It appears that the consensus is that saturated fat significantly increases blood cholesterol and arterial plaque formation
Nope—that’s a hotly debated topic. There used to be a consensus that saturated fat is bad, but AFAIK it doesn’t exist any more.
In particular, the low-carb and paleo approaches to nutrition strongly assert that saturated fat is NOT bad—that’s why “Bulletproof stuff” involves a lot of it.
Way one is deciding that you will trust somebody, so you listen to what he/she/it says and you’re done. Advantages: easy. Disadvantages: obvious.
Way two is reading through a lot of conflicting materials (mostly papers), filtering out people who are stupid, who have an axe to grind, who have been regurgitating cached thoughts for the last couple of decades, etc. and then trying to construct a mostly coherent picture out of what remains. Advantages: you will understand the field. Disadvantage: hard, expensive in time and effort, involves wading through rivers of bullshit.
I am not the trusting kind, so I read the papers :-)
Nope—that’s a hotly debated topic. There used to be a consensus that saturated fat is bad, but AFAIK it doesn’t exist any more.
In particular, the low-carb and paleo approaches to nutrition strongly assert that saturated fat is NOT bad—that’s why “Bulletproof stuff” involves a lot of it.
Thanks. How does one go about learning more about this, preferably while encountering minimal bullshit on the way?
Well, there are basically two ways about it.
Way one is deciding that you will trust somebody, so you listen to what he/she/it says and you’re done. Advantages: easy. Disadvantages: obvious.
Way two is reading through a lot of conflicting materials (mostly papers), filtering out people who are stupid, who have an axe to grind, who have been regurgitating cached thoughts for the last couple of decades, etc. and then trying to construct a mostly coherent picture out of what remains. Advantages: you will understand the field. Disadvantage: hard, expensive in time and effort, involves wading through rivers of bullshit.
I am not the trusting kind, so I read the papers :-)
Someone really needs to make an Examine.com for nutrition.