“Bad” foods?

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mcbed471
mcbed471 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I thought there were no “bad” foods, according to many leading nutritionists and dieticians. Is this a value we need to be mindful of? And can it lead to disordered eating if it’s not monitored?
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  • mtaratoot
    mtaratoot Posts: 13,231 Member
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    There are in fact bad foods.

    I remember A table-size sentient Blancmange from planet Skyron of the Andromeda Galaxy that would eat people. Scary stuff! There's also some poisonous mushrooms, like Amanita phalloides, that you should absolutely never ever eat! That doesn't make them bad, though. They don't really want to kill you like the blancmange.

    Otherwise, it's about moderation. If there's a food you like, you have to find a way to fit it into your calories while still getting adequate nutrition and not excess calories.

    Anything can probably lead to disordered eating. If you have trigger foods, maybe stay mostly away from them if you can't be moderate with them.
  • history_grrrl
    history_grrrl Posts: 212 Member
    edited January 2
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    There are also foods that can be bad for certain people’s health outcomes, e.g., sugar for people with or at risk for diabetes, grapefruit for people who take any of a whole host of medications (I’m on one of them), etc. So any nutritionist making that claim should make sure they know someone’s medical history thoroughly.

    Beyond that - and yeah, I guess this is a value judgement - I try to avoid “foods” that I think are more like garbage or fake food than actual food (I would put things like Doritos and Twinkies and pop tarts in this category, probably, because I find them gross now even though I grew up on all that crap in the ‘70s and loved it as a kid - though not Doritos or Cheetos, which I never could stand).

    But otherwise I think the point about “is it bad for your weight-loss and health journey” makes sense. I don’t think of ice cream as bad - the problem is that it’s so good! - but I have had to mostly kick it to the curb except in very small doses if I want to make any headway. Someday I hope to have a more normalized relationship to stuff like that. But for now, I’d have to say it’s bad for me to have a whole pint in my freezer.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,340 Member
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    Celery = bad food. The most disgusting veg on the planet 🤮

    Aside from that, there are no bad foods - “good and bad” are value judgements and nothing to do with food. I tend to think of food in terms of the whole package ie I should get fruit and veg with each meal, but it’s okay to eat chocolate in moderation. Cake is fine, but not if it replaces food with more nutrients that my body needs. As with everything in life, it’s about balance and moderation.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,394 Member
    edited January 2
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    Peanut butter is very bad! Its smell is just diguisting, and what for? A massive amount of calories! 🤢

    But no, there's no inherently bad food. Also a bag of crisps is not bad every now and then. You just have to accept that it contains a lot of calories and hence you either can't eat as much for the day or you accept you'll go over for the day.
  • bubbeE787
    bubbeE787 Posts: 34 Member
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    It depends on the meaning behind “bad foods”. I don’t believe in any off-limit foods ( bad foods) on my journey to take off lbs. I believe that any foods - including “healthy” foods can turn “bad” if you over indulge. Way back in the early days of Weight Watchers- they used to have a saying - “legal cheating” which refers to the good turning bad. On the other hand - there are certainly better foods than others. A homemade salad vs a pop tart or Big Mac.
    You know what I mean. Moderation is the key. But to lose the weight- stick to the more healthy calories.
  • judefit1
    judefit1 Posts: 544 Member
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    There are foods that are "bad" for us- high calorie, highly processed foods definitely trip people up, and when they become habitual definitely cause health issues. But I don't eat those and I still have a problem with weight gain.

    For me, mindless eating is the problem and leads to weight gain/lethargy/poorer health. If I pull a box of Triscuits out and take 4, I'm fine- if I mindlessly graze my way through 1/2 a box, I'm in trouble. It's easier to resist eating too many apples. Speaking personally, of course :-)
  • earlybirdlady
    earlybirdlady Posts: 56 Member
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    I always think of it like this: We all having rebellious teenagers that live in our brains - tell them not to do something and they say “watch me!”

    The problem with labeling foods as “bad” is that we tend to avoid them even though we’re craving them and ultimately that leads to overeating them in a moment of weakness and then feeling bad because we ate a “bad” food. But if food is just food, then we can remove restrictions which reduces the “forbidden” appeal of that food.

    Many of us grew up with this good/bad food narrative and lots of other unhelpful messages so it does take time to change. But it’s part of a whole reversal of diet culture messaging. I still struggle with it too.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,154 Member
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    Nutrition is important, but nutrition is about the totality of one's eating, not about individual foods.

    Sure, some foods are more nutrient dense, some are more calorie dense, and our best health outcomes result from getting a reasonable overall balance of nutrition and appropriate calories (and pleasure, practicality, affordability, etc.), while staying mostly full and happy the majority of the time. Balance.

    Disordered eating can be triggered in various ways, when it comes to thinking there are foods that are inherently and always "bad" or "good".

    1. Trying to eat only "good" foods and no "bad" foods, taken to an extreme, is orthorexia. That's a form of disordered eating.
    2. Thinking that there are no distinctions between foods, so just shoveling in whatever's tasty and available, taken to an extreme, leads to excess bodyweight and compromised health. That's a form of disordered eating.

    Demonizing particular foods doesn't make much sense to me. Getting overall good nutrition is important, but not every food choice needs to be a so-called "superfood". Calories and nutrition matter, but they're not the only things that matter about food, if I want a happy life.

    Whether a food is useful to a person or not depends on context and portion sizes (dosage).

    For a diabetic, sugar might be "bad" if unmanaged, but it's also a necessity if blood sugar drops dangerously. Pure sugar can be a near-perfect choice for an endurance athlete (like an ultra-marathon runner) to carry as fuel to consume during a long training session or race. Eating way too much sugar is bad for any of us, because we'll either consume too many calories, get poor nutrition, or both.

    Obviously, no one should eat foods to which they're allergic or otherwise sensitive in unpleasant ways, that conflict with their medications, or that trigger their health conditions. But that means a food is bad for a specific person (context again), not "bad" in some absolute sense.

    Context matters.

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,514 Member
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    yirara wrote: »
    Peanut butter is very bad! Its smell is just diguisting, and what for? A massive amount of calories! 🤢
    As someone who has come from UK to US, I do not understand the American fascination with peanut butter. And I really don't understand this "peanut butter and jelly" nonsense. Yeah let's have a million calories all carbs, sandwiched between carb heavy bread too, and call that a meal.

    Meanwhile, try to get someone in the US to try baked beans on toast, while they already admit to a) liking baked beans, b) liking toast, and it's impossible.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,596 Member
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    yirara wrote: »
    Peanut butter is very bad! Its smell is just diguisting, and what for? A massive amount of calories! 🤢
    As someone who has come from UK to US, I do not understand the American fascination with peanut butter. And I really don't understand this "peanut butter and jelly" nonsense. Yeah let's have a million calories all carbs, sandwiched between carb heavy bread too, and call that a meal.

    Meanwhile, try to get someone in the US to try baked beans on toast, while they already admit to a) liking baked beans, b) liking toast, and it's impossible.

    Heyyyyyy, while I prefer sunflower seed butter, *any* nut butter makes it so it's hard to chew after you've eaten it so...win win :) (It's also more fat and moderate protein than carbs :p)

    I would totally eat beans on toast. Lord knows, I tried fish fingers and custard because of Doctor Who :)
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,514 Member
    edited January 2
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    glassyo wrote: »
    I would totally eat beans on toast. Lord knows, I tried fish fingers and custard because of Doctor Who :)
    LOL. Although... that's not actually a thing though. It was made up for the show. You're brave to try it! Next up, haggis! Unless you're in the US, where it is illegal. I'm being serious.

    Yeah I realized later that PB is a lot more fat than carbs, still my overall point stands :-)
  • Wynterbourne
    Wynterbourne Posts: 2,200 Member
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    As someone who has come from UK to US, I do not understand the American fascination with peanut butter. And I really don't understand this "peanut butter and jelly" nonsense. Yeah let's have a million calories all carbs, sandwiched between carb heavy bread too, and call that a meal.

    Meanwhile, try to get someone in the US to try baked beans on toast, while they already admit to a) liking baked beans, b) liking toast, and it's impossible.

    LOL. I'm an American who didn't take her first bite of a PB&J until I was in my 30s and promptly handed it back to it's owner. Ugh. I do like peanut butter as an ingredient however, chicken satay, for example. And I would eat baked beans on toast. I'll even eat Marmite on toast, but I will not touch a chip butty. Nope. Nope. Nope.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,596 Member
    edited January 2
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    glassyo wrote: »
    I would totally eat beans on toast. Lord knows, I tried fish fingers and custard because of Doctor Who :)
    LOL. Although... that's not actually a thing though. It was made up for the show. You're brave to try it! Next up, haggis! Unless you're in the US, where it is illegal. I'm being serious.

    Yeah I realized later that PB is a lot more fat than carbs, still my overall point stands :-)

    And fish fingers and custard should NOT be a thing. :) Good separate. Bad together.

    I have no desire to try haggis.

    *sigh* There was nothing like a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on Wonder Bread when I was a kid.

    I can't keep any nut butters in my apt tho. I do the whole "take a little taste that ends up being half the jar and still not logging it" thing.

    Edited to add: So yeah! Peanut butter kinda *is* bad! :)
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,394 Member
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    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    glassyo wrote: »
    I would totally eat beans on toast. Lord knows, I tried fish fingers and custard because of Doctor Who :)
    LOL. Although... that's not actually a thing though. It was made up for the show. You're brave to try it! Next up, haggis! Unless you're in the US, where it is illegal. I'm being serious.

    Yeah I realized later that PB is a lot more fat than carbs, still my overall point stands :-)

    Haggies is totally delicious! Nothing to be afraid off, unless you really don't dare to try offal. Which still is a bit odd as haggis is basically a meatloaf with much more tasty meat than usual and some oats and a small amount of spices. Damn, I want haggis now! (on that note, I also want Haggis and cracked black pepper crisps even though it tastes nothing like haggis)
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 7,460 Member
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    mtaratoot wrote: »
    There are in fact bad foods.

    I remember A table-size sentient Blancmange from planet Skyron of the Andromeda Galaxy that would eat people. Scary stuff! There's also some poisonous mushrooms, like Amanita phalloides, that you should absolutely never ever eat! That doesn't make them bad, though. They don't really want to kill you like the blancmange.

    Oh my good merciful heavens. You just made me laugh loudly and hysterically in a very public place.
  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 2,923 Member
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    claireychn074 wrote: »
    Celery = bad food. The most disgusting veg on the planet 🤮

    Aside from that, there are no bad foods - “good and bad” are value judgements and nothing to do with food. I tend to think of food in terms of the whole package ie I should get fruit and veg with each meal, but it’s okay to eat chocolate in moderation. Cake is fine, but not if it replaces food with more nutrients that my body needs. As with everything in life, it’s about balance and moderation.

    You got that exactly right except for the spelling.
    It's not CELERY, it's spelled SPINACH.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,995 Member
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    There are foods that are "bad" for us- high calorie, highly processed foods definitely trip people up, and when they become habitual definitely cause health issues.

    I don't agree with that.

    For many people, me included, high calorie, highly processed foods, even habitually, are fine - in moderation.

    I can habitually intake such things in small dosage and frequency and have no health issues.

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