A Little of What You Fancy?

[MrPlum]

I can't eat junk food. It tastes awful and as I mentioned in another thread, if I eat a Big Mac, I feel as if I've been poisoned. And yet there are those who can't eat anything else. Why is this? Then there are the 'Epicureans' who love better quality dishes and eat and drink to excess. Is this you?

When it comes to food, many of us have a real love affair with it. It nourishes, comforts and energizes us. I've a friend who 'just loves to eat'. He's overweight, has diabetes and had a stroke and can't move his outsize frame and yet he still 'loves' his grub. He's an absolute slave to his cravings. This attitude is totally alien to me. I've always eaten to live and not lived to eat. I wouldn't say I'm 100% healthy either. Rare is the man or woman who is truly content.

Hippocrates said 'Let Food be thy Medicine and Medicine be thy food'. In every country, in every century, people KNOW you are what you eat.

Look down any high street or in any School playground and you will see an explosion of obesity. Do you care? Or do you feel helpless?

Is it possible to eat so-called 'junk food' and stay healthy?

What do you think?

[STEVE G]

I tend to go for the 'everything in moderation, including moderation' approach.
I eat a healthy diet when I'm in Asia, but when I'm here working I sometimes have to rely on less than optimum health options.
Actually the mainstay of my diet consists of various filled baguettes, which I suppose are slightly better than McDonalds, but I'm sure someone could find they're full of something deadly if they look hard enough.
The smoked-ham and salad ones are very tasty, so there must be something unhealthy about them!

[TypicallyTropical]

I remember when they said salt was bad for me, when they said sugar was bad for me, when they said red meat was bad for me, when they said margarine was bad for me, etc. I remember when they said pasta was good for me than they said it was bad for me. So guess what! I eat whatever I feel like and I don't give a s*** about it!

[Spitfire]

Regarding salt, I don't put extra salt on food generally, there's already enough of it in food if your diet is OK.

I don't go crazy about the healthy option all the time as I do enjoy some things that would be considered unhealthy too. I'm in the moderation camp with Steve but do attempt to go healthy on a few things, like red grape juice for breakfast with a cereal that is high in fiber, brown bread and rice etc.

Don't eat red meat much, just sometimes when I feel like "What the hell", mostly a chicken/fish/seafood sort of person. Usually an olive oil user, if not then it's sunflower oil which is the best of the rest I reckon.

Being healthy doesn't mean boring or wacky, you can do a lot by just small changes. Yes, the above is what I generally do but when I feel like a steak at a restaurant then it's no problem, just get stuck in and enjoy. Nothing is banned so to speak but there's plenty that I reckon shouldn't be a constant intake overly often.

MrP may frown but I also pop a multivitamin everyday too just to be sure.

[redzonerocker]

i eat to live & i generally eat what i want, though only when i'm hungry instead of because it's dinner time.

i generally prefer healthy foods like salad, fruit & veg.
i don't & never have eaten red meat (since chldhood), so chicken,pork & seafood are my main meal options.

i don't eat breakfast & quite often will go all through the day without eating except maybe a snack, though plenty of fluid intake, tea, coffee, juice & water.
occasional fried/junk food, but generally anything & everything in moderation!!

i have to agree mr p, the obesity rate is quite alarming & depressing.
i would suggest a lot of that is down to lack of exercise as well as poor diet.
as a kid i was never in & always active (still am!), a lot of kids nowadays are never out, preferring the tv, pc or gameboy

[lomuamart]

About a year ago, I was just lethargic and getting nowhere fast. It wasn't a big problem, but I knew there was something wrong. I was eating two or three times a day, but just not feeling better for it.
So, I spent a few days simply Googling the internet about vitamins A,B, C, D etc etc plus nutrition.
What food stuffs were the best/highest in these vitamins? And which are the ones readily available in Thailand. I've still got the notes I wrote. An example for me was fruit and vitamin C. Well, I would have guessed that was an orange or lime. Aparantely, no. Guava is foremost and papaya is a close second. I eat papaya now because I don't really like guava.
At the end of the day, we were both eating really well anyway. But things could be improved.
So, my wife has spoken to her mother who's a Buddhist nun in HH and thankfully the Mum agreed with me. Now my wife's on a "detox diet". Mr P, neither of us know exactly what that means. It's just our pet name. She's eating all sorts of vegies and fruit, but little in the way of rice. A couple of days ago, I did ask her whether she'd be interested in talking to you more about this. I don't know, but maybe with a bit more prompting she might be. She is into it but neither of us really know what we're talking about.
Meanwhile, Lomu fades on a golf course during the last 4 holes or so. That's just fitness and bad living.
I eat to live and enjoy doing so. Variety is the spice of life.

[Jimbob]

If food is tasteless I don't eat it.
If I don't like the taste, its not medicine, so It rots. I include lettuce, cucumber, egg plant and a few other things
I can't stand many processed foods. Smelly cheese? Yuk
I don't aim to eat healthy it just happens to be that way. Steak is rare in my diet(ooh, a pun).
Good peasant food is better than rich city food.
You are what you eat but an ocassional little fancy food can be a reward.

[Vital Spark]

I eat like a sparrow (quote my father).

When I was young my mother took me to the doctors and told him I wasn't eating much food. He did a quick check and commented that he hadn't actually seen me in the surgery before, and was a healthy young lass, so not to worry. I'm not, and have never been, a big eater. Parahandy loves to cook, and all our food is fresh and healthy - he just knows not to put too much on my plate...

Everybody's different in their eating habits and desires. Quite frankly, if someone said 'Here's a pill, it'll give you all the nutrients and vitamins your body needs,' I'd be happy.

VS

[Arcadian]

Here in my corner of North Africa there are no corporate fast food joints, at all, very little processed foods: fresh fruit,veg, meat (including pork) are readily available and all in season, so nothing is flown half way across the world. Having said that a Mcd`s is always welcome for a treat when in HH or UK. Not many fat arabs to be seen and most of the kids happily play in the street. Life is much like my childhood in the 50`s.

[Jaime]

I voted 'stop telling me food is bad for me.' If we are discussing the problem of weight gain then it is generally not food that is the problem but exercise. There is a crude equation that goes something like this:

i - o = F

Where:

i is Energy In (eaten)
o is Energy Out (expended by exercise)
F = Fat

If i is greater than o then your body will have to store some of the calorie intake as fat.

So, if you eat 3000 calories a day and only use 1000 of them for your daily activities you WILL get fat.

This also means that if you eat 2000 calories a day but use 3000 calories as energy for exercise you will not get fat.

Whilst salt and chemical content are different areas for discussion, for most people - unless they have a specific genetic disorder - the equation above basically holds true. However, most people are simply too lazy to accept this and prefer to partake in ridiculous and unhealthy 'dieting' for weight loss.

The only time I ever lose weight is by getting off my arse and shifting some of it!

[Jaime]

Good peasant food is better than rich city food.

Depends what you mean by peasant food - most traditional peasant food that I know of is not for the faint hearted and designed to fuel people toiling all day. Pastry, bread, cheese, lard, butter etc. Westerners got fat because as they became affluent they kept eating the food but stopped doing the same sort of work.

I include myself in the above description!

[STEVE G]

Peasants food? dreadful stuff!

[TypicallyTropical]

Cute piggy!
BTW, my favorite pet is a duck in the oven!

[poosmate]

Slow roasted plums with sun dried sage would make me healthier.

[TypicallyTropical]

Slow roasted plums with sun dried sage would make me healthier.

A BJ a day keeps the flu away!