
Saturated fats no longer the true enemy, experts say - okket
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/health/saturated-fats-no-longer-the-true-enemy-experts-say/article26513320/
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CuriouslyC
I wish people would stop trying to boil down diet into platitudes. The truth
is much more complex.

Specifically, research has demonstrated that some saturated fatty acids are
particularly egregious, while others are innocuous, or even healthy. For
instance, a lot of research has shown palmitic acid to have negative health
consequences, while stearic acid is neutral and shorter chain saturated fatty
acids like lauric acid may actually be beneficial. Additionally, there are
conditions on these observations; for instance, palmitic acid is only bad
under some circumstances - e.g. when consumed as part of a diet low in certain
monounsaturated and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Finally, these
findings are almost certainly population specific to some degree, so if you
have a different genetic background from the study population, it might not
apply to you at all.

The only true way to figure out how to properly eat is to track metrics of
health that are meaningful, log what you eat, and adjust your diet based on
changes in those metrics. It can also be helpful to look at what people who
are very healthy/fit eat; the diets of people in "blue zones" and natural
bodybuilders are good case studies.

------
anexprogrammer
It's nice to see something resembling common sense in the media on food.
There's been far too much "avoid this" only to be told the opposite a decade
later.

I've tried to ignore all the food claims as I've gone through life. If we do
anything it's to prefer basic foods over processed. The longer the ingredient
list, or the more packed with sugars, the less likely it is to go in the
trolley. I never switched from butter and full fat cheese as the alternatives
taste terrible, the other half tried low fat spreads for ages, but hated them.

As we've done more cooking and baking we've rediscovered how poor most of the
mass produced ones are. Especially bread and cake.

At 50 after the age related checkup, my blood work was excellent. Proves
little of course. I still got the lecture on low fat though! I suspect
everyone has to get it.

~~~
uhtred
I saw a TV show a couple of years ago about which nation's national diet is
the healthiest. I admit I don't remember them giving sources for their claims,
but France was high up the list of healthiest, even though they eat a lot of
saturated fat. The point is they eat real food rather than processed food.

I also read recently that the French have one of the lowest rates of heart
disease.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Having looked at the data a lot of different ways, I'm fairly certain that the
health of the French is a result of low stress levels and strong social
connections. Your mental state plays a huge role in your health, to the point
that someone who takes slightly better care of their body because they worry
about their health will end up less healthy than someone who is carefree and
relaxed.

~~~
uhtred
If you're correct, I'm screwed.

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mabbo
Whenever pop-science articles use phrases like "no longer the true enemy", I
always roll my eyes. The science coming out says that they were never the
problem, not that they aren't anymore. There's a difference.

We've always been at war with Easttransfats, right?

~~~
api
Science is nuanced, complex, and always in progress. That does not and never
has translated into the kind of simple dumbed down slogans and "war on ..."
objectives that work in politics and public opinion influencing. Huge
impedance mismatch there.

I mean some things are simple. Smoking is pretty unambiguously bad for you.
But nutrition is _not_ simple, and is probably individual due to genetic
factors.

~~~
wdewind
> Smoking is pretty unambiguously bad for you.

Stress is a killer. Smoking can reduce stress. Nothing is simple.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Except that smoking has a very small impact on stress, and a large negative
impact on your health in other ways. Additionally, for people addicted to
cigarettes, much of the stress being relieved may be caused by the addiction
in the first place.

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tkyjonathan
Unfortunately, health and diets are not like new and fashionable programming
concepts - there is no quick hack and no one way that turns everything on its
head. Processed foods cause health issues. Saturated fats definitely cause
health issues. Processed sugars definitely cause health issues. You may have
heard this before, but whole fruit, vegetables, greens, starches, beans,
lentils and nuts - are the healthiest foods for you - as shown by science,
population studies, metabolic ward studies, randomized double blind placebo
studies and studying the habits of longest lived populations.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains, and
animals products. These are _food_.

But the idea that "saturated fats definitely cause health issues" is shaky at
best, and downright _causing negative health outcomes_ at worst.

We can have our fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole
grains, and animals products, and drown them in as much butter, coconut oil,
lard, etc, as you can stand to eat - which generally isn't a lot, so long as
you don't burn those fats, and your health will _improve_ over any other
eating plan.

We know this because every. fucking. person. who does it (and doesn't have a
liver / gall bladder problem, or some other clinical malabsorption problem
that needs to be fixed first) reports improved well being, mental clarity,
improved energy levels.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Maybe an exaggeration - not everybody. Some feel lack of energy, don't digest
nuts well, get gas from legumes, get fat off of fruit.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Sorry, yes, good point. I didn't mean to imply everyone should all of those
things though it was written that way.

Of course restrict or eliminate those which don't work for you.

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caneable
what is the definition of processed in this context?

I can think of several examples where applying a process to a food does not
make it something we should avoid (i.e. when a butcher chops meat, he/she is
processing it).

Where do we draw the line between "safe" processed foods and "unhealthy"
processed foods.

~~~
merpnderp
Well, like commercial "whole grain" bread. Which is basically white bread with
the grain shells (bran I think it's called) added back in. Where if you had
actual whole grain bread, the flour wouldn't have been through chemical
processing and a roller making it as easily digestible as sugar.

~~~
jeffy
Yea, same thing is true of commercial milk. Apparently they skim off all the
fat and just add it back in to make 1%/2% etc. Who knows, they may even do it
for whole milk so that the percentage (and taste/texture) are consistent cross
batches.

Not inherently a bad thing I suppose, but feels wrong because it's such an
industrial process.

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gmarx
So they agree that there is no evidence saturated fat causes health problems.
Then they assert you should not eat processed food but fail to even assert a
link to any specific health problems. Then they mention antioxidants which, if
they had been paying attention, they would know was merely a hypotheses that
was invalidated many years later in long term studies.

Why do people insist there must be a single magic diet which will immortalize
us, despite never finding it? What are the Bayesian priors on this? Bizarre

~~~
jeffy
I can't remember which paper I read it in, but it said the amount of oxidation
that happens normally as your body functions significantly dwarfs the amount
of antioxidant effects you can get by eating antioxidant containing food.

Seems like common sense you can't eat your way out of aging.

~~~
delinka
Isn't "oxidation" pretty much how our cells function? Stop that, stop living.

~~~
gmarx
The idea was that your body produces free radicals, molecules which are highly
reactive because of an unpaired electron, caused a lot of damage to the body.
The antioxidants sopped these up and prevented the damage. That was the
hypothesis

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jeffy
I don't get why fried foods are still demonized. If you use, say coconut oil
or avocado oil and stay under the smoke points (so the oils dont break down),
what's the problem?

Maybe there's an assumption that this means commercially prepared fried foods,
which may use soybean oils that aren't cleaned/changed regularly?

~~~
kbutler
It's mostly the anti-fat bias, with some justifiable concern about high
calorie content, as frying adds a possibly huge number of calories, mostly as
fat (and breading!).

[http://www.livestrong.com/article/504208-how-many-
calories-d...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/504208-how-many-calories-
does-frying-add/)

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FrancoDiaz
So what other things is the media duping us on right now, that in 10 years
will be shown to be B.S?

~~~
cgh
Here are some current mainstream media misconceptions regarding health and
nutrition. Admittedly, most of these are already acknowledged as wrong in the
same way that "all saturated fat is bad for you" is wrong, with the exception
of #2:

1\. Lots of cardiovascular exercise (eg running) is good for you.

2\. Anabolic steroids are extremely risky and will likely kill you dead.

3\. You need to eat throughout the day.

4\. Whole eggs are bad for you because of the cholesterol.

5\. Salt is bad for you even if you don't have high blood pressure.

6\. Lots of protein is bad for your kidneys.

7\. Unfermented soy is good for you.

~~~
jeffy
8\. A calorie is a calorie

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sndean
Part of the issue has got to be the oversupply of specific, yet mostly useless
advice. Should we really expect people to decide to consume any (almond,
peanut, olive, coconut, sesame, palm, soybean, corn, safflower, etc.) oil
based on the relative amount of saturated fat?

I've tried to explain what polyunsaturated fats are to my mom, many times,
when she's trying to decide to use olive oil or something else. The news
stories on TV, Dr. Oz, Oprah, etc. have convinced her that's worth worrying
about.

I'm much happier with simple, broad advice. "Eat food, not too much, mostly
plants." (Regardless of how you feel about Pollan.)

~~~
jeffy
I always hear the platitude "don't eat too much". I don't think I've ever
heard of anyone who "wants to eat too much".

It's like telling people "drive safely". Nobody is trying to get in an
accident.

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mSparks
it was 2007 i first ran into the issue that the conventional wisdom was there
is no link between consuming vast quantities of sugar and a bodies inabilty to
process sugar, but rather the foods we have always consumed in large
quantities.

Its a very strange kind of relief to see the tide turning and a wider body of
people beginning to believe they got duped.

I really think the food industry needs to be regulated more like the
pharmaceutical industry. production line food should face the same stringent
tests that production line simple molecules for human consumption always have
done.

------
khedoros
So, if the new advice is to avoid "processed foods", what set of
characteristics about processed foods make them bad? Is there a specific
pattern? High in triglycerides? Preservatives? Artificial colors and flavors?
Out of whichever things are "bad", is it individually, or just in combination?
What kinds of "badness scores" would each item/combination get? What kind of
individual variability is there?

~~~
triMichael
As someone who is obese and working on it, my suspicion is that it's mostly
sugar. If you look at "processed" foods you'll see tons of sugar, which is
both very bad and not very filling. One thing different from home cooked
sugary treats is lots of spices and additives like salt and MSG that make you
feel more hungry and thirsty which keeps you eating more of the high sugar non
filling processed foods in a vicious cycle.

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ideonexus
My favorite piece of dietary advice: stop stressing over what you _shouldn 't_
be eating and focus instead on what you _should_ be eating. We can argue about
fat, sugar, and carbohydrates and which is worse till we're blue in the face,
but the simple truth is that if you're getting most of your calories from
fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, then you needn't waste any mindshare on
this debate.

~~~
buu700
_most of your calories from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains_

Well no, that misses the point. Everyone's diet has _some_ macronutrient
ratio, whether that be high-carbohydrate, high-fat, high-protein, or somewhere
in between.

It's fine to ignore the debate and just do what works for you personally, but
that doesn't make a high-carbohydrate diet (which is what you're suggesting)
obviously good general advice.

~~~
xiaoma
Can you name a single Blue Zone that doesn't have a "high-carbohydrate diet"?

~~~
buu700
Did you mean to reply to me? I hadn't commented at all on the virtues (or lack
thereof) of any particular macronutrient ratios, high-carbohydrate or
otherwise.

My point is that the appropriate response to a debate between any given X and
Y isn't "no need to consider the facts because the answer is obviously X".

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scarface74
I don't know what the truth is but after being diagnosed with high blood
pressure and high cholesterol for the first time, why should I take chances?
There is no harm in cutting back on red meat, fried foods, and saturated fat

~~~
jeffy
The harm is that you may end up replacing those foods with ones that may
actually be to linked heart disease. You still have to eat a certain number of
calories, so replacing red meat/fried food/saturated fat with say, bread or
rice (which are low-fat) might actually increase your risk.

~~~
scarface74
Yeah that goes without saying - part of eating "heart healthy" is cutting back
on carbs, sugars and sodium.

~~~
jeffy
I guess another way to put it is "I don't know what the truth is" is somewhat
inconsistent with "there's no harm in cutting back on".

For instance, if someone said "drinking water decreases your sodium levels",
and you said "there's no harm in cutting back on water", you'd be making a
mistake.

I also think the full verdict is still out on what "heart healthy" means.

In your specific case, it could be family/genetic disposition to high blood
pressure/cholesterol, environmental factors, or diet.

If it is diet, and you were eating more than the average person's amount of
red meat, fried foods, and saturated fat, perhaps it will help you to cut back
on those things, but you would need to do that for a while and keep everything
else constant and see if things improved. If you weren't eating "lots" of
those things to begin with, it's not clear reducing them further would make a
difference.

I think this is why nutrition is so hard, it's almost impossible to really
control all the variables and our objective measurements are lacking. For
instance, "high cholesterol" doesn't tell you anything about the size of the
cholesterol. High blood pressure may just run in your family. It's really hard
to determine the effects of our diet.

~~~
scarface74
True. But in my particular case I spent over 10 years eating like crap but
exercising like crazy between being a part time fitness instructor and running
that covered up a lot of sins. I cut down on exercising, got older, and it
caught up to me. I acknowledge that it was all my fault.

------
stat
I am not satisfied classifying the extremely broad category of "processed
foods" as "bad". Technically olive oil is a processed food, so is milk and
frozen meat. What about Soylent? It's very much a processed food but is
probably much healthier than the typical processed foods out there.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Give it a more charitable reading, perhaps.

We all know what is meant by "processed foods" \- we're talking about packets
of chips, soda, biscuits (both sweet and savoury), most 'breakfast cereals'.

When people refer to "processed foods" they don't mean to include all packaged
food. Many packaged foods and long shelf life products, are fine so long as
your also eating at least some fresh food.

Putting 5 apples in a plastic bag with a barcode on it a processed food does
not make.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm not so sure. That phrase is bandied about with no definition ever
advanced. None is given here either - just 'we all know'.

Well, folks have been eating cooked food for 40,000 years or more. Been
threshing/separating grain from chaff for nearly that long. Does that make it
all 'processed'? Probably not. Then what does? We've certainly become adapted
to any processing that started that long ago. So what is the issue with it?

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tkyjonathan
Both saturated fats and processed foods are the "enemy". Seriously.. you are
risking heart disease and to some degree cancer if you believe 50 years of
life saving science. If you wish to choose to believe a handful of studies
funded by the meat and dairy industry, do it at your own risk to your health
and the environment for our children.

~~~
imron
You prefer to believe studies funded by the sugar industry?

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-
ind...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-
shifted-blame-to-fat.html)

~~~
tkyjonathan
Isn't sugar part of "processed food"? As in.. processed sugar.

~~~
imron
I was referring to the way you happily dismiss research by the dairy and meat
industries, but seem to readily accept '50 years of life saving science' which
was originally based on research funded by the sugar industry to shift the
blame on heart disease away from sugar and on to saturated fats.

~~~
tkyjonathan
Wow.. those sugar industry must be really loaded to have funded 50 years of
research. Sure part of that wasnt funded by government as well?

