Folding up a diet and nutrition course, hooray, a smart course completed, my understanding of MSG, gluten, cut or rolled oats, probiotics, bioavailablity, free radicals, beauty serums, high-oxalate foods, and other food facts have been challenged. The mainstream science (food magazines) and folk science (granny's tales) and authoritative science (scientific journals/blogs) are at odds even on a gala apple. So, starting this thread for my own discovery to learn and debunk and adapt my food habits to healthy living. Contribute: How you assumed something was a fact which turned out to be fiction. Converse, how you felt something was fiction but turned out to be a fact. How your food myths over the years have been busted: anecdotes, references, MSG and gluten are not dangerous after all, eurekas! Your learnings and re-learnings on diet and lifestyle. What made you choose the type of oats, yogurts, fruits, good fats, nuts etc. I will write up my thoughts as I explore and discover. This is a friendly column to share, discuss, inquire, and doubt everything. So, healthy skepticism should not be mistaken for uncongenial exclusivity. Similarly, vague founding myths would not be disparaged, but only doubted. If you are as confused as I am on healthy diet, pour in.
I have been into fitness for the past 10 years and it’s been my fav topic. Many workout a lot but make mistakes when it comes to diet( which by the way is a vast topic) and that’s why never achieve the toned abs or good body. Healthy fats Complex carbs High protein Whey protein Calorie deficit Avoiding Processed foods BUT... Having treat meals( must) Water Resistance training and cardio Each country has its own diet secrets but one should educate themselves to see what works for them. Take the good from everything,learn about the foods and match your nutrition with your workouts. Most importantly one needs to learn about the genetics,subcutaneous and visceral fat and work it. Just doing cardio won’t cut it. Following a particular diet will make one “skinny fat” but not giving the body they aspire. Never understood keto diet as personally feel it does not work for Indians unless you are mentally strong to give up the carbs. Have fun with Zumba but don’t make it the priority in exercise. Indian dals does not comprise of complete protein but one needs to mix it with carbs to get the essential amino acids. “No food is good or bad”.it’s how one makes it ,the combinations that matters. Never cared much about gluten free blah blah etc as in yester years,people eat normally without much thinking but they were fitter and healthier. Personally prefer home made yogurts but if it is Greek,will check the sodium or sugar content. I avoid sugar generally. I eat fried foods BUT homemade,instant and fresh.i don’t buy store brought much. One needs to be active. What I had mentioned is only quarter percent.Lots more to talk about but let me end it here.
MSG MSG has a bad rep in our dietary guidance! How bad is it and to whom and when? When I started reading about Man Kwok, the incident reminded me of Andrew Wakefield scare on vaccines. "Monosodium glutamate’s notoriety took off in 1968 when Dr Ho Man Kwok wrote a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine musing about the possible causes of a syndrome he experienced whenever he ate at Chinese restaurants in the US. In particular, he described a feeling of numbness at the back of his neck that then spread to his arms and back, as well as general weakness and heart palpitations." Is everyone at risk? Not indeed. The common knowledge is still marred in anecdotal evidence of a friend's friend's friend who collapsed on his Chinese takeaway. Next time, don't feel too guilty on a Chinese takeaway and cut some slack on MSG. "So while nothing is ever truly laid to rest in science – and Dr John Olney spent much of his life after his early animal experiments campaigning for tighter regulation of MSG use – the FDA now says the addition of MSG to foods is GRAS, or ‘Generally Recognised As Safe’."
Know your honey Honeygate scandal, corn syrup, rice syrup, trans-shipping, chloramphenicol, nuclear magnetic resonance is not a puzzle but the import route of your honey through customs. The old wives' kitchen test to check the purity of your honey through crystallization is not that adequate. By the time your honey arrives from the origin, beekeepers, blenders, packers, and market stores to your home, it would have succumbed to Chinese or Vietnamese or Polish greed as narrated in the documentary series Rotten. Buy local honey is the moral of the episode. In any case, in my experience, double check the production label not for packer source but the beekeeper source of the honey. You will find small print on flowers of x continent. Fooled you! Well, sorry, even that is compromised. I don't know how to authenticate or what to look for. Read about the honeygate scandal in your free time. Go local or farm market, may be.
Agave Nectar or Honey or Maple syrup? Have you ever been paralyzed at the fruit syrup aisle wondering which one to pick up and gone back and forth with the glycemic index and glycemic load calculations and utterly confused on the fructose and sucrose content and which one is the best or the differences between them all. Join the club! I am thoroughly confused. I don't understand so won't recommend any particular natural sweetener over the other. May be this is one time you might want to give in to your taste buds more than metabolic advantage. Any bright tips, do share.
@Iravati I did not know about honey scandal. Thanks for sharing. I try to buy honey from local farms when I get a chance but sometimes do pick up at the grocery store . Need to watch out. After years of overanalyzing this ..I have come to the conclusion for 15 cals a teaspoon white sugar isnt so bad and gets way too much bad rap. Personally prefer the flavor of maple syrup over honey or agave and in its absence dont mind good old C &H white sugar in my morning cuppa of joe.
JAG, I am only discovering now on the marketing of the food products alongside diet specifics and wonder ....how did I live and eat for so long with no insight on how to choose grocery. Trust me, I am still a newbie in scrutinizing food market. The facts in honey market are astounding. "American hives produce 160 million pound a year. 450 million pounds are consumed. US imports twice as much as it makes" -- Rotten, Netflix The adulterated import is a grave problem because of the way the shipping and import industry is compromised in labeling inauthentic Chinese honey as EU honey to circumvent stringent trade embargo on Chinese honey which is adulterated with rice syrup (difficult to detect) than corn syrup (native adulteration). Also, have you looked at the pricey New Zealand Manuka Honey with UMF and MGO rating sold from $5 to $75. NZ isn't growing that many manuka trees for the bees to extract the nectar from, where is this hype and prevalence of enriched honey coming from? How to search for indicators? I don't think we could be fool-proof in our purchase but at least awareness might prevent us from falling prey to extremely unscrupulous gimmicks to the extent we can with smart checks.
Dude, in the Tintin and Shooting Star, a genius scientist predicts the end of the world by a whizzing comet. The next day (next page) he admits that he made a teensy error in his calculation and the comet plunged into the sea rather than land. Your charming and playful anxiety reminded me of the doomsday in comic indulgence.
