What is Reddit's opinion of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto?

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I'll look further into the lives of these chickens.

Only fortified almond milk contains B12. Fortified foods aren't any different from supplements.

Here's why I find supplements to be dubious:
* We don't actually know that much about the human digestive system. We don't know much about how different compounds interact with each other when mixed together in our gut. Some compounds might cancel each other out, others might emphasize one or the other. We don't have much insight into what's going on.

• That being said, the only way to know if a diet is healthy is to look at traditional diets - diets that have worked well for humans for a very long time. That's the most empirically sound way of determining what diets are healthy.

• AFAIK any diet that has worked especially well for humans for a long time involves some animal products.

• I'm not talking about mere 'survival' here. I'm talking about 'thriving'. If your diet doesn't provide for high energy, high brain activity, generally feeling good, and an array of other qualitative measurements you could take into consideration, then I wouldn't call that diet "healthy".
  You might be familiar w/ Michael Pollen's book In Defense of Food.

> You do not need animal products to get B12
Ultimately, this statement isn't indisputable. As long as there's reasonable disputability then "just enough" animal products from sources that don't/minimally compromise the livelihood of the animal, I argue, are still vegan - because it's the best we can do.

I'm curious as to what you think about the above statements.

1) I'm self employed so my work schedule can change from normal M-F 9-5 or be M-Sat 7-7. Because of this I often have to juggle when I run - 'normal' work schedule I normally run in the evening, crazy schedule I run at 5am.

If I run in the evening, I typically get home and immediately get into my gear and head out since my wife and kid don't get back until 6 so I can get my smaller runs in during the week.

If I run in the morning - and this is important - I GO TO SLEEP WITH AS MUCH OF MY GEAR ON AS POSSIBLE. Running shorts, shirt, socks, watch, RoadID, whatever I can be comfortable in. My phone is underneath my shoes across the room so that when my alarm goes off, I have to grab my shoes to even turn off my alarm. Boom, the hardest part about morning running is over.

As /u/ano463s stated, it's about ignoring excuses (IMO - eliminating the possibility of them).

2) As to training schedule - I have to have one. If I don't have something to work for, I get lazy. Lately, it's been triathlon training, other times it's weight loss, and other times it's faster/farther. IMO, always be training for something - especially if you get easily distracted.

3) Keto is a popular diet that many have seen success with. Ultimately, I stopped diet trends awhile ago and just stuck to basic nutrition knowledge. What I boiled my diet down to is Michael Pollan's mantra: "Eat food, mostly plants, not too much."

I got really busy for awhile and put on ~20lbs from stress eating/malaise and in the last 2 months of eating "right" and tri-training, I'm down 30. It's really all about what you're looking for when it comes to results.

Humans are omnivores, and as omnivores with a jack-of-all-trades digestive system there is no best or perfect human diet. We can eat a variety of foods, from all around the world, and be perfectly healthy individuals.

Don't get sucked in by fad-diets and get-healthy-quick schemes. They just want your money. Unless you have a condition that prevents you from eating a certain food group, or limits your consumption of a food group (e.g. allergies, intolerances, celiac, heart conditions, diabetes) then best advice I can give you is to "eat [locally and in season] foods, not to much, mostly plants". This isn't another diet book, its a manifesto in defence of good quality food.

Defense of food is a fine book. I had no idea that almond milk included supplemented calcium. Mostly because almonds naturally have calcium and almond milk is made from almonds and water.

By the way, you can simplify your amazon links by using.

http://www.amazon.com/In-Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto/dp/0143114964

> There is zero evidence of any diet (where you are not overweight) effecting your chance of diabetes

There is plenty of research supporting the fact that diet affects your risk of diabetes. Some examples:
Effect of diet on type 2 diabetes mellitus
Research reveals how diet influences diabetes risk

There are also healthy and unhealthy foods in the sense that certain foods increase your risk of particular health conditions such as heart disease, cancer, obesity, liver disease, etc. and affect your overall energy levels. Even if you maintain a limited total caloric intake and include a multivitamin, a diet consisting entirely of pork rinds and Mountain Dew would be unhealthy because of the cumulative effects of cholesterol, saturated fat and sugar over time. That's what makes particular foods "unhealthy" versus foods that do not come with the same effects.

Yes, you can consume junk food in moderation and not die, but looking at food only in terms of macronutrients and vitamins and ignoring the quality of the food containing these ends up being a dangerous oversimplification that will lead to poor eating habits. Junk food tends to make us overeat because it isn't as filling long-term. Getting vitamins from foods that naturally contain them is generally more effective many cases than obtaining them from a supplement.

If you want a good book that looks at the question of food choices, I recommend In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

If you don't want to read much, skip below to #7 and the helpful resources.

Food ("nutrition") sets your performance ("fitness") ceiling. It will define what you can achieve in the gym. If you want better performance, you'll have to eat better first. Period.

1. Forget calories. They're a giant red herring. In response to your question, others have brought up "calories in, calories out." This is such an oversimplification that's it's basically wrong. 500 doughnut calories == 500 sweet potato calories, NOT EVEN CLOSE. The sugar and other refined carbohydrates in a doughnut will break down to glucose very quickly, then spike your blood sugar. Next, insulin response rushes in and causes a few things, the blood sugar gets pulled into cells for use but also gets pulled into fat stores. Insulin promotes development of fat tissue. To simplify: some of the 500 doughnut calories end up used for energy very quickly after you eat it, the rest ends up stored as fat, but you'll absorb all 500 one way or another. Sweet potatoes don't spike your blood sugar because they're digested very slowly. You get a slow steady stream of carbohydrates (blood sugar) to use all day, especially during that workout. So long, in fact that you'll likely end up flushing some of the carbs 500 carbs in that sweet potato down the toilet because it won't stay in your body long enough to fully digest it (thank you dietary fiber.) To simplify, you'll absorb some and what you do absorb, you'll use to your benefit to crush WODs.

2. Focus instead on macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats). Which brings me to my next point...

3. You're going to have to "track." That means you're going to have to get a scale and weigh your food as you plate it for your meal.

4. Meal prep. Get a plan together. Then cook up some food and weigh off into containers. This will help stay on track. This is important because:

5. It takes about 2 weeks for all the hormonal changes to happen to your body when your start to eat better. That means no cheat meals. Cheat meals are for when you've reached your goals. They bog down your progress. Stay away as long as possible.

6. Regarding food, you should be buying groceries (veggies and fruit), meat, fish and some dairy. If it comes in packaging, you should probably avoid it (except obvious things like milk has to come in a gallon, duh). MOST IMPORTANTLY: NO REFINED CARBOHYDRATES. PERIOD. NO EXCEPTIONS. If it's made with bleached, white flour (often labeled "enriched"), sugar, high fructose corn syrup, rice syrup, agave nectar, rice syrup, and all the other misleading terms, then you simply don't eat it.

7. If you don't believe me about the above, don't take my word for it, go on YouTube and watch videos with the elite CrossFit athletes and watch what they eat and what their coaches (Ben Bergeron, coach to Katrin davidsdottir and a few other big names) has a bunch of nutrition related videos) tell them to eat. Mimic what they do. They don't eat that way because they're elite, they're elite because they eat that way (and train according obviously).

Helpful resources: http://journal.crossfit.com/2012/03/nutrition.tpl

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143114964/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_q7qAH63DLB7ov

Enter The Zone: A Dietary Road map https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060391502/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_GVpEDeq7jqJIA

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143038583/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_jYyDDbGSYE54S

Edit: spelling typos

https://www.amazon.ca/Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto/dp/0143114964

https://www.amazon.ca/Cooked-Natural-Transformation-Michael-Pollan/dp/1594204217/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1470938315&sr=1-1&keywords=cooked+michael+pollan

Here.

Get this book from the library: In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

You can eat GLORIOUSLY tasting food that is GOOD FOR YOU.

I believe this was mentioned in In Defense of Food.