Antioxidants are almost worthless

[His Divine Shadow]

It's a good rule of thumb to just buy food in terms of raw produce and do any processing yourself, nutritionally and economically. It's really hard to get away from the boatloads of sugars and salts in most processed food so you have less control of your diet. Sugar, salt and lots of highly refined carbs are the three worst things about most processed food and also what is easiest to get away from by preparing your own food as much as possible.

Gonna buy half a pig and a quarter of a cow or more from a farm later when we got the freezer space, kilo price of meat is average 4 euros that way, way less than most meat in stores.

[Broomstick]

First, there is a lot of "woo" around not eating prepared food. Much of it is complete bullshit. I have people say "prepared foods" as a negative without really knowing what they are talking about.

You'd have a point IF THAT WAS WHAT I ACTUALLY SAID which it is NOT!

It fucking pisses me off when people are either not reading what I posted, or are willfully refusing to comprehend it. I have repeatedly stated that there is nothing inherently bad in any of those things but I guess your agenda is blinding you to what's actually written.

Second, if you ate frozen foods (such as the better TV Dinners which do not have huge amount of salt added) almost exclusively as long as you got a reasonable mix of vegetables, you will be fine. Some people are always on the go and that is the best that they can do as far as meals.

Again, I already covered that with

1) freezing should count as minimal processing, and

2) you can exist a long time on sub-optimal diet.

Now, are you going to actually address what I wrote or stubbornly insist on being an idiot? We can have civilized discussion or I can open up a can of whup-ass on you, your choice.

[Isolder74]

And as far as most frozen food go most of the processing that takes place is usually just a small amount of blanching done to the vegetable to keep the frozen food from browning while it is frozen. In fact if you find a really good deal on some fresh produce you can freeze them yourself if just blanch the stuff quickly in boiling water for 2 - 5 mins(depends on the produce) and then Ice bath them then freeze them for storage. Just lay out the food to be frozen on a sheet pan and put the pan in the freezer. Once frozen they can be bagged for later. It's very important to do this with any produce high in starch. Some fruits do also need to be soaked in lemon juice or ascorbic acid before freezing but you'd have to check that before doing them.

[Broomstick]

I've found that if you're going to use said frozen vegetables within 60 days you can skip the blanching for many of them. I don't bother with the ice bath. In fact, I don't bother with a water blanch any more, either. I use the microwave for 1-2 minutes for greens, somewhat more for beans, more yet for broccoli bits, then bag and freeze them. It involves a lot less water and wet and works just as well.

The key thing is to get the vegees high enough in temperature to deactivate the enzymes that cause browning. How you get there doesn't really matter.

[PainRack]

Err...I just don't see what's wrong with Broomstick arguments here.


The WHO, IOM, WHCRF all recommend eating minimal processed red meat due as nitrates and red meat are linked to colon cancer.

Similarly, the US health agency recommends eating less processed food so as to help Americans reach their targeted sodium and saturated fats level.http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/

The differenece here is that you're talking split semantics, where Broomstick and the US is talking about canned, curing, processed food like tv dinners and potato chips/cereals, you're talking frozen foodstuffs.

[cosmicalstorm]

Another paper

Present data suggest that the consumption of individual dietary supplements does not enhance the health or longevity of healthy rodents or humans. It might be argued that more complex combinations of such agents might extend lifespan or health-span by more closely mimicking the complexity of micronutrients in fruits and vegetables, which appear to extend health-span and longevity. To test this hypothesis we treated long-lived, male, F1 mice with published and commercial combinations of dietary supplements and natural product extracts, and determined their effects on lifespan and health-span. Nutraceutical, vitamin or mineral combinations reported to extend the lifespan or health-span of healthy or enfeebled rodents were tested, as were combinations of botanicals and nutraceuticals implicated in enhanced longevity by a longitudinal study of human aging. A cross-section of commercial nutraceutical combinations sold as potential health enhancers also were tested, including Bone Restore®, Juvenon®, Life Extension Mix®, Ortho Core®, Ortho Mind®, Super K w k2®, and Ultra K2®. A more complex mixture of vitamins, minerals, botanical extracts and other nutraceuticals was compounded and tested. No significant increase in murine lifespan was found for any supplement mixture. Our diverse supplement mixture significantly decreased lifespan. Thus, our results do not support the hypothesis that simple or complex combinations of nutraceuticals, including antioxidants, are effective in delaying the onset or progress of the major causes of death in mice. The results are consistent with epidemiological studies suggesting that dietary supplements are not beneficial and even may be harmful for otherwise healthy individuals.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24370781

[Broomstick]

In other words, eat healthy and don't supplement unless you have an actual deficiency. Gotcha.

[jwl]

It's funny that the same people who worry about big pharma often embrace what is essentially "big antioxidant snake oil".

It's been that way with alternative 'medicine' for years. The evidence says it doesn't work, but they can't accept that, so they invent conspiracies to explain why it's not part of standard, evidence based, medicine.

But antioxidants have been in mainstream medicine for years. They only got booted out recently. Reason being was that they knew that fruit and such was good for you and assumed it was the antioxidants in the fruit that was doing the good.