4 ms·

One of my favorite examples of this is how coconut oil is advertised all over youtube by thousands of influencers as a superfood that must be a part of a health

One of my favorite examples of this is how coconut oil is advertised all over youtube by thousands of influencers as a superfood that must be a part of a healthy diet. (Especially since it's hardly an oil in my opinion -- it's partially solid at room temperature) There's absolutely no reliable evidence that coconut oil has any beneficial effects on the human body, and I really don't see why anybody would believe that an oil high in saturated fats is good for you.

halflings 5y ago
Same goes for agave syrup and other health fads.
- api 5y ago
  There's a ton of alternative kinds of sugar that are marketed as healthier than sugar but are in fact just sugar extracted from a different plant or other source. Sugar is sugar.
  - blfr 5y ago
    Sugar is sugar but fructose does seem to be particularly hard on humans.
yuuu 5y ago
Just more horseshit from Big Coconut, that's what I think.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Those coconuts have definitely got blood on their hands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_coconut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_coconut
parasubvert 5y ago
Because there is ample evidence that saturated fats are not bad for you, or at least no where near as bad as previous science led us to believe.
- tryptophan 5y ago
  It would be more accurate to say that there is no strong evidence that saturated fats are bad for you. Lots of the previous science was bad science that did not account for confounding factors, such as not taking into account that lots of fast food has lots of saturated fats(and made up for a large portion of saturated fat consumption) and adjusting for that. ie the difference between "do sat fats make people unhealthy" and "does eating fast food(which happens to have sat fats) make people unhealthy" If you want to go down the rabbit hole, there is also no strong evidence showing cholesterol/eggs are bad, and neither is there any evidence showing salt is bad(if you are healthy). Lots of nutrition studies have such laughably silly methodology. Not sure why they were ever taken seriously.
  - kritiko 5y ago
    You raise several nutritional theories here. Dietary Cholesterol / Blood Cholesterol - cholesterol restriction has been removed from dietary guidelines in the US, so people have taken that seriously. Increased saturated fat is pretty well associated with LDL levels, which is associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Not sure that I've ever seen any contrary studies recently - I would be interested if you could link any you are aware of... I guess the questions I have seen are around carb intake and fat intake, but that's kind of a separate issue Salt is definitely more questionable, but seems like if you are avoiding hyperprocessed foods, you are going to intake less salt, so maybe a non-issue...
    - tryptophan 5y ago
      Well for fats we have this: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD011737.pub3/full?highlightAbstract=fat%7Csatur%7Csaturated https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... There seems to be a moderate reduction in cardiovascular events, BUT - there is NO CHANGE in mortality or even cardiac mortality. Also note, these studies may be victim to the saturated-fats-are-fast-food issue. If saturated fats were actually bad, like smoking is, I think we would see more significant results than "10-15% decrease in events that doesn't even change peoples' overall outcomes".
SubiculumCode 5y ago
I suspect that high fats are fine and high carbs are fine, but having both high fats + high carbs leads to health problems. Fat heavy leads to keto metabolic state, heavy carbs lead to the other metabolic state. Having both at the same time is the issue, my opinion.
gniv 5y ago
> I really don't see why anybody would believe that an oil high in saturated fats is good for you. A lot of people do if you look around. Serious people I mean. They usually sing the praises of butter (and ghee), but the same reasoning is applied now to coconut oil.

halflings 5y ago

Same goes for agave syrup and other health fads.

api 5y ago
There's a ton of alternative kinds of sugar that are marketed as healthier than sugar but are in fact just sugar extracted from a different plant or other source. Sugar is sugar.
- blfr 5y ago
  Sugar is sugar but fructose does seem to be particularly hard on humans.

yuuu 5y ago

Just more horseshit from Big Coconut, that's what I think.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Those coconuts have definitely got blood on their hands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_coconut https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_by_coconut

parasubvert 5y ago

Because there is ample evidence that saturated fats are not bad for you, or at least no where near as bad as previous science led us to believe.

tryptophan 5y ago
It would be more accurate to say that there is no strong evidence that saturated fats are bad for you. Lots of the previous science was bad science that did not account for confounding factors, such as not taking into account that lots of fast food has lots of saturated fats(and made up for a large portion of saturated fat consumption) and adjusting for that. ie the difference between "do sat fats make people unhealthy" and "does eating fast food(which happens to have sat fats) make people unhealthy" If you want to go down the rabbit hole, there is also no strong evidence showing cholesterol/eggs are bad, and neither is there any evidence showing salt is bad(if you are healthy). Lots of nutrition studies have such laughably silly methodology. Not sure why they were ever taken seriously.
- kritiko 5y ago
  You raise several nutritional theories here. Dietary Cholesterol / Blood Cholesterol - cholesterol restriction has been removed from dietary guidelines in the US, so people have taken that seriously. Increased saturated fat is pretty well associated with LDL levels, which is associated with cardiovascular disease risk. Not sure that I've ever seen any contrary studies recently - I would be interested if you could link any you are aware of... I guess the questions I have seen are around carb intake and fat intake, but that's kind of a separate issue Salt is definitely more questionable, but seems like if you are avoiding hyperprocessed foods, you are going to intake less salt, so maybe a non-issue...
  - tryptophan 5y ago
    Well for fats we have this: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD011737.pub3/full?highlightAbstract=fat%7Csatur%7Csaturated https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD... There seems to be a moderate reduction in cardiovascular events, BUT - there is NO CHANGE in mortality or even cardiac mortality. Also note, these studies may be victim to the saturated-fats-are-fast-food issue. If saturated fats were actually bad, like smoking is, I think we would see more significant results than "10-15% decrease in events that doesn't even change peoples' overall outcomes".

SubiculumCode 5y ago

I suspect that high fats are fine and high carbs are fine, but having both high fats + high carbs leads to health problems. Fat heavy leads to keto metabolic state, heavy carbs lead to the other metabolic state. Having both at the same time is the issue, my opinion.

gniv 5y ago

> I really don't see why anybody would believe that an oil high in saturated fats is good for you. A lot of people do if you look around. Serious people I mean. They usually sing the praises of butter (and ghee), but the same reasoning is applied now to coconut oil.