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Look at the chart again: the common denominator for all the worst foods there is refined wheat. Take a look at the pasta dish! Having said that, a food's glyce

Look at the chart again: the common denominator for all the worst foods there is refined wheat. Take a look at the pasta dish! Having said that, a food's glycemic index is also a factor. You could feed the big steak in that photo to a diabetic, no problem at all. You'll be digesting that steak for the rest of your day. The bag of chips on the other hand, well you might as well use a syringe and inject the sugar right into your arteries.

dpark 10y ago
Many of the foods shown have little to no wheat in them. The common factors are high fat and huge portions. Fats are not bad for you but they do make it easier to overconsume because they are more calorie dense. Huge portions are also not strictly bad for you because you could just not eat it all, but the reality is that bigger portions lead to overeating. That pasta dish is just entirely too much food. It's fried chicken and creamy sauce and yes a lot of pasta.
- charlesism 10y ago
  As far as I can see, almost all the foods that don't have wheat have sugar, which I assumed everyone knows is bad. The remaining five "bad" dishes are potato-based, which is another starch (ie: sugar)
  - dpark 10y ago
    So basically you're anti-carb. You started with the claim that "the common denominator for all the worst foods there is refined wheat" and now you're dragging in potatoes and sugar. If you're anti-carb, that's fine I guess, but it's utterly irrelevant to why these meals are "bad". They're bad because they are too many calories. Wheat is a minor component of almost all of them. There's nearly as many calories in the chips and guac from Chipotle as in the burrito. Even in the flour tortilla, nearly a third of the calories are actually from fat (and it's only 300 calories total). In the steak and martini from Ruth's Chris, there's no wheat, no sugar, no starch at all. It's still 2000 calories and a third of that from fat. In that absurd milkshake from Sonic, there's no wheat. More than half the calories are from the fat, which is pretty impressive considering how much sugar is in it. Even that pasta from the Cheesecake Factory has over a third of its calories from fat. I find it amazing that even the IHOP breakfast has more than half its calories from fat, considering it literally has a pile of wheat in the form of pancakes. The idea that refined wheat could somehow be responsible for the caloric excess of most of these dishes is absurd. Most have little or no wheat. They all have too many calories.
    - charlesism 10y ago
      > They all have too many calories. Agreed. Eating too much, and consuming sugar, are real problems. I like to bring up starch because so many people underestimate how many calories are in starchy foods. That said, I overstated my point.
croon 10y ago
Chips is by no means good, but the soda and milk and shakes are all much worse. The insulinemic index of milk is kind of ridiculous [1], and also why the GOMAD diet (gallon of milk a day) is really effective at building on mass. By no means would I suggest that as healthy though, for obvious reasons. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11451723 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11451723
- charlesism 10y ago
  I don't mean to suggest that refined wheat is any worse than sugar, but rather that it's not much different.

dpark 10y ago

Many of the foods shown have little to no wheat in them. The common factors are high fat and huge portions. Fats are not bad for you but they do make it easier to overconsume because they are more calorie dense. Huge portions are also not strictly bad for you because you could just not eat it all, but the reality is that bigger portions lead to overeating. That pasta dish is just entirely too much food. It's fried chicken and creamy sauce and yes a lot of pasta.

charlesism 10y ago
As far as I can see, almost all the foods that don't have wheat have sugar, which I assumed everyone knows is bad. The remaining five "bad" dishes are potato-based, which is another starch (ie: sugar)
- dpark 10y ago
  So basically you're anti-carb. You started with the claim that "the common denominator for all the worst foods there is refined wheat" and now you're dragging in potatoes and sugar. If you're anti-carb, that's fine I guess, but it's utterly irrelevant to why these meals are "bad". They're bad because they are too many calories. Wheat is a minor component of almost all of them. There's nearly as many calories in the chips and guac from Chipotle as in the burrito. Even in the flour tortilla, nearly a third of the calories are actually from fat (and it's only 300 calories total). In the steak and martini from Ruth's Chris, there's no wheat, no sugar, no starch at all. It's still 2000 calories and a third of that from fat. In that absurd milkshake from Sonic, there's no wheat. More than half the calories are from the fat, which is pretty impressive considering how much sugar is in it. Even that pasta from the Cheesecake Factory has over a third of its calories from fat. I find it amazing that even the IHOP breakfast has more than half its calories from fat, considering it literally has a pile of wheat in the form of pancakes. The idea that refined wheat could somehow be responsible for the caloric excess of most of these dishes is absurd. Most have little or no wheat. They all have too many calories.
  - charlesism 10y ago
    > They all have too many calories. Agreed. Eating too much, and consuming sugar, are real problems. I like to bring up starch because so many people underestimate how many calories are in starchy foods. That said, I overstated my point.

croon 10y ago

Chips is by no means good, but the soda and milk and shakes are all much worse. The insulinemic index of milk is kind of ridiculous [1], and also why the GOMAD diet (gallon of milk a day) is really effective at building on mass. By no means would I suggest that as healthy though, for obvious reasons. [1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11451723 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11451723

charlesism 10y ago
I don't mean to suggest that refined wheat is any worse than sugar, but rather that it's not much different.