Restaurant food (split from Heat Regulation - Obesity)

[Michael McMahon]

It might be the case where fruit and vegetables aren’t made equally healthy when everyone has a distinct physique. For example an overweight person could benefit by eating lots of watery fruits like grapes and melons because the water content would fill you up to prevent overeating. By contrast raspberries are so sweet and easy to digest for an overweight person that they might be more of a dessert food. As such blackcurrents and blackberries might be more challenging for an overweight person in order to make you more resilient to diverse foods. 

[Michael McMahon]

My new resolution is to simply get every salad type on a meat sub where there’s no excuses! 
 

[Michael McMahon]

Mint chocolate symbolises the temptations of overeating because the alkaline taste feels as healthy as toothpaste in contrast to the acidic vibe of other sweets. Eating mint chocolate is almost a perversion of healthy eating because it allows you to cut back on acidic sweets. Yet mints have a flaw in filling you too much when you could have ate even healthier food instead. The same is true for health bars like oat and honey where it’s healthier than other sweets but isn’t as nourishing as the raw oats and honey without the sugar and syrup attachments. Metaphysically the dilemma with all sweets is that they can all be healthy if you were devout about a similar form of healthy food. So eating lots of crisps would be really healthy if you also ate potatoes every day. 

Obesity used to be admired as a sign of wealth in medieval times. There’s a lesser evil in that food could always be a primary source of hedonism were society fully functioning. Yet it’s because there so many problems in life that virtuous overeating often gets relegated as a source of ethics. 

Chocolate Room - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[Michael McMahon]

I often avoided drinking smoothies when I was thirsty in favour of lighter juices. Smoothies for me used to be something I’d drink recreationally when I wasn’t thirsty. Yet lately after tennis I drank a load of smoothies when I was thirsty which took longer to quench my thirst. I thought drinking smoothies while thirsty would help me to eat more raw fruit in general. 

[Michael McMahon]

It might seem strange to ban sweets when healthy food simply can’t match chocolate. The way sweets can taste better than healthy food might relate to surrealism in how we’re never focused enough on nutrition. For example I was handed a stale glass of milk today in a cafe in Portugal where it tasted violent simply because I wasn’t even very accustomed to fresh Mediterranean milk. I didn’t drink most of it to avoid feeling sick yet I opted to take an extra sip only to help desensitise me to fresh foreign milk. So sweets might relate to how we don’t sufficiently dilute an over-ripe fruit or stale food piece to extract rarer nutrients in a way that appears unnatural. It’s possible that Asian spices relates to a conscious rather than physical form of nutrition where each spice is added holistically relative to previously well-known spices. So even though it’s possible to live life without ever eating spices it’s still the case that spices can prevent over-eating by requiring too much mental focus. 

Edited August 17, 2023 by Michael McMahon

[Michael McMahon]

Maybe apples and oranges don’t taste hedonistic because they require apathy to eat in large quantities. So the way sweets taste hedonistic can relate to the sweets being possessive. It appears as if the apples don’t really taste nicer as you age but that you can become more relaxed about the lack of taste from apples and oranges. Apple juice emphasises how dilute a solid apple is while the sweetness of mandarins contrast with the blandness of an orange. As such healthy eating cannot only fill you up but can also replace hedonism with meditation. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Michael McMahon

[Steve81]

On 8/7/2023 at 6:32 AM, Michael McMahon said:

My new resolution is to simply get every salad type on a meat sub where there’s no excuses! 

Seems like a fair goal. In my case, a footlong sub on multigrain bread still drives my blood sugar up to 350+, so no bread for me. I also happen to find Jersey Mike’s to have fresher ingredients than my local Subway, fwiw. 
 

9 hours ago, Michael McMahon said:

Maybe apples and oranges don’t taste hedonistic because they require apathy to eat in large quantities.

Let me assure you, after two weeks of not being able to eat or drink in a hospital setting,  broth was hedonistic. An apple was the nectar of the gods. A lot of “food” being sold these days is just absolute garbage that throws off our hedonism reference point.

[TheVat]

Amen. 

It's hard to describe the stark improvement I found eliminating wheat from my diet.  And most "multigrain" breads are still at least fifty percent white flour, which is crap.  I like whole rolled oats, which are one of those foods which is exactly what it says it is.  And no brain-fogging, nap-inducing gluten.  I would not be surprised if future research discovered that half the population has NCGI, non-coeliac gluten intolerance.   

[exchemist]

49 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Amen. 

It's hard to describe the stark improvement I found eliminating wheat from my diet.  And most "multigrain" breads are still at least fifty percent white flour, which is crap.  I like whole rolled oats, which are one of those foods which is exactly what it says it is.  And no brain-fogging, nap-inducing gluten.  I would not be surprised if future research discovered that half the population has NCGI, non-coeliac gluten intolerance.   

My understanding is that quite a bit of bread intolerance is due to modern bread-making processes, which do not allow time for yeast to break down the proteins that cause trouble. Traditional bread such as French baguette tradition, or made by artisanal bakers, is a lot easier on the stomach, as well as tasting far better.
 

Bread quality is one of the things that has become immeasurably worse over the course of my lifetime.

[Steve81]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Amen. 

It's hard to describe the stark improvement I found eliminating wheat from my diet.  And most "multigrain" breads are still at least fifty percent white flour, which is crap.  I like whole rolled oats, which are one of those foods which is exactly what it says it is.  And no brain-fogging, nap-inducing gluten.  I would not be surprised if future research discovered that half the population has NCGI, non-coeliac gluten intolerance.   

On that last bit, if you think about human evolution, agriculture was a relatively recent thing. We mostly killed animals (or are bugs) and gathered berries or whatever for millions of years. We aren’t evolved to eat bread.

[Genady]

38 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

On that last bit, if you think about human evolution, agriculture was a relatively recent thing. We mostly killed animals (or are bugs) and gathered berries or whatever for millions of years. We aren’t evolved to eat bread.

We aren't evolved to eat rice, corn, potatoes, squash, banana, olives, cereal, sheep, cheese, ... Maybe we don't need to be evolved to eat something?

[Steve81]

13 minutes ago, Genady said:

We aren't evolved to eat rice, corn, potatoes, squash, banana, olives, cereal, sheep, cheese, ... Maybe we don't need to be evolved to eat something?

We don't explicitly have to be evolved to consume something in order to try it. On the other hand, clearly many are intolerant to wheat products, and many more may be without knowing it. 

[Peterkin]

9 minutes ago, Genady said:

We aren't evolved to eat rice, corn, potatoes, squash, banana, olives, cereal, sheep, cheese,

Sheep are not so unlike antelope that you need special evolution for it. Fruits, including cucurbits, nuts and roots were always part of the hominid diet. Grains, too, though the strains have been modified over time to suit human needs: they have been accelerated in their evolution by us.

Cooking food, including flat-breads, has been in our repertoire for quite a long time; it was the norm well before agriculture was.

The problem isn't an evolutionary one; it's commercial one. The more processing an ingredient undergoes, the more of its nutrients are lost - and usually the more refined sugar and chemical preservatives are added.  

[Genady]

1 minute ago, Peterkin said:

The problem isn't an evolutionary one; it's commercial one.

This is exactly my point. 

I love bread. But I never buy it in a supermarket. I get one or two kinds directly from a small local bakery.

[Peterkin]

10 minutes ago, Genady said:

I love bread. But I never buy it in a supermarket. I get one or two kinds directly from a small local bakery.

We recently acquired a bread machine. (All four of our hands are too arthritic for kneading.) We still have to use commercial ingredients, of course, I get to pick which ones and in what proportion. The bread is not as fluffy as the packaged ones, nor as crusty as the bakery product, and it's only good for about three days. However, it has extra fiber and the close texture makes thin slicing easy.

I make a 1 or 1.5 lb loaf either on the weekend of after 7 pm when electricity is cheaper. Since we don't eat much bread, I usually take four or six slices the next morning and freeze them. The last of the loaf usually becomes spiced croutons. 

Which reminds me, it's time to go pick some tomatoes for dinner salad.  

[Steve81]

47 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

The problem isn't an evolutionary one; it's commercial one. The more processing an ingredient undergoes, the more of its nutrients are lost - and usually the more refined sugar and chemical preservatives are added.  

It’s both. Clearly human evolution didn’t take into account the large amounts of refined sugars and chemical preservatives commonplace today. Most McDonalds fare bears little resemblance to actual food. 

Edited August 31, 2023 by Steve81

[Genady]

25 minutes ago, Peterkin said:

We recently acquired a bread machine. (All four of our hands are too arthritic for kneading.) We still have to use commercial ingredients, of course, I get to pick which ones and in what proportion. The bread is not as fluffy as the packaged ones, nor as crusty as the bakery product, and it's only good for about three days. However, it has extra fiber and the close texture makes thin slicing easy.

I make a 1 or 1.5 lb loaf either on the weekend of after 7 pm when electricity is cheaper. Since we don't eat much bread, I usually take four or six slices the next morning and freeze them. The last of the loaf usually becomes spiced croutons. 

Which reminds me, it's time to go pick some tomatoes for dinner salad.  

One of my favorites from the local bakery, which is called "Real Dutch Bakery", is Oberländer. It's a sourdough bread. I don't know if they do it exactly like in this recipe, but it looks similar: Oberländer Bread | Yeast and more (hefe-und-mehr.de)

Two of my favorites of all times that I cannot get anywhere else in the world are New York bagels from Brooklyn and pita breads from Arabs in Bethlehem.

[TheVat]

2 hours ago, Genady said:

This is exactly my point. 

I love bread. But I never buy it in a supermarket. I get one or two kinds directly from a small local bakery.

Sourdough, the slow fermented kind  has always been the least problem bread for me, and very tasty.  The fermentation also breaks down starches that are difficult for some guts to digest, referred to as FODMAP.  

The Dutch also like to use emmer wheat, which is an ancient grain quite low in gluten and more tolerated by people with gluten sensitivity.  

[Peterkin]

1 hour ago, Genady said:

Two of my favorites of all times that I cannot get anywhere else in the world are New York bagels from Brooklyn and pita breads from Arabs in Bethlehem.

How i wish I could eat either of those - and I'm not fussy about pedigree. The pumpernickel bagel from Pete's Doughnuts and the pita from the Taj Bistro would do me just fine. Or the olive/pepper/tomato bread from that place on Hwy 6, or a warm cottage loaf from the Markdale bakery...  But I'm confined to croutons, breadsticks and crackers.

I haven't tried keeping a leaven; for our needs, it's not worth the trouble. 

[Michael McMahon]

Fast food can be amoral because adding spices to fast food immediately makes it slightly healthier at the expense of normalising even worse fast food to others. For example any pizza can be healthy but obviously there’s a slippery slope where a cheese pizza eaten too frequently becomes no better than cheesy chips! I’m so accustomed to Subway salad rolls that I’ve become hooked on beetle and pickle ham-and-cheese sandwiches. Yet pickles and beetroot can eventually feel too sugary for it to be extremely healthy if we didn’t diversify our foods!

Edited September 18, 2023 by Michael McMahon

[Michael McMahon]

Some overweight people might not experiment with every type of exotic fruit even though they can all taste distinct. For example I tried sharon fruit for the first time today and couldn’t believe how much it tasted like a sweet jelly mix of a plum and an orange. Exotic countries tend to be athletic and so eating exotic fruit can be helpful for healthy eating. 
 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Michael McMahon

[Michael McMahon]

One idea is to eat right before you go for your weekly food shopping so that you already feel full and be less tempted to buy unhealthy food. 

[Michael McMahon]

In the past I’d often overspend by eating out. I loved toasted sandwiches with ham, cheese, chicken and eggs or full Irish breakfasts simply because it was prepared better than anything I could cook. I knew I could prepare the meals myself way cheaper but somehow my unconscious didn’t seem to care too much. Perhaps to cook better you actually have to eat better food beforehand in order to consciously analyse the taste as a way of setting a high standard. As such richer people can often have an advantage in healthy eating simply because they can passively learn from the chefs that cook their food for whenever the rich customers have to cook for themselves. The same could be said for wannabe musicians needing to actually hear lots of concerts first-hand from other musicians so that they can hedonistically relate the beats to their own. Prospective sports players from poorer backgrounds might forget to actually watch lots of professional games in the stands and not just on TV in order to better assimilate the tactics and feel the pressure better. 

[swansont]

Some restaurant food tastes better simply because they use an insane amount of butter. It’s not necessarily better food.

[Michael McMahon]

On 10/13/2023 at 5:05 PM, swansont said:

Some restaurant food tastes better simply because they use an insane amount of butter. It’s not necessarily better food.

A tip for overweight people when it comes to food shopping might be to truly exploit mass production and international trade to an extreme extent. So instead of getting marmalade and peanut butter I recently got lemon marmalade and a jar of coconut and peanut butter! We forget that chocolate is technologically mass produced too where it takes mass production of healthy products and not just willpower to overcome a sweet addiction. After all a collectively made product whether it be healthy or unhealthy might always taste more smooth than a homemade product. 

 

Restaurants often focus on presentation which helps you meditate on the food but if you’re used to improvisation then there’s no harm ignoring aesthetics the odd time. So I once mixed a solid apple with peanut butter when I ran out of bread just to help me eat more apples!

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Michael McMahon