The anti-Whole30

[almondjoyless]

Came across this article in the Atlantic today: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/the-man-who-would-make-eating-obsolete/361058/

 

If there was a beverage that was scientifically shown to provide all necessary nutrition without any negative long-term effects, would you drink it?

[dipitie]

Soylent green is people!

Or at least full of soy. I like food and once you get past the reason why some delicious food isn't good for you, and you can make almost anything you want in a healthy way with good ingredients and a little prep. I would never choose a drink over a real meal of delicious food.

[almondjoyless]

I LOVE food.  But sometimes I'm in a hurry and just can't be bothered (except then I'm hungry and cranky, so I am bothered).  If this (or something like it) was tested up, down, and sideways and was proven safe and a complete source of nutrition (and I'm highly skeptical), I could see myself using it on occasion.

[Tom Denham]

The farther from eating real, whole food people get, the farther their lives get from reality, health, and happiness. I keep hearing people tell me they are too busy to eat Whole30-style. That is as reasonable as saying they are too busy to breathe every day. The only problem is that if you stop breathing, you become unconscious and a wiser part of your brain takes over and starts breathing again. If you eat fast food on the run, you stay conscious and can go through the motions of life for decades before you figure out that you have become rootless and are failing to really live. It is a shame that we don't faint when we eat badly and stay unconscious until we begin to do better. 

[AmyS]

I agree with Tom.  Also, I've never met a protein drink that didn't give me a massive stomach ache.  So I'm out.

[almondjoyless]

The farther from eating real, whole food people get, the farther their lives get from reality, health, and happiness. 

 

"Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

 

I kid (mostly), but I haven't seen any real data suggesting that this is the case.  In this (admittedly hypothetical) example, nutrition is covered.  It's quite different from subsisting on fast food; it's taking care of bodily necessities in a different way.  Food itself isn't a priority for some people.  If they can do right by their bodies without the time investment, why wouldn't they be as "real" (whatever that means), happy, and healthy as anyone else?

[Tom Denham]

The general public has way too much confidence in science. Someone in a lab coats tells you they can produce a drink that matches all the nutrition of cows, sheep, chickens, lamb, fish, broccoli, cabbage, kale, beets, carrots, turnips, arugula, etc., the rich soil, the sunshine, complicated biological processes, etc. and we buy it. The truth is that we cannot identify all the vitamins, nutrients, etc. in natural food, so how can we hope to match that food with artificial stuff. Science leaves out stuff it can't identify and says it doesn't matter because they can supply all the parts they do understand. It just doesn't measure up. And honestly, if you look at the studies of supplements, it is clear that people have a harder time getting nutrition from pills than from real food. 

 

I'm really not an expert in any of this, but I know enough to be wildly skeptical of claims to offer real nourishment in a bottle.

[melbournegirl]

When I was young and suffering from numerous food intolerances and digestion issues, I used to wish I could subsist on pills instead.

But now I know (have established) the whole30 foods I can eat for good health and digestion I don't waste any of my eating experiences on juices or smoothies or empty grains, and also cook 95% from scratch...exceptions being some canned goods like tomatoes, coconut milk, fruit and of course bacon.

So no, that would be a frankenfood to me.

[Tom Denham]

"Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

 

I kid (mostly), but I haven't seen any real data suggesting that this is the case.  In this (admittedly hypothetical) example, nutrition is covered.  It's quite different from subsisting on fast food; it's taking care of bodily necessities in a different way.  Food itself isn't a priority for some people.  If they can do right by their bodies without the time investment, why wouldn't they be as "real" (whatever that means), happy, and healthy as anyone else?

 

I am reading a book by Norman Wirzba entitled Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating. I assumed I would not like the book because I assumed it would try to claim eating as a religious act and claim ordinary, daily activities as some kind of spiritual thing. I used to be a professional Christian, although I turned amateur in 1997, and I started reading the book just to see what "those guys" whom I used to be among were saying about my latest area of focus. I'm only in the second chapter and "Dag Nabbit," the book is capturing my imagination. I see connections between how we eat and the quality of life in general. 

 

For years, I ran Employee Assistance Programs and provided counseling services to very driven, successful people. I began to understand that having a Ph.D., being Senior VP of a public company, and being a Platinum Club member of the Delta Airlines frequent flyer program did not make anyone happy. And I see happy people, sitting down with friends and family on a routine basis, eating home cooked meals and talking. 

 

I do eat in restaurants some and I often eat alone, but I'm starting to see that the most solid people I know practice certain routines that involve eating sit-down meals with family and friends, showing gratitude for their lives. 

 

I'm not ready to say I like the book I am reading, but it is "speaking" to me.

[GlennR]

On the other hand, once they invent the replicator from Star Trek that just materializes food, I'm in. Or the equivalent in reality: food assembled by 3d printing or nanobots. Would resolve a lot of resource and ethical eating issues.

[AllyB]

Wasn't there a news story recently on how they made 'burger' in a test tube?  I'm thinking that is right up there with 'healthy vegetable oils'...corn oil and canola.  Frankenfood!

[EatTrainClean]

Re: fast food, I think everyone here will appreciate this study:

 

Fast Food Hamburgers: What are we really eating?

 

Fast food hamburgers are comprised of little meat (median, 12.1%). Approximately half of their weight is made up of water. Unexpected tissue types found in some hamburgers included bone, cartilage, and plant material; no brain tissue was present. Sarcocystis parasites were discovered in 2 hamburgers.

 

 

Re: Tom's notion that "being a Platinum Club member of the Delta Airlines frequent flyer program did not make anyone happy" is spot on, and I also got a good laugh out of that comment.

 

-Casey

[LisaLulu]

They once claimed baby formula was so nutritious that it rivaled human milk- then they discovered the human milk was also full of antibodies and omega 3 and hormones and other good stuff that was even more important than the vitamins and minerals. There are so many antioxidants and other compounds in foods we haven't even discovered yet, there is no way any man made drink even comes close to actual food. 

[almondjoyless]

Bear in mind that science is the reason we know about things like vitamins and minerals.  I think the public has too little faith in science and the scientific method, not too much.  (See, for example, the anti-vaccine movement.)  If there was more funding available for nutrition research, we could make decisions based on actual evidence, rather than anecdotes and our intrinsic but highly fallible biases (for example, confirmation bias).

[Bet]

 

Re: Tom's notion that "being a Platinum Club member of the Delta Airlines frequent flyer program did not make anyone happy" is spot on, and I also got a good laugh out of that comment.

 

-Casey

 

It makes my husband happy because he has to travel a lot for business   The free booze doesn't hurt.

[TessTurbo]

Vile.

/end_rant

[EatTrainClean]

It makes my husband happy because he has to travel a lot for business   The free booze doesn't hurt.

Well played. Being a non-drinker, I would not enjoy being in that club, as traveling is not my favorite activity. Not a big fan of airplane food.

[Tina R]

Did anyone see Dr Terry Wahls video about how she is healing her ms? http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs7jqqdv5eg. At first her Doctors gave her heavy medications that didn't slow the progression of the disease. Then she investigated vitamins and minerals that she could take to help. Although this did help a little she was still declining. Then she started eating whole hunter gatherer foods and remarkable things began to happen. She went from being wheelchair bound to riding a bike. It appears that although supplements and powders may have nutrition there is something about eating the whole food that provides everything your body needs. I think science is very valuable but I am wondering if scientists are more interested in finding the one solution and maybe it's more about the combination of solutions. I am not a scientist like almondjoyless so maybe I am wrong.

[wendelina]

As someone who once wanted to be a chemist, and who is has an engineering degree, I have a TON of faith in science and the scientific method, but I think science has a _very_ hard time in the area of nutrition.

 

First, they are trying to isolate down to a very small level - does chemical (nutrient, vitamin, etc.) X cause Y?  This is hard because frankly, we eat nothing in isolation, and getting people to take pills in isolation (exact same diet, exact same exercise, exact same life) is not realistic.  People would not volunteer to basically live in a lab for the duration of a study, and even then, I think most people now recognize the role that stress plays in our health, and it would be productive to see how the studied chemical behaves in real life, under "real world" conditions, in addition to the ideal of "lab rats" (whether literal rat or not)

 

Second, I think science is only barely beginning to understand the interplay between chemicals.  This can be seen with some of the studies of fortifying certain vitamins via supplements vs eating foods rich in those vitamins (e.g., you need fat to process ... I think it's A and D).

 

Third, the human body is _complex_.  We know so much about it ... and yet so little, it seems to me.  If we really knew what we thought we knew, we wouldn't have seen the wild roller coaster ride of "diets" proposed to us over the last 50 years.

 

Soylent promises to give us 100% of everything we know we need for nutrition.  That may even be true.  But, it can't possibly give us all the things we don't yet know about.

 

Thanks, but I'll be sticking to the things that humans have been eating for millennia.  Just feels like a better answer than "stuff cooked up in a lab somewhere."

[Mom2A&M]

Not to mention, we are all different and needs different things. How can they provide for any variation for individual needs. Whole 30 is limited but there is still room for variations like AIP, low FODMAPS, vegetarian, etc.