It is quite disturbing how big the anti-fat (in food) sentiment got in the 1980s and 1990s. And even though it has been heavily debunked, people still look at fat quantity in food to decide what is "healthy." Ignoring the fact that fat (not transfats, regular dietary fat) is extremely good for you, and won't cause you to gain weight.
There are even still "low fat" foods on the shelf which intentionally remove dietary fat and replace it with complex carbohydrates (mostly sugars), which are bad for you.
Remember the whole "red meat will kill you!" thing? Yeah, utter nonsense. There's a small amount of cancer risk from the cooking process (and glazing/smoking) but broadly speaking raw meats are one of the healthiest non-vegetables you can eat. Much healthier than processed foods. The more fat the better.
When you order a burger, the bun is by far the most unhealthy part. Then the sugared sauce (e.g. ketchup, mayo, etc), then the american "cheese," and last of all the meat. But most modern burgers are just "sugar delivery devices" in the sense that the % of meat is tiny and % of sugar (from bun, cheese, and sauce) is getting higher and higher.
I feel like there's often an odd tendency for people to arrive at the ultimate logical conclusion when it comes to health. If too much saturated fat is bad for you, avoid all saturated fat. If high sodium diets are bad for you, minimize sodium as much as possible (as opposed to just consuming a moderate amount). Nonfat diets, no-carb diets, all to chase the ever-changing concept of perfect health.
This kinda gets back to the 'eight glasses of water a day' thing. Some study indicated that a human should consume eight cups [the measurement, 2.5 liters] of water a day (including the water in food). Years pass, news reports are released, and you end up with people trying to guzzle down eight pint glasses of water a day.
I'm not sure I follow? I am trying to say (maybe unclearly) that vegetables are healthiest and then [unprocessed] meats. So meats are the healthiest non-vegetable.
Vegetables, raw meats, everything else.
Fruits are a tough category as some are extremely healthy (e.g. Blueberries) while others are barely better than candy (e.g. Figs, Grapes, etc).
To clarify here: You mean eating, for instance, bacon that is less processed (not injected with tenderizers, salt, msg, etc) is 'healthier' for you than bacon that is processed (all that stuff injected). You do NOT mean that eating less heated and cooked meat is 'healthier' than eating cooked meats. That the cooking process is independent (mostly) from the 'healthiness' of the meat.
Yeah. I feel like the above post is gibberish now. :)
I should have said "unprocessed meat" not "raw meat" since raw is often used to described uncooked meat.
Bacon gets a bad wrap because it is often cooked in unhealthy oils and smoked. Both of which are "bad." You stick un-smoked bacon on a george forman grill and you have a darn healthy piece of meat.
> because it is often cooked in unhealthy oils and smoked.
No, it gets a bad rap because its usually cured with nitrates/nitrites (including must "nitrate free" bacon, which isn't, it just uses celery salt, which contains nitrates that do exactly what other nitrates/nitrites do, but because its considered a flavoring agent and not a preservative and isn't synthized nitrate/nitrite, doesn't have to be labeled as a nitrate/nitrite), which have some adverse health effects in certain circumstances (though the USDA has taken action to require steps to mitigate those effects the same way that, e.g., the naturally occurring sources of nitrates in green vegetables naturally do, though the bad rap was already established by then), and also because of the high quantity of animal fat, which itself has a bad rap.
Uncured bacon obviously exists and doesn't have nitrates/nitrites (even stealth ones), but it probably isn't meaningfully more healthy than cured bacon.
Cooking bacon in oil is silly; its often used as a source of fat instead of oil in cooking.
There are even still "low fat" foods on the shelf which intentionally remove dietary fat and replace it with complex carbohydrates (mostly sugars), which are bad for you.
Remember the whole "red meat will kill you!" thing? Yeah, utter nonsense. There's a small amount of cancer risk from the cooking process (and glazing/smoking) but broadly speaking raw meats are one of the healthiest non-vegetables you can eat. Much healthier than processed foods. The more fat the better.
When you order a burger, the bun is by far the most unhealthy part. Then the sugared sauce (e.g. ketchup, mayo, etc), then the american "cheese," and last of all the meat. But most modern burgers are just "sugar delivery devices" in the sense that the % of meat is tiny and % of sugar (from bun, cheese, and sauce) is getting higher and higher.