
Simple Rules for Healthy Eating - po
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/upshot/simple-rules-for-healthy-eating.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0
======
csallen
I've always found the various debates, fads, and gimmicks related to healthy
eating interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, the word "healthy" is problematic due to its ambiguity. It means very
different things to different people. If you're overweight, then it means
whatever helps you lose weight. If you have high blood pressure, it means
whatever helps you fight high blood pressure. If you're a bodybuilder, it
means whatever helps you build muscle and burn fat. If you're an athlete, it
means whatever helps you perform the best. For many people, it means whatever
helps them live the longest. Or feel the best. Or look the best. In other
words, it depends on your goals. Given so much room for interpretation, it
seems downright irresponsible for anyone to write an article about healthy
eating without making explicit their particular definition of "healthy". But
alas, it happens more often than not, and no one seems to notice or care.

Second, as far longevity and diseases go, diet is only one of many significant
players. Among other things, our mortality is affected by our genes, macro and
micro environments and exposure to various chemicals, exercise and physical
fitness, medical treatment quality, stress, relationships, etc. It therefore
stands to reason that there are diminishing returns to how your diet affects
your life expectancy -- beyond a certain point, continuing to eat "healthier"
will have a near-negligible effect on your health compared to other factors.
And yet people remain obsessive about fine-tuning their diets based rumors and
inconclusive studies, even as they continue to sit at stressful desk jobs for
9 hours a day in smog-filled cities. I wonder if it's because diet is (or, at
least, seems) easier to control than competing factors? Or maybe it's that
deliberately putting substances into our bodies all day every day is an
intuitively health-related action?

~~~
martijn_himself
I don't agree with your first point. "Healthy" eating in this article (and in
general) is quite unambigious in that it refers to the avoidance of foods that
have been shown (to varying degrees of ambiguity) to increase your risk of
developing health problems. This has nothing to do with an athlete's (short
term) goals to build muscle or run a certain distance. Your second point
should be included as a disclaimer by anyone trying to sell us the latest
health craze.

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deepGem
Or... just drink Soylent. Don't get me wrong - I like what has been told in
this article. In my world, this is day to day eating. We all eat mostly
unprocessed food - almost 95%, even at restaurants or when we eat out food's
unprocessed but definitely contaminated ( food colors, pesticides etc ). Urban
elites are moving towards processed food, but it'll take a really long time
before processed food takes over - I really hope that day doesn't ever come.

However, it pains me to see that in the western world, you need to take an
extra effort beyond your means just to eat right, and it's ridiculously
expensive for a common man earning minimum wage to do that. So for scalable
nutrition in this rapidly urbanizing world, Soylent and similar solutions are
my only hope.

~~~
codewithcheese
I am very tempted by Soylent, but one key issue for me is that you miss out on
thousands and probably millions of compounds that you ingest when you eat a
varied diet of whole foods. There's so much unknown about what our bodies
really require. Likely if you eat mostly Soylent every day you will end with a
deficiency of some unrecognized but vitally important nutrient.

~~~
sanswork
Would the variety of diets around the world not make it pretty unlikely there
is some unknown but vitally important to survival nutrient in what we already
eat? No matter who you are you can be pretty certain most of the world eats
very differently from you.

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richardwigley
Avoiding processed food should be what Cartman would call 'hippy nonsense'.
Unfortunately, many food processors are interested in removing, expensive,
nutritious food and replacing them with things that make us 'enjoy food',
sugar, salt, and fats.

Unless processors can see the point in changing formula, for whatever reason,
it's good, and simple, advice for those wanting to live healthily.

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Kiro
I have an issue with #7. I can't really enjoy food in company of others. It's
like I need to focus on them instead of the taste and all of a sudden the food
is gone. That's why I always eat alone.

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wodenokoto
Why am I allowed to process food in my own home, but not buy food already
processed?

~~~
MrDosu
This is a common misconception. For example frozen vegetables from the
supermarket have higher nutrient contents then from the farmers market because
they get deep frozen so shortly after harvest.

Personally I don't buy into articles like this. The one and only tip I can
personally give to eat healthy and well is "learn to cook yourself". No matter
how high quality the restaurant where you are getting your food, you will be
able to do it better at home for yourself.

~~~
onion2k
_For example frozen vegetables from the supermarket have higher nutrient
contents then from the farmers market because they get deep frozen so shortly
after harvest._

To a statistically significant degree?

~~~
MrDosu
Well to be specific it highly depends what we are looking at. As a simple
example let's take Vitamin C in green beans.

One study I found mentions that after one week refrigerated beans lost 77% of
their vitamin C versus blanched and then frozen beans lost 28%.

So in the case of Vitamin C it's highly significant. There are some nutrients
though that will be better off never being frozen.

It's not as black and white as one can say "X is better then Y".

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diminoten
I suppose Soylent falls into the "highly processed" category, doesn't it?

~~~
lkbm
Yes, though in a recent Q&A video he said Soylent is probably just fine:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwpgHvO4A0E#9m05s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwpgHvO4A0E#9m05s)

These are general guidelines for the masses. "Avoid processed foods, except
things like Soylent" is unnecessarily clunky.

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cratermoon
"Eat food, not too much, mostly plants"

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MrDosu
One of the main points that gets often neglected and a major skill required is
food procurement. What kind of food exists and how do I judge it's quality.

Most modern people I know cannot pick the riper and more nutritious fruit,
vegetable or animal product when given two alternatives.

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tomglindmeier
Good article. Simplicity is key for the masses.

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maxerickson
Of course, the rice at the grocery store has all been hulled.

And much of it has been par cooked.

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dschiptsov
Rule 1. Eat accordingly with what you've spent (in calories).

Rule 2. Avoid packaged/processed foods.

There is no need for Rule 3.

~~~
vlasev
The biggest problem here is being accurate and truthful to yourself. These
rules are great theoretically but they are rather difficult to apply in
practice. I've been tracking my intake and expenditure as accurately as
possible over the last 2 months and the errors accumulate rather rapidly.
There's variation in what you do, how much you do of it, how much energy you
actually spend doing it. After this there is variation in the self-reporting
itself - we tend to over-estimate the calories we've spend. Then there is
variation in what you eat, how much you eat of it, how many calories it really
has, how many calories you actually consume, how many you actually process in
the end. Add to this things like water retention, stress and so on, and it
becomes a rather messy problem.

~~~
dschiptsov
There is a so much of nonsense about food that it is worth it to look back at
some traditional or tribal eating habits.

For example, traditionally, majority of the Nepalese population is eating
white rice with some kind of lentil curry and seasonal vegetables two times a
day basically _whole year_ and remain healthy and not overweight due to their
active, working lifestyle. Modern memes are telling us that white rice is
almost poisonous, despite the fact that more than half of the world population
(almost whole Asia) feed on it.

Tibetans, Sherpas and other Himalayan tribes are still rely heavily on cow/nak
butter (the main commodity and the source of nutrition) and Tsampa (rusted
barley flour) which they consume on a daily basis in the form of so-called
Sherpa tea (butter, Tsampa, hot watter, sugar or salt) or in a form of bread-
like mass (same ingredients). According to modern memes this is a disastrous
diet, but, you see, these people are healthy and happy.

I could go on, about various tribes of India or Sri Lanka (mostly rise and
veges). The picture will be almost the same. Simple, homemade food and not
being a couch potato makes it.

There is no problem with traditional foods. The problems are with the food
industry and its commercial products which, being aggressively marketed,
altered the traditional eating habits.

As for myself, I could confirm that especially in high altitudes (in
Himalayas) the tribal eating habits, which I follow happily, are the evolved
balance for energy storage and intake, according with the harsh conditions,
seasons and available food sources. There is no alternative in calories
efficiency to the a half-kilo lump of nak butter (just cream, no additions)
and a small bag of Tsampa for weeks-long crossing of the ridges in Himalayas.

~~~
ggrothendieck
Regarding rice, Consumer Reports (CR) has been urging the FDA to set limits on
rice consumpton due to the arsenic levels in rice that they have measured. A
certain amount of this is due to naturally occurring arsenic but pollution
from industiral production of goods could add more. In the meantime CR has
issued their own point system based on the arsenic content of rice:
[http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-
much...](http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2015/01/how-much-arsenic-
is-in-your-rice/index.htm)

------
venomsnake
So it boils to "do not overeat" ...

~~~
andyjohnson0
As a summary I prefer Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly
plants." [1].

I thought the article was useful.

[1]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html)

~~~
joshuapants
Does "mostly plants" refer to mass or calories?

~~~
andyjohnson0
I take it to mean "get most of your nutrition from plant-based sources". Some
meat, dairy, etc. are ok if you want, but most of what you eat should be
plant-based food. Apart from grains, its hard to eat too much plant based food
- whether measured in mass or calories.

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aurora72
This article sucks really. Aaron E. Carroll says that he's read many books and
articles on the topic but he hasn't read 2 books by David Perlmutter and Davis
Williams it looks like otherwise he wouldn't recommend 'whole grains over
refined grains' in #1.

He hasn't watched Mark Hyman's videos on Youtube either, otherwise he wouldn't
recommend 'butter' in #3.

The #2 conflicts with #4. They may be combined into one simple line: All the
restaurants are either unhealty or wallet blowing.

#5 is missing some detail, such as the one that no alcohol but red wine should
be taken. #6 should be modified to read: Treat all beverages with total
negligence.

~~~
Kurtz79
Since there are probably contrasting point of views on most of the points you
list, how do you propose to choose the one to reccommend as "correct" ?

~~~
aurora72
Well, both Perlmutter and Davis say to avoid all kinds of grains at all costs
and Hyman says to avoid all kinds of dairy products (butter, yoghurt, milk)
with a possible exception of white cheese and they are all based on science.
So I propose based on science. My claims about the restaurants and beverages
are based on economic/profitability, restaurants and supermarkets offer decent
priced and good tasting meal at the expense of health. If I'm able to get
cheap and good tasting chicken at a fried chicken restaurant, I do it at the
expense of health, need no science to see that.

~~~
lkbm
It's definitely not settled science that you should never eat grains. Yes,
some experts say you shouldn't, but if you're rejecting one expert because he
disagrees with two others, it's definitely not sufficient to say it's "based
on science".

As for dairy, while he mentioned using butter without paranoia about fat, he
didn't seem to advocate for dairy. Eating dairy might be bad, but "don't eat
dairy" is bad (or ineffective) advice because _people won't follow it_. Don't
make perfect the enemy of better. (If it makes you feel any better about him,
Dr. Carroll regularly rails against "the milk industrial
complex"[0][1][2][3].)

[0] [http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/finally-
someone-...](http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/finally-someone-
takes-on-the-milk-industrial-complex/)

[1] [http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/another-blow-
aga...](http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/another-blow-against-the-
milk-industrial-complex/)

[2] [http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/yet-another-
blow...](http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/yet-another-blow-against-
the-milk-industrial-complex/)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyFZcuHmeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyFZcuHmeI)

