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Comment by sebleon | Hacker News Reader

Sigh... this article presents a false dichotomy: you either eat a high fat diet, or you mostly eat refined carbs.

Based on dozens of nutritionists I've talked to, focusing on macronutrients as the primary metric is not great. Personally, I look at these things before macros: is it plant-based, is it whole (not refined/processed).

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Your body has minimum protein (and types of protein, AKA essential aminos) and fat (and types of fat, essential fatty acids) requirements, or you will die. And that is not a clickbait headline. So hitting those macros are vital even if you are focusing on whole foods

> Your body has minimum protein (and types of protein, AKA essential aminos) and fat (and types of fat, essential fatty acids) requirements, or you will die. And that is not a clickbait headline.

Yeah it is. Well, it would be, if people ever talked about amino acids in headlines.

People die of malnutrition, but good luck finding a population where people dying because they missed out on a specific amino acid is even remotely commonplace. Seriously, to whom does that happen?

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html

Also, http://m.med-health.net/protein-deficiency-diseases.html

These are extraordinary examples that amount to clickbait.

In addition to the American vegan baby who died in 2004 that I linked above, here are some more extraordinary examples.

French vegan baby dead (2008) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/29/vegans-trial-d...

Belgian vegan baby dead (2014) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40274493

Italian vegan baby almost dies (2016) https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/4xkk3n/couple-lose-cu...

Another Italian vegan baby almost dies (2016) https://www.thelocal.it/20160629/two-year-old-in-serious-con...

Futhermore, malnutrition - divided into a)protein deficiency, which is the biggest component, and b)micronutrient deficiency - is globally the most important risk factor for illness and death. Over 19% of young children in India have a protein deficiency[1] and over 41% of young children in rural Nigeria[2]. It's obviously worse in undeveloped nations but check the dead babies above if you think it can't happen in the developed world too.

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4005205/ [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10768411

These are tragic instances of children being underfed or, in the case of the 'vegan babies,' being fed very, very stupidly. Babies should be breastfed and children should get enough to eat. I don't think any mainstream or even oddball medical or dietary understanding is being challenged here.

(promulgating the myth that "complete proteins" are an important idea is still bothersome, but now I'm not sure that's what you were doing)

Do you think someone can survive without getting "complete protein" (aka all essential amino acids)?

The issue I have is with the dietary trend of pairing foods in order to obtain a "complete protein," which is extremely silly. Dying because one of the amino acids is not represented in your diet is something that basically never happens to a well fed person (it would take an extreme example, and the internet can supply those, but...) so I have no issue with it one way or the other in a discussion about diet.

If by "well-fed" you mean getting enough total calories, you are still mistaken.

Kwashiorkor is the condition of not enough protein while actually getting "enough" total calories. What's more, low overall protein intake actually increase your need for essential aminos, due to the body synthesizing non-essentials from its supply of essentials.

There are also serious health effects (eventually leading to death) associated with deficiencies in specific essential aminos. Lysine deficiency is one. You only need 28mg a day but if you are eating mostly wheat it can happen.[1] If you are lysine deficient it comes with its own disorders and it also leads to micronutrient deficiency.

[1]http://www.pnas.org/content/101/22/8285.long

> Your body has minimum protein [macronutrient] requirements

True, but counting macros isn't a practical framework for eating well. Empirically, the US obesity epidemic is not about people missing macronutrient goals; it comes from eating low-quality processed pseudo-foods.

I agree with you, but I'm suggesting hitting (for example) at least 50g complete protein and 50g fat as a requirement of whatever whole foods requirements you want to set. Going on a fruit- or juice-only diet for two weeks could be pretty painful otherwise.

Yeah that's fair - making sure macros are not totally off makes sense.

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