There are 'BAD' foods
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SilverRose89 wrote: »Nope. Considering food 'good' and 'bad' is what caused me to have issues with eating and feeling guilt when I'd eaten something 'bad'.
Food is food. Some has more nutritional value than others and making the decision about what to use your daily calories on is part of the challenge of weight loss (or gain, or maintenance). But I'm never gonna say any food is "bad" because it isn't.
Where's the 'Like' button?
I've been trying to undo decades of judging myself as 'good' or 'bad' based on the foods I ate. Last year, I started to eat mindfully, asking myself if I was really hungry, and if I really wanted that particular food. I lost some weight, but not enough, because my calorie intake was too high. Now with MFP, I try to eat mindfully within my chosen limits. One of these days, I'll probably have a slice of pizza (and a big salad) for dinner, when I really want it and can afford the calories. And I will enjoy the heck out of it.
Knowing that I can have any food prevents me from feeling restricted and defiant. I do keep certain foods out of the house. If I want ice cream, I'll go out and order a single scoop.
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Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?
Your point is well taken. I apologize for being pedantic but there are actually foods you shouldn't feed someone who is malnourished (see: refeeding syndrome)
Does 3 days without eating guarantee malnourishment? Sorry, pedantic and all...
No but it is highly likely that someone who hasn't eaten for days is likely to see significant physiological issues with immediate refeeding at normal levels.
Who said normal levels? I get the semantically argument just as you get mine I'm sure.
A perfectly healthy guy (me) who eats a perfectly balance diet goes on a camping trip and forgets food (I'm an idiot apparently). I tough it out anyway. Lol. Someone offers me a 400 calorie piece of cake 3 days in... Is that food healthier for me than nothing?
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suziecue20 wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »suziecue20 wrote: »I see lots of posts stating that there are no 'bad' foods but if this is the case why do we have expressions like 'naughty but nice' when we have eaten something scrumptious we know we shouldn't have?
I know that with CICO I could spend all or most of my daily calories on foods like full fat cheeses, cakes, pastries, biscuits [cookies], ice cream, deep fried chips [fries], sausages, fatty meat and still lose weight but at what cost to my health?
There are lots of foods that are 'bad' but obviously only when they are eaten in high volume and too frequently.
I eat 'bad' foods occasionally under the premise that 'a little bit of what you fancy does you good' and the fact that they stop me feeling deprived and becoming a self-righteous martyr.
So come on, admit it folks, there are 'bad' foods.
not everyone has expressions like "naughty but nice" because not everybody assigns a moral value to food. yes, eating nothing but "junk" would be bad as far as nutrition goes...but nobody is suggesting that...a lot of people like yourself seem to very black and white thinkers and small picture thinkers and unable to actually look at diet in the context of the whole.
there are no inherently "bad" foods...there are bad overall diets and good overall diets. yesterday i had some oats and eggs for breakfast, a homemade coconut curry with shrimp and loaded with vegetables for lunch some blueberries and an apple and a nice grilled salmon with brown rice and vegetables for dinner. i also had a couple of those small twix bars for a snack...in the context of my diet as a whole, those two little twixes are irrelevant.
also, a diet of nothing but vegetables and fruit would be pretty bad as well...obviously the foods are nutritious, but the diet itself would be incredibly unbalanced and missing a lot of other essential nutrition.
As I have previously said 'naughty but nice' is a British saying that goes back eons so I suppose that means that the Brits have always put a moral value on food.
I eat a balanced diet but my point is that if I didn't severely restrict foods I know I don't need [which I refer to as 'bad] then I wouldn't get in the nutrients I need on my 1200 calories a day. Before anyone jumps on me about that - I am 5ft short and 67 years old so I can't eat more calories.
the point is that context matters and you start the thread with this extreme notion of nothing but a junk food diet to make some point about foods being bad. this happens a lot on mfp and it's old.0 -
suziecue20 wrote: »
U turn - I've just been thinking about when my children were ill and didn't eat for 3 days - no I couldn't feed them normally, they had to be weaned back to a normal diet because their systems couldn't take it straight away.
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Strange how throughout history curing and smoking meats has been the number one method of food preservation, yet someone has decided now with elevated cancer rates to focus on cured and smoked meats. Like the others said, follow the money. In 5 years someone will probably come out with a study saying we need more cured and smoked meats in our diet.
Think about the egg and coffee industries.
Anyway in my opinion, saying good or bad when talking about foods gives them an emotional quality that people trying to lose weight need to disassociate from. I try and look at all food as fuel, yes some is tastier than others, but I'm trying to weigh the cost/benefit of what I'm eating. Sure some days I'll have a dirty delicious hamburger, but I fit it in my calories and try watch the rest of my day to keep my macros from going too far out of whack.0 -
Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?
Your point is well taken. I apologize for being pedantic but there are actually foods you shouldn't feed someone who is malnourished (see: refeeding syndrome)
Does 3 days without eating guarantee malnourishment? Sorry, pedantic and all...
No but it is highly likely that someone who hasn't eaten for days is likely to see significant physiological issues with immediate refeeding at normal levels.
Who said normal levels? I get the semantically argument just as you get mine I'm sure.
A perfectly healthy guy (me) who eats a perfectly balance diet goes on a camping trip and forgets food (I'm an idiot apparently). I tough it out anyway. Lol. Someone offers me a 400 calorie piece of cake 3 days in... Is that food healthier for me than nothing?
Lol!
https://youtu.be/nfr5AQR7YPg
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suziecue20 wrote: »I see lots of posts stating that there are no 'bad' foods but if this is the case why do we have expressions like 'naughty but nice' when we have eaten something scrumptious we know we shouldn't have?
(snipping)
So come on, admit it folks, there are 'bad' foods.
Why do we have expressions like "the sun rose at 7:15" when it didn't, in fact, rise at all, ever? There are lots of outdated, inaccurate or misleading concepts embodied in everyday speech.
Usually, that's not a problem.
On MFP, I think you have to read for nuance, sometimes, though: One sometimes encounters people who have a disordered relationship with food - mildly disordered, or severely. One will read that they ate a cookie (within calorie goal) so they think they'll gain weight because it had sugar, or that they ate some chips/french fries which are "bad" so clearly they're a bad person and a failure and might as well give up. (Yes, I have really read these things here.) One wants to convince these folks that foods are not "bad" in those ways.
Sometimes, you can't tell exactly how a person is thinking (in a nuanced sense) when they refer to food being "bad". YMMV, but I think it may be the careful response to think they may have those extreme thoughts in the back of their minds, and disabuse them of them if you can.
Lots of popular media pump up this nonsense as click-bait ("seven foods you should *never* eat!!!"), and supplement/"health" food purveyors sometimes do likewise. Why not provide a counterweight here? Most threads where people say "there are no bad food" contain plenty of "you can easily eat too much of certain low-nutrient-density foods, which is a bad plan". I don't typically see folks on the forum encouraging a diet full of low-nutrient-density foods without counterbalance (though I do see some eating that way).
But using everyday cliches - like "naughty but nice" - in everyday life? Not a problem (other than that non-cliches would be more fun).0 -
As I have previously said 'naughty but nice' is a British saying that goes back eons so I suppose that means that the Brits have always put a moral value on food.
It doesn't mean anything of the sort! It's just a saying.
My Mum used to say "don't stand there like two of eels", my mother-in-laws version is "don't stand there like cheese at four pence".
Both are purely figurative sayings and don't mean that either cheese or eels are comparable to someone standing about doing nothing.
You have completely misinterpreted the recent "bacon cancer scare" by the way. Read beyond the soundbites and headlines to get the context.
Context is vital when discussing foods - would you say that carb gels are bad because they are just sugar?
Perfect when I'm out cycling for hours, not so appropriate sitting down watching TV.0 -
I support the notion that some foods are unhealthy.Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?
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singingflutelady wrote: »suziecue20 wrote: »The UK Government has just labelled ALL processed meats, including bacon and sausages as being dangerous to health [cancer causing] so how can they not be bad?
You didn't read this study very carefully. If you eat tons of processed meat every day your cancer risk is slightly elevated
I remember doing some maths on that it was something like a 6% uplift in the risk of developing one specific cancer of the colon / intestine by eating over xg
Need to find study0 -
ForecasterJason wrote: »I support the notion that some foods are unhealthy.Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?0 -
Beefing With the World Health Organization's Cancer Warnings
A new ruling on processed meat shows how confusing the organization’s classification scheme is—again.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/why-is-the-world-health-organization-so-bad-at-communicating-cancer-risk/412468/?utm_source=SFTwitter0 -
Processed meat and cancer – what you need to know
http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/10/26/processed-meat-and-cancer-what-you-need-to-know/0 -
Here we go again...
Nope. Wrong. The only food that is bad is spoiled food. You can make bad decisions over eating. Dyes, chemicals are additives that you should avoid..Too much of anything is bad. Again its about choices.0 -
shadowfax_c11 wrote: »I also never speak or think of eating such foods as being naughty or being bad. I think of them as making choices. Sometimes I chose to eat more than I should. It is neither a good nor bad choice. It is just a choice.
No. Eating more than your should on a regular basis is a bad choice.0 -
There aren't any bad foods as a blanket statement, but there are bad diets or foods that are bad for your particular case.
If I use your words and say "I could spend all or most of my daily calories on kale but at what cost to my health?" and it would still apply. Substitute kale with any other food and no matter how amazing it is, it would not provide you with the all of nutrients you need unless it's a part of an overall nutritionally balanced diet. In this case your diet is bad, even though it consists of one of the most nutrient rich foods on the planet. On the flip side, a person who has a diet which contains all or most of the needed nutrients, but happens to have an ice cream every day is said to have a good diet. Just like very few dieters live on kale exclusively, very few live on cookies and ice cream exclusively. You are basically building a strawman.
I like to look at dieting holistically. That ice cream which you consider bad is actually one of the best things for my diet. It keeps me sane and helps me continue losing. Cookies make me feel like I'm not dieting. They give me joy and make my diet less stressful. Without including all of the foods I love in my diet I wouldn't have been able to continue. So are these foods good or bad in my case?
Skim cheese doesn't satisfy me. It makes me want to eat more and it tastes bad. It makes me feel like I'm giving up something better and settling for less. In a sense, it's bad for me and bad for my diet even though it's lower in calories.
Also, how does adding a couple of ingredients to something suddenly turns it from good bad? Milk is "good", eggs are "good", custard is baaaaaaaaaad just because sugar was added to these ingredients. Somehow adding sugar makes the calcium, protein, vitamin A, B vitamins, vitamin D and all the other nutrients go poof.
We need to stop looking at foods through absolutes. When you call something "naughty but nice" you are essentially giving it the power to be more desirable than it really is and to be perceived worse than it really is. "Forbidden fruits" are more desirable than any old fruits lying on the counter. Last year we had a cucumber shortage and they became very expensive, and do you know what happened? The humble cucumber that used to rot in the bottom of our fridge suddenly became hard to obtain. We drove for hours trying to find a store that sold it because my sister decided she was craving cucumbers, when she barely even looked at them before. We bought a kilo, and ate it all in one setting as if it was the last kilo of cucumbers on earth.
In the past when I had the "good" and "bad" mentality and it caused me to overeat high calorie foods. If I had a candy bar, I considered my diet ruined and the "screw it" syndrome kicked it where I continued to stuff my face with all kinds of foods that I considered bad. After changing the way I look at food, I now can safely say "no thank you" to a piece of chocolate if I didn't feel like it, and can get very excited about barley soup. To me, food has two labels now: foods I feel like eating right now, and foods I don't feel like eating. No single food has the power to "ruin my diet".0 -
There are no bad foods, only bad feelings.
There are foods that will negatively affect your cholesterol levels, mental clarity, blood pressure rates, energy levels, and general biological health- particularly if they comprise the majority of your diet.
However, if you "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" then no single food that you add to your day is really "bad," you might have bad feelings about it because of your associations, but it's not going to kill you.
If foods that negatively affect your biological health are at the forefront of your diet, then yes, regardless of your weight, your health will be poor.
I do think there are bad food corporations, who create what can arguably be referred to as "products" rather than food, but...I just don't think viewing individual foods as bad is particularly helpful for anyone's mentality.0 -
All food is good. I don't discriminate. Especially donuts and steak. Mmmm0
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ForecasterJason wrote: »I support the notion that some foods are unhealthy.Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?
So "nothing" is healthier than energy without micros? That makes zero sense.0 -
sunandmoons wrote: »Here we go again...
Nope. Wrong. The only food that is bad is spoiled food. You can make bad decisions over eating. Dyes, chemicals are additives. Too much of anything is bad. Again its about choices.
Not always about choices it would seem...
i.e. The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident in China.
The contamination of milk and milk products with melamine – an industrial chemical used in fertilizers and plastics. Melamine, because it is rich in nitrogen, can be used to disguise milk that has been watered-down by fooling tests for protein levels. Consumed by humans it can produce kidney stones and other potentially fatal conditions, especially in children.
China reported an estimated 300,000 victims in total. Six infants died from kidney stones and other kidney damage with an estimated 54,000 babies being hospitalized.
But wait obviously this was a mistake right? Think again...
A high-profile government investigation found that top Sanlu officials had known about the milk contamination and its health effects since late 2007. Despite complaints from consumers it took no action to highlight the issue or improve its product.
The scandal though was not limited to Sanlu alone. Subsequent inspections found melamine in milk products from 21 other Chinese producers – or one in five.
At the time the head of China's food quality watchdog said milk products had not been previously tested for melamine because no-one had even considered the possibility that it might be added in the first place.
But the government had itself played a critical and direct role in the development and proliferation of the melamine contamination. Meanwhile, officials at both the local and national level collaborated either actively or passively in covering up the growing scale of the crisis.
A number of criminal prosecutions were conducted by the Chinese government. Two people were executed, one given a suspended death penalty, three people receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), being fired or forced to resign.
At the time a spokesman warned the milk contamination was "clearly not an isolated accident", adding that the case had been "a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for basic, short-term profits."
Food for thought, maybe?
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OP I'm with you. I'm not going to pretend that a Keebler cookie is not 'bad' food. Doesn't mean I won't eat it, doesn't mean I feel guilty about it either (as long as I only eat one or two), but I'd be in denial if I didn't realize that there could be better choices.
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There are no bad foods, only bad feelings.
There are foods that will negatively affect your cholesterol levels, mental clarity, blood pressure rates, energy levels, and general biological health- particularly if they comprise the majority of your diet.
However, if you "eat food, not too much, mostly plants" then no single food that you add to your day is really "bad," you might have bad feelings about it because of your associations, but it's not going to kill you.
If foods that negatively affect your biological health are at the forefront of your diet, then yes, regardless of your weight, your health will be poor.
I do think there are bad food corporations, who create what can arguably be referred to as "products" rather than food, but...I just don't think viewing individual foods as bad is particularly helpful for anyone's mentality.
I did have a high cholesterol, high blood pressure problem but because I have drastically reduced the 'bad' [doctor's word] food both are now down to normal.0 -
_Terrapin_ wrote: »ForecasterJason wrote: »I support the notion that some foods are unhealthy.Since these discussions always go to the extremes, let me ask this.
If there is a starving child that hasn't eaten in 3 days, are there any foods that are bad for them?Hornsby wrote:So "nothing" is healthier than energy without micros? That makes zero sense.0 -
OP I'm with you. I'm not going to pretend that a Keebler cookie is not 'bad' food. Doesn't mean I won't eat it, doesn't mean I feel guilty about it either (as long as I only eat one or two), but I'd be in denial if I didn't realize that there could be better choices.
This is exactly what I mean0 -
Cryptonomnomicon wrote: »sunandmoons wrote: »Here we go again...
Nope. Wrong. The only food that is bad is spoiled food. You can make bad decisions over eating. Dyes, chemicals are additives. Too much of anything is bad. Again its about choices.
Not always about choices it would seem...
i.e. The 2008 Chinese milk scandal was a food safety incident in China.
The contamination of milk and milk products with melamine – an industrial chemical used in fertilizers and plastics. Melamine, because it is rich in nitrogen, can be used to disguise milk that has been watered-down by fooling tests for protein levels. Consumed by humans it can produce kidney stones and other potentially fatal conditions, especially in children.
China reported an estimated 300,000 victims in total. Six infants died from kidney stones and other kidney damage with an estimated 54,000 babies being hospitalized.
But wait obviously this was a mistake right? Think again...
A high-profile government investigation found that top Sanlu officials had known about the milk contamination and its health effects since late 2007. Despite complaints from consumers it took no action to highlight the issue or improve its product.
The scandal though was not limited to Sanlu alone. Subsequent inspections found melamine in milk products from 21 other Chinese producers – or one in five.
At the time the head of China's food quality watchdog said milk products had not been previously tested for melamine because no-one had even considered the possibility that it might be added in the first place.
But the government had itself played a critical and direct role in the development and proliferation of the melamine contamination. Meanwhile, officials at both the local and national level collaborated either actively or passively in covering up the growing scale of the crisis.
A number of criminal prosecutions were conducted by the Chinese government. Two people were executed, one given a suspended death penalty, three people receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms, and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), being fired or forced to resign.
At the time a spokesman warned the milk contamination was "clearly not an isolated accident", adding that the case had been "a large-scale intentional activity to deceive consumers for basic, short-term profits."
Food for thought, maybe?
Are you in China?? And where did you copy and paste this bit of information? This is about chemicals added to food as I had already mentioned0 -
OP I'm with you. I'm not going to pretend that a Keebler cookie is not 'bad' food. Doesn't mean I won't eat it, doesn't mean I feel guilty about it either (as long as I only eat one or two), but I'd be in denial if I didn't realize that there could be better choices.
Why would a Keebler cookie be a "bad" food if you've eaten a balanced diet all day, are within your calorie goals, have hit/come reasonably close to your macro goals, and are having that cookie as a snack because you have room under your calorie limit for it and it sounds good at the moment?
Context and dosage. No such thing as bad foods, but there is such a thing as a bad diet/eating habits overall. A Keebler cookie, or a bowl of ice cream, or a Big Mac or french fries or whatever aren't "bad" within the context of an overall balanced diet. Subsisting mostly or entirely upon those items would be a bad idea, just as subsisting entirely upon a diet of broccoli or kale or fresh fruits or chicken would be.
Driving through a school zone at 40 mph at 7:30 am on a weekday would be bad. Driving through a school zone at 40 mph at 1:00 am on a Saturday wouldn't carry the same risks. Context.0 -
The only bad foods I know of:
-Burned food
-Spoiled food
-Plastic food used for photography props
-Food that has done crime.
-Food that tastes awful to me
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Not in China, Australia actually. But If you type in 2008 Chinese milk scandal you will find a plethora of links. I perused several including Wikipedia (Ugh) I know. I was just trying to illustrate that humanity is indeed capable of selling what I would consider "bad" food or products either through ignorance or in this case because of profit. I seem to recall Nestle doing something similar decades ago, selling tainted baby formula in Africa.
You can't just assume that because it has passed approval and made it to the shelves it is somehow without risk.
ETA: You may have mentioned additives or chemicals (FYI:Everything is chemicals) but the people subjected to the horror of watching their children die or get sick were buying a product deemed safe not the chemical which was knowingly added for profit.
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OP I'm with you. I'm not going to pretend that a Keebler cookie is not 'bad' food. Doesn't mean I won't eat it, doesn't mean I feel guilty about it either (as long as I only eat one or two), but I'd be in denial if I didn't realize that there could be better choices.
Why would a Keebler cookie be a "bad" food if you've eaten a balanced diet all day, are within your calorie goals, have hit/come reasonably close to your macro goals, and are having that cookie as a snack because you have room under your calorie limit for it and it sounds good at the moment?
Context and dosage. No such thing as bad foods, but there is such a thing as a bad diet/eating habits overall. A Keebler cookie, or a bowl of ice cream, or a Big Mac or french fries or whatever aren't "bad" within the context of an overall balanced diet. Subsisting mostly or entirely upon those items would be a bad idea, just as subsisting entirely upon a diet of broccoli or kale or fresh fruits or chicken would be.
Driving through a school zone at 40 mph at 7:30 am on a weekday would be bad. Driving through a school zone at 40 mph at 1:00 am on a Saturday wouldn't carry the same risks. Context.
Having a Keebler cookie or two a day doesn't make a bad diet, but it doesn't mean that a Keebler cookie is a healthy food. Some food are just better for you than others (more nutrients, vitamins, etc). Not too sure why some people don't want to admit that. *shrug*
But I don't feel like arguing about this for 100 pages, just wanted to tell OP that I agree with her.0 -
suziecue20 wrote: »I need some foods to be 'bad' - if everything was good I'd never lose weight.
This is a different issue from your OP. I don't consider food good or bad. I will sometimes make choices based on what my goals are, such as eating chicken breast because my protein is low, or a steak because protein and iron are low.
I feel that by labeling foods it's too easy to allow that to become personal. I ate a bad food, therefore I suck at dieting. It becomes a spiral of guilt and shame around food. This isn't the case for all people, but I have seen it often enough to know it happens._Terrapin_ wrote: »queenliz99 wrote: »_Terrapin_ wrote: »suziecue20 wrote: »_Terrapin_ wrote: »suziecue20 wrote: »The UK Government has just labelled ALL processed meats, including bacon and sausages as being dangerous to health [cancer causing] so how can they not be bad?
Sorry OP; if you need to use labels have it. I'm just eating for fuel to do stuff. I would say things like stress have a greater impact on health then almost any combo of food consumption.
Bowel cancer
I think this has been 'known' for a while, seared meat, etc comes to mind. Moderation probably helps; if I eat 2 pounds of sausage daily and sit around like 3 toed sloth then maybe it increases my likelihood of cancer. Then again....
Three toed sloths are cute! I want to be one in my next life
I thought you were trying to get there in this life. Might improve your reincarnation status
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