The Lowdown On Fat

[tara]

Peat says up to 50 percent of calories could be from fat if it's hydrogenated coconut oil, but sources such as lamb, beef, unhydrogenated coconut oil still have PUFA levels that could cause issues down the line if these were used to 50 percent of the diet. He has said 33/33/33 of the macros could be good. People tolerate higher and lower levels of fat than 33 percent of calories from fat so experiment yourself.

+1

And he's suggested if you don't need the calories, don't overdo the high fat foods, eg gallons of full-fat milk and high fat cheeses in large quantities - but he's also talked about cream being the best in coffee. :)

I'm also surprised to hear him saying that that much fat is OK. So why do people refer to him as someone who recommends a high-carb/low-fat diet?

He does like carb metabolism, and is does not favour high-fat low-carb diets in general. He's sometimes suggested that there can be a place for a (maybe short-term?) diet based on (not necessarily exclusively) 1% milk, OJ, occasional oysters, liver, maybe other fruit and veges etc, as supplying necessary nutrition for fat-loss or other specific purposes. I think maybe some people have mistakenly taken this as a more general recommendation.

Some fat seems to have some useful effects too, including improving digestion of other nutrition. Very low fat seems to be hard on some people.

The Randall effect means that high fat intake seems to negatively affect carb metabolism.

 

[TNT]

Could be from the negative effects of high fructose intake seen in hundreds of studies where starch as a control doesn't have this effect. Have you tried using for instance, white basmati rice as the bulk source of your carbs and using fruits/honey as a dessert ? Fructose has beneficial properties that can be obtained at low dose. Don't know, you gotta experiment. High sugar wasn't good for my hair either.

@Elephanto , this is interesting! What is it that these studies are saying -- something about hair loss or something about insulin? I thought fructose helps glucose to not spike insulin the way that glucose (what starches break down into) does. And I feel like starches put me on a wild blood sugar rollercoaster, whereas I don't have that same problem with fruit.

When you say high sugar wasn't good for your hair, do you mean fruit or something else? And what happened?

 

[Elephanto]

@Elephanto , this is interesting! What is it that these studies are saying -- something about hair loss or something about insulin? I thought fructose helps glucose to not spike insulin the way that glucose (what starches break down into) does. And I feel like starches put me on a wild blood sugar rollercoaster, whereas I don't have that same problem with fruit.

When you say high sugar wasn't good for your hair, do you mean fruit or something else? And what happened?

No study about hair loss per se, it's usually things like causing insulin resistance, inflammation, kidney damage, liver damage, intestinal permeability etc. Yes fructose doesn't trigger Insulin but that doesn' mean it can't create the conditions that lead to insulin resistance when intake is high (like developing a fatty liver). It's interesting that you say this about the blood sugar rollercoaster because that's how I felt on a high dairy high sugar diet and maybe too much coffee, whereas since I've dropped them I have been doing Intermittent fasting (16:8) easily with no stress elevation which points to better glycogen storage. Protein definitely adds to satiety though, so I usually have some Adzuki beans with my rice. Adding a bit of sugar to a starch-based meal ameliorates the glycemic response, probably why most traditional cultures which used to have inexistent rates of diabetes/heart diseases always had a small dessert (most often fruits) after a meal (like Traditional Chinese Medicine suggests, Indian culture etc).

High sugar, well I've done either a lot of orange juice, white sugar and coconut sugar in quark shakes, and eating fruits like pineapple, mangoes etc as my main source of carbs accompanied by low-fat fish; during that time I was starch-free. Hair thickness was bad, poor texture and more shedding (and that was a few years after stabilizing hairline recession with supps/habits and at this time of regrowth my meals were white rice+coconut oil) while on a milk-based diet I had hairline regression which seems to be from the IGF-1 it contains (since the IGF1:IGFBP3 ratio is high in young balding men and adding intact igf-1 raises this ratio unlike growth hormone), though it could also be from its opioid peptides.

 

[TNT]

@Elephanto , lemme make sure I understand -- you're saying that fruit causes insulin resistance, inflammation, kidney damage, liver damage, intestinal permeability, etc., but starch doesn't?

BTW, I think it's important to distinguish between fruit and sugar. Fruit is fructose and glucose, starch breaks down into glucose, and sugar is sucrose. Or at least that's my understanding, which may not be entirely accurate.

 

[Elephanto]

@Elephanto , lemme make sure I understand -- you're saying that fruit causes insulin resistance, inflammation, kidney damage, liver damage, intestinal permeability, etc., but starch doesn't?

BTW, I think it's important to distinguish between fruit and sugar. Fruit is fructose and glucose, starch breaks down into glucose, and sugar is sucrose. Or at least that's my understanding, which may not be entirely accurate.

Sucrose is fructose and glucose, it's the same thing. Some fruits have more fructose because they have free-fructose on top of sugar.

Well yeah, that's what many studies show, when the same high intake of fructose and starch are compared, fructose does much more damage. I'm sure people with creativity can find an excuse for every single study, that's why I said you gotta experiment. If you keep switching the fat macros and it still doesn't work, then maybe the issue is elsewhere. Historically fat intake has always been low and many starch-based cultures have much lower rates of hair loss than what is seen in modern western society. The same societies always treated sugar and fruits as a dessert, that is to be consumed in small quantities. Traditional practices also include strategies to counteract the endotoxin-promoting properties of starch, wether it is draining starch from rice, mixing it with antiseptic oils like Coconut and Olive, or adding antiseptic spices like dried ginger, parlsey, salt, etc.

 

[TNT]

Thanx, @Elephanto ! Looks like I've got more experimenting to do. I wonder how all these Peatarians are doing so well with chug-a-lugging so much OJ!

 

[Elephanto]

Thanx, @Elephanto ! Looks like I've got more experimenting to do. I wonder how all these Peatarians are doing so well with chug-a-lugging so much OJ!

Well there has been many threads of people registering here to say that they had more hair loss, worsened diabetes or developed a fatty liver since they started Peating. It probably does work (optimally?) for some people (or like some vlogs of fruitarians show, their kind of lifestyles mask the lack of energy and mental clarity) but I also notice that in these times, people put more importance in what scientific authorities say over their intuitive thinking, which a lot of people almost completely lost. That includes myself, it took me a long time to realize I wasn't functioning optimally because everything I read here dictated that I was doing everything right (though it is true for many elements). So yeah, I really like "Perceive, think, act".

 

[TNT]

Wow -- thank you so much for sharing this! I didn't realize a lot of people had similar issues with a Peat diet. So where you suggested white basmati rice, why not brown?

 

[CLASH]

@TNT
i’d be careful drawing comparison between isolated fructose/ glucose/ sucrose and fruit. The studies that I have seen don’t support fruit causing inflammation, quite the opposite actually. Also, it doesnt seem that fruit increases insulin or blood sugar over the long term either. It actually seems to improve insulin sensitivty and blood glucose levels. Fruit also seems to protect the liver from high fat diets in rodents and humans, even in the form of juice.

Comparing isolated fructose/ glucose/ sucrose to fruit is like comparing individual amino acids supplementation to a steak.

As always experimentation is the only way of knowing what works for you, but some people seem to do better with fruit and others with starch.

 

[TNT]

Good point, @CLASH . Thanks!

 

[Elephanto]

Wow -- thank you so much for sharing this! I didn't realize a lot of people had similar issues with a Peat diet. So where you suggested white basmati rice, why not brown?

Because the bran in brown rice is anti-androgenic, pretty irrelevant to you, but it is also routinely high in Lead and sometimes Arsenic. The heavy metals could explain why it causes allergenic reactions in some people and globally, white rice is one of the least allergenic foods.

@CLASH There hasn't been studies I know of using considerably high intakes of fruits or natural sugars (comparable to Peat 2 quarts of milk 1 quart OJ, or fruitarian diets). Things like protecting against fat-induced TLR4 activation are achieved with a single glass of orange juice and many benefits mentioned by Peat are achieved at low doses, which fits with traditional cultures using small portions of fruits as dessert. When you go into the mechanisms of high fructose-induced damage (Fructose: It’s “Alcohol Without the Buzz” is a good start) it's safe to assume that vitamins and minerals like potassium can't counteract them completely. Most of the polyphenols in fruits are estrogenic, including Naringenin in oranges, which I find strange that Peat in certain articles praise it, but in many quotes has written that naringenin is potently estrogenic and inhibits glucuronidation (the detoxification of Estrogen). I think they have some benefits at low doses but probably all of them have undesirable features where net benefits are lost at high doses.

 

[Elephanto]

Peat about Naringenin :

For example, the flavonoids, naringenin, quercetin and kaempherol (kaempherol is an antioxidant, a phytoestrogen, and a mutagen) modify the metabolism of estradiol, causing increased bioavailability of both estrone and estradiol.

Similarly, several flavonoids (naringenin, hesperetin, kaempferol, quercetin, rutin, flavone, alpha-naphthoflavone and beta-naphthoflavone) also inhibited rat liver microsomal glucuronidation of estrone and estradiol to varying degrees.

But in another article, mentions :

“Orange juice contains the antiinflammatory chemicals naringin and naringenin, which protect against endotoxin by suppressing the formation of nitric oxide and prostaglandins (Shiratori, et al., 2005).”

“Substances that inhibit inflammation are likely to also inhibit excessive collagen synthesis, serotonin secretion, and the formation of estrogen. Besides aspirin, some effective substances are apigenin and naringenin, found in oranges and guavas.

Seems more like a case of forgetting about some of its estrogenic effects if the articles were written years apart, since he stressed it (and the importance of glucuronidation) several times, than advicing Naringenin with both pros and cons in mind. There are many phytoestrogens that have studies showing beneficial effects but he still strongly advices against them. That's one reason why I wouldn't do a diet high in Oranges but would rather consume them in small quantities.