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People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

theatlantic.com

191–200 of 350 posts

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repetition is the only thing that creates change. No one on r/fitness or /fit/ is going to call you crazy for eating the same thing each day.

I have a ton of variety in my diet. But when you're a vegetarian (as I was), to maintain a reasonably nutritious diet requires some repetition. For example, getting certain protein and nutrients in one meal so you don't have to think about it in the others. I'm no longer a strict vegetarian (just mostly), but the diet habits I learned mean that my overall diet is better, lower calorie. I now think it's important for…

I'm vegetarian and have been since I was 12. There isn't all that much repetition in my diet. I don't eat that much 'American' food, though, because 'American' vegetarian options can be pretty limited. I just eat a ton of Indian and Mexican and Thai and Chinese and Mediterranean and other foods.

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#192
post #115

When my daughter was born during the recession, my wife and I went through a stretch where money was pretty tight. One obvious expense to cut was eating out for lunch every weekday. So I switched to bringing in lunch. For several months, I brought the same thing: granola, yogurt, and chopped melon. I love food and love variety, so I was really surprised to discover that I simply didn't get tired of it or resentful. E…

Meta-variety is a novel concept. Perhaps we should look out for that more in our lives.

I believe the statisticians would call this heteroscedasticity. But meta-variety certainly easier to remember ;)

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#193

When my daughter was born during the recession, my wife and I went through a stretch where money was pretty tight. One obvious expense to cut was eating out for lunch every weekday. So I switched to bringing in lunch. For several months, I brought the same thing: granola, yogurt, and chopped melon. I love food and love variety, so I was really surprised to discover that I simply didn't get tired of it or resentful. E…

> So this actually increased the meta-variety of my eating

Wait... did you just take the second derivative of your lunch?

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they overestimated how many people desire variety in dinner choices. And here I thought it was because they are pretty seriously overpriced, not to mention environmentally questionable.

For me it was mostly price, but also work. If I'm going to pay that much for food, I don't want to have to work too hard to build the meal.

Their marketing seemed geared to people who wanted to learn to cook something nicer than the basic meal. You have a nice recipe card and all the right ingredients.

However after you've done it for 2 months you have a ton of their nice recipe cards and can just go buy ingredients yourself.

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#195
post #193

When my daughter was born during the recession, my wife and I went through a stretch where money was pretty tight. One obvious expense to cut was eating out for lunch every weekday. So I switched to bringing in lunch. For several months, I brought the same thing: granola, yogurt, and chopped melon. I love food and love variety, so I was really surprised to discover that I simply didn't get tired of it or resentful. E…

> So this actually increased the meta-variety of my eating Wait... did you just take the second derivative of your lunch?

Keep taking derivatives and you'll end up with rice krispies...

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#196
post #193

When my daughter was born during the recession, my wife and I went through a stretch where money was pretty tight. One obvious expense to cut was eating out for lunch every weekday. So I switched to bringing in lunch. For several months, I brought the same thing: granola, yogurt, and chopped melon. I love food and love variety, so I was really surprised to discover that I simply didn't get tired of it or resentful. E…

> So this actually increased the meta-variety of my eating Wait... did you just take the second derivative of your lunch?

"Higher order calculus over open food spaces"

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#197

I lived on the streets for a time as a teen. When I got off and had my first real place to live, I couldn't afford much. I had potatoes, butter (was like heaven) soy sauce and mustard. So that was my dinner for months. My co-workers thought I was crazy when I microwaved a potato and put soy sauce and mustard on it. I simply didn't have anything else. Later I got pickles and cheese (the greatest thing I had ever had u…

Yes, as we get richer we lose something. We lose the ability to like those simpler things. A 17 year old kid loves his clapped out 1.2 Clio at least as much as you love your BMW Super Truck X Series.

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#198

I lived on the streets for a time as a teen. When I got off and had my first real place to live, I couldn't afford much. I had potatoes, butter (was like heaven) soy sauce and mustard. So that was my dinner for months. My co-workers thought I was crazy when I microwaved a potato and put soy sauce and mustard on it. I simply didn't have anything else. Later I got pickles and cheese (the greatest thing I had ever had u…

Even though it must have been very difficult, living a harder life seems to have given you a super power to transcend the silly little things that everyone else seems to care so much about. Personally I find I get wrapped up in the little things quite often, and only after do I really understand I wasted so much effort on something meaningless. I'm not suggesting trauma tourism, but I am interested in a way to broade…

I flog myself by hiking and running long distances. You gain a bit of toughness when pushing yourself to the limit (exhausted and a bit hurt), while in a thunderstorm, and you are still 1 hour away from finishing. (And while we are talking about food. Intermittent fasting is a similar experience. Going hungry for a while makes you appreciate food in a different way.)

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#199
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast food often uses fortified ingredients. Perhaps the most common is fortified flour. Some chains use iodized salt. Preservatives like ascorbic acid or vitamin E effectively provide fortification. Other than a lack of fiber and ease of consuming too many calories, one could do much worse than fast food--McDonalds, Taco Bell, etc. I think it's easier to get it wrong using a so-called whole foods diet. The ingredient…

Did you know if you only ate McDonalds for every meal of every day... you'd be underweight? A burger, medium fries and diet drink is 588 calories apparently. So three of those a day is only 1764 calories! A massive deficit for almost everyone.

My experience with this is that those 588 calories will satiate you less than a 588 calorie meal elsewhere. (Cooking at home is ideal, but restaurants other than McDonald's will often do better too. Varies a lot with ingredients.)

I also know that 1764 calories is not a huge deficit for me.

Re: People Who Eat the Same Meal Every Day

#200

Obligatory link to a BBC article about the Danish matpakke: http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190103-the-norwegian-art-... I personally end up eating the same thing everyday quite a bit. Lunch is there to make me feel good and give me fuel to continue my day, so I feel like I can't really risk trying something out of the ordinary, at least on a workday. There's too high of a risk that I'll be hungry or cranky in the…

You illustrate in interesting psychological effect. Given that the title of the article is "The Norwegian art of the packed lunch", the subtitle is "Could we all learn something from Norway's culture of ‘matpakke’?", and the first sentence is "Every day, across Norway, something strange happens", and even the visible link includes the word 'norwegian', how did you accidentally write Danish instead of Norwegian? Or is it not an error?
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