3 ms·

> Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. This isn't true, at least in the US. Or maybe we have a very different idea about what "healthy" foo

> Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. This isn't true, at least in the US. Or maybe we have a very different idea about what "healthy" food is. Rice, beans and starchy vegetables are problematic for various (different) reasons and non-starchy vegetables generally aren't very nutritious from a macro perspective, which makes them relatively expensive.

jfritsch1984 7y ago
Could you tell me why rice and beans are problematic? The studies I know are typically in favor of these kinds of food. Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. Is this some kind of carb-phobia?
- flexblue 7y ago
  In the context of T2 diabetes, white rice is a high GI food. Brown rice, legumes and grains contain plant toxins and antinutrients which are poorly researched, but at least anecdotally can cause all kinds of issues especially in sensitive people. Also, in the west, a lot of the culture of preparing these foods (such as fermenting or vigorous soaking) is bypassed. > Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. That data suffers from the usual issues related to nutritional studies. Consuming beans in place of donuts may be a good predictor of health, that doesn't mean that beans themselves are healthy relative to other healthy foods.
  - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
    Rice may be relatively high GI but it and similar foods do not usually give you type 2 diabetes. Junk food does. Rice is far cheaper than that. I don’t really think you can make the case that T2 diabetes is a poor man’s sickness.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      White rice is linked with 10% increased chance of t2 with each serving per day(1). I don't know if poor Americans are doomed to diabetes, but it is certainly orders of magnitude easier for the poor to eat poorly compared to the rich. Boosting morale in the poor is difficult without cheap fatty/sweet food and drugs, other poor people have nearly nothing else to get by excessive stressors except exercise. Running a perfectly clean life is admirable and very difficult with limited resources, social standing and spare time. (1)https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-linked-to-diabetes-risk https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-link...
      - jfritsch1984 7y ago
        I‘m pretty sure that that‘s a reverse causation. People who eat very high amounts of rice are the poor who can not afford a better mix of food. They are then malnourished as rice is not providing all needed nutrients. Also being poor means often no health care. Controlling for these socioeconomic factors is very difficult. Rice in itself is a healthy food, especially when it is brown. I read a study some years ago where a doctor even cured mild forms of diabetes with high loads of rice instead of junk food. Don‘t have a link handy though. Americans are not doomed to diabetes. Diabetes T2 is one of the easiest diseases to prevent. Vegans for example have 60-70% less diabetes according to observational studies like Adventist Health II.
  - jfritsch1984 7y ago
    Your beanphobia is even addressed by the Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beans-calmin-the-fears_b_6464552 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beans-calmin-the-fears_b_6464...
pengaru 7y ago
It is true, the produce department has some of the cheapest food in the store. How much is a bundle of bananas? That's a week's breakfast. Unless you only buy organic, then you might go broke while hungry.
- flexblue 7y ago
  Bananas by themselves are not healthy food, they're very high in sugar and have little else to offer. Produce may look cheap, but if you add up the macros (and also some of the micros), it doesn't look cheap at all.
  - pengaru 7y ago
    > Bananas by themselves are not healthy food, they're very high in sugar and have little else to offer. That depends on ripeness [0], I eat a mostly green banana every morning and it doesn't have much sugar at all while keeping my bowels very regular. It's been my breakfast for decades, I'm quite healthy, and eat a diet almost entirely composed of raw produce. The rest is nuts/seeds/legumes and canned fish. I rarely ever cook, and if I didn't go for organic produce this would be a very cheap diet except for the nuts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Nutritional_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Nutritional_i...
    - flexblue 7y ago
      > It's been my breakfast for decades, I'm quite healthy, and eat a diet almost entirely composed of raw produce. The rest is nuts/seeds/legumes and canned fish. You get virtually all of your macronutrients from the nuts, seeds, legumes and the fish - not the produce. > I rarely ever cook, and if I didn't go for organic produce this would be a very cheap diet except for the nuts. So it would be cheap if it was something else, but it's not. In any event, I consider any diet high in grains/legumes a science experient which may or may not work out. I don't consider it a healthy diet.
      - pengaru 7y ago

jfritsch1984 7y ago

Could you tell me why rice and beans are problematic? The studies I know are typically in favor of these kinds of food. Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. Is this some kind of carb-phobia?

flexblue 7y ago
In the context of T2 diabetes, white rice is a high GI food. Brown rice, legumes and grains contain plant toxins and antinutrients which are poorly researched, but at least anecdotally can cause all kinds of issues especially in sensitive people. Also, in the west, a lot of the culture of preparing these foods (such as fermenting or vigorous soaking) is bypassed. > Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. That data suffers from the usual issues related to nutritional studies. Consuming beans in place of donuts may be a good predictor of health, that doesn't mean that beans themselves are healthy relative to other healthy foods.
- read_if_gay_ 7y ago
  Rice may be relatively high GI but it and similar foods do not usually give you type 2 diabetes. Junk food does. Rice is far cheaper than that. I don’t really think you can make the case that T2 diabetes is a poor man’s sickness.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    White rice is linked with 10% increased chance of t2 with each serving per day(1). I don't know if poor Americans are doomed to diabetes, but it is certainly orders of magnitude easier for the poor to eat poorly compared to the rich. Boosting morale in the poor is difficult without cheap fatty/sweet food and drugs, other poor people have nearly nothing else to get by excessive stressors except exercise. Running a perfectly clean life is admirable and very difficult with limited resources, social standing and spare time. (1)https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-linked-to-diabetes-risk https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-link...
    - jfritsch1984 7y ago
      I‘m pretty sure that that‘s a reverse causation. People who eat very high amounts of rice are the poor who can not afford a better mix of food. They are then malnourished as rice is not providing all needed nutrients. Also being poor means often no health care. Controlling for these socioeconomic factors is very difficult. Rice in itself is a healthy food, especially when it is brown. I read a study some years ago where a doctor even cured mild forms of diabetes with high loads of rice instead of junk food. Don‘t have a link handy though. Americans are not doomed to diabetes. Diabetes T2 is one of the easiest diseases to prevent. Vegans for example have 60-70% less diabetes according to observational studies like Adventist Health II.
- jfritsch1984 7y ago
  Your beanphobia is even addressed by the Huffington Post: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beans-calmin-the-fears_b_6464552 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beans-calmin-the-fears_b_6464...

pengaru 7y ago

It is true, the produce department has some of the cheapest food in the store. How much is a bundle of bananas? That's a week's breakfast. Unless you only buy organic, then you might go broke while hungry.

flexblue 7y ago
Bananas by themselves are not healthy food, they're very high in sugar and have little else to offer. Produce may look cheap, but if you add up the macros (and also some of the micros), it doesn't look cheap at all.
- pengaru 7y ago
  > Bananas by themselves are not healthy food, they're very high in sugar and have little else to offer. That depends on ripeness [0], I eat a mostly green banana every morning and it doesn't have much sugar at all while keeping my bowels very regular. It's been my breakfast for decades, I'm quite healthy, and eat a diet almost entirely composed of raw produce. The rest is nuts/seeds/legumes and canned fish. I rarely ever cook, and if I didn't go for organic produce this would be a very cheap diet except for the nuts. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Nutritional_information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistant_starch#Nutritional_i...
  - flexblue 7y ago
    > It's been my breakfast for decades, I'm quite healthy, and eat a diet almost entirely composed of raw produce. The rest is nuts/seeds/legumes and canned fish. You get virtually all of your macronutrients from the nuts, seeds, legumes and the fish - not the produce. > I rarely ever cook, and if I didn't go for organic produce this would be a very cheap diet except for the nuts. So it would be cheap if it was something else, but it's not. In any event, I consider any diet high in grains/legumes a science experient which may or may not work out. I don't consider it a healthy diet.
    - pengaru 7y ago