3 ms·

Calories are only a single axis within the extremely complicated question that is food quality. It is quite difficult to keep all the variables in one's conscio

• seanwilson 5y ago
  > Humans luckily have a very useful set of biofeedback mechanisms that effortless tell you if food is healthy or not, but most people ignore these systems by eating mindlessly and have damaged these systems through poor diet. Why do unhealthy things taste great then? Why would our natural biofeedback be well tuned to modern lifestyles where an abundance of food is the new norm? > I'm really not sure what a 'big win' in calorie counting even is. I mean getting people to realise what surprise foods they're eating that are wiping out their calorie target for the day so they can replace these foods with something more healthy e.g. people drinking 1000 calories of coffee drinks or 2000 calorie pizzas and not realising how many calories they're consuming are never going to lose weight. > The green vegetables rule is about eating more green vegetables. Why? So no sweet or white potato, eggplant, carrot, red peppers, cauliflower, tomato, beetroot, red cabbage? > One of the problems with the oil prohibition is that it discourages people from eating sauteed vegetables, which are probably one of the best things you can eat. I'm not saying never use oil but you can fry without oil, bake, boil, steam, slow cook, pressure cook and microwave. You don't need oil to cook lots of things. Why not deep fry if you shouldn't be concerned with oil and rely on biofeedback?
  • blix 5y ago
    > Why do unhealthy things taste great Taste is only one component of the feedback system. The other ones are more important honestly. The toungue is easily tricked by sweetness, which pervades almost all easily obtainable foods in this country. If you quit sugar and sweeteners for a few months, you will be amazed how sweet everything tastes, and you probably won't want to eat much of it. > people ... not realising how many calories they're consuming are never going to lose weight. This is not true. You can lose weight without thinking about calories at all. There are other methods. Of course gorging yourself on pizza and sweet drinks is never going to help you, but people doing that are generally not serious about losing weight. > Why? So no sweet or white potato, eggplant, carrot, red peppers, cauliflower, tomato, beetroot, red cabbage? I have literally no idea how you are arriving at this interpretation of the rule. "More green vegetables" does not mean "no beets". It's a simple rule of thumb to get people to eat more vegetables with high mineral and low carbohydrate content. It's far from an exclusive list of all good vegetables, but that list is too high word count for simple rules. Potato probably shouldn't be included in this category as it is a culinary starch and you shouldn't trick yourself into thinking french fries with ketchup are vegetables. But that doesn't mean potato is banned. > Why not deep fry There is nothing intrinsically wrong with deep frying. If you listen to your body, you probably will realize you don't actually want that much deep fried food, but in moderation it is fine. The key is to have a properly tuned feedback system and to actually listen to it. Eating slowly with attention while avoiding sugar and sweeteners will probably get it fixed up in a few months unless you have a genetic condition.