In which "healthy eating" articles are like baby books. In a bad way.

[commodorified]

It is not actually the sole and only goal of parenting to get your child to go to sleep. I admit, it can feel like it when they're very small [1], but there is actually a whole lot of stuff you can and want to do with babies: feed them! Wash them! Play with them! Dress them in cute outfits and take them places! Teach them to walk, talk, and play the accordion!

You could, however, be forgiven for getting confused about this if you just scanned the titles at the bookstore.

Similarly:

Ok, look: first of all prescriptivist language about food is mostly[2] total bullshit.

But even were I prepared to stipulate the contrary: if your headline is "X food: not The Healthy Choice After All", is it too much to expect your thesis to be more like: "the iron in dark green leaf vegetables isn't very bioavailable, don't try to use spinach as a main source", not just "omg, X actually has A LOT OF CALORIES!!!"

Because, you know what?

Food is supposed to contain food. It's like we're supposed to believe that our single overriding goal when we buy food is the maximum number of chews with the minimum actual results.

And, um, no. Food is supposed to be made of food. Take your zero-fat fake-sugar flavoured gelatin mislabelled as yoghurt and stuff it up your jumper and give me some gods-damned breakfast.

I have shit to DO today.

ETA: I can tell the outside temp has gone up; the X-ray TV tonight at the nurses' station is all lungs and skulls instead of hips and arms and ankles



[1] it's not that all these tricks for getting kids to sleep don't work; trust me, by the time your kid is, say, 15, they'll sleep right through, no problem, and often well into the next day as well.

[2] And when I say "mostly" instead of "completely" it's to allow exceptions like "don't leave raw poultry at room temp, especially if it's stuffed, ok?"

Comments

[muccamukk]

I refuse to keep track of healthy eating BS. They change it every year anyway. One year you're supposed to eat mushrooms, the year before they give you cancer. Who decides this shit?

I'm going with fruits and vegetables = good for you, highly processes food = not so good for you, but often really yummy. I see no reason for it to be more complicated.

[rydra_wong]

I'm going with fruits and vegetables = good for you, highly processes food = not so good for you

And even that's contextual. For example, there are some people who have fructose intolerance, for whom a lot of fruits are very much not their friends. And there are situations where highly-processed sugary fatty foods are exactly what will best meet someone's nutritional needs -- for example, if someone's got cachexia, dietary recs will probably include as much ice cream as humanly possible.

So IMHO there aren't really "bad foods" which are bad for everyone under all circumstances (unless they actually contain arsenic or something).

[muccamukk]

Very true. Like my Gran can't eat raw vegetables because her stomach would go into wild rebellion and things would end badly.

I'm sure there's a good use for small doses of arsenic, but I don't remember what it is.

That said, I still tire of the diet book industry's insistence that in any given year we must all eat/not eat avocados because of bio-chemical process xyz. I don't find it helpful, and I often get the feeling that they're just making it up so I'll buy their cookbook.

[rydra_wong]

I'm sure there's a good use for small doses of arsenic, but I don't remember what it is.

Building up tolerance to small doses of arsenic, I think.

... and that reminded me, and I Googled, and arsenic-eating was allegedly very popular in the 19th century in one area of Austria; it was reported to be a stimulant and to enhance the ability to work at altitude.

So even my own example may foil me! Though I'm fairly sure it's not medically recommended. *g*

[mme_hardy]

Good for your complexion.

[nineveh_uk]

a good use for small doses of arsenic

Treating syphilis - arsenic compounds are the active ingredient of Salvarsan. Still, I wouldn't go round eating it just in case.

[brownbetty]

Really! This is fascinating to know, I had no idea there was a pre-antiobiotic treatment for syphilis that was at all effective. Good to know for my plans of sexy time-travel.

[mme_hardy]

Before 1910, though, you're stuck with the infamous mercury salivation treatment. On the whole, I'd recommend packing antibiotics.

[brownbetty]

I via wikipedia that it is a compound one cannot whip up in the kitchen, alas for my plans of do-it-myself-ing.

[mme_hardy]

In any case, syphilis is the least of your worries: I don't think smallpox vaccinations are available to the general public any more, and invariolation is risky.

[brownbetty]

Forget smallpox, I'd probably die of dysentery. My effete bourgeois immune system is accustomed to the pampered chlorinated water hereabouts.

[mme_hardy]

Oh, good point. So many bad ways to go, so little time.

[nineveh_uk]

I am so glad that though I spent today being annoyed I seemed to be coming down with a sore throat, at least I did not have to worry that I was coming down with diphtheria.

[redbird]

You might be able to take care of your effete immune system by boiling your drinking water.

[brownbetty]

I've lived in third world countries, but my experience is that no matter how careful you are with your water, sooner or later you will be glad for the cheap, copyright-infringing, dubiously over-the-counter antibiotics.

[redbird]

"Variety is good" seems to be pretty consistent advice.

From my viewpoint: yes, eliminate things that are bad for you specifically, and seek out foods you like. But within that, it's probably best to try mixing it up (says the woman whose salads are very similar from one day to the next).