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> There is so much wrong with your post that I don't even know where to begin. There is so much going on in these posts that I don't even know where to begin.

> There is so much wrong with your post that I don't even know where to begin. There is so much going on in these posts that I don't even know where to begin. Above poster makes claims. I'm like "I don't know nutrition, but this sounds good". You make counter-claims. "Those sound good too". Crap. Now I can start digging into your respective sources...but of course those will just be people making claims too, they just get different sources of authority. This happens everywhere anymore. Do guns improve safety? Are immigrants bad for the economy? Do immigrants commit more crime? Is climate change real? With the Alabama abortion ban in the news I looked into rates, but couldn't find good numbers. (Superficially it looks like there are 10x the number of abortions than infant mortality, but good luck figuring out how many of those abortions were purely voluntary and not due to health reasons). Trying not to be misled feels both futile and exhausting. Not ripping on your post at all, just reacting to the pent-up emotions it evoked.

ianai 7y ago
Actually, one option is to consider the dietary trends common to blue zones-cultures of the world with the highest rates of centenarians. Their diets share plant based, whole foods as a commonality. Some of these diets include animals, but sparingly. A fun read for this was “how not to die.” But there are many sources of info on plant based whole food diets. Edit-the conception that any animal food would be more economical than plants/whole foods is suspect in itself. I’m familiar with the societal meme of “eating beans and rice to save money.” Never heard similar for animal foods.
- metanoia 7y ago
  I've tried both ends of the spectrum (hard paleo/keto, and vegan) and find, that, n=1, for me, mostly plants, a small amount (10-20% roughly) super-nutrient dense, high quality animal, works the best long-term. There are benefits to going to the extremes temporarily but I think what Blue Zones highlights is that these are long-term sustainable diets and not fad diets designed to (detox | reduce weight | build muscle | etc). The Blue Zones diets are also unique in that they're not "ancestral" but are currently working today.
  - ianai 7y ago
    You’re a good person to ask this then. Can you do paleo/keto plant based/whole foods? Or are beans/nuts not allowed at all.
    - QuantumAphid 7y ago
      It's usually best to start out with your goals. What is your primary goal? Weight loss, fitness, longetivity? If it's weight loss, there are generally three (successful) ways to go about it: 1. Change nothing in your diet, but eat fewer (but larger) meals per day while maintaining a calorie deficit for your age/gender/weight. This is known as intermittent fasting. It may or may not work for you. 2. Eat mostly plants and/or low-fat meats such as chicken (and low fat fish). Plants are carby, so you'll need to keep your total calories from fat under 10% or the plant carbs will block fat burning. This diet tends to be a difficult adjustment for many, since it is a bit like eating like a rabbit. 3. Eat as few carbs as possible, and get your calories from predominantly meat (aka carnivore diet) or fat (keto diet) or a mix. Aim for > 65% calories from fat (while still keeping under daily calorie expenditure). Both carnivor or keto lend themselves well to lipolysis aka fat burning, especially if you also layer in intermittent fasting from item #1 in this list. If you don't like meat/dairy or fat, this option is pretty much dead-in-the-water. There are a ton of sources for all of the above approaches and their various rules, tips and pitfalls. I recommend trying each for 6-8 weeks and seeing which diets feel like something you could see yourself living with for the next 12-18 months.
    - metanoia 7y ago
      Do whatever feels good and keeps your energy up and mind sharp. You may experience a significant positive shift with a new diet but when you feel like it's not helping, or even hurting, don't blindly stick to it - re-evaluate and change things up. I personally don't have the microbiome for beans (not to mention the high phytate [antinutrient] concentration), but I do eat macadamia nuts because they have a good omega 6:3 ratio (ideally close to 1:1 for Americans because our diet is generally very high in omega 6 from vegetable oils). It is certainly possible to do keto completely plant based but you'll be eating a lot of macadamias, avocados and coconut oil, and a lot of leafy greens with maybe some low-sugar citrus like lime and lemon mixed in for flavor. Don't think that's sustainable for very long but could be a good cleanse. Not a plant keto expert (or any expert, or a doctor, or nutritionist, or lawyer, or your lawyer....so do your research.) I agree with QuantumAphid's suggestions for you, especially around intermittent fasting. IF is like your body's garbage collection process - stop eating long enough (ideally 16 hours) and your body starts to divert metabolic processes towards cleanup and restoration [1] in addition to burning fat for weight loss [2]. A combination of this and choosing a relatively low carb diet with high quality (organic) plant foods is great. For animal foods, go with pasture raised/grass fed - you want your food eating the food it naturally eats, not some processed, bastardized grain byproduct out of a freight car shipped from ADM or Cargill. For now and the foreseeable future, minimize fish. If you really want fish, go with wild-caught Alaskan salmon or small fish like another poster said. Sardines are great. Stay at the bottom of the food chain... but monitor mercury levels over time. Seems like Pacific ocean mercury is on the rise from Chinese/Indian coal burning and Atlantic is finally on the decline from coal plants in the US closing down. I will have to strongly caution against going long term carnivore or keto, however. Regardless of the quality of your meat products, animals still have metabolic processes that concentrate toxins, especially higher in the food chain. You need to set your body up for success by giving it a varied diet with nutrients from different kinds of food. This is anecdata on my part, but a combination of plants, which tend to detoxify and animals, which tend to nourish is my preferred long-term diet. It's not a popular stance out there because only extremes sell these days, but I am in favor of a balanced diet, a little of everything, mostly plants, and high-quality animal organ meats. Ruthlessly eliminate processed/fast and most packaged foods. My wife says this: is it food that your great grandmother would recognize as food? If not, don't eat it. My wife and I have tried the extremes and have harmed ourselves, and had to recover from deficits. Each camp has their "just stick to it" reasons; there are many well-meaning people on the internet that are pro-vegan or pro-keto/paleo/carnivore and you have to assume that there is a need to continue getting clicks. There also may be a strong survivorship bias out there... however, the vegan survivorship bias is starting to show cracks (google "Rawvana" for details). [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371748/
SolaceQuantum 7y ago
In this case, one side is citing at least one source from a world reknowned organization that is respected to actually know what health is. The other side has no sources provided whatsoever.
- sridca 7y ago
  You won't get to facts via appealing to authority. WHO has been wrong for example in regards to meat and cancer: http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ When you get right down to it, the only plausible evidence to suggest that red meat might be risky to human colon health is contained in two, that’s TWO, human studies, both of which were very small and poorly designed, and therefore unable to give us useful information about the effects of red meat on cancer risk. These studies are inconclusive at best, and worthless at worst.
  - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
    “Diagnosis Diet” is being cited as an authority over the WHO? Are you serious?
    - sridca 7y ago
      The appeal to authority on this one is pathetically strong.
nonbirithm 7y ago
Specifically for diet, I feel exactly like this every time I try to get nutrition advice, online or elsewhere. It seems like everyone disagrees, but in the end I don't have a concrete answer to "how do I not die" and have to choose something as eating is an obligation. Eventually I decided to stick to simple foods like lentils on a daily basis and to stay away from processed things. I feel hungrier on average, but I guess it's a tradeoff for not dying too early. I tend to remember Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
- Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
  > I don't have a concrete answer to "how do I not die" Michael Greger, MD does: How Not to Die [0]. Basically, to save you from reading the book, go vegan. He has a great cookbook too based on the advice in the book [1]. His nutritionfacts.org site in general is an excellent, science/fact-based resource. [0] https://nutritionfacts.org/book/ https://nutritionfacts.org/book/ [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/cookbook/ https://nutritionfacts.org/cookbook/
  - QuantumAphid 7y ago
    Except that as a vegan you will need to take supplements in order to fill many of the nutrient gaps in the diet. Very noble diet/ethos for many reasons, but it is not optimized for nutrition, it's optimized for other goals.
    - hsudheh 7y ago
      No you do not. You are misinformed.
    - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
      Any diet will have “nutrient gaps”. Virtually anyone regardless of diet would benefit from magnesium, vitamin D, and a good probiotic. Also, EPA/DHA is really powerful stuff.
      - 7y ago
sridca 7y ago
> Trying not to be misled feels both futile and exhausting. Why not try these different diets for yourself and see how you feel? Find out the facts for yourself via self-experimentation instead of listening to "experts" or their regurgitating followers. That's how I -- and few others (cf. http://meatheals.com/ http://meatheals.com/ ) -- discovered the diet I thrive on.
- Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
  HackerNews is the last place I’d expect to find a “zero carb” pseudoscience follower —- but, there you are. Your diet is accelerating your cancer risk. Please be aware of that.
  - sridca 7y ago
    > HackerNews is the last place I’d expect I know that HackerNews has a vegan/ vegetarian bias in the recent years if not all the way back to 2010[1], however fortunately that seems to be changing, as evidenced by the parent comment by QuantumAphid saying "Rice, lentils, beans, all are much less nutrient dense than most animal foods." still at the top of this thread. > a “zero carb” pseudoscience follower Laymen like you often use science and rhetoric to advance a dietary agenda. What's hilarious is that you are not actually interested in advancing scientific knowledge. Do you read studies in detail enough to critique them[2]? Find out its faults? Nope. Nevermind that calling me a "pseudoscience follower" amounts to personal attack, and is prohibited in Hacker News - but you have no idea what lead me to this way of eating. And why don't you take out your anonymous mask? > Your diet is accelerating your cancer risk. This is nothing but fear mongering. If meat is so carcinogenic, why was cancer so uncommon until the last century or so? We are not eating any more meat now than we did a hundred years ago, yet cancer incidence is skyrocketing. So, why do we believe that meat causes cancer? There have been numerous research studies claiming to tie red meat to cancer (particularly colon cancer), however, these were weak epidemiological studies, and are not representative of results in the field as a whole. The fact is that studies of meat and cancer yield very mixed results. Many studies show no connection at all between meat and cancer, and some studies even show a protective benefit. There is simply no solid scientific evidence to support the belief that red meat increases cancer risk. This did not stop the World Health Organization (WHO) from proclaiming to the planet in October 2015 that red and processed meats cause cancer. Unfortunately, the WHO report is all smoke and mirrors[3]. > Please be aware of that. I'm more than aware of people like with an anti-meat agenda arousing fear in public minds. It is no wonder that nutritional science is in the state that it currently is. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1932295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1932295 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/comments/adfowt/how_not_to_die_by_dr_michael_greger_a_critical/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/comments/adfowt... [3] http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/

ianai 7y ago

Actually, one option is to consider the dietary trends common to blue zones-cultures of the world with the highest rates of centenarians. Their diets share plant based, whole foods as a commonality. Some of these diets include animals, but sparingly. A fun read for this was “how not to die.” But there are many sources of info on plant based whole food diets. Edit-the conception that any animal food would be more economical than plants/whole foods is suspect in itself. I’m familiar with the societal meme of “eating beans and rice to save money.” Never heard similar for animal foods.

metanoia 7y ago
I've tried both ends of the spectrum (hard paleo/keto, and vegan) and find, that, n=1, for me, mostly plants, a small amount (10-20% roughly) super-nutrient dense, high quality animal, works the best long-term. There are benefits to going to the extremes temporarily but I think what Blue Zones highlights is that these are long-term sustainable diets and not fad diets designed to (detox | reduce weight | build muscle | etc). The Blue Zones diets are also unique in that they're not "ancestral" but are currently working today.
- ianai 7y ago
  You’re a good person to ask this then. Can you do paleo/keto plant based/whole foods? Or are beans/nuts not allowed at all.
  - QuantumAphid 7y ago
    It's usually best to start out with your goals. What is your primary goal? Weight loss, fitness, longetivity? If it's weight loss, there are generally three (successful) ways to go about it: 1. Change nothing in your diet, but eat fewer (but larger) meals per day while maintaining a calorie deficit for your age/gender/weight. This is known as intermittent fasting. It may or may not work for you. 2. Eat mostly plants and/or low-fat meats such as chicken (and low fat fish). Plants are carby, so you'll need to keep your total calories from fat under 10% or the plant carbs will block fat burning. This diet tends to be a difficult adjustment for many, since it is a bit like eating like a rabbit. 3. Eat as few carbs as possible, and get your calories from predominantly meat (aka carnivore diet) or fat (keto diet) or a mix. Aim for > 65% calories from fat (while still keeping under daily calorie expenditure). Both carnivor or keto lend themselves well to lipolysis aka fat burning, especially if you also layer in intermittent fasting from item #1 in this list. If you don't like meat/dairy or fat, this option is pretty much dead-in-the-water. There are a ton of sources for all of the above approaches and their various rules, tips and pitfalls. I recommend trying each for 6-8 weeks and seeing which diets feel like something you could see yourself living with for the next 12-18 months.
  - metanoia 7y ago
    Do whatever feels good and keeps your energy up and mind sharp. You may experience a significant positive shift with a new diet but when you feel like it's not helping, or even hurting, don't blindly stick to it - re-evaluate and change things up. I personally don't have the microbiome for beans (not to mention the high phytate [antinutrient] concentration), but I do eat macadamia nuts because they have a good omega 6:3 ratio (ideally close to 1:1 for Americans because our diet is generally very high in omega 6 from vegetable oils). It is certainly possible to do keto completely plant based but you'll be eating a lot of macadamias, avocados and coconut oil, and a lot of leafy greens with maybe some low-sugar citrus like lime and lemon mixed in for flavor. Don't think that's sustainable for very long but could be a good cleanse. Not a plant keto expert (or any expert, or a doctor, or nutritionist, or lawyer, or your lawyer....so do your research.) I agree with QuantumAphid's suggestions for you, especially around intermittent fasting. IF is like your body's garbage collection process - stop eating long enough (ideally 16 hours) and your body starts to divert metabolic processes towards cleanup and restoration [1] in addition to burning fat for weight loss [2]. A combination of this and choosing a relatively low carb diet with high quality (organic) plant foods is great. For animal foods, go with pasture raised/grass fed - you want your food eating the food it naturally eats, not some processed, bastardized grain byproduct out of a freight car shipped from ADM or Cargill. For now and the foreseeable future, minimize fish. If you really want fish, go with wild-caught Alaskan salmon or small fish like another poster said. Sardines are great. Stay at the bottom of the food chain... but monitor mercury levels over time. Seems like Pacific ocean mercury is on the rise from Chinese/Indian coal burning and Atlantic is finally on the decline from coal plants in the US closing down. I will have to strongly caution against going long term carnivore or keto, however. Regardless of the quality of your meat products, animals still have metabolic processes that concentrate toxins, especially higher in the food chain. You need to set your body up for success by giving it a varied diet with nutrients from different kinds of food. This is anecdata on my part, but a combination of plants, which tend to detoxify and animals, which tend to nourish is my preferred long-term diet. It's not a popular stance out there because only extremes sell these days, but I am in favor of a balanced diet, a little of everything, mostly plants, and high-quality animal organ meats. Ruthlessly eliminate processed/fast and most packaged foods. My wife says this: is it food that your great grandmother would recognize as food? If not, don't eat it. My wife and I have tried the extremes and have harmed ourselves, and had to recover from deficits. Each camp has their "just stick to it" reasons; there are many well-meaning people on the internet that are pro-vegan or pro-keto/paleo/carnivore and you have to assume that there is a need to continue getting clicks. There also may be a strong survivorship bias out there... however, the vegan survivorship bias is starting to show cracks (google "Rawvana" for details). [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371748/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371748/

SolaceQuantum 7y ago

In this case, one side is citing at least one source from a world reknowned organization that is respected to actually know what health is. The other side has no sources provided whatsoever.

sridca 7y ago
You won't get to facts via appealing to authority. WHO has been wrong for example in regards to meat and cancer: http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ When you get right down to it, the only plausible evidence to suggest that red meat might be risky to human colon health is contained in two, that’s TWO, human studies, both of which were very small and poorly designed, and therefore unable to give us useful information about the effects of red meat on cancer risk. These studies are inconclusive at best, and worthless at worst.
- Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
  “Diagnosis Diet” is being cited as an authority over the WHO? Are you serious?
  - sridca 7y ago
    The appeal to authority on this one is pathetically strong.

nonbirithm 7y ago

Specifically for diet, I feel exactly like this every time I try to get nutrition advice, online or elsewhere. It seems like everyone disagrees, but in the end I don't have a concrete answer to "how do I not die" and have to choose something as eating is an obligation. Eventually I decided to stick to simple foods like lentils on a daily basis and to stay away from processed things. I feel hungrier on average, but I guess it's a tradeoff for not dying too early. I tend to remember Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
> I don't have a concrete answer to "how do I not die" Michael Greger, MD does: How Not to Die [0]. Basically, to save you from reading the book, go vegan. He has a great cookbook too based on the advice in the book [1]. His nutritionfacts.org site in general is an excellent, science/fact-based resource. [0] https://nutritionfacts.org/book/ https://nutritionfacts.org/book/ [1] https://nutritionfacts.org/cookbook/ https://nutritionfacts.org/cookbook/
- QuantumAphid 7y ago
  Except that as a vegan you will need to take supplements in order to fill many of the nutrient gaps in the diet. Very noble diet/ethos for many reasons, but it is not optimized for nutrition, it's optimized for other goals.
  - hsudheh 7y ago
    No you do not. You are misinformed.
  - Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
    Any diet will have “nutrient gaps”. Virtually anyone regardless of diet would benefit from magnesium, vitamin D, and a good probiotic. Also, EPA/DHA is really powerful stuff.
    - 7y ago

sridca 7y ago

> Trying not to be misled feels both futile and exhausting. Why not try these different diets for yourself and see how you feel? Find out the facts for yourself via self-experimentation instead of listening to "experts" or their regurgitating followers. That's how I -- and few others (cf. http://meatheals.com/ http://meatheals.com/ ) -- discovered the diet I thrive on.

Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
HackerNews is the last place I’d expect to find a “zero carb” pseudoscience follower —- but, there you are. Your diet is accelerating your cancer risk. Please be aware of that.
- sridca 7y ago
  > HackerNews is the last place I’d expect I know that HackerNews has a vegan/ vegetarian bias in the recent years if not all the way back to 2010[1], however fortunately that seems to be changing, as evidenced by the parent comment by QuantumAphid saying "Rice, lentils, beans, all are much less nutrient dense than most animal foods." still at the top of this thread. > a “zero carb” pseudoscience follower Laymen like you often use science and rhetoric to advance a dietary agenda. What's hilarious is that you are not actually interested in advancing scientific knowledge. Do you read studies in detail enough to critique them[2]? Find out its faults? Nope. Nevermind that calling me a "pseudoscience follower" amounts to personal attack, and is prohibited in Hacker News - but you have no idea what lead me to this way of eating. And why don't you take out your anonymous mask? > Your diet is accelerating your cancer risk. This is nothing but fear mongering. If meat is so carcinogenic, why was cancer so uncommon until the last century or so? We are not eating any more meat now than we did a hundred years ago, yet cancer incidence is skyrocketing. So, why do we believe that meat causes cancer? There have been numerous research studies claiming to tie red meat to cancer (particularly colon cancer), however, these were weak epidemiological studies, and are not representative of results in the field as a whole. The fact is that studies of meat and cancer yield very mixed results. Many studies show no connection at all between meat and cancer, and some studies even show a protective benefit. There is simply no solid scientific evidence to support the belief that red meat increases cancer risk. This did not stop the World Health Organization (WHO) from proclaiming to the planet in October 2015 that red and processed meats cause cancer. Unfortunately, the WHO report is all smoke and mirrors[3]. > Please be aware of that. I'm more than aware of people like with an anti-meat agenda arousing fear in public minds. It is no wonder that nutritional science is in the state that it currently is. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1932295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1932295 [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/comments/adfowt/how_not_to_die_by_dr_michael_greger_a_critical/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ScientificNutrition/comments/adfowt... [3] http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/ http://www.diagnosisdiet.com/meat-and-cancer/