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What are your unpopular opinions about health / fitness?
Replies
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I think keto/low-carb is mostly bunk.
Seems to be a very unpopular opinion these days.5 -
I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form. Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself. Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me. "Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives. I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.9
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I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form. Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself. Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me. "Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives. I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.
An ingredient isn't automatically bad just because it is used in a food product and a non-food product.
I mean, my facial lotion has one of the same ingredients as a snack bar I had with lunch today. But I'm not going to conclude that I'm somehow in danger because I'm eating lotion. Context matters. What's actually wrong with the ingredient, how do you think it will harm you?
This is some Food Babe level logic here.22 -
How I feel when a discussion of food industry chemical additives leads to a discussion of the chemical composition of fruit.
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I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form. Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself. Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me. "Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives. I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.
You're talking about water, right? Because water is used in antifreeze and makes things moist.
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History is chock full of formerly believed to be safe products. It took people standing up and saying something about it before it stopped.
If you think the food industry isn't putting things in your food that are harmful, you just keep believing that.
If we all stopped accepting it, it wouldn't be the norm and prices of less chemically treated and processed foods would come down. Companies would be forced to make better food.
But, well, who cares anyway. Accept the norm. Don't question things. It is the way it is. I like my chemically flavored and sweetend sodas. And if it fits in my calories, I'll eat it. Good for you. It's just not for me. It's unpopular. That's why I posted in this thread.9 -
History is chock full of formerly believed to be safe products. It took people standing up and saying something about it before it stopped.
If you think the food industry isn't putting things in your food that are harmful, you just keep believing that.
If we all stopped accepting it, it wouldn't be the norm and prices of less chemically treated and processed foods would come down. Companies would be forced to make better food.
But, well, who cares anyway. Accept the norm. Don't question things. It is the way it is. I like my chemically flavored and sweetend sodas. And if it fits in my calories, I'll eat it. Good for you. It's just not for me. It's unpopular. That's why I posted in this thread.
ok, but what ingredients specifically? i think a few people have asked what chemicals and additives you're rallying against, but i haven't seen if you've addressed it.4 -
janejellyroll wrote: »The link between sodium nitrites and cancer
CTCA
May 31, 2013
A study by the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii and the University of Southern California suggests a link between eating processed meats and cancer risk. The study followed 190,000 people, ages 45-75, for seven years and found that people who ate the most processed meats had a 67% higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate the least amount.
Did you know that celery, cabbage, beets, carrots, radishes, and spinach are all naturally high in sodium nitrate? I found a University of Minnesota study when I googled to check my recollection of this that stated that the average person consumes 90% of their intake of nitrite from vegetables and 10% from processed meats.
Welp, I'm dead. I eat cabbage and carrots just about every day.
I keep telling people to avoid those vitamin/mineral contaminated vegetables, but does anyone listen? How many children do we have to lose before broccoli is banned once and for all?!
Anyone know a screenwriter? I feel like that could be the plot for a kid's movie told from the perspective of a kid trying to vanquish an evil villain named Broccoli, lol.3 -
History is chock full of formerly believed to be safe products. It took people standing up and saying something about it before it stopped.
If you think the food industry isn't putting things in your food that are harmful, you just keep believing that.
If we all stopped accepting it, it wouldn't be the norm and prices of less chemically treated and processed foods would come down. Companies would be forced to make better food.
But, well, who cares anyway. Accept the norm. Don't question things. It is the way it is. I like my chemically flavored and sweetend sodas. And if it fits in my calories, I'll eat it. Good for you. It's just not for me. It's unpopular. That's why I posted in this thread.
If someone stands up, with evidence, to show something is harmful, then that's appropriate. But just being afraid of "chemicals" or the "artificial" on general principle doesn't make sense.
You can't just stand up and say "Be afraid of the future because I don't understand it!" (Well, you can. But reasonable people will probably ignore you).12 -
History is chock full of formerly believed to be safe products. It took people standing up and saying something about it before it stopped.
If you think the food industry isn't putting things in your food that are harmful, you just keep believing that.
If we all stopped accepting it, it wouldn't be the norm and prices of less chemically treated and processed foods would come down. Companies would be forced to make better food.
But, well, who cares anyway. Accept the norm. Don't question things. It is the way it is. I like my chemically flavored and sweetend sodas. And if it fits in my calories, I'll eat it. Good for you. It's just not for me. It's unpopular. That's why I posted in this thread.
History is also chock full of people starving to death from mal-nutrition. While that is still the case in some under developed parts of the world, the overall impact of food science has increased the quality and safety of food over the past 75 years. Is it perfect? No, of course not - nothing is. I agree with you that free-range chickens eating insects make better eggs than "all vegetarian fed" conventional chicken eggs, but I've yet to find them at any grocery store within 50 miles of my house (I live in a rural area), so I settle for what I can get and I know that the increased availability of eggs in a grocery store is a huge benefit for people who can't raise their own chickens. It provides cheap, accessible nutrition just like many processed foods do.
It's fine if you have the resources to eat the way that you want to, but it feels a *bit* evangelical to tell others that not eating in the same way is bad, especially when the alternative would be no access to healthful food at all.13 -
I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form.
None of those are meaningfully closer to the original form: cocoa beans, wheat, sugar cane.
A cookie made with them is not healthier than a cookie made with King Arthur white flour and non raw sugar (I think raw sugar is basically a scam: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/difference-between-brown-sugar-sugar-raw-9244.html).Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself.
Depends on the cookie, and if you look up what the added ingredients are they often aren't ones that would bother me. I prefer homemade because I am a cookie snob and if I'm spending the calories I want something that tastes amazing. (That said, my current favorite cookie is not homemade, but the macarons from a bakery sadly, sigh, near my house.) ;-)Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me.
Well, you must have been more interested in store-bought cakes than I am to bother researching this, but being somewhat familiar with FoodBabe (as someone else said) this pings my "probably distorted" radar, but whatever."Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives.
Like I said before, processed food (frozen, canned, available out of season, flour, sugar, dairy, meat from a butcher even) all makes things easier and healthy food more available all year, and cheaper. Same with farming existing, etc. Same with the fact I can go out for Indian or Ethiopian or a good Italian place or a farm-based seasonal place.I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.
You are confusing nutrition (which no one is discounting) and this "natural" thing. I buy chicken only from local farms (buying free range doesn't necessarily mean a lot), but as janejellyroll says in many ways that is a luxury and something that is worthwhile to me (and for others not ethically sufficient and they'd consider 100% plant based important, even if the food was in some ways more processed). I DON'T think broccoli in January is NOT healthy because where I live it's not natural or seasonal. (Again, local and seasonal would mean I don't get much produce in the winter -- is that healthier?)1 -
History is chock full of formerly believed to be safe products. It took people standing up and saying something about it before it stopped.
If you think the food industry isn't putting things in your food that are harmful, you just keep believing that.
If we all stopped accepting it, it wouldn't be the norm and prices of less chemically treated and processed foods would come down. Companies would be forced to make better food.
But, well, who cares anyway. Accept the norm. Don't question things. It is the way it is. I like my chemically flavored and sweetend sodas. And if it fits in my calories, I'll eat it. Good for you. It's just not for me. It's unpopular. That's why I posted in this thread.
It's interesting to me because I see a lot of people trying to question things and you saying no, accept the norm that this is healthier because I say so. This is still the debate board, after all. If you don't want to debate the actual additives you're talking about it might be best not to bring them up.
Google suggests you mean Propylene glycol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propylene_glycol4 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form.
None of those are meaningfully closer to the original form: cocoa beans, wheat, sugar cane.
A cookie made with them is not healthier than a cookie made with King Arthur white flour and non raw sugar (I think raw sugar is basically a scam: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/difference-between-brown-sugar-sugar-raw-9244.html).Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself.
Depends on the cookie, and if you look up what the added ingredients are they often aren't ones that would bother me. I prefer homemade because I am a cookie snob and if I'm spending the calories I want something that tastes amazing. (That said, my current favorite cookie is not homemade, but the macarons from a bakery sadly, sigh, near my house.) ;-)Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me.
Well, you must have been more interested in store-bought cakes than I am to bother researching this, but being somewhat familiar with FoodBabe (as someone else said) this pings my "probably distorted" radar, but whatever."Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives.
Like I said before, processed food (frozen, canned, available out of season, flour, sugar, dairy, meat from a butcher even) all makes things easier and healthy food more available all year, and cheaper. Same with farming existing, etc. Same with the fact I can go out for Indian or Ethiopian or a good Italian place or a farm-based seasonal place.I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.
You are confusing nutrition (which no one is discounting) and this "natural" thing. I buy chicken only from local farms (buying free range doesn't necessarily mean a lot), but as janejellyroll says in many ways that is a luxury and something that is worthwhile to me (and for others not ethically sufficient and they'd consider 100% plant based important, even if the food was in some ways more processed). I DON'T think broccoli in January is NOT healthy because where I live it's not natural or seasonal. (Again, local and seasonal would mean I don't get much produce in the winter -- is that healthier?)
Based on what I've read, I can understand why some people prefer organic vegetables. I absolutely don't understand the case for *processed* organic foods like chocolate chips or bread crumbs. That feels like such a racket to me. It's not closer to a "natural" form of chocolate (not closer than a non-organic chocolate chip) and even if pesticides are a concern, I can't imagine chocolate chips contribute much to someone's overall consumption of pesticides.
I honestly think my diet is better because I have access to a variety of fresh produce in the winter months. Could I survive without it? Yeah, I might learn how to can or I'd research other ways to meet those nutritional needs, but I don't think I'd be better off overall. I do try to moderate my consumption in the winter, mostly for budget reasons (and also because some things are just so much better in season).
I have no problem with people supporting local agriculture when it is meaningful to them (I do it) or they prefer the taste. It's just when it becomes a way to signal greater virtue, a deeper connection to food (I've had some awesome meals made with non-local stuff), or advanced as the only way to eat healthfully, it makes me want to respond.
It strikes me as limiting in some way. An expansive food philosophy should be about embracing all the excellence that we can afford (and, I would argue, that is consistent with our ethics). That can include local, in-season peaches, the fresh corn tortillas made just down the street, a perfectly ripe avocado that may have been grown in Mexico, and salsa from a jar because I think it tastes better than when I make it myself.
(I realize "should" is a really prescriptive word, obviously nobody *has* to approach food the same way I do, but I feel so much better when I'm focusing on what I am including rather than what I am excluding. I literally never think negative things about Duncan Hines cake mix precisely because I don't like them. I don't think about buying them, it doesn't worry me what is in them, or that some people genuinely enjoy them, just like people who hate spicy food never have to come up with reasons why they don't like it or worry about why I eat it. When people come in with all these hyper-specific reasons not to eat things that they claim to hate, it always makes me curious . . . protesting a bit too much, almost).5 -
It's pointless. It will inevitably be argued otherwise. After all, they've been approved for use in food. But I don't believe that necessarily means they are safe. I still have my concerns.
If you must know, some of the additives I try to avoid BHA or BHT, artificial sweeteners, food dyes like blue # 1 & 2, red # 3 - just to name a few -sodium nitrate, sulfur dioxide, sodium benzoate, potassium bromate, high fructose corn syrup, MSG, and of course trans fats. Pesticides, artificial hormones, antibiotics… And the list goes on.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »The link between sodium nitrites and cancer
CTCA
May 31, 2013
A study by the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii and the University of Southern California suggests a link between eating processed meats and cancer risk. The study followed 190,000 people, ages 45-75, for seven years and found that people who ate the most processed meats had a 67% higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate the least amount.
Did you know that celery, cabbage, beets, carrots, radishes, and spinach are all naturally high in sodium nitrate? I found a University of Minnesota study when I googled to check my recollection of this that stated that the average person consumes 90% of their intake of nitrite from vegetables and 10% from processed meats.
Welp, I'm dead. I eat cabbage and carrots just about every day.
I keep telling people to avoid those vitamin/mineral contaminated vegetables, but does anyone listen? How many children do we have to lose before broccoli is banned once and for all?!
Broccoli banned? You can pry my broccoli from my cold, dead, nitrate-inundated hands! And don't even think of going for the radishes.8 -
janejellyroll wrote: »I honestly think my diet is better because I have access to a variety of fresh produce in the winter months. Could I survive without it? Yeah, I might learn how to can or I'd research other ways to meet those nutritional needs, but I don't think I'd be better off overall. I do try to moderate my consumption in the winter, mostly for budget reasons (and also because some things are just so much better in season).
I have no problem with people supporting local agriculture when it is meaningful to them (I do it) or they prefer the taste. It's just when it becomes a way to signal greater virtue, a deeper connection to food (I've had some awesome meals made with non-local stuff), or advanced as the only way to eat healthfully, it makes me want to respond.
It strikes me as limiting in some way. An expansive food philosophy should be about embracing all the excellence that we can afford (and, I would argue, that is consistent with our ethics). That can include local, in-season peaches, the fresh corn tortillas made just down the street, a perfectly ripe avocado that may have been grown in Mexico, and salsa from a jar because I think it tastes better than when I make it myself.
Yes, so much this.
As I've said, I recognize in myself a tendency to idealize the so-called natural, to think that it's purer or something (even though my head knows that's ridiculous). I wanted to try eating locavore (when I was fat) in part because it seemed like a fun project and because I do like the idea of really being forced to understand seasons in a way we don't now, but also because -- of course -- I knew it would force me to eat a lot more limited diet, which would make it easier for me to eat less (ironically like doing those not particularly healthy experiments like a monodiet (only potatoes) or that "eating from the 7-11" thing someone talked about that I found amusing).
Because I am interested in history and, specifically, have researched some about what my own family was doing in 1850 and the like, I find the idea of eating like they did interesting, but the idea that it was nutritionally better is questionable to me (by which I mean that's silly). One thing the food industry has done -- as you mentioned and I tried to note before -- is make a larger variety of nutritious food available all year. Another thing we have now is a much larger variety of many foods than one traditionally would have had. That I can eat foods from so many different cultures, prepared in ways I would not have thought of, is one way in which I helped myself learn to enjoy a huge variety of healthful foods. That someone would see that as a negative is sad to me. It does make it harder to limit calories sometimes.
And it's important to recognize how much a lot of these things are economic signifiers. I love supporting local farms in part because my family had a lot of farmers until recently and in part because I just find it pleasant, but where I am it is, in part, a luxury and to moralize about it is really wrong, IMO. And of course it's not necessary for healthful eating. (And I live in an upper middle class neighborhood, so I am well aware of how much there is a class/snob component to some of this and even though I share tastes in some ways with my neighborhood it's hard not to see that element of it and I find it self-congratulatory and annoying.)(I realize "should" is a really prescriptive word, obviously nobody *has* to approach food the same way I do, but I feel so much better when I'm focusing on what I am including rather than what I am excluding. I literally never think negative things about Duncan Hines cake mix precisely because I don't like them. I don't think about buying them, it doesn't worry me what is in them, or that some people genuinely enjoy them, just like people who hate spicy food never have to come up with reasons why they don't like it or worry about why I eat it. When people come in with all these hyper-specific reasons not to eat things that they claim to hate, it always makes me curious . . . protesting a bit too much, almost).
Heh. Same here, and I have the same thought. I look at ingredients in things I buy, none of it much bothers me (and contrary to frequent claims I don't find that the things I am drawn to have lots of unknown additives or any HFCS or lots of added salt or sugar or whatever), and I focus on foods I enjoy eating. My tastes mean I tend to eat a lot of homemade/whole food stuff, but I don't think that makes them nutritionally superior than what others eat, and I know well (sigh) that that doesn't mean I can't get fat eating them.5 -
My recent posts really got off track from what I originally intended by my post. My post was that I don't agree with it just being under your calories that count, but what you eat matters. I used the word natural - which was actually intended to mean veggies, fruits, proteins and the like not fast foods or twinkies. Nutrition matters for health too.
I got miffed by a couple of responses and went into further detail about my personal beliefs about eating less processed foods and organic. I got miffed again at cracks at my choice of language and felt the need to defend my beliefs. I do feel that chemicals in our food aren't a good thing, but I never intended to say that people who eat nutritionally, but not organically, are eating less nutritionally. Eating a balanced diet is awesome, organic, processed or not. Trying to lose weight for your health is to be applauded. I just have people in my life that eat crap all day, but stay in a calorie range and think they are doing good for their body. Yes, losing weight is good, but nutrition is important too.
And for me, I don't like additives, pesticides and dyes. But that's just me. I never intended to say my way of eating is superior. It's just my way.
I do ha e concern for a lack of nutrition, but most people on here are trying to be nutritious and meet a calorie goal.
I defended myself to the point of losing track of my original point.
Eat healthy, whatever that means to you. I support you.10 -
I do use organic, unbleached whole grain flour. I also use raw unbleached sugar. I use organic chocolate chips with milk, cocoa, butter, sugar and that's it. To me, it's more "natural" means it's closer to its original form. Cookies in packages from Duncan Hines or whatever have a whole lot more ingredients in them than you would use yourself. Did you know some boxed cakes contain a chemical used in anti-freeze? It makes them more moist. Not what I want to put in my body, but that's me. "Natural" does get thrown around a lot and I suppose is has different meanings to different people, but to me it just means less processed, less fillers, less additives. I eat good food. I indulge. I've had Doritos! I'm an American and I'm human. I just don't make that the mainstay of my diet. I don't eat just half a mcdonalds meal because it fits in my calories and claim I'm being healthy. I believe in season produce is better. I think the chicken running wild eating what chickens eat makes better eggs. Natural, I think it's a healthier option because I know what I'm putting in my body. To me, it's nutrition and health, not just weight. That was my point.
Water is used in anti-freeze...2 -
Bry_Lander wrote: »How I feel when a discussion of food industry chemical additives leads to a discussion of the chemical composition of fruit.
How I feel when people explicitly or implicitly think that chemicals become evil as soon as a human touches them when everything around us is made up of them.
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