5 ms·

I swear to God I remember hearing the opposite not long ago. That frequent, smaller, meals are better as they more closely match the continual foraging of h

I swear to God I remember hearing the opposite not long ago. That frequent, smaller, meals are better as they more closely match the continual foraging of hunter-gatherers. Here's the first reference I could find: https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/02/health/mini-meals-food-drayer... The older I get the more inconsistencies and instabilities I hear in dieting advice. I'm old enough to remember when fat was the bad guy and sugar was maybe ok

hansthehorse 4y ago
It's amazing how much sugar is in almost everything. I made an effort to cut out as much added sugar as I could and it's exhausting. There are over 50 synonyms for sugar that food companies use.
robbedpeter 4y ago
If the advice comes with a story about how such and such was similar to the diets of ancestors, it's probably unscientific to the point of parody. A wide variety in your diet prevents potential harms from chronic exposure - if you eat the same things over long periods you can accumulate unintended adulterants. Your particular genetics might result in chronic inflammation from an otherwise innocent food item. Diet should be approached as a game with unknowable hazards. Science is continually evolving, and the findings one week can be completely overturned the next, and so on. Your strategy in the diet game should be to imitate success, avoid harmful patterns, and seek variety consistently. One day we will have a thorough model for nutrition and genetics and we can use soylent style customized food. Meal pacing depends on your lifestyle, what you eat, fitness, and a myriad of other factors. There will be no one size fits all answer - there are too many confounding factors to reach a sensible conclusion except at an individual level. Someone sedentary has different requirements than an athlete who runs marathons, or a warehouse worker, librarian, or plumber. One big meal might be best for one, while munching all day could be best for another, and their colleagues might find variations more suitable to their context. One strategy is to go through an elimination experiment- eat nothing but meat, for 2 weeks, and gradually add different foods one per week, keeping a journal of subjective effects, blood pressure, satiety, weight, bowel movements, and so on. Following a fad diet
- robbedpeter 4y ago
  Can't edit. >>following a fad diet Just sets you up for disappointment. It's better to research nutrition generally and experiment methodically, building up knowledge about how you personally react to foods, and planning with that knowledge.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  Maybe we should turn it around a bit. There is a huge variation in what our ancestors ate. But modern highly processed food would be alien to all of them - no tribe nor nation on the planet ever sustained themselves on a diet of salami, pizza, French fries and massively sweetened soft drinks. This is a very recent sea change in nutrition, where I would expect a lot of unknowable hazards to lie.
  - Ekaros 4y ago
    Even agriculture itself is in evolutionary terms recent change. Some components sure like lactose tolerance, but overall new.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      There is still quite a difference between 5000 years and 25 years. Especially because in the pre-modern world, generations were much shorter than today. People would start having kids around 18.
      - robbedpeter 4y ago
        14 or 15, often. 18 year old adults is a recent liberal human rights innovation. There's not a whole lot of difference between humans now and humans 100,000 years ago. We have better tools and culture and knowledge, but we're physically identical - swap a baby in either direction and nobody would know the difference.
  - robbedpeter 4y ago
    Modern foods actually makes variety simpler, since you can lump them all into one food category - modern food is often slight seasoning and proportion variations on the same processed ingredients, so you don't want to eat it frequently. An occasional pizza or birthday cake or soda is ok, but they're not great for daily food sources, especially with hfcs or lots of sugar.
rmbyrro 4y ago
The current diabetes epidemic is probably in large part caused by having demonized fat in the past. Food manufacturers switched to a combination of sugar and salt to restore taste after removing fat. The current health situation is what you get...
- pigeonhole123 4y ago
  Also seed oils
  - danaris 4y ago
    ...Wait, seed oils are a problem, or seed oils have been unfairly demonized?
    - teilo 4y ago
      They are a problem that should be demonized.
      - tintedfireglass 4y ago
        > They are a problem that should be demonized. How? Aren't seed oils better than butter and palm/coconut oils due to their low saturated fat contents (canola oil or sunflower oil for example)
        NoThisIsMe 4y ago
        No. Saturated fats are not inherently bad. If anything, the good fats tend to be saturated fats. Seed oils are typically high in omega-6 which is bad because there's way too much omega-6 in the modern diet compared to omega-3.
        tintedfireglass 4y ago
        I am not from a developed country so my only source of these omega3/6 is oils right? How can I remove it from my diet?
jseban 4y ago
The biggest positive effect of frequent smaller meals is steady blood sugar, which will have a very obvious impact on your mood and concentration. It also gives the body a more steady supply of nutrients, which is going to be better for any slow running activity of recovery. The downside I guess is that you always have some proportion of your body's energy working on digestion, which could lower peak performance. And obviously that it takes more time.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  You are underestimating the capacity of the human body. A healthy human body can perfectly well maintain blood sugar levels with or without eating food regularly.
smokey_circles 4y ago
It is the nature of science that we change our mind as we learn new things. But sugar was never OK. That was pseudo-science. A lot of dietary "information" is pseudo-science. It's not an area we've dedicated a lot of effort into because we came up with a food pyramid one time and that was that. We're still learning how wrong we are, as is the case in most fields
the_gipsy 4y ago
It's all pseudoscience, very contradictory
KronisLV 4y ago
> The older I get the more inconsistencies and instabilities I hear in dieting advice. I'm old enough to remember when fat was the bad guy and sugar was maybe ok It feels to me like humanity as a whole hasn't necessarily properly figured all of this out, and might not do that in the near future. Personally, i've found the advice of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." to be rather sensible and work for me, as far as general wellbeing is concerned. If you don't eat too many processed snacks and can have a bit of exercise daily, then you should be doing pretty decently.
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  I like plants and I can easily reduce meat consumption to a fraction of the usual norm, but I notice that without any animal products at all, I feel sluggish. It is extra noticeable on longer hikes in uneven terrain. Things like cheese or eggs invigorate me.
  - KronisLV 4y ago
    That is a very fair point! Personally it's also kind of why i wouldn't suggest that people go fully vegetarian/vegan either, except for maybe short amounts of time (e.g. should they desire to look into raising awareness, seeing what produce is sold locally etc.), since having a balanced diet can be challenging! I occasionally get my bloodwork done and my doctor suggests that i should get a bit more vitamin D, as well as perhaps look into other multivitamin supplies during the winters, so i certainly do that (and try to eat more fish and so on). While human diets can be slightly "experimented" with and various options be explored, i probably should add a disclaimer somewhere that the diets of pets probably shouldn't be - my dogs, for example, enjoy fresh meat pretty regularly as well as whatever the vets recommend.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  I believe that there is no unified correct diet. It depends on individual activity, gut fauna and genetics. And we probably know somewhat enough of one of those and looking at people in trades and like that could or should get enough activity even that might be questionable.
legulere 4y ago
Nutrition science is difficult. Most of the times it's impossible to do randomized studies on humans. Most of the times it's impossible to do blind studies. The effect sizes are relatively small and show up only after a long period. The human body is very adaptive to very different kind of diets.

hansthehorse 4y ago

It's amazing how much sugar is in almost everything. I made an effort to cut out as much added sugar as I could and it's exhausting. There are over 50 synonyms for sugar that food companies use.

robbedpeter 4y ago

If the advice comes with a story about how such and such was similar to the diets of ancestors, it's probably unscientific to the point of parody. A wide variety in your diet prevents potential harms from chronic exposure - if you eat the same things over long periods you can accumulate unintended adulterants. Your particular genetics might result in chronic inflammation from an otherwise innocent food item. Diet should be approached as a game with unknowable hazards. Science is continually evolving, and the findings one week can be completely overturned the next, and so on. Your strategy in the diet game should be to imitate success, avoid harmful patterns, and seek variety consistently. One day we will have a thorough model for nutrition and genetics and we can use soylent style customized food. Meal pacing depends on your lifestyle, what you eat, fitness, and a myriad of other factors. There will be no one size fits all answer - there are too many confounding factors to reach a sensible conclusion except at an individual level. Someone sedentary has different requirements than an athlete who runs marathons, or a warehouse worker, librarian, or plumber. One big meal might be best for one, while munching all day could be best for another, and their colleagues might find variations more suitable to their context. One strategy is to go through an elimination experiment- eat nothing but meat, for 2 weeks, and gradually add different foods one per week, keeping a journal of subjective effects, blood pressure, satiety, weight, bowel movements, and so on. Following a fad diet

robbedpeter 4y ago
Can't edit. >>following a fad diet Just sets you up for disappointment. It's better to research nutrition generally and experiment methodically, building up knowledge about how you personally react to foods, and planning with that knowledge.
inglor_cz 4y ago
Maybe we should turn it around a bit. There is a huge variation in what our ancestors ate. But modern highly processed food would be alien to all of them - no tribe nor nation on the planet ever sustained themselves on a diet of salami, pizza, French fries and massively sweetened soft drinks. This is a very recent sea change in nutrition, where I would expect a lot of unknowable hazards to lie.
- Ekaros 4y ago
  Even agriculture itself is in evolutionary terms recent change. Some components sure like lactose tolerance, but overall new.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    There is still quite a difference between 5000 years and 25 years. Especially because in the pre-modern world, generations were much shorter than today. People would start having kids around 18.
    - robbedpeter 4y ago
      14 or 15, often. 18 year old adults is a recent liberal human rights innovation. There's not a whole lot of difference between humans now and humans 100,000 years ago. We have better tools and culture and knowledge, but we're physically identical - swap a baby in either direction and nobody would know the difference.
- robbedpeter 4y ago
  Modern foods actually makes variety simpler, since you can lump them all into one food category - modern food is often slight seasoning and proportion variations on the same processed ingredients, so you don't want to eat it frequently. An occasional pizza or birthday cake or soda is ok, but they're not great for daily food sources, especially with hfcs or lots of sugar.

rmbyrro 4y ago

The current diabetes epidemic is probably in large part caused by having demonized fat in the past. Food manufacturers switched to a combination of sugar and salt to restore taste after removing fat. The current health situation is what you get...

pigeonhole123 4y ago
Also seed oils
- danaris 4y ago
  ...Wait, seed oils are a problem, or seed oils have been unfairly demonized?
  - teilo 4y ago
    They are a problem that should be demonized.
    - tintedfireglass 4y ago
      > They are a problem that should be demonized. How? Aren't seed oils better than butter and palm/coconut oils due to their low saturated fat contents (canola oil or sunflower oil for example)
      - NoThisIsMe 4y ago
        No. Saturated fats are not inherently bad. If anything, the good fats tend to be saturated fats. Seed oils are typically high in omega-6 which is bad because there's way too much omega-6 in the modern diet compared to omega-3.
        tintedfireglass 4y ago
        I am not from a developed country so my only source of these omega3/6 is oils right? How can I remove it from my diet?

jseban 4y ago

The biggest positive effect of frequent smaller meals is steady blood sugar, which will have a very obvious impact on your mood and concentration. It also gives the body a more steady supply of nutrients, which is going to be better for any slow running activity of recovery. The downside I guess is that you always have some proportion of your body's energy working on digestion, which could lower peak performance. And obviously that it takes more time.

SnowHill9902 4y ago
You are underestimating the capacity of the human body. A healthy human body can perfectly well maintain blood sugar levels with or without eating food regularly.

smokey_circles 4y ago

It is the nature of science that we change our mind as we learn new things. But sugar was never OK. That was pseudo-science. A lot of dietary "information" is pseudo-science. It's not an area we've dedicated a lot of effort into because we came up with a food pyramid one time and that was that. We're still learning how wrong we are, as is the case in most fields

the_gipsy 4y ago

It's all pseudoscience, very contradictory

KronisLV 4y ago

> The older I get the more inconsistencies and instabilities I hear in dieting advice. I'm old enough to remember when fat was the bad guy and sugar was maybe ok It feels to me like humanity as a whole hasn't necessarily properly figured all of this out, and might not do that in the near future. Personally, i've found the advice of "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." to be rather sensible and work for me, as far as general wellbeing is concerned. If you don't eat too many processed snacks and can have a bit of exercise daily, then you should be doing pretty decently.

inglor_cz 4y ago
I like plants and I can easily reduce meat consumption to a fraction of the usual norm, but I notice that without any animal products at all, I feel sluggish. It is extra noticeable on longer hikes in uneven terrain. Things like cheese or eggs invigorate me.
- KronisLV 4y ago
  That is a very fair point! Personally it's also kind of why i wouldn't suggest that people go fully vegetarian/vegan either, except for maybe short amounts of time (e.g. should they desire to look into raising awareness, seeing what produce is sold locally etc.), since having a balanced diet can be challenging! I occasionally get my bloodwork done and my doctor suggests that i should get a bit more vitamin D, as well as perhaps look into other multivitamin supplies during the winters, so i certainly do that (and try to eat more fish and so on). While human diets can be slightly "experimented" with and various options be explored, i probably should add a disclaimer somewhere that the diets of pets probably shouldn't be - my dogs, for example, enjoy fresh meat pretty regularly as well as whatever the vets recommend.
Ekaros 4y ago
I believe that there is no unified correct diet. It depends on individual activity, gut fauna and genetics. And we probably know somewhat enough of one of those and looking at people in trades and like that could or should get enough activity even that might be questionable.

legulere 4y ago

Nutrition science is difficult. Most of the times it's impossible to do randomized studies on humans. Most of the times it's impossible to do blind studies. The effect sizes are relatively small and show up only after a long period. The human body is very adaptive to very different kind of diets.