9 ms·
I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarte
by sonofaplum 7y ago
I've been seeing a nutritionist to try to help with weight loss and his emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. Even at nice restaurants, it is extremely difficult to order meals that fit these proportions, and, as you move down the quick service spectrum it gets harder and harder. By the time you arrive at fast food, its difficult to find a vegetable at all.
And, almost all the vegetables you find at quick service restaurants are lettuce or greens heavy salads, which are fine, but not ideal. Really, the only way to guarantee that you are getting a vegetable heavy diet is by cooking at home.
The less we cook at home and the more we eat out, the fatter we (as a society) will become.
- shantly 7y agoGreens keep pretty well and have decent, smoothish availability year-round. I'd guess that's why they favor them at restaurants.
- copperx 7y agoSure, but they're perhaps the most unsatisfying foods of them all. They also have almost zero nutritional value and calories. A vegetarian Indian friend of mine lamented, "Americans think that a vegetarian meal means lettuce."
- shantly 7y agoNutritional value's decent, in terms of vitamins & minerals and such. Calories being near-zero is a huge bonus, for those on an American diet—lots of people would pay extra to eliminate the calories from some of their food, keeping all else the same. But yes, I agree, I don't really want a greens-heavy salad as my main dish for my biggest meal of the day.
- mdorazio 7y agoAlso worth noting is that a lot of the vegetables you get in restaurant dishes have been buttered, salted, and/or sugared to hell to make them taste better in a short amount of time. This, of course, makes it even harder to actually get healthy food when eating out.
- chrisco255 7y agoButter and salt are not bad for you.
- EamonnMR 7y agoButter is calorie dense which may make it harder to lower intake.
- Rebelgecko 7y agoIs the government lying when they say you should keep your sodium intake below 2300mg per day?
- amanaplanacanal 7y agoProbably. You pretty much have to read the studies yourself, looking specifically for ways they are fucked up, to find out anything useful in the area of nutrition.
- nradov 7y agoThere is a major genetic component when it comes to handling sodium. Some people can eat a huge amount with no ill effects, others are much more sensitive. This is still an area of active research, so take any nutritional guidelines with a grain of salt.
- bad_user 7y agoThat value could be too low, but keep mind that: 1. 30% of salt intake, according to WHO's reports, comes from bread 2. A lot of salt comes from junk food / ultra-processed food. This is because the brain is wired to seek salt and ultra-processed food is engineered for overconsumption. Cut the bread and the junk food and you'll actually have a hard time eating enough salt ;-) When I add salt on my plate, people give me funny looks as if I'm going to die tomorrow, but most of my food is cooked at home and by my own estimates in most days I don't go over 2 g of sodium. --- Most people probably overconsume salt, but that's because of the junk food. We also have clues that what might matter more for heart health is actually the potassium:sodium ratio. Whole foods (meat, vegetables, fruits) are high in potassium and junk food is low in potassium. And eating more whole plants can probably balance a higher sodium intake. But that's the second problem with the junk food that people are eating. So the dietary guidelines aren't lying... that's basically their way of saying to cut the junk food.
- dexwiz 7y agoTraditional American cooking seems to be a Protein + 2 sides. On the surface most vegetarian options become 1) replace meat with tofu or 2) a salad. Both of which get boring very quickly. For vegetarian dishes it’s helpful to look at non European cuisines. Curries and soups both have a huge variety and don’t require a meat to be complete. Chickpeas also make a great protein substitute besides Tofu. Dumplings are other meat free food that are pretty good, but they tend to be carb and oil heavy so not necessarily healthy. Indian and Thai both have great vegetarian dishes that aren’t meat based dishes with the meat removed. Finally, cooking with spices makes vegetables much more varied. Americans seem to think spices and rubs are only for meat and vegetables need to be plain. A well spiced vegetable dish is delicious.
- nradov 7y agoChickpeas are tasty but the protein quality as measured by DIAAS score is significantly worse than red meat. In particular they are deficient in tryptophan.
- danharaj 7y agoThe ancient solution is to pair them with rice or wheat.
- mrpopo 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan#Recommended_dietary_allowance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan#Recommended_dietary... Soybeans: 0.59g/100g of food Beef: 0.23g/100g of food Chickpeas: 0.19g/100g of food Doesn't look like a vegetarian or vegan diet would cause any sort of tryptophan deficiency.
- david-gpu 7y agoAccording to your link, those are figures for raw (dried) beans. When water is added during cooking, concentrations will go down.
- MaximumYComb 7y ago
- chrisseaton 7y agoA quarter protein? That's insane. You only need about 60 grammes of protein a day. Why are you eating a quarter of your food in protein?
- Jernik 7y agoI'm assuming they mean "a quarter protein heavy dish like a meat, etc"
- enthdegree 7y agoweightlifting folklore says you should eat at least 1g of protein per kg of body weight to gain muscle efficiently
- dalkur 7y agoDepending on the research it is around 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kg body weight. [1][2][3] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29497353 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22150425 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22150425 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927027/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927027/
- whitebread 7y agoNah. Insane is a really heavy word to use here. Everyone is different. And 60 is really low, insane even, for the average sized human regardless.
- blevin 7y agoUS RDA is 0.8 grams/day per kg of bodyweight. For a 150 pound / 68 kg person that’s around 55 grams.
- whitebread 7y agoRemember when the government told us that low-fat was the way to go?
- impendia 7y agoAs someone who doesn't enjoy cooking all that much, I've noticed this too and been distressed by it. Restaurants, almost uniformly, serve unhealthy food. There are exceptions to this, but they don't seem to be all that popular. When I go out to eat with friends I am often stuck eating something heavier and less healthy than I would like. Is there some good reason for this?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago99% of my dinners' vegetables are pre-heating the oven to 350-400, putting aluminum foil on a cookie sheet, and coating Vegetable X in salt, oil, and pepper, and cooking for 15-20 minutes. It's basically 0 cleanup and you're eating whole, unprocessed vegetables. Our bodies are built for that sort of diet.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoBrussels sprouts and cauliflower, to name just two, are outstanding when cooked this way.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoIf you want to bring your brussels sprouts to the next level, add bacon and maple syrup.
- dreamcompiler 7y agoI'm amused that we're talking about recipes on HN but then after all recipes are algorithms.
- albertsondev 7y agoOr saute them with a bit of butter, garlic, and balsamic.
- TurkishPoptart 7y agoor a little maple syrup plus goat cheese bits!
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoI never understood why vegetables are difficult to get as a "fast food" format. With salt pepper oil and heat, they can be very tasty. There has to be a huge market for Jack in the box equivalent for healthy eating. Most of the existing fast casual chains miss the mark. Chipotle comes to mind, but it's still mostly grains and protein and still lacking in vegetables, beyond the optional pico de gallo for your burrito.
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoFast food is engineered to hit all the sweet spots that our primate brains desire. No matter how delicious my asparagus or salad can be it's difficult to compete with a Quarter Pounder.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoMy thought experiment of a chain wouldn't directly compete with people choose McDonald's every single time. It'd be for people who've seen the light, and know you can't eat McDonald's, sustainably, indefinitely. That population isn't everyone, but there's a sizable number of consumers who are diet conscious. That's the target market. While McDonald's food is designed to have a certain effect on your palette, you haven't appreciated a skilled cook's entrees if you think there's no realistic competition. Deep, rich, meaningful flavor could absolutely compete against the engineered taste of McDonalds.
- caf 7y agoThere's an Australian chain that does vegetables in the "fast food" format (they have a presence at highway service centres, that sort of thing). So I think you might be right about there being an unserved market for this. ( https://www.oliversrealfood.com.au/pages/our-menu https://www.oliversrealfood.com.au/pages/our-menu )
- bane 7y agoI find Cava's green and grains bowl to be pretty good for getting a decent serving of veggies. I usually skip the spreads and dressings and it basically turns into a tasty salad with rice.
- uoaei 7y agoFrozen dinners seem to have come a long way, even in the past 10 years. My father is on a diet plan and the way he does it is to have basically nothing in his house except "healthy" frozen meals and healthy-ish snacks like nut mixes and apple chips. The word healthy is in scare quotes but actually they seem relatively okay: a good amount of grains, usually enough veggies to satisfy a serving or two, and enough protein to feel sated. Just don't reach into the freezer aisle blindly and you can come out with something decent. If you can't muster the energy at the end of your day to cook a meal, these are a pretty decent substitute.
- baroffoos 7y agoAlmost all foods seem to get destroyed in the freezing process and lose their texture. I have found that at my supermarket they sell refrigerated meals that just need to be microwaved and they taste outstanding. As long as you make sure to stir them half way through so they don't dry out at the top you could literally serve it at a restaurant and I don't think people would notice.
- uoaei 7y agoI have a feeling there are more than a few restaurants which do basically exactly this.
- Symbiote 7y agoThere are plenty of places in the UK where this is done. I'm sorry when visitors eat in these places, and either don't realise £6.50 for a meal means it can only be microwaved from a box, or get ripped off and pay £12 for it. This is a major supplier. https://www.brake.co.uk/meal-solutions/multi-portion-prepared-meals https://www.brake.co.uk/meal-solutions/multi-portion-prepare...
- therealdrag0 7y agoFor a while I was really good about taking 40-50% of restaurant meals home as leftovers. Then something changed and now I haven't done that in a while and have since gained 10lbs. Restaurant meals are "okay" portion if that's all you eat for half a day, but many of us can't help but snack, and the combination is no bueno.
- taurath 7y agoWant a better ratio? Eat at asian places. Its incredibly hard to get well cooked vegetables at anything other than a fine dining restaurant (or hot food bar at a whole foods), but every asian place is gonna have some really good ratios.
- mam2 7y ago> emphasis has been on a healthy plate, which is a plate that is half vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch or grains. a little off topic but emphasis should be on reducing the calories. eating healthily helps feeling full and thus can help achieve this but it's not the actual lever