11 ms·

Because that would be utterly ludicrous? I enjoy a few small sweet things every day as part of a healthy diet. This harms nobody, me included. Much better to m

• Pooge 1y ago
  Natural sweet things are healthy (fruits are an example). Processed food where sugar was added to make it addictive is not. I would argue most pastries are not healthy but you can make them at home and remove 50% of the sugar if you really crave one. For salt, I disagree. Normal humans don't need to add salt to a varied diet. Table salt is completely unneeded but most think food tastes bland without salt because their taste buds have adjusted to it.
  • gmac 1y ago
    I like fruit. I like pastries. I eat plenty of fruit and the occasional small pastry. This is a perfectly healthy, balanced diet. Sure, I could choose to never eat pastries (or to eat pastries with half the sugar in), but the overall effect would be to lower my happiness. Your approach strikes me as the sort of dietary absolutism that is actively damaging to public health. The salt thing is a case in point. Perhaps it's theoretically true that we could all learn to enjoy our food with less salt. But this would be very hard, and I'm not convinced that an ordinary amount of salt is very damaging to health (except in the case of some specific health conditions that most people don't have). But many schools in the UK take your approach: kids get taught to cook meals with no added salt (and also the bare minimum of fat). Everything they make therefore tastes bland and tedious. The result? These kids don't learn to love cooking or home-cooked food. Instead, they learn that the way you eat food that tastes good is to order it from restaurants and fast food outlets. This is much more expensive and much less healthy than cooking at home using a reasonable amount of salt and fat, and it's a public health disaster.
    • lelele 1y ago
      I'm with you: salt and sugar are the scapegoats of a bad diet.
      • Pooge 1y ago
        Then, in your opinion, what qualifies as a bad diet? You just removed the two biggest factors.
        • lelele 1y ago
          A poor diet is typically one that includes *excessive* amounts of sugar or salt. I agreed with a comment that endorsed sugary foods as occasional treats and salt as a way to enhance flavor. Sugar and salt are inexpensive ingredients that make highly processed foods more appealing, often leading to over-consumption. This not only displaces more nutritious options but also contributes to their negative reputation and, over time, they have come to be seen as unhealthy in any amount. Sugar, in particular, is sometimes portrayed almost as a poison.
    • Pooge 1y ago
      It tastes bland because our taste buds have adjusted to our salt consumption. I eat with no added salt and my food tastes just fine since I adapted. Over-salting is one of the causes of the most common way of dying. I couldn't say for sure because I don't go to restaurants a lot anymore, but it's not rare to see people salting their dishes without even tasting them beforehand.
  • basilikum 1y ago
    Too much sugar is unhealthy regardless of its source. It doesn't matter whether it's "naturally" occuring in fruits or not. Drinking two liters of coke or two liters of orange juice will equally hurt you.
    • gmac 1y ago
      Well, the excess sugar will equally hurt you. But the orange juice gives you fibre, vitamins, etc. that the Coke doesn’t. So drink the orange juice.
    • deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
  • basilikum 1y ago
    > Table salt is completely unneeded but most think food tastes bland without salt because their taste buds have adjusted to it. Salt was extremely valuable and thought after before it was broadly available. People always liked salt because it makes things taste better. The amount is a matter of habit and too much salt is unhealthy, but the general principle stands: a little salt is and always was tasty and healthy.
    • Pooge 1y ago
      Your body does not need a lot of salt to function healthily. Sure it makes everything tastier, but salt added to every dish is a danger to your health. Where I live you would get almost all your daily recommended intake by your usual portion of bread. So, yes, salting your lunch or dinner will result in excess salt.