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I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas. They are very very similar foods. Everything that is flour based is refined, lacks fiber etc so I g

I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas. They are very very similar foods. Everything that is flour based is refined, lacks fiber etc so I get the pasta and bread exclusion, but the potatoes one makes no sense imo. Overall in this thread, once again americans discover that they eat shit and simply cooking meals yourself from scratch (with limited fat of course) with no treats between meals makes you lose weight. For Europeans, the whole USA deal with food is really laughable. An american friend (largely overweight of course) was taking a starbucks with cream extrasugar and what not everyday. He was astonished when we said that it was really high on calories (and has stopped since). What is wrong that most americans (even educated ones) seem to have no idea of what an healthy diet is ?

prepend 9y ago
58% of adult Europeans are overweight with 23% obese. These rates are much better than the US, but it seems like Europe hasn’t yet figured out the whole healthy diet issue.
- andreime 9y ago
  I am considered overweight because a doctor calculated my BMI and said I'm two kilos over where I should be. BMI is a the ratio between weight and height. I think it's kind of stupid but it got me labeled as overweight.
  - moccachino 9y ago
    It is my understanding that BMI is pretty much useless for the individual to know, but it is a valuable aggregate statistic. So it makes sense for the doctor to record your BMI for the national database, but you obviously have much better information and metrics to use on yourself.
    - seiferteric 9y ago
      My understanding was that BMI was pretty accurate for most people and only gets out of whack for more muscular people.
  - smileysteve 9y ago
    BMI is a standard that applies to both women and men, so if your body fat is < ~15% you are out of the norms and BMI no longer directly applies. It also applies less as you pass 2 standard deviations of average height. So, if you are 6'1 and have bulky shoulders and no belly, your bmi should actually be on the high side. Warning signs are when you see ribs or when you can pinch belly fat.
zzz157 9y ago
Well, it's because our government published official diet recommendations (look up the Food Pyramid) and told us we should be eating more grains than absolutely anything else. Science on sugar has been repressed in our country, and the corn industry has exerted pressure in various ways to put corn syrup into absolutely everything. When I grew up, everything I had ever learned told me it was normal and healthy. I have more recently learned to avoid it.
- hycaria 9y ago
  We also had the food pyramid (it even originated in sweden, the WHO/FAO still edits a version of it), and I don't think it was much different. Also I don't think that science on sugar has been especially promoted anywhere either. I don't think our preprocessed foods use as much sugar as yours (do we even have corn syrup ?). But we sure have some [edit : preprocessed foods], although they are probably not as bad as american's because of stricter regulation (bless the EU).
  - tudorw 9y ago
    "The European Union, which regulates the allowed production quota of sugars, limits the production of GFS to around 5% of total sugar production in the EU, meaning that it makes up a very small percentage of the sugar consumed in Europe."
  - koonsolo 9y ago
    In Belgium we also had a similar food pyramid. But government now decided to update it, and get rid of all the "economic" influence, which was steered towards grain, meat and dairy industry, and only base it on what is healthy. To make their statement clear, they literally turned the food pyramid upside down. See https://www.gezondleven.be/themas/voeding/voedingsdriehoek https://www.gezondleven.be/themas/voeding/voedingsdriehoek. Nevermind all the Flemish, just scroll to the picture.
    - domas 9y ago
      Google translate works surprisingly well even on the interactive pyramid translating hover text too.
tudorw 9y ago
Is nutrition and cooking / domestic skills part of the American school curriculum or widely taught ?
- hycaria 9y ago
  I don't know but it's not taught in my country.
- drjesusphd 9y ago
  No.
- et-al 9y ago
  "Home Economics" used to be a common course, along with "shop", but both have experienced a decline in lieu of other courses which helps boost one's high school (grades 9-12) résumé for university applications. If media literacy and home economics were part of the core curriculum, we'd easily see a decline in health-related issues from fast-food consumption and poor grocery shopping habits. Until, of course, Yum! Brands finds a way to partner with the schools and modifies the curriculum.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  Not really. That's one of those things they've been dropping from the curriculum. Where it is taught, half the time it isn't mandatory and is often unhelpful. I personally had 9 weeks of combined sewing and cooking, that really taught me nothing. (My sister got a lowered grade for not following the recipe exactly). I was lucky - I had already been cooking for a few years by then because I liked it. Had that been my only introduction to cooking, though, I'd not be very functional as a new adult. My "financial" education happened in 8th grade - age 13, when you can't rent an apartment until 18 most times. This consisted of a car salesman teaching us about loans and interest and tax forms... giving us extra credit if our parents looked at a car. Even more credit if they bought one. That said, most high schools have some sort of child development classes as an optional class. If you are interested in stem classes or otherwise on a college-bound path, you might not be offered such classes or be able to fit them into your class schedule. High school cooking, if even offered, generally focused on job placement where I lived.
3131s 9y ago
> (with limited fat of course) This part, in my experience as someone who is muscular w/ a low body fat percentage, is not necessary. I actually find it easiest to get very, very lean (< 7-8%) by adding more fat to my diet, along with fiber-rich foods like green vegetables. I am American too and otherwise totally concur with what you've written. It's shocking how badly Americans eat, and how distant their diet is from what I consider the basic staple foods that humans should be eating. My dietary suggestion to anyone looking to lose weight would be to cook large batches of high-fiber vegetables and eat those before each meal. The combination of fat and fiber is key to feeling completely 'full' and satiated while maintaining a moderate level of caloric intake. Beyond that, eating a wide variety of foods and eliminating sweet drinks / packaged food gets you 90% of the way to a healthy diet.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  What source of fat do you use? I have trouble increasing my fat intake without frying everything, at which point it becomes a lot harder for me to track my intake.
  - beagle3 9y ago
    Heavy cream, whipped or otherwise. Or just plain butter or ghee; It's not culturally accepted, but it's tasty.
    - cageface 9y ago
      Saturated fat has a lot of downsides and usually comes along with extra cholesterol. Stick to unsaturated (i.e. vegetable) fats for the sake of your cardiovascular system.
      - rapind 9y ago
        This is under debate. A lot of recent research seems to be leaning the other way on cholesterol.
ThomPete 9y ago
Fat isnt a problem. You can eat as much fat as you want(of course general advice goes about eating varied) as long as it doesent come with carbs. Its the carbs you need to lookk out for (which are also in potatoes)
- astura 9y ago
  The question was why are bananas "ok' but potatoes "off limits" when both have almost the same amount of carbs per gram (4.7 vs 4.3).
  - Retric 9y ago
    1 banana has 27grams of carbohydrates which is about the same as an Apple (25) or Pear (27), one medium potato has 37 grams of carbohydrates. But, their micro nutrient profiles are very different. Further the tendency is to eat one far more potatoes than fruit. Also a banana has a GI of 52, vs 85 for a baked potato vs pure Glucose 100( http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index) other sites have different numbers but always place a potato significantly higher.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      > Further the tendency is to eat one far more potatoes than fruit. I have seen one study that concluded that boiled white potato was the most filling of all the foods tested. I don't recall whether bananas were included. Equal-calorie portions of specific foods were given to volunteers, who were then allowed to consume until sated from a buffet. Those who ate boiled whole potato first ate fewer calories from the buffet than any other "appetizer". Noteworthy was the fact that french fries and baked potato--made from the same stuff--scored abysmally by this measure, almost the worst of all foods. Boiling, chilling, and reheating your potato to plate temperate may even enhance this effect through the process of starch retrogradation. Bananas are typically eaten uncooked. Potatoes are barely ever eaten raw. And it would also appear that the method of preparation has an effect. It would certainly be possible to test the experiment result at home with a food diary, to see if adding one food in particular to your diet causes you to eat more or less in total than is usual for you.
meuk 9y ago
You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, I have been permanently banned for similar remarks. That aside, a large part of it seems to be culture. If you're living in a university-owned dorm, it is often mandatory to buy a card which provides dinner (usually at a ridiculous price). When you don't cook, you are less involved with the ingredients of your dinner, and more inclined to just 'take what tastes good'.
- anonu 9y ago
  > You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, Is this a problem on HN? I haven't noticed it. You must have said something really atrocious. And the comment above you make reference to, though a bit tactless, is OK in my opinion.
  - meuk 9y ago
    This is not really the place for this discussion (I probably shouldn't have started it in the first place, but apparently I am still a bit bitter), but I will briefly respond. > You must have said something really atrocious. No, I just stated facts (the US performing poorly on various measures). > Is this a problem on HN? I haven't noticed it. I didn't either. I'm not sure if it's a problem, maybe I just had bad luck. It might also have to do with how banning works: You can see your posts, but others can. So banned folks might not realize that they are banned. > And the comment above you make reference to, though a bit tactless, is OK in my opinion. In my opinion too. And, as I said, my remarks were similar (I think even less tactless, as I was just stating facts).
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, I have been permanently banned for similar remarks. People criticize the US without problem all the time on HN; if you have been banned, it wasn't because you were criticizing the US (you may have been critical of the US in the comment that provoked the ban, but that wasn't the feature of the comment that provoked it.)
anonu 9y ago
Diet guidance in America has been co-opted by capitalistic food companies who push their processed junk our way - going on for decades now. The government is complicit of course. Let's not forget the laughable food pyramid [1] which adorned the walls of every school in the US for most of the 90s and undoubtedly created much confusion about how to eat (ie: fat bad, carbs good) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)
- kuschku 9y ago
  The food pyramid would be okay, if you’d actually eat the bread that the authors envisioned – full-grain rye bread, unsweetened, unbleached. That has a much higher fiber content, and much lower glycemic index. Look at the images in the article. Notice the huge "unrefined carbs" part, and the tiny little "free sugars" part? This is the bread the authors envisioned you to eat: https://www.baeckerei-guenther.de/cms/upload/sortiment/brot/scheibe/purkorn_scheibe.jpg https://www.baeckerei-guenther.de/cms/upload/sortiment/brot/...
  - kaybe 9y ago
    By the way, try to put this kind of bread in the toaster (especially if it is not fresh) and then add a little bit of butter and salt. The more sunflower seeds, the better!
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, I believe I saw ketchup on the food pyramid in elementary school in the 1980's. :(
  - ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
    Little known fact...Tomatoes are both a fruit AND a vegetable!!! That's why the cheeseburger is a perfectly balanced food pyramid meal. You have protein from beef, dairy from cheeze product TM(contains no actual cheese), grain from the bun, AND your fruit and vegetables from the ketchup. ~ Dave Thomas (Founder of WENDY's, and fitness enthusiast)
bluntfang 9y ago
>I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas. They are very very similar foods. they may be similar physically, but they are not similar culturally.
- pricetag 9y ago
  Sorry can you expand on this a bit? I can’t tell if this is a reference/joke or you’re making a higher point that I’m just not picking up.
  - lamby 9y ago
    I think the parent is making the point that potatoes are in general often fried, consumed in more quantities and come with other unheathly things, whilst that is not typically the case with bananas.
Raphmedia 9y ago
>I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas Very often, you eat one banana in the morning. However, you can easily eat 3 potatoes in the morning, 1 during lunch and 5 for diner. That's why you need to cut back on potatoes but can still eat that one banana. Edit: Why the downvotes? This is one the main reason a nutritionist will tell you to cut potatoes from your diet. It's not a question of quality but of quantity. A single banana is easy to portion but baked, boiled, mashed and/or fried potatoes are harder. Restaurants will serve them in huge quantities and people have problems portioning them so it's easier to say "cut them out".
oil7abibi 9y ago
Woah there, bananas and potatoes are not similar foods at all. Yes they both primarily provide carbs, but the glycemic index of bananas is 48, while potatoes are at from 82-111 (https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-for-100-foods https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glyce...). Don’t make incorrect assertions.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  Indeed! I would rather eat a Snicker bar than a baked potato (if I had no bananas handy).
- pascalxus 9y ago
  Yes, but just to play devils advocate for the potato, don't forget, it rates much higher in satiety than just about anything, source: (holt satiety studies) https://scottabelfitness.com/potato-and-the-satiety-index/ https://scottabelfitness.com/potato-and-the-satiety-index/
  - oil7abibi 9y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the info.
Jemmeh 9y ago
Potatoes are high carb, and high carb makes most people fat. To be fair, bananas are high carb too. Also fat doesn't make you fat. A lot of people actually rapidly lose weight on a ketogenic diet with approx 70% of their food being healthy fats. The Story of Fat: Why we were Wrong about Health https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S6-v37nOtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S6-v37nOtY
- DiThi 9y ago
  You may want to remove the "t=88s". That's an excellent video I recommended many times, by the way. It has a text version with many sources linked in the description, and the rest of the channel is very good too.
  - Jemmeh 9y ago
    Oh, thanks! I recommend it a lot too, so I guess it started partially into the video because I watched it again. Whoops. I love that channel. Entertaining, informative, and succinct. I've learned a lot from it.
- known 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox
greggman 9y ago
are all European cultures healthy? I got the impression Germany had a pretty unhealthy diet. Same with Turkey.
newfoundglory 9y ago
> For Europeans, the whole USA deal with food is really laughable. That's true, but that's also unfortunately a very ignorant attitude given that half of Europeans are overweight and an increasing percentage is obese. The common perception that obesity rates in America are some bizarre cultural oddity does not help people learn from them and avoid it recurring in other countries. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Overweight_and_obesity_-_BMI_statistics http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

prepend 9y ago

58% of adult Europeans are overweight with 23% obese. These rates are much better than the US, but it seems like Europe hasn’t yet figured out the whole healthy diet issue.

andreime 9y ago
I am considered overweight because a doctor calculated my BMI and said I'm two kilos over where I should be. BMI is a the ratio between weight and height. I think it's kind of stupid but it got me labeled as overweight.
- moccachino 9y ago
  It is my understanding that BMI is pretty much useless for the individual to know, but it is a valuable aggregate statistic. So it makes sense for the doctor to record your BMI for the national database, but you obviously have much better information and metrics to use on yourself.
  - seiferteric 9y ago
    My understanding was that BMI was pretty accurate for most people and only gets out of whack for more muscular people.
- smileysteve 9y ago
  BMI is a standard that applies to both women and men, so if your body fat is < ~15% you are out of the norms and BMI no longer directly applies. It also applies less as you pass 2 standard deviations of average height. So, if you are 6'1 and have bulky shoulders and no belly, your bmi should actually be on the high side. Warning signs are when you see ribs or when you can pinch belly fat.

zzz157 9y ago

Well, it's because our government published official diet recommendations (look up the Food Pyramid) and told us we should be eating more grains than absolutely anything else. Science on sugar has been repressed in our country, and the corn industry has exerted pressure in various ways to put corn syrup into absolutely everything. When I grew up, everything I had ever learned told me it was normal and healthy. I have more recently learned to avoid it.

hycaria 9y ago
We also had the food pyramid (it even originated in sweden, the WHO/FAO still edits a version of it), and I don't think it was much different. Also I don't think that science on sugar has been especially promoted anywhere either. I don't think our preprocessed foods use as much sugar as yours (do we even have corn syrup ?). But we sure have some [edit : preprocessed foods], although they are probably not as bad as american's because of stricter regulation (bless the EU).
- tudorw 9y ago
  "The European Union, which regulates the allowed production quota of sugars, limits the production of GFS to around 5% of total sugar production in the EU, meaning that it makes up a very small percentage of the sugar consumed in Europe."
- koonsolo 9y ago
  In Belgium we also had a similar food pyramid. But government now decided to update it, and get rid of all the "economic" influence, which was steered towards grain, meat and dairy industry, and only base it on what is healthy. To make their statement clear, they literally turned the food pyramid upside down. See https://www.gezondleven.be/themas/voeding/voedingsdriehoek https://www.gezondleven.be/themas/voeding/voedingsdriehoek. Nevermind all the Flemish, just scroll to the picture.
  - domas 9y ago
    Google translate works surprisingly well even on the interactive pyramid translating hover text too.

tudorw 9y ago

Is nutrition and cooking / domestic skills part of the American school curriculum or widely taught ?

hycaria 9y ago
I don't know but it's not taught in my country.
drjesusphd 9y ago
No.
et-al 9y ago
"Home Economics" used to be a common course, along with "shop", but both have experienced a decline in lieu of other courses which helps boost one's high school (grades 9-12) résumé for university applications. If media literacy and home economics were part of the core curriculum, we'd easily see a decline in health-related issues from fast-food consumption and poor grocery shopping habits. Until, of course, Yum! Brands finds a way to partner with the schools and modifies the curriculum.
Broken_Hippo 9y ago
Not really. That's one of those things they've been dropping from the curriculum. Where it is taught, half the time it isn't mandatory and is often unhelpful. I personally had 9 weeks of combined sewing and cooking, that really taught me nothing. (My sister got a lowered grade for not following the recipe exactly). I was lucky - I had already been cooking for a few years by then because I liked it. Had that been my only introduction to cooking, though, I'd not be very functional as a new adult. My "financial" education happened in 8th grade - age 13, when you can't rent an apartment until 18 most times. This consisted of a car salesman teaching us about loans and interest and tax forms... giving us extra credit if our parents looked at a car. Even more credit if they bought one. That said, most high schools have some sort of child development classes as an optional class. If you are interested in stem classes or otherwise on a college-bound path, you might not be offered such classes or be able to fit them into your class schedule. High school cooking, if even offered, generally focused on job placement where I lived.

3131s 9y ago

> (with limited fat of course) This part, in my experience as someone who is muscular w/ a low body fat percentage, is not necessary. I actually find it easiest to get very, very lean (< 7-8%) by adding more fat to my diet, along with fiber-rich foods like green vegetables. I am American too and otherwise totally concur with what you've written. It's shocking how badly Americans eat, and how distant their diet is from what I consider the basic staple foods that humans should be eating. My dietary suggestion to anyone looking to lose weight would be to cook large batches of high-fiber vegetables and eat those before each meal. The combination of fat and fiber is key to feeling completely 'full' and satiated while maintaining a moderate level of caloric intake. Beyond that, eating a wide variety of foods and eliminating sweet drinks / packaged food gets you 90% of the way to a healthy diet.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
What source of fat do you use? I have trouble increasing my fat intake without frying everything, at which point it becomes a lot harder for me to track my intake.
- beagle3 9y ago
  Heavy cream, whipped or otherwise. Or just plain butter or ghee; It's not culturally accepted, but it's tasty.
  - cageface 9y ago
    Saturated fat has a lot of downsides and usually comes along with extra cholesterol. Stick to unsaturated (i.e. vegetable) fats for the sake of your cardiovascular system.
    - rapind 9y ago
      This is under debate. A lot of recent research seems to be leaning the other way on cholesterol.

ThomPete 9y ago

Fat isnt a problem. You can eat as much fat as you want(of course general advice goes about eating varied) as long as it doesent come with carbs. Its the carbs you need to lookk out for (which are also in potatoes)

astura 9y ago
The question was why are bananas "ok' but potatoes "off limits" when both have almost the same amount of carbs per gram (4.7 vs 4.3).
- Retric 9y ago
  1 banana has 27grams of carbohydrates which is about the same as an Apple (25) or Pear (27), one medium potato has 37 grams of carbohydrates. But, their micro nutrient profiles are very different. Further the tendency is to eat one far more potatoes than fruit. Also a banana has a GI of 52, vs 85 for a baked potato vs pure Glucose 100( http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/glycemic-index) other sites have different numbers but always place a potato significantly higher.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    > Further the tendency is to eat one far more potatoes than fruit. I have seen one study that concluded that boiled white potato was the most filling of all the foods tested. I don't recall whether bananas were included. Equal-calorie portions of specific foods were given to volunteers, who were then allowed to consume until sated from a buffet. Those who ate boiled whole potato first ate fewer calories from the buffet than any other "appetizer". Noteworthy was the fact that french fries and baked potato--made from the same stuff--scored abysmally by this measure, almost the worst of all foods. Boiling, chilling, and reheating your potato to plate temperate may even enhance this effect through the process of starch retrogradation. Bananas are typically eaten uncooked. Potatoes are barely ever eaten raw. And it would also appear that the method of preparation has an effect. It would certainly be possible to test the experiment result at home with a food diary, to see if adding one food in particular to your diet causes you to eat more or less in total than is usual for you.

meuk 9y ago

You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, I have been permanently banned for similar remarks. That aside, a large part of it seems to be culture. If you're living in a university-owned dorm, it is often mandatory to buy a card which provides dinner (usually at a ridiculous price). When you don't cook, you are less involved with the ingredients of your dinner, and more inclined to just 'take what tastes good'.

anonu 9y ago
> You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, Is this a problem on HN? I haven't noticed it. You must have said something really atrocious. And the comment above you make reference to, though a bit tactless, is OK in my opinion.
- meuk 9y ago
  This is not really the place for this discussion (I probably shouldn't have started it in the first place, but apparently I am still a bit bitter), but I will briefly respond. > You must have said something really atrocious. No, I just stated facts (the US performing poorly on various measures). > Is this a problem on HN? I haven't noticed it. I didn't either. I'm not sure if it's a problem, maybe I just had bad luck. It might also have to do with how banning works: You can see your posts, but others can. So banned folks might not realize that they are banned. > And the comment above you make reference to, though a bit tactless, is OK in my opinion. In my opinion too. And, as I said, my remarks were similar (I think even less tactless, as I was just stating facts).
dragonwriter 9y ago
> You might be a bit careful with criticizing the US on Hacker News, I have been permanently banned for similar remarks. People criticize the US without problem all the time on HN; if you have been banned, it wasn't because you were criticizing the US (you may have been critical of the US in the comment that provoked the ban, but that wasn't the feature of the comment that provoked it.)

anonu 9y ago

Diet guidance in America has been co-opted by capitalistic food companies who push their processed junk our way - going on for decades now. The government is complicit of course. Let's not forget the laughable food pyramid [1] which adorned the walls of every school in the US for most of the 90s and undoubtedly created much confusion about how to eat (ie: fat bad, carbs good) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_pyramid_(nutrition)

kuschku 9y ago
The food pyramid would be okay, if you’d actually eat the bread that the authors envisioned – full-grain rye bread, unsweetened, unbleached. That has a much higher fiber content, and much lower glycemic index. Look at the images in the article. Notice the huge "unrefined carbs" part, and the tiny little "free sugars" part? This is the bread the authors envisioned you to eat: https://www.baeckerei-guenther.de/cms/upload/sortiment/brot/scheibe/purkorn_scheibe.jpg https://www.baeckerei-guenther.de/cms/upload/sortiment/brot/...
- kaybe 9y ago
  By the way, try to put this kind of bread in the toaster (especially if it is not fresh) and then add a little bit of butter and salt. The more sunflower seeds, the better!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
FullMtlAlcoholc 9y ago
If I'm not mistaken, I believe I saw ketchup on the food pyramid in elementary school in the 1980's. :(
- ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
  Little known fact...Tomatoes are both a fruit AND a vegetable!!! That's why the cheeseburger is a perfectly balanced food pyramid meal. You have protein from beef, dairy from cheeze product TM(contains no actual cheese), grain from the bun, AND your fruit and vegetables from the ketchup. ~ Dave Thomas (Founder of WENDY's, and fitness enthusiast)

bluntfang 9y ago

>I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas. They are very very similar foods. they may be similar physically, but they are not similar culturally.

pricetag 9y ago
Sorry can you expand on this a bit? I can’t tell if this is a reference/joke or you’re making a higher point that I’m just not picking up.
- lamby 9y ago
  I think the parent is making the point that potatoes are in general often fried, consumed in more quantities and come with other unheathly things, whilst that is not typically the case with bananas.

Raphmedia 9y ago

>I don't get why you would exclude potatoes and eat bananas Very often, you eat one banana in the morning. However, you can easily eat 3 potatoes in the morning, 1 during lunch and 5 for diner. That's why you need to cut back on potatoes but can still eat that one banana. Edit: Why the downvotes? This is one the main reason a nutritionist will tell you to cut potatoes from your diet. It's not a question of quality but of quantity. A single banana is easy to portion but baked, boiled, mashed and/or fried potatoes are harder. Restaurants will serve them in huge quantities and people have problems portioning them so it's easier to say "cut them out".

oil7abibi 9y ago

Woah there, bananas and potatoes are not similar foods at all. Yes they both primarily provide carbs, but the glycemic index of bananas is 48, while potatoes are at from 82-111 (https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glycemic-index-and-glycemic-load-for-100-foods https://www.health.harvard.edu/diseases-and-conditions/glyce...). Don’t make incorrect assertions.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
Indeed! I would rather eat a Snicker bar than a baked potato (if I had no bananas handy).
pascalxus 9y ago
Yes, but just to play devils advocate for the potato, don't forget, it rates much higher in satiety than just about anything, source: (holt satiety studies) https://scottabelfitness.com/potato-and-the-satiety-index/ https://scottabelfitness.com/potato-and-the-satiety-index/
- oil7abibi 9y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the info.

Jemmeh 9y ago

Potatoes are high carb, and high carb makes most people fat. To be fair, bananas are high carb too. Also fat doesn't make you fat. A lot of people actually rapidly lose weight on a ketogenic diet with approx 70% of their food being healthy fats. The Story of Fat: Why we were Wrong about Health https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S6-v37nOtY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S6-v37nOtY

DiThi 9y ago
You may want to remove the "t=88s". That's an excellent video I recommended many times, by the way. It has a text version with many sources linked in the description, and the rest of the channel is very good too.
- Jemmeh 9y ago
  Oh, thanks! I recommend it a lot too, so I guess it started partially into the video because I watched it again. Whoops. I love that channel. Entertaining, informative, and succinct. I've learned a lot from it.
known 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Paradox

greggman 9y ago

are all European cultures healthy? I got the impression Germany had a pretty unhealthy diet. Same with Turkey.

newfoundglory 9y ago

> For Europeans, the whole USA deal with food is really laughable. That's true, but that's also unfortunately a very ignorant attitude given that half of Europeans are overweight and an increasing percentage is obese. The common perception that obesity rates in America are some bizarre cultural oddity does not help people learn from them and avoid it recurring in other countries. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Overweight_and_obesity_-_BMI_statistics http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...

deleted 9y ago
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