Re:The Sugar Conspiracy
by munificent on Thursday April 07, 2016 @03:21PM
(#11449868)
> the steak
A carefully carved out subset of an animal that lived on a carefully maintained agricultural plot, fed a precisely calibrated diet, and slaughtered at a precisely chosen time. An animal of a special humans have been breeding and molding for thousands of years.
> bag of salad leaves
Again, species we have been cultivating and changing for so long that we would no longer recognize its original wild form. Lettuce is related to daisies.
> It's just common sense advice that humans seldom make a food healthier by tinkering with it.
That common sense makes no sense, why would we spend effort making things worse for ourselves?
We tinker with things because it improves them. Sure, sometimes we don't discover the long term implications for a while (like with sugar), but in general, we cultivate and process because it makes things better.
Cassava that isn't processed is poisonous, as are many beans. Eating most fish that isn't deep frozen or thoroughly cooked is a good way to get worms. The same would be true for beef and pork too, except that we humans have so carefully managed (tinkered with?) our livestock that we've eliminated most of their parasites.
Given a choice between a package of heavily processed bacon from the grocery store, or a fresh chunk of wild boar meat that you hunted and killed yourself, which is better for you? Well, the latter is a hell of a lot more likely to give you trichinosis.
> As close to its natural form as possible is invariably best.
> I sure as heck am not going to buy a pre-battered pack of frozen 'fish fingers' given the choice!
That's not because the fish fingers are unnatural, it's because they're made of shitty, cheap ingredients.
Given the choice between, say, a nice cheese (a very heavily processed food involving a number of chemicals and months of human attention) versus finding a wild bee's nest and drinking all the honey, the former would be healthier for you, even assuming you don't get stung.
If you want to eat things that are good for you, "natural", "unprocessed" or "free from human tinkering" are simply not useful signals. They're not even that well-defined.
A carefully carved out subset of an animal that lived on a carefully maintained agricultural plot, fed a precisely calibrated diet, and slaughtered at a precisely chosen time. An animal of a special humans have been breeding and molding for thousands of years.
> bag of salad leaves
Again, species we have been cultivating and changing for so long that we would no longer recognize its original wild form. Lettuce is related to daisies.
> It's just common sense advice that humans seldom make a food healthier by tinkering with it.
That common sense makes no sense, why would we spend effort making things worse for ourselves?
We tinker with things because it improves them. Sure, sometimes we don't discover the long term implications for a while (like with sugar), but in general, we cultivate and process because it makes things better.
Cassava that isn't processed is poisonous, as are many beans. Eating most fish that isn't deep frozen or thoroughly cooked is a good way to get worms. The same would be true for beef and pork too, except that we humans have so carefully managed (tinkered with?) our livestock that we've eliminated most of their parasites.
Given a choice between a package of heavily processed bacon from the grocery store, or a fresh chunk of wild boar meat that you hunted and killed yourself, which is better for you? Well, the latter is a hell of a lot more likely to give you trichinosis.
> As close to its natural form as possible is invariably best.
So, like:
Corn: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/images/relevance/Z_...
Watermelon: https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CRPlJWtfmDnCTNMv02Cx1DSiaws...
> I sure as heck am not going to buy a pre-battered pack of frozen 'fish fingers' given the choice!
That's not because the fish fingers are unnatural, it's because they're made of shitty, cheap ingredients.
Given the choice between, say, a nice cheese (a very heavily processed food involving a number of chemicals and months of human attention) versus finding a wild bee's nest and drinking all the honey, the former would be healthier for you, even assuming you don't get stung.
If you want to eat things that are good for you, "natural", "unprocessed" or "free from human tinkering" are simply not useful signals. They're not even that well-defined.