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> meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term There's a simple and intuitive answer, and I am st

> meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term There's a simple and intuitive answer, and I am still surprised that even rational people are conditioned to dismiss it (as I used to be). What are you made of? Animal flesh provides exactly all the nutrients required for your own flesh, in exactly the perfectly balanced proportion. Just think about it for a second. So, the simple answer is just fatty meat. As a good extra, you can use some liver/kidneys, a good idea is to also throw in some cartilage and skin into your ground meat for perfect nutrients balance. Eggs/fish/cheese for variability. Imagine the careful measured portioning and chemical purification required to collect necessary nutrients from soy and vegetable stems — to make them right for building and sustaining your own animal flesh. Imagine how many things we didn't know 50 years ago about what nutrients are required for our flesh, and how many non-obvious things we will discover in the next 50 years from now, which would completely re-define best practices for synthetic vegetable food many times.

throwaway290 2y ago
I reject this line of reasoning because by it the best meal is other humans. If you accept that eating other animals is OK and eating fellow humans is bad then you are halfway to the next step, where eating fellow animals is bad and eating non-animals is OK. Just be smart about your diet. Call yourself sapiens not for nothin'!
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  To continue this, the next step is eating fellow life is bad and eating non-life is OK. Just use an Instagram filter to recolour your face away from grey.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    Define life;)
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Tricky! I'll go for "Anything your gut is meant to digest that isn't classed as a vitamin."
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        Cool! So unless you think your gut is meant to digest conscious beings that feel pain your previous comment is just empty trolling right?
        robertlagrant 2y ago
        It's meant to digest anything it can digest. Morally I would disagree with someone who says "eat anything but conscious beings" because that would include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        > It's meant to digest anything it can digest. So you think your gut is meant to digest human flesh? Fun worldview > eat anything but conscious beings "conscious" here means "possessing consciousness" not "conscious right now". > include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead The point is we eat what we think is acceptable to eat not just any random thing we can digest. Because we have some norms about what is OK to eat. Most norms say eating humans (dead or alive) is bad. Other norms say eating animals is also bad. QED.
- raincole 2y ago
  There is no logic in GP. It's just typical bioscience.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    I think you misspelled "broscience"!
    - raincole 2y ago
      I did. Ironically it made the whole comment the opposite of what I meant to say.
- nlitened 2y ago
  > Just be smart about your diet The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term" The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals". Of course, one can be "smart" about their diet, spend a lot of time on carefully balancing vegetables, fruit, grains and tofu, while also making sure to consume proper blend of vitamin and mineral pills and doing regular blood tests. BUT that's far from a "single meal", far from "easy" and "simple", and consumes a lot of time and mental capacity which many humans might not have a luxury to allocate in order to be fellows with farm animals, I think.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    > The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term" > The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals". Stop right there. This is playing switcharoo. You devised a hypothesis that elegantly goes like "healthiest simplest diet is what is closest to your own body". (And that you used as a justification to eat other animals) But hey I guess the closest to your body is other humans. So seeing as you now backtrack and are not suggesting humans eat humans, thankfully you understand that the original question implies some norms about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to eat even if it is contains all you need. Now you just need to see why growing numbers of people think about eating not only fellow humans but fellow animals who are conscious, feel pain and suffer, especially the ones who grow up for consumption and suffer entire life tortured as unacceptable and you're all set. In addition there is another "little problem" with your argument and that is that humans don't eat through by absorbing stuff like some sort of amoeba. It goes through complex digestive process that extracts some stuff from other stuff. And a bunch of stuff a human body can/should synthesize. Remember healthy eating is also NOT getting stuff you don't need and synthesize. And if you find the closest thing to what's in your body, that'll be a whole lotta stuff you do not need. So no "just pick what's the same as your body" is not the most "simple healthy meal". On more than one level. It's just an excuse to justify a existing taste for meat.
    - hombre_fatal 2y ago
woodruffw 2y ago
It occurs to me that this “exactly balanced proportion” argument doesn’t explain how animals turn vegetables into the meat you crave. The argument would dictate that cows should be fed meat, which regresses into absurdity. Most people should probably cook their own food, avoid most ultra-processed foods (twinkies, not flour) and eat a healthy balance of food types.
- nlitened 2y ago
  Cows have huge digestive system, and chew all day long — to be able to extract nutrients from plants. You, as a human, probably have more productive uses of your day. I'm not saying that you shouldn't eat veggies. I am just saying that staying long-term healthy on a vegan diet seems to me much more complicated than just eating meat. Of course, eating a single product all the time is unhealthy, no matter what product — every living organism requires variance.
  - woodruffw 2y ago
    > You, as a human, probably have more productive uses of your day. Much like a cow, I don't think about my digestive system -- I let the parasympathetic system take care of that :-) > Of course, eating a single product all the time is unhealthy, no matter what product — every living organism requires variance. This is a very different statement than "the simple answer is just fatty meat," which is what you originally claimed.
    - nlitened 2y ago
      > This is a very different statement than "the simple answer is just fatty meat," which is what you originally claimed. It's a different statement, but it's not contradictory. Simple answer is: eat fatty meat. Complex answer is: just like everything in this universe, it depends on many factors, and no single answer is correct in every single context - but eating fatty meat will get you 90% where you want to be for 10% of effort.
  - smegger001 2y ago
    We could look at the diet of the species most closely related to us chimps which is mostly fruit nuts, tuberous roots, insects, and opportunisticly meat (about 2%). You could bump the meat up a few percent to avoid bugs or add more nuts/legumes and acheive a healthy diet.
hombre_fatal 2y ago
This is a hypothesis, but it doesn't bear out in human out come research no matter how popular it might be on social media. No "perfect meal" would be high in saturated fat. Animal flesh also doesn't contain all of the nutrients. Just plug 2000 calories of steak into Cronometer.com and look.
- nlitened 2y ago
  What's wrong with saturated fats though? You're probably thinking of the same debunked papers which said that sugary cereals are the healthy way to start your day
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago
    Well, instead of getting into that, the simpler debunk is that fatty meat only gives you a fraction of your daily nutrition. Even when you add in eggs and dairy. But only in diet camps (usually "carnivore"/"keto" camps) on social media do people tell you that research on saturated fats is debunked because it condemns the foods they wish to eat. We know that, for example, saturated fat increases apoB concentration in the blood which is independently causal in atherosclerosis. We have converging lines of metaanalyses that show this connection which is why reducing saturated fat and LDL cholesterol are unanimous guidelines, not social media fringe positions. ;)
    - nlitened 2y ago
      > the simpler debunk is that fatty meat only gives you a fraction of your daily nutrition I have tried the hyped-up "carnivore" diet myself for over 1.5 years and counting (started at a tender age of 35), with different levels of strictness (diary/no diary, no cheat days / once a month / twice a month / once a week), while doing blood tests every month. My wife thought I would die, but I was curious whether I would die, or how quickly my health would deteriorate. Happy to report that you're wrong (based of my own anecdata), and not only fatty meat (even without diary) does provide enough nutrients and energy, but it noticeably _improves_ the blood work results and _lowers_ blood cholesterol. > apoB concentration in the blood which is independently causal in atherosclerosis I am pretty sure you're unintentionally mixing up 'causal' and 'correlated'. Correlation is not causation. For example, atherosclerosis might be causal in in increased apoB concentration, or something else completely might be causal in both atherosclerosis and increased apoB concentration, but apoB concentration by itself could be independent from atherosclerosis, or even inverse causal. > We have converging lines of metaanalyses that show this connection which is why reducing saturated fat is a unanimous guideline. If you're a US resident, I'd like to let you know that your newly elected administration is allegedly going to change the unanimous guidelines soon. Not saying whether it's a good or bad thing, just that your argument from authority is much weaker in our discussion than you think it is.
bobro 2y ago
This doesn’t pass a basic sniff test. We mostly don’t eat food to replace our physical form. We mostly eat food to fuel the processes of our physical form. Big difference. Like trying to put steel, rubber, and plastic into a car’s gas tank.
- nlitened 2y ago
  If cars were constantly 3d-printing themselves from the inside to replace every single part with a new one every day (as living multi-cellular organisms do), I'm pretty for them consuming other running cars as a source materials would be best (as cars would contain the necessary rubber and steel in proportions that are perfect for cars). You don't even need to consume fuel separately — your car would re-cycle fuel from the consumed car's tank — sorry for continuing your metaphor.
  - bobro 2y ago
    After I posted, I wished I hadn’t added the car metaphor. You’re right that it doesn’t map to the body well. That said, it’s still true that most of what food is doing is fueling activity and not replacing parts of the body. Carbs work really well.
    - nlitened 2y ago
      Carbs do work well as a powerful supplement, but as a single source of nutrients, animals are the best. You can healthily live for years just consuming cow parts (see "carnivore diet" — it works for most). If one just eat potatoes or some other single plant, most are likely to lose their health in the long run.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
anonzzzies 2y ago
Another commenter already said it; closest to you is other humans, so simple, eat other humans.
- nlitened 2y ago
  Obviously don't do that for two obvious reasons (which I am highlighting just to be technically correct and to entertain ourselves): 1) Socially, not good idea. We are social creatures, and want to be accepted as a part of healthy group of our own species. 2) Eating your own kind more likely to transmit diseases, so less healthy. Also cows and sheep have 99.99% same chemical composition as you, you don't really need to go that far, and any additional benefits (if any) are below statistical noise, but two downsides above are huge.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
    Yeah, but you have to go all the way to a farm to find cows and sheep. People are right next door, ready to be eaten.

throwaway290 2y ago

I reject this line of reasoning because by it the best meal is other humans. If you accept that eating other animals is OK and eating fellow humans is bad then you are halfway to the next step, where eating fellow animals is bad and eating non-animals is OK. Just be smart about your diet. Call yourself sapiens not for nothin'!

robertlagrant 2y ago
To continue this, the next step is eating fellow life is bad and eating non-life is OK. Just use an Instagram filter to recolour your face away from grey.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Define life;)
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Tricky! I'll go for "Anything your gut is meant to digest that isn't classed as a vitamin."
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      Cool! So unless you think your gut is meant to digest conscious beings that feel pain your previous comment is just empty trolling right?
      - robertlagrant 2y ago
        It's meant to digest anything it can digest. Morally I would disagree with someone who says "eat anything but conscious beings" because that would include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead.
        throwaway290 2y ago
        > It's meant to digest anything it can digest. So you think your gut is meant to digest human flesh? Fun worldview > eat anything but conscious beings "conscious" here means "possessing consciousness" not "conscious right now". > include eating people who are asleep or passed out, or dead The point is we eat what we think is acceptable to eat not just any random thing we can digest. Because we have some norms about what is OK to eat. Most norms say eating humans (dead or alive) is bad. Other norms say eating animals is also bad. QED.
raincole 2y ago
There is no logic in GP. It's just typical bioscience.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  I think you misspelled "broscience"!
  - raincole 2y ago
    I did. Ironically it made the whole comment the opposite of what I meant to say.
nlitened 2y ago
> Just be smart about your diet The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term" The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals". Of course, one can be "smart" about their diet, spend a lot of time on carefully balancing vegetables, fruit, grains and tofu, while also making sure to consume proper blend of vitamin and mineral pills and doing regular blood tests. BUT that's far from a "single meal", far from "easy" and "simple", and consumes a lot of time and mental capacity which many humans might not have a luxury to allocate in order to be fellows with farm animals, I think.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  > The original question was about a "meal that provides all the essential nutrients the average person needs to stay healthy over the long term" > The simplest, easiest, and the most correct answer is "just eat animals". Stop right there. This is playing switcharoo. You devised a hypothesis that elegantly goes like "healthiest simplest diet is what is closest to your own body". (And that you used as a justification to eat other animals) But hey I guess the closest to your body is other humans. So seeing as you now backtrack and are not suggesting humans eat humans, thankfully you understand that the original question implies some norms about what is acceptable and what is unacceptable to eat even if it is contains all you need. Now you just need to see why growing numbers of people think about eating not only fellow humans but fellow animals who are conscious, feel pain and suffer, especially the ones who grow up for consumption and suffer entire life tortured as unacceptable and you're all set. In addition there is another "little problem" with your argument and that is that humans don't eat through by absorbing stuff like some sort of amoeba. It goes through complex digestive process that extracts some stuff from other stuff. And a bunch of stuff a human body can/should synthesize. Remember healthy eating is also NOT getting stuff you don't need and synthesize. And if you find the closest thing to what's in your body, that'll be a whole lotta stuff you do not need. So no "just pick what's the same as your body" is not the most "simple healthy meal". On more than one level. It's just an excuse to justify a existing taste for meat.
  - hombre_fatal 2y ago

woodruffw 2y ago

It occurs to me that this “exactly balanced proportion” argument doesn’t explain how animals turn vegetables into the meat you crave. The argument would dictate that cows should be fed meat, which regresses into absurdity. Most people should probably cook their own food, avoid most ultra-processed foods (twinkies, not flour) and eat a healthy balance of food types.

nlitened 2y ago
Cows have huge digestive system, and chew all day long — to be able to extract nutrients from plants. You, as a human, probably have more productive uses of your day. I'm not saying that you shouldn't eat veggies. I am just saying that staying long-term healthy on a vegan diet seems to me much more complicated than just eating meat. Of course, eating a single product all the time is unhealthy, no matter what product — every living organism requires variance.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  > You, as a human, probably have more productive uses of your day. Much like a cow, I don't think about my digestive system -- I let the parasympathetic system take care of that :-) > Of course, eating a single product all the time is unhealthy, no matter what product — every living organism requires variance. This is a very different statement than "the simple answer is just fatty meat," which is what you originally claimed.
  - nlitened 2y ago
    > This is a very different statement than "the simple answer is just fatty meat," which is what you originally claimed. It's a different statement, but it's not contradictory. Simple answer is: eat fatty meat. Complex answer is: just like everything in this universe, it depends on many factors, and no single answer is correct in every single context - but eating fatty meat will get you 90% where you want to be for 10% of effort.
- smegger001 2y ago
  We could look at the diet of the species most closely related to us chimps which is mostly fruit nuts, tuberous roots, insects, and opportunisticly meat (about 2%). You could bump the meat up a few percent to avoid bugs or add more nuts/legumes and acheive a healthy diet.

hombre_fatal 2y ago

This is a hypothesis, but it doesn't bear out in human out come research no matter how popular it might be on social media. No "perfect meal" would be high in saturated fat. Animal flesh also doesn't contain all of the nutrients. Just plug 2000 calories of steak into Cronometer.com and look.

nlitened 2y ago
What's wrong with saturated fats though? You're probably thinking of the same debunked papers which said that sugary cereals are the healthy way to start your day
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- hombre_fatal 2y ago
  Well, instead of getting into that, the simpler debunk is that fatty meat only gives you a fraction of your daily nutrition. Even when you add in eggs and dairy. But only in diet camps (usually "carnivore"/"keto" camps) on social media do people tell you that research on saturated fats is debunked because it condemns the foods they wish to eat. We know that, for example, saturated fat increases apoB concentration in the blood which is independently causal in atherosclerosis. We have converging lines of metaanalyses that show this connection which is why reducing saturated fat and LDL cholesterol are unanimous guidelines, not social media fringe positions. ;)
  - nlitened 2y ago
    > the simpler debunk is that fatty meat only gives you a fraction of your daily nutrition I have tried the hyped-up "carnivore" diet myself for over 1.5 years and counting (started at a tender age of 35), with different levels of strictness (diary/no diary, no cheat days / once a month / twice a month / once a week), while doing blood tests every month. My wife thought I would die, but I was curious whether I would die, or how quickly my health would deteriorate. Happy to report that you're wrong (based of my own anecdata), and not only fatty meat (even without diary) does provide enough nutrients and energy, but it noticeably _improves_ the blood work results and _lowers_ blood cholesterol. > apoB concentration in the blood which is independently causal in atherosclerosis I am pretty sure you're unintentionally mixing up 'causal' and 'correlated'. Correlation is not causation. For example, atherosclerosis might be causal in in increased apoB concentration, or something else completely might be causal in both atherosclerosis and increased apoB concentration, but apoB concentration by itself could be independent from atherosclerosis, or even inverse causal. > We have converging lines of metaanalyses that show this connection which is why reducing saturated fat is a unanimous guideline. If you're a US resident, I'd like to let you know that your newly elected administration is allegedly going to change the unanimous guidelines soon. Not saying whether it's a good or bad thing, just that your argument from authority is much weaker in our discussion than you think it is.

bobro 2y ago

This doesn’t pass a basic sniff test. We mostly don’t eat food to replace our physical form. We mostly eat food to fuel the processes of our physical form. Big difference. Like trying to put steel, rubber, and plastic into a car’s gas tank.

nlitened 2y ago
If cars were constantly 3d-printing themselves from the inside to replace every single part with a new one every day (as living multi-cellular organisms do), I'm pretty for them consuming other running cars as a source materials would be best (as cars would contain the necessary rubber and steel in proportions that are perfect for cars). You don't even need to consume fuel separately — your car would re-cycle fuel from the consumed car's tank — sorry for continuing your metaphor.
- bobro 2y ago
  After I posted, I wished I hadn’t added the car metaphor. You’re right that it doesn’t map to the body well. That said, it’s still true that most of what food is doing is fueling activity and not replacing parts of the body. Carbs work really well.
  - nlitened 2y ago
    Carbs do work well as a powerful supplement, but as a single source of nutrients, animals are the best. You can healthily live for years just consuming cow parts (see "carnivore diet" — it works for most). If one just eat potatoes or some other single plant, most are likely to lose their health in the long run.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

anonzzzies 2y ago

Another commenter already said it; closest to you is other humans, so simple, eat other humans.

nlitened 2y ago
Obviously don't do that for two obvious reasons (which I am highlighting just to be technically correct and to entertain ourselves): 1) Socially, not good idea. We are social creatures, and want to be accepted as a part of healthy group of our own species. 2) Eating your own kind more likely to transmit diseases, so less healthy. Also cows and sheep have 99.99% same chemical composition as you, you don't really need to go that far, and any additional benefits (if any) are below statistical noise, but two downsides above are huge.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y ago
  Yeah, but you have to go all the way to a farm to find cows and sheep. People are right next door, ready to be eaten.