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Butter vs. seed oils
Simple diet switch could cut the risk of an early death by almost 20%, claims the Daily Mail
Researchers from the Harvard Medical School discovered that people who eat the most butter are 15 per cent more likely to die—of any cause—than those who eat the least.
But having a high intake of plant-based oils—such as corn, olive and rapeseed—appeared to make people healthier.
Tracking more than 221,000 Americans over a 50 year period, scientists analysing people's diets by using food questionnaires made a ground-breaking discovery.
Swapping butter for plant-based oils—of any type—made people almost 20 per cent less likely to die.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14469923/Medics-issue-dire-warning-people-eat-butter.html
My comment: If this is true, could the reason be that butter is higher in Vitamin A? I did not see Vitamin A or retinol mentioned in the article though.
I use my grandmother's family as an example because at a time (around the turn of the century) when people had an average lifespan of low sixties, they were living to 85-90 (men) 95-100 (women).
My grandmother told me many times they never switched to what she called oleo-margarine. They ate real butter. They were Northern European and my guess is that they also ate lard, but my grandmother didn't mention it when I interviewed her about her diet. I don't think they would have reached for olive oil.
I do think that my grandmother did use Crisco as an adult, in the same way her mom probably used lard (for example pie crusts or frying). Crisco replaced lard in her generation (mid-century). And now we aren't just talking vegetable oil, but hydrogenated vegetable oil. And it would have been present in bought goods.
I do believe that my grandmother was raised with a sense of being "piggy". I saw her Tutt-tutting when my nephews would eat a whole log of cheese. She told me frostings were not slathered on but were instead the thinnest glaze. Butter was kept at room temperature and scraped on toast, not slathered like some sort of butter-crazy WAPF-er where you can see the teeth marks!
She did not have a fat-heavy diet, and neither was it a low-fat diet. It was moderate.
In her nineties, at the assisted living, she would go down to the cafeteria with a stick of butter in the basket of her walker, because they only served margarine.
From experimenting at extremes of all sorts and most recent successes, I think Denise Minger is spot on.
Denise Minger - In Defense of Low Fat
Whatever fat intake we need is easily found in meat. For 34 months the only additional fat we have eaten is a spoon of monounsaturated oil to grease the frying pan.
We need fat and in tiny amounts and in high natural quantities. Before industrial farming, how many people at any seed oils? Mono-unsaturated oils were not plentiful except in a few cultures with access to olives, avocadoes and coconuts. These were not crazy plentiful to them either. And coconut is saturated fat too. Polyunsaturated fat nutritional science is as fraudulent as vA science.
Hard part of sorting out articles like this is that it is about whether poison A kills us faster than poison B laid out in health food propaganda.
I agree that science is just a paid for cudgel nowadays and not something worth the name. Their studies are called "nudges" in behavioral science. Butter kept me in pretty good shape for a pretty long time, but it was catching up to me. I'm reminded of the study Grant picked apart in one of his books, where the researcher brought very sick children back to health with the addition of butter to their diets. Except that it wasn't the vitamin a that rescued them; it was the unparalleled emulsifying property of butter. I am of Grant's opinion that most of what we call "normal aging" is in fact a liver that is full-up and spilling over. Butter buys time. For a very sick person it makes sense. For a healthy person it is shortsighted in my view.
Hi @Joe2, thank you for posting Denise Minger's video in defence of the low fat diet. It was eye-opening for me, as I've been something of a 'fat fiend' for years, with maybe the majority of my calories coming from fats and oils. I am going to try limiting my fat intake to see what happens.
Hi @Itsme, I agree with you - I am also generally suspicious of these kinds of 'findings in favor of high pufa seed oils', as you put it. The data seems manipulated.
The pufa data is horribly manipulated. Manufacturers and factory monocrop farmers have sold their souls.
I found Denise Minger after 12 years of keto while flipping back to carbohydate intake. She is advocating as low below 10% total fat intake as we can do even as she outlined that over 70% is a safe zone.
I did zone 40/30/30 diet for the prior 15 years. Am all too familiar with the keto flu people suffer through when giving up carbs and waiting for ketosis to kick in. The least strict folk get hit the worst since ketosis does not show up until all the carbs are gone. Trickle in a few and ketosis shuts down again.
I flipped from 70% plus fat, 25%plus protein and a tiny bit of carbs to taking in carbs again. I wanted to bring back carbs slowly enough to avoid reactions to them yet fast enough to not run out of fuel when ketosis shut down. And at the same time, I already knew how detrimental high fat intake is when burning carbs. So before I got the carbs up high enough, I heeded Minger's advice and cut the fat intake down as much as I could. Did not worry about not getting enough fat as I was eating at 24 to 32 oz beef daily.
The irony with Minger is that she points out a model that shows that we do alright above 70% fat intake. I think long term it is a problem because we do not detox and excrete toxins well on high fat intake. It is also a problem as it starves out bifido and probably other needed gut biota. Shawn Baker is case in point. He just posted another video last week about trying carbs again and suffering hard. At some point hopefully soon he recognizes the corner he painted himself into. Ironic that Mercola figured that out a couple years ago and was working on adaptability when coophid psyops attacked and debanked him. Then he took the crazy route, hired a spirit channeler to wreck his company and started selling Ray Peat ideas.
Eventually we all figure it out or suffer until we do. Baker already knows about low vA. He interviewed Thor Torrens. Mercola has gotten the word through others too. Minger sure helped me flip back on to carbs safer. Might try keto for short stints again some day. Not for awhile though.
Hi Joe2,
I appreciate all that background you provided above and to learn I wasn't the only one eating so much fat.
Agree with you on the pitfalls of doing so: 'we do not detox and excrete toxins well on high fat intake. It is also a problem as it starves out bifido and probably other needed gut biota.'
Minger's description of our blood flowing sluggishly along clogged with fat also really hit home.
I was a phlebotomist during those keto years. My blood flow was fine. Filled a 500ml blood bag in under 8 minutes routinely. Think my best was 5 minutes. The only time my blood flow was slow was during my black sludged blood cachexia days 35 years ago. That was around the time I played with Ehret's fasting and fruit diet.
I did have seriously low blood pressure during the start of my 12 years of keto. I learned to eat plenty of salt to peg it around 115 / 75. I also remember the company docs getting crazy after seeing my fasting blood tests during those 12 years. They tried to sell me statins. They even talked with my boss' boss about my health. Everyone calmed down when I asked them to consider my "good" cholesterol and my "good" lipid numbers. They had never seen anything like it. Also had them note that I ate one meal a day when they did not like my fasting glucose numbers. Then told them all those numbers were pointless compared to fact that I worked multiple consecutive years on daily varying schedule across 3 shifts for 70 to 90 hours a week 100% on time and 100% attendance.
Would have been nice to be excreting vA and copper during that time though.