"Super" foods

[northernladuk]

This is all you need.



If vegans can eat only this and still look relatively healthy it has to be a superfood.

[PurpleGorilla]

Carbs, particularly from tubers, have been the engine of human development.

Especially when humans got on top of cooking. Cooking root vegetables releases more nutrients. Our teeth got smaller and our alimentary canals shorter. Chimps spend about five hours a day eating whereas humans could get sorted in one hour. These developments paved the way for bigger brains.

Early stone tools were for breaking into bone marrow. For a long time we could only scavenge off the remains of all the other predators and scavengers ie bones. Meat was added to the diet but probably only accounted for 20% of calories typically.

Having said that, humans have thrived on a myriad different diets. We have evolved to eat all sorts of things in all sorts of combinations. To start pontificating about what is a 'good' diet and what is a 'junk' diet is pure myth, like religion.

The idea that 'fresh' or 'local' food is more nutritious is also bunkum. Some components decay with time, and cooking. Vitamin C degrades but you don't need much of it anyway. Anything above about 50 mg is just excreted. Cooking and storage may reduce nutrient value but who cares - we don't have a problem of having too little of anything. The more it degrades the better in the modern world of excessive intake. You may possibly prefer the taste of fresh food but it doesn't make it significantly better for you. Compared to the millions of years of our evolution our food is super, super fresh anyway.

Also often stuff from across the other side of the world consumes less CO2 to reach your table, than things grown more locally (due to the efficiencies of the supply chains)

For the last 5-10000 years your genes have been running on processed carbs (rice, wheat, maize etc). You could go back to hunter-gatherer diet with more berries, nuts, honey etc if you wanted. But at the end of the day we are tuned for a mixed fruit/vegetable/tuber/meat diet so if you aim for that (varied, balanced) you shouldn't need to go for extremist interpretations like vegan or high-fruit, although it probably won't do you any harm.

We have evolved to deal with things like sugar and alcohol but not the levels we can create today so such excesses can be viewed as dangerous (as with certain vitamins and psychoactive substances).

Also burning food (frying, grilling, roasting etc) exposes you to substances like nitrosamines which we've only come into contact with over the last 200,000 years or so, and as a result have not evolved enough to be fully protected against cancer.

Otherwise it's not what you eat but how much of it.

Modern wheats grains and rice are very different from those of even the recent past. Intensive agriculture has radically changed the size shape yield and nutritional content. Big fruity flesh and small stones, softer flesh and less fibre.

I'm all for Paleo, as well as being sensitive to carb levels. (Get your carbs from above ground veg - rather than 'pasta').

[No2politics]

Something sharon Davies recommended - and backed up here - don't eat late at night. Try and stop eating by 730 or 800 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fi...g-science/amp/

[original PM]

Something sharon Davies recommended - and backed up here - don't eat late at night. Try and stop eating by 730 or 800 Why you shouldn't eat late at night, according to science

But I think that study is flawed - because the key thing is going to bed/sleep on a full/empty stomach.

If they repeated the same test but those who ate between midday and 11 went to sleep at say 3am (so approx 4 hours after the last meal) then would there have been a difference?

I was always under the probably misguided impression that eating late at night was bad because your body was slowing down and did not digest it because you were not active enough.

And when you think about it there must be some truth in this because 'time' is a man made construct.

[TheGreenBastard]

And when you think about it there must be some truth in this because 'time' is a man made construct.

What?

[SueEllen]

But I think that study is flawed - because the key thing is going to bed/sleep on a full/empty stomach.

If they repeated the same test but those who ate between midday and 11 went to sleep at say 3am (so approx 4 hours after the last meal) then would there have been a difference?

I was always under the probably misguided impression that eating late at night was bad because your body was slowing down and did not digest it because you were not active enough.

And when you think about it there must be some truth in this because 'time' is a man made construct.

You would likely get a weird result due to people's circadian clocks. (That's unless all your subjects were teenagers and undergraduate students.)

Most people bodies have evolved to do certain things more efficiently in daylight and to be sluggish when it's dark. Yes electric light does screw up people's circadian clocks but studies on shift workers and those who work in the night show they have problems with eating habits and staying awake at night.

[SueEllen]

What?

24 hours in the day e.g. a clock is a man-made concept.

Getting up when it is light and going to sleep when it is dark isn't e.g. what many animals do.

[TheGreenBastard]

24 hours in the day e.g. a clock is a man-made concept.

Getting up when it is light and going to sleep when it is dark isn't e.g. what many animals do.

Majority of animals have cycles that coincide with light cycles.

[darmstadt]

Don't eat any vegatable with either an 'a' or an 's' in it

Don't eat any fruit with either a 'b' or an 'o' in it

Don't eat meat from animals that have an 'i', an 'm' or a 'z' in it

Do eat from shops that have a 'y' or an 'c' in their title

Don't drink anything that contains liquids from countries with an 'o' or a 'w' in them

Only use forks that have at least 4 tines

Ensure that your crockery is not made in a factory that is within 100 miles radius of a town where there are a higher percentage of people over 51 then under 13

When preparing your food ensure that you wear mismatched socks and that your underwear has been bought within the last 6 months

Don't believe anything anyone tells you about food because someone else will tell you the exact opposite approximately 4 months later after you realised that the diet you are following has made your left nipple the size and colour of a burnt Tandoori Naan bread

[RSoles]

Any 'easy wins' I'm missing?

Hobgoblin.