[LesZedCB]

i thought fat was largely debunked as being the primary cause, though i'm not going to go searching for studies as i'm not a dietician (though my partner is).

consider this: each of those meals at McD's, BK, or Pizza hut come with a 1-2 liter soda, loaded with calories and sugar. yes, the fats are there, but they are _always_ paired with loads of sugar.

[seadan83]

I agree with the debunking that fats are not bad for you, though, not all fats are equal. The rule of thumb is that fats that remain liquid at body temperature can be considered "dietary fat". The only problem with "dietary fat" is they have a load of energy on them and that can blow your calorie budget for the day quite easily if you overdo them.

Fats though that stay solid at body temperature arguably should be completely avoided. Hence the big-mac with a 1-2 liter soda, loads of unhealthy fat paired with loads of sugar, all with very minimal fiber..

[emmanuel_1234]

I'd be curious to understand where you get that information from.

Fat that stays solid at room temperature is generally high in saturated fat (except for margarin, but let's keep it out). Fat that stays liquid is generally vegetable oil (e.g.: canola).

I don't think there is strong evidence that vegetable oil is good for you whereas saturated fat is not. If so, I'd really like to read about it.

[seadan83]

For fat vs sugar (ie: carbs), this was a very informative reading: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-co...

Overall, I don't know of a lot of good science regarding which fats are better for you and which are actually bad. After all it was not until recently that it was admitted that the relationship between cholesterol in the blood and cholesterol is uncorrelated and not at all understood. Similarly even for calories, just because a food has X calories, does not mean you actually absorb all of those calories, let alone how the body uses them.

For the rule of thumb, I have no specific references and it is general knowledge I've picked up reading on nutrition. It could very well be wrong. I believe there is something to it, for example, coconut oil is relatively good for a person and has a low melt point, where-as bacon grease and steak gristle are pretty certainly terrible for a person.

Trying to find some references, I was not able to find the original reading where I stumbled upon that idea. This was a decent read though that I just came across: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/healthy-vs-unhealthy-fa... (YMMV)

[mrguyorama]

Well.... Fats can be bad in that they are calorie dense foods, and thus it's easy to add more calories than you should to food with them.

It's significantly harder to be fat eating nothing but broccoli, but I could continuously gain weight eating only 250g of vegetable oil per day.

Sugar is bad for exactly the same reason IMO