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"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." "That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we hu
by jcynix 8mo ago
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
"That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."
Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/ https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/
- virgildotcodes 8mo agoBut but but the influencers are telling me to put nothing but cheeseburgers and testosterone in my body and that just coincidentally reinforces with what I want to do anyway!
- XorNot 8mo agoI love how this gets presented as obvious advice, yet explains nothing and introduces an even less well defined thing it will do: "be maximally healthy".
- KempyKolibri 8mo agoIt's just a dietary heuristic, why would it have to explain everything? If you want that, just go and look at the literature on overweight and obesity or, say, substitution of animal protein for plant protein. It's all there.
- dwaite 8mo agoIt isn't a dietary heuristic, because there's little advice provided. The extreme is that it is advising people to seek treatment if they suffer from pica or bulimia.
- KempyKolibri 8mo agoBy heuristic, I just mean “a rule used in decision making”. Under that usage, the fact that the rule doesn’t provide fine-grained advice doesn’t disqualify it from being a heuristic. Eating mostly plants is a rule used in decision making when considering what to eat. > The extreme is that it is advising people to seek treatment if they suffer from pica or bulimia. How is that entailed?
- lm28469 8mo ago> "be maximally healthy". It's the bare minimum if you care about aging well, maximally healthy is a whole other thing
- jcynix 8mo agoThe whole article, if actually read, explains a lot. Not the least how we came from talking about "food" to talk about single ingredients instead. Which then are hailed as the "solution" for all of today's problems with nutrition. Until the next big thing comes along.
- lukan 8mo agoAlso, drink a lot of water or tea.
- n4r9 8mo agoAnd if you're British, tea on its own might do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTocYVghimE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTocYVghimE
- DarkNova6 8mo agoI am not sure we can take a slogan from 2007 as a state of the art understanding. But I am biased. I‘ve seen this slogan everywhere to promote UPFs that claim to be healthy because they are „vegan“. Now that the market for meat alternatives has collapsed I don’t see this reasoning anymore. What a strange coincidence.
- n4r9 8mo ago> the market for meat alternatives has collapsed What country are you reporting from? It seems to be absolutely booming in the UK. A brief internet search suggests it's growing and predicted to boom in the US as well.
- vanviegen 8mo agoYeah, though my Beyond Meat shares beg to differ on that. Down 95%!
- n4r9 8mo agoThat could be due to increasing competition? They had high brand awareness during the 2010s but (in the UK at least) we're seeing competitors like This and Alt, as well as cheap own-brand versions, coming onto the shelves in a big way.
- KempyKolibri 8mo agoUPF meat substitutes do tend to be healthier than their meat-based equivalent (see the SWAP-MEAT trial, for example).
- array_key_first 8mo agoI think people really underestimate how bad meat is for you. It's extremely high in saturated fat and lots of meat is carcinogenic. We classify bacon in the same category of carcinogen as alcohol and tobacco. Meaning, we know, for sure, it causes cancer.
- baxtr 8mo agoAdvice like this is right, in theory. Just like: Don't smoke, don't drink, work-out, take walks, spend time with your family and friends, don't work too much. Also, don't worry too much! All the real problems come in practice. Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a solid basis. However, 80% of success comes from applying these things in your messy life.
- hahahahhaah 8mo agoThe idea behind that phrase is not that is necessarily easy... but to decomplicate the other extreme where you are choosing this superfood and avoiding that other veg because it is "bad for you". It gives a simple heuristic for healthy living. It helps make it less daunting. For example what do I have for breakfast? Oh let's boil and egg amd grab a carrot and corn on the cob. Or whatever. What do I do in the supermarket? Meats, veg, bit of fruit maybe bit of dairy. Am I obessing over avacado vs. pear. Nope. Chicken vs. beef? No. Chocolate bar vs carrot? easy choice. Now probably once you get thay square you can do harder stuff like food reaction / allergy testing and so on.
- mapontosevenths 8mo agoPremature optimization is a thing in life AND in programming. Many folks make it far more complicated than it needs to be. I regularly see folks agonizing about every decision and new study, but the thing is.... the tips on OP's very basic list are responsible for like 80% of the value one gets from "living healthy". All the rest of the organic whole grain horseshit and panicking about microplastics MIGHT net you another 10%, but at double the cost to your happiness. The last 10% is basically impossible to achieve without completely sacrificing your quality of life.
- pousada 8mo agoRealistically who is avoiding a vegetable because “it is bad for you”? Never heard of that. Everyone knows that vegetables are good for you basically always. Superfoods are just the latest marketing fad
- 8mo ago
- throwaw111 8mo agoBut then why work? Lets assume everyone will follow your advice, then we all could work less, may be just 4 a day. If so, then why do not we change the work day to 4 h? It is not like all bad food, tobacco, etc will be gone, but we will not produce all that in such huge quantities.
- mapontosevenths 8mo ago"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?" - Douglas Adams Folks on HN are very much in the "Where" stage of life. No one here works 4 out of 8 hours just to pay for their food. Nobody should. That said, you very much seem to be missing the point. Ultra processed food is far, far cheaper than whole foods. That is one reason they are more popular. For example, it would cost me more just to buy the ingredients to make tacos at home than it does to go through a Taco Bell drive through and buy enough for the family already prepared. We're not going to be moving to four hour workdays by feeding people food that costs twice as much and takes longer to prepare.
- _heimdall 8mo agoMy brother and his wife began cooking pretty much every meal at home a couple years ago. Prior to that they ate out very regularly, especially once they had kids. They started cooking because feeding the family of 5 at McDonalds cost close to $80. There may have been a time where fast food was cheaper, but it seems we're past that. As far as Taco Bell goes, a single crunchy taco is $2.19 and their fancier ones are closer to $5. When I used to eat there I'd usually get 3 tacos and a drink, so I'd be into that today for something like $10-$11. I cook tacos at home regularly for cheaper, and with homemade tortillas and grass fed beef no less.
- koolba 8mo ago> They started cooking because feeding the family of 5 at McDonalds cost close to $80. How much would they eat from McDonald’s? And what size appetite are the kids? Fast food has definitely gone up in price, but if you’re spending $80 at McDonalds you’re either a glutton or you don’t know what to order. A “Big Mac Bundle Box” is $15-20 depending on region. It has two Big Macs, two Cheeseburgers, two fries, and a 10-piece nuggets. If three of the five are kids (vs say 16+ boys lifting weights), I’d be curious how two of those wouldn’t feed the entire family for $30-40. I’m not suggesting cooking at home is a bad thing nor that eating McD is a good one. But the details matter when you’re spending 2x more than it could be.
- fakedang 8mo agoAnd enjoy protein deficiency? Vegetarian India literally suffers from one of the highest rates of protein deficiency and stunted growth worldwide.
- mapontosevenths 8mo agoSource?
- sceptic123 8mo agoAre you ignoring the "mostly" in mostly plants?
- keybored 8mo agoUs Westerners could cut down on the starch, add more salad and greens and pretty easily meet this requirement I think. I don’t know if we need as much animal foodstuff as we consume but just doing that should be enough.
- ViktorRay 8mo agoThat isn’t because of being vegetarian but because of poverty.
- hombre_fatal 8mo agoThen eat protein-dense plant foods like tempeh and tofu.
- KempyKolibri 8mo agoEating mostly plants does not mean one has to have protein deficiency. Seitan, tofu, tempeh, TVP, etc etc. All plant based, all high protein.