7 ms·

I was just quoting Pollan yesterday, which is the quote right at the top of the article. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Succinct, doesn't alienate a

I was just quoting Pollan yesterday, which is the quote right at the top of the article. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Succinct, doesn't alienate anyone, or make a lot of rules, or shame you for doing the wrong thing. Don't complicate food. I own a fresh organic produce delivery outfit in the Seattle region, and we basically run our operations off what he explains in more words. The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is. It might not kill you, but it also won't help you.

milesward 1y ago
Uhm, this sounds yummie, I am in seattle, got a link?
- tobinfekkes 1y ago
  Hope you live north of downtown:) https://boxofgood.com https://boxofgood.com
criddell 1y ago
Are you talking about following a raw food diet?
- tobinfekkes 1y ago
  No. Whenever the word "diet" is used with regards to not eating "this" or only eating "that", something has already gone wrong. A "diet" is a voluntary restriction (well, usually after some involuntary event). But you only need to restrict foods with your brain by choice if you first disobey your body's needs. You should not drink Coke because it has WAY too much sugar and WAY too little of anything beneficial. If you tried to consume the amount of sugar in Coke by eating apples, you would be too full long before you get to Coke-level sugar intake. That's because of all the other stuff in an apple; it's not concentrated sugar. Your body is a wonderful thing. Respect it and listen to it, it will keep you healthy. That's literally its job, and it only knows how to repair and heal you. It will keep the things it needs, and discard the rest. You can't "over-consume" if you eat real foods. Your body won't let you; you'll get full and stop. You can only over-eat engineered foods, which over-saturate sugar|fat|carbs|salt|etc, which then necessitates a "diet".
  - criddell 1y ago
    > A "diet" is a voluntary restriction The word "diet" is not always about restriction. Surely you've heard people use the term "standard American diet" which doesn't have anything to do with restriction. I assume you are talking about a raw diet (not necessarily calorie restricted diet) because of your comment about minimizing steps between soil and mouth.
  - thwarted 1y ago
    This description of the word "diet" is overly simplistic and marketing centric. A diet is just the schedule (list) of foods consumed, as in "I have a terrible diet" or in "pandas exist on a diet of bamboo shoots and leaves". This term is overloaded in areas like the weight-loss industry to refer to voluntary limited intake, but it's still a diet as in an enumerated schedule of specific foods. "Going on a diet" is often used in the context of specific health goals as distinct from the normal "diet". There's an episode of Mad Men where they are coming up with pitches for weight loss products and losing weight is referred to as "reducing", a term from before the word "diet" was used as you've described.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    You would be full eating three medium-sized apples (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/apples https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/apples ; https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/coca-cola/coca-cola-classic-(12-oz) https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/coca-cola/coca-... ), with (by my back of the envelope calculation) not much more total volume than the can of Coke? Would this be longer lasting than the bloated feeling from the carbonation? Have you tested this?
- drjasonharrison 1y ago
  Uh, no? Taking plants from the soil, or fruits from the tree/vine, and trimming, washing, cutting, and cooking are typically considered steps that are unavoidable for some plants. The difference between a baked potato, potato chips, and Pringles is what we're talking about. The oil used for potato chips (and Pringles) originated from plants, but it has undergone several steps from plant to container of oil.
  - vladvasiliu 1y ago
    Aren't chips blown to smithereens and then reconstructed with the help of all those random ingredients? I think this is what "ultra-processed" means and what differentiates these foods from getting your bag of potatoes and frying them at home. I don't know about Pringles / Lays &c, but I've never seen two potatoes of the same size and shape in a bag, so there must be some way they manage to get all their chips to look the same.
    - badc0ffee 1y ago
      Pringles are reconstituted from powdered potato - which should be obvious as they're all the the same size and shape, and have a weird texture. Lays and nearly every other brand are just thinner versions of potato chips you could make yourself at home (cut thin, fry in oil, dress in salt). Nothing "blown to smithereens" there.
      - AStonesThrow 1y ago
        Pringles also contain corn, rice, and wheat. https://www.pringles.com/en-us/products/pringles-the-original-product.html https://www.pringles.com/en-us/products/pringles-the-origina... Lay's Classic contain only potatoes, currently with a grab-bag of oils: https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/Product?formula=LBS000005404&form=RTE&size=8 https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/Product?formula=LBS... The most "basic" mass-produced snack food award goes to: Fritos! https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/product?formula=LBS000001474&form=RTE&size=9.25 https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/product?formula=LBS... (US formulations only. Your gas station may vary.)
schmidtleonard 1y ago
"Not too much" and "mostly plants" are good, but trying to redefine food is a bit wacky, once you learn that that's his game. I'm not even against the idea that processed food is often bad and should always be treated with skepticism, but naturalism as a foundational principle is just way too exploitable. I called "companies are going to start marketing sugar as a natural alternative to low-calorie sweeteners" a decade before I saw it in grocery stores and I would like to pre-register my prediction that tobacco products will soon come back as "natural alternatives to vapes" in the not too distant future.
- testing22321 1y ago
  > trying to redefine food is a bit wacky No, it’s incredibly simple and makes sense. Coke are Doritos are not food, they are a science experiment designed for the express purpose of getting you hooked. They have virtually no health benefits and a ton of negatives. Nobody should ever put them into their body, or certainly as little as possible. Our “food” has changed more in 50 years than the preceding 500. Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much” and a massive number of health epidemics go away.
  - dr_dshiv 1y ago
    My 15 year old son is now taller than I am and most of his nutrition is not food. It’s horrid. I suspect this is why Dutch people are so tall. Mostly cheap processed food and hormones in the milk. Ymmv
    - s_m_t 1y ago
      The cognitive dissonance here is striking. A growing man needs a shit ton of calories to grow to their full potential. You might as well fill your caloric needs with "junk" food otherwise you will need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and eating "natural" food at a higher cost for the exact same effect.
      - 1y ago
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." GLP-1 has freed Americans from the burden of thinking about what they eat. The drug dictates their appetite now, and any old junk will fill the shrunken void.
- chermi 1y ago
  I thought it helped with cravings/addictive behavior. Which is the opposite of you're saying, if we're all accepting in this post that processed foods are designed to work on cravings and are addictive.
  - spondylosaurus 1y ago
    You're correct; they definitely make you less inclined to crave "junk," and more likely to feel a bit ill after eating it.
- paulpauper 1y ago
  not really. even with GLP-1 drugs, many people are still obese or overweight. individual response to this drug is extremely variable.
paulpauper 1y ago
Where people trip-up with plant-based diets is overdoing the butters, oils, humus, tofu, nuts, and legumes. Those things are often super calorie dense. You have to stick with mostly the leafy plants and keep oils and butters to a minimum.
croisillon 1y ago
yeah it's always funny how carnivorous need a lot of tiptoeing not to feel shamed for eating animals
- criddell 1y ago
  I think that’s covered by “The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is.” To me, that suggests they believe you should eat what the animal eats and skip eating the animal.
  - croisillon 1y ago
    nothing against my parent poster, it's just they mentioned "doesn't alienate anyone [...] or shame you for doing the wrong thing" which in my experience is necessary to get someone reasonable to think about their dietary habits
- mock-possum 1y ago
  It’s my understanding that carnivores are pretty rare among human populations
  - IAmBroom 1y ago
    To be fair, they said "carnivorous", not "carnivores". Omnivores are carnivorous.
dilap 1y ago
> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Who's going to spread the good word to the Maasai?
marbro 1y ago
[dead]

milesward 1y ago

Uhm, this sounds yummie, I am in seattle, got a link?

tobinfekkes 1y ago
Hope you live north of downtown:) https://boxofgood.com https://boxofgood.com

criddell 1y ago

Are you talking about following a raw food diet?

tobinfekkes 1y ago
No. Whenever the word "diet" is used with regards to not eating "this" or only eating "that", something has already gone wrong. A "diet" is a voluntary restriction (well, usually after some involuntary event). But you only need to restrict foods with your brain by choice if you first disobey your body's needs. You should not drink Coke because it has WAY too much sugar and WAY too little of anything beneficial. If you tried to consume the amount of sugar in Coke by eating apples, you would be too full long before you get to Coke-level sugar intake. That's because of all the other stuff in an apple; it's not concentrated sugar. Your body is a wonderful thing. Respect it and listen to it, it will keep you healthy. That's literally its job, and it only knows how to repair and heal you. It will keep the things it needs, and discard the rest. You can't "over-consume" if you eat real foods. Your body won't let you; you'll get full and stop. You can only over-eat engineered foods, which over-saturate sugar|fat|carbs|salt|etc, which then necessitates a "diet".
- criddell 1y ago
  > A "diet" is a voluntary restriction The word "diet" is not always about restriction. Surely you've heard people use the term "standard American diet" which doesn't have anything to do with restriction. I assume you are talking about a raw diet (not necessarily calorie restricted diet) because of your comment about minimizing steps between soil and mouth.
- thwarted 1y ago
  This description of the word "diet" is overly simplistic and marketing centric. A diet is just the schedule (list) of foods consumed, as in "I have a terrible diet" or in "pandas exist on a diet of bamboo shoots and leaves". This term is overloaded in areas like the weight-loss industry to refer to voluntary limited intake, but it's still a diet as in an enumerated schedule of specific foods. "Going on a diet" is often used in the context of specific health goals as distinct from the normal "diet". There's an episode of Mad Men where they are coming up with pitches for weight loss products and losing weight is referred to as "reducing", a term from before the word "diet" was used as you've described.
- zahlman 1y ago
  You would be full eating three medium-sized apples (https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/apples https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/usda/apples ; https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/coca-cola/coca-cola-classic-(12-oz) https://www.fatsecret.com/calories-nutrition/coca-cola/coca-... ), with (by my back of the envelope calculation) not much more total volume than the can of Coke? Would this be longer lasting than the bloated feeling from the carbonation? Have you tested this?
drjasonharrison 1y ago
Uh, no? Taking plants from the soil, or fruits from the tree/vine, and trimming, washing, cutting, and cooking are typically considered steps that are unavoidable for some plants. The difference between a baked potato, potato chips, and Pringles is what we're talking about. The oil used for potato chips (and Pringles) originated from plants, but it has undergone several steps from plant to container of oil.
- vladvasiliu 1y ago
  Aren't chips blown to smithereens and then reconstructed with the help of all those random ingredients? I think this is what "ultra-processed" means and what differentiates these foods from getting your bag of potatoes and frying them at home. I don't know about Pringles / Lays &c, but I've never seen two potatoes of the same size and shape in a bag, so there must be some way they manage to get all their chips to look the same.
  - badc0ffee 1y ago
    Pringles are reconstituted from powdered potato - which should be obvious as they're all the the same size and shape, and have a weird texture. Lays and nearly every other brand are just thinner versions of potato chips you could make yourself at home (cut thin, fry in oil, dress in salt). Nothing "blown to smithereens" there.
    - AStonesThrow 1y ago
      Pringles also contain corn, rice, and wheat. https://www.pringles.com/en-us/products/pringles-the-original-product.html https://www.pringles.com/en-us/products/pringles-the-origina... Lay's Classic contain only potatoes, currently with a grab-bag of oils: https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/Product?formula=LBS000005404&form=RTE&size=8 https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/Product?formula=LBS... The most "basic" mass-produced snack food award goes to: Fritos! https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/product?formula=LBS000001474&form=RTE&size=9.25 https://www.pepsicoproductfacts.com/Home/product?formula=LBS... (US formulations only. Your gas station may vary.)

schmidtleonard 1y ago

"Not too much" and "mostly plants" are good, but trying to redefine food is a bit wacky, once you learn that that's his game. I'm not even against the idea that processed food is often bad and should always be treated with skepticism, but naturalism as a foundational principle is just way too exploitable. I called "companies are going to start marketing sugar as a natural alternative to low-calorie sweeteners" a decade before I saw it in grocery stores and I would like to pre-register my prediction that tobacco products will soon come back as "natural alternatives to vapes" in the not too distant future.

testing22321 1y ago
> trying to redefine food is a bit wacky No, it’s incredibly simple and makes sense. Coke are Doritos are not food, they are a science experiment designed for the express purpose of getting you hooked. They have virtually no health benefits and a ton of negatives. Nobody should ever put them into their body, or certainly as little as possible. Our “food” has changed more in 50 years than the preceding 500. Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much” and a massive number of health epidemics go away.
- dr_dshiv 1y ago
  My 15 year old son is now taller than I am and most of his nutrition is not food. It’s horrid. I suspect this is why Dutch people are so tall. Mostly cheap processed food and hormones in the milk. Ymmv
  - s_m_t 1y ago
    The cognitive dissonance here is striking. A growing man needs a shit ton of calories to grow to their full potential. You might as well fill your caloric needs with "junk" food otherwise you will need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and eating "natural" food at a higher cost for the exact same effect.
    - 1y ago

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." GLP-1 has freed Americans from the burden of thinking about what they eat. The drug dictates their appetite now, and any old junk will fill the shrunken void.

chermi 1y ago
I thought it helped with cravings/addictive behavior. Which is the opposite of you're saying, if we're all accepting in this post that processed foods are designed to work on cravings and are addictive.
- spondylosaurus 1y ago
  You're correct; they definitely make you less inclined to crave "junk," and more likely to feel a bit ill after eating it.
paulpauper 1y ago
not really. even with GLP-1 drugs, many people are still obese or overweight. individual response to this drug is extremely variable.

paulpauper 1y ago

Where people trip-up with plant-based diets is overdoing the butters, oils, humus, tofu, nuts, and legumes. Those things are often super calorie dense. You have to stick with mostly the leafy plants and keep oils and butters to a minimum.

croisillon 1y ago

yeah it's always funny how carnivorous need a lot of tiptoeing not to feel shamed for eating animals

criddell 1y ago
I think that’s covered by “The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is.” To me, that suggests they believe you should eat what the animal eats and skip eating the animal.
- croisillon 1y ago
  nothing against my parent poster, it's just they mentioned "doesn't alienate anyone [...] or shame you for doing the wrong thing" which in my experience is necessary to get someone reasonable to think about their dietary habits
mock-possum 1y ago
It’s my understanding that carnivores are pretty rare among human populations
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  To be fair, they said "carnivorous", not "carnivores". Omnivores are carnivorous.

dilap 1y ago

> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Who's going to spread the good word to the Maasai?

marbro 1y ago

[dead]