[dave_sullivan]

> not needing to think about nutrition. I hate cooking, I hate cleaning, and eating out all the time feels wasteful. I just want quick, healthy meals with a decent shelf life.

As I've come around to thinking of the human body as more of a system than a binary switch (sick/not sick), I've come to appreciate that natural food sources have a lot of nutrients in them that are hard to get with manufactured foods.

There's a lot of debate about studies proving this one way or another, but for me looking at it intuitively from a co-evolution standpoint (foods we eat evolved in conjunction with humans) is proof enough to pay attention to the quality of my food. The intuition is basically: food we've been cultivating and bringing around with us for millions of years is going to be more beneficial to our internal chemistry than a substitute we recently made up to save money on production costs.

I also view eating as a chore (except when it's not), so I often end up eating this: black beans, chicken, guac, milk

PS: for the "naturalistic fallacy" group, how do you account for the role of evolution as an optimizer for health vs evolution as optimizer for 20th century economic cost? Optimization targets make a difference.

[splawn]

Evolution is not an optimizer for health. It is an optimizer for breeding and nothing more. The only optimizer for health that I know of is medical science.

EDIT: Also I think the term we should actually be using is "Natural Selection" rather than "Evolution" in this case.

[dave_sullivan]

> Also I think the term we should actually be using is "Natural Selection" rather than "Evolution" in this case.

Nope, I'm using it in the "evolutionary algorithm", "evolution as mathematical optimization" sense.

> It is an optimizer for breeding and nothing more.

I really disagree there. Humans did not evolve in a vacuum; their are a ton of systems and subsystems that evolved across different species leading up to humans. I don't have time to write an essay, but I think you're vastly oversimplifying evolution in pursuit of a binary function. It's just not that simple, and neither is how food interacts with our body.

[splawn]

Ok, I now see how you were using the word "evolution". For some reason the fact that you were addressing the "natural fallacy camp" made me think you were talking about human evolution and its role in our eating habits, my mistake.

As far as your disagreement goes... Perhaps "breeding" wasn't the 100% accurate thing to say, but natural selection is the process that decides what genes to pass to the next generation causing evolution... if you really disagree with that you are not disagreeing with me personally, you are disagreeing with over 200 yrs of science spanning many fields.

[dave_sullivan]

> you are disagreeing with over 200 yrs of science spanning many fields.

Oh, is that what I'm doing? And here I thought I was suggesting that evolution (in practice and in theory) is a more nuanced process than you're letting on.

[splawn]

Yes, actually that is what you are doing. Natural selection is that simple. I think you are confused by the fact that sometimes the goals of "health" and "passing on genes" overlap. However "passing on genes" (or what ever the analogous "building block" is if you are using a genetic algo for something) is the only underlying "purpose" of evolution. There really isn't any more nuance required.. but go ahead, Im all ears..er eyes. If you don't want to write an essay just post up a link. Im curious if there is actually something out there leading you this way or if you are just "saying stuff".

[ceejayoz]

> for the "naturalistic fallacy" group, how do you account for the role of evolution as an optimizer for health vs evolution as optimizer for 20th century economic cost?

Human evolution has optimized us for having children early and often and living to 40-50 so they've enough time to grow up and become the next generation of subsistence farmers/breeders.

[SippinLean]

naturalistic fallacy

[soundwave106]

In my opinion, no. We can't even completely understand all of the chemical reactions (the Maillard reaction) involved in making toast at this point.

Sure, we do have a fair bit of nutrition knowledge right now, of course, and not everything natural is good for you, of course. However, current popular "natural food" at this point has been vetted through centuries of sampling and cross breeding. At this point I would consider it "more reliable" than processed MRPs (soylent powder is made of natural ingredients too but has been very heavily processed to get where it is) for that reason alone.

MRPs are okay every now and then, sure. Personally I would bet against using them all the time. Even in the bodybuilding community where whey protein supplements are popular, the consensus seems to be its much better to get your protein from a chicken breast if possible.

[gwbas1c]

Not really. We still really don't know as much about nutrition than we think we do. That is why eating a varied diet is promoted; because we just don't understand what we need as well as we think we do.

[orasis]

and the macro-nutrient focused approach of the last decades is scientistic fallacy.

Mindfully listening to the body will lead to better adaptation than formulaic consumption.