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There are solutions. I find myself posting this [0] here on HN from time to time. It doesn’t work for everything (I’m not sure how well it would work for a pair

There are solutions. I find myself posting this [0] here on HN from time to time. It doesn’t work for everything (I’m not sure how well it would work for a pair of leather boots, though the same approach is theoretically possible there as well) but it is a step up from just continuing with the status quo. [0]: https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg00309.html https://www.mail-archive.com/kragen-tol@canonical.org/msg003...

tryauuum 3y ago
what is this link? I only saw mailing lists, but this looks like a detached email
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  That’s him posting to his own list. Think of it as an old-fashioned blog post.
camgunz 3y ago
I think this post generally is good, but the diet stuff triggered me. Some table setting here, I can't stand daily food prep, I've done a 100% Soylent phase, I've done a 100% eating out phase, I've written apps to balance macronutrient ratios and plan meals, and I've written apps to balance both macro and micronutrient ratios/amounts and plan meals. I now essentially throw random stuff into an Instant Pot and hope for the best. For almost everyone--and I hate to admit it but this group includes me--food is a core, irreplaceable pleasure. Even when just doing it alone, not even for social purposes. At this point, I'm receptive to arguments that it's the main thing that most people look forward to every day. You can set up all kinds of plans (read: diets) and tech to assist you in this experience, but I think if you live in the rich world, the primary goal of eating is to feel this pleasure, it is a major part of your pleasure life, and as a result these plans and this tech will only ever assist you in that endeavor. They will never be more than assistants, secondary to this goal. Next, micronutrients are best ingested in whole food form. Multivitamins are literally a supplement, they really shouldn't be your primary source of micronutrients; unless you're willing to do lots of research, you really shouldn't submit yourself wholly to their vicissitudes. Not only are there micronutrients that can't be combined because they interfere in each others' absorption (iron and calcium are the most infamous for this but there are others), but only some multivitamins will actually show you the amounts that your body absorbs in the first place, and you have to know how to look for that (look for amounts in IUs basically, but that's not 100%). You also can't be sure you're not just eating coagulated sawdust, or worse straight up poison (if you think this is hyperbolic just google around). It's also likely (though the research on this is pretty fuzzy) there are lots of negative microbiome implications for switching from a varied diet to a diet of soy pancakes and multivitamins. This diet doesn't have enough of the various forms of fats (Omega 3/6/9s, not just sunflower oil). The only way to get here via supplement is to take them by the handful, which you shouldn't do, if only for cost reasons. This diet really only has half the fiber content you need (the RDA for which is arguably pretty low, i.e. if you were eating RDAs for leafy greens and whole grains you'd easily exceed it). Add that to your list of supplements. --- To totally argue against myself here, it might be hard to believe but I'm also open to the idea I've seen around that none of this stuff matters as much as research indicates, or at least we're missing something huge. The general idea is that humans have known basically nothing about nutrition for all of our existence--including right now--yet we have somehow thrived, so it seems like no matter what trash we jam into our digestive tracts our bodies find a way to make it work. This is obviously true up to a point, the question is up to what point exactly.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  You speak of food as a pleasure only to describe it as a chore. Food and nutrition do not require that much thought for the average breathing human. Your hominid ancestors figured it out already— without an app.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    Oh, yeah this probably got lost in my wall of text. I 100% agree with this; I might even say that all the fixation with it by people like me is a way of coping with general anxiety, or a brain that always needs something to do, or a person who was so consistently let down by the knowledge, traditions and ways of their people that they groped around wildly for any idea of how to feed themselves / live their lives.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  To be clear, I was not linking it for the specific dietary recommendations but rather the approach enabling one to - progressively - avail one’s self of more expensive upfront but cheaper-per-unit options.
  - camgunz 3y ago
    Haha fair, sorry to hijack. I do think strategic buying can be super advantageous, but it's hard to do that when you're also laboring under the mental load of being poor. But, yeah clear guides or maybe just less opportunity to buy junk (better regulations) would probably bear a lot of fruit here.

tryauuum 3y ago

what is this link? I only saw mailing lists, but this looks like a detached email

ComputerGuru 3y ago
That’s him posting to his own list. Think of it as an old-fashioned blog post.

camgunz 3y ago

I think this post generally is good, but the diet stuff triggered me. Some table setting here, I can't stand daily food prep, I've done a 100% Soylent phase, I've done a 100% eating out phase, I've written apps to balance macronutrient ratios and plan meals, and I've written apps to balance both macro and micronutrient ratios/amounts and plan meals. I now essentially throw random stuff into an Instant Pot and hope for the best. For almost everyone--and I hate to admit it but this group includes me--food is a core, irreplaceable pleasure. Even when just doing it alone, not even for social purposes. At this point, I'm receptive to arguments that it's the main thing that most people look forward to every day. You can set up all kinds of plans (read: diets) and tech to assist you in this experience, but I think if you live in the rich world, the primary goal of eating is to feel this pleasure, it is a major part of your pleasure life, and as a result these plans and this tech will only ever assist you in that endeavor. They will never be more than assistants, secondary to this goal. Next, micronutrients are best ingested in whole food form. Multivitamins are literally a supplement, they really shouldn't be your primary source of micronutrients; unless you're willing to do lots of research, you really shouldn't submit yourself wholly to their vicissitudes. Not only are there micronutrients that can't be combined because they interfere in each others' absorption (iron and calcium are the most infamous for this but there are others), but only some multivitamins will actually show you the amounts that your body absorbs in the first place, and you have to know how to look for that (look for amounts in IUs basically, but that's not 100%). You also can't be sure you're not just eating coagulated sawdust, or worse straight up poison (if you think this is hyperbolic just google around). It's also likely (though the research on this is pretty fuzzy) there are lots of negative microbiome implications for switching from a varied diet to a diet of soy pancakes and multivitamins. This diet doesn't have enough of the various forms of fats (Omega 3/6/9s, not just sunflower oil). The only way to get here via supplement is to take them by the handful, which you shouldn't do, if only for cost reasons. This diet really only has half the fiber content you need (the RDA for which is arguably pretty low, i.e. if you were eating RDAs for leafy greens and whole grains you'd easily exceed it). Add that to your list of supplements. --- To totally argue against myself here, it might be hard to believe but I'm also open to the idea I've seen around that none of this stuff matters as much as research indicates, or at least we're missing something huge. The general idea is that humans have known basically nothing about nutrition for all of our existence--including right now--yet we have somehow thrived, so it seems like no matter what trash we jam into our digestive tracts our bodies find a way to make it work. This is obviously true up to a point, the question is up to what point exactly.

nullindividual 3y ago
You speak of food as a pleasure only to describe it as a chore. Food and nutrition do not require that much thought for the average breathing human. Your hominid ancestors figured it out already— without an app.
- camgunz 3y ago
  Oh, yeah this probably got lost in my wall of text. I 100% agree with this; I might even say that all the fixation with it by people like me is a way of coping with general anxiety, or a brain that always needs something to do, or a person who was so consistently let down by the knowledge, traditions and ways of their people that they groped around wildly for any idea of how to feed themselves / live their lives.
ComputerGuru 3y ago
To be clear, I was not linking it for the specific dietary recommendations but rather the approach enabling one to - progressively - avail one’s self of more expensive upfront but cheaper-per-unit options.
- camgunz 3y ago
  Haha fair, sorry to hijack. I do think strategic buying can be super advantageous, but it's hard to do that when you're also laboring under the mental load of being poor. But, yeah clear guides or maybe just less opportunity to buy junk (better regulations) would probably bear a lot of fruit here.