[sudowhodoido]

Not too much. Coronary heart disease wiped out a big chunk of my family and it wasn't because they ate sugar - it was the lard on toast and chips cooked in lard...

Everything in moderation is probably better advice than a single fact.

[awolf]

The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it in the past decade.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648

If you say "eating fatty things will give you heart disease", most people will blindly agree with you. In actuality there is very little valid basis for making that claim.

(Edit, and this is a parenthetical because I do not believe anecdotal evidence is useful for arguing for general cases: My personal n=1 experiment: I have comprehensive blood panels done every three months. Over the past four years I adopted a diet that is high in healthy animals fats and proteins, high in vegetables, low in fruit, and devoid of grains. As in: 3 eggs plus sausage or bacon and a salad for breakfast. Every day.

Prior to starting, I had mediocre to bad cholesterol. My numbers are now: 105 LDL, 70 HDL, 52 triglycerides. Superb by all measures.)

[xorcist]

> The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it

So has the belief that all fat is all good for you, to put it lightly. Human nutrition is a lot more complex than that. Unless you like experimenting with yourself for the sake of it, go with a balanced diet.

[zo1]

"go with a balanced diet." As much as I'd like to, it's next to impossible to even figure out what a "balanced diet" is these days. The information conflicts even on something that basic.

[Taek]

Balanced diet: some fat, some sugar, some protein. You've got a lot of flexibility, just make sure every major food group has something of a presence. No need to micromanage.

[awolf]

The position that saturated fat is causative in heart disease is not the default position. If an idea is going to generate prescriptive advice it should come with ample supporting evidence.

Despite this we've been strongly indoctrinated with the idea that fat == unhealthy. It has caused us to change our behavior by avoiding foods that our parents and grandparents have been eating down through the generations. We've moved away from the default "balanced diet" on bunk data.

[justin66]

> healthy animals fats and proteins

Given you eat sausage and bacon every day, I wonder what you'd classify as an unhealthy animal fat or protein and what your rationale is?

[awolf]

I define healthy fat as meat which came from a healthy animal. I define a healthy animal as an animal that was raised in accordance with its species' natural diet and lifestyle.

Grassfed beed, pasture raised pork, wild caught seafood.

[Chevalier]

Personally, I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto. I've lost nearly 100 lbs over the past year by switching to a high-fat, moderate-protein, and ultra low-carbohydrate diet. I really can't endorse it enough.

If I had to guess, your family's health problems weren't with lard -- they probably resulted from the companion toast and french fries. Any calories you eat will be directed to storage if your insulin is spiked... which happens when you eat carbs like those found in wheat and potatoes.

That's not to say that glucose, which you find in potatoes, is necessarily awful. I don't eat it, but Dr. Robert Lustig (an incredible font of knowledge) thinks glucose can be a valuable part of a diet. What's particularly important is to eliminate fructose and sucrose. They're toxins with no redeeming qualities except making fat-free foods palatable.

[michael_h]

  eliminate fructose

To better health: Eliminate fruit, increase bacon consumption. Got it.

[Chevalier]

You think you're being sarcastic. The only reason why fruits are okay in moderation is that their fiber mitigates some of the damage of their sugar content. The vitamins you can get from fruit are valuable, but the sugar rush isn't.

I'm not opposed to the occasional fruit. But given your tone, I rather suspect you think Jamba Juice is healthier than a steak. Go ahead, I'm not here to save your life... but you may want to read a bit on the subject. I'd start with Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, and Robert Lustig.

[gurkendoktor]

> I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto

Being healthy and athletic in the short-term is one thing, living a long and happy life is another. I always feel that the Paleo/low-carb communities focus on the former, but if you can believe the gist of The Blue Zones, then happy centenarians have very "boring" eating habits (statistically speaking): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone

[xorcist]

An anectode is not data, as you well know. Neither is it surprising that you can find likeminded communities on the Internet.

Great to hear that you feel well though. But please avoid the opportunities to convert heathens on the Internet, if you can. Some of us are skeptics by nature and will never be persuaded by anything less than full scientific studies (especially with areas as complex as the human physiology).

[fredfoobar]

While I do appreciate the benefits of a ketogenic diet, I don't think it's for everybody. This could work great for people who are "out of balance", i.e. if you have excess body fat, it might be beneficial to switch to a metabolism that uses your fat stores (rather than continuing to add to it). I don't think it's a good idea to put your kids on a ketogenic diet (unless they're epileptic and don't respond to treatment) because it is known to stunt growth in children.

[sudowhodoido]

How's your heart?

No their problems weren't just the lard. It was derision pointed at the unfounded basis of your analysis and the complexity of the human diet, metabolism and relatively limited knowledge of nutrition we have.

/r/keto isn't a valid citation, well no more than /r/spacedicks (NSFW) or the pope. Neither is you losing weight.

[Chevalier]

My health has never been better. I'm not sure why you think I've earned your derison... but okay.

Eat sugar, dude. I'm not here to save your life. But if some of the awesome nerds who read HN decide to get healthy, I'd really recommend eliminating sugar from your diet. Life is so much better without it.

Recommended introductory reading would be Gary Taubes, Robert Lustig, and Peter Attia. The history of nutrition over the past fifty years is absolutely shocking.

[sudowhodoido]

I eat a shit ton of straight sugars, fat and carbs and am technically obese if you consider the rather non-scientific BMI system.

However, I rode 59 miles from London to Brighton on my nice Dawes Ultra Galaxy a couple of months back without any trouble. Last month I had a medical and am, according to doctor "in wonderful shape". Go figure.

Oh right, everything in moderation. That's the win. I eat that stuff when I need it.

I wouldn't cite a bunch of random popular reading health authors and an endocrinologist incapable of using the scientific method in his work. Go read some Feynman and apply some critical thinking and get back to me.

[gotrecruit]

this sounds like a very typical (and incredibly flawed) HAES (health at every size) argument - "so what if i eat all that bad crap and am obese? i can run more miles than you so that means i must be fitter and healthier than you!"

i'm not sure if i'm interpreting this correctly, but it sounds like you essentially admitted that you're really fat, despite being active. while i agree that the BMI system is very flawed especially when it comes to measuring the health and fitness level of active people, but for the typical non-active keyboard warrior (which statistically HN would probably have a very high percentage of relative to the whole userbase), the BMI is a decent gauge of health.

simply put, what i'm saying is, unless you're telling me you're in fact a massive 250-lb muscle-bound beast, the BMI reading is probably quite accurate that you're overweight and not healthy at all.

you can convolute the argument as much as you want, dropping names and terms like "critical thinking" and "Feynman" etc, but ultimately there is no denying the reality that is your body.

[sudowhodoido]

You're not interpreting it correctly. Go read it again and my other comments. In summary, perhaps a little more concisely:

I'm an outlier. I'm well built but thanks to BMI, I'm classified as obese. I eat a lot of crap as well, probably more than most. That doesn't affect my general health at all.

I'm referring to scientific integrity and application of the scientific method which this entire thread is devoid of. One poster posted with citations from known crackpots and a reddit group of obsessive religious dieters.

Nutrition is complicated. Everyone has an answer. I'm saying there isn't one. Life is a race to the finish line. Whoever gets there last with the most bits still attached wins.

[Chevalier]

Feynman the physicist?

Dude, your antagonism has no place here. You're not helping your argument, you're just making HN worse.

[sudowhodoido]

It's spot on: http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm

I'm calling up hokum and bad science, nothing more.

[eropple]

Toast and chips are still simple carbohydrates.

[DanBC]

Chips are made from potato. That's a complex carb.

Wholemeal toast would he a complex carb. White bread would be a complex carb in the form of a refined starch - still not a simple carb.

[eropple]

Sorry, yes. Wrote "carbohydrate", deleted it, phone suggested "simple" because autocorrect, and like a dolt I went right ahead. :-)

[sudowhodoido]

Aware of this. My point was purely derision.

A lot of nutritional fads are indistinguishable from religion. Scales are always balanced, not necessarily visibly.