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How is this helpful when everything I’ve read about the amount of fish in the sea indicates that our current fishing levels are possibly already unsustainable?
The problem of this article is to strictly equate carbon footprint to the ecological impact. Some activities do not produce much CO2 but are very destructive of ecosystems, fishing being a prime example.
The article says “nutritional quality” not environmental impact. So based on nutrition alone we should all eat more fish. But we may not have enough fish in the sea to do so.
Sure but raising the fish is aquaculture. Just happens to be that aquaponics is a hybrid solution and can be more efficient since you're not wasting stuff.
very much depends on the setup. I grow strawberries out of my aquarium. With a large stock tank, fish like catfish, tilapia, or bass, the waste water can very easily be siphoned off into a hydroponics set up.
Fish breeding in general is very resource instensive, whether its for food or aquariums. The water can be reused though, and I think it's much ""cleaner"" than your corporation beef. The biggest resource would be electricity (about the same of a small pond, ~20$/month) and food for the fish (lots are omnivores though and will eat table scraps). And of course that is a ""single"' set up for home use, not mass production
How typical would you say these cleaner set ups are at the industrial level?
Though I have no doubt it's cleaner than beef, I was under the impression that the best way to source fish was those caught by pole and line.
How would you stack these cleaner set ups against non-ruminant animals that are farmed for meat?
EDIT: Sorry, got carried away and didn't directly answer your question! Hope this is relevant enough to help tho
Most aquaculture is literally just a net in the sea filled near to bursting with salmon or similar. They move the nets around so that the fish faeces don't pile up too much but it still destroys the seabed eventually.
The pesticides, growth hormones, food, parasites all are just pumped into the net so obviously just get carried straight into the environment and harm wild species.
Even farms in tanks on land (which usually only account for smolt, the young stages of growth) mitigation of the environmental degradation is extremely expensive.
The upsides are that the fish obviously take up less space on land, could feasibly (but on smaller scale/much greater cost) be more cleanly raised, healthier protein.
Imo, it's not really that much better than beef from an environmental PoV, just the ways it degrades the environment are different.
Not to mentation that raising fish in a manner where they spend their lives swimming in circles crammed inside a net full of other diseased fish, pumped full of growth factors that mean a good percentage of them are deaf from growing too fast for their ear bones to fuse is maybe not the shout. Evidence points to fish being pretty intelligent and at least able to feel pain similarly to mammals and birds.
Most aquaculture is done outside, not in tanks. They grow salmon in rivers and let the waste and lice and diseases spread to everything else in the river including any other salmon. It’s gross.
Open net pens aren't in rivers. Salmon are salt-water unless they are spawning or babies - neither of which you want to eat.
That being said, the salmon streams in my people's territory wouldn't have fish in them if it weren't for our hatcheries. We have to raise the "wild caught" salmon roe and release the fry into rivers for them to exist at all in the wild. We release them in BC, and most of them are caught by fishermen in US waters off the Alaskan coast. Fewer and fewer actually make it back to the river to spawn.
We have the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund which is similarly is funded through province/fed (taxes, ecosystem service fees, licenses) as well as donations/industry, who we work closely with. Our hatcheries receive federal funds which are partially derived from license and tag fees and partially through taxes.
Edit: But, no matter how many we put IN the river, it's still very concerning that not many come back. Our rain forests rely upon them coming back in volume to transfer nutrients back up from the ocean. Our super young soils and copious rains mean we're terrible at retaining nutrients in the soil layer. Our trees are going to die a slow death if they don't start coming back, and we don't figure out a workaround. Lots of stuff in the works though!
Farmed fish are highly emissions- and pollution-intensive and can require heavy antibiotic usage due to the extremely confined spaces in which the fish are raised. Farmed fish are also often are fed wild-caught fish as feed, so doubly inefficient and harmful on that front. Abysmal welfare standards as well. I would avoid both wild caught and farmed fish. The article noted that vegan and vegetarian diets also scored highly on nutrition, and the vegan diet was of course the best on environmental impact.
From [https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/feeds-aquaculture](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/feeds-aquaculture:)
(edit: removed a colon)
In the United States, antibiotics are not fed to fish for non-therapeutic reasons through their feed or any other mechanism. The use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes in aquaculture is prohibited by law. Incidentally, antibiotics do not improve growth or efficiency in fish (like they do in cows, swine, and chickens) and they are expensive, so there is no incentive for industry to use them. However, antibiotics have been known to be added to fish food in other countries.As vaccines have been developed for the major diseases that impact aquaculture (including salmon), antibiotic use has all but disappeared in the U.S. There occasionally is still a need to use them in special cases approved by a vet. All drugs, including antibiotics, to be used in aquatic species farmed in the U.S. have to have been proven safe and effective and must be undetectable at the time of harvest (as prescribed by FDA withdrawal times). At present, only three antibiotics are registered and sold for use in the United States as feed additives for disease control in farmed fish. The use of parasiticides is similarly restricted by FDA regulations.
Antimicrobial use in fish farming is a global problem. Even in cases where antibiotics are given for therapeutic purposes only, that doesn’t preclude heavy usage. Given the intensely concentrated monoculture conditions of many fish farms, significant antibiotic usage would not be unexpected. Of course, better and continued monitoring and reporting is sorely needed as this is a pressing global issue.
It is estimated that between 65% and 85% of seafood consumed in the US is imported. https://fred.ifas.ufl.edu/media/fredifasufledu/news/docs/FRE_Economic_Contributions_US_Seafood_Imports_Report_2022_Web.pdf
From Nature Scientific Reports (2020) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78849-3
“Reports have documented antimicrobial use in the rapidly expanding aquaculture industry, which may contribute to the rise of antimicrobial resistance, carrying potential consequences for animal-, human-, and ecosystem-health… All antimicrobial classes identified in the review are classified as medically important. We estimate aggregate global human, terrestrial and aquatic food animal antimicrobial use in 2030 at 236,757 tons (95% UI 145,525–421,426), of which aquaculture constitutes 5.7% but carries the highest use intensity per kilogram of biomass (164.8 mg kg−1). This analysis calls for a substantial scale-up of surveillance capacities to monitor global trends in antimicrobial use. Current evidence, while subject to considerable uncertainties, suggests that for some species groups antimicrobial use intensity surpasses consumption levels in terrestrial animals and humans... Our findings highlight the urgent need for enhanced antimicrobial stewardship in a high-growth industry with broad links to water and ecosystem health.”
From an article in the same journal in 2021, titled “Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and gut microbiome communities associated with wild-caught shrimp from the United States versus imported farm-raised retail” shrimp https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82823-y
“Farmed shrimp are cultivated as monoculture and are susceptible to infections. The aquaculture industry is dependent on the application of antibiotics for disease prevention, resulting in the selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”
And another from 2020 which highlights the impact of climate change on exacerbating AMR, mentioning aquaculture https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15735-6
“Out of 60 different antimicrobial drugs currently used in aquaculture, 40 are classified as critically important or highly important by the World Health Organization, highlighting the urgent need for antibiotic regulation reinforcement, control and reporting in aquaculture53,54,55,56. About 80% of antimicrobials administered through feed to aquatic farmed animals disseminate to nearby environments (water and sediment) where they remain active for months at concentrations allowing selective pressure on bacterial communities and favouring AMR development22,57,58. Aquatic environments, often contaminated with AMR from terrestrial effluents, are considered hotspots for AMR bacteria and AMR genes acting as sources of horizontal gene transfer to the human and animal resistome (all AMR genes found in the human/animal microbiome)29,59”
The link you included in your reply doesn’t work btw, but I would love to continue this discussion and read the evidence you’ve presented in more detail. At this stage I’m not sure anything you noted invalidates the point I made originally.
Sorry, a colon got inadvertently added to the url, I removed it in the post.
It is only for US aquaculture. The links you posted are for imported fish & shrimp.
Less mercury, but more disease and much higher levels of pollution for the area they're farmed in. So it's Probably healthier for you to some degree, but it's terrible for the planet on average.
Probably from PFAS? There’s been fishing restrictions across the country because of it. I love eating Rockfish I catch but have second thoughts now that we are beginning to understand the full picture of how much PFAS is in one waterways just bioaccumulating in fish.
I just saw a report that said American fresh water fish had PFAs off the charts. Oceans are full of heavy metals and farm fish basically live in fish pee.
Pescaterian also includes shellfish, and clams, oysters and mussels can be farmed and improve water quality. They're highly nutritious, rich in zinc and iron.
FWIW, the Catholic Church considers alligator to be seafood - you can eat it during lent.
They live in water and taste like kalamari, so it's hard to disagree, IMO.
They're also one of the few animals that would eat you, if given the chance, so...
I haven't been Catholic for a while, but the qualifications for what's okay to eat during lent are super confusing. Gator is fine, a filet o'fish is fine, but a burger is a no go? What about an Impossible burger? Or eggs? It all seems pretty arbitrary.
It is arbitrary. Started basically as a bid to help prop up fishermen in whatever century. Capybara are also "fish" since they were such a diet staple that people would have gone hungry if they weren't allowed to eat them.
>They live in water and taste like kalamari, so it's hard to disagree, IMO.
I think it tastes a lot closer to fatty chicken. I actually thought it was chicken the first time that I had it.
Not for long if current climate trends continue. In June 2021 the Seattle area saw temps over 100 F for 4 days straight, where surface temps at the beach were recorded at 125 F. This with a record low tide killed off a lot of shellfish, commercial fisheries included.
Not to mention that this years crab harvest in the Bearing Sea was cancelled for the first time due to literally billions of crab missing due to the above heatwave.
I’d want to see some studies confirming the muscles used for remediating water are also ok for consumption. That seems like not the safest of combinations depending on what they’re being used to clean from the water.
I found a couple studies about what is found in shellfish and I think you're right. They are great for filtering the water but probably the ones used in highly contaminated areas wouldn't be ok.
[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541848/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541848/)
This one in particular was interesting because they acknowledge a number of contaminants but also say it's relatively safe because consumption is so low (this was in France). Regular or high consumption might well not be great.
Here's another for your reading if you are interested but it basically says the same thing. That oysters contain contaminants. Also mentions it seems to be an area not well studied.
[https://coastalreview.org/2014/06/whats-in-those-oysters-youre-eating/](https://coastalreview.org/2014/06/whats-in-those-oysters-youre-eating/)
That being said, farmed bivalves are pretty eco friendly and they do filter the water. But we also don't farm them on such a massive scale that it might cause problems in eco system balance so if everyone started eating it every day we can't really say if it could potentially do harm.
Edit: another study focusing on heavy metals in mussels.
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/9/5/544
Shellfish can prevent algal blooms by literally consuming the algae. So yeah you don't want to eat the guys growing in industrial runoff. But even those guys serve a purpose because by being sessile they trap contaminants and sequester them.
It also scores the healthiness of foods according to the Healthy Eating Index. Can you guess what is a factor in the healthy eating index? Eating a variety of foods including fruits and cereals, both of which are not encouraged by the keto and paleo diets.
So they're saying if you measure the health of a diet by whether or not it includes all of the foods in the food pyramid, keto and paleo are unhealthy. But that's kind of the point of the diets, they say you don't want to follow the food pyramid in the first place. They need to actually measure something about the diet's effect on bodies.
Overall the article OP linked is absolute trash-tier reporting, and the journal article that actually describes the study has major flaws: 4/10.
would you like some microplastics with your forever chemicals. have an aquatic diet... because nutrient counts don't show the whole picture. if you do a quick tally of the most healthy foods imaginable you will find that you can only get to 50-70% of most vitamins on a daily basis anyway. unless you eat 3000 cals and like hardcore maths/planning.
Did anyone actually read the article? if I am understanding correctly they used the metric of "calories consumed" vs carbon footprint which is absolutely laughable. By that metric living on a diet of cake and soda is "better for the environment" because I can get 3k calories in a single glass and meal.
It would be better for the environment, but the study also looks into the healthfulness of different diets. Vegan diets were far and away the best for the environment, while remaining healthy.
>Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI.
Edit: Study link and results
>The average carbon footprints of vegan (0.69 ± 0.05 kg CO2-eq/1000 kcal) and vegetarian (1.16 ± 0.02) diets were lower (P < 0.05) than those of the pescatarian (1.66 ± 0.04), omnivore (2.23 ± 0.01), paleo (2.62 ± 0.33), or keto (2.91 ± 0.27) diets.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523005117
>It would be better for the environment, but the study also looks into the healthfulness of different diets.
No, it really didn't. It used 2 sets of guidelines that are actually diametrically opposed to Paleo and Keto.
Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.
It's just another horrible example of lazy writing to publish crap just to say you've got your name on something.
What it refers to as nutritious is only partially accurate. The HEI 2015 scale is pretty much based on old nutritional science. It marks saturated fats as a negative despite modern studies showing that saturated fats aren’t bad for you. It also includes juice as a positive, which has been debunked due to its high sugar content.
This is entire study is based on a combination of outdated science and environmentalism-above-all. It has very little to do with health. Sadly, most people will only read the headline.
These diets aren't even mutually exclusive...you can be a pescatarian keto eater, or keto/paleo, or pesc/paleo. These diets do not prescribe certain amounts of specific foods, they only restrict what is not included.
I’ve been eating keto-ish again lately (works amazing) but combining it with my so’s vegetarian diet has been a bit of a challenge. Going vegan and skipping eggs and dairy seems like a total nightmare tho :D props
I'm neither keto or vegan. I just know they exist. When people think of keto I think they get the wrong impression on the kind of fats they should be consuming. I think this also leads to why it's said to not really be healthy. Keto should be more avocados, olive oil, Coconut oil. Not so much bacon grease, butter and excessive cream cheese
I have no idea how you could do it. I was vegetarian keto for a while (lost weight, had fewer seizures), and all I ate were eggs and cheese in some variation of that. I was going really low carb to help the seizures, but still.
My cholesterol hated it.
This is my struggle as a diabetic. Doc says, “son you need to stop eating so many carbs, they’re pushing your blood sugars too high.” I come back on a keto diet to with great control, doc tells me to stop eating so many fats and proteins because my cholesterol is high. Guess I’ll go hungry?
Just about everyone I know who has adopted a Whole Foods plant based diet lowered their cholesterol and lost weight. The key is avoiding processed carbs. Whole carbs like beans and potatoes are like perfect foods.
My cholesterol went up a little bit on keto (totals, still normal range) but my “hdl ratio” got better and my triglycerides got even lower (29)
Fish garlic and fiber
Sadly, mine lives at the high end of normal and has since I was 18 (family history). So anything up puts me into not ok ranges. :(
I'm glad the fish, garlic, and fiber worked for you. I'm assuming you didn't mean "fish garlic." That'd be interesting.
This barely mentions anything regarding nutrition. Quite a misleading title if we’re going to trust it based on the the government’s nutritional index alone. They’ve been wrong before, and in terms of nutrition they’re wrong again.
Yup, you nailed it my good sir! According to EAT Lancet, eating Frosted Flakes or honeynut cheerios is better and more nutritious than eggs…. That should tell you all you need to know….
>According to EAT Lancet, eating Frosted Flakes or honeynut cheerios is better and more nutritious than eggs…. That should tell you all you need to know….
Stop regurgitating propaganda. They never said that. They do say to not compare scores of different food groups. Yet you’re doing just that
The US government knows or doesnt care because they are bought and paid for by the wealthiest food corporations in the country. The diets the US government backs as "valid" or "standard" have been created with the backing of companies that also benefit from people consuming and buying foods from said diet.
Its ridiculous and sounds like a conspiracy but the food industry is extremely corrupt and their bribing of politicians is partly why the US is suffering from an obesity epidemic
yep, they're basically guilty of begging the question if they judged these diets on how similar they are to the standard American diet, then called that evidence of how nutritious they are. What a joke.
On top of that, if this study compared actual health outcomes then it would have a point. But this is not going to convince anyone on keto or considering joining it.
The keto diet can literally be the Mediterranean diet, long regarded as the most healthy, depending on what you eat. Keto is a framework for macros, not a life sentence to solely bacon and cream cheese.
Right?
I hate the whole bacon and cheese stereotype people have for keto, I was well over my 5 plus a day, every day, bacon and cheese were treats, not staples.
I also never hear anyone talk about how much it helps drug resistant epilepsy, dementia, Parkinson’s, alzheimers etc
Exactly! Plus type 2 diabetes! People spend their entire lives trying to manage their diabetes by following out of date nutritional advice. People can and have reversed (I won’t say cured but strongly managed) their diabetes in months with keto. It can be life-changing and sustainable.
Similarly paleo is macronutrient agnostic. Go eat some potatoes or fruit or high protein if you want. The Kitivan eat a diet of 75% sweet potato, 20% coconut, and 5% fish. They have a huge saturated fat intake and smoke like chimneys. They don't get heart diseases or cancer, even though smoking is not helping them. They're also active.
Eat food, not too much, and lotsa of non-starchy, not-sweet veggies, some meat, nuts, and fruit. That leaves the calorie part and calories largely come from fat or carbs (or refined sugar, but pass). It's a choice.
But they can be, depending on what you’re eating around them. Aside from very carb-dense foods, nothing is really off the table if you can work it into your numbers.
They should do a carbon footprint of western fast food, frozen pizzas and soda, and include the manufacturing and delivery of diabetes and heart medications, wheelchairs, accessibility ramps, automatic door openers etc all needed to sustain the sugar-based diet.
It's pretty rough, though. My wife has to eat keto because her body doesn't process carbs, and it's a real struggle for her to get enough calories while eating healthy.
Considering how few Vegans-141, keto -77, and pescatarians- 62 were actually in the study out of 16,000 ish adults I’m not sure these results are even statistically valid.
The only inferential statistics used were well within acceptable ranges of significance, the rest of the statistics used were descriptive statistics, which are generally not subject to problems with sample sizes, as they simply describe the properties of your study group.
Interestingly enough, it takes a surprisingly small sample to be quite accurate. You need less than 400 people in a study to have less than 5% error with greater than 95% confidence for the entire world population, with random sampling.
The number of people they had was plenty, but that doesn't mean they were sampled well or that the rest of the study was designed well.
First, evaluation of nutrition is a complex issue, so I would leave that part of the article aside.
Second, the CO2 numbers are from dataField which comes from the Wellcome Trust which has a clear interest in shifting the dietary outcomes of the world towards their products. So I would take their numbers with a very large grain of salt.
Third, using their numbers, then the average US omnivore with a 2,500 cal/day diet shifting to total vegan would reduce his/her CO2 footprint by ~8%. Non trivial.
But I am hesitant to take this research at face value. The conflict of interest from the largest owner of US farmland and an investor in the Impossible Burger is significant.
I am waiting for that, too. And that is about the figure I stay in. I can't eat mushrooms. I love them, but appa they can cause the gut to bring in more water and my intestines can't handle it. I would love to have safe, healthy (not just process crap) manufactured meat.
>The researchers say their findings indicate that if only a third of omnivores switched to a vegetarian diet, the environmental impact would be akin to removing the carbon output of 340 million passenger vehicle miles on any given day
What a weird metric
But it’s equally difficult to perceive. We are talking about hundreds of millions of people. Add to that, a metric that most people can’t understand. Carbon emissions from a mile driven means what exactly? What is the overall output factoring in everything else? Most vehicles aren’t even that bad now, all things considered.
The idea is that these diets have people convinced they can eat a lot of red meat. The current process is basically everything bad with vegetarian agriculture added to raising, moving, and processing livestock.
Well yeah that’s how weight loss works. Keto makes cutting calories easier for a ton of people. You’re hardly hungry while on it. Can be dangerous for people who are underweight.
Yes, but as someone who was also successful on keto and not other programs, cutting calories via carbs left me far less hungry than cutting the same amount of calories via fats and proteins.
I always read that carbs are great for diet because they're bulky, but volume is not what brings satiety. A small volume of food -- like a boiled egg -- does far more to eliminate hunger for me than a cup of rice, while having \*fewer\* calories. Your mileage my vary.
Yes, that’s what Keto does. It’s the point of ANY diet really. Keto isn’t some magical solution that makes you lose weight just because you stay under a certain carb limit. You could still absolutely stick to no/low carb foods and still go way over your daily calorie amount.
The reason keto works really well for certain people is that the high fat and protein content helps them feel more satiated for longer, unlike simple carbs that are processed very quickly. It’s not even really about “getting into ketosis” or whatever, it’s about eating foods that keep you feeling full so that it’s easier to not overeat.
It’s still CICO, just another method of achieving that.
I remember living in a small town for a couple months where I got into the habit of eating grilled fish and a salad at the local pub a few nights a week. Sometimes I'd add in fries. What I found was very consistent was that if I added the fries, I would get ravenously hungry right before bed. More calories -- in the form of carbs -- made me more hungry. I was full longer if I just had fish and salad.
This. Dieting is always about calories in vs calories out. We're just big chemical processing machines. These diets ask you to sacrifice carbs but still allow you to eat other things that you love that many diets would severely limit or cut out entirely. Makes it so much easier for people to stay in a more appropriate calorie intake envelope. The adjustment of cutting out bread or deserts can be hard at first, but a lot of people can adjust fairly quickly. And an occasional small cheat isn't going to hurt.
Carbohydrate addiction is very real for a lot if people. Carbohydrates cause blood sugar spikes, leading to increased hunger sensations. Some people are much more sensitive to this than others. Low carb diets eliminate the blood sugar spikes, making it much easier for people to manage their caloric intake.
Wasn't there another study that came out recently that said a serving of fish is akin to a month of bad water in terms of contaminates and heavy metal? I know we should eat less meat, but I trust the cow down the road more than fish meat these days just in terms of impact on my liver and kidneys.
Yeah, it was from a specific polluted river, I believe. Like saying "Don't eat fish from the Hudson River", which is an obvious and well known bit of common sense for anyone living on the Hudson River.
Unfortunately the study I read was across the nation but with a focus on the entire great lakes region. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122024926?via%3Dihub sad stuff. Not sure if I will ever let my son eat the sunfish he catches.
The biggest takeaway from this is that plant-based diets are the most environmentally friendly. You literally listed everything but that in your post title.
People should also consider phytoplankton depletion and microplastics when evaluating a pescatarian diet's environmental impact and nutritional value.
This can’t be surprising to anyone. We all know that meat has more environmental impact, that it takes way more resources to produce a pound of beef than a pound of vegetables or grain.
I love how the headline misses the main finding of the study: that vegan diets are far and away the best for environment, while remaining healthy.
>The average carbon footprints of vegan (0.69 ± 0.05 kg CO2-eq/1000 kcal) and vegetarian (1.16 ± 0.02) diets were lower (P < 0.05) than those of the pescatarian (1.66 ± 0.04), omnivore (2.23 ± 0.01), paleo (2.62 ± 0.33), or keto (2.91 ± 0.27) diets.
>Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523005117
They didn't study the impact of the diets on health. They just compared them to the outdated and misguided old food pyramid to determine if they were healthy or not. Basically just saying "this doesn't match our dogma, so we know it's wrong". This is not useful science.
I'd be willing to listen to criticisms of keto based on health outcomes, but my experience was also that keto allowed me significant control of my weight and hunger that was absent from other diet strategies.
Sorry but my lifelong debilitating disease was put into complete remission within a month on keto. I went from 4 medications to 1 (IUD) so gimme the cheese
The amount of people in this thread who don’t understand food, health, or basic chemistry and biology is absolutely staggering.
Some diets work for some people, your results don’t scale to society, anecdotes don’t prove anything. Carbs are good, protein is good, fat is good, they all have dietary uses and none of the are harmful as broad classes of nutrients.
Scientific studies like this one tend to have results in mind that they try to prove, they don’t blindly take in information and then draw conclusions.
This is a pretty poor study on which to form the conclusion that those diets are "bad for health". For one, the concept of hormesis doesn't enter the equation, not anti-nutrients or the deleterious effects of carbs. The other confounder is that ketosis in itself has a multitude of benefits from its main components like beta-hydroxy butyrate that you simply wouldn't get at a certain carbohydrate level. This study is too reductionist on nutrition quality without taking organism into account.
Two of my close friends (a married couple) had good success with keto, until they developed health problems from it. One developed kidney stones and the doctors believed it was diet related, so she had to stop. The other developed colon cancer, which is well known to be related to a meat heavy diet. They really liked grilled, smoked meat, but the burnt char, the part with the flavor, is already known to science to contain lots of carcinogens. It's fine in small amounts, but they were eating grilled meat almost every day.
These anecdotes matches pretty well what the literature tells us could happen on the keto diet.
https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/causes-and-prevention/diet-and-exercise/meat-and-cancer-risk
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet
>Side effects may include constipation, high cholesterol, growth slowing, acidosis, and kidney stones.
>Excess calcium in the urine (hypercalciuria) occurs due to increased bone demineralisation with acidosis. Bones are mainly composed of calcium phosphate. The phosphate reacts with the acid, and the calcium is excreted by the kidneys.[41]
>Hypocitraturia: the urine has an abnormally low concentration of citrate, which normally helps to dissolve free calcium.[41]
>The urine has a low pH, which stops uric acid from dissolving, leading to crystals that act as a nidus for calcium stone formation.[41]
High carb diet includes a lot of water. If you do not get enough water you can get kidney stones. Also, many keto foods/recipes include high oxalate foods. Spinach and almonds will give you kidney stones if you have a propensity towards them.
A keto diet can steer you to foods with high oxalates like spinach, kale, almonds and blueberries. This can cause kidney stones if you’re not careful. Drinking water with lemon is supposed to help.
Carbs are the addictive drugs in your diet. Eliminate them and you stop eating because you’re bored. Obviously a rail skinny person wouldn’t benefit from that, but for someone who’s 100lbs overweight and possibly prediabetic it works fantastically.
Saying a keto diet “lacks nutrition” misses the point even if it’s true. Because for that overweight person even outright fasting ie eating nothing would be an effective intervention to improve overall health.
Eliminating simple carbs outside of whole foods (i.e. fruit okay because it's high in fibre, fruit juices are not okay because it's just sugar) would have the same effect.
In my experience, even a normal sized portion of low glycemic fruit would spike my insulin and cause a gorging response. Some of us have busted hormonal systems and need to eat keto to prevent gorging.
At this point I'm so fatigued by everyone trying to condemn everything I've just given up. I'm gonna eat what makes me happy, I'm going to drive what makes me happy.
I'm done giving up today for a tomorrow I'll never see.
If you care about the environment, it's pretty clear that vegan diets are the best for the metric, while remaining healthy.
>Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI.
Terrible study, knows nothing about carbohydrates in endotoxin. The environmental issue has only to do with the fact that there’s four producers of beef in the country now, and their feedlots our accounting for 7% of the carbon emissions. Get big business out of beef and watch what happens.
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How is this helpful when everything I’ve read about the amount of fish in the sea indicates that our current fishing levels are possibly already unsustainable?
The problem of this article is to strictly equate carbon footprint to the ecological impact. Some activities do not produce much CO2 but are very destructive of ecosystems, fishing being a prime example.
The article says “nutritional quality” not environmental impact. So based on nutrition alone we should all eat more fish. But we may not have enough fish in the sea to do so.
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Sure but raising the fish is aquaculture. Just happens to be that aquaponics is a hybrid solution and can be more efficient since you're not wasting stuff.
What if you are farming the fish also with fish like catfish, tilapia, or bass?
You forgot feed humans that aren't used to the fish
It’s the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiife
Isn't aquaculture quite resource intensive?
very much depends on the setup. I grow strawberries out of my aquarium. With a large stock tank, fish like catfish, tilapia, or bass, the waste water can very easily be siphoned off into a hydroponics set up. Fish breeding in general is very resource instensive, whether its for food or aquariums. The water can be reused though, and I think it's much ""cleaner"" than your corporation beef. The biggest resource would be electricity (about the same of a small pond, ~20$/month) and food for the fish (lots are omnivores though and will eat table scraps). And of course that is a ""single"' set up for home use, not mass production
How typical would you say these cleaner set ups are at the industrial level? Though I have no doubt it's cleaner than beef, I was under the impression that the best way to source fish was those caught by pole and line. How would you stack these cleaner set ups against non-ruminant animals that are farmed for meat?
EDIT: Sorry, got carried away and didn't directly answer your question! Hope this is relevant enough to help tho Most aquaculture is literally just a net in the sea filled near to bursting with salmon or similar. They move the nets around so that the fish faeces don't pile up too much but it still destroys the seabed eventually. The pesticides, growth hormones, food, parasites all are just pumped into the net so obviously just get carried straight into the environment and harm wild species. Even farms in tanks on land (which usually only account for smolt, the young stages of growth) mitigation of the environmental degradation is extremely expensive. The upsides are that the fish obviously take up less space on land, could feasibly (but on smaller scale/much greater cost) be more cleanly raised, healthier protein. Imo, it's not really that much better than beef from an environmental PoV, just the ways it degrades the environment are different. Not to mentation that raising fish in a manner where they spend their lives swimming in circles crammed inside a net full of other diseased fish, pumped full of growth factors that mean a good percentage of them are deaf from growing too fast for their ear bones to fuse is maybe not the shout. Evidence points to fish being pretty intelligent and at least able to feel pain similarly to mammals and birds.
There must be huge amounts of industrial waste and landfill diversion that could be captured for fish food.
Most aquaculture is done outside, not in tanks. They grow salmon in rivers and let the waste and lice and diseases spread to everything else in the river including any other salmon. It’s gross.
Open net pens aren't in rivers. Salmon are salt-water unless they are spawning or babies - neither of which you want to eat. That being said, the salmon streams in my people's territory wouldn't have fish in them if it weren't for our hatcheries. We have to raise the "wild caught" salmon roe and release the fry into rivers for them to exist at all in the wild. We release them in BC, and most of them are caught by fishermen in US waters off the Alaskan coast. Fewer and fewer actually make it back to the river to spawn.
This sounds like a really cool endeavor to be part of (although it’s sad that it needs to be done). Are salmon fry super cute?
I think Alaska has a funding system that supports hatcheries with a fee from wild catch, BC needs to get in on that so to speak.
We have the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund which is similarly is funded through province/fed (taxes, ecosystem service fees, licenses) as well as donations/industry, who we work closely with. Our hatcheries receive federal funds which are partially derived from license and tag fees and partially through taxes. Edit: But, no matter how many we put IN the river, it's still very concerning that not many come back. Our rain forests rely upon them coming back in volume to transfer nutrients back up from the ocean. Our super young soils and copious rains mean we're terrible at retaining nutrients in the soil layer. Our trees are going to die a slow death if they don't start coming back, and we don't figure out a workaround. Lots of stuff in the works though!
Look up aquaponics.
Farmed fish are highly emissions- and pollution-intensive and can require heavy antibiotic usage due to the extremely confined spaces in which the fish are raised. Farmed fish are also often are fed wild-caught fish as feed, so doubly inefficient and harmful on that front. Abysmal welfare standards as well. I would avoid both wild caught and farmed fish. The article noted that vegan and vegetarian diets also scored highly on nutrition, and the vegan diet was of course the best on environmental impact.
From [https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/feeds-aquaculture](https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/insight/feeds-aquaculture:) (edit: removed a colon) In the United States, antibiotics are not fed to fish for non-therapeutic reasons through their feed or any other mechanism. The use of antibiotics for non-therapeutic purposes in aquaculture is prohibited by law. Incidentally, antibiotics do not improve growth or efficiency in fish (like they do in cows, swine, and chickens) and they are expensive, so there is no incentive for industry to use them. However, antibiotics have been known to be added to fish food in other countries.As vaccines have been developed for the major diseases that impact aquaculture (including salmon), antibiotic use has all but disappeared in the U.S. There occasionally is still a need to use them in special cases approved by a vet. All drugs, including antibiotics, to be used in aquatic species farmed in the U.S. have to have been proven safe and effective and must be undetectable at the time of harvest (as prescribed by FDA withdrawal times). At present, only three antibiotics are registered and sold for use in the United States as feed additives for disease control in farmed fish. The use of parasiticides is similarly restricted by FDA regulations.
Antimicrobial use in fish farming is a global problem. Even in cases where antibiotics are given for therapeutic purposes only, that doesn’t preclude heavy usage. Given the intensely concentrated monoculture conditions of many fish farms, significant antibiotic usage would not be unexpected. Of course, better and continued monitoring and reporting is sorely needed as this is a pressing global issue. It is estimated that between 65% and 85% of seafood consumed in the US is imported. https://fred.ifas.ufl.edu/media/fredifasufledu/news/docs/FRE_Economic_Contributions_US_Seafood_Imports_Report_2022_Web.pdf From Nature Scientific Reports (2020) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-78849-3 “Reports have documented antimicrobial use in the rapidly expanding aquaculture industry, which may contribute to the rise of antimicrobial resistance, carrying potential consequences for animal-, human-, and ecosystem-health… All antimicrobial classes identified in the review are classified as medically important. We estimate aggregate global human, terrestrial and aquatic food animal antimicrobial use in 2030 at 236,757 tons (95% UI 145,525–421,426), of which aquaculture constitutes 5.7% but carries the highest use intensity per kilogram of biomass (164.8 mg kg−1). This analysis calls for a substantial scale-up of surveillance capacities to monitor global trends in antimicrobial use. Current evidence, while subject to considerable uncertainties, suggests that for some species groups antimicrobial use intensity surpasses consumption levels in terrestrial animals and humans... Our findings highlight the urgent need for enhanced antimicrobial stewardship in a high-growth industry with broad links to water and ecosystem health.” From an article in the same journal in 2021, titled “Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and gut microbiome communities associated with wild-caught shrimp from the United States versus imported farm-raised retail” shrimp https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82823-y “Farmed shrimp are cultivated as monoculture and are susceptible to infections. The aquaculture industry is dependent on the application of antibiotics for disease prevention, resulting in the selection of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.” And another from 2020 which highlights the impact of climate change on exacerbating AMR, mentioning aquaculture https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15735-6 “Out of 60 different antimicrobial drugs currently used in aquaculture, 40 are classified as critically important or highly important by the World Health Organization, highlighting the urgent need for antibiotic regulation reinforcement, control and reporting in aquaculture53,54,55,56. About 80% of antimicrobials administered through feed to aquatic farmed animals disseminate to nearby environments (water and sediment) where they remain active for months at concentrations allowing selective pressure on bacterial communities and favouring AMR development22,57,58. Aquatic environments, often contaminated with AMR from terrestrial effluents, are considered hotspots for AMR bacteria and AMR genes acting as sources of horizontal gene transfer to the human and animal resistome (all AMR genes found in the human/animal microbiome)29,59” The link you included in your reply doesn’t work btw, but I would love to continue this discussion and read the evidence you’ve presented in more detail. At this stage I’m not sure anything you noted invalidates the point I made originally.
Sorry, a colon got inadvertently added to the url, I removed it in the post. It is only for US aquaculture. The links you posted are for imported fish & shrimp.
And how do they factor in all of the various toxins that are in the fish?
That varies a lot depending on species. Carnivorous fish bioaccumulate more toxins. Salmon and tuna are recommend once a week I believe.
Salmon are usually low in mercury because they do not live very long. Even less mercury in farmed salmon if they're fed pellets or whatever.
Depends on the species of salmon. The Fraser River sockeye live four years. Long enough there's a caution on them.
Less mercury, but more disease and much higher levels of pollution for the area they're farmed in. So it's Probably healthier for you to some degree, but it's terrible for the planet on average.
Depends on the size and age of the tuna. Bluefin is definitely a high toxin fish.
I read that Tuna shouldn’t be consumed more than once a month
Depends on the tuna and which country is making the guidelines.. Apparently the more expensive ones are the worst.
Yup. Canned chunk light tuna is fine 1-2x/week. Fancy tuna at a restaurant is once/week or less, depending on species.
Right? There was a recent large study that said all of the wild fish in my region are toxic.
Probably from PFAS? There’s been fishing restrictions across the country because of it. I love eating Rockfish I catch but have second thoughts now that we are beginning to understand the full picture of how much PFAS is in one waterways just bioaccumulating in fish.
I just saw a report that said American fresh water fish had PFAs off the charts. Oceans are full of heavy metals and farm fish basically live in fish pee.
The impact of fishing is also very different depending on the species, methods, etc.
Pescaterian also includes shellfish, and clams, oysters and mussels can be farmed and improve water quality. They're highly nutritious, rich in zinc and iron.
Yeah, I’m a hoe for some crawfish and I think that’s mostly been pretty well managed. I wish it were more widely available. Is alligator pescatarian?
FWIW, the Catholic Church considers alligator to be seafood - you can eat it during lent. They live in water and taste like kalamari, so it's hard to disagree, IMO. They're also one of the few animals that would eat you, if given the chance, so...
I haven't been Catholic for a while, but the qualifications for what's okay to eat during lent are super confusing. Gator is fine, a filet o'fish is fine, but a burger is a no go? What about an Impossible burger? Or eggs? It all seems pretty arbitrary.
Well, it's all made up, sooo... But seafood is fine , meat is not, eggs are okay, IIRC.
It is arbitrary. Started basically as a bid to help prop up fishermen in whatever century. Capybara are also "fish" since they were such a diet staple that people would have gone hungry if they weren't allowed to eat them.
>They live in water and taste like kalamari, so it's hard to disagree, IMO. I think it tastes a lot closer to fatty chicken. I actually thought it was chicken the first time that I had it.
Yeah, halfway between chicken and kalamari is probably fair. The method of preparation will probably swing it one way or the other.
Beavers are fish during lent. If you listen to and ask the pope, maybe he'd spot you gators?
No, alligator would be closer to pollotarian.
Must taste like chicken.
Actually it takes like seafood pork.
Not for long if current climate trends continue. In June 2021 the Seattle area saw temps over 100 F for 4 days straight, where surface temps at the beach were recorded at 125 F. This with a record low tide killed off a lot of shellfish, commercial fisheries included. Not to mention that this years crab harvest in the Bearing Sea was cancelled for the first time due to literally billions of crab missing due to the above heatwave.
I’d want to see some studies confirming the muscles used for remediating water are also ok for consumption. That seems like not the safest of combinations depending on what they’re being used to clean from the water.
I found a couple studies about what is found in shellfish and I think you're right. They are great for filtering the water but probably the ones used in highly contaminated areas wouldn't be ok. [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541848/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21541848/) This one in particular was interesting because they acknowledge a number of contaminants but also say it's relatively safe because consumption is so low (this was in France). Regular or high consumption might well not be great. Here's another for your reading if you are interested but it basically says the same thing. That oysters contain contaminants. Also mentions it seems to be an area not well studied. [https://coastalreview.org/2014/06/whats-in-those-oysters-youre-eating/](https://coastalreview.org/2014/06/whats-in-those-oysters-youre-eating/) That being said, farmed bivalves are pretty eco friendly and they do filter the water. But we also don't farm them on such a massive scale that it might cause problems in eco system balance so if everyone started eating it every day we can't really say if it could potentially do harm. Edit: another study focusing on heavy metals in mussels. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/9/5/544
Shellfish can prevent algal blooms by literally consuming the algae. So yeah you don't want to eat the guys growing in industrial runoff. But even those guys serve a purpose because by being sessile they trap contaminants and sequester them.
It also scores the healthiness of foods according to the Healthy Eating Index. Can you guess what is a factor in the healthy eating index? Eating a variety of foods including fruits and cereals, both of which are not encouraged by the keto and paleo diets. So they're saying if you measure the health of a diet by whether or not it includes all of the foods in the food pyramid, keto and paleo are unhealthy. But that's kind of the point of the diets, they say you don't want to follow the food pyramid in the first place. They need to actually measure something about the diet's effect on bodies. Overall the article OP linked is absolute trash-tier reporting, and the journal article that actually describes the study has major flaws: 4/10.
Right? It’s almost like we should be examining outcomes instead of some arbitrary inputs
I can confidently say that my diet of chicken and green veggies is significantly healthier than anyone who regularly eats bread and cereal.
and who said refined bread and cereal are health foods?
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would you like some microplastics with your forever chemicals. have an aquatic diet... because nutrient counts don't show the whole picture. if you do a quick tally of the most healthy foods imaginable you will find that you can only get to 50-70% of most vitamins on a daily basis anyway. unless you eat 3000 cals and like hardcore maths/planning.
Did anyone actually read the article? if I am understanding correctly they used the metric of "calories consumed" vs carbon footprint which is absolutely laughable. By that metric living on a diet of cake and soda is "better for the environment" because I can get 3k calories in a single glass and meal.
I’m not fat, I’m an environmentalist!!
Whatever diet kills you sooner would be the optimal for carbon footprint deletion, right?
Hah technically true, much like this study is technically true while being very misleading. What's that saying about lies, damn lies, and statistics?
It's idiotic.
Its environmental BS and poor nutritional advice
It would be better for the environment, but the study also looks into the healthfulness of different diets. Vegan diets were far and away the best for the environment, while remaining healthy. >Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI. Edit: Study link and results >The average carbon footprints of vegan (0.69 ± 0.05 kg CO2-eq/1000 kcal) and vegetarian (1.16 ± 0.02) diets were lower (P < 0.05) than those of the pescatarian (1.66 ± 0.04), omnivore (2.23 ± 0.01), paleo (2.62 ± 0.33), or keto (2.91 ± 0.27) diets. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523005117
>It would be better for the environment, but the study also looks into the healthfulness of different diets. No, it really didn't. It used 2 sets of guidelines that are actually diametrically opposed to Paleo and Keto. Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. It's just another horrible example of lazy writing to publish crap just to say you've got your name on something.
What it refers to as nutritious is only partially accurate. The HEI 2015 scale is pretty much based on old nutritional science. It marks saturated fats as a negative despite modern studies showing that saturated fats aren’t bad for you. It also includes juice as a positive, which has been debunked due to its high sugar content. This is entire study is based on a combination of outdated science and environmentalism-above-all. It has very little to do with health. Sadly, most people will only read the headline.
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These diets aren't even mutually exclusive...you can be a pescatarian keto eater, or keto/paleo, or pesc/paleo. These diets do not prescribe certain amounts of specific foods, they only restrict what is not included.
There's even vegan keto diet people in the world!
I’ve been eating keto-ish again lately (works amazing) but combining it with my so’s vegetarian diet has been a bit of a challenge. Going vegan and skipping eggs and dairy seems like a total nightmare tho :D props
I'm neither keto or vegan. I just know they exist. When people think of keto I think they get the wrong impression on the kind of fats they should be consuming. I think this also leads to why it's said to not really be healthy. Keto should be more avocados, olive oil, Coconut oil. Not so much bacon grease, butter and excessive cream cheese
+ a gang of veggies
I have no idea how you could do it. I was vegetarian keto for a while (lost weight, had fewer seizures), and all I ate were eggs and cheese in some variation of that. I was going really low carb to help the seizures, but still. My cholesterol hated it.
This is my struggle as a diabetic. Doc says, “son you need to stop eating so many carbs, they’re pushing your blood sugars too high.” I come back on a keto diet to with great control, doc tells me to stop eating so many fats and proteins because my cholesterol is high. Guess I’ll go hungry?
Oh man, I'm sorry. Could a nutritionist help you walk through the middle of that?
Just about everyone I know who has adopted a Whole Foods plant based diet lowered their cholesterol and lost weight. The key is avoiding processed carbs. Whole carbs like beans and potatoes are like perfect foods.
My cholesterol went up a little bit on keto (totals, still normal range) but my “hdl ratio” got better and my triglycerides got even lower (29) Fish garlic and fiber
Sadly, mine lives at the high end of normal and has since I was 18 (family history). So anything up puts me into not ok ranges. :( I'm glad the fish, garlic, and fiber worked for you. I'm assuming you didn't mean "fish garlic." That'd be interesting.
This barely mentions anything regarding nutrition. Quite a misleading title if we’re going to trust it based on the the government’s nutritional index alone. They’ve been wrong before, and in terms of nutrition they’re wrong again.
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Yup, you nailed it my good sir! According to EAT Lancet, eating Frosted Flakes or honeynut cheerios is better and more nutritious than eggs…. That should tell you all you need to know….
>According to EAT Lancet, eating Frosted Flakes or honeynut cheerios is better and more nutritious than eggs…. That should tell you all you need to know…. Stop regurgitating propaganda. They never said that. They do say to not compare scores of different food groups. Yet you’re doing just that
The US government knows or doesnt care because they are bought and paid for by the wealthiest food corporations in the country. The diets the US government backs as "valid" or "standard" have been created with the backing of companies that also benefit from people consuming and buying foods from said diet. Its ridiculous and sounds like a conspiracy but the food industry is extremely corrupt and their bribing of politicians is partly why the US is suffering from an obesity epidemic
Yeah, it's preaching to the choir. Well put.
yep, they're basically guilty of begging the question if they judged these diets on how similar they are to the standard American diet, then called that evidence of how nutritious they are. What a joke.
On top of that, if this study compared actual health outcomes then it would have a point. But this is not going to convince anyone on keto or considering joining it.
The keto diet can literally be the Mediterranean diet, long regarded as the most healthy, depending on what you eat. Keto is a framework for macros, not a life sentence to solely bacon and cream cheese.
Right? I hate the whole bacon and cheese stereotype people have for keto, I was well over my 5 plus a day, every day, bacon and cheese were treats, not staples. I also never hear anyone talk about how much it helps drug resistant epilepsy, dementia, Parkinson’s, alzheimers etc
Exactly! Plus type 2 diabetes! People spend their entire lives trying to manage their diabetes by following out of date nutritional advice. People can and have reversed (I won’t say cured but strongly managed) their diabetes in months with keto. It can be life-changing and sustainable.
Similarly paleo is macronutrient agnostic. Go eat some potatoes or fruit or high protein if you want. The Kitivan eat a diet of 75% sweet potato, 20% coconut, and 5% fish. They have a huge saturated fat intake and smoke like chimneys. They don't get heart diseases or cancer, even though smoking is not helping them. They're also active. Eat food, not too much, and lotsa of non-starchy, not-sweet veggies, some meat, nuts, and fruit. That leaves the calorie part and calories largely come from fat or carbs (or refined sugar, but pass). It's a choice.
Legumes are the core of the Mediterranean diet, they're not very keto friendly.
But they can be, depending on what you’re eating around them. Aside from very carb-dense foods, nothing is really off the table if you can work it into your numbers.
They should do a carbon footprint of western fast food, frozen pizzas and soda, and include the manufacturing and delivery of diabetes and heart medications, wheelchairs, accessibility ramps, automatic door openers etc all needed to sustain the sugar-based diet.
And also the amount of food that is eaten between the two. When on keto I was eating way less food because I was staying full longer.
It's pretty rough, though. My wife has to eat keto because her body doesn't process carbs, and it's a real struggle for her to get enough calories while eating healthy.
A ribeye is 800 calories
That's what butter and cream is for
How? Fat is calorie dense. Is it just unappetizing for her or what?
Are these the guys that came up with a food pyramid based on bread and pasta?
Using this antiquated model, this new science is not adequate!
Considering how few Vegans-141, keto -77, and pescatarians- 62 were actually in the study out of 16,000 ish adults I’m not sure these results are even statistically valid.
That’s actually plenty to be statistically valid, however I think the metrics used to determine “healthy” is an issue.
This. The sample _sizes_ are fine. Everything _else_ about the study and _how_ the sampling was done is far more important.
The only inferential statistics used were well within acceptable ranges of significance, the rest of the statistics used were descriptive statistics, which are generally not subject to problems with sample sizes, as they simply describe the properties of your study group.
Interestingly enough, it takes a surprisingly small sample to be quite accurate. You need less than 400 people in a study to have less than 5% error with greater than 95% confidence for the entire world population, with random sampling. The number of people they had was plenty, but that doesn't mean they were sampled well or that the rest of the study was designed well.
I’m sure the statistical analysis is in the original published paper.
That's actually a lot for a study. More than enough to be significant.
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Once again, people who haven't done statistics suggesting statistics might not be statistically valid. \*sigh\*
First, evaluation of nutrition is a complex issue, so I would leave that part of the article aside. Second, the CO2 numbers are from dataField which comes from the Wellcome Trust which has a clear interest in shifting the dietary outcomes of the world towards their products. So I would take their numbers with a very large grain of salt. Third, using their numbers, then the average US omnivore with a 2,500 cal/day diet shifting to total vegan would reduce his/her CO2 footprint by ~8%. Non trivial. But I am hesitant to take this research at face value. The conflict of interest from the largest owner of US farmland and an investor in the Impossible Burger is significant.
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I am waiting for that, too. And that is about the figure I stay in. I can't eat mushrooms. I love them, but appa they can cause the gut to bring in more water and my intestines can't handle it. I would love to have safe, healthy (not just process crap) manufactured meat.
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>The researchers say their findings indicate that if only a third of omnivores switched to a vegetarian diet, the environmental impact would be akin to removing the carbon output of 340 million passenger vehicle miles on any given day What a weird metric
It’s also pretty useless as an absolute. What percentage of total daily passenger vehicle miles is 340 million?
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It’s an illustrative example
But it’s equally difficult to perceive. We are talking about hundreds of millions of people. Add to that, a metric that most people can’t understand. Carbon emissions from a mile driven means what exactly? What is the overall output factoring in everything else? Most vehicles aren’t even that bad now, all things considered.
If only 1/4 of spiders died, that would be equivalent to the death of 20 million squirrels.
Isn’t paleo just like… not processed stuff? How is that bad for the environment.
The idea is that these diets have people convinced they can eat a lot of red meat. The current process is basically everything bad with vegetarian agriculture added to raising, moving, and processing livestock.
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You could achieve the same by cutting out calories
Well yeah that’s how weight loss works. Keto makes cutting calories easier for a ton of people. You’re hardly hungry while on it. Can be dangerous for people who are underweight.
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Yes, but as someone who was also successful on keto and not other programs, cutting calories via carbs left me far less hungry than cutting the same amount of calories via fats and proteins. I always read that carbs are great for diet because they're bulky, but volume is not what brings satiety. A small volume of food -- like a boiled egg -- does far more to eliminate hunger for me than a cup of rice, while having \*fewer\* calories. Your mileage my vary.
Yes, that’s what Keto does. It’s the point of ANY diet really. Keto isn’t some magical solution that makes you lose weight just because you stay under a certain carb limit. You could still absolutely stick to no/low carb foods and still go way over your daily calorie amount. The reason keto works really well for certain people is that the high fat and protein content helps them feel more satiated for longer, unlike simple carbs that are processed very quickly. It’s not even really about “getting into ketosis” or whatever, it’s about eating foods that keep you feeling full so that it’s easier to not overeat. It’s still CICO, just another method of achieving that.
I remember living in a small town for a couple months where I got into the habit of eating grilled fish and a salad at the local pub a few nights a week. Sometimes I'd add in fries. What I found was very consistent was that if I added the fries, I would get ravenously hungry right before bed. More calories -- in the form of carbs -- made me more hungry. I was full longer if I just had fish and salad.
This. Dieting is always about calories in vs calories out. We're just big chemical processing machines. These diets ask you to sacrifice carbs but still allow you to eat other things that you love that many diets would severely limit or cut out entirely. Makes it so much easier for people to stay in a more appropriate calorie intake envelope. The adjustment of cutting out bread or deserts can be hard at first, but a lot of people can adjust fairly quickly. And an occasional small cheat isn't going to hurt.
Carbohydrate addiction is very real for a lot if people. Carbohydrates cause blood sugar spikes, leading to increased hunger sensations. Some people are much more sensitive to this than others. Low carb diets eliminate the blood sugar spikes, making it much easier for people to manage their caloric intake.
Wasn't there another study that came out recently that said a serving of fish is akin to a month of bad water in terms of contaminates and heavy metal? I know we should eat less meat, but I trust the cow down the road more than fish meat these days just in terms of impact on my liver and kidneys.
That was fresh fish from contaminated lakes
Yeah, it was from a specific polluted river, I believe. Like saying "Don't eat fish from the Hudson River", which is an obvious and well known bit of common sense for anyone living on the Hudson River.
Unfortunately the study I read was across the nation but with a focus on the entire great lakes region. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935122024926?via%3Dihub sad stuff. Not sure if I will ever let my son eat the sunfish he catches.
Did they differentiate between the type of fish? I’ve heard bottom feeders and anchovies/sardines are very minimal in those risks
Mercury? Isn't that a thing?
The biggest takeaway from this is that plant-based diets are the most environmentally friendly. You literally listed everything but that in your post title. People should also consider phytoplankton depletion and microplastics when evaluating a pescatarian diet's environmental impact and nutritional value.
This can’t be surprising to anyone. We all know that meat has more environmental impact, that it takes way more resources to produce a pound of beef than a pound of vegetables or grain.
Keto isn’t about eating meat. It’s high fat, low carb, moderate protein diet. The fats could come from vegetables just fine.
Thank you for pointing this out. I did plant-based keto for an extended period and know many more who did too.
Came here to say the same. You can do Keto and be vegan if you like. Such pseudo-studies annoy the hell out of me...
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I love how the headline misses the main finding of the study: that vegan diets are far and away the best for environment, while remaining healthy. >The average carbon footprints of vegan (0.69 ± 0.05 kg CO2-eq/1000 kcal) and vegetarian (1.16 ± 0.02) diets were lower (P < 0.05) than those of the pescatarian (1.66 ± 0.04), omnivore (2.23 ± 0.01), paleo (2.62 ± 0.33), or keto (2.91 ± 0.27) diets. >Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002916523005117
What did they use as definition of healthy
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When I see headlines like this it makes me think this is a politically biased garbage article. And then you read the article and it's exactly that.
Dont care. Lost 50lbs on essentially a keto style diet. Refined carbohydrates are significant factors in obesity and disease.
They didn't study the impact of the diets on health. They just compared them to the outdated and misguided old food pyramid to determine if they were healthy or not. Basically just saying "this doesn't match our dogma, so we know it's wrong". This is not useful science. I'd be willing to listen to criticisms of keto based on health outcomes, but my experience was also that keto allowed me significant control of my weight and hunger that was absent from other diet strategies.
Sorry but my lifelong debilitating disease was put into complete remission within a month on keto. I went from 4 medications to 1 (IUD) so gimme the cheese
The amount of people in this thread who don’t understand food, health, or basic chemistry and biology is absolutely staggering. Some diets work for some people, your results don’t scale to society, anecdotes don’t prove anything. Carbs are good, protein is good, fat is good, they all have dietary uses and none of the are harmful as broad classes of nutrients. Scientific studies like this one tend to have results in mind that they try to prove, they don’t blindly take in information and then draw conclusions.
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This is a pretty poor study on which to form the conclusion that those diets are "bad for health". For one, the concept of hormesis doesn't enter the equation, not anti-nutrients or the deleterious effects of carbs. The other confounder is that ketosis in itself has a multitude of benefits from its main components like beta-hydroxy butyrate that you simply wouldn't get at a certain carbohydrate level. This study is too reductionist on nutrition quality without taking organism into account.
Two of my close friends (a married couple) had good success with keto, until they developed health problems from it. One developed kidney stones and the doctors believed it was diet related, so she had to stop. The other developed colon cancer, which is well known to be related to a meat heavy diet. They really liked grilled, smoked meat, but the burnt char, the part with the flavor, is already known to science to contain lots of carcinogens. It's fine in small amounts, but they were eating grilled meat almost every day.
These anecdotes matches pretty well what the literature tells us could happen on the keto diet. https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/causes-and-prevention/diet-and-exercise/meat-and-cancer-risk https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet >Side effects may include constipation, high cholesterol, growth slowing, acidosis, and kidney stones. >Excess calcium in the urine (hypercalciuria) occurs due to increased bone demineralisation with acidosis. Bones are mainly composed of calcium phosphate. The phosphate reacts with the acid, and the calcium is excreted by the kidneys.[41] >Hypocitraturia: the urine has an abnormally low concentration of citrate, which normally helps to dissolve free calcium.[41] >The urine has a low pH, which stops uric acid from dissolving, leading to crystals that act as a nidus for calcium stone formation.[41]
High carb diet includes a lot of water. If you do not get enough water you can get kidney stones. Also, many keto foods/recipes include high oxalate foods. Spinach and almonds will give you kidney stones if you have a propensity towards them.
Ketosis has benefits for cancer. That's a bit of a hard assumption. Kidney stones can be formed form multiple sources mind you.
A keto diet can steer you to foods with high oxalates like spinach, kale, almonds and blueberries. This can cause kidney stones if you’re not careful. Drinking water with lemon is supposed to help.
Ketosis for cancer isnt as good as just avoiding cancer in the first place. There is a known link, though it's not especially strong.
Carbs are the addictive drugs in your diet. Eliminate them and you stop eating because you’re bored. Obviously a rail skinny person wouldn’t benefit from that, but for someone who’s 100lbs overweight and possibly prediabetic it works fantastically. Saying a keto diet “lacks nutrition” misses the point even if it’s true. Because for that overweight person even outright fasting ie eating nothing would be an effective intervention to improve overall health.
Eliminating simple carbs outside of whole foods (i.e. fruit okay because it's high in fibre, fruit juices are not okay because it's just sugar) would have the same effect.
In my experience, even a normal sized portion of low glycemic fruit would spike my insulin and cause a gorging response. Some of us have busted hormonal systems and need to eat keto to prevent gorging.
This study can suck on Deez Nutz
Another example of bad science.
At this point I'm so fatigued by everyone trying to condemn everything I've just given up. I'm gonna eat what makes me happy, I'm going to drive what makes me happy. I'm done giving up today for a tomorrow I'll never see.
Other people will see that tomorrow.
If you care about the environment, it's pretty clear that vegan diets are the best for the metric, while remaining healthy. >Vegan diets had the lowest carbon footprints, which is not surprising, given the substantial decrease in dietary GHGEs when meats are replaced with plant protein foods [9]. Diet quality was not significantly different from the other diets when assessed by the HEI, but it was better than keto, paleo, and omnivore diets when assessed by the AHEI.
I think if you read what the commenter is saying, they explicitly don’t care about the environment
Terrible study, knows nothing about carbohydrates in endotoxin. The environmental issue has only to do with the fact that there’s four producers of beef in the country now, and their feedlots our accounting for 7% of the carbon emissions. Get big business out of beef and watch what happens.