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.

I'm talking about people I know, and none of them ever "dieted", they simply ate what they wanted, but not to excess. As for UPFs, of course they are more prevalent now, but I can assure you they've been around much longer than the 90s.

True. But I'm also posting on mumsnet and not publishing research. The starch in pasta, bread, potatoes etc is still converted into glucose with the same effect on the body.

I'm not really sure why you're so invested in arguing with everyone tbh.

Like others, I've never measured my blood sugar levels but I know the effect different foods have on my body because I'm living in it.

You don't have to agree with anyone on here but it seems a bit pointless to constantly tell people they're wrong when, in reality, you don't know any better than anyone else. None of us know what the advice will be in 20+ years time.

Food is not all the same with regard to diabetes risk and heart disease risk.

How do you know what I know and don't know? I have to read the research as part of my job and I have been doing so for 30 years or so. The advice hasn't changed massively over that time and I doubt it will greatly change in the next 20.

Which is me! Healthy and non-diabetic. But one of the reasons I AM healthy is because I know which foods disrupt my blood sugar and I therefore avoid them.

I don’t know why you’re finding it so hard to understand that carbs and sugar spike glucose levels in a bad way. It’s common knowledge.

Then you will also know that, whilst an excess of neither is good for you, sugar a greater risk factor for heart disease than saturated fat.

Of course it is common knowledge that too much sugar is a bad thing. It's not common knowledge that wholegrain, high-fibre starchy carbohydrates are a bad thing.

In fact, the longest lived nations on earth have diets that heavily feature whole-grains and also starchy carbohydrates like potatoes, sweet potatoes, and rice.

Link(s) @fiorenza?

@fiorenza There’s a big problem with diabetes in rice-eating countries actually.

Rice and risk of T2 diabetes

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7576435/

Life expectancy in Japan and South Korea is high and they eat quite a lot of carbs (rice, noodles, sweet potato) and not much saturated fat (low meat and dairy).

https://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i1209

People in South Asia are predisposed to diabetes due to being more likely to store fat around their middle. A BMI over 23 is considered overweight.

The article you linked to found no increased risk in China.

Research into ‘blue zone’ longevity found that diet was just one part. So they might be living longer despite eating refined carbs, not because of it.

Wombat, what is your beef (pun intended) with saturated fat? I thought the newest research debunked the ‘diet-heart hypothesis’ proposed in the 1950s? I know the hypothesis has been found over and over to have insufficient evidence and was proven to have lots of industry bias in the 60s,70s and beyond?
For clarity I’m clearly not talking about transfats which all experts agree are bad.

The blue zones were debunked. You are most likely to live to advanced age if you live in poverty in an area with high pressure to commit pension fraud. The cohorts of centenarians the Blue Zones were based on mostly didn’t exist, or were long dead.

The idea that all fat increases heart disease had been debunked but saturated fat (as well as trans) is still considered unhealthy. The "healthy" fats are monounsaturated and polyunsaturated.

Not so. New(ish) research shows saturated fat is not all bad. It’s much, much more complex than that.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32562735/#:~:text=Abstract,;%20food%20matrix;%20saturated%20fat.

@wombat15 is talking from a very outdated standpoint.

Not true. The recent-ish research overturned the idea (as that is what it turned out to be-an idea that gained traction via industry bias) that saturated fat specifically caused heart disease.

Strange how the official guidance on saturated fats hasn't changed then. You would think all the experts would know about recent research.

You can assure all you want but UPFs emerged in the 80s. The people you are talking about were not exposed to UPFs as children and teens.

You were sweeping with your comment about 'older people ' in your earlier post, rather than the few you know.

You really would think so.

Oh, so as long as we don't eat UPF in our childhood and teens we will be fine. Good to know that I can eat as many as I like now and won't suffer any ill effects.

The term UPFs may have emerged in the 80s, but I can assure you that they were around longer than that. I can remember eating shop bought biscuits as a child - the same biscuits that are still sold today. We also had breakfast cereals and white bread. I was there, I know what we were eating.

Yes, because that is exactly what I am saying.

I was there too, and it is disingenuous to say that the white bread and biscuits of the 1970s are the same as today. The ingredients were simpler.
Yes there was still crap food but not in the same way.

I was there too. Bread and a lot of food was really processed and awful in the 70s in the UK.