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Is anything really good for you anymore?

greg_87
greg_87 Posts: 8 Member
Let me begin with some background. I'm completely new to "eating healthy", and have decided to try meal prepping. I started with some ground rules. Not to list them all, but some rules were 1. Food had to be relatively cheap, easy to get. 2. I had to like it. I'm not a huge fan of seafood. Mostly because I don't like the fishy taste. So decided to go with Tilapia. I heard so many great benefits. "it's the boneless, skinless chicken breast of the sea". Never tried it before, so I only bought a few to try. I Made it along with some rice, and really loved it. No fishy taste. Thinking "ok, I can do this". Cheap, and easy to get.

My wife is doing the same diet as me. She takes some to work for lunch. A co-worker sees her eating the fish, and that's when it begins. "are you eating Tilapia"? "you know they are raised on poop"? "your better off eating a pound of bacon, then eating that". "Tilapia causes cancer". You get it. She comes home, and tells me all of this. Now normally. I wouldn't pay it much attention. However. The guys she works with are physically fit. Some of them live in the gym, and have great eating habits. Great group of people. The kind of people you'd want advice from when it comes to diet and fitness. So it was a huge buzz kill for me.

So like anyone that's new to this would do. I consulted with google. There are tons of articles about how unhealthy Tilapia is. Almost equal to the amount of articles on how healthy it is. So I began digging into other things. Almost everything I look up, be it tomatoes, lettuce, chicken, whatever. It all has at least some articles explaining how its bad for you. So....

Is anything good for you anymore?
Do I just ignore what some people are saying?
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?
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Replies

  • greg_87
    greg_87 Posts: 8 Member
    Thank you all!! Great advice. and interesting points.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,257 Member
    Eat a variety of foods. No food on its own is inherently healthy/unhealthy. It's about context and dosage. Too much of anything is bad for you.

    If you aren't on any medical restrictions and don't have food allergies, I'd say that the only thing you probably want to put in an effort to avoid is transfats (and most food manufacturers are reducing those anyway).

    Nailed it.

    Everything in moderation. Anyone stating otherwise is selling you something you don't need.
  • greg_87
    greg_87 Posts: 8 Member
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Just because someone is physically fit doesn't mean they know anything about nutrition. There are tons of gym bros who just spout off the latest bro science without actually knowing anything.

    IMO, nutrition is pretty straight forward common sense...eat a varied and balanced diet consisting of lots of whole foods.

    As far as tilapia goes, I'm personally not a fan...something with the texture, and I'm not a fan of farmed fish anyways. Tilapia also doesn't offer much in the way of Omega 3 which is what people are really getting at when they talk about the benefits of eating more fish. It is a lean source of protein and relatively low calorie though.

    I eat mostly salmon and mahi and tuna and cod if I want a flaky white fish.

    I've had Mahi at a restaurant before. It was very good. Never cooked it myself. I'm going to have to give that a try.
  • whitpauly
    whitpauly Posts: 1,483 Member
    My husbands friends told him the same exact thing about the tilapia,now he avoids it yet eats catfish which is another with a bad reputation but I guess that doesn't bother him,,interesting thread thanks for all the great posts :)