Comment by loudtieblahblah | Hacker News Reader

Comment by loudtieblahblah | Hacker News Reader

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loudtieblahblah

the rates of linoleic acid in eggs, large, chicken, beef, pork have all changed drastically in the last 100 years because what we feed the animals has changed drastically.

a grass fed cow has a lower omega6 profile than one in a factory farm.

farmers have gotten tricky with it, raising "grass fed cows" but then for a couple months before slaughter, fattening them up with industry "feed". So now when you're at the store you have to find not only "grass fed" but "grass finished" beef.

Chickens that are allowed to eat at will (chickens eat a really wide range of shit, not just "feed" that's mostly corn - they eat grass, bugs, they'll even eat rodents if they can catch one). Chickens in farms usually don't eat like that. If your eggs say "organic", they're certainly not eating like that.

There's absolutely no way to get low PUFA pork these days. At all. Fire in the Bottle blog has partnered with a farm that's raising low PUFA pigs and you can have $100 of pork shipped to you, but that's the only place i'm aware of it.

But yeah, the fat profile of our animals havve radically changed. Because of what we feed them. And then we eat them and the problems goes on up the food chain.

I'm not a vegetarian and i'm not a globalist and there becomes a point where there's a lot of politics in what you eat. I'm not into diets to be kind to animals or even because of the environment. If healthy food hurt the environment, i'm eating healthy food. Ya know?

But at this juncture - you're better off being low meat (wild caught, mercury tested, salmon 1-2x a week, some skinless chicken, grassfed beef 1x a month or something), and eating a mostly vegetarian diet, roughly 1-2 meals a day, lots and lots and lots of veggies. It's simply too hard to account for all the garbage done to meat, from a health perspective.

'Grass fed' has a remarkable amount of wiggle room in it from a marketing and Truth in Advertising standpoint.

And there's also 'grass finished' which does the reverse process of grain first and grass at the end to boost the carotene a little and change the texture of the fat a bit (grain fed 'looks better' to shoppers which is part of how that changeover happened so fast)

Suggestions on how I can get enough complete protein in such a diet? I am open to reducing meat for health if this is a factor but eat about 150 grams complete protein every day and this is hard to replace from vegetarian. The few vegetarian dishes I see with significant protein are often not nearly as good as yogurt, meat, eggs or just stuff with whey protein in it. I can't see much with comparable protein to calorie to chicken breast, spirulina is comparable but is disgusting taste and not complete.

There is also that it is hard to eat 3000-3500 calories every day of clean food in a bulk with animal products, removing those will probably make it even harder.

I'm a little confused, you write "vegetarian" but did you mean "vegan"?

"The few vegetarian dishes ... are often not nearly as good as yogurt, meat, eggs, or [...] whey protein"

Yogurt, eggs and whey protein are vegetarian (but not vegan). Vegetarian is extremely easy (I eat 95% vegetarian because it's cheaper and easier), vegan is very difficult and requires significant sacrifices.

Or maybe I misunderstood your sentence in some way.

I don't mean to be pedantic, but it seems to me that the discussion is going to be difficult if vegan and vegetarian are getting mixed up.

Hmm I don't know that I have to be either strictly, I'm thinking about cutting down my intake mostly of meat but also things like eggs that can carry through higher concentrations. Plus if there is some good complete plant protein that tastes fine, I hope maybe it's cheaper (eating lots of protein is expensive LOL)

I really like canned black beans. They have a decent amount of protein and fiber, they taste good, they're pretty cheap, and you just have to heat them up. Lentils are also good, but they take a while to cook. I use the white rice setting on the rice cooker.

Few if any plant based proteins are complete proteins. theyre always missing some amino acids or another.

Even this list of vegan complete proteins are mixtures of multiple foods

https://www.peta.org/living/food/complete-proteins-vegan/

I eat a good bit of those but more for health than protein and because they're cheap, but not complete protein and about 1/2 protein per calorie of chicken breast.

There's 2 ways to look at protein.

There's a life-span way and a health-span way. Do you want to live longer? or do you want to feel and potentially look better? When it comes to protein, these two things seem to be at odds with one another.

High protein is correlated with shorter lifespans.

- https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/protein... - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC-ej7HbPWg

You'll notice the first link shows higher lifespan when protein intake is increased after a certain age (65). it's assumed this is largely due to the number of deaths from injuries (falls) and complications from injuries that happen to the elderly and that muscle mass at this stage is vital.

But protein tends to active mTor. You want that to not be activated and you want IGF-1 to be low. These are correlated with longer lifespan.

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6611156/ - https://www.nia.nih.gov/news/understanding-mtor-pathway-and-... - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31316753/ - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15501691/

And it looks like studies in humans and animal models seem to reflect correlative data for "Blue Zone diets" (more or less). ( https://www.bluezones.com/2020/07/blue-zones-diet-food-secre... ). Most of the regions in the Blue Zones are high in veggies, low in meat, often with a bit of seafood, and virtually zero processed foods.

How you define a little meat really varies when going by "blue zones". Some might say 4-6oz a day, some might say 1-2x a week. The low amounts of meat and obtaining incomplete proteins with more narrow amino acid profiles is beneficial for health in the long term, largely due to mTor activation being avoided or reduced. The body evolved (it seems) to an extent, to struggle for certain nutrients (but that doesn't mean do without them entirely, but just periods of not having everything at once, constantly). This seems very apparent with studies into proteins. When it comes to other vitamins and minerals (electrolytes, vitamins, etc..) we seems to need those fairly constantly/consistently.

the ultimate way to not activate mTor or stimulate IGF-1, is to fast. Either do time-restricted eating where you eat in a 4-8 hour window every day, or periodically do multiple day fasts..

The timing of your eating, IMHO, is more important than how much meat or veggies you consume. If you ate one meal a day and had meat at that meal, even in large amounts, it'd be more benefitial than say... eating 3 meals a day and being fully vegan or vegetarian. How often you're eating seems to have a more negative effect on lifespan than, to some extent, what you're eating.

I don't avoid meat. I rely on greek yogurt, eggs 1-2x a week, 4-5oz of meat (mostly fish, low-fat chicken breasts without skin, and beef 1x a week), a variety of nuts (i prefer macademia nuts b/c they're low in omega6, low in oxylates and high in monosaturated fats, most other nuts are high in Omega6s and/or oxylates).

I probably eat at a midway point between what i should do for health and lifespan.

If you're more concerned with health span than lifespan then you really want to get about 1G of protein per KG in body weight.

If you're more concerned about lifespan, 0.5G per KG of body weight is more where you want to be.

If you went full carnivore, you'd probably feel absolutely amazing. Eating a lot of meat spurs on testosterone, increases fertility and reproductive capability, and all sorts of great stuff, but the trade off seems to be for lifespan.

You'll notice body builders often don't make it to 100 years old. But look at the Mediterranean, look at japan - fairly thin, active people - often with religious/community connections, who are eating mostly veggies, a little meat, and some seafood once in a while, they're the ones passing the 100 year mark more often.

Doing stuff like fasting, or eating a, lets call it a plant-based diet as opposed to vegetarian, (or both), doesn't feel so great. You can't perform at the gym like you usually would, for example.

The body is best, from a lifespan perspective and to a certain extent, a healthspan perspective, when it's exposed to hormetic stressors. These are little stressors that improve the over-all functioning of your body. Exercise is one. Sauna use is another. Cold exposure (showers, ice baths) is another.

But fasting is too, spurring on autophagy (which is the strongest anti-cancer process we have, internally) and all other great processes like the down regulation of IGF-1.

The body not quite having all the protein it needs, ALL THE TIME, is a beneficial stressor that works to increase lifespan as well. As far as I've read anyways.

Eating many vegetables are also hormetic stressors. Various phytonutrients are built by plants as reactions to when they are stressed, these phytonutrients produced under those conditions are some of the best substances we can eat. Like sulphorafane (from broccoli, broccoli sprouts, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, etc.)

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz4YVJ4aRfg - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PNGxNzogOY

IMHO - i'd keep on with (grass fed/finished where applicable) meat, yogurt, nuts, a little whey from time to time, 4-5oz of meat a day, (free range or omega3+) eggs every once in a while. But at 40 years old and experiencing some health problems stemming from a mix of a lifetime of bad habits (drinking, smoking, sodas, fast food) and a bit of anxiety that clobbered me in adulthood.. i lean more towards longevity these days that i do in making sure i can lift at the gym and maximizing my athletic performance.

i don't care about what i look like anymore. I don't care about satisfying my ego at the gym anymore either. I just want to be happy and live to see my grandkids be born and maybe go through some pivotal things in elementary school before kicking the bucket.

I eat 2 meals a day 5 days a week

i fast 2-3 days a month, at the beginning of the month.

I eat "normally" for social purposes on the weekends.

I don't calorie count. I've found that based on WHAT i'm eating, calories don't matter much. I did Keto for 6 months and even eating tons of meat and hitting 3kcals a day, i was still losing weight when my carbs were under 20g a day.

But now I probably don't hit 2k cal a day and sometimes my weight fluctuates up 1-3 pounds or back down, here and there. And i exercise 5-6 days a week.

i know i ramble (ADHD) but i used to pack on 3k a day or more, and drink protein shakes and hit the gym and make sure i was getting lots of protein.

I've long abandoned that mentality. I stopped listening to fitness people and started listening to doctors and scientists.

Good points and I looked into risks, I think there are some, but there also is some stuff suggesting positive brain effects, enough that it seems inconclusive.

I agree on metabolic benefits from eating 1 time or so every day but that is not a problem for me, I've done it in the past but can't build muscle on it. I am hoping something like rapamycin matures for some anti-mtor potential.

I am closer to 1.8g/kg protein since this is about the most i get any help from. Less than that I notice effects on getting stronger much slower. I agree with you on lots of vegetables with that, my diet tends to be lots of whole foods like oatmeal, yogurt, chicken, turkey, fish, chickpea, some milk and cheese with lots of different vegetable (usually the "bulk" of food I eat). Over all a mostly good diet and I have cheat meals maybe 6 times per year or less, just larger quantity of food combined with heavy exercise.

I think maybe fewer meals and fasting is good if you have prior issues, I always had excellent metabolic health, I never needed to lose weight (did need to gain it in the past, doctor orders). I do fast occasionally on a heavy cut though I have to be careful how much I do or I go too catabolic.

Last, I think "bodybuilders die young" is overstating and refers to competition bodybuilders. First almost all of them are on gear, it's just how much. And most of them who get on stage are on a lot of it and use some of the more side effect prone ones (e.g. tren, eq). Also cutting drug abuse (clen, dnp). Also heavy diuretic abuse. Mostly even the "natural" ones. I skip all this stuff, no gear, no sarms, no cutting drugs, no diuretics, I don't compete. So I think it's a lot less harm.

This is the most useful post I’ve read on here for ages! Thanks!

I could have written parts of it myself as I’m at a similar age with a similar journey and also adhd.

I’m going to think very carefully about what I’ve read here. Thanks again.

This is wise and comprehensive HN comment. My only recommendation is to realize that no human ever sits right on a high dimensional mean or median. You are all unique!

The variances explained by the statistical models of longevity and health are generally woefully low.

Don’t even talk about correlation for populations unless you add the “variance explained” and unless you are sure the statical model and cofactors apply broadly.

You, as an individual, may be way out in metabolic and life-style left field. Are these recommendations even of the correct polarity for you?

We raised 80 different strains of inbred mice on both standard and very high fat (60% calories from lard) diets. Each strain was randomly assign to either diet for life with about 8 to 10 replicate “identical twins” per diet.

Do you think we can make a dietary recommendation for mouse number 81? Well at a crude level, sure. The high fat diet generally is not a good diet in terms of lifespan. But there are big deviations from the mean and at least one strain lived much longer on the ridiculous high fat diet than on the standard chow diet.

Paper by Roy S et al 2021 in Nature Metabolism, and open in bioRxiv:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/776559v3

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