Everyday Systems

I've been living abroad for about 6 years but most of my media input still comes from the states. What I've been noticing lately, though I'm sure it's affected me (and my diet mentality) for years, is the various forms of "eat this not that" that pop up every day.

(First of all let me say that I haven't read that particular book, so if it's a good source of information I apologize all over the place.)

But what's been bothering me is reading in a magazine an article about, say, "10 Mood Buster" Foods. Eat blueberries, salmon, dark chocolate, etc... and then the next day you'll read an article about the "7 Grains you MUST eat" and the next day you'll read an article about "The 3 foods you need to eat in order to lose weight" etc., etc.

It's probably all good advice, but I am finding that it puts me on overload. On the one hand, the sensible advice to eat less, move more, and on the other hand an incredible list of foods you should have every day or every week in order to be healthy or diet successfully.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about here? It's crazy-making. It's like we've lost the power to eat normally because there is so much advice about how to eat healthily. And, for sure, you can't fit it all into 3 plates a day.

Could it be that diet advice is what's making us fat?

PS-- I just had two abysmal no-S weeks. Back on track tomorrow, for sure.

Janie

janieb wrote:(First of all let me say that I haven't read that particular book, so if it's a good source of information I apologize all over the place.)

But what's been bothering me is reading in a magazine an article about, say, "10 Mood Buster" Foods. Eat blueberries, salmon, dark chocolate, etc... and then the next day you'll read an article about the "7 Grains you MUST eat" and the next day you'll read an article about "The 3 foods you need to eat in order to lose weight" etc., etc.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about here?

I'm afraid I do know. You see, I'm one of the people who writes them. If you find such articles on the Internet, they're usually written to a very specific format in order to make sure that a website is bumped a bit higher on search engines (The technique is called SEO writing).

You want a title or headline that has an emotional hook -- ideally either something that frightens, promised thinness or promises sex. Then you make sure that the keywords fit in naturally and in the correct placement in the article so as not to spoil the rhythm of the piece. The headline is to get the click. The writing has to keep you on the page reading for a certain amount of time. For the gold star, the conclusion has to get you to click on something that gives MORE information, and ideally sends you to click on advertising or to buy a product.

The reason this garbage is showing up in PRINT more is because we're getting used to the format for our reading material in general so we're responding to it better. It's short, not too complex and quick to digest. Kind of like junk food, I suppose.

Yes, far too much information, too much advice, too many people saying I've got to do this, eat that, read the other thing - and it is mostly pure ****

Many of us here in the West have all the basic necessities - but the economy demands we go on consuming, with ever noisier nonsense used to keep us shopping. It makes me want to be a hermit sometimes, living in a cave, away from the purposeless frenzy of consumerism.

Things like peak oil may help us reverse some of this insane obsession with possessions, maybe we can turn more towards a life based on what we do and who we care for - well, that's what I'm hoping anyway.

It is good to have some form of practice to counterbalance the world's noise - things like Tai Chi or meditation can help combat the craziness.

Yes, I've been thinking about this recently too, and something that resonates with me is Reinhard's comment on page 20-21 of The No S diet book:

... simple excess, and not the lack of any particular dietary substance, is the most pressing nutritional problem today. The single healthiest thing most of us could do today from a nutritional standpoint, by a long shot, would be simply to eat less. You have no business worrying about antioxidants when you're 50 pounds overweight.

I NEVER listen to those stupid articles. Something will just come out next week saying the opposite of what this week's recommend, anyway. I think it's all just hype, and often geared towards pushing some special diet or agenda (vegetarian groups are especially sneaky about this.) I do think that all the diet "advice" we are given just makes us fatter, since inevitably it tells us to gorge on "special" foods and cut out whole different food groups.

The real problem, of course, is that we just eat way too much. It's not that we're eating too little dark chocolate, or grapes, or whatever the fad food of the week is....is that we're eating that, AND the half pizza, and those "healthy" snacks we're told we're supposed to be binging on ever half hour. As long as you're eating real, normal people food (almost every adult knows to eat lots of veggies and whole grains) and not living on diet food, fake milk, and such you will absolutely not get any kind of nutritional deficiency. I have lost 17 pounds in a little less than two months by eating pretty much whatever I wanted, just eating less of it within the No S guidelines. And, my health is doing great.

You're certainly not the only one feeling dietary information overload. A friend of mine was experiencing it about 10 years -- and millions of bits of information -- ago.

I don't know if I'm more upset by the books and articles that tell me what new superfood I need to eat or those that tell me what group of foods I need to avoid or eliminate.

I do think that a lot of it goes back to what I posted in another thread recently: nutrition science is still in its infancy. Researchers are finding more and more connections between certain foods and disease -- either the absence or presence of it.

I'm annoyed by the authors and researchers who cherry pick foods from different cultures to be added to our diet. You know, the Japanese have low rates of prostate and breast cancer and they eat soy, so we need to eat soy. The Greeks have low rates of heart disease and they use lots of olive oil, we we need to use olive oil. And so on. But the Japanese also have lower rates of heart disease and they don't use olive oil. The Greeks also have lower cancer rates and they don't eat soy.

Eat Food, not too much, mostly plants.

(not my original thoughts as you probably know )