To think there is a poor understanding of a healthy diet?

[LivelyLemonQuoter]

I think most people think they know what a healthy diet looks like, but in reality they do not. I see so many comments on MN that demonstrate this.

The most common one is that fruit should be limited because of its sugar content. This is very bad advice. Sugar in fruit has little impact on our blood sugar levels. And most people in the UK do not eat enough fruit.

The other is concern over eating any carbs. Wholemeal bread and pasta is fine, carbs in pastry and doughnuts is not great though.

And most people need to eat more nuts. Nuts are very good for you and should be part of your regular diet.

Reading Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken would be a good start.

As well as eating according to the motto "eat food, not too much, mostly plants".

I mean you could literally drive yourself crazy trying to eat perfectly. Macros, vitamins, minerals, omega 3, this gives you cholesterol, then it doest, x is bad for you, now it's not, etc etc etc. I just try and eat a varied, balanced and sensible diet without too much upf.

Hard to see how a high saturated fat intake is healthy.

Not all saturated fats are created equal. This is very outdated thinking. The fats that this poster mentions are seen today by many researchers as good fats so coconut milk, butter, olive oil, meat (unprocessed) full fat dairy etc. Note; all unprocessed foods and nutrient-dense.

The foods high in saturated fats from fast food, fried products, sugary baked goods, and processed meats is likely to affect your health differently. They are totally different to the fats our ancestors would know and have no nutritional value.

Research generally indicates the above to be true but it hasn’t been able to agree on quantities and how they affect health. So much of the research was inconclusive and has too many factors to give definite results.

There is some disagreement between ‘experts’ as to whether good saturated fats are indeed ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but there is recent evidence to show that the good saturated fats can have a protective effect on health and that that nutritious high fat foods can be part of a health-promoting, well-rounded diet. I for one eat all the good fats and feed them to my children too. If you’re interested in finding out more I’d recommend looking at the work of Weston A Price and the ancestral way of eating. I don’t follow it to the letter but it’s very interesting to know about.

As @picturethispatsy said, there is a lot to unravel with meat. The idea of 'red meat bad' comes from research that, as far as I can remember from what ?Tim Spector said, included all forms of red meat - the majority of which is consumed in ultra processed food such as burgers etc. I think that upf meat is a very different matter to eating meat that is recognisable as animal muscle with nothing else added.

Brilliant book, very enlightening!

Olive oil isn't high in saturated fat. A lot of full fat dairy will raise your non hdl cholesterol which will raise your risk of heart disease. https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/support/healthy-living/healthy-eating/fats-explained

Again, this is not necessarily true and there is new more recent research to show that full fat dairy does not raise ldl or hdl or cholesterol at all.
Like I said in my previous post, there is a lot of conflicting research that suggests either is true. No one really knows for 100% sure. And a lot most likely is based on other factors such as overall diet, lifestyle, metabolism etc.

I could copy and paste you 100 research papers saying the opposite of the BHF one you posted.
This is why this whole thread is interesting. You can literally find anything to back up most food health claims (though I think we can all agree on some things like eating less processed food is good).
I will personally continue to buy and consume full fat dairy (but i will always endeavour to buy grass-fed, unhomogenised, organic dairy).

Here is one link;
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8408839/#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20a%20review%20of%20randomized,as%20blood%20pressure%20(18).

I hope the other 100 papers are better than the very small exploratory analysis of another study you have just linked to. I haven't got time to review all the evidence so I'm going to take the word the British Heart Foundation, scientists, cardiologists etc who have reviewed all the evidence and generally seem to agree overall it demonstrates too much saturated fat (including that from dairy products) raises LDL cholesterol and the risk of heart disease.

As a nutritionist I’d say this lacks in protein.

Yummy! Can I come round for a day please?

Good for you. And I’ll do me 😊

Your idea of a healthy meal would be a blood sugar disaster for me. Having done Zoe, I know what works for me and what doesn’t. Porridge, bread and rice all send me into a blood sugar spike followed by a massive crash. And it doesn’t matter if they are whole grain, wholemeal, brown, paired with protein etc, still get the spike.

Your healthy meal also looks extremely low in protein and fat to me.

There is protein in nuts and lentils.

Is anyone else going to admit to finding UPFs delicious 👀

Some are but I still don't eat them 🤷🏻‍♀️

That's a choice I've made and one I'm happy with. There are plenty of foods I do like that aren't and my partner and I are fairly good cooks so I don't feel I'm missing out on anything.

I weigh 58kg so 60g would be just fine for me.

Where’s the meat?

are you a vegetarian or vegan or something?

No. I eat fish but not every day so some days would be similar to that posters.

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-reasons-to-eat-more-protein#muscle

theres a study referenced here that suggests protein should be 1.6g per kg if you are under 65.

OP look at the protein leverage hypothesis.

Oh sorry, that was meant for OP.
Three things occur to me; If I ate the diet suggested, I'd find it gassy and indigestion inducing in the extreme.
Nothing wrong with good quality meat. Easily available, good quality protein.
Much of this needs to be imported so what have we gained? If we are sending lentils and chia seeds half way around the world, what's the point. I think we've only just begun to grow chickpeas. Fruit available in the UK for half the year? Again imported so oil energy hungry and CO2 producing.

Depends if you are a body builder. The RNI is 0.75g per kg

You are of course correct however you'll get the usual folk disagreeing with you simply to argue black is white.

I agree but I’m intolerant to nuts and lots of people have serious allegeries to them.
I’m sure that wasn’t the same in 70s everyone ate peanut butter pretty much unheard of. Think pesticides causing too many issues