I was just quoting Pollan yesterday, which is the quote right at the top of the article.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Succinct, doesn't alienate anyone, or make a lot of rules, or shame you for doing the wrong thing. Don't complicate food.
I own a fresh organic produce delivery outfit in the Seattle region, and we basically run our operations off what he explains in more words. The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is. It might not kill you, but it also won't help you.
schmidtleonard · 19h ago
"Not too much" and "mostly plants" are good, but trying to redefine food is a bit wacky, once you learn that that's his game.
I'm not even against the idea that processed food is often bad and should always be treated with skepticism, but naturalism as a foundational principle is just way too exploitable. I called "companies are going to start marketing sugar as a natural alternative to low-calorie sweeteners" a decade before I saw it in grocery stores and I would like to pre-register my prediction that tobacco products will soon come back as "natural alternatives to vapes" in the not too distant future.
danw1979 · 16m ago
I’ll wager that sugar is probably better for you (in moderation) than artificial sweeteners. I remember reading something not that long ago about insulin response to sweeteners being similar to sugars. Give me fat coke over diet coke any day.
But yeah, I agree with your point that “naturalism” isn’t often optimal.
I’ve read the book he wrote after this article and it’s really quite good. The principal that if your great grandparents wouldn’t recognise it as “food”, then avoid, is a pretty good rule of thumb.
Spivak · 55s ago
I will take the other side of that bet. I've joked for years about aspartame surely going to give me cancer and yet despite the not inconsiderable amount of research into it trying to find a smoking gun the results are at best vaguely suggestive, which is another way of saying there have still yet been no provable connection between aspartame and any heath problem. If you're a Bayesian thinker at this point your priors should be set on the far side of "it's for all
purposes inert in the body."
But refined sugar, you'll be drowning in real documented health problems.
spondylosaurus · 18h ago
Agreed, it really depends because "processing" can mean so many different things. A Twinkie is processed, but so is a brick of ultra-firm tofu.
sellmesoap · 18h ago
Both will disrupt your endocrine system!
spondylosaurus · 16h ago
How did I know I was gonna get a "soy = estrogen = bad" comment? :P
I have yet to see any credible evidence that tofu is bad for your endocrine system.
sellmesoap · 14h ago
I don't know much about the contents and outcomes of twinkies, but a search for "soy endocrine" gave me this https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5646220/ a mixed bag, but higher reports of reproductive cancer, prolonged menstrual bleeding for young women stood out as reasons I might limit my intake, and the same for my children.
I've heard personal accounts of vegan friends turning to meat and dairy to keep up with their fitness demands (studying yoga in Astanga, and Olympic lifting.) I've been vegie for parts of my life, but it sure is a loaded topic!
scripturial · 9h ago
“ How did I know I was gonna get a "soy = estrogen = bad" comment?”
Maybe because there is science that suggests this to be true and there are a good number of people here that respect science?
tpm · 7h ago
Does it? Maybe we should just process the soy a bit more:
No, it’s incredibly simple and makes sense. Coke are Doritos are not food, they are a science experiment designed for the express purpose of getting you hooked. They have virtually no health benefits and a ton of negatives. Nobody should ever put them into their body, or certainly as little as possible.
Our “food” has changed more in 50 years than the preceding 500. Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much” and a massive number of health epidemics go away.
Swizec · 18h ago
> eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much”
My great grandma is from eastern-ish europe and grew up on a farm. Her diet mainly consisted of potatoes, bread, corn, milk, sausage, lard, butter, fermented cabbage or turnip, various preserved fruits (jams and compotes), and copious amounts of extra salty preserved meats. Fresh food was a luxury reserved for the summer (fruits, veggies) or slaughter weeks (fresh meat). No refrigeration, remember?
If I ate like her I'd die of a heart attack before I turned 40. And I'd be pretty obese, too. Many of those farmers got pretty chunky in their 30's despite working on the farm all day.
Oh and I almost forgot: liters of wine per day per person. Liters!
badc0ffee · 18h ago
Doritos are just fried corn tortillas with salt, and depending on the variety, some flavourings like dehydrated cheese and bell pepper. It's not a perfect food, but it's food. In fact, combine that with some refried beans and you might be able to live off it for a long time.
> Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much”
I don't know about your great grandma, but mine was mostly eating bread and potatoes, not mostly greens. Certainly generations before her were as well.
dmonitor · 18h ago
you're forgetting the corn maltodextrin in doritos, which is a kind of predigested food-derivative that this article is warning about. Your body turns it into glucose much more efficiently than just corn, and overdosing over a long period of time probably leads to health issues.
stronglikedan · 17h ago
> Doritos are just fried corn tortillas with salt
Actually, they aren't. They're what's left of corn tortillas after the industrial frying process stripped anything that could be considered nutrients (hyperbole, of course), with a little salt added for flavor. Now you just have a calorie dense but non-nutritious glorified salt lick.
It's hardly food, and if you don't think so, try living on nothing but Doritos for a week and see how that works out for you. Potatoes may not be much more than starch and fiber, but I could live off those for any length of time because they are food.
badc0ffee · 17h ago
> try living on nothing but Doritos for a week and see how that works out for you
Try living off fried corn tortillas with salt for a week for the same effect.
How, specifically, are they different?
stronglikedan · 16h ago
The difference is that the fried corn tortillas that I make fresh actually retain the majority of their innate nutrients and could sustain me for a week, more even.
badc0ffee · 16h ago
Look, I get that not treating snacks like staple foods is a good idea overall, and we're probably not going to see eye to eye on this, but it's not clear to me that the profile of "innate nutrients" is actually different in Doritos. They might have that taint of being a mass-produced snack, but they start with corn just like your homemade tortillas. Unless I'm missing something, the industrial frying, packaging, and seasoning is not stripping nutrients, intentionally or unintentionally.
It's a relatively simple product, as packaged snacks go.
drekipus · 18h ago
> In fact, combine that with some refried beans and you might be able to live off it for a long time.
Might it be the beans that are what you're able to live off?
What are Doritos adding to the equation here?
badc0ffee · 17h ago
Carbohydrates. Slow-release caloric intake - the main thing you need in your diet after your protein/vitamin/mineral needs are met. Also provides some fat.
Living off beans alone sounds hellish.
Spivak · 14h ago
People are being really weird about greens which have almost no caloric value and supplementary health benefits at best when for all of human history the name of the game is cheap readily available carbs, fats, sugars, and protein. That's stuff is food. Everything else, while good for you, is a garnish.
jajko · 18h ago
Grandparents from both sides had a small patch of garden, and it was used to the fullest, produce was eaten for rest of the year. Yes a significant portion were potatoes, which are much healthier side dish than ie rice. Mostly boiled or oven baked ones. Rest were veggies, cabbage, onions, some greenhouse stuff. And some fruit trees, but veggies mostly.
One side they lived till higher 80s, another both till 95. Active till very late, basically maybe 1-2 years before death.
The thing is, they all lived frugally (and under hardships of communist rule, thats why garden). No junkfood as we know today. Tons of slow physical work on that garden. No vices like frequent alcohol consimption or cigarettes.
One of their sons (aka my uncle) smoked half a pack a day. Dead at 54 from heart attack, had a cancer before but got cca cured. Another daughter got over time overweight, little physical activity, and as I learned only recently became over time an alcoholic. Dead from an heart attack at 62.
Some folks I know have much worse lifestyles (ie smoke more than uncle, plus are more overweight, plus are alcoholics) yet keep living much longer.
Not sure what I want to say with all this, maybe that eating veggies is not enough. Its whats the rest of the plate and how much of it, how active you are, how stressed, how much exposure to bad chemicals. And genes, one thing completely out of control, but as mentioned above they alone wont save you.
s_m_t · 18h ago
Doritos are bad because poor people can afford them. Making your diet mostly organic greens is good because you need lots of money to afford them and you will be underweight and incapable of performing peasant style manual labor.
aggie · 18h ago
It's far from simple. There is no clear delineation between food and non-food offered by saying Doritos are a science experiment. Is an ear of corn real food? It has of course been significantly modified by selective breeding. And your grandma ate GMO corn.
neuralRiot · 17h ago
Actually it is really simple, there’s no “doritos plant” corn is turned into cornmeal, dried, mixed with oils, salt, then fried in more oil then sprinkled in chemical flavorings and more salt. Roast some corn cobs and that’s real food.
saghm · 14h ago
At what point in the process does it stop being food? Is cornmeal with oil and salt still food, even though there's not a "cornmeal with oil and salt" plant? I think the point of the parent comment is that it's not clear that there's a single place to draw the line between "food" and "not food" in a way that everyone will immediately agree on.
badc0ffee · 15h ago
Someone better tell the Mexicans about tostadas not being food
testing22321 · 12h ago
It’s extremely simple.
Only buy things with one ingredient. There, now you’re not eating the science experiment.
dr_dshiv · 18h ago
My 15 year old son is now taller than I am and most of his nutrition is not food. It’s horrid. I suspect this is why Dutch people are so tall. Mostly cheap processed food and hormones in the milk. Ymmv
s_m_t · 18h ago
The cognitive dissonance here is striking. A growing man needs a shit ton of calories to grow to their full potential. You might as well fill your caloric needs with "junk" food otherwise you will need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and eating "natural" food at a higher cost for the exact same effect.
neuralRiot · 17h ago
>otherwise you will need to spend an inordinate amount of time preparing and eating "natural" food at a higher cost for the exact same effect.
This is a myth, healthy whole foods are way cheaper than any ready-made “meal” and that is not even taking in account the future savings in healthcare!
dr_dshiv · 14h ago
...if you don't take into account the labor of preparation. Then they are surely more expensive than a bag of doritos.
dr_dshiv · 18h ago
> The cognitive dissonance here is striking
Agreed!
dowager_dan99 · 18h ago
Would you prefer that he graze natural plants 20 hrs/day? He's the premium calorie consumer of all humans: a pubescent male.
Are Dutch people statistically taller than Germans? Do they eat more junk food? Does your milk have more hormones? Are Dutch taller today than previous generations? Have you accounted for all the other variables.
You can't throw out shit like this and then tack on "ymmv" as a disclaimer.
dr_dshiv · 18h ago
> Would you prefer that he graze natural plants 20 hrs/day?
No, it would interfere with his Vibecoding
> Are Dutch people statistically taller than Germans?
Yes. 183 vs 179cm
> Do they eat more junk food?
Arguably. Few would argue that the food quality is better in the Netherlands than Germany.
> Does your milk have more hormones?
Well, there are hormones in milk, and the Dutch drink a lot of it. 25% more than Germans.
> Are Dutch taller today than previous generations?
Yes. But a centimeter shorter than those born in the 1980s, when it was still legal to pump cows up with hormones.
>You can't throw out shit like this and then tack on "ymmv" as a disclaimer.
I can’t exactly advocate for his diet — nor disclaim it. It’s confusing for me!
The SAD diet despite its critcism is perfect for spurring growth, as it's calorie-dense, balanced, and very palatable. It's hard to come up with a better diet if the goal is to produce big people or athletes. The problem is when adults continue to eat it, long past the growth phase, and get obese as a result.
neuralRiot · 17h ago
>It's hard to come up with a better diet if the goal is to produce big people or athletes.
Submitting children to the standard american diet (or mostly western diet as sadly it is not relegated just to the USA anymore) should be considered child abuse, by feeding them high calorie, high cholesterol, high protein, high sugar meals you’re condemning them to a certain disease-ridden future.
dr_dshiv · 14h ago
Child self-abuse -- It's what the kids demand to eat!
dowager_dan99 · 18h ago
and yet I can do nothing and live a much better, longer life than my grandma.
dilap · 17h ago
> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Who's going to spread the good word to the Maasai?
croisillon · 18h ago
yeah it's always funny how carnivorous need a lot of tiptoeing not to feel shamed for eating animals
criddell · 17h ago
I think that’s covered by “The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is.” To me, that suggests they believe you should eat what the animal eats and skip eating the animal.
croisillon · 16h ago
nothing against my parent poster, it's just they mentioned "doesn't alienate anyone [...] or shame you for doing the wrong thing" which in my experience is necessary to get someone reasonable to think about their dietary habits
mock-possum · 13h ago
It’s my understanding that carnivores are pretty rare among human populations
IAmBroom · 24m ago
To be fair, they said "carnivorous", not "carnivores".
Omnivores are carnivorous.
paulpauper · 18h ago
Where people trip-up with plant-based diets is overdoing the butters, oils, humus, tofu, nuts, and legumes. Those things are often super calorie dense. You have to stick with mostly the leafy plants and keep oils and butters to a minimum.
milesward · 19h ago
Uhm, this sounds yummie, I am in seattle, got a link?
GLP-1 has freed Americans from the burden of thinking about what they eat. The drug dictates their appetite now, and any old junk will fill the shrunken void.
chermi · 18h ago
I thought it helped with cravings/addictive behavior. Which is the opposite of you're saying, if we're all accepting in this post that processed foods are designed to work on cravings and are addictive.
spondylosaurus · 18h ago
You're correct; they definitely make you less inclined to crave "junk," and more likely to feel a bit ill after eating it.
paulpauper · 18h ago
not really. even with GLP-1 drugs, many people are still obese or overweight. individual response to this drug is extremely variable.
criddell · 19h ago
Are you talking about following a raw food diet?
tobinfekkes · 18h ago
No. Whenever the word "diet" is used with regards to not eating "this" or only eating "that", something has already gone wrong. A "diet" is a voluntary restriction (well, usually after some involuntary event). But you only need to restrict foods with your brain by choice if you first disobey your body's needs.
You should not drink Coke because it has WAY too much sugar and WAY too little of anything beneficial. If you tried to consume the amount of sugar in Coke by eating apples, you would be too full long before you get to Coke-level sugar intake. That's because of all the other stuff in an apple; it's not concentrated sugar.
Your body is a wonderful thing. Respect it and listen to it, it will keep you healthy. That's literally its job, and it only knows how to repair and heal you. It will keep the things it needs, and discard the rest. You can't "over-consume" if you eat real foods. Your body won't let you; you'll get full and stop. You can only over-eat engineered foods, which over-saturate sugar|fat|carbs|salt|etc, which then necessitates a "diet".
thwarted · 18h ago
This description of the word "diet" is overly simplistic and marketing centric. A diet is just the schedule (list) of foods consumed, as in "I have a terrible diet" or in "pandas exist on a diet of bamboo shoots and leaves". This term is overloaded in areas like the weight-loss industry to refer to voluntary limited intake, but it's still a diet as in an enumerated schedule of specific foods. "Going on a diet" is often used in the context of specific health goals as distinct from the normal "diet".
There's an episode of Mad Men where they are coming up with pitches for weight loss products and losing weight is referred to as "reducing", a term from before the word "diet" was used as you've described.
criddell · 18h ago
> A "diet" is a voluntary restriction
The word "diet" is not always about restriction. Surely you've heard people use the term "standard American diet" which doesn't have anything to do with restriction.
I assume you are talking about a raw diet (not necessarily calorie restricted diet) because of your comment about minimizing steps between soil and mouth.
Taking plants from the soil, or fruits from the tree/vine, and trimming, washing, cutting, and cooking are typically considered steps that are unavoidable for some plants.
The difference between a baked potato, potato chips, and Pringles is what we're talking about. The oil used for potato chips (and Pringles) originated from plants, but it has undergone several steps from plant to container of oil.
vladvasiliu · 18h ago
Aren't chips blown to smithereens and then reconstructed with the help of all those random ingredients? I think this is what "ultra-processed" means and what differentiates these foods from getting your bag of potatoes and frying them at home.
I don't know about Pringles / Lays &c, but I've never seen two potatoes of the same size and shape in a bag, so there must be some way they manage to get all their chips to look the same.
badc0ffee · 17h ago
Pringles are reconstituted from powdered potato - which should be obvious as they're all the the same size and shape, and have a weird texture.
Lays and nearly every other brand are just thinner versions of potato chips you could make yourself at home (cut thin, fry in oil, dress in salt). Nothing "blown to smithereens" there.
bdbenton5255 · 18h ago
I personally prefer an animal-based diet revolving around meat and milk. It is conducive to strength training and fits my taste buds, but I always incorporate fruits and vegetables to secure vitamins and minerals.
The essential nutrients that your body needs are carbohydrates, protein, lipids, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water. The first three are macronutrients, providing most of your body's energy in the form of calories.
Traditional diets incorporate all of these nutrients naturally, as human beings formed traditional diets by sourcing needed nutrients from the surrounding environment. Before industrialization, humanity subsisted on these diets, and if you look far back enough you will find these foodways in your ancestral culture.
Industrialization provides us the luxury of choice in our diets, but it also leaves many displaced and confused as to choosing a diet. You will find that traditional dishes naturally incorporate all of our necessary nutrients. A good rule of thumb when building healthy meals is this:
Carb + protein + vitamins/minerals
Such as:
Rice + beans + tomato + onions
Potatoes + steak + green beans + milk
And so on.
The carbohydrates and proteins will provide the bulk of your calories and the feeling of "fullness" while the sources of vitamins and minerals will complete your diet.
A good metaphor is to think of the human body like a car that needs gasoline and oil primarily as well as some additional fluids to run optimally. A balanced diet will help you feel better physically and psychologically.
Whether you choose to source protein from plants or animals is entirely up to your discretion in this industrialized age, while it was previously a result of an agricultural or pastoral means of subsistence.
ericmcer · 17h ago
you should probably give the article a read, my main takeaway from your post is that people love to talk about what they eat. I will remember it next time I have an awkward pause when conversing with a stranger.
bdbenton5255 · 16h ago
I read what he wrote, I just disagree with it. Nutrition is not really so simple and this information is both useful and objectively true. It is also relevant to the subject being discussed. I think the author has an overly simplistic and misinformed view of nutrition, so I am providing useful and relevant information.
andrewla · 17h ago
> The essential nutrients that your body needs are
The article has an extensive discussion as to why this way of phrasing the problem is not only meaningless but actively harmful.
That's not to say your diet is necessarily bad; frankly by adhering to his "eat food, not too much" you're 2/3 of the way to what Pollan recommends. You're only missing "mostly plants", but you're doing better from his rubric than a diet consisting of mostly processed food products.
bdbenton5255 · 16h ago
Right, I just disagree with the author as nutrition is more complex than what he posited. Following his advice, you will not acquire sufficient nutrients to do things like build muscle.
runamuck · 18h ago
At lunch I drink a plant based protein shake. I noticed that it stops the binge cravings I used to have at night. I lost 43 pounds since last June.
Aziell · 6h ago
That line "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." really hit me.
Sometimes when I go shopping, I catch myself checking fat and sugar first, then looking for added omega-3. The more I read, the more complicated eating seems to become. I keep staring at nutrition labels, and end up feeling more confused about what I should actually eat.
brian_spiering · 5h ago
One heuristic is to choose foods without nutrition labels.
Jensson · 4h ago
Doesn't all food have nutrition labels? We know the nutrients of potatoes and apples and vegetables, so there are labels for them.
bob1029 · 5h ago
I have made an interesting discovery recently. The type of media I use for frying up taco shells has a dramatic impact on my consumption rate.
When fried in vegetable oil, I tend to eat 4-5. When fried in lard, 2 is starting to feel a bit much.
The animal fat option seems to be what my body prefers. There's clearly some kind of endogenous GLP-1 inhibition action going on. It sticks with me a lot longer too. I feel myself getting sucked into my work for hours on end instead of bouncing in and out of the kitchen every 30 minutes looking for a snack.
I think "mostly plants" can be interpreted as malicious advice given the realities of human biology.
It's just still so complicated when you are dealing with any level of digestive issues. Sometimes you're supposed to lay off high-fiber fruits like apples. And then there's soluble versus insoluble fibers (sometimes you need more insoluble), gut flora, probiotics; fats are both good and bad for gut "motility"... if your balance is off somehow it just gets really complicated really fast.
ge96 · 18h ago
I decided I'm going to switch to a salad+meat diet will see how that goes. Been enjoying these pre-made caesar salads at work.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Succinct, doesn't alienate anyone, or make a lot of rules, or shame you for doing the wrong thing. Don't complicate food.
I own a fresh organic produce delivery outfit in the Seattle region, and we basically run our operations off what he explains in more words. The more steps involved between the soil and your mouth, the less "food" it is. It might not kill you, but it also won't help you.
I'm not even against the idea that processed food is often bad and should always be treated with skepticism, but naturalism as a foundational principle is just way too exploitable. I called "companies are going to start marketing sugar as a natural alternative to low-calorie sweeteners" a decade before I saw it in grocery stores and I would like to pre-register my prediction that tobacco products will soon come back as "natural alternatives to vapes" in the not too distant future.
But yeah, I agree with your point that “naturalism” isn’t often optimal.
I’ve read the book he wrote after this article and it’s really quite good. The principal that if your great grandparents wouldn’t recognise it as “food”, then avoid, is a pretty good rule of thumb.
But refined sugar, you'll be drowning in real documented health problems.
I have yet to see any credible evidence that tofu is bad for your endocrine system.
I've heard personal accounts of vegan friends turning to meat and dairy to keep up with their fitness demands (studying yoga in Astanga, and Olympic lifting.) I've been vegie for parts of my life, but it sure is a loaded topic!
Maybe because there is science that suggests this to be true and there are a good number of people here that respect science?
Traditional and Domestic Cooking Dramatically Reduce Estrogenic Isoflavones in Soy Foods https://www.mdpi.com/2304-8158/13/7/999
No, it’s incredibly simple and makes sense. Coke are Doritos are not food, they are a science experiment designed for the express purpose of getting you hooked. They have virtually no health benefits and a ton of negatives. Nobody should ever put them into their body, or certainly as little as possible.
Our “food” has changed more in 50 years than the preceding 500. Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much” and a massive number of health epidemics go away.
My great grandma is from eastern-ish europe and grew up on a farm. Her diet mainly consisted of potatoes, bread, corn, milk, sausage, lard, butter, fermented cabbage or turnip, various preserved fruits (jams and compotes), and copious amounts of extra salty preserved meats. Fresh food was a luxury reserved for the summer (fruits, veggies) or slaughter weeks (fresh meat). No refrigeration, remember?
If I ate like her I'd die of a heart attack before I turned 40. And I'd be pretty obese, too. Many of those farmers got pretty chunky in their 30's despite working on the farm all day.
Oh and I almost forgot: liters of wine per day per person. Liters!
> Take away all the science experiments and eat what your great grandma did “mostly greens, not too much”
I don't know about your great grandma, but mine was mostly eating bread and potatoes, not mostly greens. Certainly generations before her were as well.
Actually, they aren't. They're what's left of corn tortillas after the industrial frying process stripped anything that could be considered nutrients (hyperbole, of course), with a little salt added for flavor. Now you just have a calorie dense but non-nutritious glorified salt lick.
It's hardly food, and if you don't think so, try living on nothing but Doritos for a week and see how that works out for you. Potatoes may not be much more than starch and fiber, but I could live off those for any length of time because they are food.
Try living off fried corn tortillas with salt for a week for the same effect.
How, specifically, are they different?
It's a relatively simple product, as packaged snacks go.
Might it be the beans that are what you're able to live off?
What are Doritos adding to the equation here?
Living off beans alone sounds hellish.
One side they lived till higher 80s, another both till 95. Active till very late, basically maybe 1-2 years before death.
The thing is, they all lived frugally (and under hardships of communist rule, thats why garden). No junkfood as we know today. Tons of slow physical work on that garden. No vices like frequent alcohol consimption or cigarettes.
One of their sons (aka my uncle) smoked half a pack a day. Dead at 54 from heart attack, had a cancer before but got cca cured. Another daughter got over time overweight, little physical activity, and as I learned only recently became over time an alcoholic. Dead from an heart attack at 62.
Some folks I know have much worse lifestyles (ie smoke more than uncle, plus are more overweight, plus are alcoholics) yet keep living much longer.
Not sure what I want to say with all this, maybe that eating veggies is not enough. Its whats the rest of the plate and how much of it, how active you are, how stressed, how much exposure to bad chemicals. And genes, one thing completely out of control, but as mentioned above they alone wont save you.
Only buy things with one ingredient. There, now you’re not eating the science experiment.
This is a myth, healthy whole foods are way cheaper than any ready-made “meal” and that is not even taking in account the future savings in healthcare!
Agreed!
You can't throw out shit like this and then tack on "ymmv" as a disclaimer.
No, it would interfere with his Vibecoding
> Are Dutch people statistically taller than Germans?
Yes. 183 vs 179cm
> Do they eat more junk food?
Arguably. Few would argue that the food quality is better in the Netherlands than Germany.
> Does your milk have more hormones?
Well, there are hormones in milk, and the Dutch drink a lot of it. 25% more than Germans.
> Are Dutch taller today than previous generations?
Yes. But a centimeter shorter than those born in the 1980s, when it was still legal to pump cows up with hormones.
>You can't throw out shit like this and then tack on "ymmv" as a disclaimer.
I can’t exactly advocate for his diet — nor disclaim it. It’s confusing for me!
Govt statistics linked here, O3: https://chatgpt.com/share/6838c51d-c4a4-8007-97e7-431006f495...
Submitting children to the standard american diet (or mostly western diet as sadly it is not relegated just to the USA anymore) should be considered child abuse, by feeding them high calorie, high cholesterol, high protein, high sugar meals you’re condemning them to a certain disease-ridden future.
Who's going to spread the good word to the Maasai?
Omnivores are carnivorous.
https://boxofgood.com
GLP-1 has freed Americans from the burden of thinking about what they eat. The drug dictates their appetite now, and any old junk will fill the shrunken void.
You should not drink Coke because it has WAY too much sugar and WAY too little of anything beneficial. If you tried to consume the amount of sugar in Coke by eating apples, you would be too full long before you get to Coke-level sugar intake. That's because of all the other stuff in an apple; it's not concentrated sugar.
Your body is a wonderful thing. Respect it and listen to it, it will keep you healthy. That's literally its job, and it only knows how to repair and heal you. It will keep the things it needs, and discard the rest. You can't "over-consume" if you eat real foods. Your body won't let you; you'll get full and stop. You can only over-eat engineered foods, which over-saturate sugar|fat|carbs|salt|etc, which then necessitates a "diet".
There's an episode of Mad Men where they are coming up with pitches for weight loss products and losing weight is referred to as "reducing", a term from before the word "diet" was used as you've described.
The word "diet" is not always about restriction. Surely you've heard people use the term "standard American diet" which doesn't have anything to do with restriction.
I assume you are talking about a raw diet (not necessarily calorie restricted diet) because of your comment about minimizing steps between soil and mouth.
Have you tested this?
Taking plants from the soil, or fruits from the tree/vine, and trimming, washing, cutting, and cooking are typically considered steps that are unavoidable for some plants.
The difference between a baked potato, potato chips, and Pringles is what we're talking about. The oil used for potato chips (and Pringles) originated from plants, but it has undergone several steps from plant to container of oil.
I don't know about Pringles / Lays &c, but I've never seen two potatoes of the same size and shape in a bag, so there must be some way they manage to get all their chips to look the same.
Lays and nearly every other brand are just thinner versions of potato chips you could make yourself at home (cut thin, fry in oil, dress in salt). Nothing "blown to smithereens" there.
The essential nutrients that your body needs are carbohydrates, protein, lipids, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and water. The first three are macronutrients, providing most of your body's energy in the form of calories.
Traditional diets incorporate all of these nutrients naturally, as human beings formed traditional diets by sourcing needed nutrients from the surrounding environment. Before industrialization, humanity subsisted on these diets, and if you look far back enough you will find these foodways in your ancestral culture.
Industrialization provides us the luxury of choice in our diets, but it also leaves many displaced and confused as to choosing a diet. You will find that traditional dishes naturally incorporate all of our necessary nutrients. A good rule of thumb when building healthy meals is this:
Carb + protein + vitamins/minerals
Such as:
Rice + beans + tomato + onions
Potatoes + steak + green beans + milk
And so on.
The carbohydrates and proteins will provide the bulk of your calories and the feeling of "fullness" while the sources of vitamins and minerals will complete your diet.
A good metaphor is to think of the human body like a car that needs gasoline and oil primarily as well as some additional fluids to run optimally. A balanced diet will help you feel better physically and psychologically.
Whether you choose to source protein from plants or animals is entirely up to your discretion in this industrialized age, while it was previously a result of an agricultural or pastoral means of subsistence.
The article has an extensive discussion as to why this way of phrasing the problem is not only meaningless but actively harmful.
That's not to say your diet is necessarily bad; frankly by adhering to his "eat food, not too much" you're 2/3 of the way to what Pollan recommends. You're only missing "mostly plants", but you're doing better from his rubric than a diet consisting of mostly processed food products.
Sometimes when I go shopping, I catch myself checking fat and sugar first, then looking for added omega-3. The more I read, the more complicated eating seems to become. I keep staring at nutrition labels, and end up feeling more confused about what I should actually eat.
When fried in vegetable oil, I tend to eat 4-5. When fried in lard, 2 is starting to feel a bit much.
The animal fat option seems to be what my body prefers. There's clearly some kind of endogenous GLP-1 inhibition action going on. It sticks with me a lot longer too. I feel myself getting sucked into my work for hours on end instead of bouncing in and out of the kitchen every 30 minutes looking for a snack.
I think "mostly plants" can be interpreted as malicious advice given the realities of human biology.
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13487886 - Jan 2017 (179 comments)