1. Europeans are more risk averse, and there is not the same entrepreneurial spirit.
2. You're comparing it with the home of tech and startups so it's not going to compare well. More of a question would be why does the US generate more fast-growing tech startups than the whole world put together.
3. European investors are comically small-minded, stingy and don't have much cash to use.
While I dislike the Daily Mail I actually like their writing style when I'm just looking for a simple article on a specific event/topic I'm ill-informed about. They condense and prioritise the most important information clearly, better than most journalistic sources.
In fact when I had to write copy during my first startup job the founder told me to look at how the DM write to see how to communicate simply.
This is simply not true. You are oversimplifying the issue. As an example, I'd like you to go take a shot of olive oil and tell me you feel fuller than having a cup of steel cut oatmeal with a cup of blueberries. In fact, in 1 shot of olive oil, that's 3 tbsp, which is roughly 360 calories, whereas the oatmeal and berries clocks in around 250 calories. "All things being equal", I just put fat against carbs and the oatmeal just won because 3 tbsp of olive oil will not satiate the way 2 cups of carbs will.
The experiments that measure satiety generally have the subjects eat a measured amount of a certain food, wait a specified period of time, then eat from a buffet wherein subjects may eat pre-measured portions of whatever they like.
In such experiments, certain foods do have a significant impact upon the calories later consumed from that buffet. Some foods are more filling than others. I forget the exact results, other than the one that was surprising to me: whole boiled potatoes were the grand champion of fullness, and 3 times as filling as a calorie-equivalent portion of french fries.
So do your experiment for real, with some volunteers. You will need to make some oatmeal, and pour some oil shots, and have a buffet ready. And you will have to continue the experiment for multiple days, so you can get same-person comparisons for different foods.
Please actually do the experiment before you declare your hypothesis confirmed. For what it's worth, I think it probably would be, but there is always the possibility that we will be surprised by the results.
Naturally, to avoid accusations that your experiment cherry-picked specific foods that are not representative of their fat/carb classes, you would also have to test other foods, like coconut oil, glazed doughnuts, rendered beef suet, dry white toast, butter, and bananas.
But wait. That's still oversimplifying the issue. Boiled white potatoes are three times as filling as plain white bread. If some carbs are more filling than other carbs, how can you meaningfully compare all carbs against all fats?
I guess you can't. The experiment would have to serve isolated food components. Rather than olive oil, serve a shot of caprylic acid, or stearic acid, or DHA. Rather than oatmeal, serve pure starch, or pure glucose syrup, or fructose. Maybe also test the effects of added MSG, aspartame, or table salt.
I said fatty foods are often more satiating. Your oatmeal vs olive oil competition has nothing to do with what I said.
A higher fat:carb balance than mainstream diets leads to less hunger, because of the satiety of fat when combined with other foods (especially fibre and protein) and mor importantly because of the reduced insulin spike when carbs are reduced.
The feeling of fullness at the end of a meal is primarily driven by the stretching of the stomach. Which is why people who have their stomach stapled feel fuller faster, and so eat less per meal.
Fat, with its extremely high calorie density, is some of the least satiating food you can eat.
This oversimplifies it a bit, because there are multiple signals and sensations related to satiety and hunger. The mechanics of snacks are different from meals because you will never get "full" from eating snacks, although you may cease being "hungry".
You are oversimplifying it. Calorie density is not the only factor related to satiety.
Blood sugar, insulin, the combination of foods eaten, fibre levels, all contribute to satiety. And in this context adding more fat and less carbs to your diet does increase satiety
It isn't even that clear-cut that saturated fatty acids with different lengths have equal effects on health.
Butyric acid (C4:0) and stearic acid (C18:0) are both saturated fatty acids. I would be very hesitant to claim that they are interchangeable for the purposes of human body chemistry.
Saturated fat stimulates obesity and hepatic steatosis and affects gut microbiota composition by an enhanced overflow of dietary fat to the distal intestine. http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/303/5/G589
The influence of the type of dietary fat on postprandial fat oxidation rates: monounsaturated (olive oil) vs saturated fat (cream). http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/12037652
A saturated fatty acid–rich diet induces an obesity-linked proinflammatory gene expression profile in adipose tissue of subjects at risk of metabolic syndrome. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/90/6/1656.short
Substitution of saturated with monounsaturated fat in a 4-week diet affects body weight and composition of overweight and obese men - Here they show consuming monounsaturated fat instead of saturated fat causes weight and fat loss. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPag...
I would love to look at counterpoint articles if you have any.
A pretty huge collection of studies I have show that a low-carb diet, high in fats (saturated and unsaturated) is hugely effective in reducing bad LDL and increasing good HDL and LDL.
One of the big wins for low carb high fat diets is that people tend to self regulate better. I hear people say "I ate as much as I wanted and I lost weight" all the time. Thus it is important that calories also be controlled.
The big issue with carbs is that when you have too much glucose floating around, the liver responds by converting it into palmitic acid. Palmitic acid seems to be one of the worst saturated fatty acids in terms of metabolic effects, and hepatic fat production tends to result in increased levels of low density lipoprotein. Fructose is even worse than glucose in this respect, as its primary metabolic fates are hepatic glycogen storage (which is very limited) or conversion to fat. Note that these issues only occur when you consume carbohydrates in excess of your body's ability to readily store or metabolize them - consumed in moderation, carbs are just fine.
I could grab a load of studies from the appendix of her book, but rather than swap PubMed links I'd recommend you read it: http://thebigfatsurprise.com/
It shows you the human factors that led to the distortion and exaggeration of the science to maintain the position of the originating scientists.
To add: this is also why many other discussions suck: politics, economics, religion, etc.
Everyone's a fucking expert, can disregard science because [someone on tv] disagrees with peer-reviewed studies, and there's no obvious correct answer.
At least on HN it's moderately fact-based, even in disagreement. If you dare to read discussions--dare I call them that--on somewhere like Facebook or Reddit...well, godspeed.
Nutrition discussions suck because nobody is demonstrably wrong. It doesn't matter if you can back your opinion up with a study, because the other can can back up his contradicting opinion with another study. There are no canonical facts, because the studies are just so hard to control. We know nothing, in the end.
Giving the benefit of the doubt here, presumably at the end of that book is also a long list of peer-reviewed studies that the author based the book on.
Both the parent comment and the book are essentially distillations of the current scientific knowledge on the effects of fat in a person's diet.
It's a "shitty book"? Oh well, all the parts where she discusses the methodology flaws in studies are completely bogus then, because you think the book is shitty. Good argument.
Still, you clearly know more than the Economist, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the BMJ who all gave it good reviews. We're totally lucky to have you here to enlighten us.
I didn't say that all were, I said most are. You're agreeing with me. If you're going to be pedantic make sure you're actually attacking what I said and not a strawman you set up.
A small minority of obese people have a glandular problem. Some are from childhood obesity and/or have a hormonal imbalance that affects metabolism. My sympathies go to those people; but most fat people are fat because they have poor diets and live sedentary lifestyles and so many of them pull the gland/hormone/not-my-fault card that the legitimate cases are ignored. You can blame lazy fat people for the perceived "delegitimization" of those (legitimate) excuses.
Think of it as 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf'. The more people who claim it is outside of their control, who are lying, when someone finally makes the claim and it is true - they are ignored - because of the liars.
Hm? I don't think I made any claim that 'most fat people act the victim", only that the ones that do ruin it for everyone else because the large majority of the ones who make excuses are lying . If there wasn't some significant number of people who make these excuses - there wouldn't be jokes around the concept.
I think there's a case of miscommunication somewhere. I'm not saying most fat people are lying - but that most fat people who are making excuses are lying. Most fat people I know own up that it's their poor diet/lack of exercise/love of food that is the reason they are fat. However most people claiming that it is their genetics are typically lying. Which is why we have tasteless jokes around the idea. [0].
Quick disclaimer: an excuse can be legitimate and someone "making excuses" could have a legitimate excuse. Some do, but most people who attempt to use those excuses are lying. That is my claim and is what I recognize to be the majority opinion and the majority result.
Yeah, I just don't observe that many people keeping their genetics in the fridge like that woman. Just from the fat people I meet, I've heard very few pull the victim card. I think it's overblown how many fat people do act like that, not a "significant number" in my opinion. Maybe it depends on the place/culture, but I don't see it
I don't think it's a fluke of history, theocracies have been increasingly hard to come by in the past 1000 years (especially in the Western world). The US has never been a theocracy.
Religious organisations are not growing in power.
Even if the US were to become a theocracy, that =/= you're as good as dead.
So there are a few reasons why you shouldn't feel threatened. Not saying it can't happen, but as I said it's extremely unlikely. Thankfully(!).
> Even if the US were to become a theocracy, that =/= you're as good as dead.
All it takes is someone like Scott Lively getting a little power. His views are not as rare as you probably think. Like I said, I'm surrounded by people who think I'm an abomination. They're deadly serious about it.
You're either naive or a Christian doing a "no true Scotsman". And don't confuse my comments regarding abuse and misapplication of religion as demonizing people of faith, because that's not what I said.
I was given a helpful bit of honesty from a former Facebook friend. I told him I'd never vote against his freedom of religion. He flat out said he couldn't say the same. I don't know how far he'd go to deny rights to people unlike himself, but it's probably more common a view than people like to admit. We're always one bad year from a new and worse way of life.
Yeah, nice isn't it? For all of my dislike of organized religion I completely support people's right to practice how they see fit, even knowing that their faith thinks I should be killed for not believing in it.
I'm not so certain that public lynchings for homosexuality wouldn't occur. On the other hand, there's plenty of people on the other side of the fence who'd see conservatives jailed and beaten (They'd not sully their hands themselves, just require the increasingly large nanny-state to do it) for disagreeing with their concept of 'progress'.
Maybe we just need to open the floodgates and let these factions kill each other off.
People are being pushed off buildings or beheaded precisely because of their beliefs. Today. Oh, sure, it's some war-torn region and done by extremists...but they weren't doing it more than a few months ago, and now the for-that-reason dead are numbering well into 5-6 digits and rising fast. It's real, it's growing, and there's many people who would "hunt you because of your beliefs" if not for the normalcy of rule & law.
Here you completely agree with my original point. But you're only willing to point fingers at the other dominant religion and take umbrage that your own flavor of Abrahamism could ever inspire bad behavior.
1. Europeans are more risk averse, and there is not the same entrepreneurial spirit.
2. You're comparing it with the home of tech and startups so it's not going to compare well. More of a question would be why does the US generate more fast-growing tech startups than the whole world put together.
3. European investors are comically small-minded, stingy and don't have much cash to use.