I do. I’ll eat cereal with milk and a banana or fix a plate of Egg Beaters with veggies and fat-free cheese with a piece of toast and some fruit. Either one will keep me going until lunchtime with no snacking needed. On the weekends, I’ll make a later meal that’s closer to brunch. That might be pancakes or waffles with bacon and fruit or some such. Again, it’s to make me eat something healthy so that I don’t make lousy choices later on.
Indeed. The reason I add vegetables to my Egg Beaters is because there just isn’t that much to half a cup of the stuff, and that and toast just isn’t enough. So I add onion, broccoli, and sometimes whatever else I’ve got in the fridge, throw on a handful of cheese, and I’ve got a massive plate of food for relatively few calories that tastes good enough that I’ll eat it several times a week. It’s not even that difficult to make; I can usually get it from fridge to plate in about 15 minutes or so. I’ll also munch on raw vegetables at lunch for the same reason. More food for fairly few calories. Can’t beat that.
In the international myth-busting vein, Japanese food features tons of fried and salty food, and of course they eat tons of white rice, and there is no shortage of potato chips and sweets in the convenience stores. They also drink huge amounts of beer. It’s a perfect example of how the national cuisine is not necessarily the sole determiner of whether people are obese. FWIW, one thing I did not see in evidence is a big appetite for heavily sugared food and drink (sodas, for example). And a meal over there generally is half the size of a US meal, with 3 times as many different dishes. You do get an illusion of fullness from partaking of 8 different dishes, even if they’re very small.
I doubt anyone who experiences a feeling of fullness questions whether they really ate sufficient calories. I was speaking to people’s tendency to feel less satisfied when they have less variety in front of them, and therefore eat more than they ordinarily would.
Different strokes - I’m a confirmed omnivore who can get pretty excited over a plate of steamed broccoli and cauliflower IF it’s prepared right - steamed, perhaps with a sprinkle of herbs, but NOT the near-ubiquitous cheese sauce that’s so commonly foisted upon it.
I like my meat, but for lunch I’ve been known to just have steamed vegees, or a salad that’s just vegees. Too many people think “that’s not a meal”. It’s not a feast, but it is a meal.
I am another breakfast person, though when I was growing up my Mom had a struggle getting me to eat in the short time between waking up and getting to school. I simply have issues keeping food down if I eat right away, I much prefer waiting about an hour and a cup of tea. I would say that I generally do oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon though about twice a month I might have an omelet with a bit of cheese and chopped up veggies and a piece of toast or half an english muffin on the side, and maybe once a month either crepes or pancakes with scrambled eggs and 2 pieces of bacon. I have a handful of recipes cleared with my nutritionist that we swap around.
I am definitely an omnivore that leans a bit on the carniverous side. I am not fond of the american version of cheese sauce, I prefer something like herbal or lemon butter with veggies. I do really like pizza with a light dose of alfredo sauce and lots of veggies, sauteed red onions, artichoke hearts, olives, broccoli and spinach are phenomenal. I am also into whole wheat breads with lots of crunchies added in - cracked seeds [flax, sesame, sunflower along with steelcut oats and cracked toasted buckwheat is a great combination] I also like alternative breads, I just ordered teff flour to make injira with. I am thinking of adding some buckwheat in for more oomph to the taste. I also like hunza bread, though I make it with olive oil. I know it was part of a fad diet, but I got given a loaf and liked it. Buckwheat and millet are very tasty together.
I think the reason for that is that, in the United States anyway, we tend to serve with a relatively small number of dishes, usually a meat, a starchy side, and a vegetable. We think of lots of little dishes, as other cultures do, as more work than we really want to do. So you wind up with too much relatively boring food instead of smaller portions of more varied food.
There’s also the expectation that you clean your plate, and that’s what determines whether you’re really finished eating. If you eat less than what you’re served, you’re being wasteful and unappreciative. If you’re a child, and you don’t want any more food, you’re to stay at the table until you’ve been excused. Of course you’re going to pick at the food still on your plate because there’s not much more to do than that.
A recent Forbes article gives some food for thought. He makes a pretty good case that the American Dietetic Association is trying to create a legal definition of nutritionist or dietitian that excludes anyone who isn’t certified by the ADA. That would mean that you couldn’t legally get nutrition advice from anyone other than an ADA certified person, not even if they had a PhD in a relevant field. This would also preclude anyone like a trainer or sports therapist giving nutritional advice unless they were ADA certified. It’s also obvious that this would prevent anyone giving advice contrary to ADA orthodoxy under threat of a minimum $10,000 penalty.
The troubling thing about this is that they’re not approaching nutrition advice from a research perspective, but from a legalistic one. This is especially problematic in an area where there isn’t any overarching theory. When you’ve got one “paradox” after another that seems to confound your set of rules, then the rules obviously don’t match reality. Most of the studies I’ve seen cited supported by the ADA are epidemiological, which may show correlation, but cannot be used for conclusions about causation. Even worse, a large number of those kinds of studies are questionnaire based, which in my opinion makes them junk science.
:dubious: what nutrition education are you refering to? Current ideas about nutrition do suggest that the body requires a certain ratio of protein/carbs/fats (ps, vegetables are included in the carb category. they have them!), but nearly all of them that I’m aware of stress vegetables as a main source of carbs and vitamins/nutrients and to cut back on heavily processed carb sources. And none of them suggest that every meal requires meat protein. (most suggest limiting consumption, particularly red meat and eating leaner meats and fish)
If you’re overweight it’s because you’re consuming too many calories and not burning them off. Possibly you’d do better with a different fat/carb/protein ratio of those calories too. And based on your OP, you can’t blame “American nutrition education”, because clearly you didn’t learn it what was being taught.
Or before that, this one, where fruits and vegetables together make up less than 1/3 of the image.
Or this one, which put the things you shouldn’t eat much of right on top - where humans generally put the most important/desireable things in graphics, and includes heaps of highly processed simple carbs, like saltines and pasta, in the “grain” group.
This one tried to alleviate that problem by not showing the “bad stuff” on top at all, but it clearly sends the message that the number of *highly processed grain *carb servings should be more than double your fruits and veggies put together!
None of these make it clear that what they’re recommending is intake over a full day, not for every single meal. The current My Plate educational tool is actually the worst offender in that category.
I think it needs to be made clear that the OP contains one big implicit flawed assumption… i.e. that that the teaching is that “meals need to have protein, carbohydrates, and fat if they’re to do you any good”, and there’s something wrong with this.
First, overall, you do need to consume all macronutrients, in the right proportion. Yes, you do need carbs and fat, though if you’re working a desk job, not very much at all. And you don’t have to eat all macronutrients at every sitting, though that’s certainly healthier than saving up all your carbs for one meal, your protein for another, etc.
Where education has gone wrong over the years is over-emphasizing fat and carbs due to the influence of agricultural lobbies… specifically grain farmers, dairy farmers, and beef farmers. Also the food pyramid has been slow to keep pace with the transition from physical jobs to desk jobs.
Yes, you should eat many servings of green vegetables, some servings of starchy veggies, and some fruit. These should outweight your proteins and fats, but you still need healthy protein and enough fat to get your essential fatty acids.
I dunno. Imagine a McDonalds that has both a small order of french fries and a cup of baby carrots on the dollar menu; which one do you think would outsell the other? And by how much?
mmm
They’ve had sliced apples on their kids’ menu for quite some time now. I can’t find any sales data for how they sold compared to kids’ meals with fries, but I did notice a few months ago that they stopped offering parents the choice of apples or fries. They now serve (automatically) a smaller serving of apples *and *a tiny order of fries - even if you specifically order apples. Grr. I wonder if it’s because parents didn’t order apples or because fries are cheaper for McDonald’s to serve?
I think it’s because the meal has more perceived value if both are included, and it’s not like either is all that expensive; it probably costs McDonald’s a nickel more to offer both.
That being said, the apple slices are served with caramel sauce, so they’re more of a dessert item anyway. Fries are a side dish that goes with the burger or chicken nuggets. So offering both is just a way to round out the meal, so to speak. And McDonald’s is at least making the token effort to include something healthy, even if it’s 1/4 of an apple.
Companies like McDonald’s don’t do anything without input and data from a million sources. People who bought Happy Meals were likely surveyed and there were probably a few focus groups and what not involved as well. And since marketing research is about the inflicting the tyranny of the majority on the rest of us, we’re stuck with fries and apples.
