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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

You can actually eat pork belly without it having bad effect on your health. You just have to avoid to do it too much. Is grain berry in the amount that satiate you actually good for you to be eaten every day for breakfast?

It is puzzling to me why low-fat cereal would be some kind of win or automatically should be considered great thing. You get energy from fat, sugar and proteins. Healthy human can and should eat all three, but I really dont understand why specifically amount of low-fatness of some cereal box would be advantage.

The issue with nutrition is that it is complicated. Food is rarely straight in the "good" and "bad" category. If distinguising between processed and ultraprocessed allows us to simplify it enough to reason about stuff in contemporary stores, then it is useful.

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> It is puzzling to me why low-fat cereal would be some kind of win or automatically should be considered great thing. You get energy from fat, sugar and proteins. Healthy human can and should eat all three, but I really dont understand why specifically amount of low-fatness of some cereal box would be advantage.

Dietary fiber is a huge part of nutrition and you're ignoring it in your above analysis. In particular, dietary fiber allows you to feel full without consuming ludicrous amounts of calories.

A high-fiber, low-sugar, low-fat cereal provides "stomach filler", so to speak. It makes you feel full, it provides vitamins, minerals, and fiber (important nutrients to live).

The psychology of a full stomach has a huge effect on whether or not someone is going to overeat later in the day. If you eat high-calorie foods like lard (_unprocessed_ fat from pork belly), you're simply not going to have as full of a stomach as someone who was filling up on fibers (even if those fibers are "ultraprocessed").

You shouldn't need "stomach filler" to feel satiated. If the food you are eating has enough nutrients, you should not feel hungry. Nutrition-derived satiety is not the same thing as fullness, which should probably be considered a negative consequence of overeating.

Unfortunately many people are so used to eating nutritionally bankrupt food that the connection between satiety and nutrition is broken, and many people exist in such a constant state of hunger that only fullness can temporarily stop them from eating more. The people I've met who overeat fiber to keep themselves from overeating caloric food have typically not been very healthy.

This "psychology of a full stomach" is not a requirement to live. In moderation, fiber is fine, but so is lard. You don't have to eat until you are full, you can simply stop eating when you have consumed enough nutrients. The body can give good feedback if one chooses to listen. Unfortunately this innate animalian skill is easy to forget in a world of soda and cheetos.

If you want a more thorough exposition of this idea, consider the book "Why Diets Make us Fat" by Sandra Aamodt, especially if you are interested in the psychology of eating. Please stop hating on pork belly. It is fine in moderation.

> Please stop hating on pork belly. It is fine in moderation.

I know I can finish an entire pound of pork belly tonight if I am given the opportunity. I'm not going to do it, because I know that's not "in moderation".

The amount of nutrition you get from 1-lb of pork belly will be miniscule compared to a properly balanced meal. But its so damn tasty that you really can just keep shoving that sort of thing into your mouth.

Anything in moderation is healthy. Saying "X is healthy in moderation" is almost not useful at all. That's why serving sizes and yes, religious dedication to weighing foods and portion control is a thing that serious people do when they're seriously dieting.

Oxycodon in moderation is healthy. That's how unhelpful that "in moderation" statement is for dietary health.

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As for "Pork Belly", I'm really saying Lechon kawali, which is a particular Filipino preparation of Pork, which is probably the best tasting pork in the world. Its very good stuff. I just don't think the general English-speaking audience will know what "Lechon kawali" is, so I'm using a rough translation.

Pork belly contains important macronutrients like protein and fat, which is part of why it tastes good. Despite that, I know I can stop eating it when choose to. Pork belly itself is not a problem; the problem is unhealthy eating habits. Thankfully, habits can be learned, unlearned, and modified.

"X in moderation" is pretty good advice for most X. It just turns out many people are quite bad at moderation, prefering instead to "shove X into their mouth" or otherwise consume in ways that promote overindulgence. Usually, these habits deserve scrutiny more than X. It possible to choose to eat in a different way.

Seriously, read that book. If you've studied "serious diets," you should know their medium- and long-term success rates are absolutely dismal. Luckily it is not the only way. Working with the hard-to-modify aspects of food psychology is easier, more sustainable, more enjoyable, and more effective than fighting against them.

> Seriously, read that book.

If you have a point to be made, you can make it here and now without the need of a hundred-page reference. I understand you put a lot of work into reading books about diets or whatever, but I also make my arguments based on the findings supported by a large body of research.

I'm not going to ask you to read through all of the reference material I'm using to build up my arguments. At best, I'm going to point out the FDA + Department of Agriculture studies on health and nutrition which inform my decisions and arguments.

But anyone who says "my argument is in a book elsewhere" is just... going to be ignored by me. Just an FYI. That's also why I'm not shoving FDA or Department of Agriculture whitepapers into your face.

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The mainstream science of food, eating, and nutrition is pretty simple and straightforward. Have a balanced meal (multiple forms of fruits and vegetables. Roughly 1/2 the meat of the average American. Grossly lower sugar intake compared to the average American). That's it.

These papers on "ultraprocessed foods" or "alternative diets" may have something about them, but it is the job of its advocates to make solid arguments about why the mainstream thought is insufficient or inadequate.

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What can I say about diets? Some people have a strong ability to stick to diets, while others do not. Studying the psychology of "what makes people feel full" is an important part of the equation.

Some people just can't help themselves. For those people, you teach them psychology, so that they trick themselves into healthy eating.

I'm offering the book as a resource because I think it might be helpful or interesting to you and other people with similar thoughts. It discusses many things you have mentioned. There's only so much depth one can put in a comment, but some of my favorite books are ones I found metioned in passing here. You can take it or leave it.

I'm really not sure what the "mainsteam science of food" is. Studies linking food to health outcomes are notoroiously low quality, and there isn't strong consensus on most things, other than basic stuff like "eat more vegetables." And it wasn't that long ago that the USDA was saying "eat more grains, less veggies." If you think it is simple I would suggest you read a larger variety of sources. Human health is a very complex subject and there is a lot we still don't know.

I would rather we teach people how to help themselves, rather than teaching them ways to trick themselves. It's hard to trick yourself for long periods of time, especially when you are up against biological imperatives. People who's strategies don't rely on tricks are more successful.

Learning psychology, and learning to trick yourself into accomplishing greater goals is probably one of the most effective life hacks I've ever used.

If you don't like it, that's fine. I'm just saying... it works. And it works very well. Predict your own behaviors, be honest with yourself, and then nudge yourself into improving yourself through greater reasoning.

If you know that X will make you overeat, then avoid X from the start. If you know that Y makes you feel full, then eat Y. Etc. etc. That reduces the amount of measuring you need to do when dieting, because you can start to trust the nerve-cells in your stomach and/or brain chemistry for when you feel full and/or hungry.

That's the problem with a lot of diets: they don't recognize the efficacy that a little bit of psychology and prediction can do. Everyone's psychology is slightly different: what works for one person doesn't work for everyone else. So you need to customize it to each person.

But once you figure out someone's psychology, you really can "manipulate them to better themselves". That includes yourself. And its a lot less stressful than trying to "willpower" your way throughout the hours, days, or weeks.

> If you know that X will make you overeat

I've never met a food with this kind of psychic power. Even if pigs did have this dramatic power at some point, surely it is lost after they are cooked.

I can get on board with being honest with yourself and trusting your stomach, but I wouldn't call that a psychology or a trick/hack. I would simply call that listening to the signals your body has been sending all along. But if you are interested in psychological manipulation in other contexts maybe it can be helpful to frame it that way.

"Willpower" methods are usually set up to fail because they approach the problem from a bad angle. It takes sustained effort to look at a delicious food while abstaining. It takes less effort if the food is far away, out of sight. It takes no effort if you decide it's not that delicious after all. But if you have something that works for you by all means stick to it.

It's only useful it it allows you to reason correctly about stuff in contemporary stores. The argument is that the label does not supply information that is actually relevant to crafting a healthy diet.

It is sufficient information. Replace processed food (candy bar) with less-processed (granola bar without added sugar) or non-processed (apple).

People don't like ultra-processed in an partake-abstain framing (like many do with illegal drgus), but they could just apply a how-often, or frequency framing, (like they do with alcohol).

People are just uncomfortable with the responsibility being theirs and are exercising their denial.

The demand for a narrative about evil-FDA or evil-food-corp is HIGH. Everyone could just eat like the healthiest among their friends and family, but you can't sell a story without a villian.

Except you might replace processed food (Low Fat / Low Sugar cereal) with non-processed (Pork Belly + Lard).

Which is non-helpful. A stir-fry dish from Panda Express and/or Noodle's and Co is entirely "group 2 unprocessed" by this designation. Is eating Panda Express all-day, every day healthy?

You can literally see them cut the veggies and meats as they make the stir-fry. Its fresh and out in the open.

But that argument is kind of weak when it comes packed with example that claims fat is bad and sugar+fiber is good.

That is just not how nutrition works either. And honestly, the processed/unprocessed distinction will end up with better result then "fat is bad".

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