Very interesting. I travelled to Micronesia in the 90s quite a bit while a family member did research in Palau, and could see for myself that Palauans, at least, loved their Western fast food- it was a treat for them to go to the restaurants in Koror for burgers and fries at lunchtime. Western food was much preferred over traditional foods, and I'm sure it was made with plenty of seed oils. (And it showed- Palauans have a tendency to be heavy in general).
I am curious about the noticeably low intake of oil in general in New Zealand. How are they faring as a population?
> the prevalence of obesity among adults differed by ethnicity, with 71.3% of Pacific, 50.8% of Māori, 31.9% of European/Other and 18.5% of Asian adults obese
For comparison 26% of English adults are obese. I think most European Kiwis are likely to be British-derived?
If Kiwi fat consumption really is much lower than English fat consumption, that looks pretty bad for any kind of 'fat causes obesity' model. But I don't know where to find comparable figures for England.
Kiwi oil consumption is only a bit lower at 116g vs UK 146g. (But that's very hard to square with that graph above unless that's 2L/capita/month)
The same source gives similar figures for obesity and diabetes in UK and NZ, but not broken down by ethnicity which is probably important to this question.
Time to go west and east on a seaplane -100 years ago. With Weston A Price.
The only epidemiology for me; Weston A Price and his eskimo etc abo trips 100 years ago, before civilized diet reached them.
His timing was tight but perfect. He could fly and follow the development of traditional diet to tradepost diet, after the roads were built. The change was sugar, flour, seed oils. The change in people, within the same family inbetween siblings, was stunning. The teeth began to decay, the became fat, the jaws became narrower, resulting in the teeth not fitting any more in line. And noses and nostrils became narrower as well; everywhere the signs of developmental disturbances.
They were introduced concentrated glucose (flour), glucose+ fructose (sugar) and concentrated pufa6,. My pick is the excessive combo of sugars and seed oils, because Price's trips to fruit eating tropics found healthy people with no signs of malformations. So major share of sugar laden diet is not sufficient alone to introduce bad things. Although, ancient egypt with their "bread eaters" army and beer loving culture resulted in modern deceases. So, maybe the flour is not innocent after all.
Pretty much what you could pick up from Harvard BS epidemiology: the most fattening food is french fries, when fried in seed oils. Not in saturated fat, though. Pufa6 consentrate was the novel new thing; the combo of sugars and pufa6 is detrimental.
There is another new dimension, fine particle size of processed flour and subseqent products. Let's leave it aside for a moment.
All of those groups may well have gone through a evolutionary sieve - the ones with lots of body fat survived long ocean journeys.
Pedro's ion theory appears correct to me - but I'm not yet convinced that we understand all - I think part of the confusion is that we likely have something doing permanent damage - and then low-carb IS the solution. A likely cause is concentrated PUFA seed oils - but we also have some 5,000 other food additives that lack proper long term safety studies. Rapid harm gets detected - long term damage not so much.
It doesn't seem complicated. 1. Don't use seed oils at home, avoid processed foods. 2. If you must dine out, be very choosy.
#2 can be difficult if you have any social life at all. If I'm meeting friends, I usually eat something at home, and then just have a glass of wine and maybe a small innocuous appetizer at the restaurant.
One thing I've always appreciated about Gary is his very careful use of language, and his openness to being wrong.
Use of variations on "prove", as in Nina's tweet, always disturbs me. In this case it's not entirely clear what hypothesis she's referring to. Possibly the idea that it's all PUFAs, or all carbs, causing the problem. Which of course is unrealistically oversimplified, when talking about a complex system.
I have seen two graphs, side by side. One is of the increase in "seed oil consumption" (in the U.S.), the other is the rise in cardio-vascular disease (in the U.S.).
The two are not identical, but they are *very* close.
That was the evidence all I needed to see-"seed oils" are so closely correlated that, IMO, they /ARE/ the 'cause'.
"we do have a couple of places where sugar consumption is low, and seed oil consumption is relatively high. They're China and India."
But the plot hardly shows that China/India fat consumption is "relatively high". The Indian fat consumption is ~10 g/d and China is 30 g/d. I can't see Japan in the plot at all.
In the next plot, you explain that how Japan despite having seed oil consumption twice as high as India is NOT having obesity crisis Because the Japanese omega-3 balances the seed oil omega-6.
1) Is Japan really skinnier than India? Or has less diabetes?
2) There could also be an effect of largely vegetarian Indian diet. If we need to eat till we are both energy- and protein-replete, then a low-protein diet will induce greater energy intake.
How right do you have to be in order to be right?
Very interesting. I travelled to Micronesia in the 90s quite a bit while a family member did research in Palau, and could see for myself that Palauans, at least, loved their Western fast food- it was a treat for them to go to the restaurants in Koror for burgers and fries at lunchtime. Western food was much preferred over traditional foods, and I'm sure it was made with plenty of seed oils. (And it showed- Palauans have a tendency to be heavy in general).
I am curious about the noticeably low intake of oil in general in New Zealand. How are they faring as a population?
https://www.health.govt.nz/nz-health-statistics/health-statistics-and-data-sets/obesity-statistics
> the prevalence of obesity among adults differed by ethnicity, with 71.3% of Pacific, 50.8% of Māori, 31.9% of European/Other and 18.5% of Asian adults obese
For comparison 26% of English adults are obese. I think most European Kiwis are likely to be British-derived?
If Kiwi fat consumption really is much lower than English fat consumption, that looks pretty bad for any kind of 'fat causes obesity' model. But I don't know where to find comparable figures for England.
EDIT
Ah, hang on:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-per-capita-fat-supply
Kiwi oil consumption is only a bit lower at 116g vs UK 146g. (But that's very hard to square with that graph above unless that's 2L/capita/month)
The same source gives similar figures for obesity and diabetes in UK and NZ, but not broken down by ethnicity which is probably important to this question.
Hi Tucker,
Time to go west and east on a seaplane -100 years ago. With Weston A Price.
The only epidemiology for me; Weston A Price and his eskimo etc abo trips 100 years ago, before civilized diet reached them.
His timing was tight but perfect. He could fly and follow the development of traditional diet to tradepost diet, after the roads were built. The change was sugar, flour, seed oils. The change in people, within the same family inbetween siblings, was stunning. The teeth began to decay, the became fat, the jaws became narrower, resulting in the teeth not fitting any more in line. And noses and nostrils became narrower as well; everywhere the signs of developmental disturbances.
They were introduced concentrated glucose (flour), glucose+ fructose (sugar) and concentrated pufa6,. My pick is the excessive combo of sugars and seed oils, because Price's trips to fruit eating tropics found healthy people with no signs of malformations. So major share of sugar laden diet is not sufficient alone to introduce bad things. Although, ancient egypt with their "bread eaters" army and beer loving culture resulted in modern deceases. So, maybe the flour is not innocent after all.
Pretty much what you could pick up from Harvard BS epidemiology: the most fattening food is french fries, when fried in seed oils. Not in saturated fat, though. Pufa6 consentrate was the novel new thing; the combo of sugars and pufa6 is detrimental.
There is another new dimension, fine particle size of processed flour and subseqent products. Let's leave it aside for a moment.
JR
All of those groups may well have gone through a evolutionary sieve - the ones with lots of body fat survived long ocean journeys.
Pedro's ion theory appears correct to me - but I'm not yet convinced that we understand all - I think part of the confusion is that we likely have something doing permanent damage - and then low-carb IS the solution. A likely cause is concentrated PUFA seed oils - but we also have some 5,000 other food additives that lack proper long term safety studies. Rapid harm gets detected - long term damage not so much.
Is there somewhere a "Tucker Goodrich Diet" on how best to avoid seed oils both at home and while dining out?
It doesn't seem complicated. 1. Don't use seed oils at home, avoid processed foods. 2. If you must dine out, be very choosy.
#2 can be difficult if you have any social life at all. If I'm meeting friends, I usually eat something at home, and then just have a glass of wine and maybe a small innocuous appetizer at the restaurant.
One thing I've always appreciated about Gary is his very careful use of language, and his openness to being wrong.
Use of variations on "prove", as in Nina's tweet, always disturbs me. In this case it's not entirely clear what hypothesis she's referring to. Possibly the idea that it's all PUFAs, or all carbs, causing the problem. Which of course is unrealistically oversimplified, when talking about a complex system.
I have seen two graphs, side by side. One is of the increase in "seed oil consumption" (in the U.S.), the other is the rise in cardio-vascular disease (in the U.S.).
The two are not identical, but they are *very* close.
That was the evidence all I needed to see-"seed oils" are so closely correlated that, IMO, they /ARE/ the 'cause'.
You say that
"we do have a couple of places where sugar consumption is low, and seed oil consumption is relatively high. They're China and India."
But the plot hardly shows that China/India fat consumption is "relatively high". The Indian fat consumption is ~10 g/d and China is 30 g/d. I can't see Japan in the plot at all.
In the next plot, you explain that how Japan despite having seed oil consumption twice as high as India is NOT having obesity crisis Because the Japanese omega-3 balances the seed oil omega-6.
1) Is Japan really skinnier than India? Or has less diabetes?
2) There could also be an effect of largely vegetarian Indian diet. If we need to eat till we are both energy- and protein-replete, then a low-protein diet will induce greater energy intake.