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I always find it fascinating how much nutrition as a science is clearly in its infancy. It's true that rigorous science in medicine is relatively recent compare

by kirrent 10y ago

I always find it fascinating how much nutrition as a science is clearly in its infancy. It's true that rigorous science in medicine is relatively recent compared to other fields of study but in nutrition we're still seeing major changes to the consensus and guidelines. My favourite example is probably cholesterol. Nearly everyone instinctively knows that eating too much cholesterol will raise your cholesterol levels and puts you at risk of heart disease. Don't eat too many eggs or you'll go to an early death. The thing is, that view, which has been informed from the advice from authorities over the past few decades, is completely wrong. As the panel determining the Dietary Guidelines for Americans concluded in 2014 - "Cholesterol is not considered a nutrient of concern for overconsumption," and as a result, warnings about cholesterol has since been removed from the guidelines. Obviously the link between dietary and blood cholesterol is more complex than initially thought but it's still staggering to me that such a simple recommendation could have been so wrong and how government guidelines can lag the scientific consensus. It's interesting to see that much the same can be applied to salt and the solution is the same. Eat a variety of food and try to avoid as much processed food as possible.

tcj_phx 10y ago
> Eat a variety of food and try to avoid as much processed food as possible. "Vegetable oil" is the most processed of all food ingredients. Almost all cheap vegetable oils are extracted with solvents (Hexane) and steam-treated to remove odors and lighten the color. The only appropriate use for these oils is as biodiesel. Coconut oil can be refined to safely remove odors without causing the oil itself to go rancid. [1] [1] https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-refined/profile https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-refin...
- gruez 10y ago
  Hexane is used as the solvent and it's evaporated away after oil extraction, leaving behind oil. What's the issue here?
stephendedalus 10y ago
Truly in its infancy. The phrase I always use when in a grocery store is whether I'm purchasing things that are "recognizably food". Vegetables, fruits, meat all remind you of their original source or are identical to the original thing. Where food rates on this "eye test" degrades considerably as you move into more and more processed food. It's one of those things that feels common sense and the further along we get the more it appears that it's true. That eating an egg is worse for you than fat-free protein bars seems preposterous now, but there was a time when that was the orthodoxy.
mikekchar 10y ago
It seems insane, but people who are practitioners often don't follow current research. As there are a lot of programmers in this forum, I think an easy way to show this is to look at your fellow programmers. How many read and understand the current scientific papers in their field? Even relatively simple things are completely overlooked. For example, how many people who do AB testing can understand the statistics of what they are doing? We've more voodoo recommendations in our field than you can shake a stick at. Our field isn't especially lax in this area. Probably just the opposite. Most people just don't keep up. Ideas are formed in university and never change. I worked as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher for 5 years. None of my colleagues knew anything about language acquisition theory from the last 60 years (they didn't even know who Noam Chomsky was!!!). Even worse was their understanding of the current state of the art in education research. At least for language acquisition they vaguely knew people were doing research at all. For education, forget about it. As you say, nutrition is a hugely complex subject and research is still in its infancy. However, it does not surprise me at all that working nutritionists will hold on to old ideas until they die -- often passing those old ideas to the next generation. I fight against it, but I expect I will do the same as a programmer too ;-)

by kirrent 10y ago

tcj_phx 10y ago

> Eat a variety of food and try to avoid as much processed food as possible. "Vegetable oil" is the most processed of all food ingredients. Almost all cheap vegetable oils are extracted with solvents (Hexane) and steam-treated to remove odors and lighten the color. The only appropriate use for these oils is as biodiesel. Coconut oil can be refined to safely remove odors without causing the oil itself to go rancid. [1] [1] https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-refined/profile https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/products/coconut-oil-refin...

gruez 10y ago
Hexane is used as the solvent and it's evaporated away after oil extraction, leaving behind oil. What's the issue here?

stephendedalus 10y ago

Truly in its infancy. The phrase I always use when in a grocery store is whether I'm purchasing things that are "recognizably food". Vegetables, fruits, meat all remind you of their original source or are identical to the original thing. Where food rates on this "eye test" degrades considerably as you move into more and more processed food. It's one of those things that feels common sense and the further along we get the more it appears that it's true. That eating an egg is worse for you than fat-free protein bars seems preposterous now, but there was a time when that was the orthodoxy.

mikekchar 10y ago

It seems insane, but people who are practitioners often don't follow current research. As there are a lot of programmers in this forum, I think an easy way to show this is to look at your fellow programmers. How many read and understand the current scientific papers in their field? Even relatively simple things are completely overlooked. For example, how many people who do AB testing can understand the statistics of what they are doing? We've more voodoo recommendations in our field than you can shake a stick at. Our field isn't especially lax in this area. Probably just the opposite. Most people just don't keep up. Ideas are formed in university and never change. I worked as an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher for 5 years. None of my colleagues knew anything about language acquisition theory from the last 60 years (they didn't even know who Noam Chomsky was!!!). Even worse was their understanding of the current state of the art in education research. At least for language acquisition they vaguely knew people were doing research at all. For education, forget about it. As you say, nutrition is a hugely complex subject and research is still in its infancy. However, it does not surprise me at all that working nutritionists will hold on to old ideas until they die -- often passing those old ideas to the next generation. I fight against it, but I expect I will do the same as a programmer too ;-)