8 interesting misconceptions about human nutrition

Author: Nikolai Borisov - coach, champion of Russia in powerlifting.
2017-03-02

A lot has been written about proper nutrition. And so, having studied the topic of food, you have decided to embrace a healthy lifestyle. I dare say that not everyone around you will support your endeavors. Some people may actively discourage you from making progressive changes, to the point of being bothersome. While you can simply ignore friends and colleagues, silently and demonstratively chewing your cottage cheese in front of them, you need to be more tactful with relatives living in the same apartment. Usually, they sincerely wish you well and are often incompetent in nutrition matters.

I will talk about the most common misconceptions you may hear from your loved ones and try to prepare you for the upcoming discussion. A sense of humor will help you smooth over tense moments in discussions about food.

1. Bread is the staff of life

For the modern city dweller, it is not the staff of life but a second chin. In tsarist Russia, a soldier received 1230 grams of bread daily in peacetime and 2254 grams in wartime. Until the advent of canned food, dried bread served that purpose. According to the food supply norms of 1914-1917, bread could be replaced by dried bread at 819 grams in peacetime and 1539 grams in wartime. It’s likely that peasants in the harvest season consumed nearly as much. And obesity was a rarity. The explanation is obvious.

A peasant, after a day of fieldwork, expended as much energy as many city dwellers might use in ten days of life. Soldiers practiced bayonet fighting almost daily, marched, dug trenches, and performed various household chores. Engaging in exercises with a rifle, with a bayonet fixed, and in military gear, you expend more energy than you would by pretending to run on an exercise machine. So you can confidently reduce a soldier's peacetime ration by ten times; that will be enough for average fitness. Well, if you are not training and getting around by car, you don’t need bread at all.

When bread was considered vital, it was RYE bread. Soldiers and common folks were exclusively given rye bread and dried bread. And if they baked with wheat, it was mostly of coarse flour. Even in Soviet times, stores offered loaves made from second-grade flour for 13 kopecks, which were denser, darker, and tastier than first-grade flour loaves for 18 kopecks. In the 21st century, I have not encountered such loaves. All flour is refined to the state of refined carbohydrates, resembling cotton candy. The crafty marketing trick of modern bakers: purifying wheat to whiteness and adding back the bran that was just scraped off of it. It's much easier to clean flour less thoroughly and grind it coarser. But "bread with bran" sells better.

Nowadays, what is called black bread is actually gray bread with a dark crust. It contains less rye than wheat. Check the ingredient list.

Any wheat products in a healthy diet can be consumed in limited quantities 2-3 times a week. If you are trying to lose weight, your maximum is a dozen sandwiches with caviar per year: 4 on New Year’s, 4 on Perun's Day, and 4 on your birthday. On other holidays, eat caviar without bread.

2. Soup is healthy

Eating dry food leads to ulcers, gastritis, and other terrible diseases. This has been disproven by practice. People who haven’t eaten soup for decades continue to digest food well. In a healthy person, food is moistened by saliva in the necessary amount for absorption, especially if a sufficient amount of liquid is consumed 10-15 minutes before meals.

Yes, there are healthy first courses. For example: mackerel soup with cephalopods and slightly raw vegetables, sorrel soup with plenty of eggs, okroshka made from good ingredients. But more often than not, you can see something entirely different on the table: cabbage soup or borscht. If the broth is made from bones, heavy metals are extracted into it; if from meat, then antibiotics and fat. You can eliminate this problem by pouring off the first broth and preparing the soup on the second broth, but very few people do this.

Now, let's look at what swims in the broth. Cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions... Read point 3 for potatoes. The rest are vegetables. Why cook them? Only for the toothless. Cooking kills flavor, and most importantly - destroys vitamins. Eat vegetables raw or lightly fried (just enough to keep them crispy inside) to get your vitamins and enjoyment. Even worse is if wheat flour of various forms is floating in the soup. You are being fed wheat under various names: pasta, vermicelli, noodles, macaroni, dumplings, etc. But no matter what you call it, it does not make for a healthy diet.

3. Potatoes are the Russian national food

This is outright falsehood. Schoolchildren know that the homeland of potatoes is America. In the first half of the 18th century, only a few Russian aristocrats consumed them. It wasn't until the early 19th century that "earth apples" began to be cultivated by peasants in some provinces. In 1841, governors were required to report to the government about the expansion of potato cultivation. In response, a wave of "potato riots" occurred. Even at the end of the 19th century, many peasants referred to potatoes as "the devil's apples." By the early 20th century, however, they suddenly became "the second bread," thanks to administrative support. Only 4-5 generations have relied on potatoes for sustenance, and now they are considered national food.

In comparison, turnips (a member of the cabbage family) were cultivated by the Greeks and Egyptians 40 centuries ago. In Russia, turnips were consumed for 50, or perhaps even 100 generations. It was the second vegetable after cabbage, a source of calcium, potassium, succinic acid, fiber, and much more. Fairy tales were written about turnips, not potatoes. And there's no need to cook turnips (they can be steamed for those without teeth). Just pull them out of the ground, and they're ready to eat. Potatoes, on the other hand, need to be prepared. They are still edible when boiled. However, many fry them until carcinogens form and add a lot of fat. Thus, this absurd replacement of Russian turnips with American starch.

4. Communal meals are an ancient tradition

That's true. People collectively hunted, roasted a zebra or an antelope on a spit, and shared it with roots and herbs. Our contemporaries also love shared meals. At work, colleagues often suggest celebrating some event with cake, and in a large group, events happen almost daily. You will have to explain to your coworkers that traditions call for serving game with vegetables, and that cakes and pastries are disrespectful to the traditions and comrades.

During lunch breaks, coworkers often head to McDonald's or another fast food establishment; this is a modern tradition. In large cities, McDonald's is far from the only fast food chain, and judging by appearances, KFC food is even worse. However, McDonald's was the first in Russia and will remain a symbol of fast food for a long time, if not forever. Find another place for lunch. Even in small towns, there are cafes where Asians from the former USSR offer their cuisine. Their pilaf and homemade manti, unlike various burgers, aren’t overcooked and don’t contain flavor additives, palm oil, or trans fats. In general, it's quite healthy food. And the owners genuinely appreciate their customers, especially regulars, unlike chain restaurant waiters who resemble robots.

5. Food should be filling

Who forgot about the experiments of academician Pavlov from the school curriculum? He shoved stones into dog stomachs. As a result, the dogs didn't want to eat, possibly for the rest of their lives. Conclusion: the most filling food is stones. Fatty meat with fried potatoes in lard + fresh bread with butter is very filling, almost like stones. This is clearly not a healthy lifestyle. Proper nutrition should not induce prolonged feelings of fullness. Healthy food should be digested quickly, and after 2-3 hours, a fierce appetite should return. The only exception for those who care about their muscles is that a pre-sleep meal should be sufficiently filling (not with fats, but with slowly digestible proteins—meat or cheese) so that you don't have to interrupt your sleep in the middle of the night to drink milk with protein.

6. Adults do not digest milk

If a person has congenital lactose deficiency, the problem with digesting milk arises immediately, even during breastfeeding. If you have an allergy to cow’s protein, you can drink goat's milk. If you digested milk well in childhood, you will digest it at any age, under one condition: you must drink milk regularly, preferably daily. In the Netherlands, that’s the practice, averaging over a liter per person, including infants and the elderly. It is likely that the necessary enzymes for good milk digestion stop being produced if you don't drink milk.

This is confirmed by an experiment conducted by a 45-year-old athlete from our club. He regularly consumed fermented dairy products and added 50 g of milk to his tea. However, 200 g of milk caused him diarrhea. He gradually increased his milk intake. Over approximately 5 months, he increased his daily milk intake from 50 to 500 g. The milk was well digested, just like other products. Soon, the athlete went on vacation and spent it in a region known for traditional winemaking. During 3 weeks, he almost daily consumed grape beverages, forgetting about milk. As a result, after the vacation, 200 g of milk again caused him diarrhea, just like before the experiment.

The conclusion is obvious. You need to drink milk daily, at least every other day. And then everything will be fine.

7. Lard is good for the heart

Lard enthusiasts suggest various daily doses of lard, ranging from 10 to 100 g per day. None of them could name a beneficial substance contained in lard. Arachidonic acid is indeed a very useful substance. The daily requirement for a non-athlete is defined as 5 g. The content in pork fat is 0.5% (source - gastroscan.ru) or 1 g per 200 g of lard. To get the daily norm, you would need to eat 1 kg of it! Delight the lard enthusiasts with that standard! Elderly people are recommended to consume 10-15 g of arachidonic acid per day, which translates to 2-3 kg of lard. Athletes need even more.

You can realistically obtain a dose of arachidonic acid from fatty fish or whale and seal fat. These products contain significantly more than you find in pigs, and digesting half a kilo of fish is easier than half a kilo of lard. The specific percentage of arachidonic acid depends on the season of the catch and the living environment, so it's necessary to consume in excess.

8. Chicken breast is healthier than thighs

This myth is relatively new. It was probably concocted by chicken sellers. People simply didn’t want to buy the less palatable breast, so a story had to be made.

In fact, the only advantage of chicken breasts is the lower fat percentage: 1-2% compared to 11-19% in thighs. However, the fat percentage in thighs is calculated with the skin left on. If the skin is removed from the thighs, the fat percentage will not differ significantly from that of the breasts. Why is the meat of the thighs darker than that of the breasts? Myoglobin gives meat its color. This means there is more iron in the thighs than in the breasts, which is visibly apparent. Why? The legs are somewhat strained, even if the chicken is caged. And the breast muscles? They might flap once an hour. The body will not maintain such a muscle in working condition. Consequently, there will be significantly less creatine and many other nutrients in non-working muscle. That’s how the difference in zinc content is discovered (read here).

If anyone among your well-meaning acquaintances starts insisting on something very beneficial, a recipe from a great-grandmother or a friend's amazing weight loss, break down the proposed dish into individual components, and then the components into their individual substances. As a result, much will become clear. If you're still unsure, write to me, and we’ll try to figure it out together.