Hacker News Reader

Comment by cynicalpeace | Hacker News Reader

Except animal fat is not ultra processed. 200 calories of Oreos is simply not the same as 200 calories of red meat. Anything in excess is bad, though, agreed.

View on HN

It can still be simple -- look at it like this: 200 calories of Oreos provides very little additional benefits, while 200 calories of meat provides more additional benefits for your diet. It doesn't matter as much when comparing Oreos to meat, but it really matters when you're comparing orange juice to soda. The processing might play a factor, but really you're looking for calories containing nutrients that keep you alive and healthy -- processing level is pretty subjective.

~3500 calories of orange juice and ~3500 calories of soda will both add 1 pound of mass I to your body.

Yeah, because they are both intensely sugary.

3500 calories of lean meat won't.

I would say OJ and soda should both be avoided.

I compared Oreos to red meat because two medical students argued with me that Oreos, which are vegan, were equivalent or even better than red meat.

They believed this because the medical establishment had gone full tilt against red meat for the past 50 years.

And of course they used their authority on the subject as an excuse for believing something insane.

myth that juice is somewhat healthy should be added to this list of fiction that we are discussing. eat raw fruits. much better than extracting just the sugary water and throwing most of fibres away.

Of course. Processing is a grayscale, but as you go up the scale, the less healthy something is, as a rule of thumb.

I would say a diet soda is significantly healthier than orange juice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com