As I see it, the point of this new pyramid is not to add more emphasis to meat specifically, but to undo some of the past vilification of fat (note the emphasis on whole milk and full fat dairy), and to move emphasis away from carbs as the basis of the diet. And honestly, I think that's pretty much correct - the low fat movement was a disaster for our collective health, because food manufacturers added more sugar to compensate for the bad effects on taste that that has, and because if you eat a good amount of full fat stuff, there's not nearly as much need to snack between meals.
If you go to Western Europe, they're not drinking lots of skim milk, and if you eat things from the bakeries, there's more butter and not as much low quality vegetable oil or sugar. When my French cousins come here, they find lots of the stuff sold here revoltingly sweet.
First, a grain of salt, I'm certainly not an expert, I've just read a bit about the subject.
You know how people like cold pressed extra virgin olive oil? Or avocado oil? Those are "high quality". Industrially refined/deodorized/hexane-extracted soybean, corn, non-high-oleic sunflower/safflower oil, canola tend to be considered to be on the opposite end of the spectrum.
Deodorizing causes the oil to oxidize, as does deep frying, and that makes a variety of nasty byproducts that seem likely to cause systemic inflammation. And from here on HN the other day, "Inflammation now predicts heart disease better than cholesterol" https://www.empirical.health/blog/inflammation-and-heart-hea...
People in this thread are scoffing at RFK saying that beef tallow fries are "healthy", and while I wouldn't go that far, there seems to be good evidence that it's much healthier to deep fry in beef tallow than the soybean oil most switched to in the 90s. Beef tallow is high in saturated fat, which tends to be relatively stable under heat, and very low in polyunsaturated fats, which tend to be the fats that oxidize the worst. Soybean oil, on the other hand, is extremely high in polyunsaturated fat (60% vs 2-4% for beef tallow). And the big problem with commercial deep frying is that the oil is frequently just topped off rather than replaced, so those oxidization byproducts build up over time. More stable fat is really important there.
I also don't know how relevant this is, but soybean frying oil tends to have silicone-based anti-foaming agents mixed in (polydimethylsiloxane is the one I've seen most commonly) - you can find this in the big jugs at Costco if you want to check it out. Silicone generally doesn't seem great to be swallowing - I think it's pretty inert, but it seems likely to me to have mechanical properties that your body's not quite used to dealing with effectively. This is just me being biased about eating something that's pretty obviously not food, though, I haven't seen much on the subject.
Hydrogenated oils are now well known to be bad (trans fats). So Crisco/creamed vegetable shortening, very low quality.
So yeah, there are higher and lower quality oils, especially once they've been degraded via high heat over a long period and oxygen exposure in commercial or industrial frying processes.
> And the big problem with commercial deep frying is that the oil is frequently just topped off rather than replaced, so those oxidization byproducts build up over time.
I am sure that cooking (fryer) oil is regularly replaced. Once every few days (max one week) is normal for most restaurants. Also, it is possible to filter the oil in-place that extends its life.
> Safety and environmental considerations: According to Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry, no "marked harmful effects on organisms in the environment" have been noted for siloxanes. PDMS is nonbiodegradable, but is absorbed in waste water treatment facilities. Its degradation is catalyzed by various clays.[49] The 2020 re-evaluation of food additive purposed PDMS (E 900) by the European Food Safety Authority found no safety concerns with PDMS in food for its reported use cases, although they did recommend the setting of a maximum limit for potentially toxic cyclopolysiloxanes in E 900 leftover from the manufacturing process.
Actual human RCTs do not show any increased systemic inflammation when consuming seed oils like canola vs. animal fats, and saturated fat consumption from animal cooking fats can still drive cardiovascular risk, even if it is not the singular cause.
Fried foods are bad for you regardless. The idea that one could swap out a seed oil for some other fat and keep all of their bad habits otherwise in place and magically become healthy is a fantasy.
Interesting, thanks. Know of where to read the random trial results? Did they clear the chemically separated/deodorized oils from suspicion? While I err on the side of avoiding them, I don’t have too strong an opinion on this, because like I said, not an expert.
Why are fried foods bad for you? It’s commonly held wisdom, but I’m curious what the mechanics are, to see if there’s a way to mitigate it. Is it something other than the oxidation products that I mentioned? And if it is those, would a more stable fat not fare better? I guess there’s the changes to the food from the high temps in both cases.
Something to note is the acknowledgements, though: “This work was supported by the Soy Nutrition Institute Global, United Soybean Board, Corn Refiners of America, National Corn Growers Association, Canola Council of Canada and USA Canola Association. These funders had no role in the design, analysis or writing of this article.”
Doesn’t mean it’s junk, but also probably not totally disinterested science, since continued funding is probably contingent on them being happy with the results.
EDIT: from what I read, it was mostly a high level summary of literature wihh th some conclusions like high polyunsaturated fat is good for reducing ldl levels, it mentioned at the end that you shouldn’t reuse deep frying oil, try to keep oil under smoke point, some other things like that. Didn’t see much about inflammation, but I didn’t read too carefully, just skimmed.
If you go to Western Europe, they're not drinking lots of skim milk, and if you eat things from the bakeries, there's more butter and not as much low quality vegetable oil or sugar. When my French cousins come here, they find lots of the stuff sold here revoltingly sweet.