Great speech by Nina Teicholz: "They tell us to limit saturated fats and instead eat five and a half teaspoons of seed oils every day. They tell us to eat more than half of our calories as carbohydrates. This advice is squarely contradicted by rigorous clinical trials."
— Camus (@newstart_2024) March 25, 2025
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Dr Mike on seed oils. He comes at these issues from a weight training perspective for normalish people and not so much from the perspective of people with specific health issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBvlswmgV1c
When I see the company name Renaissance Periodization, I think of Fernand Braudel.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Braudel
I’m of the opinion that past government dietary recommendations were actually quite useful, though only as a negative indicator.
Yes, anything from the USDA is ass-backwards.
A rant from my archives-
It’s hard to go wrong by doing the exact opposite of the USDA recommendations:
USDA: High carbohydrate, low fat, and most of that unsaturated.
Healthy: Low carbohydrate, high fat, almost all saturated. Avoid seed oils, which easily go rancid. (Carbs give you metabolic syndrome, then diabetes, and eventually [some forms of] cancer.)
USDA: Avoid Cholesterol sources such as egg yolks.
Healthy: Cholesterol intake does not increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. Enjoy high-cholesterol foods as you wish. Braaains! (More seriously, eggs. They are about the most balanced food possible but without prion diseases.)
USDA: Low sodium to the point where deficiencies strike many.
Healthy: Salt to taste and then some, healthy kidneys can eliminate any excess, and there is no CVD risk due to sodium. Sick people have high serum sodium, high sodium intake does not make you sick. (Wet streets do not cause rain.)
USDA: Measure and regulate serum LDL cholesterol levels with statins.
Healthy: LDL has no predictive power for CVD. Statins cause harm and no good.
USDA: Fruit juices are a healthy part of the “My Plate” regimen.
Healthy: Fructose in all forms must have fiber with it to slow and reduce absorption. It is almost as hepatotoxic as ethanol.
USDA: A calorie is a calorie is a calorie.
Healthy: Added Sucrose (and particularly fructose) contributes to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. Avoid sugars and starches as much as possible.
USDA: Feedlot-fattened beef is an economical and healthy food.
Healthy: Preferably grass-fed beef with good Omega 3: Omega 6 balance should be eaten. Wild-caught fish vs farm-raised has the same issue. Natural Omega 3-6 ratio is about 1:1 when eating non-factory foods, the standard American diet is about 1:20. Ack.
USDA: To lose weight you must consciously consume fewer calories.
Healthy: LCHF diet induces satiety before excess calories are consumed, ensuring long-term compliance. and successful fat loss. Ever had a cheeseburger so rich you couldn’t finish it? Ditch the bun and fries, wash it down with water, and you’ll eat fewer calories than in a carb-laden meal -without having to struggle.
USDA/AMA/FDA: The cause of type 2 diabetes is a mystery, and can only be treated, not cured, with medication.
Healthy: Stop eating the goddamn carbs and T2 diabetes will cure itself, except in end-stage patients.
It’s almost as if they’ve been programming the proles to drop dead as soon as they retire and can draw benefits… Otto von Bismarck smiles.
The Food Pyramid was designed by the same folks who advised farmers on how to fatten up pigs for slaughter as quickly and cheaply as possible. Mission accomplished!
Fructose is especially dangerous to consume, especially in large quantities. Glucose (including dextrose, or table sugar) will make you feel ill in large quantities, providing a negative feedback loop to stop consumption. Fructose has no such feedback inhibition.
So, what does everyone want for breakfast? Fruit juices, or a fruit smoothy, or a fruit bowl with quinoa or whatever. Eat fruit, it’s healthy! makes as much sense as “Physicians for Russian Roulette” would.
I do consume fruit, in moderation. I tend to eat berries occasionally, which are low in sugars of all sorts, or a small (3 ounce or so) apple or orange. The actual fruit, with fiber, not some synthetic juice blend.
Once upon a time, during my first semester at university, I would drink a pint of grapefruit juice as my breakfast before an early morning physics lecture. I would often be nodding off half an hour into the class. I couldn’t have been the only one unconscious in the lecture hall, but I had chosen to sit in the second row because I liked the subject. And that is how my promising scientific career was ended by fructose.
One of the best comments I’ve read Doug. It should be framed and made mandatory reading for all nutrition classes.
If people eat healthy food, how can the Diabetes-Industrial Complex keep making their obscene profits?
Diabetes (Type I) is a disease of carbohydrate metabolism caused by a failure of the insulin-producing cells (Islets of Langerhans) in the pancreas. Why they fail is likely a combination of autoimmune and exogenous (toxin or viral) causes.
Reducing carbohydrate intake (Which used to be the only treatment for diabetes prior to the discovery of Insulin by Banting and Best in 1921) makes a certain degree of sense. After all there are no ‘essential’ carbohydrates (essential meaning they must be consumed, they are not made in the body), so no need for them. The need for glucose and ketones for metabolism are easily handled by the body via gluconeogenesis, not eating a candy bar.
So, what does the majority of the medical community, the NIH, the FDA and the American Diabetes Association suggest as a ‘diabetic diet’?
15-20% of calories in protein, 20-35% of calories from fats, and the remaining 45-60% from carbs.
Madness.