Food plays an important role in every culture. Since culture evolves in a place and that place has certain foods not known in other places, food helps ground the culture in a time and place, which helps ground the people in a time and place. A big part of the answer to the only question that matters – who are we – is the place where the answer was created by our ancestors. It is why our holidays have special foods. They help remind the people of the answer to the big question.
In the West, fear of food is also a big cultural item. For some reason, Western people remain convinced that their food is out to get them. From time to time certain foods have been banned. In pre-modern times the reasons ranged from the superstitious to the ritual, while in modern times “science” is the blame. In this age, we are told every day that something in our diet is trying to kill us. These days, people are often defined by the foods they think are plotting against them.
Fear of food seems to track with belief. The more ideological the person, the more likely they are to be paranoid about food. Vegans and vegetarians are almost always in one of the subcultures on what we call the Left. The exception will be someone who got it into his head that something is bad for his training regimen. Otherwise, when someone tells you they are a vegan, and they almost always tell you that as soon as you meet them, they are telling you their politics.
This may have been true before ideology replaced religion. When he was not busy inventing the triangle, Pythagoras was running a cult. A big part of his cult was the foods that were prohibited. Of course, religions of the book have dietary laws. Jews are not supposed to eat pork or shellfish. For a long time, Catholics were not supposed to eat meat on Friday. Since religion seeks to answer the big question or at least contribute to the answer, it makes sense that it would have food rules.
In this age of disbelief, food fads seem to fill the void for some people. Vegans and vegetarians are the obvious examples. They make a big deal out of their food, as if the consumption of the correct items is a sacrament. Keto people are not far behind in this regard, but they tend to be fascinated with the math of it. A big part of the keto subculture is tracking the macros. Every meal is a math puzzle. Get the numbers right and Andhrímnir will bless the day.
The biggest food fetish by far in this age is the fear of certain foods. Stories like this one in the New York Post are a daily occurrence. Some food gets the stink eye because “science” claims that it is plotting to kill you. In this case, white rice is part of the conspiracy known as heart disease. A billion Chinamen eat rice every day and have relatively low heart disease rates. This obvious fact will be ignored and some people will accept the claim that rice is a killer.
Interestingly, the science of food is riddled with science denialism. Heart disease, for example, is most certainly a genetic issue. This old post from Jayman on the topic is a good explainer on the genetic reality of heart disease. Our health outcomes are probably 98% genetic, but the “food science” people insist that arranging the right items on the dinner plate will magically bring good health. Food science is a good reminder that we are as superstitious as ever.
Of course, admitting that genetics, not diet, is the key driver of human health would be bad for business, so “food science” embraces the blank slate. If the reason people eating a Mediterranean diet have a low incidence of heart disease is due to them being Mediterranean, then you are not selling many cookbooks. On the other hand, if you claim that all people are exactly the same and the differences we see are due to things like food magic, then you can sell a lot of cookbooks.
There is the theological angle as well. The New Religion treats human biodiversity as a heresy, one of the deadly sins, in fact, so we cannot notice that certain people seem to have certain diseases while other people have different diseases. Just as dietary laws are part of all religions, the New Religion has embraced food magic. The rice in your cupboard that is plotting your demise has nothing to do with the rice that seems to like the people of East Asia. Peace be upon you.
The truth is, outside of the extremes and controlling for obvious poisons, food plays little role in your health. What matters is your over all calorie intake and the balance of nutrients you get from the food. If you get enough calories and the right mix of nutrients, you will be as healthy as your code indicates. Eat too much and you get fat. Eat the wrong things and maybe you get scurvy or rickets. Otherwise, your food intake is just not all that important to your health.
In this age, the issue with food is the extremes. The rising incidence of diabetes is driven, in part, by the fatness of people. Demographics play a role as certain people are more prone to both obesity and diabetes¹, so as they grow in number their diseases will grow in proportion. Even so, Americans eat too much and eat far too many calories from carbohydrate laden foods. Stand outside of a Starbucks and you will see fat women waddling out with what look like deserts every morning.
Interestingly, the one thing that is never mentioned by the fear mongers is the vast array of chemicals in prepared foods. It is just assumed they are safe, but we really do not know if long term consumption of sodium nitrate or guar gum has an impact on the human body. Big food is never going to pay anyone to study it and they will never let government look into it. The recent Covid experience should make clear who calls the shots when it comes to public health.
Putting that aside, the rise in claimed food allergies and weird diets is probably linked to the collapse of the culture and local community. It always returns to the answer to the big question – who are we? If you are not allowed to answer in the affirmative, then you are left to answer in the negative. Instead of being what your people eat, so to speak, you are what you fear on the dinner plate. A negative food identity fills the void left by a positive cultural identity.
¹Some people with reading disabilities interpret this to mean obesity is caused solely by genetics, rather than calorie intake. This is an error on your part. Genetics plays a role in everything, including obesity, but it is not the only factor.
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Once again, the “nature or nurture” dichotomy is seen in human existence. It is never all one thing or the other; it is always an amalgam of things. However, that does not mean one can ignore one side of the equation and expect to obtain the desired result. For example, it it well know that hispanics (from Mexico and, to a lesser extent, other Central American countries) are inclined to a higher incidence of obesity, diabetes and cardiac problems, and that their BMI is generally higher than other ethnic groups. That we have become a country with a higher incidence… Read more »
I sawed off my own hands, can I expect more from you? What else can someone expect as society circles the bowl? Vote Harder! Your foolish fascination Trapped in a spider’s web forever Bad food, processed burger, grease pit, carb centered! Pay your debt on a Macky D’s toll! Let it rip, if we all must die, let us die fat! Before it all goes, one last bite, one last roll, one last bowl of cheerios! It’s useless now to pretend that the sheep might relate to their enslavement As all reality closes, now, the sheeples last meal is late… Read more »
The issue about rice is that Western countries “enrich” it with excess iron that throws off your macronutrient ratios. Same with flour, another carb supposedly evil just because of its whiteness, go figure. Read “Dumping Iron” and it all makes sense.
It’s hard to find in America but there are unenriched rice and flour brands out there. In some countries, those are illegal.
I’ve been through most of the diets in the last 12 or so years. What I’ve settled into and is keeping me at a steady23 bmi for the last 3 years is Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof recommendations. Around 70% of calories from high quality fats, 5 grams of protein per 10 pounds of lean body weight (not counting more than a few pounds of body fat), and a lot of veggies, careful with fruits and no sugar, minimize simple carbs and eat them late in the day. Breakfast is Bulletproof coffee which is about 400 calories of fat and clean coffee.… Read more »
[…] ZMan scratches his head. […]
Cochran and Harpending’s 10,000 Year Explosion described excellent heart health in citizens of an Italian town called Limone who have very low HDL (good cholesterol) and high triglycerides.
It turns out these people have a mutant Apolipoprotein A-I, which is a major component of HDL. This Apolipoprotein A-I version is much better than the regular type at scouring out arteries.
Every localized dietary mystery has that kind of solution. People agitated about food are people who don’t know who they are. I’m not interested in my own genes but I do know where my grandparents came from, and I can trace all my preferences and problems to those *places* (which back then still did map to genes).
Eat what grandpa ate. If that doesn’t work, try the other grandpa. Apply that—not abstracted (globohomo!) rules—to everyone.
I don’t really worry about food. Every meal includes one protein (meat, fish, eggs, and occasionally beans), one grain (pasta, rice, potatoes, lentils – I stay away from bread generally except for burgers), and vegetables. I eat one to two fruits a day and usually eat Greek yogurt for protein and calcium. I incorporate onions and garlic into most dishes and don’t count that as a vegetable (I have a gut feeling these are healthy). I don’t worry about exercise. I work out regularly, hike, and play sports. Not a fitness nut. But I’m in good shape. I adjust my… Read more »
I have a feeling that after the next few winters, no one is going to use the phrase “empty calories” again for a good long while.
I’ve always found it to be a good principle to not eat food that I see advertised on television. (That includes restaurant commercials, not just packaged foods from the store.) That’s been one of the true benefits of cutting the cord from cable and broadcast TV. We rarely eat out. And when we do, we nearly always split the entree or one of us gets an entree/protein and one of us gets an entree/salad and we share. I wouldn’t say we have a food phobia. But we do recognize that there are things you can eat that will make you… Read more »
Z’s essay seems to be all over the map. There’s something there for any point of view. So where is the truth? Aristotle tells us (“Golden Mean”) that usually it’s midway between the extremes. Yes, it’s almost always wrong to go to extremes. Another Greek (Temple) famously said “Moderation in all things.” What then can we conclude? How about that diet is, in fact important. In fact, it’s probably VERY important, if your goal is the best chance at good health. You’ll probably have to do some research on your own. Good wisdom is out there. Alas, so are the… Read more »
Sometimes a good essay is like a Rorschach test, everybody projects themselves into it, everyone gets something different from it, and in doing so think learn a bit regarding themselves.
Is red wine a food? Asking for a friend.
Technically, yes. Even is pure ethanol (alcohol). It’s metabolized similarly to a fat. Not a very balanced diet, tho. 🙂
Add cheese then.
I wonder if Americans realize that the whole low carbs thing never got any traction outside their country. They think they’ve unlocked the keystone to nutritional wisdom and everyone else watches with the same bewildered amusement you have for South Koreans who think leaving a desk fan on while you sleep is deadly.
Carbs counting is a nineties fad that somehow still lingers on because it 1) gives gluttons excuses to binge on fat and sugary things and 2) has become a religious practice for people who think the USDA is out to kill them.
The USDA may not be out to kill us, but it’s not exempt from the failings of any power center. Over the years it was considered good policy to promote, among other things: beef, milk, corn, wheat, and so on. Clearly these are useful foods, but the hidden motive was that USDA was indirectly giving free advertising to well-connected and subsidized producers of those foods. And they (or other agencies) have been dead wrong on some issues. Remember when saturated fats were “bad” and trans fats were “good” (especially for food producers, since it made long shelf life easy to… Read more »
I agree with the Paleo train of thought..our bodies are adapted to the food that was available for the last hundred thousand years..That does not include trans fats, artificial sweeteners, soybean oil and most preservatives..So consumption of such items is a gamble that is unlikely to be optimal….
Big fat fatty says what?
Wrong. Low carb diets have been recognised by Diabetes UK as a key method of blood sugar control and it is now promoted by NHS doctors. Eating low carb is very common particularly amongst those who lift and train.
NHS promotes COVID “vaccines” too
The food pyramid has killed more people than the jab.
And at the same time they promote a carb/grain/veg oriented diet in the general population and can’t work out why everyone is suddenly a fat bastard.
Doctors seem to have a real problem with cause and effect.
There’s something oxymoronic in your essay Zman. It doesn’t matter what you eat, except for carbs and additives. Which is what most diets (non-vegetarian) come down to.
He’s being pretty glib, presumably from ignorance. There’s a reason why Europeans increased in average height and IQ from the beginning of the industrial revolution to it’s end, and the reason is an improved diet. A complete and balanced diet is way more modern than most people, our blog host included, seem to think.
You’ve got a point there. Another good example in Japan after WWII. The children born after the war got about 5-6 inches on their parents, yet the average height for adults is not as tall as say for the Dutch (tallest populace in Europe). So the genes carried by the Japanese still limit them, but the “reaction range” of height genes has been exhausted.
“…food plays little role in your health.”
Eat a plate nachos and chase it with a bowl of ice cream, then do a century, Z. Doesn’t matter my ass.
Down votes just mean you’re not a cyclist and hate fart jokes.
Long ago, I was a (slow) member of a local bike club. Since I was typically huffing and puffing to keep up with le peloton (weighing >200 Lb and riding a mountain bike trying to keep up with racing bikes didn’t help), my Spandex clad comrades derisively dubbed me “Anal Sex” because I was always coming up the rear. 😀
[All true but the horrid pun.]
Bicycling, from what I can tell, is the gayest sporting activity on earth. A bunch of sois and fahgs sporting tight, colorful spandex, hunched over a banana seat, huffing the next rider’s farts…
At least BMX and motocross are still manly activities.
I beg to differ. Yeah, the clothes are off putting, but when you get old and the joints begin to deteriorate from jogging, bicycling is a good aerobic activity. I never wear the gay crap. Hell I don’t even wear a shirt most time (crap it 100+ degrees), but the exercise is a good one when the joints simply can’t take it any more.
Its always the sedentary doughy physiques calling various sports gay.
Whereas up votes means your saddle hates you with burning passion.
Mr. Z, I’ve been lurking here for years and never uttered a peep here, because most of what you say makes lots of sense. But most of this article is kinda not very good, and is written by someone with a poor diet, obviously. I can tell you for a fact, that what you eat IS VERY IMPORTANT. Don’t just take my word for it. Go and eat Mcdonalds, doritos, pop tarts, and soda-pop today. Next week, pick a day to eat a BALANCED diet heavy on salad greens like spinach, a good amount of “clean” meats, lots of blueberries,… Read more »
Also, if you’re going to be doing heavy work, or exercise, protein is important. That means eat beef. Or chicken. I love bacon, but if you avoid pork, you will generally feel better, and I don’t fuggin know why…
Obviously avoid soy like the plague. That shit is for animals, not men.
Z-man says clearly that you need a nutritious diet…his point is that many common diseases are primarily genetic, not caused by your diet, and that health, obesity and life span are well predicted by IQ…IQ may well be primarily determined by overall genetic health…
I never give a crap about looks. I go in and ask for the fattest, gel saddle available. At my age there’s not much ass fat left. Screw the young guys looking for chicks. That time has passed. Besides it gives the wife something to shake her head about. Wives love that crap. Makes them feel superior while they work on failing at their umpteenth diet taken out of the latest supermarket tabloid.
He said food, not blood sludge. There is a lot of misinterpretation going on here I think, maybe he did that as a piss take to troll the readership. I think it goes w/o saying that processed “food product” will kill you in a hurry. My assumption (perhaps wrongly) was that we are talking about actual food, not processed garbage. Although… calories in / calories out is a thermodynamic law as Cloudswrest noted and in that regard, you CAN eat some pretty ‘unhealthy’ stuff and be just fine. Michael Phelps famously ate 10,000 calories a day while training and would… Read more »
“He said food, not blood sludge”
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Th term that you’re looking for is goyslop
Take a look at any diet study of farmers. Farmers work like dogs and eat like pigs.
What matters is your over all calorie intake and the balance of nutrients you get from the food. If you get enough calories and the right mix of nutrients, you will be as healthy as your code indicates. Eat too much and you get fat. Eat the wrong things and maybe you get scurvy or rickets. Otherwise, your food intake is just not all that important to your health. Calories in/calories out is indeed a thermodynamic truth. And if you were locked in a jail cell and not in control of your own diet this would be relevant, but it… Read more »
As I said above, eat some nachos and some dairy, then go for a ride. You’ll hate life afterwards.
Try eating a plate of lima beans and Jerusalem artichokes. Have a cellphone handy.
Eddie B used to say “horse meat for horse power”. I miss Eastern Bloc coaching.
Haha. I’ll use this. I’ll have to ask a friend of mine if this is true. My friend, a wandering boozer, on and off disappearing from his second wife at the time (I never met her but she would call me looking for him) ended up at some native American pow-wow in the high desert region of Eastern Oregon. He offered them booze and they offered him a horsemeat meal. He said it was ok.
Most people will feel better simply by reducing the stresses on them. Reduce stress and you will lose weight, feel better, etc.
This is hard to do because the United States in the 21st century is a highly sophisticated stress-delivery system
Keto, statistics, statins, materialism, Sweet-and-Low, genetics — stress wipes its ass on all of these and keeps right on breaking people.
And stress in contagious. Which is why the kosher enjoyers now trying to rule us seek to inflict stress on us at every opportunity. It is just an updated and less-honest form of their old practice of well-poisoning.
“Demographics play a role as certain people are more prone to both obesity and diabetes” Exactly. Case in point. Here in AZ we have many Indian tribes and therefore reservations. Outside of the Phx area is one of the biggest dialysis clinics in the US. Why? Well it seems the local Indian tribe(s) has the highest rate of obesity in the *world*! Something like 80-90% of the tribal members. Associated with obesity is diabetes and then kidney failure. It’s a great tragedy for a once independent people who lived and prospered for millennia in the harsh desert environment of AZ.… Read more »
Theres a correlation between racial differences in IQ and obesity, because both are related to the discovery of grain. Asians discovered grain first, then europeans, then some native americans and then blacks very recently. Grain based societies selected for higher IQ due to the need for cooperation, crop rotation, and delayed gratification. This also caused lighter skin due to a lack of vitamin d that youd normally get from fish. Those who discovered grain earlier also process it a little bit better. Hence, asians have lowest obesity, followed by whites, then latinos, then blacks and native americans. Some natives had… Read more »
Gary Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories,” documented how beginning in the late 1950s a Harvard scientist named Ancel Keys pushed the “low calorie” myth on the world — because he was paid by the sugar lobby. Before then, the advice was to “cut the starches,” and of course little or no sugar, which once was expensive and scarce. That is, Keto or low carb. Atkins actually was attacked in the 1970s for bringing back what everyone once knew. This especially is true if you’re Northern or Eastern European. Eat what wealthy people (not poor people) of your ancestry did before… Read more »
Atkins was fat and died of a heart attack.
Calories in calories out is physics and physics is not a myth.
Possibly. He died at age 72 after slipping on an icy sidewalk and hit his head. He was indeed overweight and reportedly had a history of heart issues. (That was news to me.) A man born in 1930 living to age 72 is pretty good;especially so if he really had serious health issues.
That notwithstanding, I read a few of his diet books and believe his ideas had some validity, although I did not need to do the diet at the time.
Never, ever eat food contaminated with the chemical dihydrogen monoxide.
Yep, that’s a cleaning product that’s also frequently given to inferior horses in industrial farming operations.
That’s the same chemical used to run toilets, yuck!
What’s more: Fish fuck in it!
I know. Some guy who’s supposed to be the smartest guy in the world wanted to replace Brawndo with that toxic chemical. But everyone knows that Brawndo has what plants crave — electrolytes! OK, gotten run, Oww My Balls is just about to start.
This is no grand mystery. Food was still somewhat clean and whole in the bad ol’ ‘before times’. The age of ultra processed ‘food product’ had not yet occurred. While Drew is correct in pointing out that there was some dodgy practices for processing & preservation he declines to mention that before that era food was largely whole and intact because it had to be. Refrigeration, chemicals, and preservatives brought about a whole new set of problems. To also reply indirectly to Evil Sammich from way down the board– There IS something interfering with ‘lipostats’ (a bogus sounding pseudo-science term)… Read more »
Yep, I can remember the time *before* TV dinners and most all processed food. All we had for “snacks” were potato chips and of course, Cola. Rest of the food stuff was pretty plain and untouched. One of the things I recently noticed were old army training films of the Vietnam era—late fifties, early sixties. Aside from all White, all male, you see a sea of skinny bodies with young faces. Last videos I saw were for a bus load of recruits hitting the base and being “greeted” by their new DI’s. Fat, soft, and delicate looking—regardless of sex and… Read more »
I probably should have clarified that the first reason was historical/evolutionary and the second was specifically modern.
They also eat birth control pills like candy
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I’m of a mind this is why no one wants to talk about the poisons of modernity because that is probably the big one. Yes, everything cooked, sealed, and stored in leaching plastics may not be great, but, at least then one would expect some competing axe grinding would bring the issue up from time to time if it was just that.
There is much wisdom scattered among your sardonic words 🙂 I recently paid to see an “alternative” practitioner. Her advice was unconventional in some aspects, but that was consistent with her business (e.g. Eastern healing stuff, salt baths, the gift shop sells crystals, incense, essential oils, etc.) Nevertheless much of her advice was consistent with what I knew. E.g. she correctly identified side effects of some of my medications, even I do not (yet) suffer them. Much of her advice centered around diet. Natural as possible, no meats (exc. fish) and avoid dairy. Said to avoid artificial sweeteners. She also… Read more »
Working “around” industrial equipment and pulling a focused beam of fairly high density millimeter wave energy directly at your head are not the same thing. If you think the constant saturation and bombardment we’ve been under for 20 years from all manner of EM Spectrum hasn’t affected us I’d say you are woefully naive. One of the primary arguments from people who dismiss all this is as follows: “We are constantly exposed to higher frequency radiation, visible light, yet suffer no ill effects.” Which is patently false. Park your ass outdoors in August for a few hours and look at… Read more »
J, I’ve spent a lot of time these last few years, examining young White females, from high-skrewl through college through grad-shul, and in a random sample of 100 of them walking down a sidewalk on the main drag in town, I’d guess that 99 are clutching an iPh@g and MAYBE one of them is not carrying a mobile. But I fear that the true ratio is more like 9999 out of 10,000. Moderin White females simply cannot put down the iPh@g. The iPh@g defines their very existence. I don’t know what we do short of going full Luddite. The iPh@g… Read more »
I can only speak for myself, but I do keto because that’s what my doctor recommended. It started with him telling me “I don’t like the way your lab results look,” and he then proceeded to describe how I should be eating. Now my lab results look great, I’ve lost 40 lbs., and I have plenty of energy throughout the day – no “mid-afternoon slump.” Keto isn’t for everyone. Most people don’t want to give up bread, potatoes, rice, and pasta (not to mention beer). But it’s hard to feel like you’re deprived when you can enjoy a nicely grilled… Read more »
Like everything else in life, I am sure it is a combination of many things – genetics, diet, lifestyle, environment. Which factor has how much influence for what group is the tricky thing. Although I am pretty convinced the biggest culprits are the modern diet (high carb/sugar/processed crap) and lifestyle (sitting on ass all day in front of screen).
WRT the Catholic no meat Friday thing, it is not due to a phobia so it really doesn’t fall into the same category. Abstaining from meat in Catholicism is a form of penance or sacrifice (i.e., foregoing up something good), which recognizes meat as good, not bad. So it is not the same mindset as say, a vegan or vegetarian avoiding meat.
As for food out to kill you, it makes you wonder when a company named “Best Foods” is the subject of an EPA environmental contamination lawsuit. Lord knows the crap that goes into Red Dye No. 7.
Indeed.
All Christian fasting should really be done to show appreciation for the suffering of Christ Jesus. Like abstaining from anything Worldly, really.
But I know plenty of ‘da gurlz’ who use such religious fasting as an excuse to lose weight.
Nevermind, He knows.
Like with most everything else about its practice the contemporary roman catholic church has dispensed with fasting except in the most nominal possible way. The eastern orthodox church observes fasts approximately half the year. So many wonderful and faithful individual roman catholic people out there… so let down by the absolutely terrible hierarchy. The eastern orthodox church has some terrible hierarchs too… the ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew is almost certainly a CIA asset who engineered a “schism” between the greek and russian churches ahead of the great (((state department))) caper currently underway in Ukraine. He’s practically put blue and yellow current… Read more »
I had to chuckle. My mother, who was a convert from Presbyterianism, used to use the Lenten requirement to abstain from meat on Friday as an excuse to eat high-end fish like halibut or lobster. To my mind, there was very little sacrifice going on and we ate better then than during the rest of the year.
No matter the religion, folks are never required to abstain when such abstinence entails physical jeopardy of health. There are no shortage of folks who attempt to fast or keep kosher when in treatment for disease and such. Not uncommon to “drop a dime” on their clergy to stop by and straighten them out.
Another factor in phood phobia is the cult of safety and longevity, which doubtless ties in with the feminization of the West and increased atheism. Safety mania can be seen in many ways and in all walks of life. In the 70s, when school let out for the summer the teachers told their students to have fun on their vaction; now they tell them to stay safe. Thirty years ago, any male with at least one functioning testicle rode his bicycle hither and yon without a care in the world, and little boys emulated Evel Knievel. Nowadays grown males strap… Read more »
Nowadays grown males strap on crash helmets and pad up
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I used to feel kinda feel the same way, though a muni official who was looking at rules in this regard noted to me that the use of cell phones has changed that equation. It now is not remotely safe to be anywhere near a mass of motor vehicles due to “electronic interference”.
That is doubtless true. My larger point, however, is that in the past, men didn’t live their lives in fear of death. If there was danger, they faced it like men rather than mice. Personally, I’ll take my chances with Brittnee on her sail foam rather than tool about like some goofy coward.
Very interesting comment. I think another aspect of effeminate boys, loss of masculinity is the over-socialization. While men in our country seem to experience an extended adolescence there also seems to be an early loss of innocence for children. I was a kid in the 90s and a teenager in the oughts. Wearing your helmet on your bike was for sissies. If one day your mom tried to make you wear one, you waited til you were out of eyesight then stashed it somewhere and picked it back up on the way home. Today all the kids near me wear… Read more »
There have been studies that attempt to quantify longevity gain wrt exercise regimen and other characteristics of individuals. If you believe in them, the results are quite eye opening. Heavy joggers and aerobic activities extend life span in terms of months for example.
I assume these effects may be additive and of course, there are benefits other than extending your life span for a few years, but the results are interesting, nonetheless. For me, it’s a matter of quality time, rather than simply longevity. Exercise is a good in and of itself. Longevity is secondary.
I am still very active and fit into my 30s. I understand the benefit of exercise. I also believe that children should be physically active. My issue is not with exercise but with the stale, professional and “organized” aspect of children being herded into advanced exercise programs. Something important to child development is lost in the process. It is one thing to be active, to ride your bike, even to start jogging around the neighborhood at age 10. It is one thing to gather up your friends in the neighborhood and play backyard baseball. Its another thing entirely to pay… Read more »
We often talk here about being on the side of nature. Genetics are important and so is the unnatural modification of food from Big Ag.
I was in one of those very high end grocery stores (that upper middle class white ladies and their fey husbands like so much) and looking to buy some of their excellent in store bakery items and accidently looked at the ingredient label. Shockingly, every store-name bakery item that I looked at included GMO wheat or corn. Using GMO ingredients is now ‘woke.’ None of the traditional progressive foodies who were the original objectors to GMO food care any more now that ‘eating the bugs’ is the thing. GMO foods also. Soon they will get rid of food labels so… Read more »
I’m not convinced, but would look at GMO on a case by case basis. Look, just about every food you can think of is in essence GMO. Take corn for example. Couple thousand years ago it was a grass that grew in the along side the road in South America. When Cortez and the others arrived it was an important food source. Somewhere along the line people breed the best seeds with the best seeds and viola. The only difference today is we can speed the process up. On a case by case basis, I might look askance on inserting… Read more »
GMO product details are generally unavailable. I know that mankind has been employing genetic modifications for millennia and never thought much of current Monsanto style Crispr modifications of food stuffs to promote greater yields. Thought it was a positive development. Now I am not so sure given the proliferation of demons in the world. Also the idea of vaccination by plant genetic modification and making chimeric organisms for different purposes also gives me pause.
GMO isn’t going to make any difference if it’s just making the produce bigger, but the bad part is if you insert genes that tell the plant to manufacture something nasty. For example in nature some almond trees have genes that make cyanide, all natural organic cyanide.
So if the genetic modification involves something that makes the plant produce its own pesticides, that’s where you want to get nervous.
No disagreement here. Consider the source—me. Listen, you are talking to a guy who never heard of genetic enhancement of viruses to make them *more* deadly until Covid hit. But it’s a big thing and seriously talked about *and* supported by other academic pin heads.
Jeez, how the hell ignorant can one be. Yep, that was me—at the top of the education tree and I never heard of such a program. So I’m not going to put down GMO fears out of hand, but I want to know more.
I feel another issue not mentioned here is consequences of aging. Things change as we all know and my ability to digest plant foods collapsed to the point I can’t digest them – I couldn’t go 2 hours without using the toilet. Obviously that doesn’t happen to everyone and none of my 5 sibs have this issue soooo . . .. Carnivore fuels me now and quite successfully.
OMG! The grocery store is trying to kill us!!
Just stay in the safe spaces—the outer part of the grocery store, stay out of the middle where the danger is, and you’ll be fine.
What is missing from all the FUD we read is the benefit side of the equation. What do such nutrients and calorie abundance *add* to our life cycle? There was a time here of 40% death rate in children. It’s now about 1%. That’s not simply from modern medicine and understanding. A healthy percentage is from better nutrition of mother and child.
No argument that much of our food choices today—with over ingestion—is problematic. Example, raw and processed sugars contributing to obesity and what follows. But hell, is a Coke at lunch a deadly choice?
Dear Z, I love you – don’t panic, I’m 91. Twice you have spoken for me; once about the grimy bags and now about the food hoo-ha. I am completely with you and have been hugely irritated by my son’ family attitude to food: carbs, gluten, sugar, fat, lactose, allergy and it’s got to be ORGANIC!!!! not to mention truck loads of vitamins and supplements. I remember the stories of my family coming through the Dutch Hunger Winter and the Jap camps in Indonesia, listened to their tales and treated food as an essential friend to be respected and enjoyed… Read more »
The most incredible thing I have come across wrt “health” is a coworker of mine who does everything organic – and then ingests synthetic carcinogenic hormones in the form of birth control.
You gotta have organic.
Me? I like my generators organic. I like my pylons organic. I like my synthetic oils organic. And I just love, love, love my suspension bridges organic.
Don’t forget the organic ink they have injected subcutaneously.
I’ll admit I’d be totally cool with banning soy.
As Rush used to say, just listen to your body. Red meat and veggies make mine happy, starch not so much. Eggs and milk are the only complete foods, so it’s good not to neglect them. Pretty simple. Drink more water than you crave, try to fast at least one day a week. Water dilutes and flushes, fasting keeps the plumbing moving in my experience, plus if your body isn’t spending energy digesting, it can spend it cleaning and repairing itself.
Anyway, enough unsolicited dietary advice!
Rush is probably not the best guy to have given health advice. Though it’s good advice.
Ha! Right? It’s spot on, though. The body isn’t a stupid machine.
At the risk of putting too fine a point on it, the body is part of the organism. Listening to your body is listening to yourself.
No, but the body can be fooled. That’s what food chemistry is all about. I mean, one of the simplest pleasures is a slice of sourdough bread (just wheat flour, salt and water); toasted just right (Maillard reaction, look it up); and slathered with some fresh butter. But, as good as that is, it cannot compete with the braingasm and tongue tingle of a Snickers bar. It takes discipline and willpower to choose what appeals to the senses as a lesser good. I am not a doctor. I don’t even play one on TV. But, in my considered opinion, a… Read more »
It’s fun to get drunk, but then I feel like crap afterwards, so I know it’s not very healthy. Same principle.
Truthfully, I’d prefer that buttery sourdough straight out of the oven to the Snickers bar, and I love Snickers.
And I’ll take a NY strip–it’s what I’m having tonight–instead of the ribeye. I say that as a Texan, and the ribeye is the national steak of Texas.
“For some reason, Western people remain convinced that their food is out to get them.” Well, there are two very good reasons for that belief. First, most food that we eat is only fit for consumption within very narrow parameters. For example, certain foods like dry beans and elderberry are only safe if cooked, and can be deadly if eaten raw (and will certainly be unpleasant). As another example, some food not only have to be cooked, but have to be cooked to a certain temperature to be safe (basically all white meat, particularly chicken and especially pork), elsewise the… Read more »
I’m inclined to take seriously the warnings about water bath canning, but at the same time my mom’s been canning peaches in sugar water forever without problems. Maybe the odd broken seal, but mold usually gets it quickly so you know. Canning is common practice in my neck of the woods. Botulism concerns me, but I’ve never heard of anyone catching it, rarely anybody getting sick. Rule of thumb is, ‘if it’s bad, you’ll be able to tell.’ Not taking issue with anything you said. It’s stuff I’ve pondered plenty, as food preservation is a big deal the way I… Read more »
Water canning is safe for foods that are acidic enough (tomato sauce, most jams and jellies). Pressure canning is necessary for foods that aren’t sufficiently acidic (green beans, etc.). In the former case, an anaerobic acidic environment inhibits the growth of toxic microorganisms. In the latter case, it’s the heat exposure that kills the microorganisms, and the anaerobic environment inhibits new growth. Each method is safe, but the latter does significantly alter the texture of the preserved food (it doesn’t alter nutrient availability, though).
Drudge is running a headline about getting rid of the “best used by” label on foods.
Most vegans should be round up by the cops and put in concentration camps.
I would like to know what is behind all the food BS out there. Is it all just a bunch of grifts? A lot of them seem to be just grifts. But OTOH, why are we so susceptible to this grift? I suppose the collapse of Western culture is as good an explanation as any.
I would say that the driving force behind a lot of food concerns is the pre-FDA history of industrial food production, both among growers and processors. Having safe, edible food has historically been very time-consuming and labor intensive (and very hands-on), but as production first industrialized, large producers tended to be very unscrupulous and thus people have largely been inclined to be very suspicious of industrial food. Until the FDA, it was pretty much taken for granted that the cheapest foods were poisonous, faked or partially spoiled. It’s hard to say how true this was, but it was common enough… Read more »
Given that cops tend to be round connoisseurs of glazed coffee rolls, good luck apprehending the vegans who, notwithstanding their ugsome nature, tend not to be as corpulent as cops.
“why are we so susceptible to this grift?”
Most people don’t produce food and have no first-hand knowledge of it except how to heat it and how it tastes.
Who read Drudge?
Food also comes into play with multi-culturalism. Lefties just love having different types of restaurants around them. They find living in an area where everyone generally eats the same type of food horrifying. They apply the same idea to immigration. They want lots of different types of people around to make their lives more interesting. (Well, they don’t want poor people around them, just some nice tokens.) Ironically, one of the things that I hate most about the Left is that it destroys diversity. It wants one global culture and race. You can’t have diversity without separating people. The fact… Read more »
To me the best “diversity” is the kind of TV/YT videos or “diversity” you can visit and pay to be nice to you. “A nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there” And I certainly don’t want my country to turn into theirs. The funny thing is, leftists think everyone wants to be just like them. Like everyone else wants to be a global bugman surrounded even in his own neighborhood with people who look, behave and smell differently than themselves. They cannot understand the ONLY thing they want from our culture is our standard of living.… Read more »
Yes, liberal whites have a stunning hubris. The believe themselves and beliefs to be the pinnacle of human development. Every person should accept their worldview and WILL accept their worldview because of its righteousness.
They are incredibly dangerous madmen.
David Brooks is a monster, but his term bourgeois bohemian is perfect. This old post about the liberal in pre-revolutionary Russia can just as easily be applied to he people we call the Left https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/10/suicide-of-the-liberals
Looks like I have some new books to read.
“each of them knew in advance what the others would say, but that it was imperative for them to meet and hear all over again what they collectively knew. They were all overwhelmingly certain that they were right, yet they needed these exchanges to reinforce their certainty.”
Sounds like every dinner party at some fusion restaurant in DC.
It also sounds like the embassy staff I’d bump into at nice restaurants in Algiers.
All perfect cackling sisters and cousins of Hillary and Victoria.
If you have multiculture you don’t have a culture.
Maybe the real issue is the crap they try to pass of as “food”, that’s abundantly available and convenient, isn’t food at all. As the nation dumbs down, the laziness increases and those convenient choices help fill that void. Also Zman, a quick look around in everyday life of the landwhales reveals diet plays an important role, as those who are eating this fake food show. I think it goes a little bit deeper than what you post is saying, the old adage “you are what you eat” wasn’t thought up by accident. Now all the “grape nuts and corn… Read more »
Euell Gibbons will not be coming down for breakfast.
What a perfect post for me to describe my recent experience on my cruise ship vacation last week. 🙂 On the ship, there was a total of 5600 souls including the entire crew. Of that 5600 was about 3k passengers. I spent 8 days, so I was able to venture through the entire ship multiple times. I did a lot of people watching because what you see on these things is so astounding, it can’t be helped. Of the roughly 3k passengers I would say approximately 10% of them were black. Most were women, and they were all 300+ pounds.… Read more »
My advice would be not to ever go on a cruise. Again.
Or anywhere else where the simpleton or underclass congregates. Walmart, the DMV, sportsball games, major tourist attractions, etc.
My wife and I went on a Med cruise a while back (pre-COVID) and I noticed many of the same issues. I actually lost weight on that cruise because seeing all of the Jabba the Hutt-sized gluttons stuff their faces killed my appetite. I had several very unpleasant interactions with the melanin-enhanced crowd who seemed to have an entitlement attitude about everything. They were rude (except to each other) to the other passengers and absolutely ABOMINABLE to the crew, treating them like they were beneath contempt. As usual, we tip liberally and my experience waiting tables once informs me that… Read more »
That was something else I forgot to mention. The entire time I saw only two crew members who were black. Nearly all of them were of Asian descent. Only one was Indian. There were a few Ukrainian waiters. Overall, the staff was excellent. They all worked very hard and the service was top notch. We enjoy cruising for the most part. We have our group and that’s enough. Despite the behavioral patterns of the passengers, you can get away from it if you wish. The one time we went on a short cruise that was super cheap it was loaded… Read more »
As if nuggras are capable of apprciateing Greece and Italy. They probably signed on thinking it was grease and eataly, which it probably was, actually.
Why did you choose a cruise for your vacation?
Did the demographic composition surprise you?
It is probably a good bet that the bigger the Carnival, the bigger the Bantu.
Your experience describes what might be the name of a new BET or ALLBLK series: Super-Size on The Seven Seas / Hip Hop Edition.
To be fair, there are also plenty of normal people on the cruise too. They don’t stand out as much because they are normal. I met some nice folks at the pool and had lots of conversations. I didn’t encounter one liberal except for one late night at the bar. In this encounter, a pudgy, middle-aged white man from Texas injected himself into a political discussion I was having with a friend and my cousin. He assumed we were all like minded, which we aren’t and he went on about the greatness of Beto and how awful “conservatives” are. I… Read more »
Gays, blacks, feminists, muslims, ect will NEVER stop claiming discrimination, NEVER
Just tell them to go be gay some where else
This old lady wasn’t so lucky:
https://www.lifenews.com/2022/10/04/man-who-shot-pro-life-grandma-joan-jacobson-called-her-a-right-wing-nut-after-he-shot-her/
Libs tell each other these kinds of “and then everyone clapped” stories to reinforce their group identity. This guy mistakenly thought you were libtards as well and did not expect any skepticism or pushback. It’s really funny how people are essentially incapable of backing down once they’re caught on the bad side of an argument. There’s a youtube channel called cart narcs where a guy just goes around catching people who don’t put their shopping carts back in the pen: about ten percent of the people will say “ok you got me” and admit they’re in the wrong, the remaining… Read more »
I am not making this up.
—
I don’t know what part of that you thought stretched credulity. Recently caught this bit on Fedi regarding those stacking multiple plates: But the multiplater wants to hedge its bets. What if, between that first and second trip to the buffet, the restaurant suddenly ran completely the fuck out of food? Like, not even mints by the cash register or gum in the quarter machines? WHAT THEN?
@Evil Sandmich – That gave me a good chuckle 🙂
Same situation as you. I notice things everywhere I go. Sometimes I’ll see a fellow “noticer”. Their eyes and gaze just seem clearer, somehow. Most white people are not in tune with the “vibe” level. If they were, they could quite easily tell that most non-whites hate them, as you noticed and as I’ve noticed. They’re almost asking us to notice, I think the fact that white people are so oblivious bothers them even more. The flyover people are unfortunate but I’ve seen the same thing. Moderately chubby guys, hideous and deformed women. No energy or motivation, they just seem… Read more »
Does Spirit Airlines have a cruise division?
I’ve thought about going on a cruise. Now I’m thinking again.
The chemicals in manufactured foods you mentioned are the only things we really try to avoid as much as possible. Also limit our intake of wheat products as somebody mentioned earlier. The food phobia I have is the food system the new world order wants to introduce: “Agriculture and the food industry, meanwhile, are being crippled in part by irrational nitrogen reduction laws that will result in less food being grown and fewer livestock being raised, and in part by no longer coincidental fires, so that a new food system can be introduced — one based on “micro livestock,” i.e.,… Read more »
The insane part of this is, in a functioning ecosystem, livestock is essential for healthy soils. The modern issue is massive industrial monocrops with little crop rotation and nonexistent livestock to refuel the soil that is wrecking the land.
The funny part is guys on our side, like Joel Saladin and many anons, have been trumpeting the need for better farm ecosystems and have successfully created farms on their own using clever land management strategies. Suddenly now, the environmentalist left is all on board with continuing disastrous mass industrial farming and using bugs as protein.
But they never say what they will be feeding the bugs do they??? Poop, Black or brown? The ultimate FU? Will it be like feeding cattle ground up cardboard and leftover Halloween candy?
agreed. vilifying our food production and holding out the threat of “micro” livestock with a “magical” production with no cost or inputs. BTW lots of cattle do get fed candies and industrial food waste. It’s been happening for decades if not longer.
Sure happens. I worked in a restaurant and we saved the food scraps in a large barrel that was picked up by a firm to be sold as hog feed. Saw an episode once on “Dirty Jobs” about such a business working out of Las Vegas.
I’ve said for years that vegans and Yalies will always work that into a conversation within the first five minutes of meeting them. Hasn’t failed yet. Funny thing is most Harvard grads I know are reluctant to tell you. Occasional run across one that isn’t and will remind them that the Salem Witch Trial judges were “Harvard Men”. Funny thing with diet, balance of essential nutrients and caloric restriction seem to be the only two correlations to better health. A couple years ago I bought one of those glucose meters to run an experiment on impact of various foods on… Read more »
Moderation in all things dear boy, it’s not difficult. Did you overeat last night and not get much sleep?
None of us around here are “dear boys”. You presume too much, and with little basis. This is a major character failing.
It’s a saying and common colloquial address among folk from elsewhere. I doubt it should be taken as a put down in this case.
The referral to sleep is right on however. Perhaps the most harmful thing we do to ourselves after diet in modern society.
It’s who is selling what food that is the problem. Sugar good, fat bad. Buy my low fat high sugar product. Cetrain cholesterol good, other cholesterol bad. Buy my cholesterol pills. Butter bad, margarine good. Buy my tub-o-grease to put on your biscuit.Take a good look at how much sugar is added to your products at the grocery store. Crisis of diabetes why? “Since culture evolves in a place and that place has certain foods not known in other places” People (genetics), not culture (culture is downstream), evolves in a place that has certain foods. What’s good for the asian… Read more »
“Take a good look at how much sugar is added to your products at the grocery store.”
Literally zero sugar since we buy vegetables, meat, fruit, beans, bulk rice, nuts etc.
A lot of the health problems could probably be easily traced to eating packaged crap (more expensive and less healthy) which in turn is maybe down to collapse in marriage rates and dual income families.
A wife should be making healthy homecooked meals from real ingredients, for basically every meal. Have a sit down dinner together.
Amazing how many of our problems are downstream from (((feminism)))
Here’s a tip. Buy sugar free catsup. I tried it. Half the calories and dang it tastes good/better on most everything. I was surprised. Regular stuff drowns out natural flavors. Similarly with Soy Sauce. There are special blends with half the salt. Much better than the regular stuff.
My 16 year old has Type I diabeties, which is completely different from Starbucks fat woman diabetes. His is a lifelong-affliction. But ironically, it helps him stay healthier than the average 16 year old. He gets immediate feedback on what he eats, and he can’t lie to himself that something is “not too bad”. He has to eat a high-protein, low carbohydrate diet to ensure his blood sugar is controllable. He has become very mature and eats better than his brothers or parents. He’s still a teenager, so he is forgetful at times but hey that is part and parcel… Read more »
Anyone who has used a glucose monitor to get immediate feedback knows it’s very important what you eat. Carbohydrates, especially with a high glycemic index (mostly highly processed) will send blood sugar soaring, which over time can cause serious problems.
See above. Did just that, not due to diabetes, but just to test various foods and impact of intermittent fasting. Results were astonishing
“Fear of Food” will take on a whole new meaning when the WEF rolls out their “eat the bugs” program.
I will agree with large swaths of your post. However, I can note from personal experience that all my life, into my 20s, I experienced upset stomach and various other stomach issues daily. I used to drink pepto everyday before school. One day, it was recommended to me to try to cut out wheat. I did, and within a couple days, my symptoms were gone. 15 years later, anytime I consume something with wheat, now that this is irregular, I immediately feel phlegm and inflammation in my throat, and I will develop sleep apnea for a couple days. YES, I… Read more »
My wife has diagnosed celiac disease, which makes it impossible to digest gluten proteins that are in wheat and some other grains like rye.
We have to do a lot of things cooking that many find odd, but once you get used to it, it’s not an issue. The only thing bad about gluten free food is it is loaded with sugars and salt to make it palatable.
Yes, this seems to be one’s own genome in action. Some years back, I consukted with an allergist because I was beset with migraine headaches, and wondered if that was caused by some environmental imfluence. After a battery of sensitivity tests it was determined that yes, I was sensitive to both soy and fermented dairy. This made perfect sense, as I ate yogurt almost every day for lunch at work, and had taken to drinking soy milk, being introduced to it through my wife, upon whom it had no deleterious effects. I can eat a little yogurt or other fermented… Read more »
The problem is it is not simply genetics. People can develop allergies through overexposure to chemicals. Bleach allergy is common in those who use it extensively. I would argue that many allergies are a result of the chemicals added to food creating an associative allergic reaction.
One reason that people tend to ignore genetics wrt food and health is control. We are stuck with our genetics but have some control over what we eat.
One paradox here is that while many lefties want to restrict personal choice on a variety of issues, they will justify veganism as a personal choice.
Then there is the issue of eating bugs.
I agree with this. People struggle with the idea that there is not much they can do to alter health outcomes. if you got good genes, you will live a long and healthy life. If your parents both dropped dead at 50 from heart attacks, you should plan to retire early, unless science perfect the artificial heart.
I’m getting the series 7 sports heart myself
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuBiGlKDgy8
Will this new heart only be effective if I get one too?
I saw what you did there, you wag, you.
Well, yes and no. The only type of weight loss protocol that seems to have any long-lasting impact seems to be good old-fashioned fasting. A lot of the issues with weight today is people having a hard time dealing with the feeling of hunger, and I would argue simple card laden foods of today and seed oils definitely exacerbate feeling of hunger because of insulin and pectin dysregulation in the body due to the swarm of dietary simple sugars and strange fats. It used to be a fact of life that you would go hungry sometimes, which is why your… Read more »
There was an interesting thread that noted that “something” is interfering with people’s “lipostats” as in a previous age people did not get fat under any circumstances. I know on Gab someone would post pictures of beaches full of skinny people from the late fifties, early sixties, and, let’s face it, these people were hardly living the peasant lifestyle wondering where there next meal was coming from; and it certainly wasn’t as if processed foods hadn’t been invented either. The math says that something started to change in the late seventies/early eighties, some toxin(s) that has goofed with people’s physiology,… Read more »
Growth hormones in animals. (Which incidentally are banned in Europe).
The same hormones that give you nicely marbled meat in turn have the same effect on humans when eaten.
That and endocrine disruptors in the environment.
The best weight loss protocol is to transfer the weight load from your gluteus and place it on your metatarsals: get off your @ss.
The sad think about most fat people is that they get fat eating junk food, if they gained all that extra weight eating well, I could understand it better. but no its usually from too much Coca-Cola and burgers and chips
Yes I eat that stuff too, but I try to limit it
Don’t forget the odor of food and the identity it creates. For example, South Asians smell horrible. One time a few years ago, there was a South Asian (Indian) on my son’s hockey team. Anyone familiar with youth hockey knows that a hockey locker room after practice, full of sweaty boys and their sweaty equipment, is one of the least pleasant odors you can find. Amazingly, the odor of this Indian kid and his dad rose above the hockey odors. I was close to vomiting, as that combination of smells overwhelmed my olfactory senses. Could you imagine going through life… Read more »
“ Could you imagine going through life eating food that smells that shitty, and carrying such an awful odor?” Sure can, try fermented Korean Kimchi. I was in the dorm as an undergrad and we had a Korean student. Nice guy, but his family often sent him home made Kimchi. He was in love with it and would literally open his Korean “care package” and begin eating it in the lobby. Well this didn’t last too long, the dorm residents and other authorities told him he was not allowed to eat it anywhere on the premises. This was of course… Read more »
Circa 1987 I was in the Student Union at Cal State Fullerton eating my lunch. There was a microwave available for anybody who had brought food from home. I watched a Vietnamese student heat something, I know not what, and after he removed this atrocity from the microwave I thought I was going to puke. The smell permeated the entire room, and draped itself over all of us like a mildewed blanket. I got outta there as fast as I could. But I will admit that all the Vietnamese kids stayed skinny. Oddly, back in the ’80s the white kids… Read more »
You are whom you eat.
Unless we know (and most of us wouldn’t) what meat and fish sources consume and what pesticides have been used on vegetable sources, nothing is safe. I sliced through a tomato from my garden and you know what I found? Nothing. There should have been some worms or bugs. My Polish neighbors wolf down all the kielbasa they want and still jog and lift weights. Lucky bastards.
The general thrust of this post is basically correct, but you are taking it too far by at least an order of magnitude. Sot of the opposite extreme of a vegan. Eating correctly is critical to maintaining health a fitness. That includes eating animal protein and fats, colorful vegetables and fruits. It also means avoiding overly processed foods common in the SAD. Fresher and self prepared are better. Manufactured, packaged foods have chemicals and sugar added to give them shelf stability. The long term consumption of such is not healthy. Humans taste for sweetness likely evolved to encourage the consumption… Read more »
The wheat being grown today has a lot more gluten in it than 100 years ago. Also, bread used to be leavened with sourdough culture slowly which helped digestion of gluten.
Some people’s bodies are fine with the new bread, some people have an issue with it.
Vegetables, except for maybe broccoli and it’s close relatives, are the most overrated consumable on the planet. They’re mostly water and what little nutrition they contain is destroyed when they’re cooked. No one likes to eat them so they’re just choking them down for a health benefit that doesn’t exist.
Vegetables, except for maybe broccoli and it’s close relatives, are the most overrated consumable on the planet….
No one likes to eat them”
It’s an encouraging sign for the growth of the dissident right when even small children have begun to visit the z blog.
I figured I’d take some barbs for badmouthing people’s vegetable god. Most “great vegetable dishes” are some variation of meat-stewed-sauced cover play. For example, a local place has a brussels sprout dish I like, and if they took the brussels sprouts out it would still be good (vinegar and bacon), but if they took everything out but the veg it’d have to be chocked down with a pitcher of water (and since they’re cooked they’d have to choke down a bag of them to get those supposed health benefits from them). Like a lot of things it’s just so tiresome.… Read more »
The gluten thing is 99% attention seeking crossed with hypochondria, peanut allergy meanwhile is generally extremely real. Its the difference between thinking maybe your tummy feels a little upsy downy and then noticing you ate a stack of pancakes yesterday, oh and cheryl down at the salon says she heard gluten is really bad for your waistline… and a child being rushed to the emergency room from an incidental bite of something they didnt even realize contained a small amount of peanut. Not sure why real allergies are tracking phoney allergies up but both have happened. The phoney allergy (read:… Read more »
Dale Gribble (on King of the Hill) theorized that peanut allergies were proof that peanuts had evolved to the point where they were defending themselves from humans.
“Why is sweetness attractive” is very simple. You must have a certain amount of caloric intake to stay alive, just as you require a certain volume of oxygen. Sweetness means calories. You need calories to stay alive. For 4,000 years, “enough calories” was the primary aim of a human’s diet. Or if you are a God-hating heathen, 250,000 years. Too much oxygen can kill you; too many calories can kill you. But without ’em, you die. Simple as.
Just as being vegan quickly tells someone your politics, so does someone on the carnivore diet. And I know a lot more people in my circle on carnivore haha. “The rice in your cupboard that is plotting your demise has nothing to do with the rice that seems to like the people of East Asia. Peace be upon you.” There’s actually quite a bit of evidence on the HBD side of this issue, and your quote isn’t as ludicrous as you intend it to be. Dairy is the easy example. Europeans digest diary far better than Africans because we developed… Read more »
I would never dispute dietary differences in people. Lactose intolerance is a good example. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest some people do better on low carb diets, in terms of weight control. This is mostly likely due to the impact on calorie consumption. When you eat a low carb diet, you eat less. Keto, of course, is a real thing, but probably not a good choice for most people. The fact is, humans are omnivores. One of our great advantages is our ability to eat just about anything. Our big brains needs lots of calories, so the ability to… Read more »
An old tired, trite, tope, yet once again, history and ancestors have told us: all things in moderation.
Seems so easy, yet in the grand scheme, O so hard.
While sacrament of Penance was conceived to address the Man’s sacred weaknesses, the secular high priests are far less forgiving.
My limited experience has been that the Japanese eat more rice than the Chinese, and yet despite eating loaves of bread worth of carbs every day it doesn’t negatively impact them. I’d think that there would almost have to be something genetic going on under the hood there.
The Japanese until recently adhered closely to the best dietary advice: Eat what your ancestors ate; you are proof it worked.
They’re only recent and partial adopters of our corn-based goo diet, so they still generate some “people at a beach in the ’60s” style pics the internet likes. That’s fundamentally why so many righties are nippophiles—displaced homesickness, nostalgia for the old/lost future, etc.
Notably, maybe, the past few generations of Japanese eating rice-based counterparts of our corn “goyslop” didn’t make them fat and infertile, and neither did being shocking drunks. But now we’re all circling the same drain.
One thing almost universally commented upon by foreign visitors posting wrt their first visit to the US, is portion size. From main courses, to desert, to refillable soft drinks, we are like pigs being fattened.
Not sure of whether Japanese have a problem with eating more rice than Chinese, but pretty sure the total *amount* they eat is within healthful limits (Sumo wrestlers excluded here).
I have heard asians have a high rate of diabetes even though they are thin and active. Da rice is to blame they tell me.
Funny thing on food fears. I still maintain that the reason my wife overcooks pork is due to the scares of our childhood health classes regarding trichinosis and tapeworms. Nobody seems to worry about eggs anymore though.
Being a vegan must be like being an EV owner, too much work sourcing everything and planning your venture outside.
I was going to mention this, but yes you are correct. Japan is probably the most striking example, where they have higher rates of diabetes than the US and almost no obesity. The Philippines also has higher rates than the US, but there’s more obesity than in Japan. The leading hypothesis is not that it’s the rice per se, but more of an issue of the fact that 90%+ of their caloric intake is carbohydrates, which is basically sugar. The rice would be fine at a lower percentage and with more proteins and healthy fats.
The Japanese phenomenon is recent. Like everywhere else, access to unlimited food and sedentary lifestyles is probably the real issue. That and the age of the population. All of this has to be aged adjusted. A population of 20-somethings is going to have lower rates of everything compared to a population of geezers.
Sadly obesity is going up in Japan. It’s gotten more noticeable in the time I’ve lived there. It’s not beginning to compete with the States (and made all the more sadly obvious when you encounter some tourists) , but in such a closed packed country the rise in obese people become more obvious.
There is a bit of word magic in the claim that Asians have rates of diabetes. South Asians certainly do have higher rates and they also have more body fat. East Asians, in contrast, do not have the same problems, although that is changing with modernity. For example, diabetes rates are rising in Japan, where they had been relatively low.
The one true thing about diet is that overeating brings problems for which we have not evolved a solution.
Didn’t “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution” by Cochran & Harpending mention a bit about human adjustment to agrarian settlement? Seems I remember it was not a slam dunk transition and any number of folk failed to adjust to the new food supply and passed out of the gene pool.
Hard to evolve natural scarcity. You would think since people knew that by “comorbidities” the government meant “old”, “fat”, and “diabetic” (usually 2 of 3) they would have used the 18 months of lockdown insanity to drop 20-30 lbs. Most people gained weight during the scamdemic…the so-called “Quarantine 15”. So even in a time where most people were stupidly going along with the scamdemic, and believed they knew why people died from COVID, and wore silly masks and injected themselves with untested “vaccines”, they were doing absolutely nothing to address the top comorbidities of the virus. Fat and unhealthy used… Read more »
There’s no word magic. Rates aren’t just “rising” in Japan, they’re higher than the US. A quick google search shows about 10.5% of the US has diabetes, while Japan has 13.5%. That’s not south Asians. And they have far lower rates of obesity. Japan has an obesity rate of 3.6% over a 30 BMI, while the US has 42% over 30 BMI. You’re dead wrong on this one z. It would be smart to concede.
Yeah, it’s rising here and in Japan, but one has to look at some of the classifications. Last I heard, there was a push to classify 70% of the US population with diabetes or “pre-diabetes”. Seems the big Pharma companies love to encourage lower standards—which intern causes more folks to get onto prescriptions. I’m a bit jaded here.
The truth is, outside of the extremes and controlling for obvious poisons, food plays little role in your health.
LOL – keep telling yourself that. And youre getting fat because of your genes.
I’ll concede this point to z: Perhaps obese people are obese because their genetics gave them weak will power to resist eating large portions of food.
Nowhere in the post did I claim obesity is genetic. That said, I think the metabolic efficiency of people is genetic. If your body is really efficient at extracting calories from food, you may be more prone to obesity, all things being equal. We have all known people who eat like pigs and remain rail thin.