Me: I think that the over-consumption of saturated animal fats is, more likely than not, a contributing factor to heart disease.
You: Percentage of saturated fat of total fat consumption dropped significantly over the last 20 to 50 years.
The 20 year scenario shows that 1989 to 1996 saw a drop in saturated fatty acid consumption consistent with the drop in total fat consumption. According to this, levels of consumption of saturated fat have been relatively steady from 1996 to 2004. progressreport.cancer.gov
The 50 year scenario: Americans in 2000 consumed, on average, three-and-three-fifths times more salad and cooking oil than they did annually in the 1950s, and more than twice as much shortening. Average use of table spreads declined by 25 percent during the same period.
In the 1950s, the fats and oils group (composed of added fats and oils) contributed the most fat to the food supply (41 percent), followed by the meat, poultry, and fish group (32 percent). By 1999, the fats and oils group’s contribution to total fat had jumped 12 percentage points to 53 percent, probably due to the higher consumption of fried foods in foodservice outlets, the increase in consumption of high-fat snack foods, and the increased use of salad dressings. Margarine, salad dressings and mayonnaise, cakes and other sweet baked goods, and oils continue to appear in the top 10 foods for fat contribution, according to recent USDA food intake surveys, which indicates the ongoing prevalence of discretionary fats in Americans’ diets. usda.gov
JH: Plant based polyunsaturated fats increased, and took its place.
You mean toxic concoctions made from vegetable oils I presume, underpinned by the misunderstanding that not all fats are created equal. Swapping one harmful product for another that’s maybe worse, doesn’t do much good. What seems to be happening lately is that the incidence of CAD is decreasing, or the growth rate is decreasing, not sure but anyway some benefit seems to correspond to an increased understanding of the differences between good fats and bad fats, call it causative if you want.
Further, fat calories as a percentage of total calories dropped. Carbohydrate calories increased significantly.
According to this source, the percent of total calories from fat has remained relatively stable since 1989 progressreport.cancer.gov
Besides that, I was talking about the overconsumption of animal fats, not fat calories as a percentage of total calories, seems to me your thoughts are tangential, you’re beating about the bush. Besides constantly reiterating what I like to call the fallacy of the excluded other, what is it exactly that you’re trying to assert.
Like the factors underpinning heart disease, diabetes, bp problems etc, the reasons behind the change in the American diet are multi causal: including changes in relative prices, increases in real (adjusted for inflation) disposable income, and more food assistance for the poor. New products, particularly more convenient ones, also contribute to shifts in consumption, along with more imports, growth in the away-from-home food market, expanded advertising programs, and increases in nutrient-enrichment standards and food fortification. Sociodemographic trends also driving changes in food choices include smaller households, more two-earner households, more single-parent households, a taller population, an aging population, and increased ethnic diversity. usda.gov
All scientists stand on the shoulders of giants, I know how much you love Ancel Keyes he seems to be quite firmly positioned under your jackboot, my advice is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s quite possible that he uncovered a meaningful association, if not direct causation. The prescriptions that followed from his work contained a grave error, the notion that Fat was Bad. The distinction now confirmed, between good fats and bad fats had not yet been made. And so, science moves on. We now know that we consume mainly 3 types of saturated fat - stearic acid, palmitic acid, and lauric acid. Together these 3 provide over 90% of the saturated fat in beef or red meat in general and around 65-70% of the saturated fats found in dairy products such as whole butter and whole milk. Stearic acid, found in dark chocolate for ex. gets converted to a monounsaturated fat called oleic acid in your liver, this basically the beneficial fat that is found in organic olive oil. It’s well believed that stearic acid has no negative effect on cholesterol levels, that it’s at worst benign and at best beneficial.
On the other hand, it’s pretty much confirmed that consumption of Palmitic and Lauric acid, raise total cholesterol levels. It’s been touted that they do so in a “beneficial” way meaning that they raise HDL more than they do LDL, leading to a better ratio implying an overall improvement. Not saying that better ratios necessarily can’t reveal meaningful changes, just that focusing on any particular tree, can often divert attention from the forest or the total cholesterol number. I’m curious if you think cholesterol has absolutely nothing to do with heart disease, that it can be safely ignored. In my view there is sufficient association to warrant caution. It’s like if we could measure hard and soft plaque and derive some meaningful information from the change, while we forgetting that the artery is actually 99% blocked. The notion that palmitic acid and lauric acid are beneficial is highly suspect imo. The idea is that it causes more plaque to be laid down (LDL), but that with the increased ability to remove it, higher HDL, we are overall better off. I hope that the flaw in that thinking is obvious. In fact it’s a very similar misunderstanding that underlies so much of why we are where we are. Basically, it’s analogous to the idea of some kind of magic bullet, to be used later, to fix all the harm we’ve accumulated over time and boom “cure” the chronic conditions we face. Modern medicine is miraculous I am not against it, have in fact been saved by it, but it is not good at disease prevention.
Combining these 2, we have a fairly dramatic drop of saturated fat consumption. If your theory on saturated fats is correct, heart disease should be nearing extinction, right?
There is that excluded other I was talking about again, I take it you’re trying to be scientific in your analysis, but the fact that toxic facts I mean toxic fats continue to be consumed and the existence of a significant sedentary population would imply that we are nowhere near eradicating heart disease.
What we know now and I suspect that this might be your point is that in replacing carbs with fat--saturated or unsaturated – generally leads to a decrease in the number of small, dense LDL particles, the problematic ones. High fat diets are believed to be associated with cancers, yet a low fat diet consisting of tons of carbs, might be bad for your heart. It certainly seems that comparing low carb diets to low fat ones shows that as far as heart health is concerned, low carb is generally more beneficial. Lower triglyceride levels would be one marker of this. The crucial distinction between good and bad fats though gets lost in that schema. Your body makes fat from carbs, so the general idea of “low fat” being beneficial is not altogether incorrect. It may be the case that eating a higher “good fat” diet yields less arterial fat than a low “bad quality” fat, high carb one. The bottom line is that no matter how you do it, if you consume more energy than you burn you will put on weight, increasing your risk of heart disease and all the rest. Imo what’s important is not to over consume in which case there is no strong reason not to make saturated animal fats part of a balanced diet. The only currently known mechanism of longevity is caloric reduction, of course you have to eat enough to feel well.
Reading this thread there appears to be some preponderance of the idea that “grains are bad”. Perhaps an oversimplification but I’m making a broad point and that is to not make the same mistake with grains or carbs, that was made with fats. Refined grains / wheat / simple carbs are a big problem, completely different animal compared to whole grains. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. For ex. despite the West’s discovery that Beriberi was a Thiamine (B1) deficiency, it was apparently known, well before this discovery, in eastern medical circles what caused the problem. The story goes that after refined rice had come into vogue, people starting getting sick with this unseen before disease. Someone decided to make a poultice of the waste product that was being thrown out, some took it in some sort of liquid form. It turns out this was a cure. When grains get refined vital elements are discarded. For those looking to lose weight I think it’s important to consider carbohydrate consumption (in fact it’s so for everybody) and realize that all carb forms are not created equal.
Talking of vital elements makes me think of air and water, and the effects of having a singular focus on diet and/or exercise as THE important variable in putting together a healthy lifestyle. Air and water are even more fundamental forms of nourishment, so focusing on diet while not showing much concern for pollution is a logically untenable position. In fact there are folks who have shown an ability to exist without meaningful amounts of food for very long times. They claim this is possible on account of being able to draw all the nourishment they need from the air itself. This notion is based on the experience that once the Nadis (Sanskrit) or enegetic channels are clear all sorts of weird and wacky physical transformations take place. This points to the primary position and one aspect of the importance of the breath in these traditions. en.wikipedia.org
Going back to fundamentals brings me to the Paleo diet, which obviously I don’t know much about. It’s a great name, but of course the notion of eating like a caveman is a physical impossibility, it’s just not possible, in principle. Maybe these issues are addressed but studies of mitochondrial DNA in Africans, old and new, suggest that on account of conditions, and evolutionary development, they or their bodies, built up a very robust ability to perform extremely efficient energy conversions. This is a long standing development, it’s a chronic condition, ever wonder why our best sprinters are always black. When this system becomes exposed to the easy calories prevalent in todays lifestyle all hell breaks loose. That's one theory anyway.
So first from the pov of the nature of the activity, running around looking for food and in the case of animals, having to kill and prepare it yourself is not like running to Whole Foods. While the motivation is obviously similar, the entire physiological reality of the two experiences is completely different. Then there is the nature of the actual substance being consumed. Again it’s just impossible to now physically eat a diet that is largely similar to what has been eaten over the past thousands of years. A few years ago organic lettuce would wilt very quickly, these days it lasts much longer, how they do it beats me, but things have moved on. For ex. the big form factor and extremely high starch content of modern grains is a modern invention, a very very recent one. It’s like corn on steroids and it’s usefulness is akin to a child learning to blow up a balloon for the first time. They want to do it again and again until the point where it becomes apparent that the activity is unsustainable, they run out of breath and this prompts an attentional change. Same needs to happen imo in discerning good grains from bad.
The grains consumed throughout the vast period of agricultural settlement bear almost no relationship to the grains we are offered today. Originally for ex corn was a small thing, not this big puffed up thing we think of and are familiar with. It’s nutritional profile was completely different to the corn that we eat today. It conferred evolutionary advantages that are simply not available from the same named item we use today. It’s a completely different food. Grains such as Spelt a form of wheat, have not been messed with too much and are much closer to the original version compared the bulk of the wheat we know as wheat. Sometimes Spelt bread is tolerated even by those with adverse reactions to "wheat".
Another change that has had a vast impact on how we eat was the invention of refrigeration. That one's about 100 years old Obviously it’s benefits have been massive and we are better off for it, but what can get lost in the translation is that it pretty much led to the elimination of fermented foods from the modern diet. Iow have we evolved adequately, physically to cope with this profound change. If you want to eat as your ancestors have done for thousands of years, this needs to be a consideration. Not sure if Paleo diet addresses this, but imho the elimination of fermented foods from the modern diet is a causative factor in many health problems. Ask any doctor about the variety of diseases that originate via the gut, or via incomplete digestion of nutrients – they cover a lot of ground. Of course having stripped them from the diet, we now have to consume these essential pro-biotics in pill form, which is good for business and a widely accepted treatment in mainstream medicine. Resveretrol for example a possible breakthrough development, is derived from fermented grapes. Probiotics and their fermented food products are beneficial for health www3.interscience.wiley.com
For ex. the debate about the benefits of industrial or toxic beef as compared to those of pasture raised beef focuses just on a few scientifically isolated aspects. The discussion endures, yet what's not accounted for is the fact that the meat available now is largely not being consumed in the same way as meat of old. Obviously some was eaten very fresh, but also large amounts of it had to be cured, which is a sort of fermentation process that alters the molecular structure of the meat, to the point of making something that would normally have gone off within a few days, digestable and fit for consumption. These days I believe there are chemical processes applied that mimic such mechanisms, some forms of “aged” beef for example. While the molecular changes taking place might be almost identical, neigh indistinguishable, these food items are not the same thing. Take a yogurt that has been fermented the old fashioned way, and compare it to a mass market yogurt which has been catalyzed via the same chemical pathways by the addition of chemical starters, taste them, look at them, feel them, these are entirely different products. Even adding in the scientifically same enzymes does not bring you to the same thing. Take bread, a sour dough rye for example, packed with pro-biotics, completely different entity to a loaf of refined white. Take naturally fermented cheeses compared to the mass market plastic that goes by the same name these days, same thing. Traditionally fermented or pickled or somehow preserved foods formed a much larger part of the diet than they do now. These foods have already started to break down, they are full of bacteria that are beneficial to the health of the digestive system and thereby contribute to one’s overall health. Sauerkraut in the west or natto in the east are more examples. I don’t think you need to run around eating tons of fermented foods, they are very powerful and overuse especially over long periods of time can itself lead to an acid imbalance on account of their generally strong astringency. As part of a balanced diet though, eating some amount of naturally fermented food, even if only every now and then is highly beneficial imo.
Beef is the best source of Carnitine. It has a lot to do with how fatty acids get converted to energy and as such is a crucial building block for your energy producing engine. Vegetarians are cautioned to watch out for Carnitine deficiency, which can present as a reduced ability to exercise via the rapid onset of fatigue, and feelings of weakness and/or muscle pain after exercise. As you age, the need for Carnitine increases, especially after about 40. Same with ALA or alpha lipoic acid and CoQ10 for that matter. All three are vital for the production of energy in every cell of your body and have been found to rejuvenate mitochondrial function to much more youthful levels. Together with fish oils and a suitable diet, they can often help with weight loss.
I am a meat eater, but I try not to overconsume. My caution is not to suggest that anyone should not eat meat, I’m saying think about and know what you’re doing. |
