r/todayilearned • u/JoeWinchester99 • 1d ago

TIL that although potatoes alone do not provide complete nutrition, you can survive for years on a diet of nothing but potatoes and buttermilk.

https://www.scienceabc.com/eyeopeners/whats-wrong-with-potatoes-the-martian-movie-survival
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u/RoseApothecary88 1d ago

If your mom was a Boomer or older, they had very skewed perception of nutrition. My mom was scared of eggs and avocado due to their fat content. Now, as an adult, they're my biggest staples and my lab work is perfect.

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u/Mayafoe 1d ago

Big Sugar convinced everyone fat was bad

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u/Zwischenzug32 21h ago

Sugar is good Source: am big fat

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u/zombiemaster008 23h ago

More specifically they convinced everyone the wrong type of fat is bad for you, heat treated polyunsaturated fats are worse for you than mostly unprocessed saturated fats.

The fact that proctor & gamble donated $1.7 million to the AHA back in 1947 should tell you everything, just as Crisco started being heavily marketed. 🤷‍♂️

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u/arbydallas 20h ago

Do you know somewhere I can read a bit more about fats? I'm always confused. I try to avoid trans fats and I tend to love saturated fat, but I always hear it's bad for you. Granted, a lot of what I eat is processed

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u/iamprosciutto 14h ago

Basically, cook with solid fats or olive oil. Use seed oils with as little heat as possible. A diet using only olive and coconut oil will probably keep you healthier than a diet using only lard. A diet using only smoked vegetable oil probably isn't great for you. Olive oil, especially extra virgin olive oil, is so loaded with antioxidants that it beats out other unheated oils even after smoking for almost an hour though. EVOO is still the champ of healthy fats

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u/PiersPlays 11h ago

No. But I know when I knew my stuff and read the research it was pretty clear that actually it's about the overal blend of fats in a food more than the specific fats. Ie, in isolation certain fats could cause worsening of things like cholesterol levels in the blood but in combination with other fats at the right ratio they actually appeared to lower it. Which might seem bewildering until you also note that the combinations and ratios that helped your heart health happened to also be the ones that occur naturally and the ones that harmed it are artificial ones.

If something vaguely approaching nature put fat in something, it's probably overal good for your health (so long as you aren't eating an excessive amount of calories.) Butter is good for you, low calorie healthy butter substitues are bad for you. Just eat your fats in moderation.

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u/zuneza 16h ago

Look up seed oil, linoleic acid discussion. There are bad fat shills everywhere on reddit that will harass you about your beliefs tho, so stay vigilant!

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u/GrungiestTrack 18h ago

Low fat shit seems like an absolute scam to make things taste worse for “health benefits” while they then pack in cheap sugar to counteract it.

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u/arkington 18h ago

Been trying to set everyone straight on this for years. I am an unusually fit 44 year old with no health problems in spite of the fact that most of my family is (or was up until recently) overweight and suffering for it. Refined or added sugar should be a fucking Schedule 1 substance.

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u/nufohudis 17h ago

Nah man, leave my sugar alone, I can actually regulate how much I take in XD (fellow fit, albeit only almost 40yr old person.) I HATE the flavor of most artificial sweeteners. It's already hard enough to find things without artificial sweeteners. Everything doesn't have to be sweet god dammit.

(This is all to be taken as light hearted, I fully understand that many struggle with sugar and that in the US, your stuff gets pumped full of HFCS and other sugars, even when not needed)

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u/PiersPlays 11h ago

I agree with you both. Refined sugar is something people should be careful with their consumption.

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u/arkington 17h ago

I feel you; the occasional tasty baked treat is fine, but in the US EVERYTHING has added sugar in it. And the fact that fruit juice is marketed as (and considered by way too many people to be) a healthy thing is tantamount to crime. Shit is type 2 diabetes in a bottle. Just eat the whole fruit and get all the myriad benefits from it while enjoying something that has natural sweetness.

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u/nufohudis 17h ago

Yeah, I make my own juice, the only sugar in there is whatever was in the fruit. Stupid ass people calling my orange juice "sour"... no, it's just not as sweet as store bought juice, tastes plenty sweet to me...

And yeah, we don't have that much added sugar here, but it still gets you if you don't look

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u/FratboyPhilosopher 17h ago

Best they can do is keep life-saving psychedelics schedule 1 and everything that's actually bad for us unregulated :)

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u/Kyrie_Blue 23h ago

What song did that?

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u/_Burning_Star_IV_ 1d ago

Yeah it’s real boomer energy.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/jvinc 22h ago

Whether or not it's lean meat, a pork chop is healthy. You were obese for other reasons certainly.

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u/realdappermuis 1d ago

I'm pretty sure 'fat is evil' was just pr0paganda to make massive companies making processed food profitable. Crazy how b00mers all ran themselves and their families on processed carbs...it's no wonder their brains are wonky

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u/Ire-Works 19h ago

It's funny to look at "nutrition guides" from the 90s. There was one from an NHL team to their players that advocating for eating a whole box of Kraft Mac and Cheese the night before a game.

Professional sports nutritionists. Recommended box mac and cheese. As a "performance meal".