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"Natural foods" vs "others"

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Replies

  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Could “natural” food and everything else be on a spectrum? Relative naturalness could be graded according to a criteria including genetic drift from the original, the soil it’s grown in, the relative naturalness of its fertilizers, how far it was grown from home, and how much processing is required before eating it. Dandelion greens grown on your windowsill for instance woul be the most natural.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Irrational "unnaturalness" from me -- I'll happily cook dandelion greens if they are in my farm box or order them at a restaurant or on rare occasion even buy them from WF, but I pick them out of my yard and don't think to cook them (let alone adding them to my garden on purpose).
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    @lemurcat12 I would only want the tender early leaves from the dandelion.

    Considering that this hardy weed is practically begging us to pluck it, isn’t it odd that we rarely treat it like food? How funny we are.

    Well... considering the fact that I know exactly which cats, dogs and foxes in the neighborhood like to pee where... nope. Not going to pick dandelions from the lawn for salad.

    Our garden plot is fenced in on all sides (top included) with a fine wire mesh to avoid having it turned into a huge outdoor kitty litter. :neutral:
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Pity you are passing up all that free fertilizer.

    For similar reasons I could not get my daughter to eat salad greens from our garden. She preferred the packaged lettuce from the store.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    Typical visitors to my thriving dandelion patch are a magpie and the resident rabbit.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    NickyGee2015 wrote: »
    So I sometimes like to compare our bodies to cars. If you want the best performance get the best fuel, but thats not always the case. Im sure a 2018 chevy will run better with cheap gas than a ford from 1920 with 91 octane. There are a lot of factors in someones health and what can be harmful to an individual. Simplest example i can think of is people are allergic to friggen peanuts...like a nut can kill them and here I am eating spoonfuls of peanut butter. Point is the car is going to go at some point (just like us) no matter what you put in it. I don't think any of us are 1g of aspartame away from death or cancer.
    From my personal experience I found that the more expensive foods, natural and organic (and whatever that means because there are naturally occurring chemicals) has made me feel better to some extent but probably not the case for everyone.
    I also know people who eat whole foods and say they feel better, but I also know placebo is a wonderful thing, and you may think you feel better because you're eating better (I look good I feel good but with eating).

    We breath in fumes, we eat this and that, no matter what we do, it'll be hard to get away from any of it. If you're looking for a better quality of life then just mix and match, try stuff out. Neither an organic or processed cookie will kill you, maybe in higher dosages and different context. Plus what is a good quality of life without eating "oreos" and saving some cash, instead of eating gluten-b-gone cookie crumbs.

    Disclaimer: I'm sorry if I offended your choice of automobile or cookie in the making.

    This is placebo. Your brain decides that you paid more for it so it must taste better. There are some funny and enlightening experiments conducted showing this. The wine studies are the best. People will pick the highest price wine as the "best" tasting even though it may be the identical product.

    Feel is subjective. Performance is another matter and humans are remarkably similar barring immunological response.

    My best run times are directly linked to Skittles and Oreo consumption.

    It goes so far that you can even fool professional wine tasters. It's funny.
  • vm007
    vm007 Posts: 241 Member
    Well this was a nice learning curve here. Thanks to all who posted.

    For people: TLDR

    Dosage is the key- unless of course you are deathly allergic to something or have a pre-existing condition to something.
    "Natural" "Unnatural" is only in our heads- we can label things the way we want.
    CICO rules YAY! and moderation is important and individual Macro needs may vary.
  • brassicaceae
    brassicaceae Posts: 7 Member
    jgnatca wrote: »
    Pity you are passing up all that free fertilizer.

    For similar reasons I could not get my daughter to eat salad greens from our garden. She preferred the packaged lettuce from the store.

    Unfortunately as the recent E. coli outbreak demonstrated, packaged lettuce often also contains "free fertilizer" of sorts, and can be contaminated anywhere from the field to the packaging plant.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
    edited May 2018
    I’m getting soft in my old age. I watched the video. It’s Journalist Michael Pollan discussing the McDonald’s potato.

    As a natural skeptic I went searching for the other side of the story and I found it.

    https://www.cnet.com/news/former-mythbuster-goes-on-mcdonalds-french-fry-fact-finding-hunt/

    As for creaveability, even [edited to correct:18] month old infants know that goldfish crackers trump broccoli.

    https://www.ted.com/talks/alison_gopnik_what_do_babies_think/up-next
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    I randomly stumbled on this video today and remembered this thread, I'm sure it'll get woo'd on here but this sums up exactly what I've been trying to say about fast food and junk food and how it's different from natural foods
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1025790800904622&id=276157035868006

    Can you please point to where in this thread, or any other, anyone said that there is NO difference between "junk food" (whatever you are defining that as) and natural foods (again, however you define them)? You keep proclaiming that people are saying something that no one is saying, and you've been misrepresenting the context of this thread in others as well.

    People were claiming here there's no difference between a homemade burger or potato and McDonald's or frozen Walmart burgers or whatever. There is because production matters.

    So mass produced fried potatoes are made from carefully chosen potatoes (which knowledgeable home cooks use, by the way, because it's the perfect potato for fries due to favorable starch content) and then fried, which uses the same amount as deep fried potatoes at home (if not less, because not all home cooks know the perfect temperature for making crispy potatoes and may end up with potatoes that absorb more oil). Is it bad that they make potatoes that taste good to many people? I don't know of a single home cook that wants to deliberately make things that taste bad.

    I like Pollan, in general, but I don't like it when he goes on such tangents.

    To be fair, Mass produced fries are almost always fried twice with a freeze cycle, because that's how you get crisp tasty fries that aren't too soggy and hold salt well.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    I randomly stumbled on this video today and remembered this thread, I'm sure it'll get woo'd on here but this sums up exactly what I've been trying to say about fast food and junk food and how it's different from natural foods
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1025790800904622&id=276157035868006

    Can you please point to where in this thread, or any other, anyone said that there is NO difference between "junk food" (whatever you are defining that as) and natural foods (again, however you define them)? You keep proclaiming that people are saying something that no one is saying, and you've been misrepresenting the context of this thread in others as well.

    People were claiming here there's no difference between a homemade burger or potato and McDonald's or frozen Walmart burgers or whatever. There is because production matters.

    So mass produced fried potatoes are made from carefully chosen potatoes (which knowledgeable home cooks use, by the way, because it's the perfect potato for fries due to favorable starch content) and then fried, which uses the same amount as deep fried potatoes at home (if not less, because not all home cooks know the perfect temperature for making crispy potatoes and may end up with potatoes that absorb more oil). Is it bad that they make potatoes that taste good to many people? I don't know of a single home cook that wants to deliberately make things that taste bad.

    I like Pollan, in general, but I don't like it when he goes on such tangents.

    To be fair, Mass produced fries are almost always fried twice with a freeze cycle, because that's how you get crisp tasty fries that aren't too soggy and hold salt well.

    This technique is also available to home cooks (although most of us aren't going to go to the trouble).
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    I randomly stumbled on this video today and remembered this thread, I'm sure it'll get woo'd on here but this sums up exactly what I've been trying to say about fast food and junk food and how it's different from natural foods
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1025790800904622&id=276157035868006

    Can you please point to where in this thread, or any other, anyone said that there is NO difference between "junk food" (whatever you are defining that as) and natural foods (again, however you define them)? You keep proclaiming that people are saying something that no one is saying, and you've been misrepresenting the context of this thread in others as well.

    People were claiming here there's no difference between a homemade burger or potato and McDonald's or frozen Walmart burgers or whatever. There is because production matters.

    So mass produced fried potatoes are made from carefully chosen potatoes (which knowledgeable home cooks use, by the way, because it's the perfect potato for fries due to favorable starch content) and then fried, which uses the same amount as deep fried potatoes at home (if not less, because not all home cooks know the perfect temperature for making crispy potatoes and may end up with potatoes that absorb more oil). Is it bad that they make potatoes that taste good to many people? I don't know of a single home cook that wants to deliberately make things that taste bad.

    I like Pollan, in general, but I don't like it when he goes on such tangents.

    To be fair, Mass produced fries are almost always fried twice with a freeze cycle, because that's how you get crisp tasty fries that aren't too soggy and hold salt well.

    This technique is also available to home cooks (although most of us aren't going to go to the trouble).

    True, but blast freezers aren't generally available and Nitrogen can get spendy if you use it every time you want fries.

    So yeah, probably not going to go through the trouble.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    ooh- the island one is a good question. I'm almost curious enough to try to figure that out. You'd have to look more specifically at the macro and micro breakdowns of the peas, beans versus the Big Mac. You would probably be missing some needed amino acids in the peas/beans combo and lower than ideal in fat content; specific vitamins they have/don't have I personally don't know. The Big Macs should have enough fat and protein (with no missing amino acids) to meet minimum requirements. The enriched flour-based bread will have at least the vitamins that historically have been an issue for malnutrition. The sauce is probably tomato-based (either ketchup, or ketchup-based), so at least some vitamin C (albeit maybe not much). Any major health issues from not getting much fiber in the diet would probably be further off in the future versus malnutrition issues. ...
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    nettiklive wrote: »
    I randomly stumbled on this video today and remembered this thread, I'm sure it'll get woo'd on here but this sums up exactly what I've been trying to say about fast food and junk food and how it's different from natural foods
    https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1025790800904622&id=276157035868006

    Can you please point to where in this thread, or any other, anyone said that there is NO difference between "junk food" (whatever you are defining that as) and natural foods (again, however you define them)? You keep proclaiming that people are saying something that no one is saying, and you've been misrepresenting the context of this thread in others as well.

    People were claiming here there's no difference between a homemade burger or potato and McDonald's or frozen Walmart burgers or whatever. There is because production matters.

    So mass produced fried potatoes are made from carefully chosen potatoes (which knowledgeable home cooks use, by the way, because it's the perfect potato for fries due to favorable starch content) and then fried, which uses the same amount as deep fried potatoes at home (if not less, because not all home cooks know the perfect temperature for making crispy potatoes and may end up with potatoes that absorb more oil). Is it bad that they make potatoes that taste good to many people? I don't know of a single home cook that wants to deliberately make things that taste bad.

    I like Pollan, in general, but I don't like it when he goes on such tangents.

    To be fair, Mass produced fries are almost always fried twice with a freeze cycle, because that's how you get crisp tasty fries that aren't too soggy and hold salt well.

    This technique is also available to home cooks (although most of us aren't going to go to the trouble).

    True, but blast freezers aren't generally available and Nitrogen can get spendy if you use it every time you want fries.

    So yeah, probably not going to go through the trouble.

    Oh, I didn't think through the blast freezing angle.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    stanmann571 wrote: »
    True, but blast freezers aren't generally available and Nitrogen can get spendy if you use it every time you want fries.

    So yeah, probably not going to go through the trouble.

    You don't need to freeze them that is done for storage. You blanch them in hot water to remove excess starch, cook them at a low temperature, drain, and then cook them at a high temperature to brown them.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    ritzvin wrote: »
    ooh- the island one is a good question. I'm almost curious enough to try to figure that out. You'd have to look more specifically at the macro and micro breakdowns of the peas, beans versus the Big Mac. You would probably be missing some needed amino acids in the peas/beans combo and lower than ideal in fat content; specific vitamins they have/don't have I personally don't know. The Big Macs should have enough fat and protein (with no missing amino acids) to meet minimum requirements. The enriched flour-based bread will have at least the vitamins that historically have been an issue for malnutrition. The sauce is probably tomato-based (either ketchup, or ketchup-based), so at least some vitamin C (albeit maybe not much). Any major health issues from not getting much fiber in the diet would probably be further off in the future versus malnutrition issues. ...

    But Regardless, Team Broccoli carrots dies first- Either from constipation(low fat) or malnutrition, or from blood clots(K)

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