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Not too much. Coronary heart disease wiped out a big chunk of my family and it wasn't because they ate sugar - it was the lard on toast and chips cooked in lard

Not too much. Coronary heart disease wiped out a big chunk of my family and it wasn't because they ate sugar - it was the lard on toast and chips cooked in lard... Everything in moderation is probably better advice than a single fact.

eropple 12y ago
Toast and chips are still simple carbohydrates.
- sudowhodoido 12y ago
  Aware of this. My point was purely derision. A lot of nutritional fads are indistinguishable from religion. Scales are always balanced, not necessarily visibly.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Chips are made from potato. That's a complex carb. Wholemeal toast would he a complex carb. White bread would be a complex carb in the form of a refined starch - still not a simple carb.
  - eropple 12y ago
    Sorry, yes. Wrote "carbohydrate", deleted it, phone suggested "simple" because autocorrect, and like a dolt I went right ahead. :-)
Chevalier 12y ago
Personally, I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto. I've lost nearly 100 lbs over the past year by switching to a high-fat, moderate-protein, and ultra low-carbohydrate diet. I really can't endorse it enough. If I had to guess, your family's health problems weren't with lard -- they probably resulted from the companion toast and french fries. Any calories you eat will be directed to storage if your insulin is spiked... which happens when you eat carbs like those found in wheat and potatoes. That's not to say that glucose, which you find in potatoes, is necessarily awful. I don't eat it, but Dr. Robert Lustig (an incredible font of knowledge) thinks glucose can be a valuable part of a diet. What's particularly important is to eliminate fructose and sucrose. They're toxins with no redeeming qualities except making fat-free foods palatable.
- michael_h 12y ago
  eliminate fructose To better health: Eliminate fruit, increase bacon consumption. Got it.
  - Chevalier 12y ago
    You think you're being sarcastic. The only reason why fruits are okay in moderation is that their fiber mitigates some of the damage of their sugar content. The vitamins you can get from fruit are valuable, but the sugar rush isn't. I'm not opposed to the occasional fruit. But given your tone, I rather suspect you think Jamba Juice is healthier than a steak. Go ahead, I'm not here to save your life... but you may want to read a bit on the subject. I'd start with Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, and Robert Lustig.
- sudowhodoido 12y ago
  How's your heart? No their problems weren't just the lard. It was derision pointed at the unfounded basis of your analysis and the complexity of the human diet, metabolism and relatively limited knowledge of nutrition we have. /r/keto isn't a valid citation, well no more than /r/spacedicks (NSFW) or the pope. Neither is you losing weight.
  - Chevalier 12y ago
    My health has never been better. I'm not sure why you think I've earned your derison... but okay. Eat sugar, dude. I'm not here to save your life. But if some of the awesome nerds who read HN decide to get healthy, I'd really recommend eliminating sugar from your diet. Life is so much better without it. Recommended introductory reading would be Gary Taubes, Robert Lustig, and Peter Attia. The history of nutrition over the past fifty years is absolutely shocking.
    - sudowhodoido 12y ago
      I eat a shit ton of straight sugars, fat and carbs and am technically obese if you consider the rather non-scientific BMI system. However, I rode 59 miles from London to Brighton on my nice Dawes Ultra Galaxy a couple of months back without any trouble. Last month I had a medical and am, according to doctor "in wonderful shape". Go figure. Oh right, everything in moderation. That's the win. I eat that stuff when I need it. I wouldn't cite a bunch of random popular reading health authors and an endocrinologist incapable of using the scientific method in his work. Go read some Feynman and apply some critical thinking and get back to me.
awolf 12y ago
The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it in the past decade. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648 If you say "eating fatty things will give you heart disease", most people will blindly agree with you. In actuality there is very little valid basis for making that claim. (Edit, and this is a parenthetical because I do not believe anecdotal evidence is useful for arguing for general cases: My personal n=1 experiment: I have comprehensive blood panels done every three months. Over the past four years I adopted a diet that is high in healthy animals fats and proteins, high in vegetables, low in fruit, and devoid of grains. As in: 3 eggs plus sausage or bacon and a salad for breakfast. Every day. Prior to starting, I had mediocre to bad cholesterol. My numbers are now: 105 LDL, 70 HDL, 52 triglycerides. Superb by all measures.)
- justin66 12y ago
  > healthy animals fats and proteins Given you eat sausage and bacon every day, I wonder what you'd classify as an unhealthy animal fat or protein and what your rationale is?
  - awolf 12y ago
    I define healthy fat as meat which came from a healthy animal. I define a healthy animal as an animal that was raised in accordance with its species' natural diet and lifestyle. Grassfed beed, pasture raised pork, wild caught seafood.
- xorcist 12y ago
  > The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it So has the belief that all fat is all good for you, to put it lightly. Human nutrition is a lot more complex than that. Unless you like experimenting with yourself for the sake of it, go with a balanced diet.
  - zo1 12y ago
    "go with a balanced diet." As much as I'd like to, it's next to impossible to even figure out what a "balanced diet" is these days. The information conflicts even on something that basic.

eropple 12y ago

Toast and chips are still simple carbohydrates.

sudowhodoido 12y ago
Aware of this. My point was purely derision. A lot of nutritional fads are indistinguishable from religion. Scales are always balanced, not necessarily visibly.
DanBC 12y ago
Chips are made from potato. That's a complex carb. Wholemeal toast would he a complex carb. White bread would be a complex carb in the form of a refined starch - still not a simple carb.
- eropple 12y ago
  Sorry, yes. Wrote "carbohydrate", deleted it, phone suggested "simple" because autocorrect, and like a dolt I went right ahead. :-)

Chevalier 12y ago

Personally, I'm persuaded by my personal experience as well as testimony from /r/keto. I've lost nearly 100 lbs over the past year by switching to a high-fat, moderate-protein, and ultra low-carbohydrate diet. I really can't endorse it enough. If I had to guess, your family's health problems weren't with lard -- they probably resulted from the companion toast and french fries. Any calories you eat will be directed to storage if your insulin is spiked... which happens when you eat carbs like those found in wheat and potatoes. That's not to say that glucose, which you find in potatoes, is necessarily awful. I don't eat it, but Dr. Robert Lustig (an incredible font of knowledge) thinks glucose can be a valuable part of a diet. What's particularly important is to eliminate fructose and sucrose. They're toxins with no redeeming qualities except making fat-free foods palatable.

michael_h 12y ago
eliminate fructose To better health: Eliminate fruit, increase bacon consumption. Got it.
- Chevalier 12y ago
  You think you're being sarcastic. The only reason why fruits are okay in moderation is that their fiber mitigates some of the damage of their sugar content. The vitamins you can get from fruit are valuable, but the sugar rush isn't. I'm not opposed to the occasional fruit. But given your tone, I rather suspect you think Jamba Juice is healthier than a steak. Go ahead, I'm not here to save your life... but you may want to read a bit on the subject. I'd start with Gary Taubes, Peter Attia, and Robert Lustig.
sudowhodoido 12y ago
How's your heart? No their problems weren't just the lard. It was derision pointed at the unfounded basis of your analysis and the complexity of the human diet, metabolism and relatively limited knowledge of nutrition we have. /r/keto isn't a valid citation, well no more than /r/spacedicks (NSFW) or the pope. Neither is you losing weight.
- Chevalier 12y ago
  My health has never been better. I'm not sure why you think I've earned your derison... but okay. Eat sugar, dude. I'm not here to save your life. But if some of the awesome nerds who read HN decide to get healthy, I'd really recommend eliminating sugar from your diet. Life is so much better without it. Recommended introductory reading would be Gary Taubes, Robert Lustig, and Peter Attia. The history of nutrition over the past fifty years is absolutely shocking.
  - sudowhodoido 12y ago
    I eat a shit ton of straight sugars, fat and carbs and am technically obese if you consider the rather non-scientific BMI system. However, I rode 59 miles from London to Brighton on my nice Dawes Ultra Galaxy a couple of months back without any trouble. Last month I had a medical and am, according to doctor "in wonderful shape". Go figure. Oh right, everything in moderation. That's the win. I eat that stuff when I need it. I wouldn't cite a bunch of random popular reading health authors and an endocrinologist incapable of using the scientific method in his work. Go read some Feynman and apply some critical thinking and get back to me.

awolf 12y ago

The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it in the past decade. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20071648 If you say "eating fatty things will give you heart disease", most people will blindly agree with you. In actuality there is very little valid basis for making that claim. (Edit, and this is a parenthetical because I do not believe anecdotal evidence is useful for arguing for general cases: My personal n=1 experiment: I have comprehensive blood panels done every three months. Over the past four years I adopted a diet that is high in healthy animals fats and proteins, high in vegetables, low in fruit, and devoid of grains. As in: 3 eggs plus sausage or bacon and a salad for breakfast. Every day. Prior to starting, I had mediocre to bad cholesterol. My numbers are now: 105 LDL, 70 HDL, 52 triglycerides. Superb by all measures.)

justin66 12y ago
> healthy animals fats and proteins Given you eat sausage and bacon every day, I wonder what you'd classify as an unhealthy animal fat or protein and what your rationale is?
- awolf 12y ago
  I define healthy fat as meat which came from a healthy animal. I define a healthy animal as an animal that was raised in accordance with its species' natural diet and lifestyle. Grassfed beed, pasture raised pork, wild caught seafood.
xorcist 12y ago
> The connection between saturated fat and coronary heart disease has had a lot of legitimate doubt cast upon it So has the belief that all fat is all good for you, to put it lightly. Human nutrition is a lot more complex than that. Unless you like experimenting with yourself for the sake of it, go with a balanced diet.
- zo1 12y ago
  "go with a balanced diet." As much as I'd like to, it's next to impossible to even figure out what a "balanced diet" is these days. The information conflicts even on something that basic.