Red, yellow, green light of eating

[SwampNut]

This is a good article, not super short but makes the point well.  It's how I've looked at all my choices for years.  Whole plants?  Nearly all green, with a yellow for super high fat foods like nuts.  Meaning, go for it, but don't go...nuts with it.  A solid fun handful approaches 200 calories.

 

Slightly processed things, and oils?  Very yellow, very minimal usage.  And I'm quite convinced by the evidence that you should not eat these things often, even in small quantities.  There's a lot of correlation between heart and joint inflammation and even moderate to light use of oils and sodium on a daily basis.  So I just don't, and treat these things as treats for a few times a week at most.

 

Red...stuff you simply shouldn't touch at all.  Or maybe once a month.  The obvious things like pork rinds or potato chips that essentially offer extremely little or no nutritional benefit per calorie, and lots of inflammation-related junk.

 

https://nutritionfacts.org/2021/12/21/dining-by-traffic-light-green-is-for-go-red-is-for-stop/?utm_source=NutritionFacts.org&utm_campaign=1b03e4e4d7-RSS_BLOG_DAILY&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_40f9e497d1-1b03e4e4d7-28710906&mc_cid=1b03e4e4d7&mc_eid=6bf37ade4d

 

Whenever I’m asked at a lecture whether a specific food is healthy or not, my reply is: “Compared to what?” For example, are eggs healthy? Compared to some breakfast sausage next to it? Yes. But compared to oatmeal? Not even close. Imagine having $2,000 in your daily calorie bank. How do you want to spend it? For the same number of calories, you can eat either one Big Mac, 50 strawberries, or half a wheelbarrow full of salad greens. Those don’t exactly fill the same culinary niche—if you want a burger, you want a burger—and I don’t expect quarts of strawberries to make it onto the Dollar Menu any time soon, but it’s an illustration of how mountainous a nutritional bang you can get for the same caloric buck.

 

Every time we put something in our mouth, it’s a lost opportunity to put something even healthierin our mouth. So, what are the best foods to eat and the best foods to avoid?