> the arguments of the low-carb camp are very convincing. Fat is an essential macro. carb-sugar is entirely optional.

Why would this be convincing? We don't need antioxidants, polyphenols, fiber, nor all sorts of nutrients to survive, yet consuming those things improve our health outcomes.

Exercise isn't essential either for survival.

What I see is that the low carb community is full of story-telling sophists convincing people to give up "carbs" like beans and broccoli to eat foods full of saturated fats (usually avoiding unsaturated fats). And then weaving more convenient stories about how elevated LDL / ApoB isn't a concern when the saturated fat comes home to roost.

> Why would this be convincing? We don't need antioxidants, polyphenols, fiber, nor all sorts of nutrients to survive, yet consuming those things improve our health outcomes.

Seems like I was being coy again. What I meant was: some fatty acids are essential for us to function at all. Meanwhile there are no health benefits to carb-sugars. It’s only function is as an energy source. And then pile on top of that the documented drawbacks of carb-sugars. And this was just an off-hand example.

> What I see is that the low carb community is full of story-telling sophists convincing people to give up "carbs" like beans and broccoli to eat foods full of saturated fats (usually avoiding unsaturated fats). And then weaving more convenient stories about how elevated LDL / ApoB isn't a concern when the saturated fat comes home to roost.

Broccoli is entirely kosher. So are leafy greens, fish, nuts, eggs, salads, etc. as long as they don’t contain some glycemic sinners…

Academia pumped-out paper after paper--for over 50 years--on how terrible fat was for you, and now that it has become so very difficult to convince people that that emperor has clothes, they are pivoting to a different bogey-man. This was never the slow march of science, and it still isn't. One guy gets his money from Procter and Gamble, another gets it from publishing royalties, another gets it from youtube monetization. It is all a grift. The actual truth is probably hiding on some Peruvian amateur scientist's blog these days.

I never wrote "it's all the same". I did write that it may be something else entirely, and that some of the more likely suspects are not investigated with the same intensity--probably because a conclusive answer would upset many apple carts.

to ta988: for publishing royalties, i'm not talking about research papers, but popular books / articles. teicholz is a one-woman industry in that respect. not saying that she's right or wrong, but that she (like many others in this space) is both financially and reputationally locked-into a narrative, which is not really science.

To be fair, all the actual results of the studies that claimed bad effects of fat have been only about certain particular kinds of fat, i.e. either saturated fat or artificial hydrogenated fat or burned fat.

Unfortunately, such results about certain kinds of fat have been wrongly used to justify bad nutritional advice that any fat is unhealthy.

From my personal experience, I am convinced that eating the wrong kind of fat can be harmful.

For a large part of my life, I had been eating large amounts of dairy products. Some years ago, at a medical consult, I was surprised to learn that I show signs of atherosclerosis.

My best guess was that this must have been caused by eating excessive amounts of saturated fat. Based on this supposition, I have changed immediately my diet. I have stopped eating dairy products and from that day on about 90% of my daily intake of fat is provided by a mixture of vegetable oils, extra-virgin olive oil with cold-pressed sunflower oil in the proportion 5:2 (the latter is added for an adequate intake of linoleic acid and vitamin E). Typically about one third of my daily energy intake is provided by fat.

One year later, there were no longer any signs of atherosclerosis and there was a very noticeable improvement in my peripheric circulation. Since then, my cardiovascular health has only improved, so I presume that my guess about the saturated fat from dairy being the culprit must have been right.

You're probably the only person in the whole thread who is going to bring up saturated vs unsaturated fat which is always missing from the "they lied about fat" / "we need fat" story-telling.

It's (probably accidental) motte-and-bailey rhetoric where someone provides the motte "fat isn't bad for you" and then grants themself the bailey "therefore I can eat saturated fat ad libitum" when in reality you'd want to minimize saturated fats while allowing unsaturated fats in the diet.

Yet "low carb" is basically a euphemism for eating butter, eggs, meat, and cheese rather than unsaturated fats. The whole thing seems built on that motte-and-bailey.

Publishing royalties? For papers? There is no such thing. Even for most academic books.

Yo are somewhat correct but honestly you just must have become aware of keto after it had passed through the cultural meat grinder of consumerism. Back in like 2012, keto was extremely fringe, niche, and almost all of the keto literature online was genuine science/nutritional hobbyists who were enthusiastic about revealing the deception inherent in our nations nutritional guidelines as a result of lobbying. There was no grift there whatsoever.

Now theres lots of grifters, but the core idea of keto is an incredibly powerful dieting strategy for many people and has very positive effects on symptoms of a number of difference health problems.