Eating Healthy Options

[Hartmann]

I just finished "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. He basically rips apart the idea of "nutrionism" pointing out that things like omega-3 pills are nowhere close to as good for you as just eating fish. How beta-carotene pills that were touted to prevent cancer actually cause it.

His whole point is that if we eat food we should eat mostly plants and not too much. He cites the French, the Italians, the Japanese and how their diets are completely different from each other but they're still healthier than us.

[impala454]

Well like I said, you look at at the label. It just seems silly to say "oooh thats in a can or a box or freezer, I can't buy that because it might have more salt".

Do you ever look up those ingredients and find out what they are? Or just go "ewww I can't pronounce that word so this bread must be evil I'll go buy the 3x more expensive bread because it says "organic""? I've found that a lot of times if it has a few of those, if you look it up it's really harmless stuff that they just don't have a friendly name for.

Don't get me wrong, I love to cook and I love to use fresh foods to cook with, but I just don't buy into all this new hype about some pack of lunch meat or a can of beans being "dangerous". There's a difference between not liking the taste and thinking there's a major nutritional difference.

[Hartmann]

Well like I said, you look at at the label. It just seems silly to say "oooh thats in a can or a box or freezer, I can't buy that because it might have more salt".

Do you ever look up those ingredients and find out what they are? Or just go "ewww I can't pronounce that word so this bread must be evil I'll go buy the 3x more expensive bread because it says "organic""? I've found that a lot of times if it has a few of those, if you look it up it's really harmless stuff that they just don't have a friendly name for.

Don't get me wrong, I love to cook and I love to use fresh foods to cook with, but I just don't buy into all this new hype about some pack of lunch meat or a can of beans being "dangerous". There's a difference between not liking the taste and thinking there's a major nutritional difference.

I don't think we can get away from canned goods and boxed meals, but there is a nutrional difference. To make a food have a shelf-life, things are pulled out, things that make the food spoil. Oddly enough, those things are usually good for you. To compensate for that, the manufacturers use a chemical equivalent. However, like the guy in the book said, we really don't understand how those chemicals react compared to the original compounds that were taken out.

The example given is beta-carotene. They pull it out of a lot of things and then sell beta-carotene tablets. We know that beta-carotene in carrots is good for us, but in the tablet form, it's been linked to cancer. Why? Well, this guy's theory is that the beta-carotene reacts with something in the carrot, making it beneficial to our bodies.

But again, we can't get away from canned things, especially living in hurricane alley.