Hacker News Reader

Comment by nightski | Hacker News Reader

It's not just taste. These alternatives are loaded with carbs and just aren't practical for a low carb diet. This is coming from someone who eats a ton of fiber loaded vegetables. It's really hard to find a reasonable substitute for meat proteins that is as efficient and delicious as meat. Protein is not a huge portion of my diet, but it is very important.

View on HN

Seitan does a really good job of heavier texture, low carb, high protein (so long as you're not celiac).

That's not true anymore. Beyond Meat has a Beast Burger with 7g carbs and 23g protein (vegan, no soy, gluten-free, no gmo).

7g is much more than 0g, especially for a keto diet (as an extreme example)

It's usually possible to maintain ketosis with about 50g of carbohydrates per day, so 7g shouldn't be a huge deal.

But if you're spending nearly half of your carb allowance on the "protein" parts of your meals (1 serving/3 meals a day = 21g), how many fresh vegetables are you now not eating to stay under your 50g allowance?

The number of people who need to be on a keto diet is incredibly tiny though. Most people who are on them do not need to be, all evidence shows low carb diets are equally effective regardless of ketosis or not.

>all evidence shows low carb diets are equally effective regardless of ketosis or not.

Well I will take my anecdotic evidence (and my girlfriend's, and two friends') over your scientific studies. Fat and protein make me feel full well below my caloric needs for maintaining the same weight; I am hardly ever full with carbs, and even when my stomach feel fulls, my brain keeps wanting me to eat.

How does this contradict GP? All you've said is "carbs don't help me feel full", which is a far cry from "I must have a ketogenic diet".

As it turns out, if a person doesn't feel full, it usually tends to compensate the feeling by eating.

More than one should.

Which again, does not in any way contradict anything I said.

I don't understand low-carb/keto diets, outside of treating an actual disease. A person can eat 5-10 lbs. of "wet" (i.e. not grains and starches) fruits and vegetables a day and stay well below 2,000 calories, rounding it off with some fish, nuts, etc. for protein and oils. It's physically difficult to eat 1,000 calories of salad at 100-200 calories/pound. The problem is it also costs about 5 times as much as a classic junk food diet (but not much if any more than a beef and bacon and cheese diet).

Bag of chips, $2. Head of romaine 99¢. I can eat a bag of chips. I doubt I can eat that whole head of lettuce. By the time I add sunflower seeds, tomato, bit of goat or parmesan cheese, chopped olives I still think it's less or about the same price as chips.

Exactly, and the bag of chips is at least 1,000 calories. Up to 2,500 calories if we're talking about those generic ripple chips. The lettuce is 50-100 calories. If you're getting most of your daily calories from the likes of lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, broccoli, etc., you can eat steadily all day and still have a hard time hitting 2,000 due to the sheer bulk. But it's gonna cost.

Depends on what you see as a disease.

For some people, it's the only thing that loses some them weight. (Obesity is a disease?)

I am currently giving it a try to see whether it has any benefits for my concentration. (Inattentiveness is a disease?)

Plants are fun. I still eat lots of non-starchy ones.

> A person can eat 5-10 lbs. of "wet" (i.e. not grains and starches) fruits and vegetables a day and stay well below 2,000 calories

Sure, I can too. And I will stay hungry or get into depression again because I wouldn't be getting enough fat.

What you quoted from MustardTiger doesn't contradict what you said..

I'm implying that non-low carb diets aren't as effective in my experience as they make me feel hungrier, thus making me want to always eat more than I should to lose weight.

Sure. But what you quoted was a statement that the effect of low-carb didn't depend on ketosis. Which is a very different statement---though I don't know if it's true.

(I am very sympathetic to low-carb eating, and am trying a ketogenic diet right now.)

I think the person you're replying to is talking about the difference between maintaining a low-carb diet, and ketosis, which requires you to maintain a low-carb diet but specifically IIRC forces your body to break down fats instead of sugars in your body for energy.

Hi. I have Type 2 diabetes and PCOS. 3 months of a ketogenic diet lowered my A1c from 6.8 ("you have diabetes") to 5.6 ("normal range"). I've also lost 25 lbs in that 3 months without feeling hungry or deprived.

I use to crave carbs, and would wind up binging on them. Now most of them do not even register as 'food' to my brain. However, on days when I eat maybe a few too many berries instead of sticking to green veggies, I can feel those cravings trying to come back. We're talking an amount that maybe pushes my daily net carb intake to the 50-60g range instead of the 20-30g range, not something that would push me over 100g. A ketogenic diet is definitely best for my health. I would rather eat a ketogenic diet than suffer the eventual consequences of diabetes - blindness, amputation, dialysis, and death.

>3 months of a ketogenic diet lowered my A1c from 6.8 ("you have diabetes") to 5.6 ("normal range"). I've also lost 25 lbs in that 3 months without feeling hungry or deprived.

All of which would be true on a low carb diet without ketosis. Which you may very well have been doing since you don't know if you were in ketosis or not.

> A ketogenic diet is definitely best for my health

Your completely unsupported anecdote of a single person claiming so does not counter the overwhelming scientific evidence consisting of actual studies, with multiple participants, proper measures, and control groups.

Okay let me just put it this way. When I consistently eat under ~30g net carbs a day, not only does my blood glucose remain at non-organ-damaging levels, but I can effortlessly resist the temptation to eat things like bread, pizza, and pasta.

When I start eating more than 50g net carbs a day, suddenly I want to shove all the pizza in the world in my mouth. Given that pizza will absolutely kill me, a diabetic, via kidney damage, a "very low carb, high fat" diet (which is much easier to explain/abbreviate as "ketogenic") diet is best for me, personally.

I know it's an anecdote, and it certainly doesn't mean a VLCHF diet is right for anyone else, but it's working for me.

Now go back and read the post you replied to in the first place. The entire point was low carb diets work regardless of ketosis.

Just to be clear 4g of that are fiber making it 3g net carbs (in keto terms).

Also, sugar is listed in the ingredients list, while the nutrition facts list it at 0 (might be rounding?)

GMO or not, even the wikipage of carrageenan (e407) says:

"Some animal studies indicate tumor promotion or initiation by carrageenan.[22][23][24][25] In an industry-funded study, Cohen & Ito discuss methodological problems with four such studies, along with several evaluations of genotoxic activity, and state that there is no credible evidence that carrageenan contributes to tumor promotion or colon cancer."

Which might be FUD but better safe than sorry.

Carrageenan by itself isn't dangerous. It becomes dangerous if you heat it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com