Nutrition, and I just realized

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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Jesseco
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Nutrition, and I just realized

Post by Jesseco » Wed Apr 02, 2008 8:30 pm

I know we all have interesting and varied backgrounds that we bring to this terrific diet. I have been a mostly healthful eater for the past 9 years or so, so when I started No-s-ing, I was thrilled to see I could have anything I wanted except sweets; just no more than one plate!

But then it still bothered me to eat those small servings of "bad" foods, especially when I now don't even care that much about them! So I'm doing the No-s with freedom, but am not [b]making[/b] myself eat foods that I MAY like, but don't really want, even if it's only for health reasons that I don't want them.

Of course, if someone's homemade potato salad or white bread rolls are irresistible, I will enjoy! Does that make sense?

Nay
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Post by Nay » Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:04 pm

It makes perfect sense to do that. I can occasionally put a "bad" food on my plate and not feel guilty at all. As long as I keep to the one-plate limit and the no sweets, I have no guilt about whether I have salad or potato chips -- I just know that I will feel better if I choose the salad/veg over the chips most of the time.

I have no problem eating my sweets on Sat and Sun. I plan on it. This weekend I'm making a cherry pie and I plan to eat a piece of it with vanilla ice cream as my sweet for both days. I may even have a snack of chips, or whatever, on the weekend. I guess my delight with this way of eating is that I don't stress over anything, and I don't worry about what's in foods, as long as they are 'normal' foods, like people used to eat. Tuna with real mayo? Not a problem. Real homemade sugar cookie? Fine. No worrying about calories, fat, etc. It's been fantastic. And I'm losing weight.

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Mavilu
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Post by Mavilu » Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:09 pm

Yes, it does perfect sense.

I found myself doing the exact same after I recently got my cholesterol checked; before that I was eating disorderly but very conscious and guilty about every "not that healthy" morsel I was putting in my mouth; but then I got my lab results and it turned out that I'm eating pretty well, even with the "bad" morsels, so now, I try to shush that little voice that says "mayo on that sandwich? really?" and I'm mostly able to do so.
Especially since now I know that sticking to three meals a day I'm greatly reducing the chances to have anything "not that good" in excess.

stevecooper
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Post by stevecooper » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:07 am

I'm becoming very wary of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods. I've always liked No-S' justification-by-history, of returning to old patterns of eating. I got searching for the recipes used by our slim ancestors...

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic ... 9230#29230
stevecooper wrote: I had a hankering to go looking for old-skool recipes, to see if I could find out the kinds of food that were considered pleasing, nutritious, etc in earlier times. The no-s idea of traditional meal patterns got me thinking about traditional cooking for those meals, and I searched out Mrs Beeton's cookery book, a classic British book from 1859. (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/ ... household/)

What's interesting, actually, is the amazingly unhealthy sounding food; every other vegetable recipe is covered in butter and salt and sauce. All the other recipes involve huge slabs of meat, preferably in pastry. Behold awesome recipes like 'PORK CHEESE (an Excellent Breakfast Dish).' and 'COW-HEEL STOCK FOR JELLIES' and 'BOILED NECK OF MUTTON.' Mmmm!

I expect an addendum to the no-s diet any day now, along the lines of;

"if we are to stay as trim as our grandparents, we have to eat not only when they ate, but what. Why not try a nutritious and slimming plate of pork cheese for breakfast?"

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:58 pm

stevecooper wrote:I'm becoming very wary of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' foods. I've always liked No-S' justification-by-history, of returning to old patterns of eating. I got searching for the recipes used by our slim ancestors...

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic ... 9230#29230
stevecooper wrote: I had a hankering to go looking for old-skool recipes, to see if I could find out the kinds of food that were considered pleasing, nutritious, etc in earlier times. The no-s idea of traditional meal patterns got me thinking about traditional cooking for those meals, and I searched out Mrs Beeton's cookery book, a classic British book from 1859. (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/beeton/ ... household/)

What's interesting, actually, is the amazingly unhealthy sounding food; every other vegetable recipe is covered in butter and salt and sauce. All the other recipes involve huge slabs of meat, preferably in pastry. Behold awesome recipes like 'PORK CHEESE (an Excellent Breakfast Dish).' and 'COW-HEEL STOCK FOR JELLIES' and 'BOILED NECK OF MUTTON.' Mmmm!

I expect an addendum to the no-s diet any day now, along the lines of;

"if we are to stay as trim as our grandparents, we have to eat not only when they ate, but what. Why not try a nutritious and slimming plate of pork cheese for breakfast?"
I agree with Steve -- though I'm not at all sure about eating pork cheese for breakfast (What is pork cheese? Do I really want to know?).

Not only did our ancestors have better habits, they ate better food. The more our habits changed and the more highly refined and processed foods became normal in our diet the heavier -- and less healthy -- we got. In cultures where this distinction between healthy and unhealthy foods doesn't exist and where so many refined, processed, and cheap foods aren't available, people aren't as heavy or unhealthy.

The author of Good Food Tastes Good said that our ancestors ate lots of vegetables, for instance, because they liked them, not because someone was saying that they are "good for you." They prepared the vegetables in ways that made them tasty. While they may have had sugar or salt or (gasp!) fat added and were cooked longer, they ate lots of them. The benefits of eating more of them outweighed the risks of the added seasonings or long cooking.

On the other hand, they ate less fried chicken, potato salad, and numerous other foods that are now considered less healthy. Why? Not because they were less healthy -- in fact, they didn't know this. But many of these foods were time-consuming and messy to make. As a result, they were made and enjoyed infrequently without guilt.

Not only were some dishes made less frequently because they were time consuming and messy, foods were enjoyed more seasonally. I was reading about Edna Lewis, who wrote several cookbooks about Southern cooking. She said that fried chicken was enjoyed in the summer; it was a picnic dish. Why? Well, the best chickens for frying were born in spring and killed in the summer months (had to do with what the chicks ate). So, in addition to being a messy, time-consuming job, the best food for the dish was only available in summer.

A couple of years ago I started getting really annoyed by the recipe redux in magazines like Cooking Light -- especially at holiday times. Someone would would submit a favorite holiday recipe that was heavy on the butter, cream and eggs and say that they just couldn't justify serving this special holiday food to their friends and family. I started thinking "wait -- this is something that's made once a year and people will have a serving or two. What's the big deal?"

I find myself paying less and less attention to nutritional research, to the experts and what's "healthy" and what's not and paying more and more attention to common sense and what people used to eat as well as cooking and eating "real food."
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

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navin
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Post by navin » Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:20 am

Another thing is the fact that, in general, we do less physical labor than our predecessors. For instance, eating a big meal of fried chicken and its extra calories works OK after laboring hard for a day. But eating that same chicken after sitting in front of a computer in the office all day, not so much.
Before criticizing someone, you should try walking a mile in their shoes. Then you'll be a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

lmt2pt
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Post by lmt2pt » Sat Apr 05, 2008 2:02 pm

One of my favorite cookbooks is the original Joy of Cooking. I have my great grandmother's copy. In the margins she had written notes about substitutions or change in quantities or times her mother and grandmother used in their recipes. There are also notes about when is the best season for different ingredients.

Funny how much more pleasure from eating AND how much healthier I've gotten from switching from "health concious eating" to "eating like my great grandma". Maybe that is why she lived so long . . . and so well.
Heather

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Blithe Morning
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Post by Blithe Morning » Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:14 pm

It is hard to get past the "bad" food mindset.

I remember a Reader's Digest vignette from something like Like In These United States section:

An elderly gentleman was an especially cantakerous patient. He drove the nurses to distraction with his constant complaints about inconsequential matters. One night at dinner, he called in a nurse who'd had enough.

"This potato" said the man pointing to a baked potato on his tray "is bad."

The nurse picked it up.

"Bad potato!" she scolded. "Bad, bad potato." She set it back down and walked away.

I try to keep in mind there a lot of different ways to think of "bad" food.

wosnes
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Post by wosnes » Sat Apr 05, 2008 4:35 pm

lmt2pt wrote: Funny how much more pleasure from eating AND how much healthier I've gotten from switching from "health concious eating" to "eating like my great grandma". Maybe that is why she lived so long . . . and so well.
We could all benefit from not only eating like great-grandma, but also moving like she did. The conveniences in our lives are taking a toll on our lives.
"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do. Not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our power to do it is increased." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You are what you eat -- so don't be Fast, Easy, Cheap or Fake."

tracey
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Post by tracey » Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:27 pm

The other thing to remember is that this is a prepared food world. Most people do not cook for themselves and if they do "cook" they are making a boxed/canned meal.

Our ancestors all cooked their foods and no matter what it was they cooked with lard, butter, etc, it was still probably healthier for them than anything we eat today.

I've known a bunch of people who've decided to just stop eating out and make whatever they wanted at home and they lose weight. They are still making and eating the same foods they'd eat out but because they cooked it, it was better.

That said, I think when most people start No-S they end up just eating whatever it is that they've been denied before because they CAN now, if they follow the rules.

As time goes by though their body will start to exert more pressure on them to eat specific foods that it needs.

kccc
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Post by kccc » Sat Apr 05, 2008 8:42 pm

Yeah, there are huge expanses of the grocery store that just don't appeal anymore.

I'm becoming a bit of a food snob - especially where "S's" are concerned - and at the same time enjoying food more.

I bake on weekends. Even if I make brownies with real butter and sugar, they don't contain preservatives, flavor enhancers, etc. the way a mix would (plus they taste better). And I don't even look twice at boxed cookies anymore... homemade are just SO much better!

Of course, I can still go overboard on some stuff. But "overboard" isn't as far as it used to be.

stevecooper
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Post by stevecooper » Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:16 pm

wosnes wrote:What is pork cheese? Do I really want to know?
PORK CHEESE (an Excellent Breakfast Dish).

799. INGREDIENTS.—2 lbs. of cold roast pork, pepper and salt to taste, 1 dessertspoonful of minced parsley, 4 leaves of sage, a very small bunch of savoury herbs, 2 blades of pounded mace, a little nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoonful of minced lemon-peel; good strong gravy, sufficient to fill the mould.

Mode.—Cut, but do not chop, the pork into fine pieces, and allow 1/4 lb. of fat to each pound of lean. Season with pepper and salt; pound well the spices, and chop finely the parsley, sage, herbs, and lemon-peel, and mix the whole nicely together. Put it into a mould, fill up with good strong well-flavoured gravy, and bake rather more than one hour. When cold, turn it out of the mould.

Time.—Rather more than 1 hour.

Seasonable from October to March.

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Blithe Morning
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Post by Blithe Morning » Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:20 am

I think it was in Michael Pollan's book where he said that women who ate out a lot were heavier than women who ate at home. This was true across ages and income levels.

It must be the plate.

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