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Avoid oils in general. They're mostly devoid of nutrition (i.e. no fiber, lacking vitamins and minerals compared to the food source) and only contain fat https:

by spraak 8y ago

Avoid oils in general. They're mostly devoid of nutrition (i.e. no fiber, lacking vitamins and minerals compared to the food source) and only contain fat https://youtu.be/LbtwwZP4Yfs https://youtu.be/LbtwwZP4Yfs

leethargo 8y ago
Thanks for the link. This seems mostly in line with what I read in "The Mostly Plant Diet" [1]: > Fats: Especially avoid trans fats and vegetable (seed) oils, but also other cooking oils, even olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, sesame oil, etc. Enjoy whole olives, whole coconut, whole avocados, whole walnuts, and whole sesame seeds instead. They are naturally packaged with many nutrients and fiber, which is stripped out when processed to make oil. [1] http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/mostly-plant-diet/ http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/mostly-plant-diet/
neuroma 8y ago
spraak's point on preferring whole source foods seems sound. Having watched this video though, it presents a fringe view on dietary lipids, and is full of dubious logic. The presenter gains academic credos by flashing up various small studies very briefly, but never examines their interpretability, nor considers the counterpoint. Perhaps there is a larger issues here of vegans over-eating poor quality lipids, which he is trying to address.
- spraak 8y ago
  I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources
AnthonBerg 8y ago
There is no reason to avoid fat. Here is one instance of an easily accessible peer-reviewed-science-based list of the current knowledge on dietary fat: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/t/fat https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/t/fat It does not show that oils or fat are something to blanket avoid.
- spraak 8y ago
  I didn't say to avoid fat, I said to avoid extracted fats (oils). Whole food fats e.g. the olive instead of olive oil is fine
  - tom_mellior 8y ago
    Olives make a good snack, olive oil doesn't. Olive oil is great for frying things in, whole (or even sliced) olives aren't. It's silly to pretend that you can pick one and live your life without the other. Or that there is never a need for some sort of cooking fat.
    - spraak 8y ago
      Because you're assuming maintaining the same eating habits. I have literally consumed no overt oils for a year now, have had no need for a cooking fat, and have had no lack in creative dishes. I eat flavorful curries, soups, etc. If I want something similar to sauted, I can use water or broth. If I want something crispy, I can bake. You just lack creative imagination to see that it's possible.
  - maxlybbert 8y ago
    About a year ago, I started looking into current nutritional advice. One thing that stood out was that the average American used to get 40% of their calories from fat and 1/6 of Americans were obese. The government recommended reducing fat to less than 30% of overall calories, and, amazingly, Americans actually followed the recommendation. We now get about 30% of our calories from fat, and 1/3 of us are obese. That doesn’t say much about what kind of fat we’re eating (e.g., if it’s oil), but the advice to reduce calories from fat was based on them being empty calories. It appears that they also help people feel full longer. Personally, when I eat a salad for lunch, it doesn’t bother me that literally 85% of the calories come from fat (15 calories for the lettuce, 90 calories for the salad dressing). Even if I have low-fat salad dressing (30 calories), I’m getting 66% of my calories from fat. Then again , maybe I’m reading the data wrong: it’s possible to reduce the percentage of calories coming from fat by eating the same amount of fat, and more food overall. Maybe Americans just did that.
ensiferum 8y ago
Wrong. Quality fats are not only essential but also good for you for example: olive oils, Avocado oils. Avoid (cheap) vegetable oils such as sunflower and rapeseed oils and the derived products with hydrogenated oils, such as margarines.
- latch 8y ago
  He's saying to prefer the whole food (the "source") over the raw oil. Doesn't seem that wrong. Also, this health guide lists sunflower and "cheap" canola as examples of good unsaturated fats.
  - _up 8y ago
    I wonder now if this Guide is also sponsored by the Agriculture and Health Industry. Processed food and sugar are the real things people should avoid.
    - maxlybbert 8y ago
      It sounds like Canada’s guide followed the same path that the US’s did: the original USDA food pyramid was influenced by lobbying and recommended lots of carbohydrates and milk. It also suffered from the fact that there was no attempt to have people follow the diet to see its effects before the USDA recommended it to the whole country. Over the past twenty years, the USDA has quietly been revising the recommendations (they make a big deal when they issue new recommendations and websites to distribute them, but they don’t say much about what actually changed each time). My favorite example is that a doctor once recommended that I follow the DASH diet to lower my blood pressure. The DASH diet was a modified version of the 1990s food pyramid. A relatively recent study compared it with diets that get fewer calories from carbohydrates, and while all the diets they tried did lower blood pressure, the original DASH diet was the worst of the bunch ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236092/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236092/ ).
abainbridge 8y ago
There's some evidence that olive oil is directly good for the heart: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/101/1/44/4564320 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/101/1/44/4564320
- spraak 8y ago
  That study compares different olive oils, not olive oil vs e.g. whole olives. Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book explains how oils like olive oil are in general not good for the arteries.
  - abainbridge 8y ago
    Dr Greger's claims seem to contradict the bulk of academic opinion. Maybe he's right, but when I search, I tend to find things like these: "Olive oil is well known for its cardioprotective properties" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006416 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006416 "In conclusion, the aggregated evidence supports the assertion that olive oil consumption is beneficial for human health" - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512218306522 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037851221... "In conclusion, olive oil consumption was related to a reduced risk of incident CHD events." - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/olive-oil-intake-and-chd-in-the-european-prospective-investigation-into-cancer-and-nutrition-spanish-cohort/7063564001F33C9352147192ADB8C4C3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n... "Higher baseline total olive oil consumption was associated with 48% (HR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.29 to 0.93) reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030221/ "In this experiment, it seems that taking 20ml of raw olive oil – either extra virgin or ‘normal’ – can have a positive effect on our hearts." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5VfZ307/is-olive-oil-really-good-for-me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5Vf...
Escolte 8y ago
As someone from Spain, a place that's soon gonna have the highest life expectancy in the world, yeah we're not removing olive oil from about 50% of the "core" dishes that we regularly eat. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat-japan-2040-world-life-expectancy-league-table https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat-... https://www.oliveoilmarket.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3.png https://www.oliveoilmarket.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3.p...
- spraak 8y ago
  I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources on why one would want to avoid oils in favor of the whole plant source. Looking at longevity, it's relative and multifaceted - maybe oils aren't as damaging as not exercising, but it doesn't make them healthy.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    I'd trust the people consuming them (and living to 100+) over some Dr that looks way older than his 46 years... (Yeah, it's multifaceted, but it's not true that olive oil is "devoid of nutricional value" as someone wrote above (it has antioxidants, omega-6, oleic acid, and so on).
    - spraak 8y ago
      You know that's fallacious logic, right? Olive oil is devoid of value in comparison to olives. It has no fiber and stripped of minerals and vitamins.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        We're talking about oil here. Where do the olives come in? When I want oil in my cooking it is for what it tastes, and what recipes it affords. If I want to fry with oil or put dressing in my salad, another oil might do the trick: olives are irrelevant. Might as well have compared olive oil to a broccoli or almonds... The fact that it has "no fiber" is also irrelevant as to whether it has nutritional value (fibers are not digested anyway, and I'm not looking into oil for fibers in the first place).
spraak 8y ago
Replying to my own comment since it's too late to edit: I don't mean avoid fats, I mean avoid extracted fats. Oils lack fiber and much of the nutrition that the whole food has. I.e. eat olives over olive oil, avocados over avocado oil, etc. I understand it sounds crazy, and yes it's not easy, but for my family's health it's been worth it. We've all found great benefit in different ways. Also Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book is a better source than the YouTube video I linked.
jdietrich 8y ago
It doesn't make a blind bit of difference. As long as you're a) not obese, b) not eating too much sugar and b) eating reasonable quantities of vegetables, everything else is a rounding error. Read just about any study on nutrition and you'll see negligible effect sizes at the very cusp of statistical significance. All of the confusion about what we're supposed to eat derives from this simple fact. We've got all sorts of data suggesting that this diet or this food might be good for you, but the effect sizes are too small to care about. If you obsessively tweak your diet based on every little scrap of data, you might possibly earn yourself three or four months of healthy life expectancy compared to a diet that your great-grandmother would recognise as being sensible. It's just not worth the effort.

by spraak 8y ago

leethargo 8y ago

Thanks for the link. This seems mostly in line with what I read in "The Mostly Plant Diet" [1]: > Fats: Especially avoid trans fats and vegetable (seed) oils, but also other cooking oils, even olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, sesame oil, etc. Enjoy whole olives, whole coconut, whole avocados, whole walnuts, and whole sesame seeds instead. They are naturally packaged with many nutrients and fiber, which is stripped out when processed to make oil. [1] http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/mostly-plant-diet/ http://www.humansarenotbroken.com/mostly-plant-diet/

neuroma 8y ago

spraak's point on preferring whole source foods seems sound. Having watched this video though, it presents a fringe view on dietary lipids, and is full of dubious logic. The presenter gains academic credos by flashing up various small studies very briefly, but never examines their interpretability, nor considers the counterpoint. Perhaps there is a larger issues here of vegans over-eating poor quality lipids, which he is trying to address.

spraak 8y ago
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources

AnthonBerg 8y ago

There is no reason to avoid fat. Here is one instance of an easily accessible peer-reviewed-science-based list of the current knowledge on dietary fat: https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/t/fat https://www.foundmyfitness.com/news/t/fat It does not show that oils or fat are something to blanket avoid.

spraak 8y ago
I didn't say to avoid fat, I said to avoid extracted fats (oils). Whole food fats e.g. the olive instead of olive oil is fine
- tom_mellior 8y ago
  Olives make a good snack, olive oil doesn't. Olive oil is great for frying things in, whole (or even sliced) olives aren't. It's silly to pretend that you can pick one and live your life without the other. Or that there is never a need for some sort of cooking fat.
  - spraak 8y ago
    Because you're assuming maintaining the same eating habits. I have literally consumed no overt oils for a year now, have had no need for a cooking fat, and have had no lack in creative dishes. I eat flavorful curries, soups, etc. If I want something similar to sauted, I can use water or broth. If I want something crispy, I can bake. You just lack creative imagination to see that it's possible.
- maxlybbert 8y ago
  About a year ago, I started looking into current nutritional advice. One thing that stood out was that the average American used to get 40% of their calories from fat and 1/6 of Americans were obese. The government recommended reducing fat to less than 30% of overall calories, and, amazingly, Americans actually followed the recommendation. We now get about 30% of our calories from fat, and 1/3 of us are obese. That doesn’t say much about what kind of fat we’re eating (e.g., if it’s oil), but the advice to reduce calories from fat was based on them being empty calories. It appears that they also help people feel full longer. Personally, when I eat a salad for lunch, it doesn’t bother me that literally 85% of the calories come from fat (15 calories for the lettuce, 90 calories for the salad dressing). Even if I have low-fat salad dressing (30 calories), I’m getting 66% of my calories from fat. Then again , maybe I’m reading the data wrong: it’s possible to reduce the percentage of calories coming from fat by eating the same amount of fat, and more food overall. Maybe Americans just did that.

ensiferum 8y ago

Wrong. Quality fats are not only essential but also good for you for example: olive oils, Avocado oils. Avoid (cheap) vegetable oils such as sunflower and rapeseed oils and the derived products with hydrogenated oils, such as margarines.

latch 8y ago
He's saying to prefer the whole food (the "source") over the raw oil. Doesn't seem that wrong. Also, this health guide lists sunflower and "cheap" canola as examples of good unsaturated fats.
- _up 8y ago
  I wonder now if this Guide is also sponsored by the Agriculture and Health Industry. Processed food and sugar are the real things people should avoid.
  - maxlybbert 8y ago
    It sounds like Canada’s guide followed the same path that the US’s did: the original USDA food pyramid was influenced by lobbying and recommended lots of carbohydrates and milk. It also suffered from the fact that there was no attempt to have people follow the diet to see its effects before the USDA recommended it to the whole country. Over the past twenty years, the USDA has quietly been revising the recommendations (they make a big deal when they issue new recommendations and websites to distribute them, but they don’t say much about what actually changed each time). My favorite example is that a doctor once recommended that I follow the DASH diet to lower my blood pressure. The DASH diet was a modified version of the 1990s food pyramid. A relatively recent study compared it with diets that get fewer calories from carbohydrates, and while all the diets they tried did lower blood pressure, the original DASH diet was the worst of the bunch ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236092/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3236092/ ).

abainbridge 8y ago

There's some evidence that olive oil is directly good for the heart: https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/101/1/44/4564320 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/101/1/44/4564320

spraak 8y ago
That study compares different olive oils, not olive oil vs e.g. whole olives. Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book explains how oils like olive oil are in general not good for the arteries.
- abainbridge 8y ago
  Dr Greger's claims seem to contradict the bulk of academic opinion. Maybe he's right, but when I search, I tend to find things like these: "Olive oil is well known for its cardioprotective properties" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006416 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006416 "In conclusion, the aggregated evidence supports the assertion that olive oil consumption is beneficial for human health" - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378512218306522 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037851221... "In conclusion, olive oil consumption was related to a reduced risk of incident CHD events." - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/olive-oil-intake-and-chd-in-the-european-prospective-investigation-into-cancer-and-nutrition-spanish-cohort/7063564001F33C9352147192ADB8C4C3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n... "Higher baseline total olive oil consumption was associated with 48% (HR: 0.52; 95% CI: 0.29 to 0.93) reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality" - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030221/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4030221/ "In this experiment, it seems that taking 20ml of raw olive oil – either extra virgin or ‘normal’ – can have a positive effect on our hearts." - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5VfZ307/is-olive-oil-really-good-for-me https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/tWtLcz30LZm3YTk5Vf...

Escolte 8y ago

As someone from Spain, a place that's soon gonna have the highest life expectancy in the world, yeah we're not removing olive oil from about 50% of the "core" dishes that we regularly eat. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat-japan-2040-world-life-expectancy-league-table https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/16/spain-to-beat-... https://www.oliveoilmarket.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3.png https://www.oliveoilmarket.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/3.p...

spraak 8y ago
I don't have the book at hand right now to cite exact pages, but Dr. Greger's "How Not to Die" has a much better explanation and cited sources on why one would want to avoid oils in favor of the whole plant source. Looking at longevity, it's relative and multifaceted - maybe oils aren't as damaging as not exercising, but it doesn't make them healthy.
- coldtea 8y ago
  I'd trust the people consuming them (and living to 100+) over some Dr that looks way older than his 46 years... (Yeah, it's multifaceted, but it's not true that olive oil is "devoid of nutricional value" as someone wrote above (it has antioxidants, omega-6, oleic acid, and so on).
  - spraak 8y ago
    You know that's fallacious logic, right? Olive oil is devoid of value in comparison to olives. It has no fiber and stripped of minerals and vitamins.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      We're talking about oil here. Where do the olives come in? When I want oil in my cooking it is for what it tastes, and what recipes it affords. If I want to fry with oil or put dressing in my salad, another oil might do the trick: olives are irrelevant. Might as well have compared olive oil to a broccoli or almonds... The fact that it has "no fiber" is also irrelevant as to whether it has nutritional value (fibers are not digested anyway, and I'm not looking into oil for fibers in the first place).

spraak 8y ago

Replying to my own comment since it's too late to edit: I don't mean avoid fats, I mean avoid extracted fats. Oils lack fiber and much of the nutrition that the whole food has. I.e. eat olives over olive oil, avocados over avocado oil, etc. I understand it sounds crazy, and yes it's not easy, but for my family's health it's been worth it. We've all found great benefit in different ways. Also Dr Greger's "How Not to Die" book is a better source than the YouTube video I linked.

jdietrich 8y ago

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference. As long as you're a) not obese, b) not eating too much sugar and b) eating reasonable quantities of vegetables, everything else is a rounding error. Read just about any study on nutrition and you'll see negligible effect sizes at the very cusp of statistical significance. All of the confusion about what we're supposed to eat derives from this simple fact. We've got all sorts of data suggesting that this diet or this food might be good for you, but the effect sizes are too small to care about. If you obsessively tweak your diet based on every little scrap of data, you might possibly earn yourself three or four months of healthy life expectancy compared to a diet that your great-grandmother would recognise as being sensible. It's just not worth the effort.