1035: “Cadbury Eggs”

[Puppyclaws]

Because authorities are never wrong.

Because I trust people who do scientific research on nutrition at a top institution over people who make up just-so stories about human adaptation and throw in a dash of acting like a smug asshole (as your linked blogger does).

[jqavins]

Nonsense. "What humans are used to eating" is whatever they can get with enough calories to keep them going.

What humans could get didn't include grains, vegetable oils, soy and other new foods.

Exactly my point. Humans are used to eating as much sweet, fatty, and meaty stuff as we can, and we can now get too much of it in too many convenient forms.

As for the rest of your post, read the link I posted.

You posted two. Are you talking about the one that states much the same thing that I do, or the repost of a 77 year old travel log from a site that advocates using an ancient religion and hokey storybook as a source of all life's wisdom? OK, the link above is to the former, the one about how we overeat due to the easy availability foods we are evolved to desire.

Even satiation is no guarantee of appropriate intake. Eat three meals a day of meat, or meat and veggies, or any other "healthy" diet; eat until fully sated every time. Combine that with the sedentary lifestyle that so many of us have. Most people will get fat that way.

[Technical Ben]

Thanks for the link to the scientific analyses of "popular studies" and "media reports" on scientific consensus Sofie. It's good to know there are people doing proper science out there. Sad they they do not seem to be the majority. That, and it could be the majority of things we take for granted are not just wrong, but flat out lies.

[Orlando]

Thanks for the link to the scientific analyses of "popular studies" and "media reports" on scientific consensus Sofie. It's good to know there are people doing proper science out there. Sad they they do not seem to be the majority. That, and it could be the majority of things we take for granted are not just wrong, but flat out lies.

Indeed. I think the moral of this story is YOU CAN'T TRUST THE SYSTEM.

[RyanfaeScotland]

It's not about anything specific, just the general idea. For optimal health, how much should you consume of this item:

Are you suggesting that consuming anything will automatically make your health deteriorate?

I'm pretty much done with this discussion cause I really can't see you changing your mind and at the end of the day its going to make little difference to anything if you do or don't.

[J Thomas]

What humans could get didn't include grains, vegetable oils, soy and other new foods. And that matters because plants make pesticides to defend themselves. And we're pests, who haven't adapted to deal with them beyond not immediately dying.

I will take Harvard's school of public health over some blogger when it comes to questions like whether grains are good for people to eat in general.

We have adapted significantly to staple foods. Europeans are mostly resistant to wheat. Europeans have also developed a degree of resistance to corncockle, cornflower etc, which used to be common contaminants in wheat. Asians tend to be highly resistant to soybeans. People with a long history of raising cattle tend to be lactose-tolerant. Humans are almost universally resistant to onions.

Publicly funded organizations have to tiptoe around the major food manufacturers, which sometimes pay serious money to terrorize researchers or organizations that publicize unpalatable research. I vividly remember reading about a british study which was supposed to look at health differences due to butter, "natural" oils, and polyunsaturated oils. Their problem was that they faced two separate powerful lobbying groups, either of which would savagely punish them for an unfavorable report. They tentatively found that people who ate a lot of butter had more heart attacks, people who used a lot of polyunsaturated fats got more cancers, and the death rates were the same. In one easy-to-miss line they recommended eating less fats. (I wish I still had the link. Memory is unreliable, maybe it would look different now.)

To get good results from the scientific literature you need to look at original articles and in each case look carefully at their methodology and results and decide for yourself what it means. Medical researchers are notorious for drawing conclusions which do not follow from their choice of control groups etc. It's a whole lot of work.

[whateveries]

I like how no one is even considering the conditions that the cadbury chickens have to endure. you heartless bastards. you utterly heartless bastards.

[The Moomin]

I like how no one is even considering the conditions that the cadbury chickens have to endure. you heartless bastards. you utterly heartless bastards.

Mr Cadbury's Parrot, not chickens. Why else would the eggs have such a shiny multi-coloured wrapping?

[FoxOko]

Wow can't believe I'm the only one but...

I HATE the Cadbury Cream eggs. The cream filling is disgusting. It's all about the Cadbury Caramel egg. Now THAT one deserves more attention. (AND IT'S GOOEY AS F*CK)

[SoaG]

Life is too short as it is, enjoy it, don't worry about such nonsense.

[Davenzl]

I had to post in this thread.

I love creme eggs

I use to live in Dunedin where the Cadbury Factor is/was (it's more a tourist attraction now....a bit run down too really), as kids there was this rumor of a 1kg creme egg...you had to eat it with a spoon....I once saw a competition on TV to win one in recent years, alas I did not win

[therita]

You're doing it wrong if you eat Cadbury made anywhere other then Australia.

Bring on Easter


Also, those are Cadbury Creme Eggs (which I've never been a fan of). The best way to eat a Cadbury:

Buy the hollow eggs.
Freeze it
Cut it in half
Fill with icecream
Freeze it
Eat it

or you could forgo the effort and buy basically that ready made.

or


I'm confused though, in my experience, Cadbury's hollow Easter eggs are always two separate halves, so why would you need to freeze and cut them?

Anyway, talking of Cadbury, this is my new favourite thing

Your eggs come in half? what is this crazyness o.0



Thats a cadbury normal egg (couldn't find an upwrapped pic ><)
It's in one piece but hollow.


The difference with the cadbury icecreams to what I make is that Cadbury easter chocolate tastes different (and better IMO) then their day to day chocolate.


Love the cadbury factory down in Tasmania, Australia

[therita]

Wow can't believe I'm the only one but...

I HATE the Cadbury Cream eggs. The cream filling is disgusting. It's all about the Cadbury Caramel egg. Now THAT one deserves more attention. (AND IT'S GOOEY AS F*CK)

I said earlier that I don't like the creme eggs. I agree Caramel = *drool*
.

Anyone else a fan of the cadbury humpty eggs?

[StClair]

But soda is particularly unhealthy, when taken in large quantities. So are candy in large quantities, and living on a diet consisting primarily of meat, and smoking, among other things.

"a diet consisting primarily of meat and smoking" ... how very European, or 20th century American.

jqavins: Nicely explained. My understanding is similar to yours. In many ways, modern humanity are the victims of our own success (and the failure of our thought processes, social institutions etc to keep up).

[whateveries]

I like how no one is even considering the conditions that the cadbury chickens have to endure. you heartless bastards. you utterly heartless bastards.

Mr Cadbury's Parrot, not chickens. Why else would the eggs have such a shiny multi-coloured wrapping?

...this parrot, this one parrot, is responsible for, for all those eggs?. dear god. they are all from a parrot? one parrot? Fuck you Mr Cadbury, Fuck you and your entire degenerate corporation, you fucking sick maniac, thats it, I'm rounding up PETA and where a'commin to smash in your knee-caps . with hate. and hammers.

[Eshru]

I feel I must admit something. The change from the eggy centers to the current... Blasphemy has led me to the caramel ones. At this point, I'm not sure which I would prefer, as the Caramel ones are quite good as well.

The real question is where the hell did my chocolate oranges go?

Edit: to be clear, I don't know if calling the filling caramel is really fair.

[AvatarIII]

Your eggs come in half? what is this crazyness o.0



Thats a cadbury normal egg (couldn't find an upwrapped pic ><)
It's in one piece but hollow.


The difference with the cadbury icecreams to what I make is that Cadbury easter chocolate tastes different (and better IMO) then their day to day chocolate.


Love the cadbury factory down in Tasmania, Australia

Cadbury eggs are almost always in 2 halves placed together and then wrapped in in foil the UK, other egg companies have them sealed, but Cadbury ones are generally not, it's possibly because sometimes there is a packet of chocolate inside the egg that is awkward to seal in.

I also can't find a picture, I assume it's because they don't last long enough after unwrapping to photograph.

[lesmith11]

You're doing it wrong if you eat Cadbury made anywhere other then Australia.

Considering Cadbury was founded in the UK why would I be doing it wrong?

Nigel! Bruce! Does someone need to separate you two?

That went totally over my head. What?

Edit: I'm guessing you're thinking of typical English and Australian names? I tend to think of Bruce as being a Scottish name... and as a female you should probably call me Nigella

[Sofie]

Because authorities are never wrong.

Because I trust people who do scientific research on nutrition at a top institution over people who make up just-so stories about human adaptation and throw in a dash of acting like a smug asshole (as your linked blogger does).

Are any of these more to your liking?

Also this.

It's not about anything specific, just the general idea. For optimal health, how much should you consume of this item:

Are you suggesting that consuming anything will automatically make your health deteriorate?

I'm suggesting that poisons & toxins exist, which never improve your health, only deteriorate it to varying degrees.

We have adapted significantly to staple foods.

Not enough. They still cause lots of problems for people.

Even satiation is no guarantee of appropriate intake. Eat three meals a day of meat, or meat and veggies, or any other "healthy" diet; eat until fully sated every time. Combine that with the sedentary lifestyle that so many of us have. Most people will get fat that way.

Force yourself to eat three meals? Only eating when hungry is also part of it. I've never heard of anyone getting fat while eating paleo, and in my own experience being more inactive simply makes me eat less. And if lack of exercise makes you fat, blaming diet is obviously wrong.

[ShortChelsea]

The cream filled ones are so sinful. *drools* If they were sold year round I'd be as big as a house.

[philsov]

I don't think they're as widespread, but my easter candy of sinful choice is probably the Heavenly Hash Egg. It's chocolate with marshmellow cream and almonds from a company based out of Louisiana. Calorically, 1 heavenly hash egg is interchangeable with one cabdury cream egg.

[SpringLoaded12]

The entire concept of "healthy" and "unhealthy" foods is a bit flawed anyway, since it suggests you should stay away from the unhealthy foods and try to eat more of the healthy ones.

Yes, assuming that prolonged health is something you value. Is there a problem with that?

Anything in excess will be harmful to your health, but moderating consumption makes things okay. There's nothing wrong with eating a bit of candy or having a soda, as long as you're not having tons of soda or tons of candy. If you smoke one cigarette per month you will probably live about as long as you would have anyway (of course, addiction makes this next to impossible to willingly perform), but smoking two packs a day will cut a few decades off your life.

Yes, exactly what I just said. There's nothing wrong with having a soda if that's what you want, but you have to be aware that in the long term more soda aggregates to more health problems. More leafy greens? Not so much. Some foods are more unhealthy than others.

Cadbury eggs are delicious.

No, on this you're totally wrong. A cadbury egg tastes of sugar and nothing else, and this is not delicious. If you think this is delicious, you really owe it to yourself to eat some real food some time before you die.

Let me reiterate; anything in excess is harmful, but how much counts as "excess" varies by the food in question. If you consider the amount of soda that would be considered harmfully excessive, and eat the same amount of spinach, you'll be fine. But, there is an amount of spinach that can also be considered harmfully excessive. Hell, it isn't even limited to food; excessive exercise can be unhealthy too (though this isn't exactly a common problem). You can use this to refer to anything; getting hit in the head with a baseball bat could be described as "excessive blunt cranial trauma". So, I emphasize again, anything in excess is harmful.

No, there's nothing wrong with valuing your health and thus practicing a healthy diet. I'm just saying it can sometimes be unclear to some people what a "healthy diet" is, though you seem to understand it. In fact, we aren't even disagreeing here as far as I can tell.

It's been a long time since I've had a cadbury egg, so perhaps my memory is clouded, but I seem to recall enjoying the last cadbury egg I had. I don't see how that is a problem; I have also eaten -- and enjoyed -- real food. It's possible to enjoy both, just as it's possible to enjoy a serious, intellectual, artistic film and also enjoy a light, mindless movie; the source and reason for the enjoyment is very different between the two, however.

[J Thomas]

Let me reiterate; anything in excess is harmful, but how much counts as "excess" varies by the food in question. If you consider the amount of soda that would be considered harmfully excessive, and eat the same amount of spinach, you'll be fine.

If we consider the soda by weight or volume, I doubt you could get anybody to eat that much spinach. Yuck. They wouldn't do it. Maybe smaller amounts of soda are harmful too.

But, there is an amount of spinach that can also be considered harmfully excessive. Hell, it isn't even limited to food; excessive exercise can be unhealthy too (though this isn't exactly a common problem). You can use this to refer to anything; getting hit in the head with a baseball bat could be described as "excessive blunt cranial trauma". So, I emphasize again, anything in excess is harmful.

Oh man, sometimes I have trouble making my points clearly, but you way outdo me. With me it's that sometimes other people have stranger ideas than I imagine they would, and so I don't consider how to say things so they could understand. I don't know what it is with you.

Are you going to claim that there's a right amount to get hit in the head with a baseball bat, and if you wind up in the emergency room it was excessive? I can kind of imagine that. Maybe our skulls will be stronger if they get lots of little microfractures, and that requires they get a whole lot of gentle blows. I doubt I would have thought of that without you. It might be correct but it's bizarre to think about.

No, there's nothing wrong with valuing your health and thus practicing a healthy diet. I'm just saying it can sometimes be unclear to some people what a "healthy diet" is, though you seem to understand it. In fact, we aren't even disagreeing here as far as I can tell.

It's completely unclear to me what's healthy, beyond some general guidelines. Vegetables we've been using a long time are probably mostly harmless except when they aren't. LIke, broccoli can give you problems with blood clots if you eat it at just the wrong time when there's something else wrong with you. Tomatoes are probably completely OK provided they're not the least bit old and they have no moldy or infected spots. With lots of fresh vegetables it probably depends a lot on just when they were picked and how they were handled, plus things like insects before they were picked. You really don't know what you're getting. But there are probably a number of unknown vitamins you need too, that you won't get otherwise. The known vitamins will keep you mostly healthy for awhile if you're a young man.

So OK, we have mostly clean water, and refrigerators so you won't get much badly-spoiled food. Central heat and AC, and good sanitation systems to handle our wastes. If you eat as healthy as the average American there's a good chance you'll be as healthy as the average American, which is by some measures better than the previous generation. Maybe it's nothing to worry about.

It's been a long time since I've had a cadbury egg, so perhaps my memory is clouded, but I seem to recall enjoying the last cadbury egg I had. I don't see how that is a problem; I have also eaten -- and enjoyed -- real food. It's possible to enjoy both, just as it's possible to enjoy a serious, intellectual, artistic film and also enjoy a light, mindless movie; the source and reason for the enjoyment is very different between the two, however.

There's an important distinction that Sofie failed to get across. I'll try too. Consider the difference between food that isn't very nutritious, versus poison.

If you eat some food that lacks things you need, that's OK provided you still get the things you need some other way, like with some other food. If one food lacks one nutrient and another food lacks a different one, you will get everything you need provided you get a good enough variety.

Now consider poison. You don't need any at all. There will be some limit where if you take less than that the MDs won't notice any definite symptoms. You might say that it's OK to take that amount. But just because they can't definitely measure the symptoms doesn't mean it isn't hurting you. if it's a real poison, you're better off not taking any at all.

I think that's a useful distinction. If your food lacks something then you can still eat as much of it as you want provided you still get enough of what it lacks. But if your food contains poisons, then the more of it you eat, the worse off you are. It doesn't much help you to also eat food that isn't poisoned.

But in reality the distinction is often blurred. Things that are useful in small quantities turn into poison when you get too much. Various vitamins can hurt you -- niacin, pyridoxine, D, A, etc. Arsenic is pleasant in small doses but is a cumulative poison. Etc. When something is bad for you down to a dose where the effects are too small to be sure about, how do you tell whether they do a small bad or a small good?

When the difference is too small to measure, all you can do is hope.

Hope that it won't have a cumulative delayed effect which will become all-too-measurable at some unknown time in the future.

[Angua]

Most plant foods contain some amounts of poison. That seems to be the reason women get morning sickness when they're pregnant (and those who don't often get food aversions). It stops them from ingesting poison which wouldn't be harmful to them, but could harm the foetus.

Pregnant women who don't suffer from morning sickness and food aversion are more prone to miscarriages.

[tanthalas]

Life is too short as it is, enjoy it, don't worry about such nonsense.

I agree.

Eat the bread everyone. Namaste.

[toadpipe]

You're doing it wrong if you eat Cadbury made anywhere other then Australia.

Considering Cadbury was founded in the UK why would I be doing it wrong?

Nigel! Bruce! Does someone need to separate you two?

That went totally over my head. What?

Edit: I'm guessing you're thinking of typical English and Australian names? I tend to think of Bruce as being a Scottish name... and as a female you should probably call me Nigella

Something like that, the Bruce bit comes from an old Monty Python sketch where they are all profs at an Aussie uni and they are all named Bruce, to the point where they ask the new guy (who is a Brit and named Michael) if they could just call him Bruce to keep things clear.

The Nigel part is inspired by the episode of Top Gear where Clarkson, Hammond and May take on the crew from Top Gear Australia and in response to being called Bruce, the Aussies just called everyone Nigel.

As for you being female, had I known that I'd have gone with Hermione instead.


The point though, we all got regional pride. So what, it's a round world last I checked.

[Uzh]

Anyway, talking of Cadbury, this is my new favourite thing

Oh. Greetings from the other side of the channel:



I thought Milka had protected the lilac for food...

Georg

*Edit: We've got two calories more than you've got!

[whateveries]

...Now consider poison. You don't need any at all. There will be some limit where if you take less than that the MDs won't notice any definite symptoms. You might say that it's OK to take that amount. But just because they can't definitely measure the symptoms doesn't mean it isn't hurting you. if it's a real poison, you're better off not taking any at all.

vegetables are homepathic remedies now? no wonder they are so good for you and me and even sophie!

But if your food contains poisons, then the more of it you eat, the worse off you are. It doesn't much help you to also eat food that isn't poisoned.

what? yes, but no, what? how doesn't it help to not eat poison? except if you are a a shakespearean leading lady.

But in reality the distinction is often blurred. Things that are useful in small quantities turn into poison when you get too much. Various vitamins can hurt you -- niacin, pyridoxine, D, A, etc. Arsenic is pleasant in small doses but is a cumulative poison. Etc. When something is bad for you down to a dose where the effects are too small to be sure about, how do you tell whether they do a small bad or a small good?

you feel like crap, or you feel great. here is a test, eat a bowl of steamed broccoli & carrots, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run, note how you feel. a week later eat a bowl full of the cadbury eggs, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run. after you finish puking, note how you feel. your body might be able to tell you something your brain is seemingly incapable or grasping.

When the difference is too small to measure, all you can do is hope.

when the difference is too small to measure, it becomes irrelevant. Save your hope for things like lotto, extinction level events and a quick naughty before the kids wake up.

Hope that it won't have a cumulative delayed effect which will become all-too-measurable at some unknown time in the future.

oh, well there is that, yes, but dammit man, LIVE IN THE NOW!

[Eternal Density]

I'm more of a Cadbury Chocolate Mousse guy personally.

Wait, how can it contain 6.4 servings per package??

[J Thomas]

...Now consider poison. You don't need any at all. There will be some limit where if you take less than that the MDs won't notice any definite symptoms. You might say that it's OK to take that amount. But just because they can't definitely measure the symptoms doesn't mean it isn't hurting you. if it's a real poison, you're better off not taking any at all.

vegetables are homepathic remedies now? no wonder they are so good for you and me and even sophie!

I was never clear how homeopathic remedies work. The official description could work sometimes but....

I suspect the general method is this: You can take an effective medication that does something important. if it's prescribed in just the right dose for just the right duration, it does just exactly what you need. If the dose or the duration is not right, you get something other than what you need. What's the chance a random MD will do it just right? Slim. But there may be a 50:50 chance what he does will be an improvement.

Meanwhile you can take a homeopathic remedy that does nothing, and you get just as much placebo effect as you get from the effective medication, with no bad side effects. So on average it comes out better.

But if your food contains poisons, then the more of it you eat, the worse off you are. It doesn't much help you to also eat food that isn't poisoned.

what? yes, but no, what? how doesn't it help to not eat poison? except if you are a a shakespearean leading lady.

Say you eat six Burger King hamburgers that don't do you much good. A lot of fat and starch, some degraded protein, some supplemental vitamins that are the same ones everybody else supplements. You also eat something that provides all your vitamins and all your needs. The unbalanced stuff you got from Burger Kind doesn't hurt you very much because you did get everything you needed, and the extra calories might go to fat or something but no big problems. Eating nonpoisonous junk food only hurts you a little provided you also meet your needs.

Say you eat six Burger King hamburgers that are poisoned. You also eat something that provides all your vitamins and other needs. Getting all your nutrition from something else does not help you much with the poison.

One way, the important thing is to get all the stuff you need.
The other way, the important thing is to avoid poisons.
I think that's an important difference.

But in reality the distinction is often blurred. Things that are useful in small quantities turn into poison when you get too much. Various vitamins can hurt you -- niacin, pyridoxine, D, A, etc. Arsenic is pleasant in small doses but is a cumulative poison. Etc. When something is bad for you down to a dose where the effects are too small to be sure about, how do you tell whether they do a small bad or a small good?

you feel like crap, or you feel great. here is a test, eat a bowl of steamed broccoli & carrots, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run, note how you feel. a week later eat a bowl full of the cadbury eggs, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run. after you finish puking, note how you feel. your body might be able to tell you something your brain is seemingly incapable or grasping.

That sounds like a good thing to do. It is not totally reliable. Things might take more than an hour to have their effect. And some things that are good for you in the long run can interfere with your 4k run -- for example, another all-out 4k run an hour before. Some things that feel good in the short run can be bad for you -- for example, a small dose of amphetamines an hour before your 4k run. But even though it isn't a perfect test, it's far better than no test. There are lots of worse tests available.

[whateveries]

Spoiler:

...Now consider poison. You don't need any at all. There will be some limit where if you take less than that the MDs won't notice any definite symptoms. You might say that it's OK to take that amount. But just because they can't definitely measure the symptoms doesn't mean it isn't hurting you. if it's a real poison, you're better off not taking any at all.

vegetables are homepathic remedies now? no wonder they are so good for you and me and even sophie!

I was never clear how homeopathic remedies work. The official description could work sometimes but....

I suspect the general method is this: You can take an effective medication that does something important. if it's prescribed in just the right dose for just the right duration, it does just exactly what you need. If the dose or the duration is not right, you get something other than what you need. What's the chance a random MD will do it just right? Slim. But there may be a 50:50 chance what he does will be an improvement.

Meanwhile you can take a homeopathic remedy that does nothing, and you get just as much placebo effect as you get from the effective medication, with no bad side effects. So on average it comes out better.

But if your food contains poisons, then the more of it you eat, the worse off you are. It doesn't much help you to also eat food that isn't poisoned.

what? yes, but no, what? how doesn't it help to not eat poison? except if you are a a shakespearean leading lady.

Say you eat six Burger King hamburgers that don't do you much good. A lot of fat and starch, some degraded protein, some supplemental vitamins that are the same ones everybody else supplements. You also eat something that provides all your vitamins and all your needs. The unbalanced stuff you got from Burger Kind doesn't hurt you very much because you did get everything you needed, and the extra calories might go to fat or something but no big problems. Eating nonpoisonous junk food only hurts you a little provided you also meet your needs.

Say you eat six Burger King hamburgers that are poisoned. You also eat something that provides all your vitamins and other needs. Getting all your nutrition from something else does not help you much with the poison.

One way, the important thing is to get all the stuff you need.
The other way, the important thing is to avoid poisons.
I think that's an important difference.

But in reality the distinction is often blurred. Things that are useful in small quantities turn into poison when you get too much. Various vitamins can hurt you -- niacin, pyridoxine, D, A, etc. Arsenic is pleasant in small doses but is a cumulative poison. Etc. When something is bad for you down to a dose where the effects are too small to be sure about, how do you tell whether they do a small bad or a small good?

you feel like crap, or you feel great. here is a test, eat a bowl of steamed broccoli & carrots, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run, note how you feel. a week later eat a bowl full of the cadbury eggs, let it sit for an hour and go for a 4k run. after you finish puking, note how you feel. your body might be able to tell you something your brain is seemingly incapable or grasping.

That sounds like a good thing to do. It is not totally reliable. Things might take more than an hour to have their effect. And some things that are good for you in the long run can interfere with your 4k run -- for example, another all-out 4k run an hour before. Some things that feel good in the short run can be bad for you -- for example, a small dose of amphetamines an hour before your 4k run. But even though it isn't a perfect test, it's far better than no test. There are lots of worse tests available.

hrrmm, no, the amphetamines vs brocolli debate is a completely different one. Look from my understanding of the 'sophie' standpoint simplified ( simplification is a dangerous habit of mine, I am afraid) is this

The difference in reletive danger of consuming
a) fresh fruit & vegetables
and
b) processed fats and refined sugars.

is negligible healthwise. due to the toxins present in f&v effectively negating any health benefit.

so this presents one of those interesting to debate ideas so long as you can lock common sense out of the room whilst you have it, which is fine here on a forum where by and large the average level of common sense is high enough that very few people will repeatedly post comments in all-caps.

What I find a little disturbing is these arguments have a habit of escaping into the mainstream and going wild, remember that is a place where people are prone to thinking of amphetamines as a food source, and quite frankly...
um...
no, wait.
see, no, I just remembered that, pretty much, stupid ideas naturally gravitate to stupid people, and if it wasn't f&v is bad for you, it might be something else, like, oooh, homeopathy. (but that cat is out of the bag and breeding like a rabbit on speed.)
So, I have no argument to make, to those who wish to, avoid f&v and scarf down as much chocolate & soda as you like, unless you live in a country with a state funded medical system already stretched to breaking by treating people with preventable lifestyle diseases, than maybe you should think about your actions a little more, if only for the childrens sake.

and yes, I did just sugest that people who don't share my viewpoint are stupid. but please lets just treat it as quirk in an otherwise perfiectly wornderful personality structure. like when grandad wears grandma's underwear.

[Sofie]

If you eat as healthy as the average American there's a good chance you'll be as healthy as the average American, which is by some measures better than the previous generation.

And is by any measure less healthy than we can be.

Whateveries, what toxins are you thinking about? If you're saying that's what I'm saying, you're wrong. Grains are not vegetables.

[whateveries]

If you eat as healthy as the average American there's a good chance you'll be as healthy as the average American, which is by some measures better than the previous generation.

And is by any measure less healthy than we can be.

Whateveries, what toxins are you thinking about? If you're saying that's what I'm saying, you're wrong. Grains are not vegetables.

apparently I was thinking on the alkaloids from the ergot from the rye from that turkey sammich. dammit.

no wait. free acid! yay!
no wait. it hurts AAAHH!
no wait. lookitmyhands.theresofreekinghuge.

no wait. grains are not vegetables?
well, no, more of a fruit . so replace the carrots & brocolli for a bowl of Vita-brits. it stands.

but now I have to go back and re-read all these posts, as it seems you maybe did not say what I thought you said, and this misinterpretation, if true, I place solely at the fault of Saint Anthony. and that turkey on rye. and my being a tool. mostly my being a tool.

*Edit after rereading posts*
no, it was this bit...

What humans could get didn't include grains, vegetable oils, soy and other new foods. And that matters because plants make pesticides to defend themselves. And we're pests, who haven't adapted to deal with them beyond not immediately dying.

as far as the consumption of grains by humans, surely we have done so for a very long time, surely for as long as we had walked through the long grass idly picking fat grains from the top of stalks, well before recorded time and probably before our ancestors started to preferentially breed with the ones that stood a little more upright and spent time developing an thumb with an oppositional disorder over the ones who spent their time hooting and screeching.( though those party guys are still fairly well represented in football games.)

sure in this mode of grain consumption we probably did not eat a few hundred grams of the processed germ in a blindingly short timeframe so...

still, I suspect that

i may be a tool.

ah, whatever.

[J Thomas]

hrrmm, no, the amphetamines vs brocolli debate is a completely different one. Look from my understanding of the 'sophie' standpoint simplified ( simplification is a dangerous habit of mine, I am afraid) is this

The difference in reletive danger of consuming
a) fresh fruit & vegetables
and
b) processed fats and refined sugars.

is negligible healthwise. due to the toxins present in f&v effectively negating any health benefit.

I will present an opposing viewpoint. I don't have a proof.

Suppose that there are a collection of undiscovered vitamins. A handful of the most important vitamins have been discovered -- poor people with extremely unhealthy diets (because they were too poor to eat anything but corn, or anything but rice, etc) got diseases which could be cured by specific vitamins. Suppose there are others that are more subtle. When you don't get enough of one of them over a period of years your joints start to disintegrate, say. Another leads to arterial problems. A third gives you premature cataracts. Etc.

Suppose further that as you age, your ability to make a collection of vitamins for yourself starts to shut down. Maybe old people need vitamins that young people don't need.

I consider both of these plausible but not at all proven.

If this is true, what can you do? You will suffer if you just eat sugar, starch, fat, and well-done meat. Your best bet is to eat small quantities of a big variety of foods that tradition says are healthy. And then if you aren't rich you can eat lots of some staple food to provide calories.

If some of those foods contain small amounts of toxins along with small amounts of undiscovered vitamins, you can hope that small amounts of those toxins aren't as important as small amounts of vitamins. You aren't getting a lot of each poison. You won't get a whole lot of fruit and vegetable poisons unless you're rich enough to eat a whole lot of them.

One alternative is to get your vitamins etc from animal flesh. If an animal needs all the same vitamins you do, it probably *has* those vitamins unless it's somehow unhealthy. So if you eat the animal, and if you are good at extracting those vitamins, you will probably be as healthy as it was. However, you really need to eat the whole animal. Brain, pancreas, liver, intestines, connective tissue, marrow, bone, etc. And there may be problems if the animal gets too much cooking, or if you wait too long to eat it. Vitamins could be destroyed by heat or by normal enzymatic functions after death. You'd do best to eat the animal alive. But when you do that you eat the animals parasites, some of which are good at embedding themselves into your intestines and eating your food along with your blood, while others burrow through your flesh looking for a good place to camp out. Some of them can multiply inside you, it doesn't help much to only get small numbers of them. So I think it's better to cook your animal flesh, or find some other way to make it thoroughly dead. Maybe eat some cooked, and some gamma-irradiated until it's completely sterile.

People probably first cooked meat to make it decay slower and also removing water made it easier to carry. They pretty likely started cooking vegetables to remove toxins. It probably dates back to the first cooking pots. You boil the food, then you throw away the water and boil it again. After a few extractions most of the poison is gone and what's left may have some starches etc that are worth eating. Also they aren't as crunchy. Some of our crops may have been bred to be less toxic, after we ate them for many generations removing the toxins.

So anyway, with some lit-searching I could point you to references that make my ideas seem kind of plausible, but I don't have anything like a proof for much of it. I say, eat a little of lots of fruits and vegetables but don't eat a lot of any one of them and you'll be fine.

Whateveries, what toxins are you thinking about? If you're saying that's what I'm saying, you're wrong. Grains are not vegetables.

apparently I was thinking on the alkaloids from the ergot from the rye from that turkey sammich. dammit.

Various plants have oxalic acid, which is bad for you if you get too much of it. Spinach is the main one that people actually eat much.
Potatoes (which could be considered a grain but aren't) make a nerve poison if they get exposed to light. They turn green and the common wisdom is that once a potato turns green you can cut off the green part and eat the rest, that the poison does not spread faster than the green. I have some doubts but I haven't tested it. I read that if you deep-fry potatoes they have less poison because some of it goes into the oil. Throw away the oil.

Sweet potatoes make a poison in response to a fungus infection. If your sweet potato gets a little moldy on one end I don't know how much of it you need to cut off to avoid the poison. Maybe better to throw the whole thing away.
Tomato roots, stems, and leaves are poisonous. Should you believe that none of the poison gets into the tomato fruits? Sure, why not? Tomatoes are 100% good for you, no poison there.

Do you believe that moldy strawberries are probably bad for you? When you eat strawberry jam or something else that's created by mashing many thousands of strawberries together, how many of them do you think were moldy? Probably not many, they're real careful about that. Certainly not enough for you to taste it.

[jrkelly]

Call that a creme egg. This is a creme egg - http://www.pimpthatsnack.com/project/302/

[Greep]

In any case, the person in the comic is complaining about feeling sick, so fat really should be used here. Consider the following: eating an entire bar of butter, which is nearly pure fat, will make anyone, I mean anyone throw up. Probably half a bar even. And yet people can eat the same amount of volume of candy, which is pretty much pure sugar, without getting very sick. So... using the fat analogy:

Cadbury eggs: Non-negligible fat
Soda: 0 fat

So you can have an undefined amount of soda if you can eat one easter egg But that's not entirely true, there must be some trace amounts of fat in soda. After all, there's trace amounts of even cocaine on money. So there must be a little fat in soda from bits of dead animal in the water supply. Assuming it's pretty small, like 10 parts per billion, and give the easter eggs an extremely lenient 10 million parts per billion of fat, you have

1 easter egg = 1 million cans of soda

Of course, if you tried drinking that, you would have shortly die midway from water, sugar, or caffeine poisoning.

Regardless, nice comic

[AUS]

Greep, I think you're looking at this the wrong way! Completely backward!
You're making an argument for drinking tons of soda, and that's not what the comic is about. The fat only translates in one direction, yes, but you're going backwards!
True, there's no fat in soda, but that's no reason to discount scarfing tons of cadbury eggs down your throat in lue of drinking a million bottles of soda.

I hope you see my point in there somewhere.