The word trump will never be the same again.
2
Variety v quality is not either or. Why do I have to choose?
1
I make food from-scratch, healthy meals with a variety of produce, grains & meat for my family. Despite cooking with a variety of ingredients with recipes from many cultures, I felt like personally I just didn’t eat enough vegetables. So I started eating vegetarian meals 8 months ago, with maybe a biweekly meal of seafood protein in it. The veggie meals for me are far simpler than my other cooking: loads of simple beans & lentil dishes, roast & sautéed vegetables... all the usual fruit, fermented dairy, & probably more (yard) eggs than before. Exotics in my new arsenal is tempeh. Because I’m eating a greater volume of pure plants I feel more nourished than ever. Casual observations: It has reduced the amount of food I eat. I don’t crave sugars as much as I once did. I eat way more plant fats like avocado & hummus.
4
Actually for many people quantity seems to be most important.
3
The experts want you to eat only tofu and kale. Period. Make sure they’re both organic, and don’t go overboard on the tofu.
9
Oh for the good old days when pesticides were used indiscriminately and in deadly doses. When I was a child, in the sixties, there was cereal chocked full of sugar and preservatives. There was fruit and vegetables grown with the aforementioned pesticides. There was meat with hormones and chickens raised in packed houses breeding disease. Milk and butter processed with added who knows what. These days are the good old days with healthy choices of a variety of foods grown with care. Another commenter said it best from Julia Childs, everything in moderation.
3
Me, I believe in JC (Julia Child) "Everything in moderation, even moderation."
8
From a strictly philosophical perspective, there is no comparing quantity to quality. If the ‘qualia’ of that which one needs is never satisfied, then the quantity is completely inconsequential.
2
All of this emphasis on diet misses the really important key to health, in my opinion: exercise. Your nutrition is fine. Move your body and don’t worry about eating all the time. You will be hungry for healthy things, and the occasional donut or whatever will just burn up.
8
@Thomas You’re right that in terms of maintaining an already healthy body and weight exercise is key. But if you’re trying to lose weight or make some chemical changes in one’s bloodstream diet is by far the most important factor. And in any case one’s ability to burn up the occasional donut depends greatly on the quality of the rest of one’s diet.
12
@Thomas
You can't out-run a bad diet.
9
When I think of variety of food.... I think of variety of healthy food, not junk food. :/ Are these "experts" actually get paid to contradict and confuse the medical field even further, especially when it comes to what we eat? Upon turning vegetarian I just focused on plant-based diet and foods to which I can easily read and pronounce. Packaged proceeded foods contain ingredients that at times are impossible to read and pronounce, so I avoid them. It's the reason why I'm not obese. I tell this to people, if you can't read it, don't eat it! I also recommend eating what great-great grandparents ate. They didn't have mac and cheese, twinkies, McDonalds, and all of this highly proceeded junk and meat. Meat was consider rich people food and all of the rich people died younger back than. Peasants outlived their lords for a reason, they weren't walking cemeteries. My have times changed now poor people suffer diseases that only lords and kings suffered from two centuries ago.
9
So, who was actually healthier? Before making recommendations, let's look at outcomes.
You know, the longest-living people on Earth tend to have relatively bland, local organic resource-based; but nutritionally balanced diets coupled w/ moderate-to-active physical activity (they're not just couch potatoes!) throughout their lifetimes.
Think of rural Costa Ricans and the like eating just beans, rice, & perhaps some plaintains. Japanese w/ their plain fish, rice, perhaps a roasted eggplant, some ginger. Italians, Greeks, Syrians, and the like rural Mediterraneans eating olives, cheeses, tomatoes, etc.
Cheap processed foods & snacks coming from long distances, going against local seasonal diets, and that tend to be packed w/ preservatives for long shelf & freezer lives may provide addictively comforting flavor, but they also cam clog your arteries & guts, shortening life quality & quantity.
I guess we all need to review whether we Eat to Live, or Live to Eat, in considering our daily diet staples.
7
@FairXchange The image of Japanese people eating plain rice and fish and practically nothing else is way overdone. There are plenty of Japanese dishes that are far from bland.
The olives, cheeses, tomatoes, and most of the etc. you mention are also far from bland.
I agree with the cheap, processed, nonlocal points though.
5
@Amber: My emphasis was specifically rural peoples' centenarian-friendly cuisine (not necessarily entire national cuisines) that tend to have less access to the flavor-enhancing preservatives & spices.
For instance, in Okinawa, Japan, as stated in Dan Buettner's Blue Zones project, they're really plant-based & not even that fish-based. Their centenerians eating stir-fried veggies, sweet potatoes, tofu, & goya, w/ pork only being a rare delicacy, & following the rule of pushing away food once you feel 80% full. To a lot of people, that's pretty monk-like bland.
I agree that all national cuisines are very diverse and flavor-packed, yet if one really bothers to immerse oneself in modest farms, islands/coastal towns, & even indigenous tribes away from the city restaurants, middle class/rich peoples' homes, trading outposts/ports, etc., we do rediscover complex natural flavors that too many urbanized folks would consider bland - since too many urbanized palates have been raised on salts (including MSG in East Asian cuisine - Ajinomoto is a Japanese brand, fyi), sugars, meats, etc.
Also, blandness is quite subjective; for instance, since people who eat olives daily may find such bland, while those who aren't raised on olives would find its exotic.
Blandness per se really means routineness/lack of variety in consuming accessible local, preservative-free organic flavors (w/c are complex!), not necessarily culturally subjective mouthfeel;)
3
@FairXchange--In Hawaii I can grow edible ginger, turmeric & chili peppers, but you can buy those ingredients in health food stores on the mainland. My diet is vegetarian and definitely NOT bland, as I incorporate those ingredients into nearly all my meals, including garlic--which unfortunately I can't grow here. Once a week or so, I make up a paste of those ingredients, saute them in a tsp of olive oil, which takes 10 minutes. It's doable to have wonderful spicy vegetarian dishes every night. Those additions of spices to fresh veggies add up to both high value, healthful ingredients, and quantity as well. That said, don't forget the protein you still need--for me that's dried beans, tofu, and because I don't have a lactose issue, Greek yogurt & fresh eggs from my neighbors.
Let's face it, nutritional studies have value, but are limited, like any science involving human health, to what we we are able to surmise at any given time. (It's not like we can simply do lab experiments.) I appreciate the folks doing this complex work. Thanks!
My approach is that I read a study's results, then see if it makes sense in terms of what, I may be experiencing. I can say that I have far less cravings if I eat a rotating selection of limited (healthy, whole) foods.
To my dismay, I slowly realized that I had "food intolerances" or "sensitivities". As this is long before any popular awareness, it was challenging trying to find out what the heck was going on. The bottom line is, if you suspect a food might be making you feel lousy, try not eating it for a minimum of 3 days and see how you feel. Often by the 4th day you'll experience a decrease (or end) of symptoms (achiness, inflammation, gastric and sinus issues, depression or "fogginess", etc) and improved sense of well-being, better mood and mental clarity.
Turns out none of mine were very original. Avoid wheat, dairy, yeast (bread, beer wine- bummer!), processed foods, soy & almond milk (carrageenan), sugars (dilute the juice!), potatoes (bummer!)...
I do not think it's healthy to make a mission out of wellness, food selections or diet, etc. The only mission is joyful living with lots of appreciation for the goodness, truth, beauty and love in any given day.
But feeling well sure makes that a lot easier.
11
I guess instead of having apricots and plums separately, I'll have apriums on even days and pluots on odd days.
6
Nutritionists don't like to rate the healthfulness of food, and they use "everything in moderation" as their escape clause. It is time to start changing that.
5
This article is just another way of saying don't eat processed and junk food. It's not rocket science.
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@kate schlesinger Your advice is sound -- BUT, there are many ways in which a healthy choice can be turned into something that is not so fine by the way it's prepared, the amounts that you eat, the time of day that you indulge and/or the ideas you have from your own experience and upbringing that may have been OK at one time but may not be considered healthy now. Just consider the original food pyramid. Doesn't work for everyone. Either does chemically sprayed crops and less than perfect sources foods fed to farm animals or farm produced fish, etc. A lot more to consider than junk and processed.
This month,whole milk and butter are “good”,but fruit juice and a varied diet are evil...did I get that right? They could easily have switched sides again while I wasn’t paying attention.
Could the Times perhaps publish a daily chart,like the weather report,showing what’s become edible/inedible over the previous 24 hours?
Having everything that I intend to ignore gathered in one convenient place would be a welcome timesaver.
15
At 73 I take no pharma, suffer no aches or pains, sleep a solid 8 every night, celebrate two healthy bowel movements every day, only date younger men (men my age can't keep up with my sex drive). That said, I feed my body as clean as possible; organic, sustainably raised, no chemicals, lots of alkaline water. Sugar, grain, dairy, red meat in strict moderation. Exercise (lifting weights, swimming, walking, yoga) is mandatory. I plan to live in physical and mental wellness for many more decades.
20
As with all studies, as individuals we must see if it can be "generalized" to any individual. I don't know how many individuals of my age and gender were included in the population (I suspect very few---as there isn't a huge population of people my age.) For the past 50 years, I have enjoyed a protein drink that includes a wide range of vitamins and blue algae. The last time I was sick enough to miss work was with the flu in 2000. I don't eat red meat, no dairy, and no wheat. So "Experts" can look at their own health reports and diets. Bottom line, a ridiculous study!
3
"I have enjoyed a protein drink that includes a wide range of vitamins and blue algae"
That is not what they meant by variety. For example, let's say you drink that drink and that's it, while another person drinks that drink and then chases it with a 64 oz soda. That other person is consuming a greater variety of foods in this particular instance.
"I don't eat red meat, no dairy, and no wheat."
This is a pretty clear example of you being selective about what you eat. Everyone is different so if that works for you then that's great. Personally, I agree wholeheartedly with the avoidance of wheat, though not necessarily for wheat's sake, more because wheat products are pointless carbohydrate-based filler.
1
@Amber
Hi. Doesn't matter to me what you choose to eat but, just as a matter of interest, whole wheat products are better than just fillers. For instance, a serving of red bulgur has 5 g fiber, 6g protein, 50% RDA manganese, also, iron, niacin, B6, magnesium, copper, and zinc. All this is naturally occurring, not added. Yes, it's carb-heavy, too, but so are potatoes, rice, and corn.
1
At the risk of sounding unnecessarily acerbic, I don't think that any of the current nutritional advice for humans is very accurate. In many ways, it must not be taken too seriously. We have known for many years about the effects on human health of specific nutritional deficiencies such as insufficient Vitamin C, protein, etc. But,we still don't know what happens when individuals eat a mixed meal, etc.,etc.The critical experiments done on various animals, cannot be done in humans for ethical reasons. Moreover, most nutritional studies on humans have been conducted on very small populations with little regard for age, genetic background, etc.,etc. This is not to say that there is nothing good in any of these reports. Eating too much of any one thing , especially foods rich in fat, carbohydrates or processed ingredients, probably is not good; but how much and when is another matter. A professional nutritionist can help to guide a person who has certain medical problems or one who is totally at loss for how to modify weight gain, etc.,etc. But, most of us just have to stumble along, striving for moderation..... not jumping on every new bandwagon
9
Eatertainment!
Those old cookbooks with really boring recipes were intended to prevent gluttony.
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@SW
Rec'd for "Eatertainment" :-)
5
I think the idea of variety is still a good one, just not all in one day. I'd be bored silly if I had to eat the same things everyday. I do have my favorites and some staples, like oatmeal and apples, which I never seem to get tired of, but even those are subject to change. Right now, I'm looking to get a rutabaga to try. I read they can be microwaved just like a potato. I'm also seriously thinking of getting a couple of chocolate eclairs.
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@Ron A I really love rutabaga sliced thin, brushed lightly with oil and baked - like you'd do for oven baked sweet potato 'fries.' It's also wonderful with turnips, onions,potatos, sweet potatoes - either together in a stew, or baked separately but served together. Baking brings out the sweetness. Something about those flavors eaten alternately or together seems pretty wonderful. By itself, I love the first bite and am less enthusiastic with each successive bite. It's a big flavor and can be overwhelming.
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@Lynetta
I'd love to find these elusive rutabagas. So far, in three markets I've only found the purple-topped turnips. It was humorous, too, because each market had them in successively bigger sizes, with the first market only selling golf-balled sized ones and the last place having softball-sized ones!
The turnips are a new taste for me. Reminds me of a 'diet' potato. It has a real look, smell, and taste of a baked potato, only lighter, more watery, and with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Still, with just a touch of salt, I like them!
I scrolled past this article about 5 times before realizing it was about food. It seems my brain has become accustomed to blacking out content with the word "Trump" accompanied by an image with lots of bright orange. Not sure if good or bad.
55
So after decades of being given common sense advice to eat a variety of foods, now we're told not to pursue variety in our diets? It reminds me of how we were told for 30 years to avoid sunlight on our skin, and then were told whoops no, do get some sunlight. And dark chocolate is now supposedly good for us due to its anti-oxidant properties.
Rather than following any of this advice, I'll just wait 20 or 30 years for the advice-givers to reverse themselves again.
Woody Allen satirized this decades ago in"Sleeper":
Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
7
the best change I ever made to my diet was starting to eat rolled oats for breakfast every morning - after I heard a French chef on the radio saying people are stupid - they sleep in, rush out the door to get to work, then arrive groggy, unable to concentrate, and are starving by 1030am when they go out to buy coffee and junk food like a high-fat muffin. Better - set the alarm 30 min earlier, have a relaxed breakfast, and arrive at work firing on all cylinders.
After I started eating rolled oats, my friends said 'you've changed - you're so much nicer now'
Turned out I had been hypoglycemic - and would get in a nasty argument with anyone before 1030am every day. After eating rolled oats for breakfast that disappeared.
Even now - when I skip it for a day or two - it affects my 'regularity' - and next time I have it I feel so much better.
So - agreeing with the premise of this article - the same simple good food - eaten regularly - beats a variety of junk food.
4
Also
recommend Ezekiel cereals with "living grains"
5
@Frank I also agree with the premise of the article for the most part. Personally, I'd pick something other than oats though it's certainly better than candy since it won't spike and crash as severely or quickly.
I don't entirely agree with the French chef.
1. I've done lots of intermittent fasting, skipping the earlier meals and waiting until around after 4 or 5PM to eat and while I've done that I've never once had any problems in the morning, as opposed to heavy restriction and just plain not eating for days which often has me on the verge of passing out.
2. Don't just set the alarm back 30 minutes, give yourself at least two hours between when you wake up and when you have to leave the house so you have time to: make coffee so you don't have to buy it and get ripped off, cook a real meal with real ingredients, have time to eat it, and have time to get ready without feeling rushed. If you feel rushed then the 30 minutes makes sense for incremental adjustment. Rushing is by far the biggest problem here. When you rush, you forget things, you make mistakes, you're more likely to get in an accident, etc. One time I was late to work because I didn't give myself enough time and in my rush to not miss the bus I rely on, I forgot my wallet and didn't realize it until it was too late, had to walk back home, and take the next bus over an hour later.
1
So it's ok to eat eggs now?
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@tomjoad Unless there is a particular reason why you can't eat eggs, it's always been okay to eat eggs. Nutrition science should be taken with a grain of salt, like horoscopes.
1
Although I ate mostly organic foods since my 20s, I was surprised later in life with a slew of very serious food sensitivities. My inflammation level was off the charts and any movement hurt terribly.
Eliminating all grains, sugar, cow casein (goat and sheep are OK) and soy changed everything: My inflammation level went to "low" and I had no more pain anywhere, not even headaches. That change took six months, but I started to feel better in two weeks.
It's not just variety that matters. Some key ingredients in our foods have changed.
5
Same thing happened to me, except I had to eliminate all wheat and wheat-related grains, most meats, chicken and fish (was already allergic to shellfish) and quite a few healthy fruits and vegetables (yes, I miss cherries and tomatoes, but they're not worth breaking out in a week-long rash). I don't have pain issues from food, but get severe rhinitis and congestion and digestive issues in addition to the above-mentioned rashes. I now rely on soy and dairy for most of my protein needs. It's not only the food and/or ingredients that change - our immune systems, especially for women after childbirth, can also radically change as we age.
1
@An independent in I'd certainly say that getting rid of grains and sugar changed my life for the better.
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I suspect the meaning behind the advice to eat "a variety" of foods meant healthy foods?
You can make a stir fry with 7-8 different vegetables, and eat that with whole grains such as quinoa or brown rice and a healthy protein.
I doubt "variety" in this case means finishing the meal with ice cream or candy bars.
5
Bad advice. A childhood neighbor ate nothing but cereal at meals. She died from leukemia. A dear friend who binge eats fruits and nothing but for days at a time now has metastatic cancer.
Prevention magazine produced an excellent article by a cancer survivor and nutritionist to create a diet for herself for optimum health. Her prognosis was poor because she had had childhood leukemia, and then a second form of cancer as a young woman. But following her own diet helped her get into remission. I don't have the publication date, but it was in the late 90s to very early 2000s. The gist of her diet is to keep your plate colorful with a variety of different kinds of produce. Also she ate little dairy and small amount of animal protein.
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@Mary M
I remember reading a story about a college student who had just left home for the first time and was living in a dorm. He ate pizza, soda, and Oreos for weeks at a time. He was ultimately admitted to a hospital with malnutrition.
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@Mary M
I think you misunderstood. Diversity isn't referring to the food groups, but to the various individual foods in those groups. Obviously you should eat the recommended number of servings of fruits, veggies, grains, proteins, etc, each day. But whether you eat one serving each of 5 different vegetables, or if you eat 5 servings of broccoli a day, doesn't matter so much.
3
I often wonder if "diet" is over rated. One we get over the bad choices, like sugar drinks and fried starch, cut out over processed foods, and eat raw ingredients and traditional foods, are we getting enough good stuff?
Will more of the good stuff make us healthier, or take us to a plateaux? Certain ethnic groups, like Inuits, eat one kind of food most of the time. Seal meat.
But wellness junkies seek out the next super food or more good stuff - more is better - as if they can eat themselves to super health.
Is it so? Is the Mediterranean diet realy better than meat and potatoes with peas and corn? A large study about that was recently pulled from publication.
3
I've always assumed that the reason you were supposed to eat a variety of foods was because no one has the time/inclination to look at the vitamin and mineral contents of the foods they eat, so keep rotating it around so that any gaps from one day even out in the next. I've spent some time recently with a thought experiment, mixing and matching complimentary (that's the key word) nutritionally dense foods to see if I could hit all the essential nutrients with simple, easily prepared meals. It takes a lot of tinkering, but I don't see why it's not possible to create an efficient daily diet without nutritional gaps.
Someday I'd like to engineer a bunch of modular meals that hit all the nutrients proportionally based on the total calories, efficient enough (and with enough room for empty calories) to throw a complimentary cocktail/wine pairing in the mix for good measure. But that might just be crazy sauce.
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@E Guillemette
Take a look at Lyn-Genet Recitas book and website The Plan
I have been eating a variety of nutritionally dense and anti inflammatory clean foods for a decade now and have no maladies and am on no prescription meds at 66 years.
Its a lot of work but worth the time.
I’m sorry but you have to use another word now.
Trump & Trumps are registered trademarks belonging to his majesty.
You will need to use the phrase “is better than” ,but use this phrase with caution as the concept is also in the possession of his honor.
12
Oh brother! Now we are blaming the obesity epidemic on "variety". Show me the person who is obese because they ate too great a variety of fruits and vegetables. What nonsense! And why is fish listed first among nutritious foods, when it probably should not be listed at all? The advice to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables is rock solid. Everything else is just noise.
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@Dan Frazier
Respectfully, in response to your second sentence, I'm pasting this from the article: "The panel released a scientific report on Thursday in the journal Circulation that found that in some studies, people whose diets contained the greatest variety of foods tended to eat many nutritious foods, like fish, fruits and vegetables, but also many junk foods, such as sugary snacks and beverages, refined grains and other processed foods." It wasn't just referring to healthy foods.
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@Dan Frazier
There have been numerous healthy fish-eating cultures all over the world. Humans have been nourished by seafood since forever. Cold-water fatty fish and shellfish are among the most nutrient-dense foods that we can eat. To claim otherwise is your usual vegan religious ideology.
3
A dispatch from the Department of the Blindingly Obvious!
5
I'm sitting at my kitchen table looking at a pile of local fresh peaches. The window of time that they will be good is limited. Seasonal. We should be eating seasonally - a lot of the same foods as they come into season and then off to the next in-season variety.
29
Whatever do you eat in a Utah winter?
10
Oreos & Cheetos are always in season!
1
Those that I have known in my life, who had lived the longest amount of years, (over 90), all basically ate the same every day. They consumed onions, potatoes, carrots, peas, cabbage and meats, mostly beef or lamb and fish on Fridays. The fruits were apples, pears, berries and plums.
Nothing too exotic. Your basic Scot-Irish/English or northern European diet. I know this because I used to deliver groceries as a young man in my old Boston neighborhood. All of the homes smelled of boiled potatoes inside. Mrs. Brown had her daily dram of Irish whiskey or Bailey's and Mr. McConnell his pint of stout. They were all tough as steel well into their 80's. And they did not do a daily work out in a gym.
I almost forgot, I delivered a lot of oatmeal too.
37
My 91 year old mother and her sister (94) eat simply and sparingly. They like sweets but limit them. Both smoked daily for about 20 years. One drinks alcohol daily, the other occasionally. They both have a cup or two of ordinary coffee daily. Neither was ever overweight. Neither was athletic or sporty, neither have nor had any regular exercise regimens. Neither has any serious chronic diseases. One had a mastectomy 30 years ago but says now she should have chosen the lumpectomy option in hindsight.
Their secret? Who knows!
4
@Julie Zuckman.
Possibly they were and are content with their lives.
I too know people who have lived simply, content with their lives. We have forgotten how to do that.
1
Sourcing fresh, high quality foo is a big problem in the US, where or food is grown far from where it is consumed. The deterioration in taste, quality and freshness in supermarket produce is disgusting.
Buy local whenever you can.
18
Eat a variety of nutritious foods. I have a tendency to choose one leafy green such as kale and eat some every day. But the experts say eat a bevy of greens, not just one special one.
2
I eat lots of freshly-made pizza, and am especially fond of the vegetarian/pesto version from Whole Foods. My favorite snack is plain almonds, which I roast myself. No liquid calories except the occasional beer. I feel no desire to stuff myself when I eat ordinary things that taste really good.
1
Given the way food is sold nowadays, the only way to get a variety of foods is to buy more food than you need because portions are so large. Therefore people overeat.
4
Will this pseudoscientific nutrition nonsense never end?
In my experience, people who don't much like food tend to eat monotonous diets, while those who do tend to eat widely varied diets. And people who like food are more likely to eat junk food because it tastes good. Needless to say, the people who don't like food tend to be thin.
The key to avoiding an unhealthy diet is to avoid unhealthy foods. Food variety has nothing to do with that. Avoiding Twinkies does.
Furthermore, any claim that a variety of foods isn't beneficial is unscientific and premature. We know too little about the wide variety of nutritional compounds in food and their interaction to say that. Unfortunately, that has never stopped the nutrition establishment from making voice of God recommendations, often with tragic results (eat lots of margarine, sugar, and white bread, right).
Well, here's my voice of God pronouncement. Don't obsess. Eat what you want. Avoid the known baddies, like added sugars, partially hydrogenated oils, refined grains, and preserved meat, and you'll be fine.
32
I have long held this belief after spending a lot of time in India where traditionally the diet has consisted of very simple and similar fare at all three meals: dal, chappati, rice, yogurt, occasionally a vegetable or some fruit. I saw that the people were healthy and very strong.
11
@Mandeep
How about type 2 diabetes?
Many Indians I see around this city appear over-weight.
2
This is hilarious! Who could possibly interpret “diverse diet” as a whole lot of unhealthy or junk food mixed in with healthy food? Maybe researchers or people who are not being honest with themselves? I’m 51 and my daughter is 10, and we both assume “diverse diet” means diverse healthy foods, like a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, including the “exotic” ones we haven’t tried before.
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@Mom 500
What? Common sense? :-)
Thank you.
5
This what to eat mania has gone way overboard. Unless you eat biscuits and gravy three meals a day and snack on Ring-Dings in between, you will be alright. We all known what is good and what is not. There is no super food or fad food that will make you live longer, sensible eating will give you all the time you are going to get. Save your money and use it for a vacation, the relaxation will do you more good than some $25/lb grain.
48
Ok gang, let's go over it again. This is not rocket science, some version of it has been known since the Stone Age.
1-Every year or so, get a physical and blood test and find out if you are deficient in any vitamin/mineral etc and/or have a medical problem and/or allergies. Adjust for it.
2-After that eat a variety of all foods in moderation with a stress on the more healthy foods. You can eat junk food every now and then.
3-Any form of Weight Watchers is needed for most people from the strict membership one to the loose calorie count one I do if you want to maintain a healthy weight.
Again it is not rocket science.
9
It seems variety is bad when you add junk food as part of your variety. But if your variety is all good quality food then variety should be OK.
73
@Scott Spencer That's what we've always interpreted "variety" to mean: variety of nutritious foods, not junk food, but it's good they are providing clarity for others who might view variety differently.
5
Was the cost factored in? Having more money to spend on food certainly could be a factor in the variety of food stuffs being purchased.
12
@Vanessa Hall absolutely!
2
Great news for me as I have been worrying that my lack of a variety was causing anxiety that I believe leads to bad health. I could afford to but anything in the supermarket but always stick to a few standards, small steak and asparagus, chicken breast or pork chop with broccoli. I've cut out potatoes and pasta entirely and maybe eat at most 4 slices of bread a day. I have been losing a pound a month the last 18 months. I cut out soda entirely, never add sugar to anything but still like ice cream and a handful of M&Ms. My last half dozen blood pressure measurements are in the 110-70 range. BMI is in normal range. In other words I feel I am decently informed and found what works for me. Oh, and 24 oz. strong coffee daily.
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@ogn
Lucky you! If I ate four slices of bread per day I would be the size of the state of Texas!
3
The “bro” diet gives me ultimate control over portions and selection. Carbs consist of rice, oatmeal, potatoes and all vegetables and fruits. Protein is fish, chicken and some eggs. Fats are primarily olive oil, almond butter and coconut oil. There is not one cookie, cake, pie or scoop of ice cream allowed. My weight has not varied more than a 2-3 pounds in over 30 years.
9
So the experts look at herd behavior and how some on the herd choose to behave inspire of nutrition reality, and then modify their recommendations to actual individuals?
Thanks a lot. Find another job.
8
I've always thought a monotonous diet is more natural for human beings. Think of new world beans and corn. Or old world bread and vegetables. For the majority of human existence food was humble and about simple nourishment. No desire to overeat when every day you eat the same thing. Witness a typical restaurant buffet, including the newly ubiquitous Chinese super buffets. Hard to eat modestly exposed to such a feast. The typical grocery store today has choices even a king wouldn't have had 100 years ago!
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@susan
Actually through most of our history we were hunter-gatherers and ate a more varied diet than we eat today, depending on what was available. The limited modern diet became with agriculture.
9
@susan
It is very hard to define what is natural. Even plants that are natural can kill a person.
@susan
Not only that but today's Americans feast like everyday is Thanksgiving. People used to consume a lot of in season plants and once in a blue moon they could afford to butcher the fatted calf. Now it seems as everyday is gorge yourself day.
2
Variety of foods is sound advise. If people interpret variety to mean variety of processed food or to include possessed food so as to increase variety, then they are - how should I say - obtuse. It is probably sound assumption that the most healthful diet is one without processed food or food and drinks filled with gratuitous sugar (say the ton of sugar or artificial sugar in flavored yogurt). Then you make it even better by eating a range of vegetables according to season. Healthy eating doesn't have to be expensive. Eating out is expensive.
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Good news. I eat the same thing every day, but it's all very healthy. Oatmeal, cherries, blueberries, vegetable soup, kale, peanuts, cinnamon, apples and broccoli.
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Yum! What time is dinner and what should I bring?
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@Allen Nikora porterhouse steak.
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@Noodles
A diet like yours and lots of exercise and you will never be hungry again. For me its a dark green salad every day which makes up about half of my diet. The other half of my one meal a day is stir fries, a grilled cheese or pnut butter sandwich with all the vegs I can stuff into it, home fries, 5 or 6 bananas, all your aminos. And some of the divine food, that is, fasting!
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Good article !! Unfortunately we are in the dark ages in terms of conquering the obesity crisis. We know that refined carbohydrates are unhealthy. We know that sugary sodas and fruit juices are a major contributor to obesity, diabetes and more. To this day children are still drinking lots of apple and orange juice which is loaded with sugar. A 20 ounce coke for example has the equivalent of about 17 teaspoons of sugar. What we haven’t solved is how to change eating behaviors . Certainly efforts such as soda taxes, changing vending machine products in schools and businesses , nutritional programs are examples of potential tools. School education programs have had mixed results.
The other aspect of obesity research is what role does one’s microbiome play. More and more evidence is coming out that in a certain percentage of patients, diet may be trumped by an individual’s microbiome.
It’s time for the government, CDC and NIH to implement an “ OBESITY MOONSHOT” similar to Joe Biden’s moonshot against cancer.
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@Ken O
These "moonshot" approaches to problem solving are a lot of hype. The original moonshot program had a very clear goal driven by knowing exactly where we were going.
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Curing cancer and obesity are far more complex and ill defined problems. Still, some of the other comments point to an effective approach. Just eat less and when you do, eat high quality food.
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I am a health food foodie and in my attempt to consume everything healthy, I struggle with an extra seven pounds, fluctuating up and down. Many times I have wondered, why do I need to eat an imported strawberry during the winter, when they are in season locally during the month of June? Did my Yankee ancestors eat Quinoa? Did my mother add hemp seed to her oatmeal? I need to focus on a healthy version of the culturally New England food they ate...baked beans with cornbread made with white flint cornmeal, local greens, tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots. String beans steamed (but without the salt pork), no more exotic, super-high antioxidant South American food for me. Thanks for this article and the permission it has given me to normalize.
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Nora, I think your first mistake is to consider yourself a “foodie”. I’ve always found the term to be pretentious. Why would you force yourself to eat all that (often expensive) stuff that leads to weight gain? Feeding yourself should not be painful.
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For another take on variety:
The Food Explorer: The True Adventures of the Globe-Trotting Botanist Who Transformed What America Eats
Book by Daniel Stone
@Nora
I wonder, though I'm no expert: Did people who lived long ago have less-good nutrition than we can have today? For instance, did people living in the northern US sometimes get scurvy if they didn't have enough food with Vitamin C?
I believe we all still need to think about the food we eat -- or, at least, take vitamins and other supplements to help be sure that we're not missing nutrients that we need. (For example, if we only drink organic milk that doesn't have added Vitamin D, don't eat much vitamin D-containing fish, and wear sunscreen outside, will we be deficient of this important vitamin?)
In the Peace Corps I ate breadfruit and coconut for all meals, and weighted 40 pounds less than I do now. There was all the breadfruit and coconut I wanted, but no temptation to overeat.
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Thank you for this well timed article! I’ve always liked very few foods and my friends are constantly bothering me about my weird diet, even though I usually look & feel way better than them, meaning that I appear healthier. Most of my pals are much better looking than me, but they look terrible, as in: they seem perpetually exhausted. So, as an experiment I started eating more like they do, and now I look and feel awful too. I’m going back to my strange diet now, and I can’t wait to feel good again!
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@Rebecca Chapman — So what is it that constitutes your “weird diet,” Rebecca?