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Comment by maliker | Hacker News Reader

So, this might all be quackery, but there are some people out there that think high saturated fat diets are the healthiest, which would line up with eating a lot of cheese. E.g. this subreddit is excited about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SaturatedFat/?rdt=63805

Dunno if I believe it, but it's easy to test if upping the saturated fat in your diet is helpful to you or not.

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It’s quackery. There is a ton of scientific evidence showing that diets high in saturated fats cause high cholesterol, and high cholesterol is strongly associated with heart disease.

>strongly associated with

Is that causation or correlation?...

Correlation. Cholesterol is what the body uses to “fix” lesions in arteries. The spackle of the blood highway.

What causes the lesions? Many things, including bacteria and viruses.

There’s strong evidence that it’s causation.

I guess if you kept the total calories in line, it would be fine? It'd be interesting to know either way.

I've noticed saturated fats trigger a far greater sense of satiety for me than unsaturated fats, vegetable oils in particular, which I feel I could eat forever. So my personal estimation is sticking to sat fats over unsat fats will result in eating fewer calories.

This might explain why cheese and potatoes are staple dishes in a lot of cultures - that's kinda maximizing satiation isn't it?

Glad you mention potatoes too: they're FAR AND AWAY the most satiating food per calorie, based on a 1995 study https://www.thebodytransformationacademy.com/uploads/7/4/4/9...

I actually don’t think so. When you eat fat AND carbs, you tend to eat more of each than if you would have eaten them separately. Source: I’m Swiss and we have dishes like Fondue or Raclette, where each serving is often more than 200g or more cheese. Which would be a lot on its own, i.e. without bread or potatoes. Might also be because it is melted cheese though.

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