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How Breakfast Became a Thing

priceonomics.com

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Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#141

Post by w0utert »

visakanv wrote: post #124
jcoffland wrote: post #119

It's just amazing how much "common knowledge" about food has been shown to be completely wrong: * Breakfast is the most important meal [0] * Saturated fat is bad [1] * Carbs are evil [2] * You regain more weight after a fast diet [3] Many will argue but studies have show each one of these to be wrong. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/10/the-s... [1]: http://www.eufic.org/page/en/show/latest-sc…

I think if there's one big idea about nutrition, it should be that there are no one-size-fits-all answers. I skipped breakfast for most of my childhood, and I had no idea why I was so lethargic all the time. I was typically anxious from undone schoolwork, etc and had no appetite in the morning. I'd self-medicate with cigarettes. I started forcing myself to eat breakfast about a year ago and my mind is so much clearer…

>> But that's just me. It could be totally different for someone else

It is. I haven't eaten breakfast for 20 years, and I don't suffer from any kind of lethargy, tiredness or hunger. I even cycle to work for 30 minutes each day, on an empty stomach, and often don't eat until 1PM. For me, it's actually the other way around: if I eat anything before lunch time, especially sugary things, I often get nausea.

So I guess that confirms your point, there simply is no 'one-size-fits-all answer', everybody has different metabolism. Obviously some things are clearly bad for you, like overeating, insufficient dietary variation, lack of essential nutrients, etc. But these are simply solved with just common sense. For the rest, 'nutrition science' is completely worthless IMO, and more often than not driven by marketing or scientific echo-chambers.

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#142

Post by tombrossman »

pacomerh wrote: post #109
edanm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This company produces great, great content. You agree that it's interesting, from what you've read. And yet apparently the most popular comment on their effort is that you don't want to spare the all-of-2 seconds it takes to click your mouse to close a pop-up? On a site that isn't plastered with ads, btw, and is generally very accessible? I don't mean to take out my frustration on you, and I get where you're coming f…

It really destroys the flow of reading though. These light-boxes should be more passive. I agree with the first commenter. It's super annoying and something nice becomes ugly.

Check out how DigitalOcean does this, on their tutorials. As you scroll down, a small box appears in the left margin asking you to sign up for the newsletter. It doesn't block any of the content and you can ignore it while you continue reading. That's nearly perfect, and an example of how to do it right.

I still find the animation of it appearing distracting and I think it interrupts the 'flow' of reading the article, but it was easy enough to block the element with my ad blocking extension.

As an aside, Firefox + Noscript are a thing of beauty. Using them I just don't see most of these annoyances. Yes, it 'breaks' many websites but this usually means a much faster page render without all the annoying stuff.

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#143

Post by delish »

bbarn wrote: post #65

I started to read this with some interest, as someone who's spent many hours thinking about and trying different metabolic strategies, diets, etc.. Then about 30 seconds in my reading got disrupted by a fucking light-box asking me to sign up or log in or god knows what.. my instinct to close tab won out over my curiosity. Please stop this pattern. If you really think your content is worth having to (whatever)wall fro…

> fucking light-box

I completely agree.

I turn off javascript for sites that have light-boxes or large top-bars. It's worked well for sites like priceonomics, which appear on HN intermittently. In case it's helpful, the one I use is "quick javascript switcher":

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quick-javascript-s...

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#144

Post by agumonkey »

oarsinsync wrote: post #135
agumonkey wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best friend is printfriendly.com (Chrome even support url query generation from the url bar http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url=http... )

Beautiful, thank you. I've added it to my bookmarks bar next to my Google it! bookmarklet. javascript:(function(){location.replace('http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url='+document.URL)})()

I believe most people adds the readability extensions. Which is a more sophisticated and produce more elegant results, but printfriendly is very fast, non invasive, and very effective at getting content without clutter. 0.01% errors, and the team reacts rapidly when it happens.

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#145

Post by wccrawford »

Guildpact wrote: post #58

I eat cereal and milk as a dessert at night in place of something like ice cream, because that is what it is. People who eat cereal for breakfast are no better than people eating donuts or other sweets, it is just an awful way to start your day because of the blood sugar spike and then drop which creates hunger pangs. You can combat it by having a proper breakfast focusing on protein and low glycemic index carbs, egg…

I was actually eating cereal as dessert for a while and got into as bad a habit with it as I previously had with ice cream. It took a concerted effort to break myself of the habit.

I think I even enjoyed it more than ice cream, even if it was raisin bran or something. (Though I usually add a sweetener, currently Stevia rather than sugar.)

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#146

Post by oarsinsync »

agumonkey wrote: post #144
oarsinsync wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful, thank you. I've added it to my bookmarks bar next to my Google it! bookmarklet. javascript:(function(){location.replace('http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url='+document.URL)})()

I believe most people adds the readability extensions. Which is a more sophisticated and produce more elegant results, but printfriendly is very fast, non invasive, and very effective at getting content without clutter. 0.01% errors, and the team reacts rapidly when it happens.

I can't install extensions here, so that's unfortunately a no-go for me. This looks like the next best, least intrusive option

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#147

Post by dspillett »

visakanv wrote: post #124
jcoffland wrote: post #119

It's just amazing how much "common knowledge" about food has been shown to be completely wrong: * Breakfast is the most important meal [0] * Saturated fat is bad [1] * Carbs are evil [2] * You regain more weight after a fast diet [3] Many will argue but studies have show each one of these to be wrong. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/10/the-s... [1]: http://www.eufic.org/page/en/show/latest-sc…

I think if there's one big idea about nutrition, it should be that there are no one-size-fits-all answers. I skipped breakfast for most of my childhood, and I had no idea why I was so lethargic all the time. I was typically anxious from undone schoolwork, etc and had no appetite in the morning. I'd self-medicate with cigarettes. I started forcing myself to eat breakfast about a year ago and my mind is so much clearer…

> I started forcing myself to eat breakfast

I tried that when I was having lethargy problems mid-morning, but my digestive system doesn't seem to switch on until a while after waking up and if I consume anything more solid than milk before it tells me it is ready I get unpleasant indigestion feelings.

I tend to get hungry and have my first food at ~1030 or a little before. The exception is the days I have a long run into work (a 7.5-to-10K slow run, instead of the usual 2ish Km walk) - I want food as soon as I've showered in that case.

Exercise before work has itself cured the lethargy problem it would seem and it doesn't need to be as strenuous as a 7+K run. Just the difference between the old routine of cycling in, to doing a few situps & dips before getting dressed and briskly walking in, seems enough to make a marked improvement even into the late afternoon.

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#148

Post by [deleted] »

jcoffland wrote: post #119

It's just amazing how much "common knowledge" about food has been shown to be completely wrong: * Breakfast is the most important meal [0] * Saturated fat is bad [1] * Carbs are evil [2] * You regain more weight after a fast diet [3] Many will argue but studies have show each one of these to be wrong. [0]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/08/10/the-s... [1]: http://www.eufic.org/page/en/show/latest-sc…

[deleted]

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#149

Post by fasteo »

vixen99 wrote: post #138
fasteo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was also my case as an adult. Solved by eating much more at night, carbs included. I was just not consuming enough calories. So, another myth - carbs are bad at night - that did not apply to me.

To which you might add 'at this period in my life'. Your requirements may well change. For many older people, 'carbs are bad at night' is not a myth.

Agree.

I do believe that carbs are bad with people with broken metabolisms (poor insulin sensivity, poor glucose control, etc), but once you have that fixed, carbs are an excellent source of nutrients and energy. Again, that was my case (38 years old at that time; 45 now)

Re: How Breakfast Became a Thing

#150

Post by rhinoceraptor »

paulddraper wrote: post #32
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really freeing to realize you won't die if you skip a meal.

Your mental and physical stamina will be reduced though.

If you have trained your body to expect food every 5 hours, sure. If humans could not survive short (letalone prolonged) periods of fasting, we would not have survived very long.

How are you supposed to hunt an animal if you get light headed and lose mental faculties when hungry?

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