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Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

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Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#121

Post by tremendo »

fizz972 wrote: post #60
jpspeno wrote: post #31

paleo diet. start here: http://www.paleonu.com/get-started/

Any personal experience you can share?

9 months in. Almost back to my good-old-days weight after losing 19 pounds, without hunger, without fatigue, exercise while still enjoyable and have more energy for it I do little (High-intensity short duration infrequently, but not chronic cardio), no more feeling bloated. So my personal anecdotal evidence, my echo-chamber of positive feedback :), my results, all have me happy. YMMV.

BTW, seeing that this thread has over 100 comments just confirms that when it comes to advice, especially nutrition, a lot of us think of ourselves as quasi-experts. We're all oh, so bright, and have the key to success right here! I doubt the OP will be able to make up his mind from this.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#122

Post by haliax »

niels_olson wrote: post #90
subwindow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that the amount of nutrients in a smoothie is unchanged relative to the whole counterparts. However, I'm willing to bet that the blood glucose response curve of a smoothie is significantly sharper than the whole fruit alternatives due to the ease of digestion. The peaks in blood glucose are what's really bad for you, and especially bad for me. Therefore, I look out for them and stay the hell away.

Smoothies were one of our model foods in medical school for what's wrong with the American diet.

Why is that?

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#123

Post by freshfey »

Basically nuts and fruits should be your choice, BUT if you work out regularly I think you can get away with a PB&J sandwich, hack it like this: get some dark bread (best would be self-made, otherwise check the bread from the store for unnecessary sugars [gluctose, fructose] -> avoid these), then get some organic all-natural peanut butter (no salt, no sugar, no extra fat, just peanut) and organic honey, most jellys have stuuupid amounts of additional sugar in it. Make some PB and honey sandwiches, eat them when your craving. Try to avoid them in the evening (go for fruits and nuts in this case)

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#124

Post by ascuttlefish »

niels_olson wrote: post #90
subwindow wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that the amount of nutrients in a smoothie is unchanged relative to the whole counterparts. However, I'm willing to bet that the blood glucose response curve of a smoothie is significantly sharper than the whole fruit alternatives due to the ease of digestion. The peaks in blood glucose are what's really bad for you, and especially bad for me. Therefore, I look out for them and stay the hell away.

Smoothies were one of our model foods in medical school for what's wrong with the American diet.

Blast, I just picked 30 cups of blueberries to freeze for smoothies. Is it really so bad?

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#125

Post by metamemetics »

evo_9 wrote: post #80
edw519 wrote: post #40

Your cravings are a signal from your body that something is wrong. You need to address the cause (whatever it is) and not the effect (the cravings). Unfortunately, the cause may be difficult to determine. Fortunately, there is a great hack that probably addresses the cause: fruit. Lots of fruit. Always raw. Preferably on an empty stomach. Not too much variety. Fruit is loaded with just about every nutrient your body…

The problem with this advice is it doesn't take onto count the Glycemic index of the fruit. Case in point - Watermelon and Pineapple. While it seems reasonable to say eat as much fruit as you want, both these items very high glycemic values - above 85 out of a 100 point scale. Why does this matter? High glycemic foods cause a spike in your blood sugar - this causes hunger, among other things. The best 'hack' to contr…

low GI meals are the important staple of anyones diet, but nearly ANY type of fruit is a healthy substitute for junk food. I think the fruit proponents here all realize you can't be a fruititarian and are simply saying fruit is the easiest way to quit a junk food addiction.

Also a simple hack to lower the glycemic index of anything you eat is to consume it with additional fat or fiber. So a salad\baby greens with olive oil or the higher percent fat nuts like Hazelnuts, Walnuts, Macademia & Brazil.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#127

Post by haliax »

Wow! First off, thank you for all of the very well informed responses!

I had no idea there was so much to be known about eating better, and why we eat the way we do, especially with regards to carbohydrates.

I should probably add that it's not just bad carbs I'm out to cut. I want stuff like steak/bacon/pepperoni pizza/nachos/taco bell all the time, and I know that with my genes it's only a matter of time before that sends me to the hospital.

Also, I'm quite skinny at the moment, apparently regardless of what I eat...so I'm not sure if that's a sign of a contributing factor

Again, Thank you so much for the information!

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#128

Post by haliax »

edw519 wrote: post #40

Your cravings are a signal from your body that something is wrong. You need to address the cause (whatever it is) and not the effect (the cravings). Unfortunately, the cause may be difficult to determine. Fortunately, there is a great hack that probably addresses the cause: fruit. Lots of fruit. Always raw. Preferably on an empty stomach. Not too much variety. Fruit is loaded with just about every nutrient your body…

Is this true of all cravings? I mean, there are loads of times (now) when I crave Sour Patch Kids or something like that, and I feel like I am just after the taste.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#129

Post by niels_olson »

nkurz wrote: post #112
niels_olson wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consumed fats induce a broad range of hormonal satiety signals, so your total caloric consumption is often less. The French and Mediterranean countries are famous for a few things, two being healthy living and high fat diets (butter in France, olive oil in the Med). Know any fat French people? Butter is not the problem. Carbs are rapidly burned, or rapidly converted to fat. Fat in the blood stream can still be metabo…

I'm pretty skeptical of traditional calorie counting, but wouldn't your experiment be simply explained by the 5x difference in caloric content between the two? http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+oz+walnuts http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3+oz+white+rice Wouldn't it be more fair to compare equal calories rather than equal weights? I'd have to guess that eating 15 oz of rice might have a significant appetite s…

1 oz ~ 15 g

1 g carb ~ 3.4 kcal

1 g fat ~ 9 kcal

3 oz fat ~ 405 kcal

3 oz carb ~ 153 kcal

405 / 153 ~ 2.65

That's assuming the nuts are pure fat. They're actually about 1:1:1 fat:protein:carb => 246 kcal, or a ratio of about 1.6

Ah, wait, yes, fair enough, the cooked rice would be much less calorically dense. Do let me withhold the water. Please cook 3 oz of rice.

My basic point remains: fats satisfy, calorie for calorie, faster than carbs.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#130

Post by evo_9 »

metamemetics wrote: post #125
evo_9 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this advice is it doesn't take onto count the Glycemic index of the fruit. Case in point - Watermelon and Pineapple. While it seems reasonable to say eat as much fruit as you want, both these items very high glycemic values - above 85 out of a 100 point scale. Why does this matter? High glycemic foods cause a spike in your blood sugar - this causes hunger, among other things. The best 'hack' to contr…

low GI meals are the important staple of anyones diet, but nearly ANY type of fruit is a healthy substitute for junk food. I think the fruit proponents here all realize you can't be a fruititarian and are simply saying fruit is the easiest way to quit a junk food addiction. Also a simple hack to lower the glycemic index of anything you eat is to consume it with additional fat or fiber. So a salad\baby greens with oli…

Yeah this is a really important point for sure that I didn't really capture in my original post.

Anytime you can choose healthy fresh food - fruit or otherwise - you are doing your body good.

It's just important to keep in mind that even fruit can cause you to be more hungry if you aren't careful.

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