How super are those pricey 'superfoods'? • Hacker News Board

Re: How super are those pricey 'superfoods'?

#51

Post by gxs » Fri, Oct 20, 2017, 11:13 PM UTC

will_brown wrote: post #48

gxs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you start getting into this type of thinking it's really easy to go down a rabbit hole. I'd love to see the same research, but if you start digging into this subject you will be disappointed in the answers you get. After researching this stuff as a hobby for some time, I've come to the conclusion that this stuff is not well understood and there is still a lot left to explore. As technical people, we sometimes lo…

Personally I think the data, if not the studies are readily available, it’s just impossible to have a conversation about diet and nutrition. For example, look at this thread and you would think all you need to do is have 1 person run a treadmill for 1 hour drinking tap water and day 2 repeat the run with coconut water and boom...a legitimate study that “superfoods” are a myth. Continue in this thread and you will not…

Have to agree - also adding the bit about needing a lot of test subjects that isn't always feasible if you're doing more targeted analysis - otherwise looking at entire populations over time does offer value.

For me personally, nutrition's been categorized along with politics and religion as topics off limits for discussion in social settings unless I know the people I'm chatting with already.

Re: How super are those pricey 'superfoods'?

#52

Post by cratermoon » Sat, Oct 21, 2017, 12:34 AM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #37

s0rce wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of your points but you can definately out train excess calories, probably not if you have other commitments like a family or a job, but if you hike all day everyday or are on an extended bike tour you are probably actually going to have trouble getting enough calories and can basically eat as much as you can without consuming too much.

Saw a documentary about Tour De France riders. They had to force huge plates of spaghetti into themselves every night to the point of throwing up and still lost a ton of weight during the race. It's hard to stay overweight if you are active the whole day.

All this is true, for elite athletes performing at the limit of human ability, you can out-train a bad diet.

The thing is, this only applies during high-level competitions, and in no way counts for the rest of the time. Nobody can compete at that level endlessly, obvious. More importantly, it doesn't raise their basal metabolism beyond a certain point, and the basal metabolism is what counts in overall long-term caloric consumption.

For regular humans, there's simply no getting around the fact that running a mile only burns 100 kCal or so[1], and it's possible to eat more than 100kCal in seconds simply by eating a single Reese's peanut butter cup[2].

1. http://running.competitor.com/2015/03/training/many-calories...

2. https://www.hersheys.com/reeses/en_us/products/reeses-peanut...

Re: How super are those pricey 'superfoods'?

#53

Post by maxxxxx » Sat, Oct 21, 2017, 3:18 AM UTC

cratermoon wrote: post #52

maxxxxx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw a documentary about Tour De France riders. They had to force huge plates of spaghetti into themselves every night to the point of throwing up and still lost a ton of weight during the race. It's hard to stay overweight if you are active the whole day.

All this is true, for elite athletes performing at the limit of human ability, you can out-train a bad diet. The thing is, this only applies during high-level competitions, and in no way counts for the rest of the time. Nobody can compete at that level endlessly, obvious. More importantly, it doesn't raise their basal metabolism beyond a certain point, and the basal metabolism is what counts in overall long-term calo…

No doubt. Unless you do the Tour De France or hike 20 miles per day you have to watch what you eat.