[casperjeff]

Long and detailed history of nutrition and how the notions we have today about certain foods and what we should eat came about.

Final conclusion is in the first sentence.....

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Heck of a read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...3&ref=magazine

[alinnell]

I read this yesterday and was amazed. It is so true. I liked the part about the "edible foodlike substances" and to never eat anything that your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize. All that means is STAY AWAY FROM PROCESSED FOOD! But it was extremely informative. I also was quite interested in how foods with certain nutrients are beneficial, but take the nutrient out and put it in another form (supplement) and it is not as good for you. A real eye opener.

[phantastica]

It was referenced in a different forum yesterday, and I stayed late at work to read it! I loved this article. What a sensible mix of history, advice, and humor!

And yeah, it's pretty straight forward: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

"What would great-grandmother eat?" That's a good 'compass'.

[casperjeff]

I think I am going to start reading the NY Times Magazine regularly ....what an in-depth article!! (12 pages!!!) . A far sight from the 3 page articles (with 2.5 pages of pictures) I get from People Magazine.

[alinnell]

I think I was the one that referenced it, but I can't remember where it was. I was originally going to put a link to it in the Whole Foods section, but then the other thread popped up.

casperjeff--if you print it out, it comes to 17 pages (at least on my printer!). I actually found the link on a blog called Slashfood. They review all sorts of food related stuff (albeit not necessarily diet reviews!LOL). I find some interesting stuff on there.

[AquaWarlock]

Read that on Monday @ work - brilliant!

I wish there were more people who understand foods like Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) and Marion Nestle (author of Food Politics & What to Eat?), instead of buying into the latest nutrition, single-food trend that's so popularized by mainstream media & advertising.

However, to play devil's advocate I can understand where the nutrition scientists are coming from --- it's hard to conduct well-controlled, reliable experiments on whole diets & lifestyles, which would have a lot of confounding factors that results in very shakey (if at all valid) results.

Experiments are much easier to design with just one nutrient/food change, preferably one they can isolate and put in a pill form. But, as Pollan/Nestle noted - drawing practical results from these studies is a gross misrepresentation of what goes in the real world, where nutrients need to play a context on foods, which plays a context into diets & itself a context into lifestyles.

Edit: Slate.com just came out with an article today analyzing Pollan's NYT Mag piece (juxtaposing Pollan's "nutritional darwinism" approach to the modern scientific nutritionism method), some of which I agree with. http://www.slate.com/id/2158736?nav=tap3

[marzbe]

Finally finished reading it. Heavy on the science but strong on the points.

We actually joke that we should follow my great-grandmother's eating plan, bread and fry everything, don't touch green, barely touch fruit, and never ever eat a piece of cheese. Those eating habits kept her alive to 99 1/2! I'd probably be dead if I ate like that after a month.

[alinnell]

Originally Posted by marzbe

Finally finished reading it. Heavy on the science but strong on the points.

We actually joke that we should follow my great-grandmother's eating plan, bread and fry everything, don't touch green, barely touch fruit, and never ever eat a piece of cheese. Those eating habits kept her alive to 99 1/2! I'd probably be dead if I ate like that after a month.

Ha Ha! Too funny. No, it said not to eat anything great-grandmother wouldn't recognize--not to eat like she did!

[Jasmine31]

I started reading this yesterday and went to bed and dh closed the link, now it says I have to log in! ???

[phantastica]

Here is another link to the same article, that might let you bypass that log-in ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...in&oref=slogin