Gluten, dairy, eggs and tilapia are unhealthy

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imanibelle
imanibelle Posts: 130 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Why does my dad believe this? Since I started working on making my diet healthier and not just cutting calories, he's been telling me nothing I eat is healthy and says gluten, dairy, eggs and tilapia are bad. Why does he think this? With all these foods he thinks are unhealthy, I just wonder where it ends. I know he's trying ro help, but it gets a little discouraging. I asked him for his sources about the tilapia since he said there was no nutritional value in it and I'd never heard that before, but he didn't send me anything.

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  • imanibelle
    imanibelle Posts: 130 Member
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    GrumpyHeadmistress wrote: »
    There’s a lot of urban myths out there. Tell him you love him for trying to help and that you’ll bear his advice in mind. And then ignore it.

    Will do. Thanks.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    I agree, stop discussing your diet with your dad. I'm sure he's lovely, but he's utterly clueless when it comes to nutrition. He clearly believes all sorts of clickbaity headlines, or silly magazines. What does he eat, anyway?
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
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    Unless he's actually in control of what you eat, I wouldn't worry about. There's tons of misinformation out there.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
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    Why does it matter why he thinks those things? Ignore him. If something he says makes you worry, you can very easily look up the nutrition info for these items online. Once you've done that a half dozen times surely you will learn to "consider the source" when he gives advice.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
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    I don't know why he thinks this. Its too bad we don't have an ignore button we can press when it comes to family or others giving unsolicited advice, so to stop this from even being an issue, just don't discuss your weight loss and diet with him.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    Alatariel75 wrote: »
    I agree, stop discussing your diet with your dad. I'm sure he's lovely, but he's utterly clueless when it comes to nutrition. He clearly believes all sorts of clickbaity headlines, or silly magazines. What does he eat, anyway?

    This.
  • imanibelle
    imanibelle Posts: 130 Member
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    Thanks. I never bring up my diet with him, he just comments occasionally about the way I eat and how X, Y and Z is bad for you, I should eat healthier, etc.
    As for what he eats, I come of an overweight family and my dad eats alot of fried stuff, takeout, etc, but says he wants to change and eat healthier. Idk what his idea of a healthy diet is since he says so much stuff is unhealthy; so far he hasn't told me what he thinks is healthy, other than fruit and vegetables. In fact, he asked me to research healthy foods so he could buy food for us all, because nothing i eat is healthy, but i said i didn't know what he would think was healthy if nothing i eat now is healthy. Honestly I'm not even sure i want to know; his approach just seems kind of extreme. He tried to go on a liquid diet of vegetable and fruit smoothies and soups, but he's not doing that anymore. Thats all I know about what he thinks is healthy.
  • imanibelle
    imanibelle Posts: 130 Member
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    Guess I'll just let it roll off. Doesn't matter. It's just a little discouraging at times.
  • Graelwyn75
    Graelwyn75 Posts: 4,404 Member
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    I do not understand why you are even giving his nonsense the time of day? You eat what you want and you have the infinite resource of the internet to find your own answers. In the end, the majority of people are highly misinformed on what is and is not healthy anyway and if the media had their way, we wouldn't be eating much of anything since they seem to deem some or other food or drink as unhealthy every week. Follow your own mind and stop listening to your father on this.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    I know we're supposed to look up to our parents and expect they should know better but your dad simply has not got a clue!
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    edited October 2017
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    There are a lot of foods that have been declared bad by someone or other when they are not. Sounds like he buys into fad diets and woo.
    You could show your dad actual nutritional information of foods you typically eat or buy him a decent book on basic nutrition.
    Maybe something like this-> https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0544520580/ref=mp_s_a_1_4_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1508852728&sr=8-4&keywords=nutrition
    Or one of the American Heart Association cookbooks.
    Otherwise just say you are fine with your diet and eat the way you want and let him experiment with his own diet.
  • fbchick51
    fbchick51 Posts: 240 Member
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    imanibelle wrote: »
    says gluten, dairy, eggs and tilapia are bad. Why does he think this?

    Because once upon a time he read an article that said something that sounded like unhealthy and stuck to it.

    Once upon a time, eggs were deemed unhealthy due to their high cholesterol count. But turns out, with time and better studies, the cholesterol in eggs actually were NOT causing the high cholesterol levels in people. Now they are viewed as a great source of protien, amino acids and vitamin A, vitamin B12, riboflavin (B2) and Vitamin D.

    Tilapia was never considered unhealthy, rather the reports showed that talapia (Farm grown fish) have less of the omega 3 fatty acids of ocean grown fish, such as salamon. But it doesn't make it bad or unhealthy. It's still an economical option for decent low-fat, high protien source. Just don't expect it to fill your Omega-3 needs.

    Dairy and gluten sit on the fence. Dairys issue is it's high saturated fat content. But it comes with a good dose of Vitamin D and calcium, which are good. Choosing low-fat and fat free varieties are what is recommended. Though you'll find a LOT of woo references to hormones and claims that the calcium is the wrong kind.

    Gluten, on the other hand, is just the lastest fad in a long list of fads. There's actually nothing "unhealthy" about it. Rather it can be unhealthy for a person with celiac diesease and the diet industry has run away with it. But for must of us, a diet rich in healthy grains and fibers is actually pretty critical for all of us and most of those food items contain gluten.

  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    imanibelle wrote: »
    Why does my dad believe this? Since I started working on making my diet healthier and not just cutting calories, he's been telling me nothing I eat is healthy and says gluten, dairy, eggs and tilapia are bad. Why does he think this? With all these foods he thinks are unhealthy, I just wonder where it ends. I know he's trying ro help, but it gets a little discouraging. I asked him for his sources about the tilapia since he said there was no nutritional value in it and I'd never heard that before, but he didn't send me anything.

    -If anything, I would possibly be concerned about heavy metals contamination in the tilapia if eating very frequently (not because it's tilapia, but because it almost always comes from countries with really bad environmental and food safety enforcement). Otherwise, tilapia, like pretty much all fish, is a very lean source of protein.
    -Nothing wrong with gluten and dairy unless you personally have an allergy or intolerance to it. (it can be worth cutting it out for a bit as a test if you do have any digestive/joint pain/sinus/skin problems or other symptoms of inflammation.)
    -I don't know what his issue is with eggs. Many moons ago, people thought high food cholesterol = high human cholesterol and decided eggs were therefore bad.. but we know better now.
  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 17,959 Member
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    Some people who try and fail to lose weight convince themselves that they have no choice but to stay how they are, because any change is too hard. Honestly, it sounds like your dad is making excuses for his own failure to do anything to lose weight by making it all seem way too hard because "nothing is healthy" and then he's projecting that on to you.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
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    I grew up as an overweight teen and my parents taught me that sugar caused weight gain and it wasn't worth counting ground turkey or skim milk as they had almost no calories. These are false, of course, but parents are just like anyone else. They can read all the wrong things and form a warped view of health and weight loss.
  • maryannprt
    maryannprt Posts: 152 Member
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    imanibelle wrote: »
    Why does my dad believe this? Since I started working on making my diet healthier and not just cutting calories, he's been telling me nothing I eat is healthy and says gluten, dairy, eggs and tilapia are bad. Why does he think this? With all these foods he thinks are unhealthy, I just wonder where it ends. I know he's trying ro help, but it gets a little discouraging. I asked him for his sources about the tilapia since he said there was no nutritional value in it and I'd never heard that before, but he didn't send me anything.

    You have 2 options here. Either your dad is truly trying to be helpful and is misinformed, or he's trying to sabotage your goal to eat healthier, not necessarily consciously. Either way, you say "thank you, Daddy, I love you so much for your concern." Then eat how you want. The world wide web is out there for information about nutrition and food, find a website or 2 that you trust, and if you worry about all of the nonsense that is also out there, talk to a dietitian. You can send him information on the topics he brings up if you want.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    There are relatives I treat as wallpaper. Nice to look at but after a while they fade in to the background. Smile and nod. Eat what you like.

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