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Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll jus

Also, don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan spells it out very well, but I'll just give you my simple definition: Eating healthy is as close to eating dirt without actually eating dirt. Produce, grain, cheese, 1/2 pound to a pound of meat a week[1], and whatever else Marion Nestle recommends[1.5]. Just imagine what primitive man would eat. He would spend most of his days eating what grew from the ground and when they finally hunted down meat, they would eat their catch as a group[2]. That doesn't mean you have to do exactly that, but try to keep your eating habits in sync with what it was originally adapted to consume not what hyper stimulates made you believe it wanted to consume[3]. Now don't go about forcing yourself to eat stuff you don't enjoy. In the same manner jasonkester engages in something he enjoys that have the "side effect" of being healthy (I still think these activities are something we were adapted to engage in the first place), find foods you find delicious but also happen to be something that isn't processed. I can assure you that there is plenty of "healthy" or "natural" foods out there that you would enjoy[4]. [1]http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_w... [1.5]http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eating-made-simple http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=eating-made... [2]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3723678050599653349# http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3723678050599653349# [3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzN-uIVkfjg [4]http://smittenkitchen.com/ http://smittenkitchen.com/

NickPollard 16y ago
I'm not going to argue that what you describe isn't good, but 'nature intended us to' isn't a particularly solid argument. You could argue that nature intended us to die from Malaria by the age of 30, I'm very glad that for most of the world that's no longer the case.
- btam 16y ago
  The difference here from malaria would be that our bodies evolved, adapting to the nutrients that we were getting. We're more efficient on them -- more capable of living 'natural' lives. [Of course, whether a 'natural' life is desirable is debatable.] Malaria, however, we attempted to evolve away from(sickle cell anemia).
- desigooner 16y ago
  That's precisely why the "nature intended us to" argument doesn't really work for me when I hear people trying to convince me to try the Paleo diet. Whatever the benefits might be (besides making the author of those books a good chunk of money), they can be garnered by other means. What I hate even more is when a few devotees of such diets go on a slant about vegetarianism/veganism etc. etc.
  - xiaoma 16y ago
    Not only that, but our "nature" has changed considerably since those times. Evolution has been far faster, likely 100 times faster the past several thousand years than it was before civilization. 15,000 years ago, nobody was lactose tolerant, nobody had blue eyes and who knows what else was different.
    - JoelMcCracken 16y ago
      That isn't evolution, it is a diversification of our genetics. There are lots of things that many humans are intolerant to which would have probably been a really big weakness in the past. Humans are no longer subject to natural selection. There needs to be significant culling pressure for real evolution to happen.
      - jshen 16y ago
        "Humans are no longer subject to natural selection." What? Are you sure? Because we most certainly are subject to natural selection.
        JoelMcCracken 16y ago
        Yes. But not to any significant degree that will cause a change as a species.
        jshen 16y ago
        we most certainly change as a species. Something as simple as choosing who to reproduce with affects the distribution of genes that are passed on to the next generation. A more obvious example of the sorts of changes we can still go through is sickle cell.
- reason 16y ago
  Us not readily acquiring the malaria virus is not due to evolution of our genes; we just don't live in the areas where the vector thrives. If you and I were bit by an infected mosquito, there's a very good chance either of us would die in a relatively short period of time. Although, there are some in Africa who do have fewer chances of acquiring it due to them being heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia. Anyway, I'm not discounting the underlying concept of your comment; I'm just saying that malaria wasn't a particularly apt comparison.
  - poppysan 16y ago
    I think the point is that we don't fight it "natually", we fight it with medicine and vaccines. We also have access to clean water which, if we did get malaria, would prevent us from dying from rapid dehydration(which in my understanding is the primary cause of death from malaria.) This is the argument against the caveman diets...
    - patio11 16y ago
      The primary reason we don't die from malaria is none of the above: it is mosquito abatement via intentional habitat destruction and copious use of effective pesticides. Large portions of the US used to be malaria country: not a spe mof it is now, and if there was a malaria outbreak in a US suburb we would wring our hands about the consequences for about five minutes and then dump enough chemicals on that subdivision to save an African country. Ditto Europe, by the way.
      - nerfhammer 16y ago
        I believe the strains of malaria that existed in North American and Europe were far weaker than the African varieties, though
    - rarrrrrr 16y ago
      Medicine is a fine way to treat things like infectious disease, but our western use of it is particularly useless (and often harmful) at treating long term "lifestyle diseases" -- stuff like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Prevention is far more effective, and diets that consist mostly of "food as grown" with minimal processing and alteration are good prevention.
- ilovecomputers 16y ago
  I'm not arguing what "nature intended us to" do (the human body is more adaptable than what the advocates of the Paleo diet take into consideration). I'm referring more to certain people with health problems who eat mainly fast food or food from the box and barely eat an apple a week. I know a few people who are like this and they end up stressing themselves by sticking to some draconian diet to get healthy. I'm saying there's no need to stick to some strict diet, just eat a wide variety of foods instead of just one subset. The whole "think like a primitive man thing" is just a helpful starting point to point you towards what kinds of food to look for, but I'm not advocating some strict following. I had three In and Out dinners this past week since I'm too short on time to hunt down a pigeon or pluck mysterious fruits from trees all day.
- richcollins 16y ago
  It's more that we're taking health risks by eating novel foods (things that weren't available as we evolved). There is a lot of evidence that insulin response is responsible for metabolic syndrome. There is also some evidence that the lectins in grains promote malabsorption of dietary nutrients.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Only time I'm satisfied with the 'nature intended us to' argument is some combination of walking/running. The way a good, smooth runner's body flows when they hit a fast jog screams to me "my skeletal and muscular structure was built for this!" Otherwise, yeah, as best I can tell adaptability is our only real designed-in-feature. We're not as fast as most animals out there, but I don't think that means we didn't run a lot in prehistory.
wil2k 16y ago
"Don't eat what your grandmother wouldn't recognize". is how I've heard it being summarized. :)
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  So no Indian/Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food? No avocados? No seafood, unless your grandparents are from the coast? (Food diversity sucket in our grandparent's era. )
  - byrneseyeview 16y ago
    Maybe what a grandmother would recognize as food.
  - adolph 16y ago
    I think that one of the weaknesses of Pollan's saying is how it can be interpreted by people who haven't read his other stuff. Taken literally, someone much younger than Pollan might think that Pollan advocates for broccoli to be boiled and smothered in Velveeta.
    - rubashov 16y ago
      What would be wrong with steamed/blanched broccoli smothered in Velveeta? That's perfectly healthy.
  - mkr-hn 16y ago
    My grandmother fed me homemade butter biscuits and sausage with eggs any time I visited. The southeast is full of terror and deliciousness.
    - bhousel 16y ago
      There's nothing wrong with eating that kind of food, in reasonable proportions.
      - deleted 16y ago
bmelton 16y ago
The flip side to the caveman diet is that 1) it wasn't particularly planned. They eat what they could, when they could, and 2) There was a pretty major exercise component that went along with it, in that if they didn't hunt / fish / forage, they died of starvation. The main issue with obesity is that people can easily afford to be obese and not too significantly impact their lives (aside from all health and social malaise of being overweight). Eating how a caveman ate isn't a particularly bad diet, but misses out on the major aspect of a day filled with exercise.
- apinstein 16y ago
  Actually, people cannot afford to be obese. They are massively subsidized by others in terms of health care expenses. Healthy people and other taxpayers are footing the bill.
- ghshephard 16y ago
  Numerous studies (See the first chapter of "Why we get Fat, by Taubes) have shown that Obesity is a disease of poverty. The food that keeps you lean (protein/fats) is expensive. Carbs are cheap. Poor people eat carbs. Rich people eat steak, chicken, fish. There is no significant research that shows adding exercise to an overweight person's lifestyle will significantly reduce their weight - typically just increases their appetite.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    If obesity is a disease of poverty, then how come truly poor people (e.g., the poor in India or China) are skinny? Lack of money for food is not a cause of obesity. If your goal is to obtain 2500 calories (assuming that is what you need to maintain a healthy weight) for a little money as possible, you will consume 2500 calories of carbs. You will not become obese. If you instead consume 3500 calories and become obese, you are wasting money on 1000 extra calories. You are not constrained by cost. You could instead reduce consumption by 1000 calories, and spend the money on increasing the quality of the remaining 2500 calories. There is no significant research that shows adding exercise to an overweight person's lifestyle will significantly reduce their weight - typically just increases their appetite. Increasing exercise and holding consumption constant will reduce body fat. One of many studies: http://www.duke.cardiologydomain.com/images/uploaded/dukeh/2_Slentz_BodyCompWt_STRRIDE_2004.pdf http://www.duke.cardiologydomain.com/images/uploaded/dukeh/2... Do a google scholar search. The only difficulty is that you'll find so many studies which measure additional benefits to exercise that some of the studies measuring only effect on body fat will be buried. (I.e., the majority of the articles have conclusions like "exercise reduces body fat AND increases muscle mass", "exercise reduces body fat AND breast cancer", etc). I'm curious, did you hear this claim from Gary Taubes? The one time I read a blog post by him, I discovered him to be incredibly dishonest: http://crazybear.posterous.com/how-1-graph-reveals-what-3000-words-tried-to http://crazybear.posterous.com/how-1-graph-reveals-what-3000...
rubashov 16y ago
> don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing What's wrong with cheese, or butter? Or sauerkraut and pickles? All processed food. Also, powdered mashed potatoes and puffed rice are just conveniently preserved starch. They're perfectly healthy. The "processed food" and "mostly plants" stuff is just marketing psychology that taps into SWPLs' inner hippie. The real diet rules aren't mystical: * Avoid sugar, especially fructose * Avoid vegetable oils * Don't be afraid of saturated fat * Prefer rice and potatoes to wheat/rye/etc * If you're fat, try cutting out starch, but don't worry about it if you're not fat.
- bane 16y ago
  A couple years ago I worked on a market research contract for a food grower that tried to answer the opposite, "what does all natural mean" (or some set of synonyms)? Turns out it's virtually impossible to define it. Here was one of the exercises we went through: 1) Take an orange, grown in the wild without being touched in any way by the hand of man. 2) If you eat that orange, are you eating something that's "all natural"? 3) If you squeeze that orange, and drink its juice, is it still "all natural"? 4) If you strain the juice to eliminate pulp, through a handwoven cloth (or a mat of grass or some other "all natural straining device") is it still "all natural"? 5) If you heat the juice and drink it, ie cook it, is it still "all natural"? 6) How about if you heat it long enough to boil off some of the water? 7) How about long enough to boil off all of the water? 8a) What if instead of boiling you simply dry out the juice in the sun? 8b) What if in addition to boiling it, you dry the remains in the sun? 9) What about drying it in an oven? 10) Suppose I take the dry particles left and through any conceivable natural operation sort them by density? Say, putting the particles into an all natural basket and shake it vigorously until my arms are tired? 11) Now how about I remove particles of a certain density? Is the remaining product natural? 12) Now suppose I add water to the remaining sorted particles, fresh from a mountain spring. 13) Suppose I do the same (#1-12) with other plant sources? 14) Suppose I mix the results into either a mix of powders or a mix of reconstituted liquids? This is an actual replication of a process for producing an artificial sweetener (not with fruit, but a different plant source). That sweetener is generally not called "all natural" but the process is more or less the above. At every point in the process we haven't done anything that's not natural. There's some analogy to every step that you probably have to do with any food source to make it edible. Nobody thinks squeezing, chopping, cutting, cutting plants creates a processed food. Or straining liquids or really any of the above. We've been doing all of the above as a species since before writing. But many people think the result of the specific combination of the above, #14, is a "processed food". How about cheese? Most cheese, even modern cheese is just milk and bacteria in a controlled spoilage environment. As natural as dirt. And in general the result of very few steps. Defining "processed food" from "natural food" ultimately ends up trying to set some kind of arbitrary definition delineating the two -- "processed food is any food that has undergone more than 3 processing steps" I have news, chopping and peeling fresh picked garlic takes more than 3 steps. 1) Wash the dirt from the bulb 2) Dry the bulb 3) Remove the outer layers of onion skin 4) Separate the cloves out of the bulb 5) Cut the hard connective bits 6) Peel the layers of onion skin from the cloves 7) Chop to size Now if I include it in a recipe I'm including it in even more processing steps. I may boil it, grill it, bake it, or some other cooking process. I may strain it from a broth if all I care about is the flavor. Before I can actually get the garlic into my mouth, through even an elementary recipe, I've had to process it at least 8 times, likely a dozen.
bane 16y ago
Just imagine what primitive man would eat. He would spend most of his days eating what grew from the ground and when they finally hunted down meat, they would eat their catch as a group Ugh, I hate this concept. Primitive man also died in their 20s and 30s. No thanks.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ilovecomputers 16y ago
  Exactly, I'm advocating everyone to add produce into their diet so that they can die early.
- gigamonkey 16y ago
  I'm pretty sure this is false. As I understand it hunters and gatherers lived about as long as we do. It was only with the invention of agriculture and the kind of societies (and diseases) it enabled, that our average lifespan took a nosedive which we are pulling out of now, thanks to modern medicine.
  - bane 16y ago
    It's relatively easy to test though. You can look at life expectancy figures of hunter gathering cultures (which are a useful proxy for pre-agricultural cultures) that don't deal with modern issues, or didn't deal with them at some point that we have pretty good data on. For example the life expectancy in Papau new Guinea was flat lined at just over 30 until about 1940. You can see similar trends in other non-agrarian societies. http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=1944$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=295;dataMax=79210$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=19;dataMax=86$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=i173_t001800,,, http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly..., There are studies that go along with your POV http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2... but they are, to date, very much in the minority of research in the area.
Cushman 16y ago
As someone who went from being pretty overweight to really fit simply by following a policy of eating no sugar or grains and as much deliciously fatty meat, eggs and cheese as I want, I have strong skepticism towards the conventional wisdom about "healthy" foods.
- ilovecomputers 16y ago
  You only made a case against the lipid hypothesis, which Michael Pollan also criticized in his book, so you have fallen into his trap of eating healthy and didn't even know it.
  - Cushman 16y ago
    Meh? I buy store-brand bacon, eggs, cheap beef, and Vermont cheddar. When I treat myself, it's to a $12/lb steak (on sale at $6). I mostly don't eat vegetables aside from the odd mixed-green salad when I'm in the mood. I don't buy mechanically separated and prepackaged meat only because it either tastes worse, or costs more. I eat whatever's cheap and tasty, as much as I want, mostly meat— the literal antithesis of Pollan's catchphrase. If I've fallen into his trap, it's a very cunningly hidden one.
    - georgieporgie 16y ago
      How do you ever manage to poop? (serious question, though I appreciate the fact that I just asked the most base question in this entire comment page)
      - Cushman 16y ago
        The normal way, I guess? :P In seriousness, there was an adjustment period of "intestinal irregularity" when I first switched, presumably due intestinal flora etc. adapting from substantial amounts of carbs and fiber to all fats and protein. These days I'd say I'm on the infrequent end of normal, pooping once every day or two, which I think is pretty typical for paleo folks. If I do end up eating a substantial amount of carbs, usually at a restaurant or dinner party, it does often give me the runs later, which is my primary reason for strictly avoiding grains moreso than health or philosopical concerns. And if I drink too much (which is easy to do when you eat low-carb) all bets are off.

NickPollard 16y ago

I'm not going to argue that what you describe isn't good, but 'nature intended us to' isn't a particularly solid argument. You could argue that nature intended us to die from Malaria by the age of 30, I'm very glad that for most of the world that's no longer the case.

btam 16y ago
The difference here from malaria would be that our bodies evolved, adapting to the nutrients that we were getting. We're more efficient on them -- more capable of living 'natural' lives. [Of course, whether a 'natural' life is desirable is debatable.] Malaria, however, we attempted to evolve away from(sickle cell anemia).
desigooner 16y ago
That's precisely why the "nature intended us to" argument doesn't really work for me when I hear people trying to convince me to try the Paleo diet. Whatever the benefits might be (besides making the author of those books a good chunk of money), they can be garnered by other means. What I hate even more is when a few devotees of such diets go on a slant about vegetarianism/veganism etc. etc.
- xiaoma 16y ago
  Not only that, but our "nature" has changed considerably since those times. Evolution has been far faster, likely 100 times faster the past several thousand years than it was before civilization. 15,000 years ago, nobody was lactose tolerant, nobody had blue eyes and who knows what else was different.
  - JoelMcCracken 16y ago
    That isn't evolution, it is a diversification of our genetics. There are lots of things that many humans are intolerant to which would have probably been a really big weakness in the past. Humans are no longer subject to natural selection. There needs to be significant culling pressure for real evolution to happen.
    - jshen 16y ago
      "Humans are no longer subject to natural selection." What? Are you sure? Because we most certainly are subject to natural selection.
      - JoelMcCracken 16y ago
        Yes. But not to any significant degree that will cause a change as a species.
        jshen 16y ago
        we most certainly change as a species. Something as simple as choosing who to reproduce with affects the distribution of genes that are passed on to the next generation. A more obvious example of the sorts of changes we can still go through is sickle cell.
reason 16y ago
Us not readily acquiring the malaria virus is not due to evolution of our genes; we just don't live in the areas where the vector thrives. If you and I were bit by an infected mosquito, there's a very good chance either of us would die in a relatively short period of time. Although, there are some in Africa who do have fewer chances of acquiring it due to them being heterozygotes for sickle cell anemia. Anyway, I'm not discounting the underlying concept of your comment; I'm just saying that malaria wasn't a particularly apt comparison.
- poppysan 16y ago
  I think the point is that we don't fight it "natually", we fight it with medicine and vaccines. We also have access to clean water which, if we did get malaria, would prevent us from dying from rapid dehydration(which in my understanding is the primary cause of death from malaria.) This is the argument against the caveman diets...
  - patio11 16y ago
    The primary reason we don't die from malaria is none of the above: it is mosquito abatement via intentional habitat destruction and copious use of effective pesticides. Large portions of the US used to be malaria country: not a spe mof it is now, and if there was a malaria outbreak in a US suburb we would wring our hands about the consequences for about five minutes and then dump enough chemicals on that subdivision to save an African country. Ditto Europe, by the way.
    - nerfhammer 16y ago
      I believe the strains of malaria that existed in North American and Europe were far weaker than the African varieties, though
  - rarrrrrr 16y ago
    Medicine is a fine way to treat things like infectious disease, but our western use of it is particularly useless (and often harmful) at treating long term "lifestyle diseases" -- stuff like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Prevention is far more effective, and diets that consist mostly of "food as grown" with minimal processing and alteration are good prevention.
ilovecomputers 16y ago
I'm not arguing what "nature intended us to" do (the human body is more adaptable than what the advocates of the Paleo diet take into consideration). I'm referring more to certain people with health problems who eat mainly fast food or food from the box and barely eat an apple a week. I know a few people who are like this and they end up stressing themselves by sticking to some draconian diet to get healthy. I'm saying there's no need to stick to some strict diet, just eat a wide variety of foods instead of just one subset. The whole "think like a primitive man thing" is just a helpful starting point to point you towards what kinds of food to look for, but I'm not advocating some strict following. I had three In and Out dinners this past week since I'm too short on time to hunt down a pigeon or pluck mysterious fruits from trees all day.
richcollins 16y ago
It's more that we're taking health risks by eating novel foods (things that weren't available as we evolved). There is a lot of evidence that insulin response is responsible for metabolic syndrome. There is also some evidence that the lectins in grains promote malabsorption of dietary nutrients.
sliverstorm 16y ago
Only time I'm satisfied with the 'nature intended us to' argument is some combination of walking/running. The way a good, smooth runner's body flows when they hit a fast jog screams to me "my skeletal and muscular structure was built for this!" Otherwise, yeah, as best I can tell adaptability is our only real designed-in-feature. We're not as fast as most animals out there, but I don't think that means we didn't run a lot in prehistory.

wil2k 16y ago

"Don't eat what your grandmother wouldn't recognize". is how I've heard it being summarized. :)

yummyfajitas 16y ago
So no Indian/Chinese/Japanese/Mexican food? No avocados? No seafood, unless your grandparents are from the coast? (Food diversity sucket in our grandparent's era. )
- byrneseyeview 16y ago
  Maybe what a grandmother would recognize as food.
- adolph 16y ago
  I think that one of the weaknesses of Pollan's saying is how it can be interpreted by people who haven't read his other stuff. Taken literally, someone much younger than Pollan might think that Pollan advocates for broccoli to be boiled and smothered in Velveeta.
  - rubashov 16y ago
    What would be wrong with steamed/blanched broccoli smothered in Velveeta? That's perfectly healthy.
- mkr-hn 16y ago
  My grandmother fed me homemade butter biscuits and sausage with eggs any time I visited. The southeast is full of terror and deliciousness.
  - bhousel 16y ago
    There's nothing wrong with eating that kind of food, in reasonable proportions.
    - deleted 16y ago

bmelton 16y ago

The flip side to the caveman diet is that 1) it wasn't particularly planned. They eat what they could, when they could, and 2) There was a pretty major exercise component that went along with it, in that if they didn't hunt / fish / forage, they died of starvation. The main issue with obesity is that people can easily afford to be obese and not too significantly impact their lives (aside from all health and social malaise of being overweight). Eating how a caveman ate isn't a particularly bad diet, but misses out on the major aspect of a day filled with exercise.

apinstein 16y ago
Actually, people cannot afford to be obese. They are massively subsidized by others in terms of health care expenses. Healthy people and other taxpayers are footing the bill.
ghshephard 16y ago
Numerous studies (See the first chapter of "Why we get Fat, by Taubes) have shown that Obesity is a disease of poverty. The food that keeps you lean (protein/fats) is expensive. Carbs are cheap. Poor people eat carbs. Rich people eat steak, chicken, fish. There is no significant research that shows adding exercise to an overweight person's lifestyle will significantly reduce their weight - typically just increases their appetite.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  If obesity is a disease of poverty, then how come truly poor people (e.g., the poor in India or China) are skinny? Lack of money for food is not a cause of obesity. If your goal is to obtain 2500 calories (assuming that is what you need to maintain a healthy weight) for a little money as possible, you will consume 2500 calories of carbs. You will not become obese. If you instead consume 3500 calories and become obese, you are wasting money on 1000 extra calories. You are not constrained by cost. You could instead reduce consumption by 1000 calories, and spend the money on increasing the quality of the remaining 2500 calories. There is no significant research that shows adding exercise to an overweight person's lifestyle will significantly reduce their weight - typically just increases their appetite. Increasing exercise and holding consumption constant will reduce body fat. One of many studies: http://www.duke.cardiologydomain.com/images/uploaded/dukeh/2_Slentz_BodyCompWt_STRRIDE_2004.pdf http://www.duke.cardiologydomain.com/images/uploaded/dukeh/2... Do a google scholar search. The only difficulty is that you'll find so many studies which measure additional benefits to exercise that some of the studies measuring only effect on body fat will be buried. (I.e., the majority of the articles have conclusions like "exercise reduces body fat AND increases muscle mass", "exercise reduces body fat AND breast cancer", etc). I'm curious, did you hear this claim from Gary Taubes? The one time I read a blog post by him, I discovered him to be incredibly dishonest: http://crazybear.posterous.com/how-1-graph-reveals-what-3000-words-tried-to http://crazybear.posterous.com/how-1-graph-reveals-what-3000...

rubashov 16y ago

> don't eat boxed foods or foods that went through multiple stages of processing What's wrong with cheese, or butter? Or sauerkraut and pickles? All processed food. Also, powdered mashed potatoes and puffed rice are just conveniently preserved starch. They're perfectly healthy. The "processed food" and "mostly plants" stuff is just marketing psychology that taps into SWPLs' inner hippie. The real diet rules aren't mystical: * Avoid sugar, especially fructose * Avoid vegetable oils * Don't be afraid of saturated fat * Prefer rice and potatoes to wheat/rye/etc * If you're fat, try cutting out starch, but don't worry about it if you're not fat.

bane 16y ago
A couple years ago I worked on a market research contract for a food grower that tried to answer the opposite, "what does all natural mean" (or some set of synonyms)? Turns out it's virtually impossible to define it. Here was one of the exercises we went through: 1) Take an orange, grown in the wild without being touched in any way by the hand of man. 2) If you eat that orange, are you eating something that's "all natural"? 3) If you squeeze that orange, and drink its juice, is it still "all natural"? 4) If you strain the juice to eliminate pulp, through a handwoven cloth (or a mat of grass or some other "all natural straining device") is it still "all natural"? 5) If you heat the juice and drink it, ie cook it, is it still "all natural"? 6) How about if you heat it long enough to boil off some of the water? 7) How about long enough to boil off all of the water? 8a) What if instead of boiling you simply dry out the juice in the sun? 8b) What if in addition to boiling it, you dry the remains in the sun? 9) What about drying it in an oven? 10) Suppose I take the dry particles left and through any conceivable natural operation sort them by density? Say, putting the particles into an all natural basket and shake it vigorously until my arms are tired? 11) Now how about I remove particles of a certain density? Is the remaining product natural? 12) Now suppose I add water to the remaining sorted particles, fresh from a mountain spring. 13) Suppose I do the same (#1-12) with other plant sources? 14) Suppose I mix the results into either a mix of powders or a mix of reconstituted liquids? This is an actual replication of a process for producing an artificial sweetener (not with fruit, but a different plant source). That sweetener is generally not called "all natural" but the process is more or less the above. At every point in the process we haven't done anything that's not natural. There's some analogy to every step that you probably have to do with any food source to make it edible. Nobody thinks squeezing, chopping, cutting, cutting plants creates a processed food. Or straining liquids or really any of the above. We've been doing all of the above as a species since before writing. But many people think the result of the specific combination of the above, #14, is a "processed food". How about cheese? Most cheese, even modern cheese is just milk and bacteria in a controlled spoilage environment. As natural as dirt. And in general the result of very few steps. Defining "processed food" from "natural food" ultimately ends up trying to set some kind of arbitrary definition delineating the two -- "processed food is any food that has undergone more than 3 processing steps" I have news, chopping and peeling fresh picked garlic takes more than 3 steps. 1) Wash the dirt from the bulb 2) Dry the bulb 3) Remove the outer layers of onion skin 4) Separate the cloves out of the bulb 5) Cut the hard connective bits 6) Peel the layers of onion skin from the cloves 7) Chop to size Now if I include it in a recipe I'm including it in even more processing steps. I may boil it, grill it, bake it, or some other cooking process. I may strain it from a broth if all I care about is the flavor. Before I can actually get the garlic into my mouth, through even an elementary recipe, I've had to process it at least 8 times, likely a dozen.

bane 16y ago

Just imagine what primitive man would eat. He would spend most of his days eating what grew from the ground and when they finally hunted down meat, they would eat their catch as a group Ugh, I hate this concept. Primitive man also died in their 20s and 30s. No thanks.

deleted 16y ago
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ilovecomputers 16y ago
Exactly, I'm advocating everyone to add produce into their diet so that they can die early.
gigamonkey 16y ago
I'm pretty sure this is false. As I understand it hunters and gatherers lived about as long as we do. It was only with the invention of agriculture and the kind of societies (and diseases) it enabled, that our average lifespan took a nosedive which we are pulling out of now, thanks to modern medicine.
- bane 16y ago
  It's relatively easy to test though. You can look at life expectancy figures of hunter gathering cultures (which are a useful proxy for pre-agricultural cultures) that don't deal with modern issues, or didn't deal with them at some point that we have pretty good data on. For example the life expectancy in Papau new Guinea was flat lined at just over 30 until about 1940. You can see similar trends in other non-agrarian societies. http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=30;stl=t;st=t;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=5.59290322580644;ti=1944$zpv;v=0$inc_x;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj2tPLxKvvnNPA;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=295;dataMax=79210$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=19;dataMax=86$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;bd=0$inds=i173_t001800,,, http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly..., There are studies that go along with your POV http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2... but they are, to date, very much in the minority of research in the area.

Cushman 16y ago

As someone who went from being pretty overweight to really fit simply by following a policy of eating no sugar or grains and as much deliciously fatty meat, eggs and cheese as I want, I have strong skepticism towards the conventional wisdom about "healthy" foods.

ilovecomputers 16y ago
You only made a case against the lipid hypothesis, which Michael Pollan also criticized in his book, so you have fallen into his trap of eating healthy and didn't even know it.
- Cushman 16y ago
  Meh? I buy store-brand bacon, eggs, cheap beef, and Vermont cheddar. When I treat myself, it's to a $12/lb steak (on sale at $6). I mostly don't eat vegetables aside from the odd mixed-green salad when I'm in the mood. I don't buy mechanically separated and prepackaged meat only because it either tastes worse, or costs more. I eat whatever's cheap and tasty, as much as I want, mostly meat— the literal antithesis of Pollan's catchphrase. If I've fallen into his trap, it's a very cunningly hidden one.
  - georgieporgie 16y ago
    How do you ever manage to poop? (serious question, though I appreciate the fact that I just asked the most base question in this entire comment page)
    - Cushman 16y ago
      The normal way, I guess? :P In seriousness, there was an adjustment period of "intestinal irregularity" when I first switched, presumably due intestinal flora etc. adapting from substantial amounts of carbs and fiber to all fats and protein. These days I'd say I'm on the infrequent end of normal, pooping once every day or two, which I think is pretty typical for paleo folks. If I do end up eating a substantial amount of carbs, usually at a restaurant or dinner party, it does often give me the runs later, which is my primary reason for strictly avoiding grains moreso than health or philosopical concerns. And if I drink too much (which is easy to do when you eat low-carb) all bets are off.