Actually I do take issue with your example of grass-fed steak. Not sure why you would think it is not healthy, not even going to debate that. But do not dismiss it thinking the actual grass-feed has no impact. It increases the saturated of the meat of ruminants. If you want to go on a learning trip, look into the research made in the 40s about fattening cattle with saturated vs unsaturated fats.
I think it is a bit meaningless to talk about the merits or demerits of particular ingredients (other than the obviously bad such as rancid fats, pollution by heavy metals, or high in toxins) Humans evolved to eat a varied diet and the more variety of nutrient dense food you have the better off you will be. The main issue with nutrition is how can we teach people to eat better while keeping the production costs down.
I recognize I'm bloody lucky to be able to afford the food I get to eat every week, but just thinking of the resources required to have everyone eat this way is very hard. How sustainable would it be for everyone to eat fresh seafood every weekend or constantly import oranges to northern latitudes? Part of the problem is that people choosing processed food leads to an increasing divide in costs between the processed and the freshly prepared, only due to economies of scale. And it will only keep getting worse. My parents' generation all had fresh milk delivered daily at their homes (relatively affordable even for the middle class), today how many people could afford something like that? It took only a little time when cheaper options appeared for it to become uneconomical and nowadays even if you wanted to pay a premium, how big would it be?
A big mistake is to only focus on macronutrients when micronutrients are as important. Even then, it is a relatively unexplored field, how many chemical species you think an apple has? We have explored relatively few classes and particular examples of vitamins and it would be misleading to just go by the RDA of a few classes of chemicals which were explored because of simplicity, technical development at the time? How many vitamin E analogues are in a kernel of wheat? When did we stop doing this basic research into food and nutrition? There are millions of different molecules in natural food, how much is destroyed by processing? Like the homogenization of milk, which is practically very vigorous stirring and yet it destroys lactoferrin.
The opposite of hierarchies is not some blissful state of civilized anarchy, it is chaos, violence and free for all. If you think some leftist state is the solution, sorry for breaking it to you but they are highly hierarchical if not more than state tending toward classic liberalism. Most experiments in this vein have ended badly (millions dying), see communist China (now a hierarchical dictatorship btw), USSR, Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil (thankfully steering of peril right now).
I agree that left-wing authoritarianism is as bad as right-wing authoritarianism. But thinking that the only alternative to hierarchical power is chaos is going to be one sort of authoritarianism or another.
As I explain elsewhere in this thread, one alternative of hierarchical authority is carefully limited, distributed power. There are historical examples of it working pretty well for hundreds of years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22415807
A society with hyper exaggerated social classes, with voting rights only for property owners, indentured servitude, slavery and all that was "carefully limited" in its hierarchical authority?
Sure. Which was mostly way better than what Europe was doing at the time. And which, more importantly, led us to keep seeking that "more perfect union". Where each generation has said, "Maybe we could do yet better. And here's how." And where quite often we have done better.
I'm not an expert but while less dramatic than ionizing radiation, it certainly has more effect than just heat. Think RF can induce potentials especially as it regards cells ion transport, gates. And yeah, my question is more oriented towards whether human life is adapted to RF, I'm sure some bacteria would
Broken is just your judgement. I would rather say that quite objectively, it's just the way the world works, one can play with it or try to change it, but better be sure it's not just human nature.
Whatever Gremlinsinc assessment of Pete's intelligence is, the facts he just listed have very bad optics for Pete, the DNC and the Democrat party. If they again squeeze Bernie out of the nomination, any other candidate will not have a strong base of supporters.
Judging by how this election season went so far up to this point (including all the primary debates controversies [0]), it seems like DNC didnt learn anything and decided to double down on their previous efforts. I predict that Bernie is almost definitely going to get squeezed out.
0. Referring mostly to that one where they asked Bernie a question based on a made up quote regarding female president viability, and then proceeded asking further questions from other candidates treating that quote as a fact, despite Bernie explicitly denying it mere seconds before. And Bernie isn’t even my first choice candidate, but seeing all this happen just felt really surreal and unfair.
Not sure, seems like the ones that did it already were self-determined enough to work. You would need to compare intra group before and after.
From a metabolic viewpoint cold showers might have some short term energy boost from the stress hormones it releases. However highly dubious whether that is healthy or sustainable long-term. 10-years down the line my bet is you would look like a marathon runner, all wrinkled and with bad skin. Hot showers can increase prolactin so I guess, moderation in both would be the way to go.
This is key! I think one thing that is missed is that the systems that exist at a given point in time tend to be successful (at least in a Darwinian sense of the word) and stable.
>The same way a river meanders towards the sea
This is something to keep in mind when trying to change it. What if the aspect you are trying to change is key to its continued existence as a successful system? It probably will resist this as it probably gravitates towards its own stability.
Of course, some people understand this and yet would like to see it be destroyed. To them the only question I would ask is: Will the system you build in its place be as stable/successful? Then again, many of them in their overconfidence will think so. But let's just say that I would bet a system that developed more or less organically and succeeded will be possibly more adaptable and resistant than one that is centrally imposed.
The river metaphor is appropriate here. Many people adjust systems to fit their needs, not necessarily the needs of others within it.
Often you can just add a 'plugin' or 'extension' to it without modifying the system, to extract more out of it but not change it. Ironically, when too many attempt to simply patch it, that's what causes real changes.
At this point in my life, and after careful study and application of Ray's work, I can only say I hope to never set foot in a hospital or doctor's office ever again. (Barring some accident or trauma, knock on wood). Put simply, I've never been as vital or radiantly healthy as now
Yes, I would say he is completely right. I use mostly coconut oil, butter and on rare occasions olive for flavor.
The last numbers I have show LD/HD ratios all good, HDL good, Triglicerides good, and LDL slightly higher than normal (138 vs 130). Now putting it in context, that testing happened right after a month of eating multiple times out for dinner, so I'm not too concerned about LDL.
The thing with cholesterol is that you need to consider the context. I find the standard course of treatment with statins to be incredibly myopic (plus almost everyone I know who takes them have side effects). Cholesterol in a healthy body (adequate thyroid function and metabolism) simply gets transformed into hormones (and the good stuff, not cortisol and related stress hormones). Statins, sure they might block a pathway so cholesterol shows up lower when you measure, but how is that number in any way indicative of good health?
Not getting super detailed in here, but let's just say that I can easily picture different persons having the same number for cholesterol and radically different health outcomes. In one case cholesterol is properly used by the body to increase vitality, in the other some issue is causing less cholesterol generation but since little is being actually processed further the number remains stable.
Going back to saturated versus unsaturated, there is an angle that might help you clear the apparent disconnect between Ray's perspective and current mainstream.
In general, we can agree that life is at its core, self-organizing structure. Now this structure being self-organizing can deviate from equilibrium, due to disturbances in the environment, but it will try to adapt and preserve its structure as intact as possible; this is simply how life evolved, to be resilient.
Now, let's take a step back and consider for a moment fat rancidity. I think even the mainstream holds this view. "Rancid fat is very bad, don't overheat oil cause it will go bad." Rancidification is basically premature oxidation of the fat. Now, you know which fats never go rancid? Saturated; look it up, coconut oil (practically all saturated), chocolate, very hardly go rancid. Common cooking oils begin to go rancid just from being exposed to air, not to say high temperature.
Why is rancid fat so bad? At a cellular level, mostly because it both is more susceptible to free radicals and it creates more free radicals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_peroxidation . Saturated fat on the other hand, due to its higher inherent stability, can be processed by cells at a more controlled rate or used as a better building block so to speak.
Tying back to life as structure. Radicals being highly energetic reactants and their creation occurring almost spontaneously in the presence of unsaturated fat, they are damaging of this structure. While sure, saturated fat is processed by our bodies to release energy, this energy release is a much more controlled process than for unsaturated ones, which occur spontaneously and thus stress our cells. This stress leads cells to take defensive measures but some damage is inevitable.
Downstream consequences of this, saturated fats actually speed up metabolism (in the context of an otherwise nutrient rich diet). There are studies where they tried to fatten animals with sat fat and the pesky creatures would get leaner.
Now, one last point that cements my perspective that mainstream understanding is misguided. Look at the history of unsaturated fat in our diets. Turns out about a century ago, some cotton farmers had no use for the seed left after processing cotton. It was so bad that it was used illegally to dilute olive oil and animal fats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottonseed_oil#Economic_Histor... Similar kind of motivations for the pushing of canola, soybean. Let's just say that a hundred years ago, most vegetable oil was held in very low esteem as it concerns edibility. Take flax for instance, no one in their right mind would consume it; it goes rancid so quickly it was used to finish wood furniture (linseed oil).
Hope this wasn't too long and it further piques your curiosity to investigate these topics.
PS. this was focusing mostly on fat, but to more or less follow Ray Peat's view, eat lots of nutrient dense food, plenty of carbohydrates (our body's structure is more adequate for using this energy source) inc fruit, and procure that the fat you eat (not in excess) is mostly saturated.
Your answer does pique my interest, but mostly to find data supporting or disproving your reasoning that sounds totally reasonable. But as you know, experimental results don't always support common sense.
For example, when your wrote "statins, sure they might block a pathway so cholesterol shows up lower when you measure, but how is that number in any way indicative of good health?", You're making way too many assumptions. Statins have been shown to reduce strokes and heart attacks. Does having a lower likelihood of having a stroke means you're healthier? Not necessarily. But what does it mean to be healthy, anyways? You can define it in so many ways.
