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Is anything really good for you anymore?

2

Replies

  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member

    Here's the quick summary on tilapia:
    - It's a very lean source of protein = good
    - It (especially if cheap) often comes from countries with pretty lax environmental regulations and food regulations/regulation enforcement (so possibly questionable whether or not it was grown in industrial waste water). = bad
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    There really isn't much meat on a red squirrel (the North American ones). Gray squirrels and even fox squirrels are better for eating. (Really.) See, I can squirrel-shame with the best of them!

    Red squirrels are unprotected in New York State. Gray, black, Fox squirrels have seasons and bag limits here. (I believe they all have seasons, limits in PA though).
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    ritzvin wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    There really isn't much meat on a red squirrel (the North American ones). Gray squirrels and even fox squirrels are better for eating. (Really.) See, I can squirrel-shame with the best of them!

    Red squirrels are unprotected in New York State. Gray, black, Fox squirrels have seasons and bag limits here. (I believe they all have seasons, limits in PA though).

    I guess you could make red squirrel soup or something? In my youth, people pretty much dredged them (grays, fox) in flour and pan fried them. (Yes, I ate them - not vegetarian until age 18.). One of my college friends made squirrel cacciatore, which I still find oddly amusing.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    There really isn't much meat on a red squirrel (the North American ones). Gray squirrels and even fox squirrels are better for eating. (Really.) See, I can squirrel-shame with the best of them!

    My grandfather hunted squirrels. Not sure what type, but my impression is that they only ate the brains. Wasn't enough meat on the bones to be worth skinning, apparently. (And these were folks who ate small frogs and young rabbits, which aren't exactly heavy with meat.) (In more recent years, I've heard of people who eat squirrel brains getting the squirrel version of "mad cow" disease.)

    I don't know if this counts as squirrel-shaming.
  • elsie6hickman
    elsie6hickman Posts: 3,864 Member
    The real warning for ANY foreign farmed fish is that their feeding practices are questionable. Will it kill you - I doubt it.
    Every year there is some food that is being pumped as a "miracle" food and then a couple of years go by and that food is discredited that it is not as good for you as they thought. One year it will save you and the next year it will kill you.
    I think the trick is to eat a variety of foods. A lot of people like tilapea for the reason you do.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    VUA21 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    Nothing wrong with red meat; it's green meat that should be avoided.

    Even in a house, with a mouse?

    That was eggs. ;)
    clicketykeys wrote: »
    The ham was also green, though.
    I always found it ambiguous. As a kid, I spent hours wondering about this.

    Me too - glad I'm not alone!

    Sad side note - I had Green Eggs and Ham" and "Goodnight Moon" memorized for years when my children were little, taking up brain space that could have been put to a lot better use.

    On topic - For me, "eat a good variety of food, and not ridiculous amounts of any one thing, and you'll be fine" is the way to go. I honestly don't believe there's anything in our modern food choices that is so toxic it should be avoided in any quantity (except trans-fat, of course). I also don't believe there's much that couldn't eventually cause damage if ingested in stupid quantities on a regular basis. I pretty much ignore the daily blast of "Eat these 5 foods for a long life!" and "Never eat these 5 foods if you want to avoid a heart attack!", unless a credible source comes out with a RED ALERT that something in our food supply's been contaminated with salmonella.
  • hroderick
    hroderick Posts: 756 Member
    The problem it stinks up the place when fish is reheated in the microwave. Save the leftover fish for meals at home, but don't save it too long :)
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited September 2018
    Evelyn_Gorfram wrote: »
    AnvilHead wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    VUA21 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    Nothing wrong with red meat; it's green meat that should be avoided.

    Even in a house, with a mouse?

    That was eggs. ;)
    clicketykeys wrote: »
    The ham was also green, though.
    I always found it ambiguous. As a kid, I spent hours wondering about this.
    It's green as well.

    https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/04/seuss.html
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    Fun with grammar :) You get an award for first cite in the debate forum to support a Dr. Seuss opinion!
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10696648/awards-rant/p1

    If you'd love reading more along the same lines, borrow this book - Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. Amusing and informative.
  • SandyH2015
    SandyH2015 Posts: 95 Member
    When it comes to seafood avoid "farm raised" You want wild caught instead. Instead of Tilapia if you want a mild fish you might try Alaskan Pollock.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited September 2018
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    SandyH2015 wrote: »
    When it comes to seafood avoid "farm raised" You want wild caught instead. Instead of Tilapia if you want a mild fish you might try Alaskan Pollock.

    It may be controversial, but I make sure most of the fish I eat is "farm raised".

    Is this the fish version argument of free range chickens???
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    SandyH2015 wrote: »
    When it comes to seafood avoid "farm raised" You want wild caught instead. Instead of Tilapia if you want a mild fish you might try Alaskan Pollock.

    It may be controversial, but I make sure most of the fish I eat is "farm raised".

    My concern with farm raised is more about the impact the farming process has on wild stocks. Thinking BC salmon specifically. It's an industry I can't support given it's impact.

    If they changed the farming methods to not have the impacts (and I think this will happen) then I would be inclined to buy farmed over wild.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    SandyH2015 wrote: »
    When it comes to seafood avoid "farm raised" You want wild caught instead. Instead of Tilapia if you want a mild fish you might try Alaskan Pollock.

    It may be controversial, but I make sure most of the fish I eat is "farm raised".

    Yeah, there's the catch-22 where some people say farmed fish has less Omega-3 and eats the wrong food so it's bad for you, but others say an increase in consumption of wild-caught fish is leading to over-fishing and the decimation of some species.

    I avoid farmed fish from China, because something I read was scary enough that I remembered I read it, but not scary enough I remembered exactly what was scary. My understanding from various trusted sources (not health-woo pseudoscience all natural sources) say most farmed fish is otherwise fine, with very specific species/areas that you might want to avoid.

    I read a similar article about shell-fish from Vietnam - something to do with chemicals in the water, so I knee-jerk avoid buying that without being motivated to do any actual research. I suppose if that was my only choice I would do the work and see if there was really an issue or if it was a scare piece. Other than that I have no real issue with farmed, which tends to be less expensive than wild.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    SandyH2015 wrote: »
    When it comes to seafood avoid "farm raised" You want wild caught instead. Instead of Tilapia if you want a mild fish you might try Alaskan Pollock.

    It may be controversial, but I make sure most of the fish I eat is "farm raised".

    Yeah, there's the catch-22 where some people say farmed fish has less Omega-3 and eats the wrong food so it's bad for you, but others say an increase in consumption of wild-caught fish is leading to over-fishing and the decimation of some species.

    I avoid farmed fish from China, because something I read was scary enough that I remembered I read it, but not scary enough I remembered exactly what was scary. My understanding from various trusted sources (not health-woo pseudoscience all natural sources) say most farmed fish is otherwise fine, with very specific species/areas that you might want to avoid.

    likely about heavy metals contamination.
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
    edited September 2018
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    VUA21 wrote: »
    Millicent3015 wrote: »
    I think the people who've eaten tilapia for countless generations are the best people to speak to about tilapia. It's a fine fish, very popular where I live. Your OH's coworkers are probably paying too much attention to the latest foodshaming fad. Next week it'll be "don't eat any red squirrels! Red meat is bad!" 🙄

    Nothing wrong with red meat; it's green meat that should be avoided.

    Even in a house, with a mouse?

    Nope, not even in a box with a fox.
  • Sunshine_And_Sand
    Sunshine_And_Sand Posts: 1,320 Member
    OP, if everything is bad for, I am certainly not eating the "right" foods, but I really enjoy all the "wrong" ones I eat.
    Seriously though, eating a variety of foods is the way to go. With the exception of medical conditions/MD advice, don't force yourself to eat something you don't like and don't cut out foods you do like based on what a random coworker/friend/TV person says.
  • Zodikosis
    Zodikosis Posts: 149 Member
    edited September 2018
    You really shouldn't put *that* much stock into what people are saying is good for you or bad for you nowadays. Nutrition is not a very well understood field, and anyone who says they know definitively that something is absolutely bad or absolutely good for you is *probably* talking out of their *kitten*. The reasoning they use is often pretty shoddy if you just pick it apart a little bit and relies more on a lack of understanding of how the scientific process works, appeal to nature fallacy, and misunderstandings of pathology (I've seen people argue before that factory-farmed meat is bad for you because they don't screen out meat with cancerous tumors in it -- technically there is nothing wrong with eating meat with cancerous tumors in it, cancer isn't contagious, it's an uncontrolled overgrowth of tissue generally caused by problems in cell DNA and you can't "catch" DNA mutations from eating it). Layman science journalism tries to make it sound absolute because it makes for sexy headlines. They do this with a lot of other science news too and it's infuriating.
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    greg_87 wrote: »
    Is anything good for you anymore?
    I think one issue is that the media and even many scientists seem to be essentially stuck in black and white thinking. If ANYTHING is negative about a food, then the entire thing is bad. So far too often, information is disseminated as though it will only sell if it is the worst or the best.

    So if, say, eating fish A causes a .02% increase chance of getting cancer, you'll see headlines of 'Eating fish A causes cancer!!' And if eating fish B causes a .02% lower chance of getting cancer, then it 'prevents cancer.' Except if eating fish B also increases chances of a heart attack by .005%, well...now 'Fish B causes heart attacks!' (I actually saw a study years ago that had an extremely low percentage like this for a medical procedure, and later saw articles about how this procedure would help prevent cancer - it's ridiculous).

    Basically, the more we learn about the world, the more we find out that no food, ever, is 100% goodness and light for our bodies. It seems like we just need a few more decades before the media clue in that this has ALWAYS been the case, so we need to figure out what is the best, and what helps the most and does the least harm, you know?

    greg_87 wrote: »
    Do I just ignore what some people are saying?
    IMHO, yes and no. People's words can be worth checking it out, because at this point, food is grown by people you don't know, in places you don't know, using practices you don't know, and then shipped and processed and packaged by people, in places, and using practices you don't know.

    And sometimes there are some truly unhealthy things done to the food during that entire journey from farm to your plate. Because con artists, greedy jerks, and thieves who don't care about you OR your health are always going to be part of the landscape.

    But at the same time...there is a lot of BS out there, too, even a lot of official sounding BS. So I don't take anything, not studies, government recommendations, or anecdotes, without a big grain of salt. And that goes for positive or negative information.

    greg_87 wrote: »
    How do you filter out facts about food, from all the other nonsense? Do I have to perform an in depth investigation before I eat anything?

    Short answer to the latter question - IMO, yeah, kind of. Or find some sources you trust and go by their recommendations.

    This is what I do to filter out facts about food, best I can, with the least amount of work.

    1. Is there a claim that X food is the best/worst thing ever? The cause of all cancer, the solution to aging, etc... Then it's likely BS. Because food is more complicated than that, so it's rare that something is all good or all bad.

    2. If there is a group or company that regularly checks on food and food safety, I try to keep up to date with what they say, and I will often check claims I hear against what these groups might say. One for me, for example, is called Gluten Free Watchdog and has a lot of information on gluten free products and whether or not they are meeting regulations for BEING gluten free.

    3. Is there a claim about food being bad due to farming or processing? Then it might be worth checking out.

    I typically google for both bad and good - X food processing is terrible. X food processing is fine. Etc... That way, I usually find out the claim for what is going on that is bad, and then there's usually someone trying to rebut that claim. And then I've got to think about what I've found.

    It's a pain and I don't like to do it, honestly. But it can be important. As an example, there that Cheerios, with their new gluten free cereal, was not following industry standard in keeping the cereal gluten free. As a celiac, I was concerned, so I did the 'look up good and bad' thing, and the evidence against Cheerios made more sense than what the company said when they claimed everything was fine. So I didn't eat the cereal, and sure enough, people started getting really sick off of it and Cheerios had to change what they were doing.

    I wish I didn't have to do the research, but at this point, we're not getting all food at the local market where you could just talk with a farmer, you know? And unfortunately, we don't always have laws about our food that are as conscientious about our health as we'd like to think they are, so if we want to be healthy and safe, sometimes doing our own research can be important, as crappy as that is.

    4. And one last thing I do is to kind of...think of things in context, maybe is a way to put it? It's basically looking at foods and asking myself where this food was originally eaten, and HOW it was originally eaten. And then check that against the claims made for or against it, and see if there is any discrepancy.

    As an example, you can find information on how avocado pits are poisonous and you should never eat them. And you can find information about how ground up avocado pits are amazing health food items and you should add tons of this homemade powder to smoothies and all sorts of things.

    So I looked around and found that ground up avocado pit has been used for hundreds of years in Mexico as a common ingredient. BUT it is also used like a spice, and only added in small amounts. Which means that, first, it's not poisonous to eat some of this pit, obviously, if it's that commonly eaten. But also, if it is only eaten in small amounts, there is likely a reason...like maybe too much of it can be toxic or have bad effects, maybe. Because historically, if a food is safe to be eaten, people tend to eat a lot of it, because food=good when you try to avoid famine, yeah? :-)

    And as an example, nutmeg is like that. Too much nutmeg is actually poisonous enough to kill someone, but we regularly eat a little ground nutmeg with no ill effects.

    And I've seen many foods that seem to fall into that category now - foods that are eaten just fine when prepared traditional ways, or eaten in traditional amounts (or in ways that account for current farming/processing practices). And then someone hears of their 'good' properties and decides that if a little is good, then more would be better. Or someone decides they can be eaten in all sorts of ways that ignore traditional food preparation, without finding out why that preparation exists in the first place.

    And then there are problems because people are eating too much of the food, or in ways that don't account for certain toxins or negative issues. And that's when someone starts researching about all the problems with this food - because it was making everyone sick now, so it must be bad.

  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    I disagree however that actual scientific study publications are sensationalized though....if you read the actual studies they tend to be very measured and understated in their conclusions are rarely if ever make broad inferences.

    Thanks for mentioning this. I would say that is what I have seen as well, that the studies themselves are less likely to make the typical sweeping generalizations that are all or nothing. Although I have seen a few scientists discuss the studies using more sweeping statements during interviews. Not the majority, certainly, but some, definitely.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    shaumom wrote: »
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    I disagree however that actual scientific study publications are sensationalized though....if you read the actual studies they tend to be very measured and understated in their conclusions are rarely if ever make broad inferences.

    Thanks for mentioning this. I would say that is what I have seen as well, that the studies themselves are less likely to make the typical sweeping generalizations that are all or nothing. Although I have seen a few scientists discuss the studies using more sweeping statements during interviews. Not the majority, certainly, but some, definitely.

    I note this is nearly all disciplines. There is an incredible amount of data available and lack of understanding on how to apply this information, so we are left with a tremendous number of people in positions of influence who simply do not know how to think. Journalists are at the forefront of this and acting as the canaries in the proverbial coalmine. The demand for interpretation has exceeded ability.

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