7 replies to this topic

[icyT]

All I really know is that I need amino acids to repair my body, so I buy cottage cheese, whey powder, canned tuna, canned chicken, canned hot-pepper sardines, canned salmon. Occasionally bologna but that's pretty high in non-essential fats so that's more of an indulgence.

 

I have a bunch of Vitamin C tablets (sweetened with aspartame) which I take, they're delicious and I think Vitamin C is used to repair collagen or something.

 

When I think of it I take a multivitamin and some omega 3 pills (the fish oil kind with higher DHA/EPA)

 

Aside from this, I eat a bunch of other stuff via family, some healthy, some not.

 

I guess the diff is I'm not really regularly willing to pay for stuff that isn't healthy and relatively cheap, even if I'm willing to eat food others buy which does not fit those parameters.

 

I figure the main area I'm not covering is vegetables. When I occasionally check out supermarket fliers I see onions and they don't seem that expensive. I wonder if I could just nibble on them raw (could not eat many at once, intense taste) or cook them into a stew or something.

 

Oh yeah I also bought some ground chicken but it's not a regular since I find it easier to eat canned meats (pretty sur they're all pre-cooked) rather than to cook my own. I think I could put the ground chicken in with the onion. I think I would want to cook it hot and kinda long though as I heard chickens might have more antibiotic-resistant bacteria than other farmed animals so I would want to make sure I killed it all.

 

I remember years ago reading about 'nootropics' and stuff and I'd eventually like to get that too, my brain's a mess, I could use a booster. I drink coffee daily so that's something. I do have a bad habit of sugaring it up though. I know that's not very CRON though. I'm pretty sure if I tidied up habits like sugar in the coffee or giant bowls of raisin bran (I've also bought that but I doubt cereal is a good investment) I'd probably slim down too.

 

Last year I had this gut pain episode, doc said it was muscular but I think she was BSing because she couldn't tell me the name of the muscle and I read about the actions of core muscles and moved around to test the react. To me, I'm pertty sure it was some kinda intestine thing. Blood tests said it wasn't ruptured appendix. Obv. if intestines had burst I'd get sepsis so I don't think it was that serious. I just think it was some kind of slight injury to the intestine that got better.

 

I'm thinking if I cut back on food bulk I'd not only lessen metabolic stress (less DNA damage, glycoprotein bonds, etc) but also decompress my cut so not everything would be under such pressure. I figure that could cut down on food cutting my guts so much, plus reduced pressure might allow it to heal better.

 

So anyway, back to veggies. Aside from the onions, I dunno, garlic? Pain to press, I dunno if powdered would be as good as fresh, seems a lot easier to manage though. I do like lettuce but I'm not sure how much nutrition is in it. Spinach is cool even if it shrinks, I prefer it cooked, these raw spinach salads are a bit crunchy.

 

Carrots are fine but I think they put beta-carotene into vitamins so I don't know how necessary. I always make sure to take my multi with my omega pills so that there is fat to help absorb the fat-soluble vitamins. I think this happens once it exits stomach so by that point hopefully the gelatin casing around the fat that makes it into a pill will have dissolved nad released it to mix with the disintegrating vitamin.

 

If I'm getting vitamin C pills I probably don't need apples even though I like'm. Do apples do anything else significant? I'm probably forgetting a benefit of potatoes, they and carrots seem pretty sugary though. Bananas too but I prob need the potassium. Is it what balances out the sodium? I really like sodium, dunno what to think about research claiming we should get less...

 

Sometimes I get head-throb when I work out, makes a guy want to get trepanned. I don't use the honey-garlic plastic sauce pouches that come with chicken wings so I keep those in the freezer and hold them to my head (they don't turn to ice) which seems to help. I'm thinking if I worked with lower weights so I could manage to breathe and do some higher reps that maybe this'd help with circulation or something. I've never really understood why I get the head throb, just makes it really hard to do any decent workouts.

 

Are any grains worth bothering with? I put peanut butter on bread to have with coffee, but that's prob a bad habit contributing to keep me fat, stupid and indulgent. Bread in general has a 'full o sugar' rep, guess I'm just desparation-reaching for some kind of benefit worth keeping it around, heh. Same with pastas and stuff.

 

Cottage Cheese seems the healthiest due to the protein, I swap between 0/1/2 fat but can't seem to notice the diff so usualyl just get what's cheapest. I do like grating other kinds cheese on stuff like salad or spaghetti. Prob all inferior deals to cottage though, but it's a nice change.

 

I bought some mussels once and did make them, and do intend to use them up, but it's not something I plan to make a habit of. They're a pain to cook and a pain to eat, too much gristle. The big pull was I heard they were cheap but that must just be American Wal-Marts because in Canada I couldn't find any cheap deals at all, would rather just get tuna.

 

Besides mayo I'm wondering what is a good mix for tuna to help get it down as it's a bit dry otherwise. Was thinking of experimenting with mustard since that's 0cal and has spices and stuff. Anyone know any other good condiments? I chopped up some celery in it once but it wasn't as good as when I got celery-tuna sandwiches at a store. I think because I cut my chunks too large, fine chunks are better, dunno how they got them that small.

 

Was thinking of trying out some hot sauces, I heard spicy stuff is healthy for you and maybe if I do more of that I can rely less on sugary stuff for stimulation. Already down that road with hot pepper sardines but I think I need some sauces. "Sriracha" sounds interesting due to reading TheOatmeal. I want to try Tobasco and Frank's Red sauce too. Wondering if anyone has any recommendations.

 

I like bean sprouts and broccoli when I eat chinese occasionally, they sound kinda healthy, thinking might try buying some.

 

Veggies need prep and I'm kinda food-lazy so this is going to be a slow process getting into adding them to meals I entirely design myself. I guess you need fiber though? *shrug*

[Chupo]

You might want to avoid refined, processed, fractionated foods and synthetic vitamin supplements to start. Base your diet on natural, whole foods and go from there.

[Nootropic Milk Hotel]

If you're concerned about sugar in your coffee, you can try one of the alternative sweeteners on the market. Some people can't get over the (after)taste of stevia, but I have never noticed a significant different from sugar. Sugar alcohols like inositol and erithytol are worth looking into; they're more expensive than sugar but still certainly affordable.

[scottknl]

Wow.  I have to say that your diet looks like a kind of disaster waiting to happen.  First, regarding protein -- your diet seem to be very protein based.  Unless you're a pro athlete, all that animal based protein is hard on the kidneys over time and the body can only use so much protein at one time, so much of it will be wasted.  Cottage cheese is high in animal based protein made from milk that contains natural and possibly artificial growth hormones that will make you fat (if you're old enough to have finished growing vertically).  Tuna is another very poor choice.  Modern tuna fish are at the high end of the food chain and aggregate lots of pollutants from the sea.  One way to tell how much fish you eat is to measure the arsenic in your blood.  Think about that one for a second.  Chickens are deliberately fed arsenic to fatten them up.  Yes, it can be avoided by buying organic, but even the organic chickens don't eat a natural diet.  Instead of insects and worms/bugs chickens are fed on grains and so the omega 6 is much higher in the meat.  Canned meats are likely high in nitrates and will cause heart disease in many people and reduce physical performance after many years of consumption.  I'd avoid all ground meats since you don't know what you're getting and so can't determine what it's place in your diet is.  How much fat?  How much protein?  How much pink slime filler?  You just don't know when you buy ground anything.   

 

The best approach is to whole-sale change your diet to a plant based diet.  If you have to eat meats, use them sparingly and realize that you need only 1g per kg of body weight of protein.  The easy way to do it is to stir fry for 1-2 minutes chopped vegetables.  After 1 - 2 hrs of cooking you can have all your food for a week.  For me 20 g of each vegetable 2x per day makes a nice soup or plate of veggies.  Top off with a modest amount of olive oil and some spices and add garlic and ginger liberally.  Avoid grains when you're trying to lose weight -- otherwise, keep it a very modest portion of your daily calories (like one slice of bread per day).  Don't forget to include beans.  They provide a nice balance of carbs and protein in a plant based form.  I consider wheat to be just another plant and so it only gets 20 g twice a day along with the other veggies.  Oh.. also nuts and seeds should be added in modest amounts to each meal since the fats aid in the absorption of the nutrition from veggies.  As others have noted, processed foods are total crap and a recipe for eventual disaster healthwise.

 

You may be one of the lucky ones who have a great set of genes and lots of family members that live to a ripe old age in a great health and eat anything they want, may smoke and often drink some.  For the rest of us the approach above seem to work for some of us.  Another portion of people can't stick to plant based diet and drift towards a paleo type diet.  I don't really know of any way to predict into which of these 3 groups you might belong.  It's trial and error.

 

I hope your avatar isn't one of your longevity heros.  Pro wrestlers live short lives with painful ends.  

Edited by scottknl, 30 May 2015 - 05:35 PM.

[Nootropic Milk Hotel]

 like inositol and erithytol

 

Whoops, I meant xylitol, not inositol. Silly me.

[Mind]

Unless you are an athlete or do physical labor for work, you are getting too much protein (for life extension purposes).

 

Try more veggies. If you eat mostly protein heavy foods, then veggies probably don't taste all that good. Make salads more palatable by adding salt, olive oil, cheese, spices like garlic, etc... You will get used to eating veggies over time.

 

For canned tuna, I mix it with extra virgin olive oil, jerk seasoning, and cheddar cheese.

[timar]

I agree with the previous posts. The OP should fundamentally reconsider his approach to nutrition.

 

What are good staples? The food that nurtured 500 generations of your ancestors: whole grains and legumes. From a non-caloric standpoint, fruits and vegetables are at least equally important and in contrast to our ancestors we have vast variety available all-season. To give all this abundant, life-enhancing nutritional goodness the go-by is very unwise. Moderate amounts high-quality animal products, such as fish, eggs and fermented dairy, nicely complement such a plant-based diet and add some important nutrients which are hard or impossible to get from plant foods alone, but they are not dietary staples and can (probably) be substituted by particular plant foods and supplements when following a vegan diet. When it comes to diet and longevity, there are multiple lines of evidence suggesting that a high-protein, high-animal product diet is detrimental to longevity and promotes chronic disease. All studied populations with an outstanding longevity track record (e.g. Okinawans and Sardinians) have followed the dietary pattern I described above.

[misterE]

Starches: pasta, flour, legumes, rice, corn, barley, oats...