There are 'BAD' foods

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  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?
    Please...demonstrate that the risk even exists.

    If we're going to live by every possible "just in case" that we can conceive, then where's my portable bubble?

    I'm sorry...the card said "Moops"

    407-bubble-boy.png?w=300

    lol!
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
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    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?

    I agree that you should make choices based on a risk assessment.

    I just disagree that the risk is anywhere near the degree where most people, given all known relevant information, would come to the same conclusion.

    And ETA: Isn't minimizing (ie - moderating) what many of us have been advocating for all through the thread? It's those that are arguing elimination that are getting the push back.
    I think part of the problem though is that not everyone is on the same page with what constitutes a nutrient dense/healthy food.

  • stealthq
    stealthq Posts: 4,298 Member
    edited January 2016
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    Because i prefer my food to be made of food

    What part of the 100% beef McDonald's patty is not food? The beef or the beef?

    lol. i used to sell natures harvest bread. 100% whole wheat. here are the ingredients

    Whole wheat flour, water, cracked wheat, yeast, wheat gluten, sugar, wheat bran, soybean oil, honey, molasses, raisin juice concentrate, salt, mono- and diglycerides, datum, calcium propionate (preservative), grain vinegar, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, cornstarch, soy lecithin, citric acid, whey, soy flour, nonfat milk.

    how is that 100% whole wheat? well, the whole wheat that is in it is 100% whole wheat. lol im sure that the beef in the mcdonalds patty is 100% beef. that doesnt mean its not full of other things

    Actually it's just beef, salt and pepper.
    A lot of places have secret ingredients in their food that aren't disclosed to the public. I have my doubts that beef, salt, and pepper are the only ingredients in McDonald's beef patties.


    Secret ingredients? Care to elaborate? What are they, who uses them, how do you know? Just a hunch? I don't think a company like McDonald's would risk the lawsuit by lying to their billions of customers world wide.

    I don't know if you'd call ammonia an ingredient, but I'd call it a factor if you put it in your mouth.

    http://www.medicaldaily.com/mcdonalds-use-ammonium-hydroxide-wash-meat-angers-chef-jamie-oliver-theyre-not-only-249387

    If I wash an apple with a bit of soap, I still don't include soap in my recipe for apple butter - even though it includes the peel.

    The ammonia is a processing agent, and doesn't stick around at levels high enough to be an issue. It's used by most meat processing plants, not just the ones supplying McDonalds.

    Even the ones providing grass-fed beef for my homemade burgers on bakery baked bread cooked over non-carcinogenic flames???

    Of course not. Those burgers include the bacteria the ammonia would have killed.

    ETA :tongue:
  • TheBeachgod
    TheBeachgod Posts: 825 Member
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    So would this be good or bad?

    Organic = good?
    Sand = blech?

    organic-sand.jpg
  • snikkins
    snikkins Posts: 1,282 Member
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    stealthq wrote: »
    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    stealthq wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    Because i prefer my food to be made of food

    What part of the 100% beef McDonald's patty is not food? The beef or the beef?

    lol. i used to sell natures harvest bread. 100% whole wheat. here are the ingredients

    Whole wheat flour, water, cracked wheat, yeast, wheat gluten, sugar, wheat bran, soybean oil, honey, molasses, raisin juice concentrate, salt, mono- and diglycerides, datum, calcium propionate (preservative), grain vinegar, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, cornstarch, soy lecithin, citric acid, whey, soy flour, nonfat milk.

    how is that 100% whole wheat? well, the whole wheat that is in it is 100% whole wheat. lol im sure that the beef in the mcdonalds patty is 100% beef. that doesnt mean its not full of other things

    Actually it's just beef, salt and pepper.
    A lot of places have secret ingredients in their food that aren't disclosed to the public. I have my doubts that beef, salt, and pepper are the only ingredients in McDonald's beef patties.


    Secret ingredients? Care to elaborate? What are they, who uses them, how do you know? Just a hunch? I don't think a company like McDonald's would risk the lawsuit by lying to their billions of customers world wide.

    I don't know if you'd call ammonia an ingredient, but I'd call it a factor if you put it in your mouth.

    http://www.medicaldaily.com/mcdonalds-use-ammonium-hydroxide-wash-meat-angers-chef-jamie-oliver-theyre-not-only-249387

    If I wash an apple with a bit of soap, I still don't include soap in my recipe for apple butter - even though it includes the peel.

    The ammonia is a processing agent, and doesn't stick around at levels high enough to be an issue. It's used by most meat processing plants, not just the ones supplying McDonalds.

    Even the ones providing grass-fed beef for my homemade burgers on bakery baked bread cooked over non-carcinogenic flames???

    Of course not. Those burgers include the bacteria the ammonia would have killed.

    On that note, I read an interesting opinion piece suggesting this was at least a reason Chipotle was having all of their food-borne illness issues of late.
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?
    Please...demonstrate that the risk even exists.

    If we're going to live by every possible "just in case" that we can conceive, then where's my portable bubble?
    Prior to the past 100 years (and certainly 200 years), none of our ancestors ate foods like that. So that's a huge chunk of mankind that has never eaten foods with that kind of stuff. Even if science hasn't definitively proven that those things are harmful for us, logically it makes sense to me that maybe we shouldn't be eating artificial stuff manufactured just to enhance the color or flavor of something.

  • Carlos_421
    Carlos_421 Posts: 5,132 Member
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?
    Please...demonstrate that the risk even exists.

    If we're going to live by every possible "just in case" that we can conceive, then where's my portable bubble?
    Prior to the past 100 years (and certainly 200 years), none of our ancestors ate foods like that. So that's a huge chunk of mankind that has never eaten foods with that kind of stuff. Even if science hasn't definitively proven that those things are harmful for us, logically it makes sense to me that maybe we shouldn't be eating artificial stuff manufactured just to enhance the color or flavor of something.

    Ok, so how about reasonable cause for suspicion?
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
    edited January 2016
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?
    Please...demonstrate that the risk even exists.

    If we're going to live by every possible "just in case" that we can conceive, then where's my portable bubble?
    Prior to the past 100 years (and certainly 200 years), none of our ancestors ate foods like that. So that's a huge chunk of mankind that has never eaten foods with that kind of stuff. Even if science hasn't definitively proven that those things are harmful for us, logically it makes sense to me that maybe we shouldn't be eating artificial stuff manufactured just to enhance the color or flavor of something.

    That's not how logic works.

    Of course, there's also the observation that average life spans are increasing, not decreasing, despite the increase consumption of these ingredients.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.

    Stay home, don't use knives and stay away from fire and electricity.

    And wear a filtration mask whenever you go outside, because teh toxinzzz in the air we breathe. Not to mention the chances of getting hit by a car, struck by lightning (and poisoned by the ozone associated with it), skin cancer from sun exposure, toxinzzz leaching into your skin from the clothes you wear, etc. And don't ever drink from municipal water sources because, you know, teh toxinzzz. In fact, why would you wash your homegrown, organically farmed veggies with that municipal water that many crackpots say is poisoned and bad for you?

    Something is going to kill all of us eventually. I'll avoid the obvious ones, but I'm not going to creep around in fear of anything and everything that has even the slightest, most remote (albeit scientifically unproven) chance that it might cause damage to me.
  • I_Will_End_You
    I_Will_End_You Posts: 4,397 Member
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    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    Because i prefer my food to be made of food

    What part of the 100% beef McDonald's patty is not food? The beef or the beef?

    lol. i used to sell natures harvest bread. 100% whole wheat. here are the ingredients

    Whole wheat flour, water, cracked wheat, yeast, wheat gluten, sugar, wheat bran, soybean oil, honey, molasses, raisin juice concentrate, salt, mono- and diglycerides, datum, calcium propionate (preservative), grain vinegar, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, cornstarch, soy lecithin, citric acid, whey, soy flour, nonfat milk.

    how is that 100% whole wheat? well, the whole wheat that is in it is 100% whole wheat. lol im sure that the beef in the mcdonalds patty is 100% beef. that doesnt mean its not full of other things

    Actually it's just beef, salt and pepper.
    A lot of places have secret ingredients in their food that aren't disclosed to the public. I have my doubts that beef, salt, and pepper are the only ingredients in McDonald's beef patties.


    Secret ingredients? Care to elaborate? What are they, who uses them, how do you know? Just a hunch? I don't think a company like McDonald's would risk the lawsuit by lying to their billions of customers world wide.
    I could be wrong on that, but it's not like they haven't been previously sued for providing misinformation regarding their ingredients for other products. In summary, I would say you just never know sometimes.

    So you don't know that restaurants have secret ingredients in their food, you just think they do?

    I don't think something mislabeled prior to 2002 really constitutes as proof to back up your point. Laws with food and ingredient labeling have changed drastically.

    It baffles me to think that people are so damned determined that food purchased from a restaurant is somehow "not real food".
  • juggernaut1974
    juggernaut1974 Posts: 6,212 Member
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    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    Because i prefer my food to be made of food

    What part of the 100% beef McDonald's patty is not food? The beef or the beef?

    lol. i used to sell natures harvest bread. 100% whole wheat. here are the ingredients

    Whole wheat flour, water, cracked wheat, yeast, wheat gluten, sugar, wheat bran, soybean oil, honey, molasses, raisin juice concentrate, salt, mono- and diglycerides, datum, calcium propionate (preservative), grain vinegar, calcium sulfate, monocalcium phosphate, cornstarch, soy lecithin, citric acid, whey, soy flour, nonfat milk.

    how is that 100% whole wheat? well, the whole wheat that is in it is 100% whole wheat. lol im sure that the beef in the mcdonalds patty is 100% beef. that doesnt mean its not full of other things

    Actually it's just beef, salt and pepper.
    A lot of places have secret ingredients in their food that aren't disclosed to the public. I have my doubts that beef, salt, and pepper are the only ingredients in McDonald's beef patties.


    Secret ingredients? Care to elaborate? What are they, who uses them, how do you know? Just a hunch? I don't think a company like McDonald's would risk the lawsuit by lying to their billions of customers world wide.
    I could be wrong on that, but it's not like they haven't been previously sued for providing misinformation regarding their ingredients for other products. In summary, I would say you just never know sometimes.

    So you don't know that restaurants have secret ingredients in their food, you just think they do?

    I don't think something mislabeled prior to 2002 really constitutes as proof to back up your point. Laws with food and ingredient labeling have changed drastically.

    It baffles me to think that people are so damned determined that food purchased from a restaurant is somehow "not real food".

    Not to mention it wasn't a missing ingredient, just the incorrect assumption/declaration that one of the ingredients was vegetarian-friendly
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
    edited January 2016
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    Carlos_421 wrote: »
    As for preservatives and other additives that commercial companies add to foods, there is no guarantee that over the course of one's lifetime, absolutely no DNA damage will occur. Meaning, there is no 100% certainty that with the processing the body has to do with that stuff, eventually some cells may become a bit damaged. That's not to say that one's lifespan would be drastically affected, but you can't guarantee that there's no harm at all being done.

    If you're advocating that we should avoid all things that don't come with a 100% guarantee of safety, then I can only say I strongly disagree with that.
    No, but why take the risk? I'm not saying that people should never eat anything that has other additives, but rather why not try to minimize consumption of those foods, just in case?
    Please...demonstrate that the risk even exists.

    If we're going to live by every possible "just in case" that we can conceive, then where's my portable bubble?
    Prior to the past 100 years (and certainly 200 years), none of our ancestors ate foods like that. So that's a huge chunk of mankind that has never eaten foods with that kind of stuff. Even if science hasn't definitively proven that those things are harmful for us, logically it makes sense to me that maybe we shouldn't be eating artificial stuff manufactured just to enhance the color or flavor of something.

    That's not how logic works.

    Of course, there's also the observation that average life spans are increasing, not decreasing, despite the increase consumption of these ingredients.

    And using the same false logic, we should also be living in caves or grass huts, cooking everything outdoors over open fires, walking everywhere we go instead of using cars/mass transit (our ancestors didn't have them, you know) and using leeches to cure diseases instead of medicine.
  • jjdig
    jjdig Posts: 45 Member
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    Well, if we DID have to walk everywhere, life would be quite a bit different, wouldn't it? Eating local stuff would be the norm, we wouldn't have to "go" someplace to get exercise, and it would be (in some cases) easier to grow/can/make your own food than have to walk X miles to get something to eat. !!! But right, progress has changed all that and now it's a "thing" to try to eat local food, and to try to get exercise... not a bad thing - but we can't always know what that restaurant does behind closed doors. I tend to believe they cook like (hopefully better than!) I do - and I don't expect them to give me all the micro-facts about what they serve....
    But I do think often about "I can't believe I have to create time in my day to get exercise" - when our ancestors - that's ALL they did all day was physical work just to survive. Good and bad, all of the above!!!
  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
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    jjdig wrote: »
    Well, if we DID have to walk everywhere, life would be quite a bit different, wouldn't it? Eating local stuff would be the norm, we wouldn't have to "go" someplace to get exercise, and it would be (in some cases) easier to grow/can/make your own food than have to walk X miles to get something to eat. !!! But right, progress has changed all that and now it's a "thing" to try to eat local food, and to try to get exercise... not a bad thing - but we can't always know what that restaurant does behind closed doors. I tend to believe they cook like (hopefully better than!) I do - and I don't expect them to give me all the micro-facts about what they serve....
    But I do think often about "I can't believe I have to create time in my day to get exercise" - when our ancestors - that's ALL they did all day was physical work just to survive. Good and bad, all of the above!!!
    Yes, so true.

  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    i know that anything can be considered processing,(chopping, cooking, baking). i mean the heavy processing with tons of chemicals and additives that you wouldnt normally put on the food that you would cook at home, (McDonalds, cheetos, coke, candy, hot dogs)

    And again...the important question is...why?

    I mean if it's a choice you're making for yourself...I got no issues. But when making blanket recommendations for others to follow, the "why" suddenly becomes a lot more important.

    I just trust food with less chemicals in it. I don't care if they haven't been proven harmful. I just trust that the closer food is to its natural form, the better it is for you, usually.( i know, meat, bread, juice, yadayada) absolutely not scientific in anyway, never claimed it was

    Pure natural form:

    poisonous-mushroom.jpg

    Again...there's a HUGE difference between saying YOU choose not to eat things for personal reasons/beliefs and:
    Of course there are bad foods. Foods with artificial dyes, unnatural chemicals, cancer causing agents, artificial sweetners.some of these are bad at any amount.


    Are those mushrooms "food"?

    Some people had to suffer for them to not be considered that anymore. I think that was about your quote, yes?
  • Hornsby
    Hornsby Posts: 10,322 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    i know that anything can be considered processing,(chopping, cooking, baking). i mean the heavy processing with tons of chemicals and additives that you wouldnt normally put on the food that you would cook at home, (McDonalds, cheetos, coke, candy, hot dogs)

    Most (probably all) knew what you meant.

    of course they do. they're just trying to out witty each other. some questions are probably genuine, but mostly people out for a laugh, which is ok with me

    I just get frustrated when people use "processed" or "not natural" as if they meant bad or were on their face bad things. Technological advancements and doing what's not natural (like carting veg in from elsewhere or freezing them) seems to me a huge advantage for those of us in climates that wouldn't have fresh veg available much of the year. It's a sincere point. Same with making lots more fish available to people who live where I do, so on.

    Not sure how freezing food is not natural. But I think it's just frustrating when people act as if all foods are equal.

    I haven't seen anyone suggesting that foods are all the same (or equal). Saying no foods are inherently "bad" as I think of them doesn't mean that I think they are equal. They are quite different.

    Whether they are "processed" or not doesn't seem to me an important difference given how diverse the group of foods that are "processed" is.

    And having asparagus easily available in January, at least where I live, whether frozen or carted in from elsewhere, is not "natural" to the extent that "natural" as any real meaning at all (human nature is to figure out how to do stuff like that, after all). It is a positive thing, IMO.

    If they aren't equal, then what? Why is it okay to say I eat 80/20 (which is posted on MFP all the time without all the ridicule)? What is the 20 if not foods that aren't as good as those in the 80%. It's just so silly. They are bad foods or worse foods or junk foods. They are foods that shouldn't be the mainstay of your diet.

    If they are in one's diet on a consistent basis, even if for only 20% of time, would they still not be a mainstay? They could be important to keep one sane and be able to adhere their diet goals. So yes, those nutrient dense foods are the 80, and 20 percent are the the foods you enjoy, regardless of macros. Still doesn't make them bad. Just different.
  • TheBeachgod
    TheBeachgod Posts: 825 Member
    edited January 2016
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    Hornsby wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    i know that anything can be considered processing,(chopping, cooking, baking). i mean the heavy processing with tons of chemicals and additives that you wouldnt normally put on the food that you would cook at home, (McDonalds, cheetos, coke, candy, hot dogs)

    Most (probably all) knew what you meant.

    of course they do. they're just trying to out witty each other. some questions are probably genuine, but mostly people out for a laugh, which is ok with me

    I just get frustrated when people use "processed" or "not natural" as if they meant bad or were on their face bad things. Technological advancements and doing what's not natural (like carting veg in from elsewhere or freezing them) seems to me a huge advantage for those of us in climates that wouldn't have fresh veg available much of the year. It's a sincere point. Same with making lots more fish available to people who live where I do, so on.

    Not sure how freezing food is not natural. But I think it's just frustrating when people act as if all foods are equal.

    I haven't seen anyone suggesting that foods are all the same (or equal). Saying no foods are inherently "bad" as I think of them doesn't mean that I think they are equal. They are quite different.

    Whether they are "processed" or not doesn't seem to me an important difference given how diverse the group of foods that are "processed" is.

    And having asparagus easily available in January, at least where I live, whether frozen or carted in from elsewhere, is not "natural" to the extent that "natural" as any real meaning at all (human nature is to figure out how to do stuff like that, after all). It is a positive thing, IMO.

    If they aren't equal, then what? Why is it okay to say I eat 80/20 (which is posted on MFP all the time without all the ridicule)? What is the 20 if not foods that aren't as good as those in the 80%. It's just so silly. They are bad foods or worse foods or junk foods. They are foods that shouldn't be the mainstay of your diet.

    If they are in one's diet on a consistent basis, even if for only 20% of time, would they still not be a mainstay? They could be important to keep one sane and be able to adhere their diet goals. So yes, those nutrient dense foods are the 80, and 20 percent are the the foods you enjoy, regardless of macros. Still doesn't make them bad. Just different.

    Too bad this simple concept seems to be lost on so many. This thread wouldn't have existed otherwise.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lpNS3Jd37k
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited January 2016
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    alstin2015 wrote: »
    i know that anything can be considered processing,(chopping, cooking, baking). i mean the heavy processing with tons of chemicals and additives that you wouldnt normally put on the food that you would cook at home, (McDonalds, cheetos, coke, candy, hot dogs)

    Most (probably all) knew what you meant.

    of course they do. they're just trying to out witty each other. some questions are probably genuine, but mostly people out for a laugh, which is ok with me

    I just get frustrated when people use "processed" or "not natural" as if they meant bad or were on their face bad things. Technological advancements and doing what's not natural (like carting veg in from elsewhere or freezing them) seems to me a huge advantage for those of us in climates that wouldn't have fresh veg available much of the year. It's a sincere point. Same with making lots more fish available to people who live where I do, so on.

    Not sure how freezing food is not natural. But I think it's just frustrating when people act as if all foods are equal.

    I haven't seen anyone suggesting that foods are all the same (or equal). Saying no foods are inherently "bad" as I think of them doesn't mean that I think they are equal. They are quite different.

    Whether they are "processed" or not doesn't seem to me an important difference given how diverse the group of foods that are "processed" is.

    And having asparagus easily available in January, at least where I live, whether frozen or carted in from elsewhere, is not "natural" to the extent that "natural" as any real meaning at all (human nature is to figure out how to do stuff like that, after all). It is a positive thing, IMO.

    If they aren't equal, then what? Why is it okay to say I eat 80/20 (which is posted on MFP all the time without all the ridicule)? What is the 20 if not foods that aren't as good as those in the 80%. It's just so silly. They are bad foods or worse foods or junk foods. They are foods that shouldn't be the mainstay of your diet.

    I have not said people shouldn't use the term "bad food," so I don't know what you are arguing here. I said in another ongoing thread (and I think in this one) that I use the term "junk food" sometimes. To me "good food" would refer to taste, but if someone else wants to use it differently, I do not care.

    What I am arguing against is OP's assertion that we all should admit there are bad foods and that we all secretly know there is. That is false. For some of us that doesn't make sense or it is better not to think of them that way. There are foods I don't eat (I wouldn't buy pasta sauce in a jar, because I'm a snob and picky about certain things), but I don't assert that such pasta sauce is therefore "bad" or that my choices are better for anyone but me.

    As for foods not being equal, that has nothing to do with inherent goodness or badness in my mind. Broccoli and chicken are very different and there are times when chicken might be a poor choice and broccoli a good choice or vice versa (usually broccoli would be a fine choice, unless you were making yourself so full you couldn't eat something else you needed). From the perspective of nutrients and calories, broccoli is usually a better choice than cheese or ice cream or a glass of wine. I just don't see how being less nutrient dense (or even low in nutrients) makes a food inherently "bad" or always a bad choice.

    I don't care if you do see bad and not nutrient dense as synonyms. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't think of it that way. It's just not a way of thinking of it that makes sense to me. To me "bad" suggests "should not be eaten, ever."
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Can bad foods be forgiven, like if they go to confession or something?

    Some. But not sugar. Sugar is Satan, remember.