Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Eat Real Food

realfood.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 1001 posts

Re: Eat Real Food

#621

Post by efskap »

reissbaker wrote: post #133
nihakue wrote: post #55

How is it possible that beef, dairy, and chicken are front and center while Lentils, Tofu (or even just soy), Chickpeas, Nutritional Yeast, Broccoli, etc are all left off? Why do they arbitrarily split "protein" and "fruit/veg" given that most/all of the most protein dense foods are vegetables/legumes? Steak is a terrible source of protein (in terms of nutrient density). Immediately pretty suspicious.

Beef has ~3x more protein per gram than legumes. It is much more protein-dense than vegetables or legumes. Similarly, it's a "complete" protein, whereas most vegetables and legumes are missing necessary amino acids. The downside of beef isn't the "density" of nutrients: the downside is high saturated fat. Chicken breast, though, is similarly high in protein without the saturated fat downside.

> most vegetables and legumes are missing necessary amino acids

In practice, there's no evidence of amino acid deficiency in vegans/vegetarians except ones that restrict even further (potato diet, fruitarians, etc) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6893534/

Besides the ever-popular soybean being a complete protein, if you have normal variety in your diet, it's just not something you have to worry about.

Re: Eat Real Food

#622

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

I wish we could move past the "highly processed food" thing.

You can engineer healthy food. The problems isn't the processing. Its that most people who are engineering food do not have "healthy" among the goals.

We're conflating "designed" with "designed recklessly".

It matters because a lot of people can't afford the diet suggested here. The messaging needs to distinguish between adding protein powder because there's no meat available, and living on Cheetos because there's no meat available, and "highly processed" fails to do that.

Re: Eat Real Food

#623

Post by carsoon »

mikeyouse wrote: post #183
ecshafer wrote: post #124

This is the first food recommendation from the government that makes sense. 6-11 servings of grains, 3-5 veges, 2-4 fruit, 2-3 dairy, 2-3 protein (all sources), minimal fat was absurd and bad. Protein is until you hit your needed macros. Fats are as needed. Processed grains are basically empty calories. a cup or two of whole grains is all you really need and thats it.

They’re lying to you that the last guidelines were the food pyramid people are remembering from the 1990s. These are the prior recommendations: https://lgpress.clemson.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/... 100% evidence based but not branded as contrarian by a bunch of Instagram idiots so people assume they didn’t exist.

Those prior recommendations you supplied are worse than the current ones.

Added Sugar: it says Fat: it says to choose low fat cuts 95% and low fat milk. There is no basis for these options. you are just reducing the nutrients from fat. You should just drink/eat less of the fatty food if it contains fat, not choose a processed version that removes part of it.

Protein: The protein section clearly skews towards plant based proteins which are fine but for the majority of people animal proteins are going to be healthier and easier to eat enough of. The protein amounts to around 35-60 grams of protein depending on the sources/amounts listed which is not ideal for a properly functioning human

Sodium: It says in multiple places to lower sodium but the studies on sodium were correlative not causative. Meaning there is no basis for a low sodium diet unless you have other health conditions.

So no they are not lying to you and these new guidelines are 100% evidence based given the new evidence that we have had for the last 30 years.

Re: Eat Real Food

#624

Post by onetimeusename »

bruceb wrote: post #37
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #30

Speaking from personal experience, this is consistent with multiple doctors over the years recommending high-protein, low carb diets. (Clarification: low does not mean no carb.) I don't understand people freaking out over this - outside of a purely political reflex - hell hath no fury like taking away nerds' Mountain Dew and Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Nor do I understand the negative reactions to new restrictions on SNAP -…

Pure partisan spite. The gov't not spending money on candy and sugary drinks is good. Just like when Michelle Obama pushed for better school lunches.

I go on HN to read thoughtful non-partisan commentary but the general mood seems to be "everything is bad" in certain threads even if that contradicts a previous popular HN consensus.

Re: Eat Real Food

#625

Post by hallole »

dqv wrote: post #511
nihakue wrote: post #55

How is it possible that beef, dairy, and chicken are front and center while Lentils, Tofu (or even just soy), Chickpeas, Nutritional Yeast, Broccoli, etc are all left off? Why do they arbitrarily split "protein" and "fruit/veg" given that most/all of the most protein dense foods are vegetables/legumes? Steak is a terrible source of protein (in terms of nutrient density). Immediately pretty suspicious.

There are nuts and legumes there in the bottom left. So funny to see people reflexively defend those things being left off because it confirms their own beliefs. A deeper inspection of the actual guidelines has them being very fair to plant proteins: > Consume a variety of protein foods from animal sources, including eggs, poultry, seafood, and red meat, as well as a variety of plant-sourced protein foods, including…

It's not just a personal belief that plant sources are, on the whole, better from a health perspective.

Since we're talking about the actual wording of the report, it admitted the significance of previous reports deciding to order plant foods before animal products. That is reversed in this most recent report, and very intentionally, which they make clear. They also pretend that the health effects of saturated fat intake are still fuzzy, as if the evidence doesn't heavily point towards it being detrimental.

If anyone is holding to unshakeable beliefs and unwilling to consider evidence, it's the shoddy scientists (many with meat-industry related conflicting interests) that wrote the report.

Re: Eat Real Food

#626

Post by sejje »

ehnto wrote: post #595
rainsford wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar reaction. Although I can't help but notice that even in something like this it included the now obligatory combative culture war framing with "we are ending the war on protein".

It must be such a tiring way to live, constantly enflamed in imaginary thought wars.

That's not how it works, they're just inflating the importance of their work by elevating it to a battlefield, and they're the heroes.

You see it across all kinds of industries. Presumably each individual is just engaged in the solitary imaginary thought war. Surely they're not soldiers on multiple fronts. Superheroes?

Re: Eat Real Food

#627

Post by feifan »

nihakue wrote: post #55

How is it possible that beef, dairy, and chicken are front and center while Lentils, Tofu (or even just soy), Chickpeas, Nutritional Yeast, Broccoli, etc are all left off? Why do they arbitrarily split "protein" and "fruit/veg" given that most/all of the most protein dense foods are vegetables/legumes? Steak is a terrible source of protein (in terms of nutrient density). Immediately pretty suspicious.

Cultural reflex probably; lentils and tofu are displeasurable to most Americans

Re: Eat Real Food

#628

Post by rascul »

epolanski wrote: post #572
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #30

Speaking from personal experience, this is consistent with multiple doctors over the years recommending high-protein, low carb diets. (Clarification: low does not mean no carb.) I don't understand people freaking out over this - outside of a purely political reflex - hell hath no fury like taking away nerds' Mountain Dew and Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Nor do I understand the negative reactions to new restrictions on SNAP -…

> I don't understand people freaking out over this Personally I'm not a fan of any diet that recommends high meat consumption and I say that as someone who eats everything. Cattle outweighs the total livestock on this planet by a 10 to 1 factor. While governments pretend to do stuff for the environment, they seem to always ignore the extreme cost on the environment and pollution caused by cattle. Even focusing on CO2…

> Cattle outweighs the total livestock on this planet by a 10 to 1 factor.

It seems odd not to include cattle in total livestock.

Re: Eat Real Food

#629

Post by saghm »

MSKJ wrote: post #564
iterance wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restrictions on SNAP are tricky business. You can't ask someone on SNAP to spend time preparing food. Prepared meals are expensive, often not accessible, and sometimes difficult to prepare for people with certain disabilities. It might seem strange, but I have known people, very poor people, who rely on "foods in bar and drink form" out of necessity. I have known poor people for whom eating fruit is physically challe…

Sounds farfetched. Especially if restriction is on candy and sodas

As others have pointed out, that's not what the restriction seems to be limited to. The distinction isn't based on sugar content but the amount of "processing", which rules out quite a lot of things beyond just candy and soda.

Re: Eat Real Food

#630

Post by pear01 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #601
dottjt wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't every single policy a result of some kind of lobby group? Are you saying that it's corrupt because it's been influenced by a lobby group? Would all policies then be corrupt to some degree? Or is it corrupt because you disagree with the lobby group?

Not all lobby groups are asking for harmful things. But nearly always they act in their own short sighted self interest. Which usually comes at the expense of citizens or the would be customers or competitors. Which is why sane countries make paying for access and influence illegal.

So, that would be corrupt because you don't agree with it then?

Which are these sane countries? How do you think lobbying should work then? Everyone should get equal access? Hunter and gatherer man was egalitarian like that. Afaik it is a universal feature of civilization that this eventually breaks down. Of all the existent modes of dealing with this problem, money is probably one of the better ones compared to some historical or even contemporary alternatives. I actually will be very surprised if you come up with a single country that credibly makes "paying for access and influence illegal" as that is pretty much the history of all of human civilization, but I would welcome being surprised.

Post reply on HN