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Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

There are a wide variety of heavily promoted dietary identities - from vegan to carnivore - but I'm convinced that in terms of one's health, eliminating these processed food items from one's diet is the one that has the most long-term benefits. The only downside is that relying only on 'real food' ingredients requires a fair amount of cooking, but the effort is well worth the payback.

There's no snappy one-word term for this dietary choice, maybe someone could come up with one.

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> There are a wide variety of heavily promoted dietary identities - from vegan to carnivore - but I'm convinced that in terms of one's health, eliminating these processed food items from one's diet is the one that has the most long-term benefits.

What has you convinced?

I wouldn't be surprised, but I'm curious if you're relying on anything more than intuition. I don't think intuition is worthless, for whatever it's worth. Seems like a pretty common-sense idea that non-fresh foods could have adverse effects.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's a major factor in increased rates of cancer, which is surely a combination of many mild factors that accumulate over a long period of time.

I believe a Whole-Food Diet is the term for a non-processed diet.

I've heard "Eat food. Not too much." as a slogan for this.

The full quote is:

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/18508-eat-food-not-too-much...

Incidentally, I think this is also why many extreme diets seem to have some evidence in favor of their health benefits. From where I'm standing, it seems like veganism/paleo/etc start being linked to various problems right around the time the agro industry starts cranking out specialized (read: highly-processed) products.

Relatedly: I'm taking bets regarding lab-grown meat.

Which direction are you betting on lab-grown meats?

I'm betting they go in the same direction as margarine.

Does Meati change your mind?

This startup is growing a specific species of fungus that is high protein and vitamin rich. I haven’t tried it but reviews so far are saying it cooks, tastes and feels like meat.

That's not exactly lab-grown meat. But to your question, it's hard to take bets on individual things, so I'll answer this way: I'll bet against anything lab-grown or highly processed (Meati included), and I expect to make money on average.

Time will tell :)

How is it highly processed? They are mass producing a naturally growing fungus, not unlike farming mushrooms. They seem to be adding some seasonings and sodium before packaging but thats not "processing" exactly.

It's transformed from its naturally-occurring aspect into something resembling the texture of meat. That is processing. I suspect that it's also a non-trivial amount of processing, but I could be wrong. Contrast this with grabbing a handful of chanterelles and putting them in a bag.

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