The problem with a balanced diet

November 18 2011 by in Confused thinking

You think this is a joke? Think again.

The problem with the fuzzy thinking about “balanced” diets is that it’s a perfect excuse to eat anything. The junk food industry loves this argument, for obvious reasons.

19 comments

1
Gary L Green
November 18 2011
Too funny and too true.
2
Susan Cullison
November 18 2011
Reminds me of the whole "everything in moderation" comments. Um, no. Sorry - no sugar and junk in "moderation" will help to keep me healthy, thanks.
3
FrankG
November 18 2011
Bill Cosby has a comedy routine where he describes explaining to his Wife why he gave the children chocolate cake for breakfast... after all, it has all the same ingredients as their breakfast cereal... milk eggs, flour etc... ;-)
4
Maggan A
November 18 2011
haha it is true. One picture says a thousand words :-)
5
Jay Wortman MD
November 18 2011
When someone says "everything in moderation", I ask them if they think that also applies to heroin, cocaine, meth, etc.
6
Jaime
November 18 2011
Hahaha! The funniest thing is that if you asked 100 people in the street how would they define the left side of the picture, most of them would say junk food, but if you showed them the right side, they'd see it as a healthy meal.
7
Dina
November 18 2011
Just this morning I was talking to two good friends when they started the "balanced, everything in moderation" yada yada arguments. Boy would I have wanted this pic to show them! A pic really says more than 1000 words ...
8
Pai
November 18 2011
@FrankgG: Well, it's true that most breakfast cereals marketed to kids is just baked candy! Cake might even be healthier, lol!
9
nell
November 18 2011
'Everything in moderation' is the worst, closely followed by 'lean meat'...
10
nell
November 18 2011
...and 'excess salt' - both courtesy of Loren Cordain, unfortunately.
11
Stephen
November 19 2011
Just like what I thought in the third grade. I reasoned that pizza was balanced. We were taught that balance included dairy, vegetables, meat, and (drum roll)... carbs.
12
Lúcio
November 19 2011
Hello doctor
you could present us with some references on HFLC diet and the lack of correlation between cholesterol and heart disease?
would be very helpful.
Is there any governmental or institutional incentives in Sweden to the diet HFLC?
Many thanks, Lucio
13
Lúcio
November 19 2011
just foud that on /science.
Many thanks.
14
JAUS
November 19 2011
Well, remove the bread and the sugar water and add some fat, then it would actually be a balanced meal, although too small portion for me.
15
James
November 19 2011
This is brilliant, can I steal it?
16
Carl
November 19 2011
The graphic is free for noncommercial use provided you give credit to the artist as explained in the license on his DeviantArt page.
http://mvrh.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3zgtf5
17
Fat Guy Weight Loss
November 19 2011
You can also get the benefit of paying more to get a meal disassembled:

Big Breakfast ($3.19): http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_jeoGslPS4kY/SbyH3aLydoI/AAAAAAAAA_I/FBCaPHX...

Sausage McMuffin w/ Egg ($2.19): http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3538/3911330422_5d2f345fdf.jpg

I guess we have to pay extra for the health benefits of a healthy balanced breakfast :)
18
Jaime
November 19 2011
@Lúcio: I challenge you to find a single serious study (without mistakes in the mathematical analysis) that shows that high cholesterol causes heart disease. Most studies show no correlation whatsoever, except a bit in men below the age of 50, according to one large study, which also found that eating cholesterol-rich food does not even increase your cholesterol. In fact, what doctors loosely "cholesterol" actually does not even refer to cholesterol, but the total count of your triglycerides and lipoproteins that transport cholesterol and fatty acids. Ideally, it is believed that you want to keep your levels of triglycerides low, your levels of high density lipoproteins (HDL) high, and the size of your low density proteins (LDL) large, since the small size ones are the dangerous ones. Dietary fat increases the size of your LDL and increases your HDL, while carbohydrates reduce the size of the LDL, which is dangerous, and turns all the glucose that cannot be stored as glycogen into triglycerides, making you fat in the process. If you have an excess of carbohydrates, and you avoid fat as well, the HDL levels drop too, making things even worse.

I recommend that you get started watching this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
19
Julian
November 21 2011
I love the post! It's really true that the main problem of balance diet is junk foods.

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