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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   34833 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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Re anti-fat, I thought trans fat was emphatically bad? The advice to avoid saturated fats seems like the most plausibly bad advice in the list, but afaik the jury is still out there.

Not sure on trans fats, I haven't gone back to at any point recently. Recommending against saturated fats is what I was complaining about on that line.

The balance of the evidence seems to suggest sodium is also bad?

The majority of studies I've seen that show any benefit are looking at sodium reduction for hypertensives. To my knowledge, there is no compelling evidence that metabolically healthy people benefit from reducing sodium consumption. One of the main reasons I'm skeptical of the generalized claim is noting that East Asian countries with very high life expectancies have high sodium consumption. On a personal level (again, the main thing I'm arguing is that public health advice is bad for individuals) I suffer from muscle cramps during hard workouts if I don't intentionally consume more extra salt.

Where does the CDC advice eating 6 ounces or less of lean meat per day?

That number came from punching my numbers into their calculator. Again though, I see no need to restrict to "lean" meat.

I think, given most people consume too many calories, recommending skim milk over whole milk makes good public health sense

Yeah, this is why I suggest that healthy individuals ignore them. Something can make good public health sense (I'm skeptical, but whatever) while being useless or deleterious for people that aren't in the relevant treatment group. Skimping on full fat milk, butter, and fatty meat would do literally nothing to improve my health. Really, this gets back to the core of how this discussion started - maybe the CDC could create some tax scheme that improves health in aggregate, but I thoroughly resent being punished for other people's bad behavior.

I will scale back my claim above that their nutrition recommendations are terrible though - these aren't completely crazy, they're just pointless advice for healthy individuals.

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