"common nutrition myths .....

[nessa]

From this topic in > That gut feeling:the stomach is your second brain, quickly eaten meals = 4 days to recover?

The Old Foodie queries:

"Can we start a new thread of "common nutrition myths with no scientific evidence whatsoever", with a sub-thread of "nutrition quackery: or how a lot of money is made from gullible people"?"

Yes, yes we can. I have one that has been chapping my hide for a week now.

A friend of mine sent me an "article" on how good coconut oil and other saturated fats are for you, and how much better they are to cook with. Oddly enough, the "article" was from a company selling coconut oil.....

She sent it to me because there was one line in there saying that coconut oil could help thyroid function. No explaination how.

I was mentioning this article in passing to another friend, about to pooh pooh it, when she just started waxing poetical about how true that was!

Her argument was seemingly logical... at least on the surface. I need to do a lot of research to see if shes as full of hot air as I think, but thats going to require brushig up on lipid chemistry so that may take a while. So far nothing valid on Pubmed.

Her argument <that she learned in chiropractic school i think> is that saturated fats do not go rancid as fast as unsaturated fats, and by rancid, she meant that the hydrogens on the fatty acid backbone of unsaturated fats pop off like crazy when heated and create free radicals.

She claims that hydrogenated fats are good for the heart etc etc etc. I think its a load of.... lard, but I would certainly want to research it further. Not that I'd ever convince her otherwise, bless her sweet heart. She really is a dear person but I'm not ready to believe this without extensive research and review.

So... any Lipid chemists out there? Anyone actually remeber Organic Chemistry?

Help me understand this myth, by either supporting, or dispelling it.

Anyone? Bueller?.......

[johnsmith45678]

I think Alton Brown describes the various fats in one of his books. As I remember, saturated fats are "full" so they can't grab the random airborne molecules that bind with unsaturated fats that cause them to go rancid.

But looking at my package of walnuts, it states all their fat is saturated. But I seem to remember having walnuts that after a while started to taste bitter (rancid, right?).

After reading the section on fats, I left more confused than before.

[nessa]

Ok, I can buy that they don't go rancid as fast, and by rancid this time meaning that because they are full, they don't acquire other random molecules, as opposed to the original argument where rancid was losing hydrogens and creating free radicals.

[andrewB]

From this topic in > That gut feeling:the stomach is your second brain, quickly eaten meals = 4 days to recover?

The Old Foodie queries:

"Can we start a new thread of "common nutrition myths with no scientific evidence whatsoever", with a sub-thread of "nutrition quackery: or how a lot of money is made from gullible people"?"

Yes, yes we can.  I have one that has been chapping my hide for a week now.

A friend of mine sent me an "article" on how good coconut oil and other saturated fats are for you, and how much better they are to cook with.  Oddly enough, the "article" was from a company selling coconut oil.....

She sent it to me because there was one line in there saying that coconut oil could help thyroid function.  No explaination how.

I was mentioning this article in passing to another friend, about to pooh pooh it,  when she just started waxing poetical about how true that was!

Her argument was seemingly logical... at least on the surface.  I need to do a lot of research  to see if shes as full of hot air as I think, but thats going to require brushig up on lipid chemistry so that may take a while.  So far nothing valid on Pubmed.

Her argument <that she learned in chiropractic school  i think> is that saturated fats do not go rancid as fast as unsaturated fats, and by rancid, she meant that the hydrogens on the fatty acid backbone of unsaturated fats  pop off like crazy when heated and create free radicals. 

She claims that hydrogenated fats are good for the heart etc etc etc.  I think its a load of.... lard, but I would certainly want to research it further.  Not that I'd ever convince her otherwise, bless her sweet heart. She really is a dear person but I'm not ready to believe this without extensive research and review.

So... any Lipid chemists out there?  Anyone actually remeber Organic Chemistry?

Help me understand this myth, by either supporting, or dispelling it.

Anyone?  Bueller?.......

←

hydrogentated fats though are indeed dangerous to the body. Adding either one or two hydrogen atoms to the strand makes it hard for the body to process. These are what turn into free radicals in the body as i remember ... Remember the margarine scare? same thing...

[jsolomon]

It is true that saturated fats do not go rancid as quickly as unsaturated, this is due to both steric hindrance--oxygen can't get in to attack bonds in saturated fats, as well as resonance--when you have multiple sites of unsaturation, you lower the energy required to oxidize the molecule.

Of course, your friend is making no distinction between cis fats and trans fats, cis fats do occur naturally and are generally thought of as healthy. There is an increasing body of knowledge saying the opposite of trans fats.

[Milagai]

Another one: that drinking soda can harm bones because

it affects calcium levels.

Today's New York Times Science section

looked at this claim, and suggests it's not entirely true.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/health/20real.html

Quote:

THE BOTTOM LINE Soda has little effect on calcium levels, but people who drink it may be at greater risk of bone injuries because it takes the place of more nutritious drinks.