this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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To be clear: the above points are FALSE and the true is the opposite. (Just to avoid people misread and keep pushing wrong ideas)
Given how internet people usually apply brain, a "/s" would have been not a bad idea :)
Some of these aren't true even when flipped, though.
A lot of food advice about what's good/bad for you should really just be "eating this is helpful/safe in reasonable amounts" rather than a simple it is good/bad.
There are things you have to eat a minimum of because they are essential to the composition or processes of the body. Almost everything else you can eat, and even turn into useful energy, but then it is about not poisoning/overfeeding yourself.
I'm happy to get into details, if you want to pick one.
Correct. In that sugars and starches are the main thing human metabolize for energy. You can avoid them and fuel yourself on fat. But some carbohydrates are structural, and hence the lack of them is extremely harmful. Grouping all carbohydrates is a gross oversimplification.
Correct.
Incorrect. Modern processed foods make it extremely easy to exceed healthy amounts, bypassing the point where you'd normally no longer want to eat any more (your eat a bunch of butter example).
Very helpful, and should be common knowledge.
I would say they are "not dangerous". Some corners of the internet buy into a conspiracy about food oils basically being poison (seed oils, in particular), which is indeed entirely false. But no oil/fat is harmless when consumed in excess of what your body needs. Again, see modern industrial food processing and the way it bypasses our sense of taste and self-regulation of hunger.
But there is nothing about modern refined food oils that would make them more harmful than any other fats.
Oversimplification. If you are referring to high cholesterol levels, then you're right. But cholesterol is also absolutely essential for several biological processes, especially brain function. It's also not something we get from just eating it, as it is something our body makes.
Depriving yourself of it, would be lethal.
Meat is optional. You can live quite healthily with or without it. It contains some things you can easily eat too much of, but it's also a source of some essential things. But which you can get from other things. The main argument against it isn't human health related, but ethical and environmental. Like with fat, modern food processing and availability makes it easy to eat too much of it.
Correct.
transfats for one are commonly considered unhealthy. processed industrial seed oils are heavily oxidized when consumed, have plant sterols that interfere with proper cholesterol function. They do lower LDL, which is why people like them, but that isn't a good thing.
Cholesterol, when undamaged - not glycated - not oxidized - is extremely healthy. This is commonly called pattern A "light and fluffy" cholesterol.
It's a necessity for human life, you would die with zero cholesterol. Elevated LDL is only a sign of a problem when the elevation is due to damage (and the liver stops recycling the LDL, hence the buildup of the damaged type in the LDL reading).
The body, when unmolested by elevated insulin, produces exactly as much cholesterol as needed.
If you say that the lack of a carbohydrate is harmful, that makes carbohydrates essential. Which carbohydrate is essential?
Here is a writeup on how carbohydrates are not essential at all, and human health does not suffer from their absence. Confronting myths: relative and absolute requirements of dietary carbohydrates and glucose as metabolic fuels. - 2024
Yes. You can live on a keto diet.
Now you confuse me.... Was your comment above being earnest or mythical?
I don't understand this line, does't it contradict
??
It would, but I'm saying carbohydrates are essential in the same way cholesterol is. You don't necessarily have to eat any (though it's really hard not, considering how many things that you may have to eat due to their other essential elements, do contain at least some carbohydrates), some of your body is composed of carbohydrates.
Like I said, you can technically replace all energy needs with fats.
I agree that carbohydrates combined with fat are unhealthy. Inflammation from triggering the randle cycle cross inhibition. As well as elevated insulin levels suppressing proper hunger signaling leading to over consumption. However, the evil culprit here is not the fat, even when eaten in excess fat does not have a deleterious effect on the body, its the processed carbohydrates that cause the damage. https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/saturated-fat#evidence-to-date
I'm not gonna deal with a comment for each point. Especially considering I can barely make out what your actual position is.
Please improve your writing comprehension, I don't want to talk to you through your lack of it. This is probably the biggest case of talking past each other I've ever run into on lemmy.
I made a comment for each point so the details wouldn't get lost in huge posts.
Here is my actual, 100% what I have knowledge to support, position:
Right. Because seven separate comments is so much easier to navigate and read than one well-structured one.
I made my points clearly, regardless. Your points grossly oversimplify whether you flip them or not.
Grains, being heavily processed carbohydrates, elevated insulin. Persistently elevated insulin levels is the most common cause of metabolic disease in the planet. This is most commonly seen in type 2 diabetes rates.
What I'm putting together is that you seem to subscribe to the "eat no carbohydrates because insulin bad and causes fattening" thinking pushed by the keto diet fad.
There are legitimate reasons to go on a keto diet, one of them is that inducing ketosis may allow you to lose weight marginally faster. But there is no conclusive evidence that it is superior to a normal diet in terms of long-term health implications. And it has DEFINITE downsides if you care about your physical performance, as glycogen consumed during physical exertion is replenished much slower when eating a restricted amount of carbohydrates.
In fact I can mostly find it referred to as "low-carbohydrate" diet because it is near impossible to entirely eliminate carbohydrates from your diet without also dropping some other essential nutrients, unless you get those via pills.
In fact when the keto diet is taken to the extreme in order to treat epilepsy, that's exactly what they do. And even then it's not harmless.
Strong disagree.
from a comment below
Calories in calories out. CICO. It's given to people as the ultimate truth to health and fitness. It's technically correct but not helpful for a few reasons
The laws of thermodynamics apply to reality, however in human nutrition there are some problems
A much more clinically relevant model, to helping people solve their health problems, is the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity.
That is to say consumption of carbohydrates drives insulin, insulin drives obesity and drives most of the modern problems people are trying to fix. Cardiovascular issues, hypertension, neuropathy, fatty liver disease, PCOS etc etc etc
As an example consider a person who wants to gain or lose 1 lb in a month. If they're eating three meals a day, that means they need to eat 30 calories less per meal. There's no way anybody can accurately measure their calories down to 30 per meal. It's much more effective to let the human machinery operate and do it homeostasis job, and that's principally done by keeping insulin levels low and allowing the hormones to work.
Now I'm really confused.
Did you flip your own arguments in your initial comment or not?
The advice people have been given since the 1950s is wrong.
The bullet list is the correct advice.
Then why are you only saying this now, after I and another commenter CLEARLY read your comment about a 180 to mean you were stating the old advice and intending the opposite.
Apologies if the language was confusing, I've updated it to add a clarifying note.
Many of the points OP made are indeed true. You would be the one stuck with the myths ;)
No, they're overcorrecting to the point of being myths in the opposite direction.
Considering their responses to my comment, no.
They did NOT flip their arguments.
I stand behind everything I said. I'm happy to provide references if any specific thing is interesting to you
What is cico? (Not native speaker here)
Calories In, Calories Out. Basically means that you should be aware of the amount of calories you eat (calories in) vs the calories you burn (calories out).
Calories in calories out. CICO. It's given to people as the ultimate truth to health and fitness. It's technically correct but not helpful for a few reasons
The laws of thermodynamics apply to reality, however in human nutrition there are some problems
A much more clinically relevant model, to helping people solve their health problems, is the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity.
That is to say consumption of carbohydrates drives insulin, insulin drives obesity and drives most of the modern problems people are trying to fix. Cardiovascular issues, hypertension, neuropathy, fatty liver disease, PCOS etc etc etc
As an example consider a person who wants to gain or lose 1 lb in a month. If they're eating three meals a day, that means they need to eat 30 calories less per meal. There's no way anybody can accurately measure their calories down to 30 per meal. It's much more effective to let the human machinery operate and do it homeostasis job, and that's principally done by keeping insulin levels low and allowing the hormones to work.
Wat.
That's why that's not a recommendation anyone gives but "eat on average x amount of calories less than you use in a day" which is fairly easy to accomplish.