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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

The article lists protein density in grams of protein per cup or ounce, but a more relevant measure is grams of protein per calorie.

Most people's health issue is too many calories.

In grams of protein per calorie, many plants score high. You just have to eat more, which, if you make delicious food, is a benefit.

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Yes, this is absolutely the correct metric. For instance, nuts are touted as a high protein food but from a calorie perspective they are often worse than bread - 15% of calories from almonds are protein, compared to ~20% in many breads. Lentils and beans are also touted as a high protein source but are only ~20% protein by calories. Compared that to non-fat Greek yogurt (70-80% protein) or tofu (~50% protein).

A good rule of thumb for finding high protein foods is to look for foods that have calories/10 grams of protein (or more). This equates to 40% of calories from protein.

> Lentils and beans are also touted as a high protein source but are only ~20% protein by calories.

I don't remember what they are in english but my favorite beer compliment is tremoços (a legume), and they are something like 40% protein by calories.

Just googled that, tremoços are Lupin Beans for anyone wondering.

> Most people's health issue is too many calories.

It's like saying the issue of a murdered man is too much metal inside the body. Technically correct but misleading.

If you replace the carbs by exactly the same amount in fats, most people will lose weight. Many of them would be unable to eat so much because they would feel stuffed and stop feeling hungry all the time. And for those that eat the same amount of calories, they would not be in fat storage mode so excess is secreted.

This is misleading. If they don't eat as much due to higher satiety, then you are not replacing with equivalent calories.

Calories are meant to be and are calculated as the lingua franca of macronutrients. 5 calories of one really will have the same effect on your waistline as 5 of another, holding all else equal.

Regardless, the grandfather is discussing macronutrient distribution and you seem to be in favor of optimizing it as well, so I don't think there's disagreement here.

> If they don't eat as much due to higher satiety, then you are not replacing with equivalent calories.

That's one factor of why eating fat instead of carbs defeat the calories-in-calories-out idea. But it's not the only one. Both the lack of release of insulin and ketosis helps the body work much better.

> 5 calories of one really will have the same effect on your waistline as 5 of another, holding all else equal.

That's the problem, nothing else is equal when you have a vastly different proportion of macronutrients.

OK let's ignore protein for a second. You're saying that if you eat the same number of calories, but as fat instead of carbs, your body will store less of it. i.e. that the human body is much more efficient at extracting energy from carbohydrates than it is from dietary fat, i.e. more of the energy from dietary fat is wasted. Macronutrient choice cannot affect the amount of work that your body does, only what percentage of the calories are wasted (inefficiency).

On the face of it this makes no sense because fat is such a good energy source that it's what our bodies use to store energy, so why would our bodies have problems extracting energy from dietary fat?

I didn't say that our bodies extract less energy from fat. It stores less energy as fat. Fat storage mode is stimulated by insulin, which is stimulated by glucose or by lack of sodium. Insulin brings other health problems in addition to weight gain.

See my other response, but the theory is that high fat diets make more energy evailablw for use, rather than storing it in adipose (fat) tissue. This makes someone more energetic, which is how a high fat diet can result in weight loss at the same calorie intake, but still have the energy balance equation work out.

The thing most “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie” people miss is that, according to the Low Carb, High Fat hypothesis, different types of calories affect the rate at which you expend calories. So, the theory is that a high fat diet makes more calories available as fuel and your body responds by making you feel more energetic, which leads to behavior that expends more calories. Whereas high carb diets, because of the way the body processes carbs, make less calories available as fuel and your body responds by making you feel less energetic, which results in behavior which expends less calories. So a calorie is not just a calorie.

That’s the theory, at least.

Very misleading comment.

> If you replace the carbs by exactly the same amount in fats, most people will lose weight.

The body barely converts carbs into body fat, thus the fat you eat is pretty much the fat you wear. You can eat mostly fat and still have a calorie deficiency, sure. And you can go for a keto diet (but please not too long and with a doctor/nutritionist supervising you).

Without any portion restrictions, calorie counting or exercise, the best diet for loosing weight is... a whole plant food diet.

http://ww2.kqed.org/bayareabites/2015/07/30/to-shed-pounds-g...

Hmm. I'm being downvoted.. Maybe this claim is taken as untrue (as I know goes mostly unknown):

> The body barely converts carbs into body fat

Here a quote to back it up (from McDougall, halfway in the article):

https://fanaticcook.com/2014/03/24/excess-carbohydrate-does-...

De novo lipogenesis is inefficient, but that's not the point. It happens because carbs stimulate release of insulin, which puts the body in fat storage mode. Eating fat alongside carbs only makes things worse. If you eat the fats alone (and if you get enough sodium, too), you don't store them.

Take a look at these videos (or any other of that channel, I'm not affiliated but happens to explain a lot of things I've learned myself), or read the sources in the description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_4Q9Iv7_Ao

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dan8qtgQRi8

Yes. Because calories are the limiting factor.

The other one is grams protein per kilo of bodyweight. This depends on if you are working out or not. Common recommendations for those working out are really high (like 2g/kg). And taking too much protein is not very healthy.

Now a lot of nutritionists are lowering their recommendation to, like, 1g/kg or even less. And many seem to be putting on muscle just fine with those amounts.

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