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Comment by TheAlchemist | Hacker News Reader

It's really simple - good food is food prepared by yourself from raw ingredients (some exceptions for pasta, bread etc - use whole grain). If you do that, you will be good - it's really hard to eat bad with food you prepare yourself. On the contrary, it's extremely hard to eat well with eating processed food.

I've traveled recently to US and the amount of shit food available was amazing. I've seen several small grocery shops without a single fresh veggie available. What a contrast with France (where I live) !

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I used to eat mainly processed to ultra-processed.

My neighbor came over for some of my famous no-packaging vegetable stew yesterday. She said she was overwhelmed with how delicious it tasted. I made two stews. Here are the ingredients:

Stew 1: Black beans, potatoes, cabbage, nutritional yeast, epizote, zucchini, water.

Stew 2: Split peas, chard, zucchini, nutritional yeast, water.

Both were topped with onion, nuts, cucumber, and nuts. Salt to taste.

The beans, peas, nuts, and salt were from bulk from my local coop (filling containers I brought). All other ingredients from my CSA or the local farmers market.

Maybe a quarter cup of scraps to compost. Zero to a landfill.

Dessert was nectarines that I couldn't help but say, "I can't believe anyone eats ice cream" they tasted so good. Appetizers were tomatoes from my CSA and greens from my windowsill garden.

Total cost: maybe $10 worth of food, enough to eat for 7 to 10 meals.

Now I eat like this all the time. Anyone in or around Manhattan interested in sampling, I'm easy to find. Email me and come over for some famous no-packaging vegetable stew. Especially mid to late summer when I have trouble keeping up with all the CSA vegetables.

If you are stew / soup fan and just getting into it. I cannot recommend a pressure cooker enough. Reduces cooking time by 60-80%.

Just throw in a load of veg and you can have pretty much a weeks worth of food to freeze ready in 10minutes incredibly cheaply.

If you also eat a lot of dried beans / lentils / chickpeas it is a godsend for how quickly it is ready and thoroughly cooked all the way through and dried beans at probably (here at least) 20% of the cost of tinned beans (even less if you buy in bulk).

Yes, my pressure cooker changed everything! I bought it used from Craigslist, not knowing what to expect.

My neighbor came over because she got a pressure cooker, heard of my reputation cooking with mine, and asked for a lesson. Here are reviews: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews.

While my public speaking is mostly on business leadership and entrepreneurship, I increasingly speak on sustainability and sometimes include making my famous no-packaging vegetable stews.

On Earth Day this year I cooked for about 2 dozen at Lululemon's flagship store on 5th Avenue and spoke on sustainability. Last year I cooked for 50 or 60 at Brooklyn North Farms for Faherty clothing, another time at Assemblage coworking space, and I forget where else.

Here's a video of me cooking: http://joshuaspodek.com/20-minute-vegetable-stew from about 3 years ago.

Those stews sound delicious. Any particular nuts, or just whatever's available?

Minor nit: the best nectarines are still worse than the best ice cream. ;-)

Whatever nuts I have on hand.

The nuts are the only fat I put in, which adds incredible texture and flavor, so I add them liberally. If I'm in a place where avocados grow, I'll use them, and they taste amazing.

I haven't eaten ice cream in years. I grew up eating tons of it and couldn't stop myself from always having some in my fridge through graduate school, maybe into my 40s, but I've lost the taste for foods where the main pleasure comes from added salt, sugar, or fat. There is a Van Leeuwen across the street from me, often with a line down the block, but it doesn't register as food for me. Meanwhile, I walk miles to pick mulberries, juneberries, raspberries, and blueberries, knowing where some grow wild, even after I've eaten pounds already. OMG, the burst of the fruit juice and all its flavor is like a religious experience.

Would adding lard be an acceptable fat to throw in?

I grew up on a farm, my grandma and my family in general never stopped using fats in recipes. I use it for making cornbread alllllll the time.

Quote from my late grandma: "Its almost impossible to use too much fat when cooking"

I've since learned how to use duck fat as well in French cuisine. It dramatically reduces how much sugar you need to use in recipes.

And have you ever made home made ice cream? Its waaaaaay better than the ice cream you buy in stores. Then again, we made it from fresh cow milk we milked that morning, my god do i miss that. The ice cream, the cows can go suck eggs. :)

I didn‘t know what the US-acronym CSA stands for. Looked it up and assume it’s Community Supported Agriculture?

Yes - kind of like the monthly boxes that were super popular a few years ago that would give you a grab bag offering for a monthly fee. I’ve also heard them referred to as co-op (short for cooperative). There are a few different types and ways that they work. Some ship to you and others you have to go pick up, the one I was a part of was affiliated with the local farmers market. The farmer who ran it would bring his goods to sell individually at the farmers market, but at the same time, you could pay a monthly fee to take home a selection of stuff that was in season. So instead of buying 3 tomatoes, 4 onions, or 5 apples individually from him, you would get a basket that had either 3 tomatoes and 4 onions or 3 tomatoes and 5 apples (your choice) that was cheaper than buying individually.

Ice cream is delicious. So are nectarines.

This! I have had the same realization last year.

I started cooking my own meals for the last year and my energy level is way up. Another thing that had a good effect is reducing a lot sugar and carbo hydrates (bread). I have grown up in France too and we are used to eating way too much bread.

Still, I havent figured out how to keep eating as healthy as home when I travel for a long time.

I had thought of targeting vegetarian restaurants as a proxy for healthy food.

We also started moving to a more home-cooked approach in the last couple of years. I'm trying to use boredom with the few dishes I know to drive me to learn more about cooking.

One "rule" is that we try to eliminate most things that requires freezing, canning or shelf-stable packaging. I've grown a much better understanding of what fruits and vegetables need to be used quickly vs those that can sit for a week or more and it's helped with meal planning and shopping. We shop more frequently, but stock up much less.

I've actually ended up enjoying the "multi-threaded" nature of cooking a nice meal. Learning how long each dish will take and planning my prep around that is actually an enjoyable challenge. Bonus if the outcome is tasty.

The goal wasn't necessarily to eat more healthily, just to eat more fresh. The side-effect is that you end-up eliminating tons of garbage from your diet anyways. Another interesting side-effect is that since we're starting with raw ingredients, we're finding that we're being much choosier about the quality we're selecting.

Ever since then we went with a pantry full of stuff and freezers packed with "heat-and-eat" premade food to a few cans, some dried seaweed and noodles and virtually empty freezers and a fridge that's packed full of vegetables.

> I'm trying to use boredom with the few dishes I know to drive me to learn more about cooking.

Start with a handful of recipes. Then add a new one to the mix each week. If it is a keeper, add it to the list of recipes. After you have about a months worth of recipes, organize them into menus (and save the shopping lists). Then you can start rotating menus. You will eat the same recipe once per month and it will not get boring as fast and you've save the shopping lists so the planning/shopping is much faster as well. Finally, once you have that in place, swap in a new recipe every now and then. If you like it, keep it in the rotation for a month, then swap the old recipe back in for a month. It make the burden of finding new recipes lighter and keeps things fun and fresh. Obviously, adjust the scheduling above to suit you, this is just an example.

> some exceptions for pasta, bread etc - use whole grain

Why should we use whole grain? They have more nutrients, but if your nutrient needs are met from other ingredients, what are the benefits of whole grain?

Fibers. They are good for your digestive system, and make you feel full for longer. So less craving for snacking.

Get your fiber from vegetables.

If it's naturally occurring in a food, and not in pill form, whats the difference between oat fiber and say, celery fiber?

I believe that in general(, the more fibre you get whilst eating the better. So sure if you are getting most of your fibre during other meals and are about to eat a sandwich. It is better to also have fibre during that eating session.

As with anything it is just general, but less processed / higher fibre / whole grain food is better and (subjectively) much tastier. After only eating higher whole grain food, going back to the more processed version, you realise just how lacking it is (opinion)

Get your fiber from a well-balanced diet.

More nutrients is a big benefit, but there's also more fiber and lower glycemic index.

It's outdated advice. The GI difference between white and whole wheat bread is negligible. It's also virtually impossible to find affordable, off-the-shelf bread loaves that don't have added sugar (in the US), it's ridiculous. The solution is to reduce/eliminate processed carb consumption.

Can't get off bread? At the very least, get a bread machine and make your own.

> It's also virtually impossible to find affordable, off-the-shelf bread loaves that don't have added sugar (in the US), it's ridiculous.

I'm not sure this is the case if you look. I live in the upper Midwest and we have many options to buy fresh (daily baked) at many locations around my metro. I just looked at their nutrition guide [0] for their breads and most of the standard, non-dessert breads (except "white") don't have added sugar and only a handful of whole ingredients.

I look at most labels these days and don't buy bread used for sandwiches or toast with sugar. I can't remember the last time I had an issue finding something. As for price I guess that's subjective but I don't find those breads much more expensive in general.

[0] http://breadsmithmn.com/nutrition.html

As a note, "sugar" isn't the only added sugar ingredient you'll find in bread, or really any packaged food. For instance, I read through the nutrition guide for Breadsmith's breads and rolls, 28 of their 44 offerings have some form of an added sugar (see: malt syrup, honey, granulated sugar, molasses). I wouldn't qualify that as "most" although it's certainly not slim pickings overall.

The label may not say "sugar" but it can be there in many different ways. See https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/56-different-names-for-..., one of the first results I came across that only lists a fraction of the possibilities.

Or find a grocer who sells 'pizza' dough which only contains flour, water, salt and yeast and make baguettes with that.

Though, I agree that one should make their own, it's really enjoyable.

Bread

500g flour 300g lukewarm water 10g salt 7g yeast

Put into large bowl. Mix. Cover. Wait 30 minutes. Knead. Cover. Wait 60-120 minutes. Knead. Shape. Wait 60-120 minutes. Preheat to 250C. Bake for 20 minutes. Let cool.

Total working time: about 20 minutes

For anyone not experienced with these steps, 20 minutes is really disingenuous. It'll be closer to an hour and even that is optimistic.

The whole modern city life is based on impatience and quick satisfaction. You shall buy flavour enhanced shitty premade food so you can do more. Obvious economic bonus right ?

Sorry this is BS, a city like NYC has many more healthy fast options than your average small city. The affluent neighborhoods have healthy grocery stores. The poorer parts of cities do lack good grocery options but this has little to do with impatience and quick satisfaction.

So things like Soylent and Beyond Meats are also quite processed.

They’re probably not as problematic as foods high on sugars, salt, fats and diverse fillers.

It's the case with all these products in the exploding nascent meat alternatives market. Being vegan doesn't automatically equate to healthy. These processed products have an exhausting list of ingredients.

Apple's have an exhausting list of ingredients. Thankfully we can just list "Apple".

Alpha-Linolenic-Acid, Asparagine, D-Categin, Isoqurctrin, Hyperoside, Ferulic-Acid, Farnesene, Neoxathin, Phosphatidyl-Choline, Reynoutrin, Sinapic-Acid, Caffeic-Acid, Chlorogenic-Acid, P-Hydroxy-Benzoic-Acid, P-Coumaric-Acid, Avicularin, Lutein, Quercitin, Rutin, Ursolic-Acid, Protocatechuic-Acid, Silver, Vitamin A, B1, B2, and B6, Niacin, Pantothenic acid, Folic acid, Vitamin C and Vitamin E, Calcium, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Pottassium, Selenium, Sodium, and Zinc. Lipids, saturated, unsaturated and monounsaturated fats, Tryptophan, Threonine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lycine, Methionine, Cystine, Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, Valine, Argenine, Histidine, Alanine, Aspartic Acid, Glutamic Acid, Glycine, Proline, and Serine. Trace amounts of Boron and Cobalt. Soluble and insoluble fiber (cellulose, pectin and lignin). Sugars of fructose and sucrose. Malic, tartaric, and citric acids. Tannins, Amygdaline, Cyanide.

False equivalence. Beyond Meat's burgers are carefully synthesized in a food lab. Apples have been around for millions of years (excluding the GMO part).

> So things like Soylent and Beyond Meats are also quite processed.

yes.

Eat real food. Mostly greens. Eat little. Eat often. The end

Good raw ingredients are also hard to get/expensive. If most stuff is artificially inflated/grown for productivity/financial gains, what can one do?

Examples: chicken grown in 6 weeks 23h/day in light with antibiotics & growth hormones, fruits & veggies with fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides and preservatives so it lasts longer. When only monetary incentives matter, this is what we get.

> Good raw ingredients are also hard to get/expensive.

In general good raw ingredients can have better taste, iow the price per taste is lower or better priced than processed foods. And as the most Western people don’t need the quantity, you could argue that Good raw ingredients are cheaper.

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