As far as HFCS goes, I agree with Wanda that there really haven’t been conclusive studies that fructose is worse than sucrose or that it affects the way your body metabolizes food. I just try to limit my sugar intake in general.

CS
http://www.vegetarianhomecooking.blogspot.com

I’d like to point out that your grandparents may not have lived as long as we do today. A lot of diseases, particularly most cancers, show up more and more as we age. Years ago, when only half the population lived to 65, we just wouldn’t have seen a lot of these diseases in the population, regardless of diet. Plus, early medical care and infectious disease control is better now. People who were congenitally unhealthy or predisposed to illness were more likely to die early then; they’re living now and being sick in old age. Any comparison between rates of obesity and associated illnesses now and then need to take these facts into account.

Also, the word “processing” is so vague. I’m glad there’s iodine in my salt and folic acid in my bread even though adding these ingredients make the food more processed. I’m glad that there are fewer people with goiters and spina bifida because more people are automatically getting their vitamins. Canning and drying foods is processing. Cooking foods, to some people, is processing. What are you really against? Can you define it?

I also love “How to Cook Everything”, it is my standard gift to anyone graduating college or getting married (along with a gift card to our local Whole Foods).

@Dana – have you read “The Mood Cure” or “The Diet Cure” by Julia Ross? I recently read “The Mood Cure” followed by “Your Fat Can Make You Thin” by Dr. Carl Ezrin and had some serious AHA! moments about the quality of our food in relations to the quality of our lives (and moods) and why dieting make us feel to terrible.

Indigenous peoples being able to live their traditional lifestyles are a rarity anymore, but if you look at the traditional foods of the Maasai and the Inuit you won’t find salad one. It was thought the Inuit used to eat vegetation out of the stomachs of the animals they killed but I have heard stories to the effect that they just told white explorers that to play jokes on them.

This is where the high-fat eating comes in. If you’re not getting plant calories, meaning carbohydrates, you must get energy from fat or you will make yourself sick. One explorer who went to the Arctic and ate like the Inuit for a while did really well until he was asked by a researcher to experiment with eating a low-fat meat diet. He started experiencing health problems until he re-introduced fat. It’s something called “rabbit sickness,” where eating too much protein with no energy source added to it causes your body to go haywire. It was so named after people who had tried subsisting on nothing but rabbit, which is a lean meat.

It is not practical for six billion people to go on an all-meat diet and you are correct that at least some vegetables are healthy (although I would disagree about things like cruciferous vegetables, which have a hypothyroid effect on the human body), but I think we have gotten completely upside-down about what we think is required in the human diet.

For what it’s worth, we as a species have had pretty good luck catching that meat, by the way. This is why we had hunting parties way back in the day. One guy going out to shoot rabbits by himself wouldn’t have had a lot of luck, but a party going after a mammoth would almost always be successful–and that mammoth had enough fat to sustain at least some of the energy needs of the tribe and keep the food stores stocked, as well.

I read another blog by a vegan who documented thirty days on a raw diet with less than fifteen percent of his calories as fat and he wound up, at the end of it, with extremely dry skin and cracking and bleeding of the hands. He mused that it could have been caused by the low fat content. Gee, y’think?

I also think it’s interesting that along with the media oversaturation (pardon the pun) of how evil dietary fat is for women in particular, we’ve seen an increase in the numbers of women suffering from hormonal and reproductive distress and mood disorders. I’m sure there is a connection, as fat is not only used for energy but is necessary in the construction of hormones, cell membranes, and nerve tissue, including in the brain. (Contrary to what has historically been believed in the medical community, the brain does not stop producing new nerve cells when we mature.)

Most of your advice was spot-on but I tend to speak up when I see people blaming fat intake for obesity, because from what I have seen in my own experience, that simply isn’t true. And from what I know of cell respiration and metabolism from taking honors biology in high school–and as far as I know there haven’t been any material changes to that information–glucose calories are a lot more important in weight gain than fat calories, full stop. You can’t do anything with glucose (which comes from carbohydrate and, to a lesser degree, from protein) except burn it for fuel, but you use fat for other things and you burn fat differently when using it as a fuel. So we’ve been looking at the wrong macronutrient in terms of what causes health problems, all along.

Note I did not say “what causes weight gain.” All body fat really is is stored energy. Why we attach such meaning to it is beyond me. If someone suddenly gains more weight than they should need to gain, though, there is obviously an underlying medical condition going on. The low-carbers introduced the notion that overweight is more of an endocrine problem than a metabolism problem (although endocrine issues lead to metabolism problems), and the rest of the scientific community is starting to fall in behind them, too.

The Japanese concept of hara hachi bu, which means, “Eat until you are 80% full.” I was a skinny kid always being told to eat more, and now I’ve had to re-teach myself how to listen to my stomach.

Also, one of my favorite sayings: “All things in moderation. Including moderation.” The occasional (occasional!) splurge helps. A lot.

Example – omega 3 fatty acids in fish like salmon is good fat; same with avocados and olive oil (raw), nuts is good fat. Starchy vegetable (potatoes) and refined grains (white bread, spaghetti) get converted to sugar quickly; and can lead to insulin resistance so even though they have no fat they are still bad for you. Whole grains are good. Yes, I am about to hear the chorus of “this is not potatoes or spaghetti it is what you put on it” — this information is outdated; this is what doctors used to think, but this isn’t what they think now. Check out the link I provided – this is to Harvard School of Public Health where there are top researchers and doctors in the field.

Here is a link to a food pyramid from Harvard School of Public Health. Unlike FDA pyramid this one is not influenced by special interests and reflects the latest research: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/pyramids.html

Now, I prepare and eat the majority of my meals at home, pack healthy lunches, and when I do stop for convenience foods, you can bet that what I’m ordering hasn’t been in a deep fryer.

I see the crazy-busy ones look at my lunch-sack longingly, and tell me how much they admire how organized I seem, but when I suggest not scrambling to take every job that’s offered, maybe taking a day off to get to the grocery store or just rest, The Fear flashes behind their eyes as they talk about the bills, the mortgage, the private school payments.

Taking the time to shop for and prepare my own meals saves me money, and better nutrition helps my body handle stress better. Now I’m the freelancer that people love to hire, because they know that I’ll arrive early, alert, and prepared, not spacy and tired like I used to be, and like so many of my colleagues still are.

Trent, keep on keeping on and doing what you love… you passion comes shining through!

I’ve actually found that by eating healthfully, I’ve reduced my food budget; when I started tracking every penny (a la YMOYL), I was spending close to $400 a month on food (there are two of us in my house); lots of stupid stuff, like lunch at work, grabbing something on the run, etc. Now we’ve joined a local food co-op and we’re down to $150 per month for the two of us! Everything’s organic and local, and we also get to attend free cooking seminars once a week. Pretty good stuff.

Has anyone else ever read the book ‘Skinny Bitch’? (I swear I’m not making up that title). Short read, kind of crass language, but VERY thought provoking. It really makes you think about what you’re putting into your mouth.