Should people be eating more fat?

One other recent study that jumped out at me was one on salt: apparently new studies are showing that CDC guidelines on sodium intake are far too low(1) and should be increased for health.

I wonder if much of the problem with the seemingly contradictory nature of studies like this the wide variance you see with us humans. I know good experimental design is about controlling for these variables, but it seems to be extremely difficult. Are the Danes in the above study eating something else that provides a benefit? Are they, on aggregate, more physically active than Americans? Is there a genetic variation present that means if I ate that much salt I'd have problems?

At the end of the day, I'll always take the guideline oft-attributed to Oscar Wilde: "Everything in moderation, including moderation."

[1] http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20140402/cdc-salt-gui...

I lost over 50 pounds about 3 years ago now. And since then I have been relearning to eat and doing a good job at it.

One of the tricks of the eating healthy trade that I learned and has helped me tremendously, is to put fatty stuff into drinks; mostly teas and coffees. Like bulletproof coffee[0]. Often you hear don't drink empty calories, but as someone that has never counted a calorie I can attest that it is more important to avoid sugary drinks.

For anyone interested, I started with the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferris and then migrated over to fatburningman[2] podcast after the slow carb diet. The only supplement company that I trust is Onnit[3], but I don't take a lot of supplements so I don't spend time researching them.

0.https://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-coffee-recipe/

1.http://fourhourbody.com/

2. http://fatburningman.com/

3. https://www.onnit.com/

also, if you are struggling with weight loss, I will motivate you with the power of email. dlooeps2 [at] gmail, drop me a line .. I consider myself a fat guy that got skinny to eat more food. if that makes any sense.

There is perhaps no other topic of human health we intentionally complicate more than nutrition and supplementation. Every year there is a new study contradicting what we believed to be a solid truth about what we eat, and for every study that says you should eat fat/red meat/salt/alcohol, there is another study that says you shouldn't. This extends to even the most seemingly defensible advice, like taking vitamin D for fair-skinned individuals in cold climates. I had spoken with a medical school professor on how he was now redacting that advice upon new research that came out of a highly regarded, peer-reviewed journal. It seems nothing is safe when it comes to what we ingest.

Fundamentally, it comes down to eating whole, unprocessed foods in sensible amounts and moving around in a manner that provides enough stimulus to fend off disease and atrophy. Everything else is majoring in the minor and varies wildly by individual. There are plenty of lean, healthy individuals on high carb, low fat diets; same with high fat, low carb. If you stick to those fundamentals and experiment with a diet and exercise regimen that is sustainable for you, you will have success. It astounds me that we continuously need to drill into our brains that a diet of salads and the fresh catch of the day is healthier than TV dinners and the drive-through.

A slight tangent to the parent topic, but should HackerNews be about nutrition as much as it has been in the last few days? The comments are frequently woefully ignorant of any current nutritional science and often anecdotes of how one trend diet or broscience factoid helped them achieve their goals.

As much as the discussion can be interesting its not really on topic for what this site is for no? What gets worse is when a group of people uneducated on the topic begin an echo chamber of poor advice and "it worked for me!" mantras we get a pretty sickening discussion that would be frowned upon if it was regarding an actual technology topic.

Lately I've been on a diet of vegetable fats and proteins, almost no carbs (only fiber). Lots of avocados and seeds (chia, flaxseed, sunflower, sesame) which have approximately 50% fat content 45% protein 5% fiber. I lost body fat while eating as much as I wanted of that, along with yoghurt, eggs, cheese and veggies, the only thing off the table is bread, although I eat some once in a while.

People eat too many carbs in their daily life and don't even notice and they carry lots of long term health risks.

Yes. Animal fats particularly. We know from the fossil record and studies of traditional societies that even bone marrow (high and dense in fat and calories) is prized. Science shows it to be unbelievably rich in all sorts of good stuff.

There are some theories out there that modern human brain development was strongly tied to the ability of early humans to make tools to successful extract as much marrow out of an animal carcass as possible. It's basically the raw building blocks brains are made out of. Plus it increases wound regeneration and boosts your immune system.

The science of nutrition is so stunningly complex and difficult that lots of notions about what to eat and not eat have been overturned time and time again. The only thing that seems to have held out is to eat a wide variety of foods from all sources. Limit sugars and sweet things, eat lots of fiber, protein and fats. Cook in butter if you need to use oil. It's better for you and it tastes better.

Traditional societies actually do a pretty god job on many of these fronts. There's some things they screwed up on, nitrates aren't real good for you, but limited amounts of alcohol is. Yogurt is great for you, but Bracken (Fernbrake) turns out to not be so great an idea. Many traditional diets are usually rich in variety, and many of the good things you should be eating, and usually don't have too many of the things you shouldn't be eating. Don't confuse traditional with customary. A customary full-English breakfast every day is something north of 1,000 calories, but there's not much reason to assume it's a good traditional foodstuff. It turns out oatmeal with some fruit is probably better for you.

If in doubt, variety variety variety. As evolved opportunistic omnivores, our bodies are superbly evolved to eat a little bit of just about everything, but don't do so well on lots of one kind of thing. Humans are one of the few species on the planet that can do what we do, and it turns out, just like with any animal, that we kind of have to do what we do to live right.

The Scandinavian country in question, might just be Sweden, though didn't look into it.

High fat has grown in popularity because the actual effects it have. People have started to feel much better and lose weight at the same time.

It's unfortunate the way the government treated Annika Dahlqvist when she first started recommending her diabetes patients to avoid carbohydrates and start with high fat instead. I think at some point she was shut down and prosecuted, but I am not sure.

fyi, if you're interested in losing weight using this approach the /r/keto subreddit is quite good and very encouraging.

I won't say its for everyone, but it certainly worked for me, and after getting over the initial hump I felt better than I ever had. Huge amounts of energy, feeling great after 4 hours of sleep, brain feeling like I was grasping concepts and finding solutions quicker.

I read that several years ago, some farmers figured they could fatten up their cattle by feeding them more fat, so they fed them a bunch of coconut oil. But instead of getting fat, they lost weight.

Eating fat the correct way is important. When possible I try to not cook with fats (except for coconut and rice bran oils that are not badly damaged by heat). Rather, after a meal is cooked and the heat is off, then I add a little flax, olive, etc. oils.

Not too far off topic: I have a cooking web site (http://cookingspace.com) that provides useful nutrition information on recipes: not just a breakdown of micronutrients, but information of which food ingredients contribute how much to micronutrients. Preparing and eating food is a major hobby :-)

I highly recommend checking out this subreddit, http://reddit.com/r/keto.

This article is pretty spot on. The general rule of thumb is eat lots of fats, some protein, and almost no carbs.

The only unhealthy fat is trans fat. All other forms of fat are good (provided you count the calories). Also fats contain leptin, which helps reduce fat! However, protein does a better job of giving that "full" feeling.

Should people eat nutrients? Perhaps they should!