by Adams, Scott
My observation is that most people think they already know which foods are healthy. People know vegetables are good for you and cheeseburgers are not. But you don’t have to drill far down into the details of diet options before even well-informed people become unsure. Are eggs healthy this week? How about rye bread? How about butter? How about turkey? You quickly get into gray areas and areas in which even experts might disagree.
Suppose you are so well informed that you could accurately sort food into categories of good and bad and get the right answer every time. That’s only a fraction of what you need to know. Within the category of healthy foods, can you further rank them? If you can, it would make sense to stick with the best of the best and avoid the lower quadrant of the so-called healthy foods. Is an apple better than broccoli? Is an avocado worse than a banana? How much healthier would you be if you ate the best of the healthy foods and avoided the less-good but still okay foods? Is it a big difference or a small one?
How hard is it to get variety in your diet? It might be easy to eat a variety of foods that have different names and different appearances, but are they that different on a nutritional level? Would you be better off eating an apple and an orange or an apple and a tomato? Which one gives you a more complete nutritional boost?
Any doctor or nutrition expert will tell you that eating a balanced diet will get you all the vitamins and minerals you need. That opinion is nearly 100 percent accepted by all smart people. The problem is that it’s mathematically impossible. You can prove that to yourself by Googling the nutritional information for everything you eat on any given day in which you’re sure you did a good job with both your food variety and healthy choices. I’ve done this experiment and found that you can’t get anywhere near the U.S. government’s daily recommended intake levels of vitamins and minerals. You would have to eat a wheelbarrow full of food to come close.
The nutritional shortfall of normal food is what prompted me a number of years ago to bring the Dilberito to market. I thought it would be a way to do some good for the world that had rewarded me so handsomely for Dilbert. The fortified-burrito business failed like most of the things I’ve tried. But during the process I learned a lot about vitamins and minerals. The main thing I learned is that nutrition presents itself as science but is perhaps 60 percent bullshit, guessing, bad assumptions, and marketing.
In the process of failing at the fortified-burrito business, I learned most of what you’ll read in this chapter. That’s what I call failing forward. Any time you learn something useful, you come out ahead. In this case, my focus on a healthy diet probably increased my life span.
In some narrow areas, nutrition science is reasonably solid. Researchers know that pregnant women need vitamin E. We know that vitamin C is needed to avoid scurvy. And the data suggest good things about vitamin D. There are other clearly beneficial vitamins as well. But if you look at any store shelf of vitamins and minerals, most of them haven’t been researched to the level you would want for health-related products.
Further complicating nutrition science is the inconvenient fact that no two humans are alike. Does a 120-pound vegetarian woman who is trying to get pregnant need the same vitamins and minerals as an obese coal miner with gout? No two people have exactly the same lifestyle, health, and genetics.
While my fortified burrito company failed for ordinary business reasons, I would have bowed out eventually as I lost my faith that the daily recommended intake levels of vitamins and minerals are sufficiently credible. During the Dilberito years it seemed as if every week a new study would come out that challenged what I thought I knew. It was deeply unsettling.
It is impossible to know with any precision what you should be eating and how often you should eat it. Nutrition science is shockingly incomplete. At best, you can avoid the obvious diet mistakes. But where science gives us uncertainty, sometimes you can creep up on the truth by personal observation and pattern recognition. If you know anyone who maintains an ideal adult weight without the services of a personal chef or a personal trainer, wouldn’t you like to know how? Ask anyone who has a healthy weight what he or she eats, then be on the lookout for the pattern. I’ll get the ball rolling by describing my own diet.
A Diet Template from Your Smart(ish) Friend
Allow me to tell you what I eat, and what works for me, as a template that might be useful in planning your own eating strategies. And yes, I realize how egocentric that sounds: “Eat like me!” But I’m not recommending that you follow my diet example. Staying consistent with the rest of this book, all I’m doing is providing you with some extra data within which I hope you can find some useful patterns. For reference, my body-fat composition recently tested at about 16 percent, which is good for an adult male. Here’s a fairly complete list of the foods that are the foundation of my weekly diet. I can eat as much as I want of the foods on this list, which I quite enjoy, and I won’t gain a pound as long as I stay active.
Bananas
Protein bars
Peanuts
Mixed nuts
Cheese
Whole wheat pasta
Edamame (soybeans)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels sprouts
Fish
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Apples
Pears
Carrots
Radishes
Cucumbers
Quinoa
Brown rice
Berries
The first thing you might notice about my list is that most of the foods I keep at home are convenient. I can grab a handful of mixed nuts and an apple and call it lunch.
I also prepare pasta and keep it in the refrigerator, along with veggies steamed in the microwave. When I want something warm and filling, I just mix the veggies and pasta, add some butter, microwave the dish for two minutes, and add pepper and Parmesan cheese. I’ve learned to use my own laziness in a positive way. I’ll always eat what is most convenient during the day, and if the only easy options are healthy, laziness takes me in the best direction. Laziness can be a powerful tool.
As I write this, my fridge is full of prepped, healthy food. There are some cut and washed strawberries and blackberries in one plastic container. Another has microwaved and cut brussels sprouts. Another has a concoction of quinoa and brown rice (that comes precooked) mixed with sautéed edamame, carrots, and broccoli. I literally open the lid, drag a small bowl through it and pop it in the microwave for two minutes. There is enough variety within the dish itself that I can eat it three days in a row for lunch and never feel bored with it. Add some pepper and Parmesan cheese and it is delicious.
We also keep containers of carrots and celery, precut and washed, covered with water, in the fridge. On days when the only thing I have in mind for food is “more,” the carrots and celery offer a perfectly healthy option. I think of carrots and celery as diversions more than food.
The trick to eating right is to keep willpower out of the equation for your diet. Laziness can make you choose healthy foods if you are clever enough to make those foods the most convenient in your house. You can further game your willpower by allowing yourself unlimited quantities of the good sort of food, at least until your cravings for the bad stuff subside.
For dinner, which tends to be a social meal, I’m not so stringent about avoiding simple carbs, especially near bedtime, when I prefer being sleepy. My usual takeout food options are …
Takeout
Subway veggie sandwiches
Veggie pizza
Chinese food
Indian food
Know Why You’re Eating
We eat for more than one reason. I find it useful to understand what is making me eat so I can adjust my food choices accordingly.
For example, scientists know that your brain triggers the hunger sensation and hunger hormones like leptin and ghrelin when you don’t get enough sleep.6 The next time you have one of those days when you can’t eat enough to
satisfy your hunger, ask yourself how much sleep you got the night before. You’ll be surprised at how often a bad night of sleep leads to nonstop eating.
When tiredness sparks your hunger but you’ve had all the calories you need for a while, try eating peanuts or mixed nuts to suppress your appetite. Cheese also works, at least for that specific purpose. The fat in those foods acts as an appetite satisfier. Nuts and cheese have lots of calories, but you’ll find that suppressing your appetite at the expense of some extra calories is still a net gain if the alternative is to eat until everything in your kitchen is gone.
I often find myself doing social eating just because someone else in the family happens to be snacking in the kitchen. I wander in and start a conversation, and the next thing I know something unnecessary is heading for my stomach. It’s almost automatic and mindless. I have just enough awareness to steer myself toward the lowest-calorie items. I don’t need nuts or cheese because I’m not actually hungry. I just need something to do while I hang out. So I go for the celery or carrots or cucumbers in my fridge that are prepped and waiting. When you eat for social reasons, aim for the lowest-calorie options. You don’t need to suppress your appetite if the reason you’re eating isn’t hunger.
How to Make Healthy Food Taste Good
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to healthy eating is flavor. You might love the taste of everything that’s bad for you, while being less enthusiastic about so-called healthy foods. As your friend who eats a vegetarian diet plus an occasional fish, I’ll tell you how to get the flavor you need from otherwise boring food.
The first rule of eating right is avoiding foods that feel like punishment. No one gives out medals for choking down a big bowl of boredom. If eating a healthy diet feels unpleasant, you’re doing it wrong. And you’re wasting your limited stockpile of willpower. You might have your own list of awful-yet-healthy foods. Feel free to avoid them so long as that leaves you plenty of other options.
I find that most people who have poor diets believe healthy food has bland or unpleasant flavor. That impression is doubly true if the first thing you think of in a vegetarian diet is tofu, and I find that is often the case. As a public service, I’ve listed below the condiments, seasonings, and ingredients that can add flavor to most foods that would be otherwise bland. These are the taste sensations I live on while never feeling the slightest twinge of flavor deprivation. Your tastes will differ, so this is just a template to make the point about how many flavors you can enjoy in a healthy diet.
Vegetarian Flavors
Soy sauce
Cilantro
Lemon
Salt
Pepper
Butter (or butter substitute)
Garlic
Onion
Curry
Cheese
Tomato sauce
Salsa
Vegetable broth
Honey
Salad dressings
Balsamic vinegar
Black-bean sauce
Hot sauce
You’ll notice that salt and butter are on my list, and you probably associate both of those things with a bad diet. I’d like to make an argument in favor of including copious amounts of both salt and butter in your diet, so long as you’re adding them to otherwise healthy food.
Here I’ll remind you again—because I can’t say it too often—to be wary of health ideas from cartoonists. Check with your doctor before you install a salt lick in your living room or start eating butter by the stick. Read my argument below and run it by your doctor before you go off and give yourself a heart attack.
Let’s start with salt. For years, science has produced conflicting reports about the health risks of salt for people who have no special risk for heart disease. Given the number of studies undertaken to uncover the hidden risks of salt, I would expect a clear answer by now. Science has not provided it.
Everything in life is a calculated risk, and I’ve decided that using salt as much as I want allows me to thoroughly enjoy some healthy foods that I wouldn’t otherwise eat. For example, a salted carrot is delicious but an unsalted carrot is like chewing on a stick. Steamed and salted brussels sprouts are one of my favorite foods, but plain brussels sprouts hold no appeal.
The key to enjoying salt without worrying about a heart attack is that you need to have a healthy diet in general, exercise regularly, and have a healthy body-fat composition. It also helps if you don’t have high blood pressure. If you’re built like a barrel, eat pork for breakfast, and lost all of your uncles to heart disease, your doctor will probably take salt out of your diet just to be on the safe side. Keep in mind that your doctor probably isn’t a salt expert, and caution will always be a doctor’s first instinct. You can find plenty of information on salt studies on the Internet. Make up your own mind, but keep your eyes open because new salt studies come out on a regular basis.
My argument in favor of butter is similar to that for salt. Butter is a good appetite suppressant, and like salt, it helps me enjoy healthy foods. Steamed broccoli with some butter and pepper is delicious. Plain broccoli is boring. If butter helps you eat more vegetables, and your weight is under control, butter is probably an acceptable risk. Check with your doctor to be sure.
You can do your own test on the appetite-suppressing quality of cheese and butter. Try steamed vegetables with butter and Parmesan cheese one day and remember how you felt after. The next day, try steamed vegetables with just soy sauce. The soy sauce is a great flavor, but you’ll find yourself hungry before you swallow the last bite. Soy sauce works best when you’re doing social eating or you are eating healthy fat in some other form to keep you feeling satisfied.
Think of healthy eating as a system in which you continually experiment with different seasonings and sauces until you know exactly what works for you. You want to be able to look at a vegetable and instantly know five ways to make it delicious, at least two of which don’t require much effort. When you change what you know about adding flavor to food, it will change your behavior. You’ll no longer need much willpower to resist bad food because you will be just as attracted to the healthy stuff.
Adjusting Your Lifestyle for Healthy Eating
As I mentioned earlier, studies show that having overweight friends can make you overweight yourself.7 I don’t automatically trust studies that uncover correlations without knowing the mechanism behind them, but I have noticed that my weight does fluctuate depending on the company I keep. At the moment, my business partner in a side venture is an Ironman athlete. And as I write this paragraph I am sitting next to a friend who looks like he stepped off the cover of a fitness magazine. For the past year or so I’ve spent more time with unusually fit people than at any other time in my life. That’s mostly a coincidence. But just as the studies suggest, I’ve somehow managed to drift into the best physical shape of my adult life. And I don’t feel that I used any extra willpower to get there. It feels as if the social influence made it easier. I don’t know if the reason is that I feel competitive or that people naturally imitate the people around them in the same way we adopt accents when we move to other parts of the country. Whatever the reason, science, common sense, and my personal experience are in agreement: Hanging out with fit people can cause you to become more like them. It passes my bullshit filter.
I’m not suggesting that you should stop accepting invitations from your overweight friends. But in the upcoming fitness chapter I’ll suggest joining some organized sports teams if you can. That will expand your social circle to include people who enjoy exercise. In time your sport friends will play a bigger role in your social life. That can only be good.
The Vegetarian Option
I was a vegetarian for most of my adult life. Recently I introduced some fish into my diet just for the health benefits. When the topic of my diet comes up, people often ask how I get enough protein, why I became a vegetarian, and how much work is involved in finding good vegetarian food. I’ll answer those questions because some of you might
be on the fence about giving up a traditional meat-based diet.
I don’t recommend a vegetarian diet, or any other diet, because I’m not a doctor. It’s also plainly obvious that hundreds of millions of people eat meat, enjoy every minute of it, and end up dying for all sorts of nonmeat reasons. I’m also a convert to the thought that dying at age eighty isn’t worse than dying at a hundred. If your meat diet is a bomb with a long enough fuse, it might kill you at just about the time you’d want it to.
I don’t trust the science behind the vegetarian movement because the believers have agendas beyond nutrition. Some vegetarians are in the lifestyle to protect animals, some want to address climate change, and all are partially blinded by the cognitive dissonance that comes automatically with any lifestyle choice.
Complicating matters, one expects the beef industry to make convincing arguments in favor of a meat diet, complete with charts and graphs, and to debunk vegetarian claims. We citizens can only watch the show and use our bullshit filters as best we can.
My bullshit filter tells me that the health benefits of a vegetarian diet are probably real and probably substantial. The studies seem to line up in that direction.8 Science provides one element of the truth filter. The second filter is that whenever I hear of a fifty-year-old guy having a heart attack, he’s almost always a barrel-shaped carnivore with a well-used barbecue. Granted, there aren’t enough vegetarians in the general public for me to fully trust my anecdotal observations, but my observations are consistent with the science, and sometimes that’s the best we can do.
