To think there is a poor understanding of a healthy diet?

[LivelyLemonQuoter]

I think most people think they know what a healthy diet looks like, but in reality they do not. I see so many comments on MN that demonstrate this.

The most common one is that fruit should be limited because of its sugar content. This is very bad advice. Sugar in fruit has little impact on our blood sugar levels. And most people in the UK do not eat enough fruit.

The other is concern over eating any carbs. Wholemeal bread and pasta is fine, carbs in pastry and doughnuts is not great though.

And most people need to eat more nuts. Nuts are very good for you and should be part of your regular diet.

Every year or so I have another go at liking it but it doesn't work

Well @LivelyLemonQuoter got everyone arguing but never came back 😂

Try wild rice - delicious!

https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-microwave-rice-medley/108986916

Exactly, Honestly, what is the point in over analysing everything you put into your mouth? It sounds like an extremely joyless way to live to me.

While this thread is not about lowcarbing, it is about a healthy diet and one that has been shown in extensive research to promote longevity.

The same cannot be said for lowcarbing - although many find it a good weightloss tool. Lowcarb is the exact opposite of what all the longevity diet experts have found in longlived and healthy populations. They eat masses of fibre from wholegrains and vegetables, feature plenty of beans in their diets, also nuts and seeds, and eat predominantly plant-based - including fruit.

People process food differently.
DH avoids processed carbs and low-fat products because he is Diabetic (type 2).
I avoid dairy and flaxseeds.
Increasing consumption of nuts has been proven to trigger nut allergies in some people.
People in renal failure that I know avoid bananas!

IMO the only way to work out your eating habits and what various foods do to your body is to wear a cgm for a couple of weeks and keep a food diary.

Remember that those “studies” don’t cater for everyone…

This thread just goes to show that it’s not a simple black-and-white matter, despite what the OP might claim

maybe not but there are definitely rules of thumb that are useful to follow, which the OP has discussed on this thread. Clearly, we're all individuals and will have our own personal needs to cater for to accommodate allergies etc, but nothing the OP has said is earth-shatteringly bad or wrong. It's general stuff that we probably all know about, and some of which people do ignore if you look at the general population's eating habits.

the OP hasn't mentioned garlic, well I know it's really good for you, thins the blood yada yada, but I absolutely avoid it like the plague, I hate it and it hates me, I don't care how good it is for me. And almost 100% I can guarantee that every product on the shelves nowadays and every dish in a restaurant is bloody well laced with garlic, hence why DH and I eat from scratch so much otherwise I'd be ill the whole time!

DH avoids processed carbs and low-fat products

Whole-food plant-based cultures also avoid processed carbs and low-fat products.

For a lot of people to eat all that fibre it would be a fart fest. Not great for anyone with ibs either.

I feel that food & making choices has become such an emotive minefield & with the emergence of the whole convenience food market it's only increased the confusion.

I try to eat as many real foods as I can & by that I mean I buy raw ingredients similar to what my grandparents would have bought or grown. I don't actually eat a lot of the same types of meals as I use spices & herbs & recipes from other countries that they simply wouldn't have had but the majority of the core basics a the same.

A typical day for me is either porridge or weetabix, small glass of orange juice & real freshly ground coffee

Lunch is either soup with brown soda bread & real butter or salad 99% of the time. Water to drink

Dinner is mostly lean meat/ chicken / fish with vegetables. I eat potatoes & rice but not much pasta these days simply because i don't enjoy it as much. I make lots of curries with chicken & veg & I often have cauliflower rice with mine.

I use things like tinned tomatoes. I make lots of soups that include lentils / Chickpeas / cannelloni beans etc

I'm mid 50s & I've lost & maintained 2.5stone weight loss for the past couple of years now. I'm a healthy bmi

My diet is not perfect but it's a damn sight better than it was & it's achievable in my busy working life as a mother to teens etc

Exactly. Surviving is not the same as thriving.

I'm old enough to remember the times when research had shown that hydrogenated fats were healthier than butter, low-fat-hi-carb diets were healthy, skimmed milk was heathy (actually numerous nutrients in milk are fat-soluble) and smoothies were good for you.
When my mum was a kid, it was perfectly normal to march children who had a cold down to anywhere where someone was laying a road, so they could inhale tar fumes to ease their throat!
You can wind yourself up in knots trying to do the right thing, and still make a total balls-up of it. So I'll stick to the old adage of "everything in moderation", and just try to steer clear of anything being touted as a miracle solution to the basic problem, which is that humans just like eating a bit more than they really need to.

You have to check the ingredients on the packet to know really. You can get some decent proper ingredient loaves but it’s harder to find it without UPF ingredients in the supermarket or even some bakeries. You won’t know unless you read the ingredients. Homemade obviously you know what you’re putting in it but Jason’s do a range of decent ones.

Skimmed milk still is considered healthy as is low saturated fat.

Can you post a link to this 'diet'. I quite like pulses but not three portions a day. I'm deeply suspicious of each new diet idea, beyond the obvious.

I think there is a basic lack of understanding about food, and much of what's taught at school is one dimensional. I have kids with gluten intolerance and a peanut allergy and a dh with diabetes and hear disease - a healthy diet for them is very different to the standard. I see people on diets eating tons of pasta with no veg because it's allowed on slimming world or people giving their kids cereal bars as a 'healthy' snack. There is so much miseducation and yanbu here, many people are clueless

I’ve read the thread and am even more fucking confused thanks.

No thanks, I can't bear wholemeal! Granary is fine but wholemeal is like eating cardboard and doesn't toast well

The UK current recommendation is 30g fibre a day. Most adults eat around 18g.

For anyone without IBS it’s still a good idea to get as much fibre as you can into your diet, but obviously it would be silly to go from hardly any to 30g.

For anyone interested in diet, one of the longest running longitudinal studies of “normal people” is the Nurses’ Health Study in the US which has been running since the 1970s. It does support the Mediterranean diet.

https://nurseshealthstudy.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/table%20v2.pdf

The Blue Zone findings are a bit sketchy and largely debunked as they didn’t account for welfare fraud, clerical errors in government records and lack of verifiable birth records when looking at “longest lived” populations.

Many people don't eat enough fruit and veg that is true, but they also don't have time to go to the toilet 2-3 times a day to poo when they're working 40hr weeks haha.

This.

I cut down on my carb intake on 1st January this year. I was 11 stone 8 and overweight - heading towards obesity.

My daily food intake now is roughly this (this is today's food).

Breakfast - coffee with double cream, smoked salmon and full fat cream cheese.

Lunch - ham off the bone, cheddar cheese and a hard boiled egg. Salad with EV olive oil and ACV dressing. Homemade mayo. Followed by some blueberries, raspberries and full fat Greek yoghurt.

Dinner - chicken curry made from scratch with a homemade spice blend and full fat coconut milk, onions, garlic and peppers. Steamed broccoli

I don't like flavoured cold drinks so will have around 2.5 litres of water, possibly 1 cup of tea and probably 3 coffees in total. I only eat full fat foods, real butter etc.

I don't really look at calorie content. I keep my fat intake reasonably high and my carb intake below 50g.

I'm now 9st 10 and aim to maintain that.

I'm 50. Always full, never feel hungry or have hunger pangs, sleep well. My skin looks better and I no longer feel tired in the middle of the afternoon. I don't eat or even think about snacks because I don't feel hungry between meals.

This sounds delicious! Do you have any other meals you can share?