[pct-l] High Fat Food and thru hiking

[nosirreeb]

IMO as a reasonably well-informed amateur nutritionist, eating a high-fat diet is not healthy even if one is burning off all the calories and more. A diet high in saturated fats, such as peanut butter, is even worse. Exercising and burning off all the calories has to do with weight gain/loss and fitness ... it has nothing to do with health. Plenty of very fit, lean people have died of heart disease due to clogged arteries caused by a high fat diet.

That said, if one is healthy, i.e. the arteries are clean, when starting a long-distance hike, then a few weeks/months of a high fat diet is not likely to cause long-term harm. Just go back to healthy eating when the hike is done.

If one eats a high fat Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) diet at home, then the arteries are probably already partially blocked and ... well, then you probably don't care about what you eat anyway. Good luck.

As for me: I'll be eating PB on the trail and plenty of it because of its caloric density.