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New Not helping
"recommendations to replace saturated fat and trans-fat with unsaturated fats."

I just spent 10 minutes searching and can't find the actual survey questions. But from questionnaires I have seen, they typically conflate fats into groups based on the current understanding of what matters. So all saturated fats - including animal fats and trans fats - were grouped together for years. Makes long-term comparisons problematic.
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Drew
New The studies look at people over a long period of time.
Transfats weren't commonly recognized as a problem until, what, 2006?

Both of the studies looked at periods ending in 2012:

This cohort study investigated 83 349 women from the Nurses’ Health Study (July 1, 1980, to June 30, 2012) and 42 884 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (February 1, 1986, to January 31, 2012)


The questionaires for the latter study are here. Click on the "Diet" tab in the table. The questions seem reasonable, but of course, they're not comprehensive, and people have to estimate (unless they're keeping a journal (and I think I read somewhere that many people do).

I think everyone agrees that it's not ideal, but it's a lot of data and they've tried to make the data as broadly useful as possible. The problems with trying to document everything about a diet, and try to have enough people eat a particular diet to test various hypotheses are obvious.

Presumably they have enough data to separate out trans-fats from saturated fats, at least in some cases. I would be surprised if those results were different from the general consensus now.

FWIW. :-)

Cheers,
Scott.
New Re: The studies look at people over a long period of time.
See the first line on that tab:
Semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (diet in past year)

That's referring to the questionnaire with the questions I want to see. And I want to see how those questions have changed over the decades.

They can't draw any supposed conclusions about the effect of different types of fats if they haven't even been separating the different types of fats in their questions. Compounded by the fact that even once researchers started to understand that there were differences, the people they were asking either didn't understand or had no way to identify what they were actually eating.
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Drew
New See the 2006 Long form.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hpfs/pdfs/06L.pdf

That seems to be the extent of the diet questions that they ask every 2 years. I assume you can see the changes by looking at the Long forms going back in 2 year increments.

It would be blind guesswork if people were changing their diets all the time, going out to dinner all the time, etc., but I think that they have published evidence that that isn't what's going on (and most participants seem to keep track anyway).

HTH.

Cheers,
Scott.
New As bad as I thought
Let's assume I'm trying as hard as I can to be honest and thorough. I keep track of absolutely everything I eat. I want to fill this out accurately.

I've just eaten a Lean-Cuisine Creamy Basil Chicken with Tortellini. The ingredients are:
skim milk, low fat asiago cheese tortellini (enriched extra fancy durum flour and semolina [durum wheat flour, semolina, niacin, iron {ferrous sulfate}, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid], water, fat free ricotta cheese [pasteurized whey, pasteurized skim milk, vinegar, xanthan gum, vitamin a palmitate], whole eggs, asiago cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], bread crumbs [wheat flour], skim milk with vitamin a added, parmesan cheese [pasteurized part skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], romano cheese made from cow's milk [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], cooked onions, low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], butter [cream, salt], brown sugar [sugar, cane syrups], white distilled vinegar [white distilled vinegar, water], roasted garlic, cooked garlic, spices, salt, modified cornstarch, beta carotene), cooked white meat chicken (white meat chicken, water, modified tapioca starch, chicken flavor [dried chicken broth, chicken powder, natural flavor], carrageenan, whey protein concentrate, soybean oil, corn syrup solids, sodium phosphate, salt), italian green beans, water, yellow carrots, red peppers, 2% or less of cream, modified cornstarch, parmesan cheese paste (granular and parmesan cheese [pasteurized milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes], water, salt, lactic acid, citric acid), basil, garlic puree, potato starch, sea salt, butter (cream, salt), dried cream extract, yeast extract, potassium chloride, spice, xanthan gum, lactic acid, calcium lactate, seasoning (wheat starch, extracts of annatto and turmeric color, natural flavor).

How do I fill out the survey for that?

Back in the 50s you could probably ask a housewife what their family ate that week and she could figure it out with a little work. Today? Good luck.

Which, by the way, would actually be a great survey: How often do you cook from scratch vs. prepared heat-and-eat foods, and how does that correlate with health?
--

Drew
New Yup, prepared foods and eating out are big wild-cards.
     Butter is Back? - (malraux) - (14)
         Bad reporting on a bad study - (drook) - (10)
             Re: Bad reporting on a bad study - (Another Scott) - (6)
                 Not helping - (drook) - (5)
                     The studies look at people over a long period of time. - (Another Scott) - (4)
                         Re: The studies look at people over a long period of time. - (drook) - (3)
                             See the 2006 Long form. - (Another Scott) - (2)
                                 As bad as I thought - (drook) - (1)
                                     Yup, prepared foods and eating out are big wild-cards. -NT - (Another Scott)
             LRPD: Powered by scientifically unsubstantiated energy producing capabilities! -NT - (a6l6e6x) - (2)
                 And if someone can find a cure for it a lot of the other problems will diminish. -NT - (malraux) - (1)
                     I keep looking for the phrase, "According to top Chinese and Russian scientists..." -NT - (drook)
         I wish there were a better way to do these things than surveys. - (Another Scott) - (2)
             And I would have the same response :-) -NT - (drook) - (1)
                 :-) -NT - (Another Scott)

To be in England, in the summertime... close to the edge.
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