I called oatmeal cookies unhealthy and I got blasted - why?

CharonCharon

I stated they had butter, white sugar, flour, chocolate chips, ect.
I consider all these things unhealthy.
But a couple of people say everything is healthy.
Is my wording wrong?
What would be unhealthy to those people in a cookie?

BTW - I like to eat in volumes.
I have never been able to do portion control in my entire life.
Oatmeal is a food I can eat and be full and be happy without guilt.

maasha81

Depends on the recipe ...there's oatmeal cookies made with mashed ripe bananas or applesauce. Never tasted it to compare with 'regular' oatmeal cookies

melimomTARDIS

its hard to single out foods as being bad, its the overall diet that matters. I let my kids eat cookies and milk nearly every day for snacktime, and they are both quite healthy.

added- not homemade cookies either. Like chips ahoy, oreos, or little debbie oatmeal cream pies.

Alluminati

What is unhealthy about butter, white sugar, and flour?

malibu927

Cookies are fine as long as you aren't eating like ten at a time. That would be unhealthy by cutting into your calories/macros.

MommyL2015

Butter, white sugar, flour, chocolate chips--sounds like a pretty yummy cookie, if you ask me. Eating 10 of them, maybe not so healthy. One or two, absolutely nothing wrong with that at all.

mwyvr

Oatmeal cookies as a large percentage of your daily diet: unhealthy.
An oatmeal cooking as an occasional treat in a calorie reduced deficit diet? No problem.

techgal128

The only way cookies are "unhealthy" is if you eat 5 pounds of them.

psych101

oh man they sound delicious - where do I sign up???

quiltlovinlisa

I love oatmeal cookies.

queenliz99

Homemade oatmeal cookies made with molasses,butter and raisins are awesome. Just ask my peeps!

andympanda

Do you have allergies that would cause health problems with any of the ingredients?

Jennloella

add some maple and bacon.

Unknown

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MsJulesRenee

One cookie, healthy. The whole batch, unhealthy.

mccindy72

CharonCharon wrote: »

I stated they had butter, white sugar, flour, chocolate chips, ect.
I consider all these things unhealthy.
But a couple of people say everything is healthy.
Is my wording wrong?
What would be unhealthy to those people in a cookie?

BTW - I like to eat in volumes.
I have never been able to do portion control in my entire life.
Oatmeal is a food I can eat and be full and be happy without guilt.

Those aren't the same thing.

EmmaFitzwilliam

My guess would be that others chafed at the judgmental nature of the comment. I don't consider butter "unhealthy". It's energy dense, and it's nutrient trade-off is negligible, but "nutrient dense" is not the only metric for personal assessments about food choices.

Butter, sugar, white flour, and chocolate chips may not work for you, but nobody other than myself and possibly my doctor and/or my nutritionist gets to play "food cop" and pass judgment on my choices.

gothchiq

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

Patttience

Well of course they are not unhealthy in themselves if you only eat one. But if they are a big and frequent part of your life they are a problem. Still i would not call them healthy but healthier than some other options perhaps.

I would ignore who ever blasted you.

diannethegeek

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10235906/healhty-oatmeal-cookies-no-such-thing

I would hardly call the answers in your other thread "getting blasted." It looks like people were asking for clarification on your goals and more specific details about you wanted. But if you want to know what those particular posters were thinking, it might be better to ask in your previous thread where they're more likely to see the question.

mccindy72

gothchiq wrote: »

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

I think this is inaccurate. What's happening is this: labeling food as junk, and jumping on terms like processed. People get a little too excited about those type of things. Food like ice cream and pizza get labeled as 'junk' while containing ingredients that should not put them into that category. Even potato chips get called 'junk' while being made of potatoes, oil, and salt.
Processing gets a bad rap, but pasteurizing is a process, and without it, we'd not have safe milk to drink. Frozen vegetables are processed. So is whole grain bread.

extra_medium

gothchiq wrote: »

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

It is because this site is mostly about not labeling anything non-poisonous as "unhealthy" and learning to enjoy things in moderation, and understanding the CICO concept for weight loss. People are not criticized for avoiding excess anything. The key word is excess though.

PeachyCarol

The best thing to make with oats? Oat flour shortbread. I have celiac disease and was missing shortbread, and I did some research and discovered that original shortbread was likely made with oats in the first place. I use good grass fed butter and raw sugar to make this and everyone who's ever had it prefers it to wheat shortbread.

Oat flour, butter, sugar. So good.

One cookie, part of a healthy overall diet. The point was made earlier and it bears repeating... all foods provide nutrition. Cookies can be dense sources of fat or readily available energy (good for active people like myself), ice cream has protein, etc. Treats aren't nutritionally void.

This isn't to say they are the most nutritionally dense items you can eat. They probably provide less in the way of micronutrients, but that is why context matters and you can't judge foods without looking at the whole diet. A diet rich in nutrient-dense food can handle some food that's not as nutrient-dense. It's not that big a deal.

I look at it this way. I like eggplant. It's not the most nutritious vegetable out there, but I still eat it. I doubt many of the healthy eating types would have issue with people who choose lower nutrient vegetables like eggplant or celery in their diets.

Not every bite has to be a superfood.

MsJulesRenee

gothchiq wrote: »

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

What a bummer to not enjoy a simple cookie Maybe find a website that advocates "healthy" eating instead so you can be yourself? Although I'm sure there won't be as many long term success stories there, it is not a long term solution for most people.

RockstarWilson

techgal128 wrote: »

The only way cookies are "unhealthy" is if you eat 5 pounds of them.

"Challenge accepted!"

mwyvr

These semantic debates are rarely interesting.

KittensMaster

gothchiq wrote: »

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

Exactly how I see many on MFP

Just learn to ignore them.

The conversations defending eating those junk foods just don't happen at the gym.

kshama2001

gothchiq wrote: »

MFP has a... thing about this. I have never seen a diet and fitness site like this before. People get criticized for avoiding excess sugar, junk food, highly processed items, etc. I may very occasionally permit myself such an item, but I'm not going to pretend it's *healthy* AKA high in nutrients, because it isn't! Folks will equate the "processing" of placing fruit or vegetables in a bag with the processing of mashing things to a pulp, adding a ton of preservatives, artificial flavors and salt, and frying it. To avoid criticism, the only thing to do is to eat healthy for your own sake but never mention it anywhere but on your own home page. *smh*

You're right. It's mind-boggling.

Unknown

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RodaRose

CharonCharon wrote: »

I stated they had butter, white sugar, flour, chocolate chips, ect.
I consider all these things unhealthy.
But a couple of people say everything is healthy.
Is my wording wrong?
What would be unhealthy to those people in a cookie?

BTW - I like to eat in volumes.
I have never been able to do portion control in my entire life.
Oatmeal is a food I can eat and be full and be happy without guilt.

People here are trying to understand each other.

Maybe next time say "low calorie."

Here is a low calorie recipe for Baked Oatmeal.
http://www.jillianskitchen.com/2011/11/14/baked-oatmeal/

kshama2001

CharonCharon wrote: »

I stated they had butter, white sugar, flour, chocolate chips, ect.
I consider all these things unhealthy.
But a couple of people say everything is healthy.
Is my wording wrong?
What would be unhealthy to those people in a cookie?

BTW - I like to eat in volumes.
I have never been able to do portion control in my entire life.
Oatmeal is a food I can eat and be full and be happy without guilt.

As you add things to oatmeal to make it cookie-like, it will become less feasible to eat it in volume.

Nevertheless, here are two recipes for portable treats that I enjoy which contain oats, but not butter, white sugar, or flour, and you could replace the chocolate chips in the second recipe with raisins.

https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/no-bake-peanut-butter-granola-bars/
https://blog.myfitnesspal.com/chocolate-peanut-butter-bites/

If you want to eat oats in volume without guilt, how about oatmeal with strawberries? Of course, this is less portable.