As a nutrition researcher who worked for two years in one of the top research facilities on keto diets, I still believe that HCLF is the way to go and is associated with the greatest longevity, health, and sustainability.
I could write a whole thesis on the topic but don't have the time for that right now, unfortunately. I'll tackle a few of your ideas though. I think it's great that you're really researching this and reading up on it!
High carb low fat is the way to go! it prevents heart disease, diabetes, cancer, ect.
yep, most studies show this, including several decades long studies of tens of thousands of people.
When we eat carbs, our body produces insulin to combat the spike in blood sugar, and insulin takes the excess sugar or energy we don't use up and tell the body to store it as fat. Where as fat and protein on the other hand do not spike blood sugar as intensely.
You're... on the right track here. Let me go back to the basics. How does our entire body function? Glucose. Every cell in your body uses glucose to function. The brain can ONLY run on glucose, and most of the rest of your body can run on ketones if necessary (sort of like how your car is designed to run on gas but could run on random oil if necessary). So you eat food. Food goes mouth -> stomach -> acids break it down -> intestines -> enzymes break it into small pieces -> through the intestinal wall -> into your blood.
Then your body senses the change in sugar concentration, and produces insulin. Insulin is like the "key" that allows glucose to go from your blood and across the cell membrane into muscle cells, skin cells, bone cells, fat cells, etc. ((Side note: this is why diabetics get hungry. Not enough "keys" -> sugar stays in their blood -> high blood sugar -> they feel hungry because no energy is actually getting into their cells)) This is normal, and this is exactly how your body is supposed to work!
However, sometimes if you have toooo high of a blood sugar spike and too much insulin, your body can't process it all at once, and then some of it gets stored as fat, and also you'll end up having too many "keys" in the blood so nearly all of the sugar goes into cells -> body senses too little -> body thinks it needs energy ASAP -> cravings!
If you have no glucose, the body freaks out and starts turning fat into something called ketones, and the cells attempt to use that for energy instead. This works, but it is meant to be an occasional fix for periods without food, not a long-term thing. Also, if "breaks down fat" sounds good, keep in mind that your body also does this every time you're between meals, sleeping, or exercising on an empty stomach. You don't need to be in 24/7 ketosis to break down fat.
So. You want to eat in a way that provides your body with energy (carbs) but doesn't make huge spikes (complex carbs, not refined carbs). Beans, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, avocado, some fruit. 5 bananas at once is not good.
Also many people on r/keto will post there blood test results before and after the diet and every single time, theirs cholesterol levels improve.
Yes. For some people, keto can be very effective. Fat does indeed make you feel very full. And for some people, they'll see better bloodwork. However, this is often because they've removed all sorts of bad things like white flour and white sugar and white rice and soda from their diet which causes better bloodwork, and it's not because keto is inherently great. Many of them would see even better bloodwork if they went to HCLF. Also, keto puts people at risk of many micronutrient deficiencies, fiber deficiency, overworked kidneys (from processing all that protein), overworked gallbladder (processing all that fat), and overworked liver (making all those ketones since your body is starving for fuel). There are very few long-term research studies on the effects of a ketogenic diet after years or decades, so I'm hesitant to recommend for anybody to follow it. We use ketogenic diets for people with incurable seizures, since it mimics starvation in their body, but then as soon as possible we wean them back off of it, so they can get their vitamins back, fiber back, and gut microflora back.
So frankly when I see vegans say they eat 5 bananas a day, all I can think of is insulin spikes and your body just storing all that sugar as fat, same for potatoes, and other high sugar starchy vegetables and fruits. I've also heard that brown rice / whole wheat products aren't much better then the white versions in terms of blood sugar spikes.
5 bananas a day = not great. Potatoes in large quantities = not great, but not awful since your body is well-equipped to deal with glucose in the body, especially if they're eaten with some sort of protein or fat which will slow the absorption of the starch in the intestines, which will then be converted to sugar. High sugar starchy vegetables and fruits = actually surprisingly little effect on your blood sugar if eaten in moderation. Besides, most HCLF people emphasize mostly beans, greens, and non-starchy vegetables with some fruits and starches too. Berries are incredibly good for you and surprisingly barely impact your blood sugar at all! = Brown rice and whole wheat products are noticeably better than the white versions. Also glycemic index is not to be trusted at all, since it is based on the blood sugar spike if you eat only that food on an empty stomach, which is not something that humans do. We eat combinations of foods in meals, which tend to level out the glucose and insulin response of your body, since it takes more time for your digestive system to break down and then absorb that mixture of stuff.
One more side note: societies all around the world for centuries subsisted on diets with staple foods of rice, potatoes, and plantains and they didn't get fat. The "blue zones" which are the places in the world where more people live over 100 than other places, all eat a HCLF mostly-plant-based diet. It's not until sugar and oil and meat became easily accessible that people started getting fat.
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