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Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

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Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#111

Post by joe_the_user »

I think it's great to find an appealing "bridge" that makes the healthy stuff appealing. I've personally always tried to make my diet as healthy and appealing as possible. Some of what I do:

For chips: bake chunks of potatoes in the oven with a lot of olive oil, some Tempeh and a bit of vinegar and salt.

Chocolate: get used to very dark chocolate, so dark it contains little sugar. This is actually very healthy. It is the sugar and any unhealthy oils, that makes a chocolate bar unhealthy.

Nachos: The beans in nachos are actually very healthy. Increasing your consumption of beans any way you can is good thing. Take a corn tortilla, heat it with olive oil, add lots of refried beans made with more olive oil, a small amount of real cheese, and lot of fresh salsa (fresh tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, etc). Quite healthy homemake nachos.

Sodas: I dilute fruit juice and add rose water, vanilla flavoring and vinegar or limon juice to a get soda-like taste that's not at all sweet (I think that even regular fruit juice is too sweet to be a soda substitute). Cafe Gratitude, among other health food restaurants, has some appealing sodas.

-- The oil in foods is often what can give one a feeling of satisfaction. "Junks foods" exploit this along with the "sugar" rush. But oil isn't necessarily bad at all. Rather, what's important is getting a good supply of good oil (especially olive) and avoiding really bad oil like transfat.

Jeanne Calment lived to the oldest documented age ever - "She ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and ate nearly one kilo of chocolate every week."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment

I'm not sure about the port wine though.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#112

Post by nkurz »

niels_olson wrote: post #87
makmanalp wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is high fat, high protein, low carbohydrate better? Aren't fats a sort of "permanent storage" whereas carbohydrates are more likely to be used instantly and then stored if there is extra?

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 suppressing effect as well.

Or maybe I'm not understanding the point of the experiment. Are you simply suggesting that by eating a strangely distributed 1200 calories you can 'make it until dinner'? :)

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#113

Post by chipsy »

A really "quick fix" for my cravings is to eat a low-carb protein bar or a protein shake, then eat a salad with ample dressing. Protein will stop hunger dead if you get the right kinds(each kind - whey, egg, soy, casein, etc. - processes at a different speed, thus a lot of protein blends incorporate a variety), the fiber of the salad helps you process everything else, and the fats in the dressing(which you should probably make yourself - the manufactured stuff is questionable) will hold most of the energy you need.

An alternative, if I don't have salad materials around, is to add a bit of olive oil to the protein bar/shake. It actually improves the taste quite a bit.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#114

Post by burke »

illumin8 wrote: post #94
hack_edu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, a smoothie can have just about anything in it. Its not hard to make a tasty, ridiculously healthy smoothie. And your claim that blending takes the work out of it for your body couldn't be further from the truth. Blending with a real blender separates nutrients enough for your body to better absorb them. Even your typical smoothie (bananas, yogurt, and strawberries) contains numerous nutritional benefits; ad…

Even if you put brown rice in a smoothie, if you blend it enough to break the husk of the rice, it changes from a low GI carb to a high GI carb because your body can absorb the sugar much quicker. Breaking fruits down into juice definitely changes the GI index of the carb. Check out the difference between eating a whole apple and drinking apple juice. Apple juice is almost like pure sugar, where the fiber in the whol…

I don't quite buy this. You're still getting all the fiber in a smoothie, it's just pre-chewed. By the time I swallow a chunk of apple, it's pretty well juiced. The only difference is that actual juice has the solids removed.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#115

Post by matthew-wegner »

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…

GI is a great reference point, but be aware that most of the GI numbers for foods are quite old and often inaccurate. For example, look up the GI for dates. You'll probably find 104 (on a scale where pure glucose is 100)...

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#116

Post by hristov »

I often get cravings when I am nervous/stressed out and this is what I do.

I buy those large heads of lettuce. You can get three of them in a pack for 2.99 in Trader Joe's. Then I open the pack put one head on a plate and whenever I get a craving I peel off leaves one by one wash the leaves and eat them. I eat as much lettuce as I feel like, I do not try to hold my self. But I just leave the washed leaves, there's absolutely no dressing allowed.

This is great, because peeling and washing each leaf individually satisfies the nervous desire to do something. As somebody else said this cravings are usually mental, they have little to do with you being hungry, but mostly mean you are nervous about something so you need a distraction. And washing leaves one by one before you eat them provides sufficient activity to distract you and relax you a bit.

The other great thing about lettuce, is that they are good for you, and yet when you eat them without dressing they effectively provide no calories. The human stomach is not very efficient at breaking down raw greens so eating raw lettuce pretty much takes up as much calories as it gains. So you get necessary fiber and a bunch of other nutrients, but you get no extra calories.

And this means that you can eat as much as you would like without feeling any guilt. Also if you eat a lot, you will get a feeling of being full. The feeling will not last for long, but you can use this technique to last you until the time you get a regular meal and can satisfy your hunger with regular food and not junk food.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#117

Post by Jake541 »

illumin8 wrote: post #92
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…

Best comment I've read the entire thread - people don't realize that the GI of carbs is the most important factor to weight loss. Managing blood sugar and keeping a steady, non-spiking blood sugar level will result in pretty much automatic weight loss, without even having to diet. My snacks are usually a small handful of almonds and a piece of fruit. Also, you can combine a somewhat high GI fruit like an apple with a…

Yet you contradicted him. Are apples low or high GI?

Thanks for both of your comments. They were enlightening.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#118

Post by Jake541 »

illumin8 wrote: post #92
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…

Best comment I've read the entire thread - people don't realize that the GI of carbs is the most important factor to weight loss. Managing blood sugar and keeping a steady, non-spiking blood sugar level will result in pretty much automatic weight loss, without even having to diet. My snacks are usually a small handful of almonds and a piece of fruit. Also, you can combine a somewhat high GI fruit like an apple with a…

Yet you contradicted him. Are apples low or high GI?

Thanks for both of your comments. They were enlightening.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#119

Post by AlexC04 »

As has been said, LOW GI is one way to limit cravings. Another good one is to add protein to your diet.

Protein stimulates the production or release of a hormone in your body called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghrelin. Which suppresses appetite.

Another food "HACK" is soup.

To that end, it appears that taking your meal and blending it with a good amount of water (thick soup is best) will trap moisture around the solids, take longer for your digestive system to work through and keep you feeling fuller for longer.

A couple of years back, there was a great show on the BBC called "10 things you need to know about losing weight", where both of those concepts were detailed with scientifical experiements. (a torrent existed last time i checked)

Oh. Another one that I just thought of is to make sure you never let yourself get hungry. When you're hungry, your body goes into a sort of "starvation mode" and sends signals to your brain that tell it to seek out foods of very high calorie density. Sugars and Fats. MRI tests have found that if you look at pictures of those foods when you're hungry they'll light up the pleasure centers of your brain. If you look when satiated, all food registers at about the same level of pleasure.

When you're starving, doughnuts are like sex.

Re: Ask HN: Food hacks for eating well?

#120

Post by mike_h »

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…

Fruit is a big part of the solution, but if you only stick to that you're going to be left craving fats and protein (and if your stomach is sensitive, feeling sick from all that acidic and sugary fruit). Identify healthy fats and sources of protein. My list includes olive oil, whole-grain bread, low-fat cheese, hummus, avocados. This list may not be the pinnacle of health (I don't know), but it goes a long way towards nutrition and heading off cravings for junk.
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