Vegan Gains

[sprinter]

What we are designed to eat is really vague, because we can easily change how a food tastes just by cooking it (for example). The taste of french fries seems to be "friendly". Let's eat them then?

My Peat inspired diet includes starch, so Potatoes fried in coconut oil are another tasty food for me!

 

[Travis]

That something is a risk factor does not mean that things that increase that risk factor are the issue. Saturated fat does indeed raise cholesterol levels - that is a good thing.

Not really a true statement at all. It has been shown that only saturated fats palmitic and longer increase the serum cholesterol concentration.

So not all saturated fats are capable of doing this.

This seems like a redistribution to me. If you raise the serum cholesterol concentration then it must fall elsewhere. I think the best explanation is that it changes the serum lipid chemical affinity for cholesterol. I don't think that long-chained saturated fat increases cholesterol synthesis.

And if unsaturated fats do in fact lower serum cholesterol, I would expect the reasons for this to simply be displacement and/or affinity/solubility . Basically, there are chemical/physical reasons why this happens and it shouldn't necessarily be taken as indicative of increased cholesterol synthesis.

So long-chained saturated fatty acids wouldn't be expected to increase cholesterol in the entire organism. It merely redistributes it slightly.

This is what I have gathered from reading a few of the classic cholesterol clinical studies and a few newer ones. I also read The Cholesterol Con a while back, the one by Malcolm Kendrick.

And I read one population study on coconut-eating natives which showed a relatively low serum cholesterol.

I think the entire topic is over-hyped and used to distract from the main cause of cardiovascular disease.

There are good reasons to go raw vegan in my opinion, but this certainly does not top the list. Saturated fats are a non-issue as far as I can tell, but I don't really know if there are any drawbacks in consuming molecular cholesterol in food.

There will always be somewhat plausible and believable arguments on both sides of this Vegan/Non-vegan issue, but if you can set aside your emotions and attachments and use logic alone, I think you will come to the conclusion that veganism certainly makes sense physiologically.

Our closest genetic relatives are mostly vegan and our bodies are structured in such a way that you expect that we are biologically vegans for the most part.

Take off your cultural blinders; your rose-colored glasses, and examine the most dry and most boring articles on the subject. Dry and boring language serves to dis-attach you from emotions and allow you to see from a totally scientific and logical point of view.

YouTube videos generally do the opposite. They tend to be sensationalist. The Plant Positive series is probably the best, since it is narrated by a man with that dry British style and nearly every point is backed-up by a scientific study.

And of course, Veganism can be unhealthy of course just like anything else. Beer and potato chips are vegan.

And there is probably more money and more propaganda against veganism than for it. Anti-vegan is the status quo, and the Cattle Ranchers Association and the Dairy Association are way more politically active and financed than any vegan group, probably by a factor of 1,000. See Marion Nestle for info on food politics.

So even if Veganism were the most logical and healthful approach, you would never see it gain much in popularity. So much money has been mobilized against it and for meat and dairy that most people will never get past the full-page glossies and billboards.

And there are way more subtle forms of advertising. Astroturfing. See Sharyl Atkinson for that.

 

[Ukall]

My Peat inspired diet includes starch, so Potatoes fried in coconut oil are another tasty food for me!

"fried in coconut oil", oh, of course I was not referring about frying them on CO. And you fry them that way, because you've studied about it. The taste fried on PUFA oil is better or perhaps should I say more addictive. Some chocolate cereals taste very good too. Even some soy milks are very tasty.
I mean, I guess you understand what I was trying to say.

 

[sprinter]

"fried in coconut oil", oh, of course I was not referring about frying them on CO. And you fry them that way, because you've studied about it. The taste fried on PUFA oil is better or perhaps should I say more addictive. Some chocolate cereals taste very good too. Even some soy milks are very tasty.
I mean, I guess you understand what I was trying to say.

I disagree. I think fries in coconut oil infinitely better. Whenever I eat a fry cooked in vegetable oil, I can taste the oil and it is gross to me. I cannot even be in the same room when vegetable oil is being used anymore it makes me sick. Soy Milk is disgusting to me!!! I don't know about "chocolate cereal" but Im sure the chocolate and starch component is what is tasty -- and if fat is used, i'd bet it be even better if they used coconut oil. Ray Peat for life!!!

 

[Travis]

You are both right. The PUFA taste is better if you acclimated to it, but once you quit, you will like coconut oil better.

This is similar to smoking American junk cigarettes. You will find at first that a natural cigarette tastes like nothing and does not satisfy your perverted craving for junk cigarettes. After smoking 100% tobacco for a few months, junk cigarettes taste like plastic.

It might take some time to get off the ***t food.

 

[Ukall]

I disagree. I think fries in coconut oil infinitely better. Whenever I eat a fry cooked in vegetable oil, I can taste the oil and it is gross to me. I cannot even be in the same room when vegetable oil is being used anymore it makes me sick. Soy Milk is disgusting to me!!! I don't know about "chocolate cereal" but Im sure the chocolate and starch component is what is tasty -- and if fat is used, i'd bet it be even better if they used coconut oil. Ray Peat for life!!!

Even in yours early teens you already know that there was difference between fries in coconut oil vs fries in PUFA oil and the ones on CO were better? Of course not, neither do I.
I still think salt on french fries fried on PUFA Oil plays a big role. I was thinking about those that come on packages like Lays, Ruffles. Those are quite addicting.
Also, regarding Soy Milk, I think there are some with extra sugar, which makes them tastier.
You will say that's the food that you like most, but there is so much food out there which perhaps tastes even better and it's not peaty.
Also, you are lucky that they "work" for you.

It might take some time to get off the ***t food.

Yes, pretty much it. I mean, when you are doing a diet and, especially, if you believe that diet is doing well to you, even the most disgusting food can taste good. I always hated soup, and my mum would force me to eat all the soup, because soup is good for you. Then we start to like soup (even if they don't taste good), because they are good for our health (curiously though, there is this weird time as you get older and start to appreciate vegetables...). Also, those who eat raw veggies smoothies. They may taste disgusting, but since they believe they are good for them, they will say they are tasty.

I think no one doesn't really know how to eat. I am saying this, because if that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be people searching for diets.
We grow up teaching us how to eat or we simply imitate others around us. Also the tv commercials and even our "heroes" influence a lot in our habits.
If I had grown up on a tribe where insects were the best food, perhaps I would say insects are way much better than any other food. And who knows, maybe insects are the food that I like most and I never tried it.

 

[PUFAsfree2001]

What I found about dairy (in my experience) is only ice cream led to some weight gain (5 pounds or so, though I'm thin). Anyone who claims that "saturated fat" causes heart disease by raising cholesterol is so far behind the times that I wouldn't pay any attention to them whatsoever. There are the studies of indigenous people on diets very rich in coconut (and the animals they ate, chickens and pigs, were fed coconut), which are from the 1980s, along with all the more recent studies/understanding of the role of oxidized lipids, and so saying "cholesterol" just demonstrates ignorance (as does "saturated fat," which really has no scientific meaning; lard, for example is often used in studies as the "saturated fat" but it is less than 50% SFAs, and is very susceptible to rancidity!).