Coconut Oil

Un huh, but I doubt AHA is any bit worse than any of the other disease dedicated organizations.

That is Bullshit Edgar.

When an industry group attacks real scientists... you should side with the scientists. There is quite a bit of research on saturated fats. The objective evidence is on the side of the AHA, This anti-science propaganda is bad for us as a country.

Anyone who believes that global warming is real, and believes that saturated fats (including Coconut oil) are good for you is confused.

There are plenty of scientists who have sold out to big money, dude. Screw them.

That is just what the anti-global warming people say... and the Creationists... and the 9/11 truthers.

You either trust science, or you don't.

You are putting the case that persons claiming to be scientists can do no wrong. Therefore if I claim some do not fit the criterion I am magically a creationist, a 9/11 truther. Probably a baby murderer and throw women into volcanoes. If you ignore my article above and just use your own brain a moment, you have to consider a few things. The kind of pronouncements that were announced regarding coconut oil were made by people who for many years told us to eat our hydrogenated oil products because they are so much more healthy than natural foods, like butter and lard. Such attacks have the effect of causing people to regard coconut oil, or whatever other targeted food stuff as deadly poison. But anything used in excess or in a wrong way can be bad for you, from broccoli to beef steak to plain water. People touting coconut oil as a health food are partially to blame, because they caused people to expect more than it can deliver. But small quantities of it can still be beneficial. I use it, but rarely that much and never cook with it.

The public succumbs to group-think. They know food corporations cheat to make a profit. But they let that understanding slide when told the results of studies that are conducted by shills of these corporations. They wouldn't lie about our health, they figure.

Which people are you talking about? There is peer reviewed, evidence based science from reputable source that says that saturated fats are harmful. Show me where reputable scientists have told you to eat hydrogenated oil products. I think you are just making this claim up.

You have put yourself in a convenient place where you can reject any science that doesn't match with your political ideology. Of course, anyone can reject science... which is why I think what you are doing is equivalent to what Climate Change deniers are doing.

Let me ask the question.... what do scientists need to do in order to get you to accept scientific evidence? Is there any difference between the science you are willing to accept and your political ideology?

I give up. Go to it if you are so compelled.

For a long time, saturated fats were blamed for heart disease and some other conditions based on studies that found plaque build up as a result of high cholesterol in the arteries of people who'd died from heart disease. For this reason, food producers began substituting the saturated fats in food products with trans fats, which are far more harmful to the health. It's not that scientists told people to eat foods with trans fat. It's that their ignorance, or possible malpractice, caused people to avoid the foods with saturated fats that they might as well have eaten if they were gonna replace them with hydrogenated oils that not only increase bad cholesterol but also reduce good cholesterol. The link between trans fat and heart disease is much much stronger yet for decades scientists were only putting out research condemning saturated fats. How can you wonder why people don't trust science? For many people, it has nothing to do with political ideology. They just want to be sure they're not ingesting crap. It's hard however to be sure of this when things like Harvard scientists accepting money to downplay the link between sugar and a multitude of health related risks surface.

Link please (hopefully one with real information and sources... not just political propaganda).

Oh yeah, I started a thread about this last year.

Nutrition Science is a Fraud

People do trust science. Edgar trusts the science about Global Climate researchers just fine. Edgar doesn't trust science about saturated facts. The question is why you trust one, but not the other.

Science is based on research, evidence and data. When institutional science comes out with data showing something; rather it be that the climate is changing, or that smoking causes cancer, or that seat belts save lives, or that saturated facts are linked with heart disease... they have a very good track record about being correct. Of course, on issue where there hasn't been research this doesn't apply. But there is a fairly large body of research showing that saturated fats aren't good for you.

It is the cherry picking that is the problem. If you only accept the science that fits your political ideology, then science is useless. You might as well just follow your political ideology.

Is that the wrong link InfraBlue? That seems to be an unrelated link about ginseng.

Oops,

https://able2know.org/topic/343360-1#post-6266312

Thanks InfraBlue. I think that what these two scientists did was horrible, and yes it hurts science to have stories like this. This is one of the reasons that we have peer review and have experiments reproduced.

But the question is; When do we trust science? As a society, we want policy to be evidence based. Science is the institution that can do this. The alternative is policy based on political ideology that isn't fact based.

Institutional science has done a remarkably good job, in spite of the black mark you mention. We have halved the number of deaths due to heart diseases in the past 50 years. We have dramatically increased life expectancy, made cars safer, decreased infant mortality all with a careful application of science; fact-based, evidence driven and peer reviewed.

Institutional science warned against smoking pretty early. The problem wasn't science, it was the fact that their was a PR effort to confuse, obscure and deflect the science to protect the product. Anyone who actually looked at the research starting in the 1940s would have been convinced.

The lack of trust in institutional science (defined as peer reviewed careful research) is a danger to society. That is true whether the issue is tobacco, global climate change, or saturated fats.

I came across this article in 2015 involving coconut oil,

Scientists have discovered a simple way to cook rice that dramatically cuts the calories.




read more...

I really meant scientists, not science. I was probably using your words.

Also, it is not really that science is wrong. It's the way it's used. It's often manipulated. No one needs science to know how to eat healthy. Most people know it's good to eat fresh fruits and vegetables and limit sugar and fat intake. It's very tempting however to reach for things that should be obviously unhealthy (lucky charms) when producers stick whole grain or low fat on the packaging because science tells us what nutrients are good and bad. That doesn't actually make lucky charms healthy. Similarly, some people avoid avocados because they contain saturated fat when avocados are, in fact, much better for us than any of those products advertising low sodium, fat, fiber or whatever.

Personally, I think science is used to compromise healthy eating because it encourages avoidance of bad substances which can be easily removed or reduced from highly processed foods. Whole foods which are the best foods for us cannot be dissected.

I completely agree.

I think nutrition science was ripe for corruption since the food industry is a multi-billion dollar monster that infiltrates the government and it's administrations and agencies.

I'm surprised that climate science hasn't been corrupted by the industries that are affected by it. But with this new administration, I see things heading in the wrong direction.

You trust the climate scientists. You don't trust the nutrition scientists (actually in this case it is the heart disease scientists... but OK). You haven't given any reason why you trust one and not the other, other than the fact that one agrees with your political ideology, and the other doesn't. I doubt you have even taken the time to read peer reviewed paper on either one. It is as simple as the fact that one makes sense to you and the other doesn't.

This is really about your political ideology. Science should be more than that.

I am curious... it is a bit odd that this one unhealthy product is getting so much defense from the political left. Coconut oil is a heavily marketed product that is worth billions of dollars of sales annually. In this way they are no different than sugar manufacturers, or corn or any other agribusiness. It is not like they aren't part of the "food industry" that is allegedly "corrupting" science..

The reason you know how to eat healthy is because of the messaging of groups like the American Heart Association (being demonized here). If you look at places that don't have this messaging about healthy eating, people don't naturally limit sugar and fat intake or seek out vegetables.

You are pretending that there is some kind of innate human knowledge about health. This clearly isn't true. Look at the way humans ate 100 years ago, or 500 years ago. In very few exceptions did humans have a healthy diet and when they did it was often an accident of what was available.

Modern humans, with the help of science and an evidence based understanding of nutrition, now life twice as long as humans did in the past. Science has literally doubled the human life expectancy.

It's not natural to be so healthy for so long.