I would argue that to be healthy you should exercise a reasonable amount and have some muscle rather than just being at a good weight. Gives you a stronger body, and helps your mental health (which Japan seems to struggle with).
Because maybe they have a different opinion than you? I grew up on potatoes (plain, cooked), too, but I like them a lot.
You have some weird unhealthy vendetta against potatoes going on here, judging by your other comments in this thread.
This is the funniest thing---I absolutely don't! I love mashed potatoes. I am just pointing out they are not the healthiest food. It's okay to like foods that are not healthy. I love cake for example. It's just weird to me how lots of people here seemingly convinced themselves that potatoes are super-healthy while the are actually carb bombs.
But you have a point, there was a study revealing that the red meat and fat consumption in Hong Kong was relatively high, and yet longevity ranks among the top of the world. It is a very walkable city.
I think it has to do with the fact that there’s zero marketing budget for a food sold for $1/kg and, like anything else, can be prepared in a healthy way or horribly unhealthy way.
Not the potato's fault, just the meals that surround it. Probably the only tradition potato prep that has a chance of being sort of healthy is mashed potatoes. Even then, those often get loaded up with milk, butter, and gravy.
Take rice on the opposite end. Just as unhealthy as potatoes yet a ton of traditional rice meals are super healthy.
Mash potatoes involve peeling them. That’s a waste of time and nutrients.
I feel like the worst parts of the US diet are not the staples or the meats or anything like that, it's all the additions - too much butter, ketchup, dressings, syrups, sauces, cheeses, added bread (crusts, buns and crumbs) etc. on everything. When your taste buds are nuked by this stuff all the time it's hard to appreciate subtle flavors.
I feel like I'm in some kind of twilight zone with fifteen HNers attacking me for saying a pretty much accepted truth about potatoes (that it is an extremely starch-rich vegetable that's fairly low in other nutrients). I don't understand the reason for this. Is everyone here on a potato diet?
You get obese from eating too many calories, source is irrelevant. Sugars and refined foods are dangerous because they are particularly addictive. But if you crave carbs, and think potatoes are a "healthy" way to satisfy that craving, you're very wrong.
If plane, you basically can’t over eat them. You be full quickly.
https://www.geeksaresexy.net/2013/02/05/poutinevilles-heart-...
do obese people burn more calories just by being fat or are you assuming that they are still getting fatter?
Felt Amazing after it. Was the most boring thing ever.
Obesity in the case of countries like the US is largely due to an excess of calories...maybe other stuff is bad for you but the evidence for that is kind of hard to demonstrate when there is so much obesity. I feel like this is kind of why there are problems with obesity. People lose their mind over stuff like bread and soda, and not overall calories.
But it is also true that if you tried to sell those products in PL, consumers wouldn't have it. Eastern Europeans tend to be very knowledgeable about the origins of food in a way that UK or US consumers aren't. The difference between bread in PL and the West being the example I hear most about.
That said, yes they'll lack some nutrients if that's what you were getting at. Some mixed veg would be a good idea.
Then you say "however they're often consumed with excess fat" --- yes that's the only way they can be reasonably consumed because they taste like powdered chalk.
Potatoes are typically boiled for a long time before eating. Boiling destroys vitamin C and many others as well. Now maybe boiling is not how you do consume potatoes but that's how most people consume them.
On par with meat, pulses, legumes, vegetables, fruit. Compare for yourself, it's not hard to find: https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetabl...
> Certainly not to any green leafy vegetable you find on a supermarket shelf.
Yes, those too. They all have different profiles. Generally leafy green vegetables are NOT high in everything at once. They're high in vitamin K and C. That's not terribly unique - many plant foods share this characteristic.
Add to the fact, green vegetables are not as satiating as potatoes. The soluble fiber tends to be fermented quickly. They fulfill a different purpose.
> Boiling destroys vitamin C and many others as well.
Huge overstatement. We generally cook our vegetables as well, a good portion of the vitamins stay intact. In fact cooking increases bio-availability. It doesn't really matter that there is some loss in the process.
> Now maybe boiling is not how you do consume potatoes but that's how most people consume them.
I don't know where you get this idea. I roast potatoes, but all the same cooking in hot water is a gentler cooking method.
All of which to say, discounting potatoes entirely owing to some notion of a poor nutrient profile is absurd.
For context, corn chips are over 60% carbs. Vegetables (even "bad" ones with less protein and more carbs) are actually often kinda healthy.
> In general terms fresh potatoes contain ~20% dry matter (DM) of which 60–80% is starch
That's 60-80% by dry weight. I assure you that the types of potatoes eaten in Eastern Europe contain approximately 109% starch by dry weight.
Ultimately all causes of obesity must be mediated by changes in food consumption behavior or metabolic rate. Very few things alter the metabolic rate; it's relevant to many medical conditions and widely studied. So we're left with foods that affect food consumption patterns.
Really, when we talk about foods that cause obesity, we're talking about foods that undermine the normal psychological function of hunger, either by not making you full, making you eat when you're not hungry, or making you continue to eat beyond fullness. Many processed foods are specifically tested, re-tested and optimized to increase these kinds of effects because it generates profits and there's no law against it (yet). There are no traditional diets that can make people fat as effectively as Doritos, for basically the same reason that there are no traditional medicines that treat myelogenous leukemia as well as imatinib.