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  • I'm no nutritionist, but I'm reasonably sure that any reasonable diet, whether keto or vegan can be accomplished while maintaining proper nourishment.

    The thing is, most people's diet isn't even providing full nourishment. There's usually something that's missing that people are simply not aware is missing, or they're getting in such low quantities that it's unhealthy. IMO, the main problem is a lack of education on the matter. I was taught the food pyramid in grade school. It's barely relevant, and it was literally the only diet and nourishment education I recieved from my first world primary/highschool education. Unless you are going into health science or nutritionist type college credits, nobody takes the time to learn anything further about it later on. They just eat, and don't really think about it. I certainly didn't for a very long time.

    Additionally, when I learned about the food pyramid, the examples didn't really make a lot of sense to me, since at the time I had barely touched any food preparation tasks, nor dealt with food that wasn't ready to eat already (usually prepared by my parents), and I had no context for what a "grain" really was, or why bread was considered a "grain" in the pyramid. I was stupid. In many ways, I still am. Yet, later in life, I don't know of anyone who is running their meal plan through a professional nutritionist before making the food. I don't know of anyone who, even if they have a meal plan, even knows a nutritionist who can consult on whether the good that they eat will provide the nutrition that they actually need.

    The general population seems to put most of their trust in food makers, the corporations that make ready to eat food, to have accounted for their nutritional needs. Places like fast food restaurants, normal restaurants and those that make recipes, and most of their interest is in making food you'll enjoy, more than food that will actually provide the nutrition you need.

    On top of that, even most doctors won't, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you're behind or not getting enough of something. I can hear the comments now, "but if they're not being affected, why does it matter?" .... The thing is, they are being affected, just not significantly enough for them to be able to draw a correlation or even really complain about it.

    So at the end of the day, we're probably all malnourished in some way, or at least, there's a nontrivial amount of people who are unaware that they're malnourished, which isn't being caught, and nobody has the knowledge or understanding to know it's even happening. The education on nourishment is so lackluster that is easily forgotten by most and instead we learn about factorials and trigonometry which most people never use past highschool.

    I'm summary, more people than you would expect are likely unaware that they're malnourished, and the education system would rather teach you maths you'll never use than ensure you can feed yourself properly. The whole thing is fucked, and it's ironic when people lecture or question anyone about their nourishment needs, given how little any average person has been taught about proper nourishment. Everything is fucked and everybody sucks.

    • On top of that, even most doctors won’t, by default, order tests to ensure all of your nutritional needs are met, and unless you have a symptom resulting in a significant deficiency of something, you would never know if you’re behind or not getting enough of something.

      This makes me really appreciate my doctor. I emailed her and let her know I've been eating a vegetarian diet for the past two years and wanted to see if there were any gaps in my nutritional intake. She happily ordered a nutritional panel for me right away.

      • Oh, they'll order it for you when you ask, but I don't know of any test that doctors run without being promoted that will examine the nutritional state of a person. Once you ask for it, then you'll very likely get what you ask for, but the doctor isn't going to go out of their way to order it without being asked first.

        So if you don't think about it, or it's just not something that you're looking into, then your doctor doesn't bother unless you report a complaint or symptom that may be related to some kind of malnourishment.

        I get it, I don't blame doctors, assume it's fine unless there's a problem... Nobody wants to waste lab time on tests when everything appears fine and there's no complaints. But it's kind of a disservice to the health of the general public. There's a number of symptoms that go unreported simply because people have experienced them for so long and/or they're so mild that they can't be bothered... Some people just think it's normal to have that symptom, just a part of every day life, when it's not and it can take years or more before it's discovered. By that time, permanent damage may have already occurred.

        I would still blame the education system for the primary issue, since there's so much we learn from primary/secondary education that we never use, and so many things we need to know every day, which isn't even mentioned in schools.

        I don't have a vendetta against the school system, I just think they're teaching the wrong things for everyone to know. There's a lot of things that are taught that are only useful to a handful of professions, meanwhile being able to balance your chequebook, or vote, or feed yourself in a way that will maintain your health and nutrition are often not even offered and if they are, they're electives. But no, you need to be able to calculate the hypotenuse of a right angle triangle. Everyone needs algebra, despite the fact that not all jobs need any understanding of it. You have to read and understand the complete works of Shakespeare, and a handful of dusty old books and form a literary analysis of them because reasons.... But doing your own damn taxes? Get gud noob.

    • Been meaning to figure out a meal plan for balanced nutritious diet. Ideally something with at least a couple week's worth of variety so I'm not getting too sick of anything. Do you have any recommendations for going about that? Any websites or services to assist those efforts?

      Certainly don't mind leftovers either, and I imagine I just need to make more grocery runs for fresh produce than I'm doing currently. It would be lovely to establish a bit of a routine that I can stick to easily to help avoiding take out and junk food.

      No sweat, no pressure, but would happily welcome your insights!

      • Yeah check out https://cronometer.com/ . It's fantastic for this.

      • I'm sorry, I don't have all this figured out for myself. I know I'm missing things in my diet and I did some preliminary analysis with the help of my GP and a testing lab, and I think I have a handle on the broad strokes for myself, and where I need to improve.

        I'm technical, so for me the process is simply to identify the issue, and ratify the issue as best as I'm able. I've started the first part of this, I have yet to do the follow through. Unfortunately, I find myself in a bit of a difficult personal position and can't really afford to make any significant changes to my life at the moment. My long term plan is to grow a garden. I'm finally in a physical situation where that's viable (I recently moved out of an apartment, where it was very difficult to grow a garden at best, into a home with enough space to have a dedicated area for gardening outside). I want to eat as much of my own produce as I can, which will provide more fruits and vegetables than I would normally have access to, which will hopefully be good over a longer period of time. That's just to start. Better, cheaper, produce that's more easily accessed and readily available, to encourage myself to eat more leafy greens and such.

        I know a garden big enough to continually do that (at least through the good seasons for growing), is a significant challenge, since it can occupy a lot of room that can't really be used for anything else. There's also nontrivial investments to be made into things like fertilizer, mulch, soil, tools, seeds, and so much more. And this is just step one for me.

        I'm not in a financial position to go for it yet, and growing season is over for this year, but I'm going to save up and hopefully I can start next year.

        The only reason I'm talking your ear off about it is that growing your own fruits and veggies is pretty much always a good option. Commercial growers tend to prioritize the size of the produce over everything else, so they can be paid more for what they grow. A good looking, large apple (as an example) sells better and for more money than a smaller, oddly shaped apple, even if the latter is much more nutrient-dense than the former. If you grow your own with even a modicum of research into which variety is best to grow for yourself, you're going to have better food to eat that costs less, all for a small amount of effort.

        Apples are a bit tough, even if you're in a house, apples grow on trees and usually don't produce any fruit until they're a fair size; so that's probably a bad example, but the underlying point still stands. It's a good starting point, and, while difficult to do in an apartment, it's not impossible with a hydroponic type system. A small "grow" tent, with a rack and some deep plastic pans for the soil, plus some grow lights and you're good to make a small garden; but even dedicating only a few square feet to it may be a pretty significant ask depending on where you live specifically.

        IDK, that's the only real thing I can contribute right now. I'm sure other commenters will have suggestions, and I'm certain there's plenty of info on the internet, just be weary of random search results, as much good information as there is online, there's also a lot of bad info trying to sell you something.

        All the best.

  • Not a vegan, but most vegans I've met seem healthy and keto is seriously bad for you, so I do not fit this meme.

417 comments