Diet Thread

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Nobody » Wed May 03, 2017 10:05 am

https://theconversation.com/food-as-med ... like-76149
Fresh fruit and vegetables cost more to purchase on a dollars per kilojoule basis, and also perish more quickly than processed foods. They take more time and skill to prepare and, after all of that effort, if they don’t get eaten for reasons of personal preference, they go to waste. For many it may not stack up financially to fill the fridge with fruit and vegetables. Under these circumstances, pre-prepared or fast food, which the family is sure to eat without complaint or waste, is all too convenient.
A bit of (maybe obvious) clarity as to why processed foods are winning. It's all about money.

march83
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby march83 » Wed May 03, 2017 10:52 am

"Fresh" is something of a showstopper, but ultimately I don't think it's that important.

My partner and I are currently on a bit of a budgeting sting to try and save some cash to pay for a holiday and reviewing the grocery receipts has been one of the big steps. $2/kg seems to be a pretty good dollar target for our "cheap" fruits and veggies and if we're happy to eat frozen then there are plenty of options for veggies that hit that price point. Unfortunately for most, it seems that the image of surviving on frozen veggies is too boring or too low class or too challenging (5 minutes in the microwave or a few minutes in a pan is a deal breaker for some). Memories of being forced to finish your peas maybe...

In terms of calorie density at that price point, legumes win:
Legumes: ~115cal/100g (AT) $2.20/kg (~70c / can at Aldi and 3 cans makes roughly 1kg of drained beans)
Sweet potatoes: 75cal/100g (AT) $2/kg (when you can get them on special go as low as $2/kg)
Frozen peas: 75cal/100g (AT) $2-3/kg
Frozen mixed: 35cal/100g (AT) $2-3/kg

That said, we still buy a lot of other stuff which skews very much towards the low end of the calories per dollar scale like capsicum, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, etc...

If you're motivated by budget it's very, very easy to store and cook rice, tinned beans, tubers and frozen greens so I always feel it's a massive cop-out to say that eating healthy, as a generalisation, is too expensive and too difficult.

CKinnard
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Wed May 03, 2017 11:55 am

I used to cringe regarding frozen vege march83.....due to them not being as fresh and healthy as raw.
That was no doubt true when you picked fresh out of your own rich soiled vege patch.

Anyway, I can only respect the science which says frozen are often more nutrient laden than what is bought raw from f&v shops.

I am kind of up with the cost comparison of raw and frozen more recently, as I've been experimenting with buying my own raw then freezing them...If I discount the labor and time involved, and the spoilage avoided by self freezing, I'd be ahead buying raw over frozen...

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mikesbytes
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Wed May 03, 2017 3:00 pm

My attitude towards spoiling is that its way more important to have fruit and vegetables in your kitchen than to worry about wastage, as concern about wastage has a tendency to encourage under purchasing. Having taken that approach, a number of years ago I was surprised to find how little wastage I have and I think that's due to a tendency to place preference on eating what is closer to the end of its shelf life.

Frozen vegetables, you are saying that they are as healthy as fresh vegetables and possibly more healthy. I'm thinking that could be due to them being frozen straight after picking, where the fresh vegetables we purchase were in fact picked a couple of days ago
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Wed May 03, 2017 4:50 pm

what the science says is often raw vege are often inferior in nutrition to frozen, due to oxidation and dehydration during transport and display time. I refuse to buy vege from woolworths, coles, and aldi because they never last as long in the fridge as quality private f&v vendors.

I don't mind paying a premium if there's no spoilage, hence why I usually buy mostly for 4-5 days only....and otherwise have been experimenting with freezing (mainly for dark green leafys as it is difficult to eat a whole kale, spinach, bok choy, choy sum, AND cabbage in 4 days.)

BTW, there's a lot of tricks to keeping various f&v fresher out of the freezer too.
Some are best kept in a cool dark space, others in the fridge, beetroot leaves are best cut from the root before storing....even fresh berries can be blanched for 30 seconds in near boiling water to kill off fungal spores, then laid out to dry properly before refrigerating (heat kills fungal spores so the fruit doesn't get that white fluffy fungal growth over them as soon).

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Tim
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Tim » Wed May 03, 2017 6:50 pm

mikesbytes wrote:...the fresh vegetables we purchase were in fact picked a couple of days ago
Try weeks and months.
I can pick and cut my home grown beans, zucchini, broccoli, peas, capsicum, tomatoes etc and store them perfectly well in a domestic fridge for at least a month.
Leafy greens are fine in the fridge for 2-3 weeks.
My carrots, onions, garlic and potatoes last for up to 6 months or longer, normally just left in the ground after maturing or stored in a cool dark place.
Commercial produce is often/usually stored in cool, iced, controlled, oxygen depleted, gas atmospheres for months on end.
I often buy commercial produce that looks very ordinary only a few days, maybe a week after purchase. They look fine on the shelf but I can only conclude they are quite old.
Eat any apple late in summer and it's probably nearly 12 months old.
An awful lot of fruits such as tomatoes, stonefruits and avocados are picked 'green', well before ripening to enable long, read months and months of storage, potential rough handling and transportion.
Farmers markets, capital city markets such as the Sth. Melb or Vic Market in Melbourne and the corner (quality) green grocer are the best source, but you can never be sure. They all know the tricks of extended storage and optimal visual presentation.

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Patt0 » Wed May 03, 2017 7:06 pm

I have bought sweet potatoes on special. 40kg for $10. The last one was eaten nearly 10 months later. Most recent box was 16kg for $8

I grow pak choi, spinach, sweet potato leaves and zucchini besides salad items. Delicious and crisp pak choi. Not like the stringy rubbish from shops. The only other veg we buy othre than the sweet potato is carrots. Very little work done in the garden. Seed every three weeks and pick on demand and pull 5 weeds at the same time as picking. Auto irrigation :D .
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Tim
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Tim » Wed May 03, 2017 7:28 pm

Patt0 wrote:I grow... ... zucchini
My favourite produce.
Every year it never ceases to amaze how fast and prolific these plants grow.
Feed and water them up big, and they produce big. Big size and enormous quantity. I love them, the plants that is, but tire of the actual zucchini by later in summer.
I joke that we live on a zucchini based diet in summer but it's not far from the truth.
Last edited by Tim on Wed May 03, 2017 10:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Wed May 03, 2017 8:21 pm

I'm envious of those great vege patches, mine would be humble in comparison. Like most I've had some great successes and some failures. One of this season's successes was Pumpkins, which I hadn't grown before because the space but this time I let it grow over my humble lawn.

I'm getting the message to go forward and buy frozen, I'm thinking of a vege mix that's targeting stir fries in its marketing, will have a closer look next time I'm at the supermarket
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Tim
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Tim » Wed May 03, 2017 9:02 pm

I used to like it when living in Melbourne's inner North. Small single fronted houses. The Aussies grew ornate roses, weeds and dainty cottage gardens in their tiny front yards. The Geeks and Italians grew voluptuous climbing tomatoes, chillis, cucumbers, beans and allsorts.
Dig up your lawn, get a bale of lucerne hay, a trailer load of manure and plant veggies Mike. :D
Other than the soil preparation there isn't really much work involved.
I put in two big half-days once or twice a year and that's about it.
Hand watering, fertilizing and picking are a pleasure. Maybe 15-30 minutes max a day at peak summer times, much less through the rest of the year.
I've had heaps of spectacular failures. Like 6 feet high potato plants, with golf ball sized potatoes (waaaay too much Nitrogen). Bird and rodent massacres. And less spectacular, when nothing grows. It's all part of the fun.
I'd still opt for 'fresh' commercial produce over frozen. It just tastes better to me. Frozen veggies seem to lose their crisp texture but do none the less maintain most of their nutrient quality. One exception, frozen peas, I eat tons of them.
Find out what's in season and chances are you'll be buying reasonably fresh produce at lower prices.
Today I bought excellent quality broccoli and beautifully sweet new season Pink Lady apples.

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Thu May 04, 2017 7:16 am

The things I find are freezing best are kale, red cabbage, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.
I also do large leaf spinach, but I dont' get as good results. I am thinking of cutting the leaves really finely like the commercial stuff.

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Patt0 » Thu May 04, 2017 10:40 am

This my little Eden.





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Sent from my iPhone
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Thu May 04, 2017 6:39 pm

Looking good Patt0

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mikesbytes
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Thu May 04, 2017 9:43 pm

Yeh, nice vege patch pics.

I've ripped up about half my lawn for Veges + others are planted in the gardens along the fences. I've also got passion fruit and kiwi fruit planted on the fences. Down the side of the house is 5 citrus trees, 2 of which are going great, 1 is so so and the last 2 are struggling, due to the light, they are in catch 22, they need light to grow but they need to grow to the light. I've also got an olive tree and there's strawberry's as undergrowth + cherry tomatoes growing as weeds :)
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Patt0 » Fri May 05, 2017 4:44 am

Thanks CK

Mike, that sounds like my backyard. Those pics are but a portion. We have a passionfruit on one side too, and it has taken the whole 30 metres and also covers a patio to shade a bedroom from afternoon sun. I am going to thin it out soon. Big surprise for me, it started fruiting at 9 months and has not stopped for 2 years. The quantity and quality of fruit is outstanding.

I have only just started the salad items again late last year. Always had complete self seeding herb garden and cherry tomatos.
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Patt0 » Sat May 06, 2017 10:48 am

My problem is portion control. 5 out of 7 dinners are rice with a number of dishes.

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The amount of rice served is not enough, so a second serve is required. Invariably I end up eating too much. Showing a good appetite for my wife's cooking is the best way to shoe appreciation for her being.I dare not disappoint her.
So I eat a big dinner.

Lunch is a similar deal. I make my own hummus cheese and salad wraps. All fresh delicious and cheap.
So I eat a big lunch.

My weight is stable ifI stick to that. But I like a bit of junk food too. Every calorie of it I store.So three weeks ago I made a change to my diet. Go without lunch. I actually did this frequently in my twenties as a by product of my lifestyle. Surfing and fishing all day till dark. It worked then and it is working now.

So now just 2 large latte and three mandarins picked off tree for breakfast and generous dinner. Even some cake or junk after and I am still shedding dead weight. If I ate one wrap for lunch, the pangs required another. No hunger pangs in the day and no other discomfort.

Some afternoon commutes are challenging, especially 30kmh headwinds two days in a row, But I don't think it is worse than if I eat a lunch. PIcked up a 2nd place in a crit last weekend, first podium place. So the energy is there.

Just sharing.
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby warthog1 » Sat May 06, 2017 12:10 pm

^^That looks scrumptious Patto 8)
Dogs are the best people :wink:

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Sat May 06, 2017 1:04 pm

Looks nice. I was in NZ for the last couple of weeks and got to eat lots of those green lip muscles, fresh ones.

Based on your pictures and description, there's definitely a lot of overlap between your and my diet. What worked for me to cap over eating was to get fibre in there, which means salad style vegs' with the meals, it reduced the inbetween meal snacking.

On the other side of things, I found myself hungry and with a timeslot before my lunchtime class, I had intended to eat lunch at home after the class but changed plans and hit a small food hall. There I looked at Oporto's.... my god the burgers were 4,100Kj 'meals' and the only thing within a suitable range was the 'snacks' that were about 1,000Kj each. Next was Mad Mex which wasn't displaying Kj's, I would of thought that Mad Mex was a sufficiently big chain to be required to display Kj's. So I went to Subway and had a 6" which might be 1080Kj but as you can't tell the contents related to 1080Kj so you don't really know what your Kj consumption is
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Sat May 06, 2017 9:17 pm

Nobody wrote:https://theconversation.com/food-as-med ... like-76149
Fresh fruit and vegetables cost more to purchase on a dollars per kilojoule basis, and also perish more quickly than processed foods. They take more time and skill to prepare and, after all of that effort, if they don’t get eaten for reasons of personal preference, they go to waste. For many it may not stack up financially to fill the fridge with fruit and vegetables. Under these circumstances, pre-prepared or fast food, which the family is sure to eat without complaint or waste, is all too convenient.
A bit of (maybe obvious) clarity as to why processed foods are winning. It's all about money.
That's a good article in how it presents what one should eat fruit and vege wise in a simplistic way that almost anyone can understand.

I'm not so sure about the cost argument, zucchini's are perhaps $4 a kilo when I brought them and if that's too expensive there's carrots and onions, it doesn't get any cheaper than that. I'd struggle to find processed foods that are less than $10 a kilo. Wollworths branded chips (AT)$2 a packet end up something like $14 a kilo and that's the cheap one, hit a brand name and your looking at $20 a kilo.

One thing that got me curious was Kiwi fruit, they are saying that a Kiwi fruit is a 1/2 serve. Are Kiwi fruit half the nutritional value of an apple or banana?

And tonight I followed thru on the frozen vegetable discussion. I was pressed for time at the supermarket and brought frozen veges based on the packaging/marketing/price without looking at the ingredients. 3 items;
1. Homebrand Stir fry vegetables 500G $1.99
2. Homebrand Essentials vegetables mixed 1Kg $1.59
3. Birdseye steamfresh baby potato and vegies 400gms $3.50
From the look of the picture on the homebrand stir fry it looks like a typical mix of veges that would be put in a stir fry. I'm not expecting much from the essentials mix, its only $1.59 a kg and you can't tell from the packaging what's in it without taking the time to read the ingredients list. The birdseye one contains individual packages that you pop in the microwave, this one is the most expensive but has the highest convenience
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

CKinnard
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Sat May 06, 2017 11:27 pm

I was going great guns with weight loss and all my pangs had settled.....then I had to spend a few days in Sydney earlier this week. Did a couple of presentations, and caught up with US friends, who were keen to eat out all the time, and talk til late at night. That was enough to disrupt my appetite.

Anyway, today was the first time I felt like I was getting some control back over sugar and alcohol cravings. I had a 40k spirited ride this morning, and very little starch...and didn't get overly weak or sugary.

Personally, I've experienced being free of cravings and an appetite many times now, even after water fasting for almost 20 days. So I know cravings can calm when one gets sufficiently into ketosis. But I also think excessively long or higher intensity exercise is a form of stress that can cause a cortisol storm and insulin resistance. It's no doubt a very individual thing for all of us... depends on general health, sleep quality, stress levels, bodyfat %.

Anyway, I am back to not having breakfast and having a very small amount of starch (no more than 1.5 cups of sweet potato per day). I am also off the booze again. I had wine with most meals in Sydney and I think that plays a significant part in destabilizing my blood sugar.

Patt, your meals look very authentic SE Asian. I'd suggest if you can cut back on your rice, and bulk up on more vege and protein, after a week you might find your carb cravings easing. Be patient though. It is harder though if you exercise at higher intensities because you are burning a lot of glucose and glycogen then.

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby march83 » Sun May 07, 2017 4:13 pm

@CKinnard, as soon as you figure out the cravings, please tell me. For me, stress kicks things off. I'd love some insight into this. I just give up and eat everything but I focus on the raw fibrous veggies and try very, very hard to avoid the processed and the high calorie foods - That's about the only strategy I've got...

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Sun May 07, 2017 7:37 pm

March, for me and many it is about stress. Stress can take many forms but have a common biochemical cascade that influences appetite : stress -> increases glucagon and ACTH -> increases cortisol -> insulin resistance -> poorer control of blood glucose. And there are positive feedback loops in this.

Stress can be poor or reduced sleep, mental or emotional or physical stress. Higher intensity efforts on the bike or longer rides release more stress hormones. And caving into sugar and alcohol and unhealthy food choices stimulates the above pathway.

If you want to control your appetite and reduce adverse cravings, we have to live very tame disciplined lives and hope that makes us happy. Read the Blue Zones studies. There's no binge drinking, meat laden barbies, hoon cars, and riding bikes fast down hills for them! :)

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mikesbytes
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby mikesbytes » Sun May 07, 2017 9:07 pm

CK I'd say that your few days of out of control nutrition in Sydney probably meant that your consumption was still way better than the majority of the populations every day consumption :)

Reminds me of the term 'cheat day'

I've now got Friday morning as a day having breakfast on the road. It's something I need to sort. Where I'm working there's a street shop strip of about 10 shops which gives me 2 options;
1. An oversized convenience store labeled as a supermarket which I brought Bananas and a long black week 1
2. A bakery. I could of brought a pie or a quiche but I was feeling indulgent and brought an almond croissant and a long black week 2
It's something I need to sort out, I'm use to eating a cooked breakfast of 1 egg, 1 bacon shortcut and a large serving of vegetables. Its the vegetables I'm missing. So either I need to start bringing breakfast from home or find somewhere else to eat. I do have access to a microwave
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: Diet Thread

Postby Nobody » Tue May 09, 2017 8:05 am


CKinnard
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Re: Diet Thread

Postby CKinnard » Tue May 09, 2017 8:54 am

BTW, one of my Sydney indulgences was bodhi restaurant. Man, they just keep the food flowing there at lunch, yum cha style.
http://www.bodhi.id.au/

Enjoyed the experience, but was all a bit too starchy/dumpling for me.
I prefer more less processed fibrous carbs.

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