As diets go, meat, rice and vegetables isn’t that bad.

Cereal… not so great.

Agreed, the thing is my kids can afford the calories that I’ve been avoiding for a very long time. Starch has energy, habits about balance are important too.

Rice is s cereal.

The main problem is the processing, not the underlying grain ;)

[delayed]

Yeah m, thought th ‘breakfast’ part of cereal was a given since that’s what we’re discussing.

That sounds like a perfectly fine diet.

>2+ bowls of white rice, another serving of vegetables, and a small serving of meat for most meals. This was me "trying to be healthy" given the mainstream knowledge at the time

I mean, except for the white rice (which should always be whole, like all grains in your diet) this seems like a good diet. Of course it all depends on how much stuff you were given to eat, but there is nothing wrong with this

“Should” is a hefty term. If you’re doing fine on white rice by all means eat white rice.

"Must" is a hefty term, not "should". Ask any nutritionist and they'll tell you whole rice is always the better choice for nutrition

Sure. But it don’t matter much

Go and look how many vitamins and nutrients are lost making white grains and how much the glycemic index rises.

It matters a lot, especially if it's a main part of your diet.

Everything is relative. But imo it’s VERY unlikely to matter “a lot”. Everything is trickier if you’re trying to lose weight, but white rice vs brown is a tiny offender relative to the more common culprits

Why are you talking about losing weight?

That is a common context for consideration of nutrition.

Whole grain rice contains higher levels of arsenic. A little bit is fine, but 2+ bowls per day may be problematic.

And getting the majority of your calories from grains of any type is in no way a "good diet". That myth needs to die.

You should not be eating the same whole grain (or any food for that matter) all of the time exactly because each food has its pros and cons (the cons are vastly outnumbered by the pros if you eat the good foods though)

Every dietitian tells you to vary your diet as much as possible. Your reply is moot because you are blindly considering 1 argument at a time while the guidelines paint a whole picture

Variety is good. But any dietician or guidelines who tells you to base your diet on grains should be ignored.

Says who?

If the meat in question is fish, that is pretty much the Japanese diet, and they are doing pretty well health-wise.

That is a dramatically healthier meal than very many American kids typically eat. Compare it to, say: a hotdog, a bag of potato chips, and a 20oz bottle of soda.