Eating Healthily for $3 a Day • Hacker News Board

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#321

Post by lsc » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:42 PM UTC

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #304

lsc wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I find it amusing that you say that, since I never implied any such thing. really? because four servings of coffee a day doesn't seem that much over the median dose, at least among people I know, if you adjust for body size. When I'm on, I consume more caffeine than that. So, to me, suggesting that someone has a problem when the dosage is that close to the median suggests that you are criticizing the delivery method…

I'm not criticizing the medium at all. In terms of health benefits, eating a caffeine pill is healthier than consuming the equivalent amount of coffee. No doubt alcohol withdrawl is worse, but if we're performing comparative metrics, I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought. I drank a twelve pack of coke across 4 days and had headaches for that Friday and…

>I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought.

Now, I have little personal experience, and I'm not an expert; but I /have/ seen people lose their jobs due to their performance being diminished because of habitual marijuana use. I've never seen anyone lose a job because of caffeine.

I mean, I know plenty of people who use marijuana occasionally on the weekends and seem no worse for wear; from my understanding, it's not as bad as alcohol, and you may be right that it's not addictive, but it's certainly more harmful than Caffeine.

>but it doesn't change the fact that if you cut it out for a few weeks, you'd be more productive without the cost, dependency or negative side effects of coffee.

This is not true for me. Personally, I tend to ramp up my caffeine use slowly over a number of months, because I do develop a resistance. During these months, I am /significantly/ more effective than without caffeine, even if I quit for months.

Now, I do build up a resistance, so every few months I quit for a while, as I do eventually get to the point where I have diminishing returns. For me, this doesn't result in headaches, just a few days of more sleep than usual and reduced performance. Assuming I get my 12 hours a day of sleep, the reduced performance is still much better than, say, a hangover. I'm up to baseline performance within a week. (my baseline performance is /significantly/ lower than my caffeinated performance.)

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#322

Post by martinshen » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 10:44 PM UTC

martinshen wrote: post #257

Klinky wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where would one start on something like that? Getting local updated pricing information would seem to be a big missing link. Perhaps crowd sourcing? That would need a critical mass to make it useful. Maybe trying to focus on specific cities first might make it easier.

I think general approximation could work. I'm not looking for something that can get me to $3 exactly... Really if someone could make an application that gave me a list of menus (that I could swap out) for the week and the corresponding grocery list, I'd use that all the time.

I've decided that on my next available weekend I will build this. (aka probs not until the fall).

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#323

Post by aberkowitz » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:03 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #317

aberkowitz wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your body will eventually starting maintaining your blood sugar on its own I was under the impression that a sugar crash is the result of your body maintaining your blood sugar on it's own[0]. [0] On it's own, meaning secreting insulin from the pancreas to maintain homeostasis.

Secreting insulin is the mechanism that keeps blood sugar down, which is only half the job of homeostasis. The other half is keeping blood sugar up when you haven't eaten a bunch of carbs recently, and it seems (anecdotally) that if people don't exercise that second half -- i.e., if they keep their blood sugar up by eating constantly -- that their body's ability to keep blood sugar up on its own atrophies. When your…

> it seems (anecdotally) that if people don't exercise that second half... that their body's ability to keep blood sugar up on its own atrophies.

My pancreas doesn't work, so your anecdotal evidence trumps what I thought to be true.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#324

Post by pyre » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #313

pyre wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people in poor parts of the world get their daily B12 from fecal contamination in the water supply. It's actually an issue because cleaning up the water supply makes them deficient.

Can you provide sources for this claim?

I can't find the original article unfortunately, but I can provide a bunch of information that supports that claim:

* Well, meat is no a large (or any) part of the diet of people in many of the poorer parts of the world.

* Animal sources, are the only real sources of vitamin B12 (though yeast is an animal source, so this doesn't necessarily mean 'mammals' or 'fish').

* Feces contains B12[1][2]

* B12 is water soluble.

* In parts of the world where the water is 'untreated,' it is contaminated with feces to some amount. Obviously, the more people and animals that use the water source, the more this is true.

[1] http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/comp-anat/comp-anat-7c.s...

[2] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?entry_i...

There was a single article that made that claim, but I can't find it right now. All I can provide...

-- later --

I found this: http://books.google.com/books?id=CF2INI0O6l0C&pg=PA209&#...

Not the original source that I read, but states:

  Vitamin B12 is not found in vegetables: it is available,
  however, from faecally contaminated water, and this source
  is important in the poorest vegetarian societies.

So if you went to such a society and decontaminated their water supply, you would end up with a population suffering from B12 deficiency.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#325

Post by prawn » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:17 PM UTC

wheels wrote: post #41

I've thought about putting together a brief founders' cookbook with a dozen or so of the recipes for things that I survived on in the lean days that you can make for about a buck or two and in about 20 minutes. The real trick is not buying prepared foods at all. Things like flour, rice, eggs, beans, pasta, potatoes, fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, yogurt, cheese, ground beef, fish filets and chicken breasts are all…

A few of those things are not particularly cheap in Australia: fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, cheese, chicken breasts. Eggs are also fairly expensive presuming you buy free-range.

3L of milk is about $3 if you buy generic/big-brand and $4.50 if you buy "Dairy Farmers" - many people (myself included) avoid the loss-leading by the major brands as they are trying to squeeze out smaller producers.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#326

Post by Evgeny » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:23 PM UTC

dkarl wrote: post #317

aberkowitz wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> your body will eventually starting maintaining your blood sugar on its own I was under the impression that a sugar crash is the result of your body maintaining your blood sugar on it's own[0]. [0] On it's own, meaning secreting insulin from the pancreas to maintain homeostasis.

Secreting insulin is the mechanism that keeps blood sugar down, which is only half the job of homeostasis. The other half is keeping blood sugar up when you haven't eaten a bunch of carbs recently, and it seems (anecdotally) that if people don't exercise that second half -- i.e., if they keep their blood sugar up by eating constantly -- that their body's ability to keep blood sugar up on its own atrophies. When your…

I won't swear this holds true if you exercise intensely, since I haven't tried it, but the paleo lifestyle guys say they have no problem exercising on their "lean" days.

I don't have any problems having a rather intensive strenght training session after about 16 hours without food, and my performance does not seem to suffer. I didn't try anything more extreme than that (yet).

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#327

Post by Evgeny » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:29 PM UTC

georgieporgie wrote: post #260

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite an addiction you have. Have you considered kicking it?

Please do explain how taking 400mg of caffeine per day constitutes an addiction. I also take a daily multivitamin that contains ginseng, and a 'super' vitamin B pill. The latter makes the biggest difference in energy levels. I guess I'm 'addicted' to vitamin B, as well.

Please do explain how taking 400mg of caffeine per day constitutes an addiction. I also take a daily multivitamin that contains ginseng, and a 'super' vitamin B pill. The latter makes the biggest difference in energy levels. I guess I'm 'addicted' to vitamin B, as well.

I would say the difference between addiction and supplementation is not in what you take, but rather what happens if you do not take it.

I'm supplementing with Vitamin D but I often forget to take it, sometimes for days.

Now would you be able to forget your caffeine? If yes, I'd say there's no addiction. If you'd start feeling cravings in a few hours, that's a different story ...

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#328

Post by drivebyacct2 » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:42 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #321

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not criticizing the medium at all. In terms of health benefits, eating a caffeine pill is healthier than consuming the equivalent amount of coffee. No doubt alcohol withdrawl is worse, but if we're performing comparative metrics, I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought. I drank a twelve pack of coke across 4 days and had headaches for that Friday and…

>I can vaporize cannabis for two months straight and stop all of the sudden without so much as a thought. Now, I have little personal experience, and I'm not an expert; but I /have/ seen people lose their jobs due to their performance being diminished because of habitual marijuana use. I've never seen anyone lose a job because of caffeine. I mean, I know plenty of people who use marijuana occasionally on the weekends…

>but it's certainly more harmful than Caffeine.

I'd love to see that claim backed up by one iota of science. Considering it takes less to overdose on caffeine, caffeine has actual chemical withdrawl symptoms, that cannabis has numerous anti-cancer properties that are acknowledged by everyone (including the governmental organizations tasked with analyzing it, etc) except the US government, etc.

You're still missing the point anyway. You continue to discuss all the merits of caffeine and how you use it that specifically DEPICT how it is a habit forming drug and support all of my points. That's my only point, and you and this other guy keep repeating yourselves about how you're "good people" or something and defending yourselves from attacks that I'm not making.

Thanks for the immediate downvote too. :) Cheers!

tl;dr: I point out that caffeine is a habit forming stimulant, fellow HNer takes offense at the categorization, goes on downvoting spree and defends himself against attacks that I'm not making.

Cool. Love to see that commenting continues to improve here.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#329

Post by Evgeny » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:50 PM UTC

b3b0p wrote: post #205

I'm sorry, but I really disagree with any sort of dieting advice articles appearing on Hacker News for multiple reasons. Reading this thread only backs up my own thoughts and reasons why I dislike these articles. First of all, everyone has their own idea of healthy. Second, there are so many different diets, fads, foods, etc to eat or follow that's it ridiculous to even argue one way or another. Some eat lots of prot…

Some eat lots of protein, some eat lots of fat, some eat low fat and high carbohydrates and everyone believes their method or means of eating is healthy.

Well, there's too much fixation on micronutrients such as carbs, fats etc. 100g carbs from HFCS is not the same as 100g carbs from vegetables. 100g fat from industially processed seed oils is not the same as 100g duck fat. I personally prefer not to eat anything that comes packaged, in a box, can etc. and go for meat, fish, poultry, fruit, veggies, nuts etc. But I guess that qualifies me as someone who "thinks his way of eating is healthy".

Go with what makes you feel good. The best diet is the one you can follow. Listen to your body.

Well, there are a couple of issues with that. I personally feel good on a diet with copious amounts of beer and pizza, add ice cream to taste. Side effects may be years or even decades away for a healthy person, but some of them may be irreversible by the time they are evident.

Your body will never tell you "oh I feel my bone density is 1% lower today" or "oh I feel my arterie wall is 0.1mm thicker today". Some people find out they have osteoporosis only when they suffer a broken bone.

The other thing is that all of us (with the exception of those with genetic disorders) posess the same biochemistry. So I'm not sure how far can you go with "listen to your body". Maybe someone can genuinely feel bad on a diet that mostly consists of fruit, vegetables, some animal products, some nuts and lacks processed sugars, grains, vegetable oils, trans fats and fast food, but I think I'm yet to hear about such a person.

Re: Eating Healthily for $3 a Day

#330

Post by jasonlotito » Thu, Apr 28, 2011, 11:57 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #318

zach wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, I think this is good data and commend you for going back to the numbers to make your point. It's not perfect data - as the report says, by nature it's overstating actual consumption - but for short-term trends it is valuable. But I don't see where gross carbohydrates are decreasing in Table 1. It seems like they went from 420g in the 80's (from under 400g in the 70's) to 480 or so a decade ago.

Sorry, I meant a decrease from 1909-1919 to the present. I was definitely unclear, sorry about that. You are right, total carb consumption did increase since 1980. But if carbs were the issue, shouldn't we have been fat in 1909-1919, thin in the 80's, and fat again?

Again, you can't lump all carbs together. You can't just say carbs are bad for you. Fiber, for example, is a carb, but isn't going to make you fatter.