[glogla]

Lately there's been some product pushing from some companies, some "facebook keto" of people only eating fat, and some pushback from mainstream low-fat selling and plant-based food groups, calling it fad, etc. So the area is kind of confusing right now.

The best resource I think think of is Keto subreddit FAW which goes over the principles and some misconceptions and so on: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq

Also, Keto is often done along with intermittent fasting, which is another popular thing, lately.

EDIT: the subreddit is also full of people talking about their success with Keto (meaning mosty obese and diabetc or prediabetic reversing their condition), but that might be survivorship bias - someone who failed or someone who had adverse effects might not post there.

My personal experience is that I lost quite a bit of weight on Keto, and experienced other effects like loss of cravings, more mental clarity, etc, in comparison to typical western diet - but that might be just me. My hypothesis is that some people handle carbs better than others, and Keto is good for the group which dosn't handle carbs very well.

EDIT2: There's also a lot of misconceptions about fat being the devil.

You know, given the trans-fats debacle - for decades, people were convinced that trans-fats were the good thing and you have to be monster to give your kids evil bad butter instead of healthy nice margarine - I am convinced that as a humanity, we don't know shit about nutrition, and basically just do what works for you. For some people, Keto is much better than the standard western diet.

[msiyer]

Elimination diets always show short-term results. If someone reduces burger consumption from 5 to 3 a day, he\she will definitely see good results. However, if we have to constantly trick our bodies (starvation) and walk a tightrope (need to avoid even the smallest amounts of carbs or else...) to just keep Keto on track, is it really natural?

[annamargot]

Define natural please. It’s my belief that industrialized food production has created unnatural availability of foods that largely use unnatural ingredients. Unnatural as in not found readily or at all in nature.

Are you defining natural as ‘conventional 21st century Western diet’? ie what everyone is doing around you.

[msiyer]

Since everything is sourced from nature, for argument's sake, even plastic can be called natural. However, as far as food is concerned, I have started treating foods that have been manipulated in any way by a human or a machine as unnatural.

All I am saying is that in my opinion Keto does not fit the definition of natural. I eat mostly fruits while I feed my dogs raw meat and organs only.

[Nasrudith]

Ironically such a diet in itself is deeply unnatural - hunter-gatherers would have starved if they attempted such a thing - there is a reason why they were nomadic and caused mass extinctions - they ate everything and depleted capacity to fuel their large brain and relatively big bodies. There is a reason cooking caught on and was used long before agriculture.

The point being that both natrual and unnatural are terrible heuristics. Your diet may be fundamentally good or deeply flawed but naturalness isn't why - nutrient balance, satiation, metabolic factors and similiar are why.

[msiyer]

I have seen results that are nothing less than a miracle. I know what works. I do not need a bunch of metrics to see if I am eating properly.

I have never seen an animal refusing to eat because it could not calculate the calories or nutrient balance. It is sad to see that with all the great progress we have made, we are losing touch with nature.