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Full fat VS low fat

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Replies

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    I like a patty with an egg -- often ground lamb when I have it -- but usually don't put it on a bun then. Definitely delicious, though.
  • menotyou56
    menotyou56 Posts: 178 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    Theo166 wrote: »
    My ears perked up, did someone mention bacon!?

    ca3f777cbf177024bad1f63f16e95ec6.jpg

    LOL! Bacon, the breakfast of Champions! :wink:

    Full fat everytime! It satiates you and low fat products always add extra sugar, yuck.

    It doesn't satiate everyone and not all low fat stuff is loaded with sugar. Completely over generalized.

    Just about any 'food product' advertised as low fat has added sugar because it tastes like crap after taking the fat out.

    Of course asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, etc are low fat and fine but not man made processed 'foods'.

    I don't mean to be argumentative, but no, they don't. Could you be more specific about what kinds of low fat foods you're talking about?

    Low fat foods stuffed with 'harmful’ levels of sugar
    Telegraph analysis finds many food and drink products marketed as "low fat" contain sugar levels which some leading campaigners and scientists warn are too high.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10668189/Low-fat-foods-stuffed-with-harmful-levels-of-sugar.html
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    Theo166 wrote: »
    My ears perked up, did someone mention bacon!?

    ca3f777cbf177024bad1f63f16e95ec6.jpg

    LOL! Bacon, the breakfast of Champions! :wink:

    Full fat everytime! It satiates you and low fat products always add extra sugar, yuck.

    It doesn't satiate everyone and not all low fat stuff is loaded with sugar. Completely over generalized.

    Just about any 'food product' advertised as low fat has added sugar because it tastes like crap after taking the fat out.

    Of course asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, etc are low fat and fine but not man made processed 'foods'.

    I don't mean to be argumentative, but no, they don't. Could you be more specific about what kinds of low fat foods you're talking about?

    Low fat foods stuffed with 'harmful’ levels of sugar
    Telegraph analysis finds many food and drink products marketed as "low fat" contain sugar levels which some leading campaigners and scientists warn are too high.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10668189/Low-fat-foods-stuffed-with-harmful-levels-of-sugar.html

    Most of this stuff seems no brainer to me...they're pretty much all highly processed food goods with added flavors and what not..no kidding they're going to add sugar.

    Things like dairy...like milk, etc that doesn't have added flavorings and whatnot do not add sugar for lower fat versions which is more where I think people are coming from...i.e. low fat plain greek yogurt vs full fat...whole milk vs reduced fat milk, etc.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    Theo166 wrote: »
    My ears perked up, did someone mention bacon!?

    ca3f777cbf177024bad1f63f16e95ec6.jpg

    LOL! Bacon, the breakfast of Champions! :wink:

    Full fat everytime! It satiates you and low fat products always add extra sugar, yuck.

    It doesn't satiate everyone and not all low fat stuff is loaded with sugar. Completely over generalized.

    Just about any 'food product' advertised as low fat has added sugar because it tastes like crap after taking the fat out.

    Of course asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, etc are low fat and fine but not man made processed 'foods'.

    I don't mean to be argumentative, but no, they don't. Could you be more specific about what kinds of low fat foods you're talking about?

    Low fat foods stuffed with 'harmful’ levels of sugar
    Telegraph analysis finds many food and drink products marketed as "low fat" contain sugar levels which some leading campaigners and scientists warn are too high.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10668189/Low-fat-foods-stuffed-with-harmful-levels-of-sugar.html

    Is the amount of sugar articulated in that chart from added sugar, or total sugar? It must be total sugar, since nutrition labels provide that information currently, and the article discusses that further down. So it's providing a sensationalized number of 2 tsp of sugar in a serving of M&S bolognese sauce, but much of that would likely come naturally from the tomatoes in the ingredients...

    This is the kind of reporting that drives me crazy - they accurately quote the recommendations from the WHO, they talk about the challenges in measuring "free sugars", yet then provide an infographic that misrepresents the actual data...
  • menotyou56
    menotyou56 Posts: 178 Member
    A systematic comparison of sugar content in low-fat vs regular versions of food
    P K Nguyen, S Lin, and P Heidenreich...Journal ListNutr Diabetes v.6(1); 2016 JanPMC4742721

    Obesity remains a significant public health concern. One of the primary messages from providers and health-care organizations is to eat healthier foods with lower fat. Many in the lay press, however, have suggested that lower fat versions of foods contain more sugar. To our knowledge, a systematic comparison of the sugar content in food with lower fat alternatives has not been performed. In this study, we compared fat free, low fat and regular versions of the same foods using data collected from the USDA National Nutrient Database. We found that the amount of sugar is higher in the low fat (that is, reduced calorie, light, low fat) and non-fat than ‘regular' versions of tested items (Friedman P=0.00001, Wilcoxon P=0.0002 for low fat vs regular food and P=0.0003 for non-fat vs regular food). Our data support the general belief that food that is lower in fat may contain more sugar.

    Results

    On the basis of the information collected by the USDA, we found that the amount of sugar is higher in the low-fat (that is, reduced calorie, light, low fat) and non-fat than regular versions of tested items (Friedman P=0.00001, Wilcoxon P=0.0002 for low-fat vs regular food and P=0.0003 for non-fat vs regular food). Subgroup analysis revealed that sugar content was higher in lower calorie versions of the following food categories: (i) dairy products, (ii) baked goods, (iii) meats, fish and poultry, and (iv) fats, oils and salad dressings (Figure 1 and Table 1). Results did not significantly differ between 2004 and 2014 (data not shown).

    Discussion

    Findings from this study suggest that consuming foods lower in fat have higher sugar content despite having lower calories. Although the increase in added sugar per serving appears to be small, the cumulative effect of consuming ‘empty calories' over several years could have important health consequences.

    Consuming excess sugar even in small amounts (⩾10% of total calories) has been shown to be harmful, leading to weight gain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4742721/
  • dfwesq
    dfwesq Posts: 592 Member
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    We found that the amount of sugar is higher in the low fat (that is, reduced calorie, light, low fat) and non-fat than ‘regular' versions of tested items (Friedman P=0.00001, Wilcoxon P=0.0002 for low fat vs regular food and P=0.0003 for non-fat vs regular food).
    I think this part is key. They didn't look at lowfat foods in general, just some of them.

    Also, if you look at Table 1, the only foods they tested that weren't highly processed with a lot of additives were dairy products. There wasn't a great deal of difference with the hard cheeses. With the soft cheeses, sour cream, and yogurt, it wasn't just sugars that were higher - protein was higher too (except for cottage cheese, which had almost identical protein content). To me, that sounds like removal of milk fat made room for more milk solids that contain protein and lactose.

    The meats were all hot dogs and cold cuts, which have a lot of fillers and additives. They didn't look at lean vs. fatty cuts of meat or poultry.

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited April 2017
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    menotyou56 wrote: »
    Theo166 wrote: »
    My ears perked up, did someone mention bacon!?

    ca3f777cbf177024bad1f63f16e95ec6.jpg

    LOL! Bacon, the breakfast of Champions! :wink:

    Full fat everytime! It satiates you and low fat products always add extra sugar, yuck.

    It doesn't satiate everyone and not all low fat stuff is loaded with sugar. Completely over generalized.

    Just about any 'food product' advertised as low fat has added sugar because it tastes like crap after taking the fat out.

    Of course asparagus, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, etc are low fat and fine but not man made processed 'foods'.

    I don't mean to be argumentative, but no, they don't. Could you be more specific about what kinds of low fat foods you're talking about?

    Low fat foods stuffed with 'harmful’ levels of sugar
    Telegraph analysis finds many food and drink products marketed as "low fat" contain sugar levels which some leading campaigners and scientists warn are too high.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10668189/Low-fat-foods-stuffed-with-harmful-levels-of-sugar.html

    Let's see, in deciding whether something I want to buy has added sugar, I will:

    (1) Avoid it and assume it must, because some random UK newspaper says that many products marketed as low fat do; or

    (2) Read the label and see.

    I vote for (2), and happily it tells me that none of the products that are low fat that I buy have added sugar.

    Also, the yogurt example is pretty disingenuous, as yogurt has inherent sugar, plain yogurt doesn't really have more (and certainly no added sugar) just because lower fat -- I demonstrated this with some Fage in a past thread, and while flavored yogurt has added sugar (often, not always), it does not whether full fat or not. Flavored full fat yogurt is probably more likely to have added sugar, as the flavored low fat often uses artificial sugar because it's marketed as a low cal diet product.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    I really don't get this idea to generalize about something as varied as "low fat foods" when rather than just deciding "all low fat must be packed with sugar" (even though it's obviously false with many of the most common lower fat foods, like chicken breast or ground beef or dairy), you could read the label or simply understand what you are buying.

    Again, menotyou, do you think it would be possible to explain this, and explain why one would spread the false claim that skim and 2% milk and plain 2% and 0% yogurt and so on have added sugar? It puzzles me.
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
    zyxst wrote: »
    I want to say this: I would not let anyone in this thread cook my burgers/steaks.

    Thanks a shame, because I am a fantastic cook and you'd be missing out. If you want me to go against my religion and overcook a burger passed medium rare, I can close my eyes like I do for my MIL.
  • zyxst
    zyxst Posts: 9,134 Member
    psuLemon wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    I want to say this: I would not let anyone in this thread cook my burgers/steaks.

    Thanks a shame, because I am a fantastic cook and you'd be missing out. If you want me to go against my religion and overcook a burger passed medium rare, I can close my eyes like I do for my MIL.

    Sorry, no. I don't eat raw or partially raw meat.
  • livingleanlivingclean
    livingleanlivingclean Posts: 11,752 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    I want to say this: I would not let anyone in this thread cook my burgers/steaks.

    Thanks a shame, because I am a fantastic cook and you'd be missing out. If you want me to go against my religion and overcook a burger passed medium rare, I can close my eyes like I do for my MIL.

    Sorry, no. I don't eat raw or partially raw meat.

    Don't come to my house for steak then... Eye fillet, rare...mmmmm(oooooooooooo)
  • heiliskrimsli
    heiliskrimsli Posts: 735 Member
    zyxst wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    zyxst wrote: »
    I want to say this: I would not let anyone in this thread cook my burgers/steaks.

    Thanks a shame, because I am a fantastic cook and you'd be missing out. If you want me to go against my religion and overcook a burger passed medium rare, I can close my eyes like I do for my MIL.

    Sorry, no. I don't eat raw or partially raw meat.

    Don't come to my house for steak then... Eye fillet, rare...mmmmm(oooooooooooo)

    The more rare the better.
  • macchiatto
    macchiatto Posts: 2,890 Member
    edited April 2017
    I did low fat for years but now I do full fat. (I actually don't like the taste of cow's milk so I don't drink that, but I use heavy cream in my coffee, eat regular cheese, regular bacon, etc.) With things like salad dressing I'd rather have the full fat version than the light/diet version which is often higher in sugar (unlike many other low fat foods ;)), since my body does better with lower carbs and higher fat.
  • macchiatto
    macchiatto Posts: 2,890 Member
    psuLemon wrote: »
    I do something similar... I do beef, onion, egg, bacon and sometimes guacamole.

    That sounds fantastic! Definitely trying it next time we make burgers.
  • SmartAlec03211988
    SmartAlec03211988 Posts: 1,896 Member
    Full fat only unless I'm cutting.
  • olyamhc
    olyamhc Posts: 60 Member
    Since I've been losing weight (at the end of January), I've started to pay attention to low-fat dairy. I like low-fat or fat-free milk, Greek yogurt, farmer's cheese. These are WAY lower in calories than fuller fat counterparts and allow me to save those calories for snacks or eating out 1x per week. I don't mind the taste at all. For cereals and smoothies I use plant milks, usually almond or cashew now, as they're lowest in calories (Silk and Stop&Shop brands have 25-30cals per cup for some of those!). I buy ALL of the aforementioned products in PLAIN or UNSWEETENED, since it's less calories and less processed sugar for me.
  • ConquerAndBloom
    ConquerAndBloom Posts: 94 Member
    I tend to go full fat, although I prefer 1% in my coffee if I don't have access to soy milk. It tends to be gentler on my stomach than 2% or whole.