I called oatmeal cookies unhealthy and I got blasted - why?
Options
Replies
-
-
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.
Rat poison.
There's nothing unhealthy about any of the ingredients as long as you don't have too much of it for a too long period of time.0 -
emiliebecause wrote: »
I can't say it is a general position but it is one that comes across in the way some of the more prolific posters express themselves on the topic. For example, abruptly stating "CICO" without much context, to a newer poster who uses the word 'unhealthy' to describe food is going to come across as if nutrition doesn't matter. It's not a huge leap to make.lemurcat12 wrote: »emiliebecause 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*
Just to this post but I agree. It's a bit overdone. I mean I get it CICO CICO CICO however it is normal and healthy to look at what we are consuming and consider things like our arteries when making choices. I noticed it a lot from one poster in particular and then saw later that his caloric intake is supposed to be 4000/day so...um...people have different outlooks, experiences, and goals.
I consider nutrition and health when making choices. I don't see how the general position at MFP is against doing that at all. That people don't think all foods with butter are evil and should be avoided doesn't mean they think food choice doesn't matter, you know.
Almost always when the topic comes up people say "calories are what matter for weight loss, but food choice matters for health and often for how easy it is to stick to your calorie goal." I know this, because I always say it, and I'm usually not the first in the thread to do so.
If someone takes from that that nutrition doesn't matter, only calories, that's on them, and doesn't make your claim about what's the usual position at MFP correct.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Can I just make the point again that OP's original post was looking for an oatmeal cookie recipe that she could binge on, because she doesn't "do portion control" and was whining that she couldn't find an oatmeal cookie recipe that would let her eat a whole batch because they're unhealthy?
The 'moderation' responses were that oatmeal cookies weren't unhealthy in moderation, but that looking for a magic bingeable recipe for cookies so you could eat the whole damn lot, was not reasonable, logical or sustainable.
Wow, I missed the original thread. This really puts the whole thing in perspective.0 -
KittensMaster 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.
You should come to my running club track sessions - we're all amazing home bakers and sometimes we bring cookies and cake for after training.
The junior track coach gave me an amazing recipe for strawberry crumble the other day.
In my opinion, 'high in nutrients' is important for health if you're restricting calories, because if you're not eating much you have to make what you do eat count. If you're very active (like some people at the gym, perhaps), you're probably eating a lot more food and some of it can easily be cookies, as you're still getting all the other nutrients you need elsewhere in your diet.
Yeah, almost every group bike or run around here ends up intentionally at brunch or a bakery. Same with many of my tri club workouts.
It is true people generally don't waste time "defending" what they are eating, because there's no need to.0 -
Chocolate chip is the only cookie I officially recognize. All those other types are just what one eats when the chocolate chip cookies run out - not that I have a problem with those others. As a matter of fact, some of them are almost as good as chocolate chip. Almost. However, there is a particularly evil type of oatmeal cookie that has raisins in it ... looks like a chocolate chip cookie, but what a bitter bitter disappointment. Tastes like betrayal0
-
On MFP you must be VERY careful about how you word things or you will get blasted. This is why I don't post much anymore. I do read other post until the blasting starts then I quit!0
-
I found a recipe for oatmeal protein banana cookies....total calories <700 for all! woot. Have to make these soon.
Oatmeal Banana Protein Cookie
Ingredients
2 overripe bananas
1 cup of oatmeal
1/8 tsp of sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash of baking powder
1 scoop Muscle Milk Vanilla Creme [or any vanilla protein powder]
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with olive or coconut oil. Evenly distribute the spray with
a napkin or paper towel.
3. In a large bowl, mash bananas until creamy. Add oats, protein, cinnamon, salt, baking
powder, and any additional ingredients of your choice. Mix well.
4. Plop mounded spoonfuls of the mixture onto cookie sheet. Sprinkle with almond
slivers.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Eat and enjoy!
Nutrition Facts
Calories: 673
Fat: 11 g
Carbs: 121 g
Protein: 29 g
Someone had to say it.
Yuck.
But hey, at least you won't be likely to binge on those...I'm pretty sure the "everything in moderation crowd" frequently (not always) advocates for hitting your macro goals and eating nutrient dense foods while enjoying your treats. So no one is suggesting "stuffing your face with junk food" or eating cookies for dinner so you have no room to meet your other nutrients. To those criticizing this point of view - at least characterize it correctly. Moderation posters generally show up in threads where someone is trying to eliminate a certain food because they think they need to just to let them know they have another option: moderation. That's exactly what happened in this original thread (why OP felt the need to start a new thread just to respond to her other thread is beyond me). OP wanted to binge eat on cookies but realized that calorie free oatmeal cookies don't necessarily exist. Posters were trying to let OP know that there is nothing inherently unhealthy about cookies (or cake or pie or ice cream) if eaten in moderation. Moderation =/= stuffing your face or missing out on important micro and macro nutrients. And I personally have never seen anyone advocate for that type of diet here (don't let the low post count fool you; long time lurker here). Many times a moderation advocate will post a simple "CICO, everything in moderation" response without much context. It would be possible for an OP in that scenario to get the wrong idea about what moderation means. But, jesus christ, if a person cannot utilize the giant search feature at the top of the community page to find the answer to their question that was posted just ten minutes ago, they don't deserve context.
Ok so yeah, I don't know why people always assume that just because we eat cookies and that we say that there's nothing wrong with eating cookies, we stuff our face with them.
But just because there's nothing wrong with eating a couple cookies in a day doesn't make cookies a healthy food. I don't understand why the 'moderation crowd' insists on the whole 'nothing is unhealthy' thing. It's just silly. Of course some foods are not healthy. Sure, it's not unhealthy to just eat them in moderation, but coming to every single thread telling people that there's nothing unhealthy about cookies is just dumb.
Tbh, I'm not sure what would make cookies an inherently unhealthy food. I do understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to be purposefully argumentative. I just think the healthiness of your diet is determined by, well, your overall diet. Zucchini is a "healthy" food to most people and provides quite a few nutrients. But if you eat only zucchini, your overall diet is not healthy. You wouldn't be getting all the nutrients that you need and your body would suffer. I can't think of any single food that is inherently "healthy" - because I'm not sure if I quite know what that would mean. You have to fill your diet with foods that help you meet both macro and micro nutrient goals and that help to fuel your body for all your activity. If you are eating foods in such a way that it adds up to a healthy overall diet, then how can a couple of cookies in context be unhealthy? What about cookies makes them inherently unhealthy? Again, I don't think the lack of micro/macro nutrients can be the culprit, because zucchini also lacks a lot of nutrients that we need.
That's the thing though... the overall healthiness of a diet is a different thing. You can have an overall healthy diet while still eating some unhealthy things.
It just really bugs me when people jump at posters' throats about 'what's unhealthy about x food' when x food has like 200+ calories a serving and doesn't really have much in term of nutrients (talking about micros, not macros). Unless people are really obtuse on purpose, everyone knows that fruit is healthier than a cookie (it has vitamins, fiber, etc). Heck nuts might have close to 200 calories a serving but they are full of healthy fats.. a cookie? not so much. And it won't fill you up one bit for the calories either.
For 200 calories of zucchini you get over 100% of Vitamin C, 20% Iron, 50% vitamin A, 20% calcium, 14g of fiber...
200 calories of Oreos? 12% Iron. That's it.
So there's your answer - the difference is in the micros (and I guess in the quality of fats to an extent).
Fruit having more micros than something else does f*** all for you if you only have it once a week and then only a small piece. It's not the food that is healthy but the way you decide to eat it in the context of your total diet. That's what we keep explaining.0 -
But just because there's nothing wrong with eating a couple cookies in a day doesn't make cookies a healthy food. I don't understand why the 'moderation crowd' insists on the whole 'nothing is unhealthy' thing. It's just silly. Of course some foods are not healthy. Sure, it's not unhealthy to just eat them in moderation, but coming to every single thread telling people that there's nothing unhealthy about cookies is just dumb.
It seems like that's not how this thread actually started.
But to address the question: people seem to use "unhealthy" when applied to foods in a couple of different ways. First, to mean "not nutrient dense" or "hard to fit in my macros and goals" and, second, to mean "actually harmful to consume, even in moderation." I tend to think of it as the latter, so to me cookies are not "unhealthy." (They are not "healthy" either. They are neutral.)
Whether a food is "healthy" also seems to have two possible definitions: (1) will improve your health; or (2) nutrient dense. I sometimes do use it to mean the latter, but if you use it to mean the former, NO food individually fits in that category--it only makes sense to talk of healthy and unhealthy diets.
That is because a diet made up of only "healthy" (as in nutrient dense) foods may still be quite unhealthy if the foods are not chosen well. (For example, a diet of only raw veggies would be lacking in protein and fat and likely too low in calories for many people. A diet of only chicken breast would be lacking too.)
A cookie is generally NOT the most nutritious choice one can make, but whether that matters or not depends on the overall diet. A diet that includes occasional cookies is not less healthy by definition than one that does not.
And personally I don't find that I am more hungry when I include some ice cream or a cookie (though I rarely eat cookies) in my day. I do often choose not to eat cookies, though.0 -
cindyangotti wrote: »On MFP you must be VERY careful about how you word things or you will get blasted. This is why I don't post much anymore. I do read other post until the blasting starts then I quit!
In reality, people get blasted all of the time for what others THINK they said, not for what they actually said, so careful wording isn't always helpful. Too many people with too many pet theories who want to spout out their theories at every opportunity. They will create drama where there is none just so they can argue.
0 -
OP is a troll. I scanned for 5 pages- OP and nothing else.
That's it. Trolling.0 -
OP, either quit posting troll threads or make them more interesting. You made a wild nutritional claim in your very first post, now you're making a wild claim about your other thread.
In the event that you are a genuine person, what on earth do you think is going to make those oatmeal cookies palatable, if not for sugar? If not granulated/brown, then from apple juice or bananas or w/e.
If you cannot control your volume eating, perhaps you should seek guidance from a mental health professional and not a forum.
Side note, only one or two of the white knights in this thread seems to have lost a significant amount of weight. [Edited by MFP Mod]. Who do you want to listen to?0 -
barbecuesauce wrote: »
Side note, only one or two of the white knights in this thread seems to have lost a significant amount of weight. [Edited by MFP mod] Who do you want to listen to?
I am not sure if I'm a white knight or not but I've lost 94 pounds and I do find a handful of the people here to be rude and often just mean and they have not lost a significant amount of weight either!0 -
KittensMaster 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.
Yup..., totally. This.^^^^^0 -
How about 200 calories of Lucky Charms? They make zucchini look pretty weak in micros.I found a recipe for oatmeal protein banana cookies....total calories <700 for all! woot. Have to make these soon.
Oatmeal Banana Protein Cookie
Ingredients
2 overripe bananas
1 cup of oatmeal
1/8 tsp of sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Dash of baking powder
1 scoop Muscle Milk Vanilla Creme [or any vanilla protein powder]
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Lightly spray a cookie sheet with olive or coconut oil. Evenly distribute the spray with
a napkin or paper towel.
3. In a large bowl, mash bananas until creamy. Add oats, protein, cinnamon, salt, baking
powder, and any additional ingredients of your choice. Mix well.
4. Plop mounded spoonfuls of the mixture onto cookie sheet. Sprinkle with almond
slivers.
5. Bake for 15 minutes.
6. Eat and enjoy!
Nutrition Facts
Calories: 673
Fat: 11 g
Carbs: 121 g
Protein: 29 g
Someone had to say it.
Yuck.
But hey, at least you won't be likely to binge on those...I'm pretty sure the "everything in moderation crowd" frequently (not always) advocates for hitting your macro goals and eating nutrient dense foods while enjoying your treats. So no one is suggesting "stuffing your face with junk food" or eating cookies for dinner so you have no room to meet your other nutrients. To those criticizing this point of view - at least characterize it correctly. Moderation posters generally show up in threads where someone is trying to eliminate a certain food because they think they need to just to let them know they have another option: moderation. That's exactly what happened in this original thread (why OP felt the need to start a new thread just to respond to her other thread is beyond me). OP wanted to binge eat on cookies but realized that calorie free oatmeal cookies don't necessarily exist. Posters were trying to let OP know that there is nothing inherently unhealthy about cookies (or cake or pie or ice cream) if eaten in moderation. Moderation =/= stuffing your face or missing out on important micro and macro nutrients. And I personally have never seen anyone advocate for that type of diet here (don't let the low post count fool you; long time lurker here). Many times a moderation advocate will post a simple "CICO, everything in moderation" response without much context. It would be possible for an OP in that scenario to get the wrong idea about what moderation means. But, jesus christ, if a person cannot utilize the giant search feature at the top of the community page to find the answer to their question that was posted just ten minutes ago, they don't deserve context.
Ok so yeah, I don't know why people always assume that just because we eat cookies and that we say that there's nothing wrong with eating cookies, we stuff our face with them.
But just because there's nothing wrong with eating a couple cookies in a day doesn't make cookies a healthy food. I don't understand why the 'moderation crowd' insists on the whole 'nothing is unhealthy' thing. It's just silly. Of course some foods are not healthy. Sure, it's not unhealthy to just eat them in moderation, but coming to every single thread telling people that there's nothing unhealthy about cookies is just dumb.
Tbh, I'm not sure what would make cookies an inherently unhealthy food. I do understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to be purposefully argumentative. I just think the healthiness of your diet is determined by, well, your overall diet. Zucchini is a "healthy" food to most people and provides quite a few nutrients. But if you eat only zucchini, your overall diet is not healthy. You wouldn't be getting all the nutrients that you need and your body would suffer. I can't think of any single food that is inherently "healthy" - because I'm not sure if I quite know what that would mean. You have to fill your diet with foods that help you meet both macro and micro nutrient goals and that help to fuel your body for all your activity. If you are eating foods in such a way that it adds up to a healthy overall diet, then how can a couple of cookies in context be unhealthy? What about cookies makes them inherently unhealthy? Again, I don't think the lack of micro/macro nutrients can be the culprit, because zucchini also lacks a lot of nutrients that we need.
That's the thing though... the overall healthiness of a diet is a different thing. You can have an overall healthy diet while still eating some unhealthy things.
It just really bugs me when people jump at posters' throats about 'what's unhealthy about x food' when x food has like 200+ calories a serving and doesn't really have much in term of nutrients (talking about micros, not macros). Unless people are really obtuse on purpose, everyone knows that fruit is healthier than a cookie (it has vitamins, fiber, etc). Heck nuts might have close to 200 calories a serving but they are full of healthy fats.. a cookie? not so much. And it won't fill you up one bit for the calories either.
For 200 calories of zucchini you get over 100% of Vitamin C, 20% Iron, 50% vitamin A, 20% calcium, 14g of fiber...
200 calories of Oreos? 12% Iron. That's it.
So there's your answer - the difference is in the micros (and I guess in the quality of fats to an extent).
0 -
Galonamission81 wrote: »KittensMaster 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.
Yup..., totally. This.^^^^^
We talk about all the yummy foods at my gym....just sayin'.0 -
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.
I always get blasted also when i mention 'clean' eating and avoiding stuff like you mention. Seems everyone loves IIFYM (which i think is rubbish)0 -
You get that IIFYM doesn't preclude eating "clean," right? Or maybe you don't.lovellm122 wrote: »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.
I always get blasted also when i mention 'clean' eating and avoiding stuff like you mention. Seems everyone loves IIFYM (which i think is rubbish)
0 -
lovellm122 wrote: »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.
I always get blasted also when i mention 'clean' eating and avoiding stuff like you mention. Seems everyone loves IIFYM (which i think is rubbish)
How is it rubbish??0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 402 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 998 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions