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MT's Health-Related 2018 Resolutions (1 Viewer)

Is that like a months worth of food?
This batch was probably around 10,000 calories, so about a week's worth if I don't eat anything else. (It's extremely filling per calorie, so it's a real challenge to eat more than about 1,400 calories per day of it.)

 
My best intentions would add a fourth pillar to diet, exercise and sleep - meditation. Sam Harris just dropped a podcast on the science of meditation which I'm looking forward too. Alas, Sam Harris podcasts are also my go-to for lullaby material. It might take a few attempts.
Sam Harris’s book on that topic, Waking Up, is terrific. So is Robert Wright’s book, Why Buddhism Is True. They complement each other quite well.
Really good article by Robert Wright:

https://www.wired.com/2017/08/the-science-and-philosophy-of-mindfulness-meditation/

 
I enjoyed reading that, and with the added bonus I now know what a "way station" is, having looked it up, expecting to call out the writer on not using "weigh station."

I signed up for the 10% Happier app. I think I like it, but work severely interrupted my sleep patterns this past week, which drained me of all good intentions. Hope to get my money's worth this week.

 
@Maurile Tremblay

Looks like a super researched plan MT.

I'm assuming you aren't a believer that grains are the devil then? Have read all sorts of nasty about that along with dairy regarding inflammation.

Am trying to come up with my own menu so to speak and was going to replace oatmeal for potatoes with my eggs in the morning.

Also, your thoughts on kefir, Greek yogurt, cheese and Kerry Gold type butter?

 
Also regarding your canned fish. Read some scary stuff about BPA which is in those types of cans. Wild Planet brand I believe has almost zero, but who knows if what they use is any better...

Sorry to be all over the map here, but also heard soy isn't great for a male?

 
steelerfan1 said:
@Maurile Tremblay

Looks like a super researched plan MT.

I'm assuming you aren't a believer that grains are the devil then? Have read all sorts of nasty about that along with dairy regarding inflammation.

Am trying to come up with my own menu so to speak and was going to replace oatmeal for potatoes with my eggs in the morning.

Also, your thoughts on kefir, Greek yogurt, cheese and Kerry Gold type butter?


steelerfan1 said:
Also regarding your canned fish. Read some scary stuff about BPA which is in those types of cans. Wild Planet brand I believe has almost zero, but who knows if what they use is any better...

Sorry to be all over the map here, but also heard soy isn't great for a male?
Grains aren't the devil. People who avoid grains often improve their diets by doing so, but that's not because grains are bad per se. It's because most junk foods contain grains, so avoiding grains means avoiding junk foods. Most junk foods are some combination or subset of refined flour, refined sugar, and refined oil, all of which are nutritionally unhelpful. But there's a big difference between whole-grain oats and refined flour, just like there's a big difference between a banana and refined sugar, or between a plate of olives and a glob of vegetable oil.

Here is much more than you wanted to know about wheat.

More generally, you can tell that a food isn't inherently bad when it's a traditional staple in a culture that is renowned for its good health. The Swiss mountaineers in the Loetschental valley were well known for their good health when they lived on a diet of mostly rye and dairy. Same with the Hunza when they ate mainly grains, fruits, and nuts. Same with the Irish when they ate mainly potatoes, oats, and fish.

For the most part, I think vegetables are preferable to grains. But oats in particular seem worthwhile if you like them.

Regarding kefir, yogurt, cheese, and butter, I think there's a lot of good stuff in them, but they are pretty calorie-dense, and butter in particular makes things more delicious than they otherwise would be ... so they're all probably better for people trying to gain weight than for people trying to lose weight.

(There is plenty of individual variation on foods like grains and dairy, though, with some people tolerating them much better than others.)

I don't know much about BPA. I hope that eating one can of salmon every week or two isn't a big deal. (Plus a can of sardines every week or two, but I think those cans are BPA-free.)

I also don't know much about soy. I don't eat it much.

 
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How long does the Master Stew keep in the freezer?   Also, how often and for how long do you fast?

 
This is interesting. While I don’t think the overall healthfulness of your stew is debatable, two of the main ingredients are fairly health-neutral IMO.

How did you decide to make white potatoes the heart of your stew? They’re nowhere on your healthy food list. And why bone broth, versus something like a veggie broth/miso base?
 
This is interesting. While I don’t think the overall healthfulness of your stew is debatable, two of the main ingredients are fairly health-neutral IMO.

How did you decide to make white potatoes the heart of your stew? They’re nowhere on your healthy food list. And why bone broth, versus something like a veggie broth/miso base?

Why bone broth? It tastes good. If I were looking for a nutritional reason, I'd mention collagen, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorous. Also, I've read that a typical American diet that includes a fair amount of muscle meat but not much in the way of organs and glands can result in imbalances among amino acids that may contribute to inflammation. For example, muscle meats have a high ratio of methionine to glycine. Bone broth has the opposite, which helps the overall balance. I'm not competent to judge the merits of this argument; I'm just repeating it. Veggie broth or miso would be fine as well, but I like bone broth as a personal preference.

Re potatoes: I know I'm going against the grain a bit, but I believe that white potatoes are nutritionally terrific.

As you'll see when I post an update commenting on my first post in this thread, I no longer include potatoes in my stew. But that's purely for reasons of convenience. (I've moved on from labor-intensive chopping and dicing.) If there were a convenient way to include potatoes, I'd include them.

Why do (many) nutritionists underappreciate potatoes?

Long-term intervention trials pertaining to diet are impractical in humans. Most nutritional information concerning humans comes from correlations found in observational studies. People fill out food questionnaires and then, down the road, regression analyses are done to find patterns between health outcomes and dietary habits. A decent amount of signal comes through with this method (fruits and vegetables are good for you, fried foods and desserts are bad for you), but some of the signal gets overwhelmed by confounders. I believe this to be the case with white potatoes.

In the United States (and most first-world countries), white potatoes are overwhelmingly consumed in the form of french fries, potato chips, tater tots, and mashed or baked potatoes slathered with butter and other accompaniments. People very seldom eat plain, boiled or baked potatoes. In addition, people tend to eat their fries and mashed potatoes alongside other unhealthy foods like cheeseburgers and fried chicken.

So on food questionnaires, the people who say they eat a lot of potatoes generally don't have stellar health outcomes. I submit, however, that it's not the fault of the potatoes, but of the frying and slathering.

The potatoes themselves have a couple of impressively healthful characteristics.

First, they are almost literally off the charts when it comes to satiety per calorie. Of the 38 foods evaluated as part of the satiety index, plain, boiled potatoes are an extreme outlier, ranking by far as the most satiating food.

Second, they are a nearly complete source of nutrition. If you had to pick a single food to live on for an extended period while maintaining good health, potatoes should be among the top contenders. They have sufficient protein (8% of caloric content) in an ideal ratio of amino acids. They are decently high in fiber. They are sufficient in nearly every vitamin and mineral (the exceptions being the absence of molybdenum and vitamins B12 and D, and relatively low levels of calcium). In the novel The Martian, the main character lives only on potatoes for a year or so. That's fiction, but there's a non-fiction version as well. Andrew from Australia lived on nothing but potatoes (and non-caloric flavor-enhancers like vinegar) for a full year and saw remarkable improvement in his health.

In short, I believe potatoes are awesome when they're not fried or loaded with unhealthy additives.
 
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