Do you think in general the low fat diet advice is outdated?

[Lady Florida.]

Not all fats are created equal. Not all carbs are created equal. So both general low-fat and general low-carb advice are out dated. I never jumped on either bandwagon to begin with and I'm glad I didn't.

 

Also, many things (not all as the saying goes) in moderation are fine.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Lady Florida.

[Lady Florida.]

My ped told me I needed to give one DS something because he doesn't like cheese and He! Must! Have! Calcium!. I tried to explain how much yogurt, sour cream, hardy greens and bone broth he eats, so he's getting lots of calcium, for sure.

 

Nope! She said I should give him nesquik or milkshakes every other day. "the good thing about the nesquik is it has vitamins added." I rolled my eyes so hard that the earth shook, pretty sure.

 

 

This reminds me.  Growing up I do recall my mother going crazy buying cheese and making me eat it.  Must have been the "calcium" talk the pediatrician gave.

 

Growing up I was given chocolate milk to drink on a regular basis! Imagine all that sugar. That was back when it was believed kids needed milk ("It does a body good") to grow strong bones, and I hate the taste of white milk*. The only way my mother could get me to drink milk was if it was chocolate, and she thought it was essential that I get milk in me.

 

I found out years later as an adult that some of my cousins were jealous of me at family gatherings. I got chocolate milk and they didn't. For them it was an occasional treat and they hated that I got to have it while they didn't. 

 

*White milk even smells disgusting to me. I often have to have dh or ds smell it to tell me if it's still good. To me it always smells like it's gone bad.

[Liz CA]

It's been a roller coaster ride from low fat, no fat to the right fats.

This makes it difficult for mere mortals like me to decide but I am eating butter from grass-fed cows (Kerrygold) and loving it. I also eat raw cheese. I use olive oil and coconut oil and that's it. I like other foods, like fermented veggies and homemade sourdough bread as well.

I am currently not overweight. My cholesterol is above 150 and my naturopath and I don't really care.

I do take a boatload of supplements because I am getting older every day and I like to feel good/functional as long as I can.

If a doc suggested a low fat diet to me I would largely disregard it and keep doing what I am doing because I feel pretty good most days.

[hornblower]

No, I don't. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

 

 

Growing up I was given chocolate milk to drink on a regular basis! Imagine all that sugar. That was back when it was believed kids needed milk ("It does a body good") to grow strong bones, and I hate the taste of white milk*. The only way my mother could get me to drink milk was if it was chocolate, and she thought it was essential that I get milk in me.

 

I found out years later as an adult that some of my cousins were jealous of me at family gatherings. I got chocolate milk and they didn't. For them it was an occasional treat and they hated that I got to have it while they didn't. 

 

*White milk even smells disgusting to me. I often have to have dh or ds smell it to tell me if it's still good. To me it always smells like it's gone bad.

 

Chocolate milk was very popular when I was growing up.  We had to order which milk we wanted for lunch everyday and probably 95% of the class ordered chocolate.  I never liked it and I think the reason was it was low fat milk and I hate low fat milk!  So I drank the regular.  Now I think they don't serve the regular.  No clue if they still do chocolate. 

But yeah really apparently the sugar content didn't matter.  That was completely negated by the calcium. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Not all fats are created equal. Not all carbs are created equal. So both general low-fat and general low-carb advice are out dated. I never jumped on either bandwagon to begin with and I'm glad I didn't.

 

Also, many things (not all as the saying goes) in moderation are fine.

 

This is very confusing advice though.  "Many things in moderation."  That is what my sister was told by a dietician.  So you know she can have 1/2 a cup of rice...it's only a little...with the small cup of no fat sugary yogurt...container is small...with one slice of toast...ya know because it's one slice and not two.  And you'd think this would all be balanced all by other things..no no no.  This is the daily pattern of "moderation". 

[Tanaqui]

Oh, geez, milk and calcium. People are crazy on that subject. And this transcends politics! People who are convinced that the government is lying about fluoride and lying about vaccines and lying about 9/11 will religiously drink milk because "What about the Got Milk ads?" If you point out that those were paid for by the dairy industry they say "Oh, I thought the FDA put those out." Since when do you care about the FDA!? Apparently, since the subject is milk.

 

(Those who don't think the government is lying on every subject are just as prone to this sort of thing, mind, but at least they aren't being bafflingly inconsistent.)

 

As far as I'm concerned, the most good with these diets comes in the early stages. Everybody says "No carbs!" so they stop eating cookies and potato chips, or they say "No fat!" and they decide not to eat ice cream and potato chips. Except people want to eat those foods, so sooner or later companies make products that are a lot like those foods and everybody rejoices. "I can eat healthy and still have all my favorite snacks all the time!"

 

Well, no, you can't.

[kiana]

As far as I'm concerned, the most good with these diets comes in the early stages. Everybody says "No carbs!" so they stop eating cookies and potato chips, or they say "No fat!" and they decide not to eat ice cream and potato chips. Except people want to eat those foods, so sooner or later companies make products that are a lot like those foods and everybody rejoices. "I can eat healthy and still have all my favorite snacks all the time!"

 

Well, no, you can't.

 

Yes. 

 

In addition to what you said, there's also the adaptation period where you've cut out all of your old stuff and haven't quite figured out what is 'permissible' and what is not, so you're eating less by default. 

 

Or you've switched to lchf and it's filling you up so much that you are eating a lot less. But as you continue and become more adapted, it's really easy to increase intake again.

[SamanthaCarter]

I don't mean for certain very specific conditions, but would you think a doctor is rather outdated if they kept repeating the "eat low fat" and "cut out fat" stuff? 

 

I don't listen anyway.  If anything when they say eat low fat I make sure to go home and eat some more fat.  The doc I had mentioned low fat a few times and I figured eh well, some doctors just say this stuff.  So I went out and bought more bacon, got a big tub of coconut oil, and loaded up on butter.  Because I think the low fat stuff is BUNK. 

 

But then I thought, I dunno, am I just crazy (probably anyway), or is her advice just super duper outdated? 

 

Either way I felt like she was just reading from the medical check list from the Stone Ages. 

 

And BTW, for anyone following my health nuttiness, I'm feeling pretty darn good lately.  Lot of my weird symptoms are gone or have subsided considerably.  I'm not constantly sore.  Maybe it's all that extra fat.  :lol:

 

It wouldn't do a whole lot for my confidence in the doctor. I feel like doctors know more about meds and what they do and what procedures are needed for what - more than they know how to dispense advice about healthy lifestyle though. 

 

Over the past few years I haven't heard much at all about diet from our doctors. Probably because we are generally healthy. But the most I've heard are questions like "are you eating good regular meals?" or "stay away from junk foods." Can't get much more general than that. DH got some bad advice from the NP at his work when his triglycerides came in high on his health insurance bloodwork. We did what we thought best and brought it down to a third what it was before. <snicker>

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yes. 

 

In addition to what you said, there's also the adaptation period where you've cut out all of your old stuff and haven't quite figured out what is 'permissible' and what is not, so you're eating less by default. 

 

Or you've switched to lchf and it's filling you up so much that you are eating a lot less. But as you continue and become more adapted, it's really easy to increase intake again.

 

The difficulty is doing it in the real world.  We live in a high sugar high carb world.  And they start us off young.  What's on the menu for the school breakfast?  Grab and Go Cocoa puffs breakfast pack, skim milk, and a fruit.  This according to the government is healthy because they are the ones who have set the standards and created the guidelines for the school menu.  And the food is free to all students so sure how many parents aren't going to take them up on that?  Free food....balanced per government guidelines (they tell me this is healthy). 

 

I even have to read the labels on frozen vegetables so I don't accidentally buy one with added sugar.  There are frozen vegetables out there that contain added sugar!

[SparklyUnicorn]

It wouldn't do a whole lot for my confidence in the doctor. I feel like doctors know more about meds and what they do and what procedures are needed for what - more than they know how to dispense advice about healthy lifestyle though. 

 

Over the past few years I haven't heard much at all about diet from our doctors. Probably because we are generally healthy. But the most I've heard are questions like "are you eating good regular meals?" or "stay away from junk foods." Can't get much more general than that. DH got some bad advice from the NP at his work when his triglycerides came in high on his health insurance bloodwork. We did what we thought best and brought it down to a third what it was before. <snicker>

 

gotta love that....

[HS Mom in NC]

Out dated or not, I think there's evidence it's not true.  Whether it's not universally or it's not individually true is less settled, I think.
I don't think we really have adequate studies long term on diet and nutrition that includes long term tracking, very large groups and meticulous adherence to sound methodology that isolates important factors. 

I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually found out different people respond differently to the same diet. 

I think the thing that has been clearly proven is that most of us are not getting enough low impact, regular, full range of motion exercise.

Edited November 29, 2016 by Homeschool Mom in AZ

[Selkie]

Yes, it is outdated and incorrect, IMO.

 

I have read that the low fat mania started back in the 60's when Harvard researchers were paid a bribe by the sugar industry and published a fake study claiming that fat causes heart disease instead of sugar.

[hornblower]

I just keep coming back to the horrific stat that more than 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. People are spending too much time arguing about whether to cut sugar or fat and not enough time actually cutting something and getting out to exercise. 

And no, the low fat diet push didn't cause the obesity. What caused the obesity is that people kept consuming increasingly more calories. 

"Americans on average eat nearly 2,600 calories a day, almost 500 more than they did 30 years ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."   Eating way too much of everything is the problem. 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

I just keep coming back to the horrific stat that more than 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. People are spending too much time arguing about whether to cut sugar or fat and not enough time actually cutting something and getting out to exercise. 

 

And no, the low fat diet push didn't cause the obesity. What caused the obesity is that people kept consuming increasingly more calories. 

 

"Americans on average eat nearly 2,600 calories a day, almost 500 more than they did 30 years ago, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture."   Eating way too much of everything is the problem. 

 

 

 

But you don't know what has caused them to eat more calories.  Or at least you have not offered an explanation.  Could it be that feeling hungry all the time (due to not eating food that satiates and raises blood sugar) causes people to eat more?  I don't think that is an unreasonable idea.  With the decrease in fat came a major increase in sugar added to everything.  And we have been taught to be afraid of fat far more than anything else. 

 

As an example, I saw a commercial for a new cottage cheese product.  They were talking about hey remember when cottage cheese was "the" diet food.  Well now we have improved it!  You know how?  By increasing the amount of sugar in it!  Plain full fat cottage cheese has nearly no sugar.  To make up for the lack of taste in the new fat free version they have blended it more and added fruit.  So the nearly 0 grams of sugar is now 11 grams (depending on flavor).  So once again they took a fairly satisfying food product and made it into a sugary product that raises blood sugar more. 

 

Or is the cause lack of self control, morals, brain cells?  Everyone is just too stupid and careless?  I find this really really hard to believe.  It's not exactly pleasant to be overweight when you consider people aren't very nice about.  It's practically one of the last things anyone can be obnoxious about without being called an "ist". 

Edited November 29, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[hornblower]

I think it's easy availability of caloricly dense & insanely cheap foods. 
 

"The two food groups Americans are eating more and more of — added fats and oils, and flour and cereal products — are the same ones found in most processed and fast foods.

 

“It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly it’s increased,†said Jeanine Bentley, the social science analyst responsible for the USDA’s food availability database. “But it probably comes from an increase in processed and fast foods.â€

 

A 2013 study by USDA’s Economic Research Service seems to confirm her suspicion. Between 1977 and 1978, fast food accounted for just more than 3 percent of calories in the U.S. diet; between 2005 and 2008, that share skyrocketed to over 13 percent."

Sorry, just realized my prev post didn't have the citation. It's a WaPo column but it's reprinted in another paper; references USDA data. http://health.heraldtribune.com/2014/07/15/americans-calorie-intake-increased-years/

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

I think it's easy availability of caloricly dense & insanely cheap foods. 

 

"The two food groups Americans are eating more and more of — added fats and oils, and flour and cereal products — are the same ones found in most processed and fast foods.

 

“It’s hard to pinpoint why exactly it’s increased,†said Jeanine Bentley, the social science analyst responsible for the USDA’s food availability database. “But it probably comes from an increase in processed and fast foods.â€

 

A 2013 study by USDA’s Economic Research Service seems to confirm her suspicion. Between 1977 and 1978, fast food accounted for just more than 3 percent of calories in the U.S. diet; between 2005 and 2008, that share skyrocketed to over 13 percent."

 

Sorry, just realized my prev post didn't have the citation. It's a WaPo column but it's reprinted in another paper; references USDA data. http://health.heraldtribune.com/2014/07/15/americans-calorie-intake-increased-years/

 

This stuff is pushed on us.  They feed this crap early on to school children even.  Cocoa Puffs.  Why Cocoa Puffs?

[Guest]

That's another one I'm confused by. People use the term healthy fats, but that does not mean the same thing to everyone.

It really should mean 'not crisco' :lol:

 

I always want to send people some presentations on lipids and metabolism and then smile magnanimously while removing the partially hydrogenated soybean oil from their hands ;)

 

Stable saturated animal fats are good. Slightly less stable unsaturated fats, especially not overheated, are good, including palm kernel oil and coconut oil. Rancid, delicate and easily over processed, or mutated fats?

Edited November 29, 2016 by Arctic Mama

[TravelingChris]

I don't agree with just saying low fat is going to make you lose weight.  I don't do low fat but don't do high fat either.  I read a book on how the initial studies proclaiming the greatness of low fat diets were bad studies and all the other studies that showed that fat isn't the problem (or at least not for most people).  Its just like the recommendation for low salt but the death rates for low salt are worse than for higher levels of salt.  The death rates of moderately overweight people are lower than the normal weight people.  Lots of the recommendations are outdated.  I did attend a talk by a dietitian and she gave inaccurate information.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Eh then sometimes I think, who cares.  Where am I headed anyway?  The same place everyone else is headed.  Dead...and unrecognizable. 

 

 

[kiana]

I think it's easy availability of caloricly dense & insanely cheap foods. 

 

"The two food groups Americans are eating more and more of — added fats and oils, and flour and cereal products — are the same ones found in most processed and fast foods.

 

And food like this has teams of scientists designing it specifically to make it so that most people can't stop eating them.

[SparklyUnicorn]

And food like this has teams of scientists designing it specifically to make it so that most people can't stop eating them.

 

Yes I learned this recently.  Stunning and it makes me angry.

[regentrude]

But you don't know what has caused them to eat more calories.  

 

My money is on the rise of highly processed convenience foods (aka junk) and cars (or, more precisely, a car centered society)

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[SparklyUnicorn]

My money is on the rise of highly processed convenience foods (aka junk) and cars.

 

definitely the junk and what is worse is a lot of this junk is considered healthy....and we aren't talking just the obvious stuff like soda and candy...

[regentrude]

definitely the junk and what is worse is a lot of this junk is considered healthy....and we aren't talking just the obvious stuff like soda and candy...

 

but it is still voluntary to consume this stuff. Nobody has to. (ETA: unless one is so poor that one does not have other options)

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[Guest]

Eh then sometimes I think, who cares. Where am I headed anyway? The same place everyone else is headed. Dead...and unrecognizable.

My goal is to make it there with a very high quality of life and fast drop off, so much as I can help it. I have just watched too many people spend half their life on medications, increasingly sick and debilitated and unable to enjoy the time they have been given. It's a stewardship issue for me - to take care of the body I have been given to the best of my ability and for my sake and my family.

 

But yeah, I'm not staving off mortality in general, or even aging specifically. Just doing what I can to make my time be best used. That includes not going crazy obsessive the other direction! No craziness, just what can be done with the time and budget I have that my body responds to best, even if it isn't the tastiest.

[hornblower]

 The death rates of moderately overweight people are lower than the normal weight people.

 

That got a lot of press - mostly because I think it's something we want to believe. But I think the evidence is not there. 

 

from Chair of Epidemiology & Nutrition at Harvard 

 

Does being overweight really decrease mortality? No!

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2013/01/09/ask-the-expert-does-being-overweight-really-decrease-mortality-no/

[frugalmamatx]

but it is still voluntary to consume this stuff. Nobody has to.

 

Unless you are poor and relying on food pantries to eat or to stretch the dollars you have for food. As someone who HAS been in this position recently, it is a terrible choice - go hungry because everything you were given was junk or eat the junk knowing it will make your health problems worse. I have had some weeks were EVERY SINGLE ITEM was either a processed grain or just pure sugar. No meat, no produce, not even rice. Just bread, pasta, cookies and soda. And our food bank is one that prides itself on health initiatives and the amounts of healthy foods given out. I don't know where they are giving these out, but it sure isn't my local site!

 

 

I don't agree with just saying low fat is going to make you lose weight.  I don't do low fat but don't do high fat either.  I read a book on how the initial studies proclaiming the greatness of low fat diets were bad studies and all the other studies that showed that fat isn't the problem (or at least not for most people).  Its just like the recommendation for low salt but the death rates for low salt are worse than for higher levels of salt.  The death rates of moderately overweight people are lower than the normal weight people.  Lots of the recommendations are outdated.  I did attend a talk by a dietitian and she gave inaccurate information.

 

I fully agree about the weight recommendations being off - my recommended high "healthy" weight is 145. The lowest I have ever been was 180 and I looked like a concentration camp victim {people actually thought I had cancer or AIDS because I looked so unhealthy}. I'm losing weight now but I will probably stop around 175 or so. BMI was developed by an insurance saleman, so I don't have much faith in it :)

[Greta]

I think that the science that the low-fat diet was based on was shaky at best, and that there was a lot of politics that went into that decision as well.  Denise Minger's Death by Food Pyramid is a good read, if you're interested in the history of how low-fat became the thing.

 

My understanding is that people have lived healthfully on a HUGE variety of diets in different parts of the world.  Some were low-fat, some were very high-fat.  Some were heavily plant-based.  Some were almost exclusively animal-based.  Macronutrient ratios varied widely.  Basically:  people ate what they could find, and what they could find varied a great deal from culture to culture.  And yet people were healthy, on all of these diets!

 

But the one thing that all of these diets had in common is that they were based on whole, natural foods, not refined, processed, factory-made ones.  So that's where I try to concentrate most of my efforts.  I eat "nature made" carbs like whole grains, potatoes, and fruit, but I avoid factory-made ones like sugar and white flours.  I eat nature made fats too like olive oil and coconut oil, but I avoid chemically-extracted, bleached ones like canola, hydrogenated oils, etc.  I don't count any macronutrients, and I certainly don't count calories.  But I limit myself to three meals a day and no snacks, and I try to get a little bit of each macronutrient at each meal.  I have tried every diet under the sun, from vegan to keto.  Now I just focus on quality rather than quantities.  It works for me.  But YMMV   :001_smile:

[hornblower]

  And yet people were healthy, on all of these diets!

 

 

I was with you until that line. 

 

No, there was no magical time in which we were all healthy. 

 

Humans are marvelously adaptive to various environments and climates and diets. But evolution only cares for us to survive long enough to reproduce.  Living long can be arguably evolutionarily adaptive in that elders play important functional roles in most societies but I think it's easy to argue that their role is special *because* they were so unique. Few lived to old age. 

 

Archaeological digs indicate people were suffering arthritis, tumors etc. all through our history. 

[Greta]

I was with you until that line. 

 

No, there was no magical time in which we were all healthy. 

 

Humans are marvelously adaptive to various environments and climates and diets. But evolution only cares for us to survive long enough to reproduce.  Living long can be arguably evolutionarily adaptive in that elders play important functional roles in most societies but I think it's easy to argue that their role is special *because* they were so unique. Few lived to old age. 

 

Archaeological digs indicate people were suffering arthritis, tumors etc. all through our history. 

 

 

You're right, I exaggerated, and oversimplified.  There obviously have been populations of people that were not thriving.  I remember when I took an anthropology class on the native peoples of North America, we first talked about the earliest hunter-gatherer peoples who colonized this continent, and how their skeletal remains indicated that they lived very healthfully into their 70's and 80's, with few signs of arthritis.  But then when we got to the later peoples of the southern US who ate a heavily corn-based diet, the skeletal remains tell a very different story:  life expectancy dropped into the 30's or 40's, and people were frail and had arthritis by that time.  

 

So, yeah, let me re-state that.  :D  There have been healthy populations of humans who have eaten diets that range remarkably in terms of macronutrient content.  But that does not mean that every population of humans was healthy.

 

I apologize!

[SparklyUnicorn]

but it is still voluntary to consume this stuff. Nobody has to.

 

We are trained from a very early age to eat this stuff.  We are told it's healthy.  They serve Cocoa Puffs to school children.  This is the government's approved/recommended breakfast.

 

When I was a young kid I remember a dietician coming to the school to do a presentation on ideas for healthy snacks.  I was very impressed with one of them and promptly went home and wanted to make it.  She cored out an apple (threw the insides out btw), filled it with peanut butter, spread the peanut butter all over the apple, and then rolled it in Fruity Pebbles.  This, we were told was a health food.

[SparklyUnicorn]

My goal is to make it there with a very high quality of life and fast drop off, so much as I can help it. I have just watched too many people spend half their life on medications, increasingly sick and debilitated and unable to enjoy the time they have been given. It's a stewardship issue for me - to take care of the body I have been given to the best of my ability and for my sake and my family.

 

But yeah, I'm not staving off mortality in general, or even aging specifically. Just doing what I can to make my time be best used. That includes not going crazy obsessive the other direction! No craziness, just what can be done with the time and budget I have that my body responds to best, even if it isn't the tastiest.

 

Well yeah I want to FEEL good.  If I stop feeling good there is little reason to live beyond making sure my kids are ok. 

 

Otherwise, I see no good reason to try.

[Greta]

That got a lot of press - mostly because I think it's something we want to believe. But I think the evidence is not there. 

 

from Chair of Epidemiology & Nutrition at Harvard 

 

Does being overweight really decrease mortality? No!

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2013/01/09/ask-the-expert-does-being-overweight-really-decrease-mortality-no/

 

 

I vaguely remember a conversation on these boards about that study, but I never read this response to it.  That was really interesting, thanks for sharing!

 

One thing from it that really surprised me was when he said that BMI is just as useful as DEXA "in predicting obesity-related abnormalities".   :eek: I certainly never would have guessed that!  I thought BMI was generally considered pretty useless!

[SparklyUnicorn]

nothing decreases mortality really...

 

I do think though that a lot of it is luck (genetic luck that is). 

[regentrude]

We are trained from a very early age to eat this stuff.  We are told it's healthy.  They serve Cocoa Puffs to school children.  This is the government's approved/recommended breakfast.

 

One does not have to believe everything one is told. A little common sense goes  a long way.

Also, parents do not abdicate their responsibility for their children's nutrition to schools - even if a kid eats both breakfast and lunch at school, that is only 30% of the meals a child eats if we assume three meals a day. That leaves a lot of room to compensate for the cereal breakfast if the rest of the diet is healthy. 

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[regentrude]

That got a lot of press - mostly because I think it's something we want to believe. But I think the evidence is not there. 

 

from Chair of Epidemiology & Nutrition at Harvard 

 

Does being overweight really decrease mortality? No!

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2013/01/09/ask-the-expert-does-being-overweight-really-decrease-mortality-no/

 

From the article:

"As discussed above, the fundamental reason is that the authors did not adequately separate people who are lean because they are ill from those who lean because they are active and healthy.   This will inevitably lead to wrong conclusions about the effects of body weight on risk of premature death."

 

Medical studies tend to have a problem with correlation and causality. It is obvious that people who are of low weight because they are sick have a higher mortality rate. 

[regentrude]

Unless you are poor and relying on food pantries to eat or to stretch the dollars you have for food. As someone who HAS been in this position recently, it is a terrible choice - go hungry because everything you were given was junk or eat the junk knowing it will make your health problems worse. I have had some weeks were EVERY SINGLE ITEM was either a processed grain or just pure sugar. No meat, no produce, not even rice. Just bread, pasta, cookies and soda. And our food bank is one that prides itself on health initiatives and the amounts of healthy foods given out. I don't know where they are giving these out, but it sure isn't my local site!

 

Yes, I know, should have put in a disclaimer. I am sorry you had to deal with this.

However, there are plenty of people who would have the choice not to eat junk and do it anyway. The stuff is not produced so it can stock up food pantries - it's produced because people demand it.

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[SparklyUnicorn]

One does not have to believe everything one is told. A little common sense goes  a long way.

Also, parents do not abdicate their responsibility for their children's nutrition to schools - even if a kid eats both breakfast and lunch at school, that is only 30% of the meals a child eats if we assume three meals a day. That leaves a lot of room to compensate for the cereal breakfast if the rest of the diet is healthy. 

 

Right so you grow up with parents who buy into the BS and eat crap (although in large part don't have a lot of choice due to finances).  The schools feed crap and teach crap.  Crap is easy, cheap, and all around us.  Yet you think it's not understandable that people can't easily sort through that and not listen and follow suit? 

 

If my example of food was taught as "common sense" how great was that common sense?  KWIM?

 

I honestly do not know what is healthy.  I know some extreme examples of unhealthy (like living on soda and candy bars).  I am unsure about whether or not we really should be eating 300 grams of carbohydrates a day.  Or which fats are the healthy fats.  Some people say saturated fat is bad.  Some say soybean oil is bad (or good...it's cholesterol free after all).

 

And when I eat the govt. prescribed (and doctor prescribed) diet I'm left feeling miserable and starved.  So either my health is messed up or they are completely telling us BS (or both). 

[regentrude]

I honestly do not know what is healthy.  I know some extreme examples of unhealthy (like living on soda and candy bars).  I am unsure about whether or not we really should be eating 300 grams of carbohydrates a day.  Or which fats are the healthy fats.  Some people say saturated fat is bad.  Some say soybean oil is bad (or good...it's cholesterol free after all).

 

Maybe we need to obsess less about "healthy food" and just - eat, a wide variety of unprocessed foods, with everything in moderation. 

 

My grandmothers and great grandmother lived healthy productive lives into their nineties despite living through war, being refugees, enduring post war famine - they did not have the luxury of optimizing their diet. But they cooked almost every meal they ate in their own kitchens. 

I refuse to overthink.  There is a wide range of diets on which people can thrive. There is not one "healthy" diet.

If that weren't the case, humankind would have long since died out.

 

ETA: In your example, the apple was fine and the peanut butter was fine - and the fruit pebbles, my goodness, a little bit of unnecessary sugar. Still not a bad snack.

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[Tanaqui]

One does not have to believe everything one is told. A little common sense goes  a long way.

 

 

1. People generally like the sorts of foods they are familiar with. This has a strong bias towards the foods they ate as kids.

 

2. People generally will believe what they're told when the information is coming from trusted and respected authority figures - such as parents, schools, and doctors.

 

2a. Especially when they've been hearing the same message from childhood.

 

3. Many processed foods are engineered to be actually addictive. It's easy to say "oh, they don't have to eat it", but it's harder to do that when you WANT to eat these foods and you do NOT want to eat "health foods". (Especially if you don't really know how to cook, and you don't know if your kids will eat those foods, and you don't know how to keep them from going bad.)

 

4. Nutrition education is really, really scanty. I read an article once on food insecurity and health which I wish I could find again - one mother interviewed apparently felt fruit snacks for her diabetic daughter were just as good as fruit, because - well, it says "fruit"! Another thought orange soda was just as good as orange juice because the color was where the nutrients are. So people like these mothers look at a box of cereal, and they don't think "Gosh, cocoa puffs - that's basically cookies for breakfast". They think "Well, it says it's made with whole grains... and it has a lot of vitamins listed on the side... and it won't go bad! Anyway, I know the kids will eat this."

[SparklyUnicorn]

Maybe we need to obsess less about "healthy food" and just - eat, a wide variety of unprocessed foods, with everything in moderation. 

 

My grandmothers and great grandmother lived healthy productive lives into their nineties despite living through war, being refugees, enduring post war famine - they did not have the luxury of optimizing their diet. But they cooked almost every meal they ate in their own kitchens. 

I refuse to overthink.  There is a wide range of diets on which people can thrive. There is not one "healthy" diet.

If that weren't the case, humankind would have long since died out.

 

ETA: In your example, the apple was fine and the peanut butter was fine - and the fruit pebbles, my goodness, a little bit of unnecessary sugar. Still not a bad snack.

 

Lot of sugar in that snack.  If I eat too much sugar I feel like garbage and that's too much sugar for me.  Maybe not for everyone though. 

 

But the whole "everything in moderation".  What is moderation?  I do agree if you eat unprocessed foods it is easier to gauge this.  A good example of this is eating fruits verses drinking fruit smoothies (that don't incorporate most of the fiber in the fruit).  Harder to overeat whole fruits. 

 

Part of this too though is that a lot of these things taste terrible to someone who is not used to eating them.  When I drop carbs way down everything tastes very sweet to me (and I'm not even referring to fruits which I don't generally eat).  When high carb I only taste bitter.  I think this is also a reason people don't tend towards a piece of fruit or a vegetable verses a granola bar (which is in many people's minds a health food).  Sugar is addictive and to many people it always tastes the way it should. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

1. People generally like the sorts of foods they are familiar with. This has a strong bias towards the foods they ate as kids.

 

2. People generally will believe what they're told when the information is coming from trusted and respected authority figures - such as parents, schools, and doctors.

 

2a. Especially when they've been hearing the same message from childhood.

 

3. Many processed foods are engineered to be actually addictive. It's easy to say "oh, they don't have to eat it", but it's harder to do that when you WANT to eat these foods and you do NOT want to eat "health foods". (Especially if you don't really know how to cook, and you don't know if your kids will eat those foods, and you don't know how to keep them from going bad.)

 

4. Nutrition education is really, really scanty. I read an article once on food insecurity and health which I wish I could find again - one mother interviewed apparently felt fruit snacks for her diabetic daughter were just as good as fruit, because - well, it says "fruit"! Another thought orange soda was just as good as orange juice because the color was where the nutrients are. So people like these mothers look at a box of cereal, and they don't think "Gosh, cocoa puffs - that's basically cookies for breakfast". They think "Well, it says it's made with whole grains... and it has a lot of vitamins listed on the side... and it won't go bad! Anyway, I know the kids will eat this."

 

Yes.  it is an oversimplification to say well just don't believe everything you are told.  If every authority figure in your life is telling you the same thing because they themselves believe it (whether or not it is true, whether or not it has actually been proven to be true) then it's harder to tune that out.

 

Sure now that I'm and old bag I don't mind questioning everything.  And it's my body I can kill it with saturated fat and low carb if I want to.  But it goes against everything I've been taught for years and years.

 

 

[regentrude]

Yes.  it is an oversimplification to say well just don't believe everything you are told.  If every authority figure in your life is telling you the same thing because they themselves believe it (whether or not it is true, whether or not it has actually been proven to be true) then it's harder to tune that out.

 

Sure now that I'm and old bag I don't mind questioning everything.  And it's my body I can kill it with saturated fat and low carb if I want to.  But it goes against everything I've been taught for years and years.

 

I guess that's where having grown up in a totalitarian regime is an advantage: it teaches you to be suspicious of absolutely everything somebody in "authority" claims.

 

But even in the US, there are people who have not joined the processed food trend.

 

Btw, government never taught that you must eat highly processed convenience food - the food pyramid just gives guidelines for food groups. It reflect the composition of traditional diets in many areas; most people never had the luxury of eating a meat based diet with little carbs, because for most people, carbs were the only affordable food source to be the basis for their nutrition.

ETA: So, I can't really fault people for designing a guideline that is oriented on traditional diets that worked reasonably well for large numbers of people.

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[maize]

 The stuff is not produced so it can stock up food pantries - it's produced because people demand it.

 

I'm going to disagree with this and say that most of the stuff on our grocery store shelves is produced primarily to earn money for the companies that market it. Those same companies spend an awful lot of advertising money in order to drum up demand for their products.

 

It's good business. Profit margins for cold cereal tend to run 40% or more, much, much higher than the often negligible profit margins on lettuce or eggs.

Edited November 29, 2016 by maize

[regentrude]

I'm going to disagree with this and say that most of the stuff on our grocery store shelves is produced primarily to earn money for the companies that market it. Those same companies spend an awful lot of advertising money in order to drive up demand for their products.

 

Yes, but they could not market it if people were not eager to buy the stuff. So if people fall for the advertising and demand the product, it's still people wanting to eat this.

If people refused to buy it, shelves would not longer be full with the stuff.

Edited November 29, 2016 by regentrude

[Tanaqui]

But even in the US, there are people who have not joined the processed food trend.

 

Not many. Mostly, what you see is people who have decided to stop eating as much processed foods* as they used to, and who have had the time and ability to learn to make their own foods.

 

* I really feel we should define this term, because I don't think any of us is using it literally. Clearly we all agree Froot Loops are processed foods, and clearly we all agree that raw apples aren't - but what about applesauce with a little bit of honey added? Or artisan bread and butter? Or yogurt with maple syrup? Or a ham and cheese sandwich? Quite a lot of foods we eat have at some point been processed, and somewhere along that spectrum between a raw apple and Froot Loops we drew that line, but I'm not sure where it is in this conversation.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Tanaqui

[regentrude]

Not many. Mostly, what you see is people who have decided to stop eating as much processed foods* as they used to, and who have had the time and ability to learn to make their own foods.

 

Is that so? In my circle of friends, everybody cooks from scratch. That includes people from all financial backgrounds. 

And it is not actually that time consuming. Most people (again, yes, I realize there are the exceptions of people who work three jobs), do have enough time to cook. If the average American watches five hours of TV per day, she or he surely would have time to cook a simple meal.

Edited November 30, 2016 by regentrude

[regentrude]

* I really feel we should define this term, because I don't think any of us is using it literally. Clearly we all agree Froot Loops are processed foods, and clearly we all agree that raw apples aren't - but what about applesauce with a little bit of honey added? Or artisan bread and butter? Or yogurt with maple syrup? Or a ham and cheese sandwich? Quite a lot of foods we eat have at some point been processed, and somewhere along that spectrum between a raw apple and Froot Loops we drew that line, but I'm not sure where it is in this conversation.

 

Very good point.

Maybe when it contains additives, preservatives, colors? Almost every food is "processed" in some way, of course, but I think "highly processed" is something where most people have the same idea what that entails. 

 

And again, it is a question of dosage. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with fruit loops - they won't do damage as an occasional treat. Just like frozen pizza can be a valid option on occasion and won't harm anybody. Moderation, again.

Edited November 30, 2016 by regentrude

[Tanaqui]

Is that so? In my circle of friends, everybody cooks from scratch. That includes people from all financial backgrounds.

 

Cooking and cleaning up three meals a day is a minimum of 90 minutes of work, probably more. I love cooking, and I can never get dinner done in under 60 minutes unless all we're having is canned soup with store-bought bread.

 

And that time only works if you know how to cook. Many people simply do not, and they just don't know where to start. They also don't know how to manage their kitchens. I've literally had this conversation with other people more than a dozen times:

 

Them: I can't eat vegetarian, it's too expensive.

Me: Well, dried beans are pretty cheap.

Them: Dried beans? I can't buy those, I'd never use them all up and then they'd go bad!

Me: Dried beans don't exactly go bad...?