific argument. That is not a well structured enough of an argument for you to be asking anyone to trust you just based on some imagined superiority in rank. (Hint: being an MD, even a PHD is not a refutation of an argument)

ramses• 14 years ago

Guys, please notice that I said that "a diet with a good amount of cholesterol is a necessary condition to achieve good levels of Testosterone." I did not say that it is a sufficient condition.

In other words, good cholesterol intake + "other things" (such as resistance training) = good total Testosterone levels. Sub-optimal cholesterol intake + "other things" != good total T levels.

sabat• 14 years ago

Science?

semenko• 14 years ago

Watching Hacker News try to interpret scientific data is, well, "like Quora without the Questions."

fhoxh5• 14 years ago

Google's cache for this article:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...

user49598• 14 years ago

I believe it coincided with converting to a nearly sedentary culture. Nothing is as bad for you as being sedentary and since many/most people refuse to exercise, and you can't buy exercise pills (let alone get people to take them), you have to get people to want to cut down on the stuff their body isn't using.

Cholesterol isn't bad, saturated fat isn't bad, but if you're sitting around all day festering so are they.

Nutrition is far from an exact science and humans from around the world react to foods differently in subtle ways giving any Nutritional conclusions limited relevance.

IMHO, The 2 most important things you can do are exercise and pay attention to your body. Also, a lot of these "mis-conceptions" come from media and laymen thinking that phrases like "a link between saturated fat and heart disease" imply causation.

Remembered one more thing: A lot of shit food is loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol (and salt and sugar). Frozen dinners, snack cakes and fast food are some great examples. These products, which significantly contribute to the fattening of the world, help give their main flavor sources a bad name.

ladzoppelin• 14 years ago

Wow that's a great way of explaining the underlying issue. The way that everyone reacts differently to the same foods is also the reason that thousands of different diet books continue to make money. Its a mess and the internet has only added to the confusion.

rubashov3• 14 years ago

> Cholesterol isn't bad, saturated fat isn't bad

The issue gets super complicated once you add chronic emotional stress. A huge problem with all these dietary disease models is they ignore cortisol and stress levels, which may ultimately turn out to be the single-most important variable.

In short, the original findings to do with fat intake -> cholesterol -> atherosclerosis weren't outright invalid. It's just that in healthy, unstressed people the final link to atherosclerosis doesn't actually happen, even in old age. But the situation in the industrialized world is massive numbers of people living in chronic stress, so who knows. Turns out chronically elevated cortisol levels produces the arterial damage that make "bad" cholesterol a problem at all.

latch6• 14 years ago

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 the man sips from 32 oz soda.

In addition to that, having no education in biology, chemistry or any field remotely associated with health and fitness, I do have two eyes. In light of all the contradicting information and conspiracy theories, I'll trust what I've observed. And, what I've observed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that people who favor fruits and vegetables, grains and legumes over beef, pork and fatty foods are healthier.

unreal37• 14 years ago

You should read the book "Wheat Belly". That will bust that myth about grains and fruits for you.

markerdmann• 14 years ago

This blog post presents some interesting criticisms of the book "Wheat Belly":

http://noglutennoproblem.blogspot.com/2012/03/wheat-belly-bu...

It sounds like the book often misrepresents the research that it cites.

latch6• 14 years ago

You missed my point..for every 1 scientist that says "fruits are bad", I'll find you 1 or more that says "eat more fruits!" That this scientist's views comes in book form doesn't change anything, and whatever graphs and studies he uses will only confuse me because someone saying the exact opposite will use equally impressive graphs and studies.

Watching nutrition experts is like watching economist...they can each prove that they are right, even though they are making mutually exclusive claims. No doubt they mostly all have good intentions...I don't begrudge them their enthusiasm.

While I won't claim that wheat is some magical food, no book will change my view (based on what I've seen), that I'm better off eating wheat and fruits than KFC.

rubashov3• 14 years ago

> 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 like nuts and fruit and soy and soda.

nodata• 14 years ago

> The main thing I notice about fat people is they eat very often

and I notice that many thin people eat very very often (like six times a day), but in small amounts.

We need the empirical evidence.

latch6• 14 years ago

If nothing else, we agree that processed foods are the real problem. Maybe people who eat fruits, vegetables and legumes are simply more likely to avoid eating processed foods.

I will challenge you on your last point. You seriously see a lot of fat people eating fruits and soy?!

trustfundbaby• 14 years ago

> The main thing I notice about fat people is they eat very often

Probably because they're hungry a lot. The more weight you put on, the more food you need to eat.

The funny thing is that snacking can actually help you lose weight, and is actually recommended by many fitness gurus and bodybuilders. It helps keep your energy levels constant during the day, and also avoids hunger pangs, plus the associated over eating at appointed mealtimes. This will happen if you're working out a lot, since your body is processing your food faster because of the energy you burn in the gym/track/wherever

You just have to make sure you're eating the right stuff. nuts, protein shakes, fruits (minimize the ones with a lot of sugar for really strict definition).

chucknelson• 14 years ago

> 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...

MBlume• 14 years ago

I'll bet you that the people you've observed live in the US, and we have really crappy beef here.

DenisM• 14 years ago

Plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

"Fruit and veggie eaters" being healthier is just as likely to be a confirmation bias on your part, that you simply not paying attention to contrary examples. But even if it was true and there was a correlation, there is another possible explanation for it:

People who are obsessed with health will do "X" and they will eat fruits and veggies, because both are believed to be good. "X" does a lot of good, while F&V does nothing at all. Since you don't pay attention to "X", not even knowing what it is, you come to conclusion that F&V are good, while in fact "X" is what decides who is healthy.

The point here is be careful with "I do have two eyes...".

scythe• 14 years ago

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 some randomly selected fatty cut of meat and vegetables fried in the drippings. That, or cheap canned fish. I lost weight eating like this. I fit in skinny jeans. I may with luck convince my almost-girlfriend to peg me. :3

But the important thing -- I don't advertise. I am not a walking bulletin of the health benefits of coconut and sardines. How do you really know about the diets of the people around you? I would say there are maybe four or five people around me whose diets I actually know well enough to analyze in any reasonable way.

Case A is a twenty-two year old recent Caltech graduate who is obsessed with freerunning and eats nearly-strict paleo. He can do a backflip. No further comments. We grew up together.

Case B is my roommate. He follows all the conventional advice to a T -- chicken, fish, whole grain, salad. Lots of "health food" products. Y'know, healthiest potato chips on the shelf. There is bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise. It... doesn't seem to be working.

Case C is another good friend of mine. Eats a lot of processed cheap stuff; he's the sort that'll buy three pounds of animal crackers. When I first met him he was rather obese and said he was try'na learn to eat vegetables. He lost a lot of weight after we introduced him to ecstasy... and he's been eating healthier too. He's sloowly coming around; one of his recent facebook statuses involved making hard-boiled eggs. He looks better and seems happy. Score 281,443 for MDMA.

Case D is me. I'm kind of a dick, judging people like this. People who I like. I don't really know any other way to be honest about how I make decisions, though.

When I was eleven my parents tried to force me to switch from whole milk to 2%. I responded by walking two miles to the gas station to buy milk. I'm the only kid in my family who never had weight problems growing up.

Eyes optional.

dhechols• 14 years ago

Freerunner here. Most of my diet consists of peanut butter and blueberry jam on toasted bread, yogurt, chicken, eggs, rice, protein powder, cottage cheese, and hummus.

Oh yeah, and sometimes I buy a giant can of mixed fruit and eat the whole thing. It's like dessert.

raverbashing3• 14 years ago

Coconut oil contains healthy fats, as well as MCTs (medium chain triglycerides)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-chain_triglycerides

Oh and testosterone is synthesized from cholesterol so low intake of cholesterol may affect testosterone levels (and testosterone -> fat loss)

progrock8• 14 years ago

I don't think I'd advocate the E plan diet as a healthy weightloss program!

Coconut is another food that's been demonised. Supposedly it actually encourages weight loss - and is a super food. I only wish it were cheaper here in the UK.

analog9• 14 years ago

...healthiest potato chips on the shelf... ...bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise...

All of these are fairly high calorie foods, even if you buy them in a health food shop. You'd need to have a fast metabolism and be pretty active to get through all these.

If you eat more calories than you burn you will put on fat.

geon2• 14 years ago

So, because your body doesn't have the tendency to put on weight, you eat what you like. Your friends who tend to get fat easily watch what the y eat, but it's not helping them that much.

This really sounds to me like there are great differences in metabolism person to person.

I have always been skinny, and I eat a lot of whatever. I don't exercise much. I know people who are "big", but eat less than I do.

julianz• 14 years ago

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.

robbiep2• 14 years ago

Aah the pinger diet strikes again

mdpye• 14 years ago

Weight is only one indicator of health. Gain or loss in weight is related purely to calorific intake, nothing to do with whether what you eat is good for you.

Julianhearn3• 14 years ago

Weight gain is not because you have eaten the wrong food its due to too many calories. Simple as that.

rb2k_2• 14 years ago

Your diet sounds like a lot of the 'low carb' ones.

I personally try to eat a paleo/keto-ish diet which mainly consists of eggs, meat, veggies and a bit of fruit and nuts. In general anything that doesn't contain sugars or things that get metabolized into sugars (carbs, starches, sugary stuff itself...)).

I lost 12 kg while eating tons of meat. For me the 'just don't eat a lot of carbohydrates' part of it really works.

uriah2• 14 years ago

Moderation is often a side effect of paleo diets, isn't it? Traditionally structured diets with high carbs, moderate protein, and low fat, similar to "Case B" can work well too (see: Japan). However, it's easy to overeat on such a diet compared to paleo.

bad_user5• 14 years ago

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 week would go by without them consuming any meat. However my grandfather was also a big fan of raw and untreated pig bacon, the kind you never find in stores. It was one of his pleasures that he indulged whenever he could.

My grandfather died at 99 years old, 3 months before his 100 years anniversary. He died out of old age, never having any problems with his heart. He was able to work his land until 98 years old. And in his village, even though people live a really rough life, it's pretty common to see people past the age of 90 with no serious health problems.

So really, your own two eyes are biased by the culture you live in ;-)

Nowadays it's a common belief that living a healthy life means preferring fruits and vegetables ... however, be careful when sampling because it's possible that people taking more care of their health are healthy because they care more about their health, not necessarily because they consume less meat.

hk_kh• 14 years ago

Things like living on a village and having an stress free life can greatly improve your life expectancy.

In some rural areas on my country it's usual to live around 100 - 120 years. In some places, even having a pork farm based economy and eating all sorts of different pork derivatives on a daily base.

IMHO, what kills us on cities is just contamination and stress.

spitx2• 14 years ago

Please refrain from making these anecdotal observations. Your observation is the equivalent of this from the movie "Get Him To The Greek": "British mother fu##ers don’t die. You ever heard of a British rock and roll star dying? No. They don’t die. Mick Jagger. Keith Richard. Those Led Zeppelin. Themmotherfu##ers old as fuck! Fu##ing Ozzy Osbourne is gonna outlive Miley Cyrus"

tluyben2• 14 years ago

Same here; my grandparents died around 95 years old (other two are still alive closing in on 100); they ate butter in the pan with bread an eggs for breakfast, tons of meat, potatoes, frieds, eggs, etc. All fresh from the farm (they made most of what ate themselves). My grandfather smoked heavy tabacco rolled in a sigarette all day through since he was 12 (I have never seen him without a fag in his hand) and started at 11 in the morning with 2 jenevers, at 4 beer and after that red wine. He was always overweight and the doctor kept warning him for it. Has never seen a hospital (and i'm not kidding here) from the inside until the week he died. He died of a family heart disease which was only then caught (but too late) and his son was operated for that immediately as he had the same thing.

And to make the story even more crazy; my grandfather used jigsaw to saw asbestos for all his life, even far after it was forbidden. Real men don't care about that kind of stuff :)

Anecdotal 'evidence' is wonderful he :)

But now we have 2 cases (actually more; my grandfathers brother + sister are the same age and do the same things; no problem); maybe smoking (I know bad_user his grandfather didn't), drinking and eating fat actually prolongs life if you manage not to have stress and eat from the land. Because that's at least one major difference I saw; my grandparents didn't have stress. Things just happened to them and they didn't think twice about it.

Shivetya• 14 years ago

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 have made.

We are not designed to be idle.

rprasad2• 14 years ago

If only your grandfather had cut the pig bacon from his diet, he could have lived 3 more months to be 100...

pauljburke• 14 years ago

I firmly believe diets are like software development methodologies. Doesn't matter which one you subscribe to as long as it isn't universally recognised as junk, you'll still see results because it is better than what you'd be doing by default. Once everyone gets to a certain baseline we can quibble about what's more effective.

ldehaan• 14 years ago

Observations aside, there is actually scientific evidence to the contrary. The fact is that our bodies require certain types of fats (omega3, omega6, etc..) in order to function properly. Your body is built to break down fats, this is why you have a gall bladder. Diets low in animal fats (not ala omega3's and 6's, which your body has to break down and consequently only gets a very small percentage of usable omegas) cause the body to more easily synthesize fat from other sources, most notably carbohydrates. Diets high in carbs trigger leptin signaling surges which can cause averse reactions like your brain no longer receiving leptin signals. "In Framingham, Massachusetts, the more saturated fat one ate, the more cholesterol one ate, the more calories one ate,the lower people’s serum cholesterol. We found that the people who ate the most cholesterol, ate the most saturated fat, ate the most calories weighed the least and were the most physically active." [1].

If you want to have the best brain function (your brain is made up of mostly fats) and body function you should strongly consider cutting out gluten based foods (which interfere with so many things in a bad way [2]) and start eating grass fed and finished beef, and wild game with a side of veggies. Cut out as many tubers as you can get away with as well.

Foods that you cannot eat unless they are cooked are probably not the best for your diet, in my mind this makes perfectly logical sense. We are people of the ice age, our diets for many thousands of years consisted of what could be eaten raw, including meats. While we do not yet have a full understanding of the rate at which humanity evolves; it is understood that the core functioning of our bodies energy system can not completely change in the span of a few thousand years.

[1] Dr. William Castilli, "concerning the possibility of a nut...," archives of internal medicine [2] Journal: Neurology - Hadjivassiliou 2001

Shorel7• 14 years ago

Evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000 years ago has wide scholarly support.

Xodarap2• 14 years ago

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/

dr_• 14 years ago

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.

danielwarna• 14 years ago

I've always found the whole diet debate a bit silly and overly complicated. Most people are probably going to be fine as long they eat a varied diet,don't overeat and get enough physical exercise, with emphasis on the physical exercise. The human body is simply not design to sit on a chair 24/7 no matter how incredibly healthy the food you're eating is.

ralfn2• 14 years ago

Dont trust your eyes. You dont see people eating fatty foods at McDonalds. You see them eating a shitload of sugar, salt, and a little bit of fat and proteine.

If fat would make people fat, why are americans the mos obesive nation? Your diets, relatively speaking, consist of less fat than most european diets.

But way way more sugar. In the states, sugar is in everything, including most hamburgers, bread slices and soft drinks.

ethermal• 14 years ago

not true in the least, the healthiest of my friends from outward appearances eat no fruit or veggies what so ever. Observations on small samples sizes are useless.

schultkl• 14 years ago

I defer to Walter C. Willet, M.D., who writes in "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy" (co-developed with the Harvard School of Public Health):

"There's no question that two types of fat -- saturated fat, the kind that's abundant in whole milk or red meat, and trans fats, which are found in many margarines and vegetable shortenings -- contribute to the artery-clogging process that leads to heart disease, stroke, and other problems...monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in olive oil and other vegetable oils, nuts, whole grains, other plant products, and fish -- are good for your heart.... Our bottom line is this: It is perfectly fine to get more than 30 percent of your daily calories from fats as long as most of those fats are unsaturated."

"The term saturated means that the carbon atoms in a chain hold as many hydrogen atoms as they can...saturated fats come in gradations of bad...butter and other dairy products most strongly increase LDL (bad) cholesterol. Those in beef fat aren't quite as powerful at boosting LDL and those in chocolate and cocoa butter have an even smaller impact."

HDL and LDL are lipoproteins: "...fats must somehow get from your digestive system to your cells...like oil and water, fats and blood don't mix. If your intestines or liver simply dumped digested fats into your blood, they would congeal into unusable globs. Instead fat is packaged into protein-covered particles that mix easily with blood and flow with it. These tiny particles, called lipoproteins (lipid plus protein), contain some cholesterol to help stabilize the particles.

"Lipoproteins are generally classified by the balance of fat and protein they contain. Those with a little fat and a lot of protein are heavier and more dense than the lighter, fluffier, and less dense particles that are more fat than protein. The proteins also act like address labels that help the body route fat-filled particles to specific destinations.

"LDL is often referred to as the bad cholesterol...they can end up inside cells that line blood vessels. Once there, LDL is attacked by highly reactive free radicals and transformed into oxidized LDL. Oxidized LDL can damage the artery lining and kick off a cascade of reactions that clog the artery and set the scene for artery-blocking blood clots.

"In contrast, HDL particles sponge up excess cholesterol from the lining of blood vessels and elsewhere and carry it to the liver for disposal."

He goes on to list several studies: Ancil Keys' 1956 international survey called the Seven Countries Study which found a strong link between saturated fat and heart disease; the Framingham Heart Study, which identified high levels of cholesterol as linked to impending heart disease; the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (both very large cohort studies); the Lyon Diet Heart Study; and others. "In the 1950s and 1960s, dozens of carefully controlled feeding studies among small groups of volunteers showed conclusively that when saturated fat replaced carbohydrate in the diet, total cholesterol levels in the blood rose...."

The book also talks about the challenges of practical, large-scale studies of nutrition "in the wild": it's not easy to track and correlate people's eating habits over decades, for any number of reasons.

enjo• 14 years ago

The more interesting debate is about overall health outcomes. Even the most ardent low-cholestrol folks are forced to admit that this link between higher LDL (particularly the big "fluffy" stuff) and heart disease exists.

There are two really interesting things, however.

1. The link between dietary saturated fats and increased LDL isn't nearly as strong as those earlier studies suggest. This is certainly supported by my own anecdotal evidence: My LDL levels went way down when I moved to a higher fat diet.

2. Some studies have suggested that controlling for all natural deaths that OUTCOMES on higher fat diets are better, meaning people on those diets tend to live longer. It appears that cancer rates are reduced for those eating higher saturated fat diets for one thing.

This is all outlined in "Good Calories, Bad Calories", and there is a wealth of study to support the idea.

I recently was seated with a prominent nutrition researcher at a local university. His take was interesting. Essentially he laid out why these studies are very difficult (as your cited book did). He said there are two clear things that comes up in research time and time again:

- Many preservatives, particularly the high sodium nightmares found in processed foods, are pretty bad for you. - Sugar is the devil. Studies have suggested time and time again that it's sugar that is responsible for elevated LDL levels. Worse yet sugar promotes higher levels of very dense LDL which is a huge risk factor for heart disease.

He recommends a whole food diet. Basically don't worry so much about what your eating and more about how fresh it is. The shorter the time between something living and the time you eat it the better. The fewer steps it takes for something to be prepared the better.

Calories still count of course, but I've essentially been following that idea for awhile. I eat more fruits and vegetables and I've drastically cut my sugar intake. I eat more steak and pizza (made from high quality and fresh ingredients) than the ADA would like. My blood chemistry levels have been amazing ever since.

sandGorgon2• 14 years ago

Even the most ardent low-cholestrol folks are forced to admit that this link between higher LDL (particularly the big "fluffy" stuff) and heart disease exists

I'm not a researcher, but I have been hanging around /r/advancedfitness a lot. What I seemed to understand is that the ratio of triglycerides to LDL to HDL is what is an indicator of heart disease.

seabee2• 14 years ago

> I eat more fruits and vegetables and I've drastically cut my sugar intake.

Fruits are quite sugary - do you limit yourself to one, two portions a day? Is fructose 'better' than sucrose/HFCS?

Shorel7• 14 years ago

Good post, I just want to add something:

Some fruits have lots of sugar, like apples, grapes and watermelon.

gkcn• 14 years ago

403 - Forbidden

fldrog• 14 years ago

the same here

tista3• 14 years ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmC...

ioquatix4• 14 years ago

Why is this on Hacker News?

ioquatix4• 14 years ago

Is this not a valid question? Since when did food and health have anything to do with hacking? This belongs in /r/health

xlevus• 14 years ago

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

ioquatix4• 14 years ago

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

conradfr• 14 years ago

Somehow I find the diet talks on HN really interesting (but to be fair I don't usually read about that kind of things).

ufo• 14 years ago

My same question. Reading this thread makes me feel like I am watching a PHP conference host a panel on language design.

ioquatix4• 14 years ago

Based on the down-votes I'm receiving I have to say I agree.

bitsoda2• 14 years ago

How about we all just eat real food? Stay in the perimeter of the super market -- with the exception of some canned fish -- and you should be okay. You can't go wrong with fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, tubers, nuts, and seeds. As for wheat...come on, don't kid yourself. A refined white powder that is highly processed is not real food. Drink water, exercise a few times a week, and get some sun. If nothing else, living this way will make you healthier than most Americans.

Blara• 14 years ago

I do believe you can get fat even if you eat only "real food", the trick is to eat in moderation. If you eat more calories than you use up you will gain weight. It really is that easy. You could loose weight eating pastries only, just as long as you don't eat too much. It wouldn't be healthy though...

seabee2• 14 years ago

Case in point: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.profes...

adrianN• 14 years ago

It's really hard to eat too many calories if they come in the form of vegetables. Caloric density is important. So are additives like MSG that mess up your sense of satiation.

adv0r• 14 years ago

Here in Scandinavia is quite popular a diet based on butter and fat. They were abusing it so much that they had a crisis : the butter shortage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020455390457710...

funny, isn't it?

shakesbeard• 14 years ago

At my former company we had free access to beverages (sodas, water, energy drinks, ... even beer). I gained a lot of weight while working there. After I quit I stopped drinking sodas altogether, while mainly keeping my diet (vegetarian, one "big" meal per day + snacking) and level of physical activity. I lost about 18kg (40 pounds) in about 2 months. Went from 103kg to 85kg. I'm 1.84m so that's an ok weight I guess.

So that worked for me ... drinking water.

zader• 14 years ago

Site appears to be down. The Google cache is here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tAI5zmC...

But the meat of his presentation appears to be this video, available on Vimeo:

http://vimeo.com/45485034

tokenadult• 14 years ago

Is the link submitted here throwing 403 errors for other HN users? I notice that many comments here on HN could just as well be responding to the bare title alone, whether or not the participant has read the fine article. Until I can read the article (I can't so far after repeated attempts), I'll give some history of how the cholesterol hypothesis was developed.

Ancel Keys, a member of the Terman longitudinal study of high-IQ children and inventor of the K ration for United States soldiers during World War II,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7213-2004Nov2...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/23/obituaries/23keys.html?_r=...

was active at the University of Minnesota in some key years of his career.

http://mbbnet.umn.edu/firsts/blackburn_h.html

He did studies of human nutrition, including starvation, in an intellectual milieu that included some of the first studies (by other researchers) on surgery to treat heart disease. (It was the surgical research that prompted my mother, a nurse, to move to Minnesota after completing nursing training in another state.) Keys hoped to find a dietary explanation for the prevalence of heart disease in industrialized countries, and he thought his regression methods of statistical analysis pointed to dietary fat and cholesterol as the main risks factors for heart disease. He lived to the age of 100, so it's hard to say that he was completely crazy in his ideas, but the idea that cholesterol intake from the diet alone is the whole story in heart disease rates is now generally discredited, and it is especially controversial to say that a diet of the kind he recommended is as good for all-cause mortality reduction as it appears to be for heart disease reduction.

Like all other members of the Terman longitudinal study, Keys was never awarded the Nobel Prize. Two young people who were rejected for the Terman study (William Shockley and Luis Alvarez) because their IQ scores were too low later went on to win a Nobel Prize in physics (in separate years).

fhoxh5• 14 years ago

As per his Twitter feed[1]:

"We're being kicked off HostGator for crashing their server due to volume. Working to get a dedicated server. Sorry for inconvenience!"

In the meantime, Google's cache of this article is here:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?client=safari&#...

And the direct link to his talk [video] is here:

http://vimeo.com/45485034

[1] https://twitter.com/EatLikePete/statuses/225822001154117632

jtreminio• 14 years ago

I can think of no less flattering phrase to describe HostGator: Unlimited until you get traffic.

mbrown77• 14 years ago

Check out Fat Head. A Documentary response to Super Size Me that discusses how what we "know" about fat and cholesterol was the result of a politician lining his pockets by pushing the agenda of one of his friends in the business world http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Fat_Head/70115017?trkid=23...

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

Related Stories