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Comment by activepeanut | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered if the saturated fat in coconuts is bad for you..

You are looking at things from a "nutrionism" point of view http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....

The answer is simple: Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.

I don't really like that simplification. Potatoes and wheat are both plants and people eat far too much of both.

citation needed?

When you say wheat, do you mean processed and refined flour? And by potatoes, do you mean chips and fries?

Potatoes are loaded with vitamins and minerals. Some of the starch isn't easily digestible and acts similarly to fiber (in addition to the fiber found in the skin).

The fact that they are little bombs of nutrition aside (along with sweet potatoes, yummm!), they will also keep fresh for months.

Most of the food we eat is derived from potatoes and corn. Actually, either directly or indirectly, mostly corn.

source: Most meat is corn http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=that-burger...

most everything we eat is from corn http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/we-are-what-we-eat

I'm aware that corn plays a huge part of North American diet (less so elsewhere since corn-fed beef isn't nearly as common), but I've never heard it said about potatoes..and while you mention it, you only provide links about corn.

Don't mean to be flippant, but it kinda sounds like you lumped potatoes in with corn for the sake of it.

And a lot of US corn and soy is GM. I'm guessing the majority of which is animal feed.

See Jeremy Rifkin's: Beef, if you want to read up on a fascinating piece of North American history. Nice fatty corn fed beef was (and probably still is) highly prized.

Any wheat and any potatoes according to people like Gary Taubes. Sweet potatoes are probably better than regular spuds. Wheat and potatoes are mostly just carbohydrates which, as explained in the video we're discussing, should be reduced. There's no such thing as an 'essential carbohydrate' and all other vitamins and minerals in potatoes and wheat can also be found in more than sufficient quantities in 'good' foods like meat and leafy veggies.

This is where I find Dr. Ludwig's work interesting. My understanding is that you can't just look at nutrients individually. For example, a carbohydrate eaten in a highly processed form is digested, substantially different, at a chemical level, than carbohydrates eaten with fiber.

I don't doubt that carbohydrate consumption has gone up and with it, suspiciously, so too has obesity. But I can't help but think we should be looking at the package containing these newly consumed carbohydrates.

A mars bars contains 40g of carbohydrate...are people grouping that with 40g of carbohydrates yielded by potatoes and wheat?

No, most experts agree that sugars are worse than the carbs in potatoes or rice.

I assume "not too much" covers that.

Yea I think you should add 'Eat foods that can be eaten raw' and you'll probably be pretty close to optimal. Potatoes and wheat can't be eaten raw. Although sugar can be eaten raw and most of us will agree that lots of sugar is bad.

Just try chewing on raw sugar cane. That'll slow down your sugar consumption.

Exactly. Some plants are simply poison, too. And many people have allergies that can make even a small amount of some plants deadly.

Nothing gets me ranting like the old "everything in moderation" line.

All the people in /r/keto and /r/Paleo will say that you can't possibly eat something better.

(Those are subrreddits.)

Most likely good for you, along the lines of olive oil and avocado. Assuming a good balance of foods.

They have very different smoke points.

In short: coconut oil (also palm oil) will be useful after you use it to fry, while olive oil will stop being olive oil after just some heating. In fact, do not fry anything with olive oil. Olive oil should be added to food in your plate only.

And certainly better for you than rapeseed (canola) and soy oils.

Me too. Though the author has a picture of coconuts on his "what I eat" page.

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