[mkautzm]

Carbohydrates are not a bad thing and are indeed an important part of health. The current suggested diet doesn't say, 'bread'. It specifically calls out Whole Grains, which a great deal of evidence suggests are a Good Thing. Suggesting that grains, or even carbs, are somehow worse than literal fat is misleading at best, and delusional at it's worst.

[jdminhbg]

The phrase "literal fat" shows just how successful the misguided low-fat crusade was: they don't even need any modifiers to show that they're "bad."

At any rate, it's very easy to design a diet for humans without grains in it that's healthy and that you can thrive on, but impossible to design one without fat. So in that respect at least, literal fat is better than grains.

[mastazi]

It is however hardly possible to design a human diet without carbs where the planet doesn't suffer from a large scale ecological disaster[1] (assuming most of the world's population would adopt that diet), unless unconventional animal food sources, such as insects or krill, become mainstream. I don't see that happening any time soon.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919211...

[pdq]

I'm referring to the original 1992 food pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)#/medi...

> Fats, oils, sweets: sparingly

> Bread, cereal, rice & pasta: 6-11 servings

Yes I am in the camp that believe fats and proteins are both much healthier than carbs, and especially refined sugars. The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets.

[teach]

> The latest nutrition supports low carb diets

The "latest nutrition" supports nothing of the sort. Dietitians still recommend you get roughly 50% of your calories from healthy carbs.

Source: my wife is a registered dietitian and has a PhD in nutrition.

[creepydata]

When people say "the latest nutrition" they mean "the latest broscience I read on reddit."

[bobdole1234]

The latest research shows exactly that.

In 15 years or so, what gets taught will reflect that.

[speeder]

Not wanting to blast an entire profession, and I am not even the guy you are talking with...

But to me, PhD in nutrition doesn't mean much, it is like PhD in underwater basket weaving, I am yet to met a single nutrition professional that could help me, and believe me, I looked really, really hard.

In the end the only people that could help me, were endocrionologists, biologists, and other scientists in fields that are not directly relation to nutrition.

And the reason for that, is precisely because of that high-carb recommendation, that is just insane, many cultures on earth lived just fine with low, or even zero carbs (extreme example: north-pole inhabitants, that in some places have diets that are 100% meat, organs included, since "regular" meat lacks some nutrients, like Vitamin C).

In more tribal places (all over the world too, Africa, Asia, Americas...) hunter tribes also tend to be healthier than farmer tribes (but also tend to have much lower population numbers).

And in many places, before FDA push for the vegetable agenda (I am not talking about veganism or vegatarianism, but about FDA constantly defending vegetable based food, including by accepting research that was fraudulent), people would happily eat lots of animal fats and meat, and live just fine. (example: in my country before the 60s, everyone used pork fat to fry stuff, and even make soap, but after vegetable oils became popular, and the government started to give strong subsidies to wheat, obesity, diabetes, etc... exploded, many common people still believe egg and cheese is absolutely evil, and prefer to stuff their faces with artificial sweeteners, soy milk, and salad with enough oily dressing to lubricate a car, than eat some eggs).

[kuschku]

> The latest nutrition supports low carb diets, as can be seen with Atkins and Keto diets.

That statement is not supported by any reliable studies.

The latest nutrition supports a healthy mix of carbs and fats, specifically whole grain and unsaturated fats. Not a monodiet of fat, nor a monodiet of carbs, nor processed carbs, nor saturated fats.

Focusing too much on a fat-based diet causes massive kidney issues, just as a too much carb-based diet causes circulatory issues.

[thenomad]

Could you point to the studies that lead you to that conclusion? Meta-studies or similar ideally.

(Not getting at you for your viewpoint - I'm making this comment to a few people in this thread who say that the latest research supports their argument. You may well be right, but I don't know enough about your background to take your word for it, so I'd be interested to see your sources. )

[blhack]

Source on the kidney thing? I haven't read that (except for that a LCHF diet can trigger issues on people who have an existing kidney disease)

[kuschku]

In previous HN threads on the topic, someone posted sources on this. So, take it as hearsay.

But someone else in this thread posted sources on the claim, so you might want to read those sources.

[mastazi]

I recently have had to conclude that HN is not the right audience to express this kind of ideas and not be downvoted.

I am fine with people taking "religious" positions when it comes to a text editor or the latest web framework, the problem is that nutritional choices have environmental and health-related consequences, so I would rather them be fact-based.

Also, I wonder what we're going to see next on HN, flat earth? Chemtrails? After a recent submission which was also related to nutritional topics, I have been considering leaving HN altogether.

[mastazi]

> The latest nutrition supports low carb diets

Our planet would like to differ though http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306919211...

[will_brown]

>Suggesting that grains, or even carbs, are somehow worse than literal fat is misleading at best, and delusional at it's worst.

Carbs/sugars trigger insulin production...fats don't do that. Just look at the Western diet and the substitution of fats with sugars in the food industry in the 70's and you will trace origins of type 2 diabetes that would begin appearing in children - yes, it used to be called adult onset diabetes - now over a million cases.

Carbs are not inherently bad, but there is no doubt way to much in the Western diet and from poor sources.