3 ms·

I found both your and GP's comment very interesting. The one thing that drives me crazy about nutrition is that everyone is literally saying exact opposite thi

I found both your and GP's comment very interesting. The one thing that drives me crazy about nutrition is that everyone is literally saying exact opposite things. It makes it impossible to know what is actually right. It's crazy to me how little we actually seem to know about nutrition. I don't get the same feeling from other areas of study. Most physicists seem to agree on pretty much everything besides the super new, cutting edge discoveries. Same with engineers, chemists, etc.. But in nutrition it's the exact opposite. Google "is milk good for you" and you'll get equally convincing arguments for "yes" and "no". And that's the story for almost any nutrition based question. It seems like the only option for a non-expert like myself is to just kind of wing it and try to eat vegetables and whole grain, and avoid things like sugar. But if there is one area in life that would be worth hyper-optimizing, I'd have to think it would be eating insanely healthy. It just doesn't seem feasible because I'll spend 10 years eating "healthy" only to discover that what I was eating is insanely bad for you. Why is it so hard to figure out exactly what I should be eating? Especially since billions of us are doing it, and have been doing it for thousands of years.

james4k 5y ago
Yeah, it is frustrating. I'm no expert, either. Part of the problem with nutrition is it's hard to get quality data, like how do you get long-term studies where you can control every aspect of each participant's diet and lifestyle? The best data we have is all over relatively short periods. Saturated fat is one thing there is strong consensus on. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/fats/saturated-fats https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s... https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/41/8/1732 https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/41/8/1732 I'll point out that regarding "healthy" fats, what you see in most recommendations is that replacing unhealthy fats with healthy fats improves heart health, not that adding healthy fats improves heart health. Eating less meat helps, too. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812 (surprisingly, in this particular study, white meat was about as bad as red meat)
- sjwalter 5y ago
  I've made similar comments before, but this is a neutered attitude. Needing some studies before you agree or disagree with something as fundamental as healthful eating. You can do your own scientific studies by changing your diet and feeling the results. Nutrition "science" is, like all science these days, inherently untrustworthy. "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness." Richard Horton, current editor of The Lancet. When it comes to nutritional studies, which are basically impossibly to ethically control, and are most often funded by large agribusiness concerns, and with a huge problem of only publishing studies that agree with a certain incentive set, you not only CAN but SHOULD ignore it all. And finally, anything that winds up saying meat is bad for you should raise huge amounts of skepticism. Our entire history as a species indicates that we were built for healthy meat. (Obviously notwithstanding garbage, factory-farmed tortured flesh.) If you're of the mind that you can't make decisions about your health without a bunch of highly-motivated sophists telling you what's right, you should probably take a step back and rethink.
  - james4k 5y ago
    I'm not being absolutist. Eat your meat now and then. But if you're interested in longevity, cardiovascular disease is the #1 cause of death. So, I personally make diet decisions with that in mind. There are a lot of bunk studies, but that doesn't mean you should ignore all scientific studies altogether. If you have multiple randomized controlled trials with good sample sizes saying certain things, and funded by public health institutions, I want to pay attention to those. You're right about the agricultural industry and its influence. The beef, chicken, and dairy industries are chief among them.

james4k 5y ago

Yeah, it is frustrating. I'm no expert, either. Part of the problem with nutrition is it's hard to get quality data, like how do you get long-term studies where you can control every aspect of each participant's diet and lifestyle? The best data we have is all over relatively short periods. Saturated fat is one thing there is strong consensus on. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/fats/saturated-fats https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s... https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/41/8/1732 https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/41/8/1732 I'll point out that regarding "healthy" fats, what you see in most recommendations is that replacing unhealthy fats with healthy fats improves heart health, not that adding healthy fats improves heart health. Eating less meat helps, too. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/110/1/24/5494812 (surprisingly, in this particular study, white meat was about as bad as red meat)

sjwalter 5y ago
I've made similar comments before, but this is a neutered attitude. Needing some studies before you agree or disagree with something as fundamental as healthful eating. You can do your own scientific studies by changing your diet and feeling the results. Nutrition "science" is, like all science these days, inherently untrustworthy. "The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness." Richard Horton, current editor of The Lancet. When it comes to nutritional studies, which are basically impossibly to ethically control, and are most often funded by large agribusiness concerns, and with a huge problem of only publishing studies that agree with a certain incentive set, you not only CAN but SHOULD ignore it all. And finally, anything that winds up saying meat is bad for you should raise huge amounts of skepticism. Our entire history as a species indicates that we were built for healthy meat. (Obviously notwithstanding garbage, factory-farmed tortured flesh.) If you're of the mind that you can't make decisions about your health without a bunch of highly-motivated sophists telling you what's right, you should probably take a step back and rethink.
- james4k 5y ago
  I'm not being absolutist. Eat your meat now and then. But if you're interested in longevity, cardiovascular disease is the #1 cause of death. So, I personally make diet decisions with that in mind. There are a lot of bunk studies, but that doesn't mean you should ignore all scientific studies altogether. If you have multiple randomized controlled trials with good sample sizes saying certain things, and funded by public health institutions, I want to pay attention to those. You're right about the agricultural industry and its influence. The beef, chicken, and dairy industries are chief among them.