[platelet]

Financed research with vested interests, though it may be, salt, fat and red meat can have palpable effects on the human body.

Salt is an implement of suicide, for one.

Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of biological signaling residue from the original animal’s state, even when fully cooked. From horomones, to antibiotics, to persistent organic pollutants, and then onward to your electrolyte changes required to produce the gastric juices for the quantity you’ve eaten. Muscle protein, though it may be, it’s a carrier of all kinds of interesting artifacts, and when you start accepting ground beef, you even open up the window to prion diseases, since other tissues, besides muscle, sneak in.

Fat does have complications and side effects, now that we have a better concept of the way transfats interact with our metabolism, when they remain waxier and refuse to easily melt at body temperature, requiring more intensive effort to burn off. This means fried foods and processed food that deliver doses of transfat really do introduce a metabolic issue.

Food is complex, and refined sugar also adds problems. I don’t find sugar addictive, but in high quantities, and when combined with these other gotchas, sugar is definitely a serious contributor to all the obesity and diabetes we see, for sure. Eat some extra donuts for a month to notice the difference. Actually, don’t.

Caffeine, nicotine and alcohol are also complications, that seem to fly under the cognitive radar in these discussions. And are actually probably the worst offenders, in terms of seriously augmenting an unhealthy diet.

[GordonS]

> I don’t find sugar addictive

Try eliminating it from your diet and see if you still think the same! Seriously, for a few days you will crave carbs if you stop eating them altogether.

> Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of...horomones, to antibiotics, to persistent organic pollutants...

Surely you could say the same about non-red meats such as chicken, pork and lamb?

> Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of...persistent organic pollutants...

You could also argue this for just about any vegetable, legume, fruit or grain crop too.

[jayalpha]

".. Red meat, I suspect, transmits all kinds of.."

Beef was suspected, based in statistic analysis, to to transmit cancer by a German Nobel price winner Harald zur Hausen for a long time.

And just last year there were some interesting results: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29434270

[platelet]

Carbs are a source of ordinary nutrition, so the cravings you experience aren't a clue regarding addiction.

Body chemistry has essential needs. You can't just drop carbs (simple or complex), feel a pang, and conflate as addiction.

And yeah, all meat transmits compounds besides protein. But.

Meat sourced from mammals is different. And genetic/evolutionary proximity matters.

Pork, for sure, is controversial according to religious food customs for a reason. Not just the perception of pigs as "filthy animals." Consider that boar taint is a key factor in selecting how to butcher pigs for their meat.

Plants are extremely distant, and the evolutionary pathways that have lead to biologically significant plants is on the other side of the predator/prey wall.

Plants do not operate lipids in ways similar to animals, and oil solubility is a key factor for how animal behavior and metabolism gets modified by nutrition. From vitamins, to horomones, to blood/brain barrier crossing agents.

[keymone]

Can you link sources to those claims?

For instance carbs are absolutely not essential [1], one can live healthy life without a gram of carbohydrates. So I’m interested where are you getting your information.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/75/5/951/4689417

[platelet]

I don’t have a single link for you. Gee, looks like you win the internet.

Except, just try it. Try to exclude them from your diet, and see where you wind up.

And at this point, we can see that there’s nothing to your argument except pedantry. You use vague blanket statements “all” and “carbs” but link to a specific article about refined carbohydrates only, which really doesn’t cover the total scope of “all” carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are a chemical class. You get carbs when you eat fruits and vegetables. Those are carbs.

People who go vegan have to deal with managing their carb intake all the time, and guess what? It ain’t just because of bread, pasta, rice, whole grain, flour and sugar. The sources of protein for a vegan diet often bring carbs along for the ride. Legumes bring carbs to the table. Quinoa is really popular, but includes a carbohydrate load, even though it’s a good source of essential amino acids.

If carbohydrates aren’t an essential aspect of metabolism, then can you explain the role of glycolysis as an input to the Krebs cycle? Need a link for that?

https://google.com/search?q=glycolysis+krebs+cycle

Have fun.

[nickik]

I have never claimed that these things have no effect on the body or are THE ideal foods.

However there is a long, long step of blaming them for all the major public health disasters, ie heart disease, cancer and high blood pressure.

And these things were made responsible those things with STRONG support and push from government and non-profits. Such strong was this believe that alternative theories had little chance of getting anywhere, specially on an institutional level.

[krustyburger]

In what way is salt an “implement of suicide?” Do you mean literally that consuming a very high dose would be fatal?

[platelet]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/43297...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_poisoning

Yes. The dose is something like less than a pound of salt, probably 100 grams might work, disolved in solution, and taken in one sitting, as a deliberate act of ritual suicide.

I think the inspiration draws from the concept of sea water dehydration/toxicity. Probably not a great way to go, since it isn’t fast, you hallucinate before losing consciousness, and it probably involves a lot of vomiting.

The point being, though, that a mason jar of salt carries a near zero perception of hazard, since it’s not really accident prone (accidental salt overdoses among children or the elderly aren’t commonly reported) but we also don’t consider it particularly deadly, even though the potential is there.

[keymone]

So consuming large portion of salt is a suicide, how about consuming large portion of sugar? https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-a-deadly-dose-of-sugar Or large portion of water? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Seems all you’re saying here is that dose makes the poison but for some reason you single out salt implying that any dose is poisonous.

You will literally die if you do not consume salt.

[platelet]

  for some reason
  you single out

Correct. I think it’s relevant and counterintuitive that the lethal dose amount for table salt is as low as it is, while remaining an essential nutrient.

That should catch your attention. It should jump out at you, and if it doesn’t, you probably need to reexamine how you think about food.

And anyway, I didn’t single anything out. Point your finger somewhere else, after you read this entire thread.

I think you very clearly have it backwards. The article up for discussion singles out sugar, and I responded to someone else’s criticism of singling out sugar.

So, where’s your stance against me now?

[keymone]

> it’s relevant and counterintuitive that the lethal dose amount for table salt is as low as it is, while remaining an essential nutrient

Relevant to what? And why are you describing it as if it’s strange? It takes 15 grams of iron to kill you and iron is essential. “Dose makes the poison” is neutral statement yet you’ve used it to somehow attach negative connotation when talking about salt.

My stance towards you is that you use lots of word to produce little meaning and some clear manipulations.

The article is about sugary drink corporations being manipulative to mislead the public on negative effects of sugar - why are you talking about salt?

[jacobush]

Caffeine in top three of the worst offenders in terms of seriously augmenting an unhealthy diet?

Do you mean if you have an unhealthy diet, these three can fuck it up way more?

[platelet]

Sort of. Not a silver bullet answer, but yes.

Mostly, considering that caffeine’s psychoactive profile is that of a alkaloid stimulant, part of what it’s doing is messing with your brain’s glucose consumption.

So, look at what happens to people who would shotgun energy drinks or Mountain Dew, and sit on their ass, playing World of Warcraft for many multiple months. Obesity.

The combination of caffeine and sugar maintained the mental clarity to thrash at a console controller, repetitively for hours on end, with no physical activity.

The brain is consuming the drip feed of sugar, and the caffeine is dialating the cerebral blood vessels, so more can be pulled in, contributing to the increased mental clarity and engagement.

But, other than finger and eye movement, there’s like, near zero body activity, and all the caloric overflow pools in other parts of the body, and basically, the liver takes the hit performing conversion of the excess sugar into fat, storing it, since the muscles aren’t actively burning it.

So if you aren’t burning all the sugar you eat (most 100 calorie beverages are like ten spoons of sugar, including coca-cola), it compounds any problems with all the other lipids you do eat.

[k9s9]

> caloric overflow pools in other parts of the body

So if you are saying its contributing to "increased mental clarity and engagement" but the overflow is causing issues over time, then does this mean its just about finding the right dosage/frequency to maintain high clarity levels?

I guess its more like there is no free lunch here.

[platelet]

Yeah, pretty much. There's no hard rule for how to balance sugar against use of stimulants and performance enhancers.

I couldn't tell you the right choices to make, unconditionally. Even just by body weight. Habit and tolerance are major curve balls. Caloric burn varies by body part.

Meanwhile, canned drinks are really just about flavors and marketing, balanced against cost.

[k9s9]

Thanks for those posts. Learnt something. Hopefully one day we are better at producing this data for everyone at a personalized level.