A Better Theory: In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

Any food that has high fructose corn syrup is killing you - and HFCS is found in most processed foods. You need only Google processed food to see how harmful they are.Not to mention, their nutritional value is shit. Consuming raw foods or close to the farm foods, and also grass fed meat, increases your nutritional intake while lowering your caloric intake. The reverse is true for consuming processed foods - more calories less nutritional value.Example:
White bread sandwich with processed lunch meat, a bag of potato chips, a can of soda and a chocolate bar as dessert is a typical lunch for people. Those calories have barely any nutritional value.Instead of that, you have two apples (locally grown) and you have less calories and much more nutritional value. It's all your body needs really. If you train your body to eat less calories, but, those calories are coming from foods with a high nutritional value, it will work better and be healthier. Your body doesn't just need calories, it needs healthy calories.In America we consume a lot of empty calories - calories with barely any nutritional value. So we are fatties and unhealthy because we don't get enough vitamins and nutrients.- Oni

That depends obviously. If apples are sprayed with pesticides and given who knows what kind of chemicals to grow faster, then I'd say both are equally bad.But even then, the nutritinal value of the natural, raw state of the pesticide sprayed fruit is better than anything processed - that rarely has any nutritional value. I wouldn't eat it because of the pesticides but it would yield more nutrients.Ideally you should eat locally grown, pesitcide free, chemical free and hormone free fruits, veggies and meat. Also, to maximize the nutritional value of the food, keep it as raw as possible (except of course for chicken and pork).- Oni

Plenty of them - just Google high fructose corn syrup in lab ratsHere's a few things on it: SourceSourceSourceDo you really think it doesn't harm you? There's a few problems with that. First you're still consuming a lot of calories, refined sugars, HFCS, and empty carbs that turn to fat, leads to obesity, etc. And we all know the issues one has if this is the lifestyle you choose to live - heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, to say the least. No amount of vitamins will help you change that.Also, the over the counter vitamins you get a GNC or Vitamin World are usually crap. By the time your body processes it you're not getting much other than a very expensive pee. But, I know guys who love vitamins, however, they consume upwards of around 80 pills a day.Just eat two apples, they taste good. You eat 4000 calories of processed foods, with refined sugars, carbs, and HFCS - and I'll eat 4000 calories of veggies and grass fed beef.Who do you think will have the health issues?- Oni

There wasn't a link to read but no worries. I don't disagree - stay away from all processed sugar or artificial sweetners. Good piece of advice. Get your sugar from fruits.The problem with HFCS is that it's in almost everything processed.- Oni

It's always nice to give the people an enemy they can all hate, like "fat". A product with 40 grams of carbs can call itself "fat free" and people will eat it thinking it's the healthy choice.It should illegal to do that.- Oni

Yes, but you are missing one thing: fiberHow much fiber your food has is directly related to how fast the fructose is absobed into your bloodstream. So you want to eat foods high in fiber, especially when you're eating something with sugar.HFCS products like sodas and chips have no fiber in them, where as fruits, like an apple, has about 4.5g of fiber. This will make your body to not crave sugar as much, thus you consume less overall fructose in your diet. HFCS are absorbed very fast into the bloodstream so you're ready for your next treat sooner. Trips to the snack machine all day? Yes. When you eat carbs, or sugar, you're going to want to eat foods high in fiber - something not usually found in processed foods, and often not even in the ones that claim to have fiber like cereals or fiber bars. HFCS makes you want more sugar. As is the case, that the average American today gets 12% of their diet from fructose vs 4% in the early 1900's. The more fructose you consume the less healthy you'll be. The more energy you spend the more sugar you are burning. Yes, you will feel healthier. Also it realeases all kinds of nice mood enhancing chemicals that are very rewarding to the brain. That's why you "feel" better when you're active, especially in your youth I would imagine. Look, if I were you I'd change this opinion quickly and start looking at what you put into your body. It will work better that way for you - and you're not young anymore, it doesn't work the same. Also, the food industry has changed and the average diet has changed with it. You'd be surprised how much less fructose you ate as a kid, and also, how much more active you were. Both of those combined will make you quick lean and healthy.However, if your diet consists of high levels of HFCS it will lead to obesity. I would suggest cutting them out. This way you don't have to exercise as much in the later years.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

I usually have fruits for breakfast with black coffee to balance it out.- Oni

It doesn't matter how much it has. What matters is how fast your body absorbes it, and how soon after that your brain is telling you to have more sugar.By having HFCS you can significantly increase the amount of sugar you consume on a daily basis. More sugar, more fatties, more fatties, more health risks, more heath risks more need for healthcare.If I was a conspiracy guy, I'd say the corn people are in bed with the healthcare people and try hard to produce "evidence" that HFCS is good for you so you eat it, get obese and depend more on healthcare. - Oni

What matters is how much fiber it has.Like I wrote to Taq - getting your sugar from fruits, especially apples or pears that are high in fiber, reduces how fast fructose is absorbed into the bloodstream. This works for any carb also.Were as, if you're getting your sugar from a soda with no fiber, it is immediately absorbed into the bloodstream. So your body is ready for more sugar faster. Overall it has the affect of increasing the amount of fructose you'll have in your daily diet since your body will constantly demand sugar.If you have fruits your body will ask for sugary foods less. Works for carbs as well. Have carbs that are high in fiber, like beans instead of rice, and your body will crave less carbs overall in your daily diet. I knew it!- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Well it is important to have fructose for energy. But if you have too much, and you're not active for example, it turns into fat cells and leads to fatties at the beach. Disgusting. Plus it leads to all kinds of health issues later in life. So long as you moderate it, and have smart fructose like fruits instead of soda, should be ok - unless of course you're diabetic, then it can be an issue. The presence of fiber will slow down your digestion because there's more things your stomach needs to breakdown. So by just the way your digestion system functions fructose will be absorbed slowly in a longer period of time.The presence of no fiber allows the fuctose to be absobed immediately without any steps in between you eating it and the liver absobing it.- Oni

Do you disagree that fiber slows down the absorption of other nutrients found in the same food? Because I think that's a lot of what fiber does. Obviously fructose would fall into one of those nutrients being absorbed slowly, is how I understand it. I wanted ask this earlier when you mentioned Omega-3's and our new found knowledge of how much we need it - lots of wild salmon, guys!Maybe some of the older folk here can help, what oil did they give spoonfuls of to kids and why did they do that?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Fiber slows down the rate the body absorbes nutrients and chemicals - also foods high in protein and good fats slow down the rate that glucose is absorbed.I guess you can start by looking up how fiber slows down the rate of absotion of nutrients.- Oni

Haha!Not all fiber helps the poop shoot. You want foods high in insoluble fiber like bran, beans, some fruits (apples and pears), and some veggies.Soluble fiber helps with cholesterol and that. Foods like beans, whole wheat, fruits, veggies, nuts.Some foods are high in both, and those are the best ones: Broccoli, carrots, apples, rye bread, peas, oatmeal, plums - to name a few. Eat two or three of those per-day and you're body will be shitting gloriously and fighting cancer at the same time.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Yeah cholesterol is a killer. But from what I've read - look up bulletproofexecutive.com - if you switch to grass fed beef it's actually better for you than regular store bought pork or chicken. It has all the good fats and none of the bad, plus it's free of any chemicals and/or hormones. It's good for your cholesterol.I have gress fed beef 3 times a week,, the rest is fish (try wild as much as possible) and a little pork. If I'm going with bird, other than wild game, I go with turrkey with higher protein and less fat. My cholesterol has been perfect for the last 2 years.Lately though I've been getting into wild game a bit more. I'd like to hunt more often, but for now I order online. It's pretty cheap. I'd like to make that change of only eating food food like Percy is suggesting. Yeah that's my biggest problem too. Although I walk maybe 5 miles a day just getting around in NY, I also have kettle bells at home. We can all stand to be more active. Yeah, when you first start a high fiber diet it's an issue! Gas and powerful shits. But your body will get used to it.I start the day with an apple and a banana, but by 10:30am I have a bowl of split pea or lentils - they are high in fiber. More so than any bran cereal I've seen and are not processed at all.- Oni