Comments on: On dieting and real food

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:11:58 +0000

In reply to Bruno. I take huge issue with you calling potatoes simple carbohydrates! They are plants. They are nourishing. Potatoes are a powerhouse of nutrition. EAT your potatoes!

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:10:55 +0000

I agree with you, Bruno. White, processed flour has pretty low nutritional value, unless you’re starving. Whole grain carbs are the way to go!

This just in re: diet soda: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41479869/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
The study accounts for other risk factors, like smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels.

I may accept that you like it for taste…. maybe. ;) But be careful!

By: Nicole

Nicole — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:03:34 +0000

Jill, I’m with you on pretty much everything here. (!)

Slightly off topic: The thing that really got me thinking is what you wrote about butter. I didn’t actually use butter outside of baking until I moved in with my boyfriend about a year ago, and it was one of the items that he *had* to put on the grocery list as a necessity. The food I grew up with (mostly Asian and Caribbean) seems like a whole different ballgame than what my boyfriend grew up with (Midwestern meat and potatoes). Our biggest challenge now is balancing our food wants/needs. (And about the butter….now that I’ve started using it, it’s kind of hard to not to put it on everything).

By: Gavin Craig

Gavin Craig — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:19:38 +0000

In reply to Bruno. Thank you. :-)

By: Bruno

Bruno — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:56:27 +0000

In reply to Gavin Craig. I don't know who you are Gavin Craig, but those are some wise words.

By: Gavin Craig

Gavin Craig — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 17:15:39 +0000

I love Pollan, but I think he’s on weaker ground when he starts trying to talk about food traditions, or things like the “grandmother” rule. My grandmother would recognize Lucky Charms as food. And energy bars. (And Dewar’s. She loves Dewar’s.)

I’m not sure she’s ever eaten sushi, but I’m pretty sure she’d recognize it as food. On the other hand, I have no idea what my great-grandmothers would or wouldn’t recognize. It would be pure speculation. Avoiding food in a box is a great idea. Doing more cooking at home is a great idea. Drinking less soda (diet or otherwise) is a great idea. Knowing where your meat and vegetables come from is a great idea. Rebuilding a dysfunctional American food culture by appealing to imagined cultures of the past is not such a great idea.

By: Anna

Anna — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:04:40 +0000

I try to eat generally real foods nowadays, although I find myself not wanting salad with grilled chicken at all anymore. We’ve been eating pork tenderloin a lot lately. And fish sticks from Meijer, which actually aren’t that bad and don’t have too many ingredients.

Anyway, what I really wanted to tell you is that I love Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi. I try not to have it every day, but after a ridiculously long run I HAVE TO HAVE IT. I don’t know what it is. As for the taste factor: I stopped drinking sugared pop in middle school when I got braces because the orthodontist told me not to, and now regular pop tastes sickeningly sweet to me. Plus, I’m married to Jack, which makes buying sugared pop just kind of mean. :) I do agree that having less of it in general is probably for the best.

By: Bruno

Bruno — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:26:12 +0000

Low-carb diets definitely work since it’s carbs that trigger your insulin response, and thus put your body into fat storing mode. Couple this with the thought that a lot of the carb products in the world are coupled with a fat (desserts come to mind) and tend to be very suspensive comparatively and you start to see why most of America is overweight. Low-carb diets however, are not sustainable, as you mentioned. Our body craves carbs and without them it goes into starvation mode which drastically slows down your metabolism.

The answer to this is to try to eat the majority of your carbs from “complex” sources (things with a low glycemic index) since they take more energy to digest and don’t spike your insulin levels quite so high. Thankfully, a lot of complex carbohydrates are delicious. Leafy vegetables, rices, whole grains, root vegetables, legumes. Good stuff.

The number one thing I tell people when they ask me how to lose weight is to cut out simple carbohydrates from you life as much as possible (Refined flours, sugar, white potatoes, white rice, breakfast cereal).

By: deepa

deepa — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 14:19:56 +0000

A friend of mine read the Pollen book a while back and the rule she told me about was “if your grandmother won’t recognize it, don’t eat it”, which really stuck with me. I have been trying to cut back on the processed foods for a while, but his list of rules really helped. We only feed the kiddo “food”, he doesn’t get processed or junk food, which is nice, but not as easy on a day to day level with the grown-up contingent. For now, I have been checking the ingredients – if I can’t picture what is listed, I don’t buy it.

Next up, cutting back on meat without increasing carbs. I think this will get MUCH easier once the farmer’s market is back and veggies and fruit are in season again. Every time winter comes along and I try to keep up on the fruit and veggies, I always wonder how the Pilgrims did it…