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Comment by fasterik | Hacker News Reader

That has nothing to do with whether excesses of those nutrients cause cardiovascular disease, though. The general consensus is that the healthiest diet is one with 5-10% of total calories from saturated fat. For most people, it's necessary to restrict saturated fat to land in that range. We also need to distinguish between sugar and carbohydrates. Again, the general consensus is that intake of sugar and refined carbohydrates should be minimized, while 50-75% of total calories should come from sources of complex carbohydrates like vegetables, beans, and whole grains.

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Carbohydrates are sugars (from the first sentence on wikipedia): "A carbohydrate (/ˌkɑːrboʊˈhaɪdreɪt/) is a sugar (saccharide) or a sugar derivative." Saying you need "50-75% of your energy from [sugar]" illustrates why that is a somewhat odd statement. Yes, glucose is much better than fructose, but eating a ton of glucose will still lead to high insulin spikes and inflammatory diseases. Complex carbohydrates are better in that they take longer to digest, not because they're magically different. Vegetables are good for nutrients not because you need their carbs.

GP was talking specifically about calories, not other nutrients. My impression is when a vegetable provides significant calorie content it tends to be in the form of carbohydrates.

You have to get your calories (ie raw energy) from somewhere. If you limit saturated fat to 10% then what's left for the other 90% is (roughly speaking) unsaturated fat, simple sugars, carbohydrates (ie complex sugars), and protein. In terms of long term habits converting protein to calories is probably not a great choice for your health. If you decide to go for complex carbohydrates over various oils then vegetables that provide those are a good option.

People are on ketogenic diets for years and even decades with no adverse affects. There's nothing wrong with getting energy from other sources, your body can manage it fine.

Ketogenic diets are high fat. I suggested that a diet where the bulk of your calories comes from protein (not lipids, carbohydrates, or simple sugars) was probably not great for your health.

Your body can certainly "manage" on a high protein low fat low carb diet but I don't understand it to be good for you.

Funny you should say that after today's FDA announcement. (Not taking any side here just interested in how we determine what is a consensus these days)

It's hard, because when an issue becomes politicized everyone has their own preferred "consensus". I would say it should come from the scientific community, not government agencies. Sometimes government agencies agree with the scientific consensus, but not always.

My go-to source for nutrition information is Understanding Nutrition by Whitney and Rolfes.

> everyone has their own preferred "consensus"

For some people choice of diet really does seem core to their identity. It’s literally all the OP ever posts about.

There is a third option: looking at the diets of your closest ancestors with the best longevity.

There may be a misconception that there is one single best diet for everyone, when in reality we people (over generations) evolve with our diets, and your best diet and my best diet may be completely different.

The problem with using science as a guide is that there are just too many variables and not enough time, data and money to isolate them all sufficiently.

However that is distinct from the idea that too much of something like refined sugar might be unhealthy for just about everyone. So science does have an important role to play, I just don't think it's advanced far enough to fully answer the question for everyone.

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