Healthy eating costs more. Why?

Originally posted by olaru12
Corporate interest from the makers of chemical fertilizer to preservatives have a vested interest in promoting and addicting Americans to junk food.

I think you've got the tail wagging the dog here. Human beings naturally crave fat, sugar, and salt. So if you're trying to make the most money, what are you going to do? Concentrate your investments in broccoli farms?

That's like blaming the Internet for promoting pornography.

I'm quite surprised at you all,they want you dead. They WANT you sick and they want you to pay, Health could keep you away from the doctor,no money for big pharma. You'll live longer,more they will have to pay for programs and SSCI/Medicare,they don't want that.
The big chemical experiment rolls on from the 60s when it took off,in fact its graduated into GMOs.

reply to post by jonnywhite


Firstly a paleo diet isn't a no carb diet. It's simply a diet free of foods that have very high carb concentrations.
Also legumes and dairy due to the prevalence of inflammatory conditions that seem to clear up in the absence of these foods.

Over the years I've eaten diets while lifting weights and running and stuff that are exactly what we are told to eat. I got hungry, had injuries, got ill, felt rubbish, got fat easily.

Switching to paleo means my energy levels are higher, I don't crash, I've lost a load of weight and don't get ill.
It's not just me either. So its a bit rich for all these experts to cry bs when so many people are living better on it.
Heck, have a look at all the cross fit crowd. A huge proportion of them swear by their paleo diets to keep them competitive.

Here's another link about the Phytate acid issue that's neutral:
livefitblog.com - Are Phytates In Food angerous?...

Note that not everything about Phytate Acid is bad. There's nothing solid yet. This is why dietary associations aren't taking the paleo diet seriously yet. The benefits of grains and legumes is that they're plentiful and useful for feeding poorer populations. But out of all this I can definitely see a reason to supplement diets that're rich in Phytate Acid.

See where he says this:

.............
On the flip side of this argument, since phytates are found in high fiber foods, it is thought that they may possess strong cancer suppressing activity as well. High fiber foods have shown protective benefits against a wide variety of cancers. In addition, phytates have shown some ability to suppress free radicals in the body. Some experts have suggested that the ability to complex iron may be the root of their function in this capacity.

Other suspected benefits of phytates include:

Protective benefits against osteoporosis
Protection from Parkinson’s disease
Reduce inflammation in the body
Reduce oxidative stress on the digestive tract
Reduce depression
Slows blood glucose response by slowing digestion
.........

It MIGHT be bad. That's the thing. It leaves the issue open to opinion. BUT I do think the evidence is enough that people who eat foods rich in Phytate Acid need to avoid eating these alone.

Originally posted by Blue Shift

Originally posted by olaru12
Corporate interest from the makers of chemical fertilizer to preservatives have a vested interest in promoting and addicting Americans to junk food.

I think you've got the tail wagging the dog here. Human beings naturally crave fat, sugar, and salt. So if you're trying to make the most money, what are you going to do? Concentrate your investments in broccoli farms?

That's like blaming the Internet for promoting pornography.

Most people crave fat because they are craving the elastin binding protein. That is in the outer cell of the fat. Rendering the fats out of the cell gives us what we really need, the shell. We also need the silver skin on the meat sometimes. It also looks like fat. We need the cartilage also. There are chemicals that we need in these but we do not need the oil in the fat that much. I spend too much time researching this stuff

Lastly, there's this:
health.usnews.com - Best Diets Overall...

U.S. News evaluated and ranked the 29 diets below with input from a panel of health experts. To be top-rated, a diet had to be relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe, and effective for weight loss and against diabetes and heart disease. The government-endorsed Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) snagged the top spot.

The Dash diet was #1:

DASH was developed to fight high blood pressure, not as an all-purpose diet. But it certainly looked like an all-star to our panel of experts, who gave it high marks for its nutritional completeness, safety, ability to prevent or control diabetes, and role in supporting heart health. Though obscure, it beat out a field full of better-known diets

The paleo diet was second to LAST at #28. Look at the pattern in the diets. ATkins was #26. Basically, the popular opinion of dietary experts is a balanced diet of raw foods, low in saturated fat. For those who're parroting the paleo diet, you're going against much of the popular recommendations.

What's the Dash Diet?
en.wikipedia.org - DASH diet...

......The second experimental diet was high in fruits-and-vegetables and in low-fat dairy products, as well as lower in overall fat and saturated fat, with higher fiber and higher protein compared with the control diet—this diet has been called “the DASH Diet”.[2] The DASH diet (or combination diet) was rich in potassium, magnesium and calcium—a nutrient profile roughly equivalent with the 75th percentile of U.S. consumption. The combination or “DASH” diet was also high in whole grains, poultry, fish and nuts while being lower in red meat content, sweets and sugar-containing beverages.
........

reply to post by jonnywhite


Again, I listened to the standard advice all my life. It wasn't any good.
I don't know what it is about paleo that upsets every expert, but if it was so bad people would drop it like other fad diets, or their bloods would scare them when they visit the doc.
The fact is people who try it stick with it and their blood tests show improvement in ldl hdl ratios among other things.
That's worth far more than someone's opinion who hasn't tried the diet.

Eating right doesn't cost more. Allow me to explain:

I've explained before that I eat organic and grassfed. No junk. No vegitable oils. And ys, it does cost more, in relative terms. But...

I entered what I spend in to an inflation calculator. I spend no more than what people did in the US in 1940.

So what's happened is that after WW2, we started factory farming. Grain farming on a massive scale. Feeding grains to cows that should be eating grass. Lots of processed (read: cheap) what I call "pretend food".

So, we've been raised spending very little of our income on food compared to 1940 and before. We're spoiled on cheap, fatory created "food".

Spend what we did in 1940 and before and you'll be eating organic vegitables and grassfed beef and real raw milk.

It's a matter priorities.

Originally posted by SprocketUK
reply to post by jonnywhite

 

Again, I listened to the standard advice all my life. It wasn't any good.
I don't know what it is about paleo that upsets every expert, but if it was so bad people would drop it like other fad diets, or their bloods would scare them when they visit the doc.
The fact is people who try it stick with it and their blood tests show improvement in ldl hdl ratios among other things.
That's worth far more than someone's opinion who hasn't tried the diet.

Yup. That's how I eat. Paleo, except I do eat butter from grassfed cows and raw milk from a local farm.

I am healthier and fitter than anyone I know my age (52) and most who are yonger than me as well. I don't get why people think it's a "fad" either. I mean really, vegitables, grassfed meat, a little fruit.. that doesn't sound like a fad.

Now... "shakes" and 500 calorie diets, injections, treadmills till you drop. THAT'S a fad.

But do people listen? No. They are too addicted to sugar and grains and soda's, chips... It's sad as I watch my conteporaries health decline. Joint replacements, heart attacks... *sigh* There's a great bike ride coming up here that I do every year, about 50 miles. Nobody I know can do it with me. I always have to go alone.

I'm not quite sure why the interest in a paleolithic diet, or why people think it's so much better than what we eat now. The fossil record is pretty clear that those people lived short lives and had all kinds of diseases and nutritional deficiencies.

I also have never understood why people think a raw diet is so great, since never in the history of mankind have people not had fire and cooked their food.

Again, if the goal is to make us sick and die, considering our huge population, relative good health and longevity, somebody's doing a lousy job of it.

reply to post by davjan4


Spot on mate.



Still you know what they say about leading a horse to water

Blue shift. What diseases did palaeolithic man suffer from then? Obesity? Hypertension? Acne? Arthritis? They are all Neolithic diseases that are running rampant now.

Most cavemen types died of infections, accidents or violence. Dying as a result of what you eat came in with grains.

reply to post by davjan4


I noticed that I eat a lot less meat when I have been eating grass fed organic beef. It seems to satisfy you with less. I noticed I eat more carrots now than before because the organic ones taste so much better. Two pounds of organic carrots cost about a quarter more than regular at the market. I don't have much problem with eating local commercial potatoes, I try to get a few bushels from a big farmer before he washes them and sprays the chemical on them to stop sprouting. The sand/clay on them keeps them from sprouting if kept in the cool dark place in the basement. fifteen bucks a bushel isn't bad for good potatoes. Eating things in season is what saves money. Eating apples when the birch trees are producing pollen causes asthma for many. There is a cross reactivity in about twenty plus percent of people. Birch tree pollen isn't around much when the apples ripen up here.

We are designed to eat things in the season that they come in and our ancestors did things to make the foods not allergenic when preserving them. We threw all this knowledge aside and started to believe in science. Thousands of years of knowledge discarded because there was no evidence to back the knowledge. People just knew you do this and not that and did not know why. Science is just starting to discover the truth of this and are taking credit for things our ancestors knew. I call that deceit because they are the ones who implied that a protein was a protein and there was no reason we couldn't eat some things.

Fish is Healthy as long as it's not Fried. And The Earth is Mostly Ocean SO Why is Fish so expensive there should be more Fish than any other food, More Ocean than Farmland. Why is seafood Expensive ?

Originally posted by rickymouse
I noticed that I eat a lot less meat when I have been eating grass fed organic beef. It seems to satisfy you with less. I noticed I eat more carrots now than before because the organic ones taste so much better.

I agree. In fact last night my dinner was a grassfed T-bone, broccoli from my backyard and carrots. Carrots pulled right out of the dirt are amazing. Those little preshaved carrot peices from the store in bags are horrible tasting. Store bought broccoli is awful compared to what I cut off my plants in my yard. And I only needed half of the T-bone, and I was good. And that was after a crossfit workout!

I recall that "back in the day" a great gift was a freshly killed turkey or pheasant. I understand that now. I'll take an organic patured heritage turkey for a gift anytime over some gadget or peice of junk I won't use. I bought a pastured heritage turkey last year for Thanksgiving. I slow roasted it for 16 hours. It was the most amazing turkey EVER. Then I took the carcass and made bone broth.
It made the store bought, saline injected turkeys positivly awful in comparison. Can't eat those anymore.

Originally posted by davjan4

Originally posted by rickymouse
I noticed that I eat a lot less meat when I have been eating grass fed organic beef. It seems to satisfy you with less. I noticed I eat more carrots now than before because the organic ones taste so much better.

I agree. In fact last night my dinner was a grassfed T-bone, broccoli from my backyard and carrots. Carrots pulled right out of the dirt are amazing. Those little preshaved carrot peices from the store in bags are horrible tasting. Store bought broccoli is awful compared to what I cut off my plants in my yard. And I only needed half of the T-bone, and I was good. And that was after a crossfit workout!

I recall that "back in the day" a great gift was a freshly killed turkey or pheasant. I understand that now. I'll take an organic patured heritage turkey for a gift anytime over some gadget or peice of junk I won't use. I bought a pastured heritage turkey last year for Thanksgiving. I slow roasted it for 16 hours. It was the most amazing turkey EVER. Then I took the carcass and made bone broth.

Now I'm hungry. Blimey but that sounds good.
It made the store bought, saline injected turkeys positivly awful in comparison. Can't eat those anymore.

reply to post by davjan4


A friend of mine used to grow about twenty five to thirty turkeys to sell. He was working full time and it was a hobby. He fed the turkeys the better quality feed from the coop, it wasn't certified organic but it was more natural. The turkeys ran around outside, they had a pretty good life. I would help him butcher them before Thanksgiving and would get a fresh turkey and a smoked turkey for pay for the two days of work. I took my granddaughter with me one year to help, she enjoyed plucking the turkeys and paid attention to how they were cleaned. Very good education for an eleven year old to learn where her food comes from.

They were the best turkeys I have ever eaten. I know someone who raises organic free range chickens too, and they are heaven also. The chickens aren't cheap though, the certified organic feed for them is expensive and they lose a few to disease also, that is normal when you own chickens. Some die when they are young, especially if you don't ever give them feed with added antibiotics.

I have been working on ways to make store bought chickens taste better. If you throw the chicken in water and bring it to a boil then disgard the water it tastes more like natural when it is baked. Same with a turkey, something goes into the water and gets dumped out in that little while of heating that suppresses the taste of the chicken.

I can't afford organic chickens unless I grow them myself. I can't afford an organic turkey either, especially a twenty five pound turkey like I used to get. One turkey I got was thirty two pounds, I didn't have a big enough roaster and it barely fit in the oven. A homegrown turkey is a lot bigger than a storebought turkey of the same weight and takes less time to cook.

Just wondering how much people are paying for water . Growing your own food in Australia costs more than buying it as water costs a fortune.
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reply to post by my1percent


Rain barrels and buried storage tanks for the rainwater. It doesn't take that much water for a garden big enough to supply seasonal food. You have to know how much light your plants need, don't put plants that need 6 hrs of direct sun into an area that has 12 hours of sun.

reply to post by rickymouse


Yes I get you, but at one stage it was not legal to have a water tank in your back yard. Though I think that's changed. To buy a tank is very expensive , Your not allowed to fossick at the tip anymore so you can't pick up an old container to fill lol
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reply to post by my1percent


I can't believe that they force environmentalism to be a slave of economics.