[jcynix]

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

"That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."

Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/

[baxtr]

Advice like this is right, in theory.

Just like: Don't smoke, don't drink, work-out, take walks, spend time with your family and friends, don't work too much. Also, don't worry too much!

All the real problems come in practice.

Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a solid basis.

However, 80% of success comes from applying these things in your messy life.

[hahahahhaah]

The idea behind that phrase is not that is necessarily easy... but to decomplicate the other extreme where you are choosing this superfood and avoiding that other veg because it is "bad for you". It gives a simple heuristic for healthy living. It helps make it less daunting.

For example what do I have for breakfast? Oh let's boil and egg amd grab a carrot and corn on the cob. Or whatever.

What do I do in the supermarket? Meats, veg, bit of fruit maybe bit of dairy. Am I obessing over avacado vs. pear. Nope. Chicken vs. beef? No. Chocolate bar vs carrot? easy choice.

Now probably once you get thay square you can do harder stuff like food reaction / allergy testing and so on.

[throwaw111]

But then why work? Lets assume everyone will follow your advice, then we all could work less, may be just 4 a day. If so, then why do not we change the work day to 4 h? It is not like all bad food, tobacco, etc will be gone, but we will not produce all that in such huge quantities.

[mapontosevenths]

"The History of every major Galactic Civilization tends to pass through three distinct and recognizable phases, those of Survival, Inquiry and Sophistication, otherwise known as the How, Why, and Where phases. For instance, the first phase is characterized by the question 'How can we eat?' the second by the question 'Why do we eat?' and the third by the question 'Where shall we have lunch?" - Douglas Adams

Folks on HN are very much in the "Where" stage of life. No one here works 4 out of 8 hours just to pay for their food. Nobody should.

That said, you very much seem to be missing the point. Ultra processed food is far, far cheaper than whole foods. That is one reason they are more popular.

For example, it would cost me more just to buy the ingredients to make tacos at home than it does to go through a Taco Bell drive through and buy enough for the family already prepared.

We're not going to be moving to four hour workdays by feeding people food that costs twice as much and takes longer to prepare.

[lukan]

Also, drink a lot of water or tea.

[n4r9]

And if you're British, tea on its own might do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTocYVghimE

[fakedang]

And enjoy protein deficiency?

Vegetarian India literally suffers from one of the highest rates of protein deficiency and stunted growth worldwide.

[KempyKolibri]

Eating mostly plants does not mean one has to have protein deficiency.

Seitan, tofu, tempeh, TVP, etc etc. All plant based, all high protein.

[keybored]

Us Westerners could cut down on the starch, add more salad and greens and pretty easily meet this requirement I think.

I don’t know if we need as much animal foodstuff as we consume but just doing that should be enough.

[sceptic123]

Are you ignoring the "mostly" in mostly plants?

[ViktorRay]

That isn’t because of being vegetarian but because of poverty.

[hombre_fatal]

Then eat protein-dense plant foods like tempeh and tofu.

[mapontosevenths]

Source?

[virgildotcodes]

But but but the influencers are telling me to put nothing but cheeseburgers and testosterone in my body and that just coincidentally reinforces with what I want to do anyway!

[XorNot]

I love how this gets presented as obvious advice, yet explains nothing and introduces an even less well defined thing it will do: "be maximally healthy".

[KempyKolibri]

It's just a dietary heuristic, why would it have to explain everything? If you want that, just go and look at the literature on overweight and obesity or, say, substitution of animal protein for plant protein. It's all there.

[lm28469]

> "be maximally healthy".

It's the bare minimum if you care about aging well, maximally healthy is a whole other thing

[jcynix]

The whole article, if actually read, explains a lot. Not the least how we came from talking about "food" to talk about single ingredients instead. Which then are hailed as the "solution" for all of today's problems with nutrition. Until the next big thing comes along.

[DarkNova6]

I am not sure we can take a slogan from 2007 as a state of the art understanding.

But I am biased. I‘ve seen this slogan everywhere to promote UPFs that claim to be healthy because they are „vegan“.

Now that the market for meat alternatives has collapsed I don’t see this reasoning anymore. What a strange coincidence.

[n4r9]

> the market for meat alternatives has collapsed

What country are you reporting from? It seems to be absolutely booming in the UK. A brief internet search suggests it's growing and predicted to boom in the US as well.

[KempyKolibri]

UPF meat substitutes do tend to be healthier than their meat-based equivalent (see the SWAP-MEAT trial, for example).

[fuzzfactor]

>I am not sure we can take a slogan from 2007 as a state of the art

Me neither, I prefer common knowledge that has stood the test of time for a lot longer, like about 100 years more.

Not my downvote btw, corrective upvote actually.