Simple Rules for Healthy Eating | Hacker News Reader

Simple Rules for Healthy Eating

nytimes.com

63 pointspo66 comments

I've always found the various debates, fads, and gimmicks related to healthy eating interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, the word "healthy" is problematic due to its ambiguity. It means very different things to different people. If you're overweight, then it means whatever helps you lose weight. If you have high blood pressure, it means whatever helps you fight high blood pressure. If you're a bodybuilder, it means whatever helps you build muscle and burn fat. If you're an athlete, it means whatever helps you perform the best. For many people, it means whatever helps them live the longest. Or feel the best. Or look the best. In other words, it depends on your goals. Given so much room for interpretation, it seems downright irresponsible for anyone to write an article about healthy eating without making explicit their particular definition of "healthy". But alas, it happens more often than not, and no one seems to notice or care.

Second, as far longevity and diseases go, diet is only one of many significant players. Among other things, our mortality is affected by our genes, macro and micro environments and exposure to various chemicals, exercise and physical fitness, medical treatment quality, stress, relationships, etc. It therefore stands to reason that there are diminishing returns to how your diet affects your life expectancy -- beyond a certain point, continuing to eat "healthier" will have a near-negligible effect on your health compared to other factors. And yet people remain obsessive about fine-tuning their diets based rumors and inconclusive studies, even as they continue to sit at stressful desk jobs for 9 hours a day in smog-filled cities. I wonder if it's because diet is (or, at least, seems) easier to control than competing factors? Or maybe it's that deliberately putting substances into our bodies all day every day is an intuitively health-related action?

I don't agree with your first point. "Healthy" eating in this article (and in general) is quite unambigious in that it refers to the avoidance of foods that have been shown (to varying degrees of ambiguity) to increase your risk of developing health problems. This has nothing to do with an athlete's (short term) goals to build muscle or run a certain distance. Your second point should be included as a disclaimer by anyone trying to sell us the latest health craze.

Or... just drink Soylent. Don't get me wrong - I like what has been told in this article. In my world, this is day to day eating. We all eat mostly unprocessed food - almost 95%, even at restaurants or when we eat out food's unprocessed but definitely contaminated ( food colors, pesticides etc ). Urban elites are moving towards processed food, but it'll take a really long time before processed food takes over - I really hope that day doesn't ever come.

However, it pains me to see that in the western world, you need to take an extra effort beyond your means just to eat right, and it's ridiculously expensive for a common man earning minimum wage to do that. So for scalable nutrition in this rapidly urbanizing world, Soylent and similar solutions are my only hope.

I am very tempted by Soylent, but one key issue for me is that you miss out on thousands and probably millions of compounds that you ingest when you eat a varied diet of whole foods. There's so much unknown about what our bodies really require. Likely if you eat mostly Soylent every day you will end with a deficiency of some unrecognized but vitally important nutrient.

Would the variety of diets around the world not make it pretty unlikely there is some unknown but vitally important to survival nutrient in what we already eat? No matter who you are you can be pretty certain most of the world eats very differently from you.

This is exactly how I feel about processed nutrition. We don't yet know what we don't know, so we think we have it all figured out. This is true for medicine as well, but the difference is we already have a solution that works in whole, unprocessed foods.

Yep, totally agree but Soylent is just getting started. In the next 10 - 15 years they may nail this.

Try some mealsquares :)

The problem with Soylent is the same issue that Michael Pollan notes in his writings: It's a substance designed for nutrients, it's not food. Food is what we eat, nutrients come with food.

Avoiding processed food should be what Cartman would call 'hippy nonsense'. Unfortunately, many food processors are interested in removing, expensive, nutritious food and replacing them with things that make us 'enjoy food', sugar, salt, and fats.

Unless processors can see the point in changing formula, for whatever reason, it's good, and simple, advice for those wanting to live healthily.

I have an issue with #7. I can't really enjoy food in company of others. It's like I need to focus on them instead of the taste and all of a sudden the food is gone. That's why I always eat alone.

Why am I allowed to process food in my own home, but not buy food already processed?

Because when you process the foods yourself you can control the processing and what you add. When you buy already processed, you generally can't. The corollary to this is that when you do buy pre-processed food, do so from people whom you trust to use essentially the same processing steps you would use if processing the food yourself.

Because industrially processed usually means something like "Split into base components, down to very basic chemicals, put back together in specific ratios"

It's like making synthetic foods, but by first taking the components out of natural foods so you can call them natural.

This is science fiction, we can't and aren't doing this.

where do we get doritos

Doritotrees?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIp_zhBIZ7s

That probably depends a lot on how you define "base components". I agree, splitting into molecules is science fiction. But I don't doubt that for milk, for instance, they separate it completely into fat, lactose, water, and other stuff. Then assemble them back together.

It's the easiest way to get 0%, 0.5%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% etc milk. I don't think you could do it without starting all of them from 0% milk. Especially considering you have to compensate the lack of taste from fat with extra lactose. And you can't use "added sugars" without raising major red flags with consumers.

So you use lactose. Because it's already in milk. And you don't have to say you've added it.

Source: my friend who studied food science.

This still is complete fabrication.

"I don't think you could do it without starting all of them from 0% milk" is not a valid basis for facts. I don't want to come across like a meanie, but no one cares whatever facts you make up in your mind using (pseudo) common sense. Milk production is very well documented and regulated.

Fairlife promotes that they do this:

http://fairlife.com/

I doubt it is cheaper than a measure and blend process would be, so I doubt the majority of milk is so heavily processed.

It could certainly be that some milk is being separated down to constituents and ingredients added back to other milk, but that would be to top off a blend, not the default process (because separation obviously costs more than doing nothing).

I think orange juice is the classic example.

But orange juice isn't healthy before or after processing, so the point is lost.

I am sorry but we can and we are doing this.

I encourage you to read "Swallow This: Serving Up the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets" by Joanna Blythman. Most food if not every food that comes in a cardboard box has been assembled from parts, often from various parts of the globe. Vitamins and antioxidants are added to every processed food, iron is added to breakfast cereals, flavourings are used to change your perception of the food, caramel is added to meat to give it a nice brown color, "natural" extracts are in fact extracted using solvents, of which traces can be left in the food, and there is no need to put it on any label, because solvents are processing aids.

It's really much worse than you think unfortunately.

Adding addictives is different from wholesale assembling foodstuff from basic chemicals, as was described by Swizec.

This, it is important to stay accurate on these topics and not succumb to mainstream media fear mongering.

This is actually where "natural flavors" comes from. They break natural products down to base chemicals, then combine those chemicals to produce flavors, scents and aromas.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-differ...

Yes, we do extract chemicals from all kinds of things. That still does not mean it is done with your tomato.

Which is why I was talking about natural vs artificial flavors in foods, and not basic vegetables. Not sure how my comment could have been interpreted as support for the previous poster's assertion that a hamburger was made from a stew of chemicals...

I wasn't contradicting you, tried to emphasize. Sorry english is not my first language :D

This is a common misconception. For example frozen vegetables from the supermarket have higher nutrient contents then from the farmers market because they get deep frozen so shortly after harvest.

Personally I don't buy into articles like this. The one and only tip I can personally give to eat healthy and well is "learn to cook yourself". No matter how high quality the restaurant where you are getting your food, you will be able to do it better at home for yourself.

For example frozen vegetables from the supermarket have higher nutrient contents then from the farmers market because they get deep frozen so shortly after harvest.

To a statistically significant degree?

Well to be specific it highly depends what we are looking at. As a simple example let's take Vitamin C in green beans.

One study I found mentions that after one week refrigerated beans lost 77% of their vitamin C versus blanched and then frozen beans lost 28%.

So in the case of Vitamin C it's highly significant. There are some nutrients though that will be better off never being frozen.

It's not as black and white as one can say "X is better then Y".

There are too many moving parts to give a simple answer to that question. It depends on the particular vegetable and particular nutrient, how ripe the fresh vegetable was picked and how long it has been since it was picked and how the vegetable in question is prepared prior to eating.

But the real take away is that frozen vegetables are basically never less healthy than fresh.

That vastly over-estimates my food-processing skills. Restaurants can do better than me, to a high statistical probability.

But I believe in you!

One reason is it takes time and resources to process food at home, limiting what you can eat. I don't have time to bake cakes more often than about once a week, thus limiting my intake of cakes. (The malt loaf I made two weeks ago -- excellent!)

A second reason is that processed foods are engineered to have addictive qualities -- lots of sugar, engineered "mouth feel". At home, you can limit the amount of sugar and salt, and you probably wouldn't be able to do the complex food science behind getting the right "crunch".

BTW I think it's a reasonable question - don't know why you were voted down.

Because you do not have an industrial process at home.

Industrialization does not fit well with food production. Because price optimization through division of fixed costs leads to standardized high volume products. But it is diversity that is healthy, tastes good and is natural.

The two are not the same. "Food already processed" means making a product which will survive weeks or months on a shelf, in a plastic wrapper and can be microwaved in 2min and chucked on a plate. It involves substituting ingredients for cost and allergy purposes. This does not typically need to happen when you cook a meal at home.

Sheesh, not all premade food is made to last weeks or months on a shelf! Grocery stores around here have plenty of variation, from cans that last years to meals made during the night that can only be sold the next day (and are kept refrigerated).

And even allergies, that depends. Some simply come with a warning, instead of banning the ingredients wholesale.

I'm pretty sure my grandma makes food since before I was born that "survives weeks and months on a shelf and can be microwaved in 2 minutes and chucked on a plate" and none of the ingredients inside are not sourced from her garden.

I suppose Soylent falls into the "highly processed" category, doesn't it?

Yes, though in a recent Q&A video he said Soylent is probably just fine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwpgHvO4A0E#9m05s

These are general guidelines for the masses. "Avoid processed foods, except things like Soylent" is unnecessarily clunky.

"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"

One of the main points that gets often neglected and a major skill required is food procurement. What kind of food exists and how do I judge it's quality.

Most modern people I know cannot pick the riper and more nutritious fruit, vegetable or animal product when given two alternatives.

Good article. Simplicity is key for the masses.

Of course, the rice at the grocery store has all been hulled.

And much of it has been par cooked.

Rule 1. Eat accordingly with what you've spent (in calories).

Rule 2. Avoid packaged/processed foods.

There is no need for Rule 3.

The biggest problem here is being accurate and truthful to yourself. These rules are great theoretically but they are rather difficult to apply in practice. I've been tracking my intake and expenditure as accurately as possible over the last 2 months and the errors accumulate rather rapidly. There's variation in what you do, how much you do of it, how much energy you actually spend doing it. After this there is variation in the self-reporting itself - we tend to over-estimate the calories we've spend. Then there is variation in what you eat, how much you eat of it, how many calories it really has, how many calories you actually consume, how many you actually process in the end. Add to this things like water retention, stress and so on, and it becomes a rather messy problem.

There is a so much of nonsense about food that it is worth it to look back at some traditional or tribal eating habits.

For example, traditionally, majority of the Nepalese population is eating white rice with some kind of lentil curry and seasonal vegetables two times a day basically whole year and remain healthy and not overweight due to their active, working lifestyle. Modern memes are telling us that white rice is almost poisonous, despite the fact that more than half of the world population (almost whole Asia) feed on it.

Tibetans, Sherpas and other Himalayan tribes are still rely heavily on cow/nak butter (the main commodity and the source of nutrition) and Tsampa (rusted barley flour) which they consume on a daily basis in the form of so-called Sherpa tea (butter, Tsampa, hot watter, sugar or salt) or in a form of bread-like mass (same ingredients). According to modern memes this is a disastrous diet, but, you see, these people are healthy and happy.

I could go on, about various tribes of India or Sri Lanka (mostly rise and veges). The picture will be almost the same. Simple, homemade food and not being a couch potato makes it.

There is no problem with traditional foods. The problems are with the food industry and its commercial products which, being aggressively marketed, altered the traditional eating habits.

As for myself, I could confirm that especially in high altitudes (in Himalayas) the tribal eating habits, which I follow happily, are the evolved balance for energy storage and intake, according with the harsh conditions, seasons and available food sources. There is no alternative in calories efficiency to the a half-kilo lump of nak butter (just cream, no additions) and a small bag of Tsampa for weeks-long crossing of the ridges in Himalayas.

Regarding rice, Consumer Reports (CR) has been urging the FDA to set limits on rice consumpton due to the arsenic levels in rice that they have measured. A certain amount of this is due to naturally occurring arsenic but pollution from industiral production of goods could add more. In the meantime CR has issued their own point system based on the arsenic content of rice: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much...

So it boils to "do not overeat" ...

seemed more like "avoid processed crap as much as possible" to me.

As a summary I prefer Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." [1].

I thought the article was useful.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....

Does "mostly plants" refer to mass or calories?

I take it to mean "get most of your nutrition from plant-based sources". Some meat, dairy, etc. are ok if you want, but most of what you eat should be plant-based food. Apart from grains, its hard to eat too much plant based food - whether measured in mass or calories.

Not really. If you eat poisonous things moderately it doesn't make it good for your health.

It is safe to assume that anything that has passed USDA and FDA approval is not outright poisonous ...

Sheesh... it's not that hard to understand. There is more to healthy eating than quantities and exercise.

And besides that consumables that aren't labelled dangerous by the USDA or FDA (I don't know how they factor into this discussion - not everyone lives in the US, and I see them mentioned in the article) can still be dangerous to an individual if you have a certain condition. Easy example: nut allergies. Others: Celiac disease, diabetes. etc.

And, eating nothing but something that might even be considered healthy can also be fatal if you don't supplement it, no matter how moderate your intake.

The GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) category is a wide open door, though.

"Eat big, lift big"

Eat clen, tren hard ...

Yeah, but the implementation of this is rather difficult to do in practice!

This article sucks really. Aaron E. Carroll says that he's read many books and articles on the topic but he hasn't read 2 books by David Perlmutter and Davis Williams it looks like otherwise he wouldn't recommend 'whole grains over refined grains' in #1.

He hasn't watched Mark Hyman's videos on Youtube either, otherwise he wouldn't recommend 'butter' in #3.

The #2 conflicts with #4. They may be combined into one simple line: All the restaurants are either unhealty or wallet blowing.

#5 is missing some detail, such as the one that no alcohol but red wine should be taken. #6 should be modified to read: Treat all beverages with total negligence.

Since there are probably contrasting point of views on most of the points you list, how do you propose to choose the one to reccommend as "correct" ?

Well, both Perlmutter and Davis say to avoid all kinds of grains at all costs and Hyman says to avoid all kinds of dairy products (butter, yoghurt, milk) with a possible exception of white cheese and they are all based on science. So I propose based on science. My claims about the restaurants and beverages are based on economic/profitability, restaurants and supermarkets offer decent priced and good tasting meal at the expense of health. If I'm able to get cheap and good tasting chicken at a fried chicken restaurant, I do it at the expense of health, need no science to see that.

It's definitely not settled science that you should never eat grains. Yes, some experts say you shouldn't, but if you're rejecting one expert because he disagrees with two others, it's definitely not sufficient to say it's "based on science".

As for dairy, while he mentioned using butter without paranoia about fat, he didn't seem to advocate for dairy. Eating dairy might be bad, but "don't eat dairy" is bad (or ineffective) advice because _people won't follow it_. Don't make perfect the enemy of better. (If it makes you feel any better about him, Dr. Carroll regularly rails against "the milk industrial complex"[0][1][2][3].)

[0] http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/finally-someone-...

[1] http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/another-blow-aga...

[2] http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/yet-another-blow...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyFZcuHmeI

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