The Overton Window of Food | Hacker News Reader

The Overton Window of Food

think-twice.me

24 pointszug_zug25 comments

A few years ago, I began to try and make food at home, and to this end, I would shop organic. There was a farmers market chain near me, and I had grown up close to them, so I tried it out. And what I found was not a "health food store" but a store that was crammed with ultra-processed foods, sugary candy bars, quack supplements and health treatments, and even booze.

Sure, the market carries plenty of food that is wholesome and healthy, but it is a veritable mine-field to negotiate and pick out the good foods. It was also extremely difficult to find trustworthy brands, when they were all so unfamiliar to me--none of the big-name grocery-store brands were on the shelves (though many big names had already bought out the organic brands, behind the scenes).

So I tried a few other places, but I've settled on Trader Joe's. And that solves the brand problem in one fell swoop, because Trader Joe's simply rebrands every product for themselves. I'm not saying that TJ's doesn't have unhealthy foods on the shelves, but their selection and floor plan is small enough that I can swiftly find good-enough stuff and check out at the register, without feeling like I just navigated a mine field.

Going to the store and looking for a healthy breakfast cereal that isn't loaded with added sugars is actually not easy. Sometimes they'll have a few, but last time I looked at Kroger there didn't seem to be a single box of cereal in the main cereal aisle without them.

Apperently 92 percent of cereals come pre-loaded with added sugar. I just want something to fuel my workday in the morning that isn't bad for me. It doesn't even have to taste that good, its just breakfast.

I think "breakfast cereal" was invented and does not qualify as a good breakfast.

I liked the book "the glucose revolution" which explained blood sugar and how it all works.

hmm... the author has this page:

https://www.glucosegoddess.com/pages/savoury-breakfast-guide

you don't have to buy anything, just look at the graphs.

I think it’s overrated to control your glucose to be within a range and not have spikes. It leads to too much stress and anxiety in otherwise healthy people to think about controlling their glucose. Occasional spikes are fine. Spikes during/after exercise are fine. Elite athletes have large spikes during training too.

Also glucose response to food differs widely by person; generalities are probably correct but they also might not.

> That breakfast will also deregulate our glucose levels for the rest of the day, so our lunch and dinner in turn will create bigger spikes.

This is just not true.

> leads to too much stress and anxiety in otherwise healthy people to think about controlling their glucose

The idea that a healthy person who thinks about sugar becomes anxious seems less than completely hinged. I’m not sure you’re describing a real problem.

I had similar frustrations and switched to getting ingredients for muesli and assembling it myself. Super hearty, tasty, not processed, adaptable to your mood/tastes/nutritional needs and cheaper than store bought cereal. I assemble it on the spot, it doesn't take much time and is a nice little ritual but you can also pre mix it if you want something quicker.

> Kroger

> I just want something to fuel my workday in the morning that isn't bad for me. It doesn't even have to taste that good, its just breakfast.

https://www.kroger.com/p/bob-s-red-mill-gluten-free-quick-co...

Oats + salt + water is pretty easy.

What about oats and an assortment of nuts? These go pretty well with cold milk or hot water alike, and you can flavor any which way if desired. Or are oats in the US also "fortified" with sugar?

I like to buy raw pecans in bulk from Costco for cheap, lightly roast the nuts in the air fryer for several minutes, and then chop them and add them into the oats. Great delicate flavors and aromas that can't be replicated with shelf-stable ingredients. Maybe add a tiny bit of butter and some cinnamon. So good

Actually that's what I usually eat. But its a bit more work than opening a box and pouring out the contents.

I really just want to check the "morning nutrients" box without having to do a lot of bother, its something I really don't want to care about or pay attention to. I just want a very fast, convienient breakfast without added sugar and that's not available in a lot of stores, which is crazy.

I buy bob’s red mill muesli and eat it with milk. I don’t soak it or anything like that. I call it “horse food” but it is fast, nutritious, and satisfies the “breakfast cereal” craving.

A boiled egg with a bit of soy sauce and a banana. Preboil the eggs of you can't schedule your morning around boiling an egg.

Go to a better grocery store, perhaps one in a richer area. The Whole Foods next to me always has no-sugar-added cereals. Yes they taste awful; my instinct would tell me to rather skip a meal than have this cereal. But yes there are still customers that would buy them and they are still stocked. If this was sitting on a shelf of Walmart I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody buys it a second time.

Agreed. Cheerios and Rice Chex/Krispies are what I settled on for a while... not loaded, not zero, but minimal.

I like to dip 1/4 a bagel in my coffee in the morning. Holds me off until lunch. That or a couple eggs.

You can also just eat nothing in the morning. Hunger and feeling low energy in the morning without food is all about about being used to eating in the morning.

Even if you do like, hard labor? I do fabrication work in the morning, usually. Seems like carbs help.

Eggs stave off hunger SO well. When I'm gonna be on the road, the only breakfast that fits the bill is 3 or 4 eggs - no more overpriced stale barfy airport-style crap for me, thank you very much!

> But there isn’t enough outcry to remove the caffeine, which is only mildly addictive.

In Poland both Coca-Cola and recently Pepsi are available (even if not everywhere) in a caffeine-free option. I'm not aware of anyone pressuring them to do this, presumably this is what their market research told them, though.

> I think there’s an Overton Window of “food” and over the last century we’ve come to accept things that are predominantly just calories under the umbrella of “food.”

This doesn't make sense. Calories are food. Energy is the primary thing you need to eat food for. Yes you also need other things and eating too much calories is bad but that doesn't make things that are purely calories not food.

Also the refrain about soda being just sugar water misses the point. The water is the good part. The issue isn't that there aren't any fibers or whatever in there but that there is too much sugar per water.

One i hate is products that have statements ‘high in vitamins’ and then you read the ingredients and see they just added a crushed vitamin tablet.

Coca-Cola dismissed the allegations as "ridiculous," on the grounds that "no consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking Vitaminwater was a healthy beverage"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Brands#Legal_disputes

Is this supposed to be bad? Fortified foods have helped alleviate many nutritional issues like B12 and iron deficiencies. In both instances, supplementing can be the preferred form of ingestion compared to whole food sources:

- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29611716/ - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9268692/ - https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12681447/

I mean I've been seeing some cereals lately that say "high in protein", just for half of their estimated amount owing to milk you'd be presumably adding.

They've been slapping the "high protein" label on pretty much everything that (naturally) contains any protein at all here lately.

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