1. Fact is, in your teens and early 20s your body can digest pretty much anything. Eat a bowl of cereal in the morning (and I mean something like oatmeal or raisin bran rather than some sugary crap) and it barely matters what else you eat (other than calorific content);
2. Eating the same thing every day gets real old real fast;
3. There is an investment required in cooking in terms of equipment, etc;
4. Cooking takes time between shopping, cleaning and the actual cooking. That's time that could be better spent doing many other things.
5. Even getting something for lunch can be a huge time sink and minimally takes half an hour unless you're eating out of a hot dog stand right outside your office.
This is why I'm a huge fan of companies providing a cafeteria or some find of catered meals. Of course, this requires both being a certain size and obviously costs money but, I would argue, the cost is well worth it in terms of:
- variety of meals
- not needing to shop, cook or clean
- time saved in not going out for lunch and other transit
- time that can be spent talking over work-related stuff while eating with your colleagues
- other intangible benefits such as the team-building aspects of socializing with your colleagues
These benefits are so huge I think that it'd be worth having everyone chip in to pay for something like this and would probably be an economic form of eating.
Now I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that has almost legendary catered meals (Google), which must cost them a fortune (eg dinner was steamed mussels, beef stroganoff, garlic whipped potatoes, green beans, steamed broccoli and a pineapple and blueberry salad, and that's just what I had) but IMHO they make their money back in terms of employee satisfaction and saved time on all of the above things.
Fact is I have more variety of food than I'd ever cook myself (or probably even buy).
That of course is a cafeteria type situation. Like I said, on a smaller scale, catered meals are a cost-effective doing this on a smaller scale. Your best bet would probably be to hire a cook rather than outsourcing the entire process (eg someone in or just out of culinary school).
> Eat a bowl of cereal in the morning (and I mean something like oatmeal or raisin bran rather than some sugary crap) and it barely matters what else you eat (other than calorific content)
I think you are seriously overestimating the nutritional value of a bowl of cereal, even a relatively healthful one. You may not see the worst of the consequences until you reach your 30s but they will still be accumulating.
You don't need much in terms of kitchen equipment & if you're located in an urban center (rather than a suburb) there is probably a super-market within a couple of minutes reach.
Buying some groceries & cooking a simple meal as described in the article takes me at most half an hour (usually less - a lot less if I still have enough groceries from previous days and I just need to cook it) - which you can probably afford to take & is likely to be good for you anyway (simply taking a half an hour break that is, regardless of the quality of the food).
That of course is a cafeteria type situation.
Like I said, on a smaller scale, catered
meals are a cost-effective doing this on a
smaller scale. Your best bet would probably
be to hire a cook rather than outsourcing
the entire process (eg someone in or just
out of culinary school).
That would not be within the means of many bootstrapped startups.
It is so much cheaper to cook your own food even if you take into account buying the supplies. I have a cutting board ($5), a small non stick pan ($20), a medium non stick pan ($30), and a 6"-8" diameter 4" deep pot with a lid. I have some nonstick spray, some spices, a knife or two, a spatula, flipper thing, and tongs.
My total investment has to be under $100. I've been using the same stuff for 5 years now. I assume you have a toaster, a microwave, and a coffee maker already.
You'd be surprised the difference in your day between having a bowl of cereal to start off, and having a bowl of cereal, an english muffin, and a bannana. That doesn't take any extra time to do (toast the muffin while you eat the cereal).
For lunch I make myself a sandwhich and throw in some other stuff. Sure, that takes 2 minutes.
Dinner is the only meal you actually cook. You definitely save money cooking yourself. Compare $7 to $15 for chinese, sushi, pizza, burgers etc to $3-5 per meal. If you can cook pasta (boil water, add sauce, its the same as ramen. throw some freezer meatballs in the oven at the same time and your're done), chicken (throw a little olive oil in a pan, put it on medium, flip once in a while, cut it and make sure there is no pink left, don't over cook it) and steam vegetables (boil a little water, put the lid on top, steam it to taste) you can eat 3-4 nights a week really healthy with some variety.
Then fish is just a variation on cooking chicken, you just do it quicker. Your variety comes from the spices or condiments you throw on the chicken.
Total time is around 1/2 hour per day including cleaning up and eating. Each of those meals takes under 10 minutes.
A startup won't have the means for a cafeteria, but I've worked in several "startup hub" type buildings where a cafeteria can be shared between several startups. It's more economical than a local restaurant for employers and employees alike. As an added benefit it provided a good networking space for people in different startups to mix.
This is another point in favor of using a house or apartment as a startup office. I would be really reluctant to do anything else until I needed space for more than about 30 people.
Come to think about it, this is what I remember most about visiting the Youtube campus, the lunch was spectacular, and crowded to the point of forced socialization.
I work at a university, so have a number of options, but it still doesn't compare to what Google had available.
> mussels, beef stroganoff, garlic whipped potatoes, green beans, steamed broccoli and a pineapple and blueberry salad
Hm, that sure beats the spinach and cottage cheese I just mixed together and called a "salad". But hey, dinner took 40 seconds. Now a quick check of HN, and back to work I go...
Add a dash of olive oil, some unsalted slivered almonds, and some Italian seasoning, and you might be surprised what you can get with another 40 seconds.
> 1. Fact is, in your teens and early 20s your body can digest pretty much anything. Eat a bowl of cereal in the morning (and I mean something like oatmeal or raisin bran rather than some sugary crap) and it barely matters what else you eat (other than calorific content);
Can, vs. should. I'm 25 and already feeling my metabolism slow down. Working at a desk isn't helping matters. Your brain really does function better with proper nutrition and exercise.
>2. Eating the same thing every day gets real old real fast;
In my experience, I can eat the same thing for about a week before getting bored. Pizza and Ramen get pretty tired immediately, if you are used to real food.
> 3. There is an investment required in cooking in terms of equipment, etc;
How much $100 bucks? $300? You need a good pot, a good pan, a good knife, a cutting board, and some utensils (spoon, spatula, tongs?). Tupperware is also important.
> 4. Cooking takes time between shopping, cleaning and the actual cooking. That's time that could be better spent doing many other things.
I consider cooking downtime. I use it to ponder stuff, or to just think about work problems. Trying to make something new (to me, at least) that tastes good is a very interesting creative process. There is all of this interesting reflection about what certain things will take when they are cooked together in a certain way.
For me to cook, it takes 1 hour shopping, 1-2 hours cooking, 1/2-1 hour cleaning (once a week, sometimes twice). Cooking and cleaning can be pipelined, as a large chunk of cooking is waiting for something to simmer/boil/bake, and the kitchen sink is in the same room as the stove. I make enough food for a week.
> 5. Even getting something for lunch can be a huge time sink and minimally takes half an hour unless you're eating out of a hot dog stand right outside your office.
Stick whatever you made in the microwave; eat. you can still sit with your colleagues should you desire. Besides this, my best work is done cooking, showering, commuting (in my brain). The idea that you can (or should) be working all of the time (and still be sane, and normal), strikes me as odd.
The other night, for example, I made chicken simmered in a red wine and caper sauce with artichoke hearts, baby corn on spinach (seasoned-- I cant remember how). I did the chicken, artichoke, and baby corn in a large pan, spinach in a pot. Most of the time investment was listening to my iPod waiting for things to be done. I ended up very self-satisfied (as I'm sure you can tell), and it tasted good, to boot. Ingredients were not expensive considering what I used, and what I got out of it.
Simmered chicken dishes are easy to do, so are stir-fry, stews, chili, soups, baked chicken, anything grilled (if you have a grill), black beans and rice is also very adaptable, meatballs are extremely easy (I like the McCormick seasoning packets). To boot, my girlfriend loves it when I cook for her, and it is a lot cheaper than taking her out to dinner (though I still take her out to dinner anyway).
Relatedly: I hate, hate, hate going to the gym. However, it is the most productive use of one hour a day I can think of. I have more energy and get more done when I go, and the benefits appear to compound in those months when I'm very consistent about going. (Can one of you guys invent a way for this to suck less? I'll pay you money. At the moment I just give myself EpicWin points for going, trying to trigger the WoW neurotransmitters...)
Try Rock Climbing. You get all the benefits of the gym (it works pretty much everything), plus all the leveling up benefits from WoW.
Every sport climb and boulder problem is graded. Most of them you won't be able to do. You'll need to spend weeks at first to get good enough to even do the easy ones. The hard ones will take years to get strong enough for, and even then will still require you dedicate a month of specific training for that one single route.
Leveling up? It's got that too. Climb at the gym for a while and soon you'll get to the point where you've done your first V1 problem. V2 is an order of magnitude harder, as is V3. The scale goes to V16 (at the moment), and 15 years of motivation have thus far only gotten me as far as V8. Given the dedication of a recovering WoW addict, I think climbing would fit your psyche perfectly.
Oh, and it's crazy fun too, so no more of this "I should go to the gym" crap. You'll go. You'll be upset if work intrudes on your climbing time. You'll start taking climbing trips instead of vacations, and eventually forget when it was that you last boarded a flight without your rock shoes.
You'll start spending your winters climbing rocks at Tonsai beach [1] in Thailand. I'll buy you a beer when you get there.
Definitely agree that some kind of sport which is fun and requires and rewards fitness is the way to go. Rock climbing is great, but biking, hiking, kayaking, etc. would all work as well.
SCUBA sort of works, but isn't really strenuous enough.
Biking would also work, since performance is measurable. Though probably not to the same degree as climbing. Hiking and Kayaking are great, but probably wouldn't fit the World of Warcraft-esque requirement for measurable improvements to simulate leveling up.
SCUBA has measurable goals, but alas they mostly just measure how much money you've spent on SCUBA diving instruction. (I've spent enough to get myself to Rescue Diver.)
Chances are your town has a climbing gym (or a half dozen of them). They'll have a section of low walls over big fat pads that you can play on without ropes (known as bouldering, and actually more popular than roped climbing in places). They'll also rent you a pair of rock shoes and a chalk bag. You can just turn up and they'll hook you up with everything you need to try it out.
Come back with a friend when they're not busy and get them to teach you how to tie knots and stop each other from hitting the ground when you fall, then give toproping a try.
While you're there, notice that most people around you aren't taking it too seriously, and are mostly there to socialize. Talk to some of them and you'll quickly find yourself invited out on the rock next weekend.
Really? I think SCUBA can be one of the most exhausting. You work your legs hard if there is a current. Not a cheap sport you can do anytime you want though.
If you're working your legs that hard, you're going to have a short dive. With jet fins, even in "strong" currents, exercise has never been my limiting factor -- just concern that I'd be using up my air too quickly for a good dive. In really strong currents (Atlantic wrecks), you use lines and otherwise try to minimize current swimming).
It's not zero energy, but I get more exercise loading and unloading cylinders on the boat than I do actually diving.
Oh man I agree with this so much. I actually hate it when other parts of my life intrude on my climbing. I have trouble thinking about vacations unless it's a climbing trip. It's also a very social thing to do. Many(most?) of the climbers at my gym are highly educated and employed in some form of engineering, programming, law work, etc....
Great exercise and addicting in a good way. It's a side benefit that the girls that climb regularly are very fit and attractive.
Start doing things that are very physical but aren't repetitive or boring. I climb. Gymnastics works. Swimming is great for you. Start running outdoors. If you go to a normal gym, listen to podcasts or good music while you're there, or talk to new people.
Or boxing! I prefer Muay Thai, but any competitive fighting sport is good, and almost any city will have some variety of boxing gym available.
It's a good skill to have in general, but it's difficult to beat in terms of a workout (especially if you go to a gym that doesn't coddle). When I run, sometimes I get lazy and go slowly for a bit. When working the bag, though, I slow down and the guy that runs the gym will notice and yell. Even better, when sparring, if you slow down and get lazy, you will get hit, so you squeeze every ounce of energy out. It's valuable for the mind, too, as it keeps your mind from wandering and forces you to pay attention to what you're doing because if you stop thinking about strategy or recognizing patterns the other fighter is showing, again, you get hit. And it begins to be the most relaxing thing you do, when you go into a room where there is no computer, no cell phone, no distraction, just what you're doing now. (It's also surprising how much strategy goes into hitting people; it broadens the mind.)
I've found that increasing the demands I make on my body causes me to naturally eat better. Your body makes demands; for example a lack of iron may cause you to crave beef. Training made me start drinking more water and less coffee, and fast food started to actually taste bad. It's like turning up the volume on your body's demands, so what is healthy and what tastes good to you start to align.
The first two weeks are the worst, but it's addictive after that.
I also found martial arts to be a great workout! Sparring was a lot of fun (especially against people from different styles) and burned a lot of calories. Now, I play badminton--it's not sparring, but it does move quickly :>
In all seriousness? Why not enter into a social contract with me. I will repay you a percentage of a lump sum for every time you go to the gym. When you don't go, I'll donate it to the RSPCA instead.
Money is empirically less effective at motivating me than magic purple pixels. Seriously, the subjective experience of being offered $X00,000 was a lot less fun than most WoW loot upgrades. Offering me $10 of my own money won't get me to go to the gym.
I quit WoW a while ago, and restarting WoW to get me to go to the gym more often sounds like it will be as effective as addressing tooth decay with an icepick. But if you can capture the magic of "Ding! Gratz!" for me when I'm at the gym, I'd pay you a substantial portion of the hmm $6k I have spent at my gym.
You can do the same contract on yourself but switch the "don't go" to donating to the BNP/Republican Party/similar. A great way to ensure you never give in.
Putting the BNP alongside the US Republican Party is a bit controversial. I'm not sure American politics permits a fair comparison to the BNP (a party that were taken to court before the last general election because their rules essentially didn't permit black people to join) - the Klan are essentially a terrorist/paramilitary organisation. Is there an American Nazi political party?
Putting the BNP alongside the US Republican Party is a bit controversial.
Though not in the context I was under. I was listing organizations that the general swarm of liberal types on sites like HN may feel strongly polarized against.
I could extend the list to something like BNP/Republican Party/Microsoft/SCO's legal fund/the Nazi party - the list is valid even though comparing Microsoft to the Nazi party makes little sense in any other context.
Er, yes? Guess what the first results are when you type in "American Nazi Party?" That's right - the homepage of just such an organization.
I rather doubt they have any real influence or electability, though. As bad as the dichotomy in US politics is /now/, there are some levels to which we just can't quite stoop to.
I find just going for a brisk walk in the morning and potentially running while listening to some audio I find positive very helpful. Either stuff like Tony Robbins, technical podcasts, or something to remind me of all I have to be grateful for.
I think a lot of it is the routine or your habits... for example, I know without a shadow of a doubt that I perform better at my work when I take at least 30 minutes in the morning to walk and listen to something positive. More bonus points for taking even 5-10 minutes to meditate. Yet historically my stick-to-it-iv-ness for those activities always seem to go away when presented with the days urgencies or more mindless 'busymaking' like random surfing.
I recommend finding a personal trainer who's company and conversation you enjoy and look forward to. They're hard to find, but they do exist. The last time I had to move, out of everything, I was the most reluctant about leaving my gym/trainer.
You've gotten a lot of answers, but nobody's given you the best one yet: Dancing. With others of the opposite sex.
For exercise purposes, you might want to look into energetic dances, like collegiate shag or the lindy hop. But even slow waltzes provide a surprising amount of exercise, and nothing motivates like interacting on a physical basis with the opposite sex.
Crossfit. (crossfit.com) You'll never get bored and it'll even take less time. One caveat: It works way better if you can join a group of crossfitters.
It's expensive, but it works. Also, there is the social factor. You have an entire team at a Crossfit gym who you work out with that expect you to be there, and push you while you are there.
It's definitely expensive, but with a pretty small investment you can do a good fraction of workouts at home (e.g. pullup bar + 1-2 kettlebells + a jump rope). As you and others are saying though, the social element justifies the cost.
I totally agree with the argument. I totally disagree with the cost estimates. Unless you're actually going to the grocery store every day (and you need to incorporate that into the amount of time involved), vegetables go bad.
For example, the amount of cilantro they sell at the grocery store is for a dozen servings of this meal.
I just finished throwing out pretty well every ingredient (except the chicken) given in that recipe, because I was away for 3 days!
Dude, this is the internet such reasonableness is not welcome here. We do all or nothing in our discussions -- half measures can just go home! </snark>
Seriously tho, this is little bit of advice completely revolutionized my diet. Also, since the frozen veggies are already chopped/peeled/etc, it speeds up meal prep a LOT -- useful on those busy days.
I've recently discovered the secret to frozen vegetables: put them in freezer bags. The bags the vegetables come in don't prevent freezer burn, so the vegetables taste terrible after a couple weeks. In freezer bags, you have a huge range of vegetables that are available to you for months.
I agree. Frozen veggies are great. The only thing I have read is to not heat them up in the microwave (supposedly it saps out some of the nutrients). Just get a cheap steamer and toss them in there.
The best thing about frozen veggies is the various mixes you can get. I usually buy a giant bag of brocoli and then a giant bag of whatever mix I'm feeling.
Unless you have a credible source for your "microwaves destroy nutrients more than other cooking methods", I'd disagree strongly with you.
Stopping psuedosciencific rumors in their tracks. :)
It was Alton Brown who said it on Good Eats. A quick search seem says that 'properly' cooking veggies in the microwave is fine. Still looking for a definition of 'properly' though. I'm guessing it just means don't overcook as many people do when heating things in the microwave.
Boiling in water seems to be one of the worst methods, which makes sense because the water can easily leach all of the nutrients[1].
Everyone does agree the best way is simply to steam them.
A recent study conducted in the U.K. showed boiling vegetables that are members of the cruciferous family, including cabbage, broccoli, and brussel sprouts, significantly reduces their anticancer properties.
And MW specifically
If you choose to microwave your vegetables, use as little water and as short a cooking time as possible to minimize loss of vitamins.
I'm pretty sure remember hearing that that microwaving removed more nutrients than steaming, but less than boiling. I suspect in each case it somewhat depends how long and intensely you heat it for. Attempting to propagate vague notions I have about things :)
I find this works best with cilantro and parsley from places like Whole Foods. I can get a week out of their cilantro, easy. If I buy from Safeway, it's gone after a couple of days.
Also, homemade chicken stock is one of my favourite things (boil a chicken carcass from the butcher with a halved onion, roughly chopped carrot, celery, some herbs, a little salt and pepper, bit of garlic, for a bit over an hour) and is super easy to do, freeze and then use as a base in a ton of recipes, or even just add some pasta and you've got a rough and ready chicken soup.
Cooking need not be difficult. By focusing on good, fresh ingredients you only need a couple to put together a great meal.
Also, great tip: Cook with spice (heat) and lots of flavour. You'll get full faster and feel satisfied longer.
Good idea is to package it in ziploc bags or small plastic containers. That way you don't have to defrost the entire pot if you just want to make a few cups of soup.
protip: homemade chicken stock makes an excellent base for risotto milanese!
Though the microwave is a misunderstood device. It's fantastic at defrosting frozen items, but it should usually be an intermediate step used to ensure that thawed items are at room temperature when they go into the pan.
It's also fantastic at a variety of simple one-step things. Melting butter, baking potatoes, melting cheese, and other things like that. Used properly, it speeds up and even improves cooking. But if it's treated as a range/oven replacement, yes, it causes problems.
The best way to use the microwave is for meals that will benefit from being steamed, like vegetables. Failing that, regular stirring and occasionally protecting some thinner bits with foil are the way to go.
Metal is not microwave kryptonite, it is the bouncer to the mighty power of NUCLEONIC ENERGY! ... But only where the foil is.
Say you're cooking a piece of salmon, you've got a comma shaped profile with a VERY thin edge and a much thicker body. You can cook the entire thing until the thin edge is almost done, then fold foil only around that part of the salmon. Microwaves will not reflect off and be absorbed by the exposed food instead.
As long as something in the microwave is exposed that can absorb the waves sufficently, no harm will come to you or the microwave.
I agree with what you said, but in a pinch the microwave can be quite versatile.
I made excellent scrambled eggs with ham and goat cheese a week ago in the microwave because that's all that was available. Takes some care to not have it turn into a frittata, but otherwise easy to do.
Freezer foods purchased in the store are not representative of what is possible (see for instance the article and discussion at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2067764 ).
There are books dedicated to creating freezer meals. I'm not sure if I have enough experience with them to recommend one, I doubt there's all that much variance to them. There are some tricks to the process, but not all that many. I still recommend at least starting with their recipes though of course we branched out once we were comfortable with the idea in general.
The primary effect of working for freezer foods is simply the loss of range; obviously you can not, for instance, freeze a lettuce-based salad. I say that's the primary effect precisely because losing flavor and quality is not the primary effect. Freezer food probably has the single largest quality gap between commercial food and home-prepared food there is. Some meals take a slight hit, many you can not tell, a small number actually have their texture slightly improved by freezing them. If this sounds interesting I strongly recommend trying it, a bit of Googling will probably scare up enough resources to try a couple recipes without even investing in a book.
Try making soups and steamed dishes. You can even braise by using one of the low power cycles (The lowest, preferably), which will work best if your microwave uses duty cycles rather then actual power modification.
You can make, in the microwave:
* Almost Poached Eggs
* Bechamel Sauce, and thus any other sauce in that family that doesn't require second cooking
* Almost any grain with a decent microwave rice cooker, including lentils, polenta, oatmeal (Which can be savoury), rice, brown rice, bulgur, pearled barley, beans, cous cous and chickpeas.
* Brownies
* Poached Chicken Breasts
You just need to be a little less 1-minute-button-pushy.
What I do is make a pasta sauce from a jar based sauce and add mince and vegetables, one that's way bigger than what I'm going to eat in the one meal. Then I just chuck it in the fridge and depending on time the next day I'll microwave it, or put it back in the pan and add a bit more sauce to it.
Since you cooking the pasta fresh it will be just as good the next day. I do basically the same thing with sauce for Indian and recook the rice.
Much of the time I enjoy cooking for 1/2 rather than more, lets you prepare things for multiple days and save time/money.
It may sound expensive, but the Tupperware™ FridgeSmarts are fantastic and they do actually work. The combination of keeping the food up out of any condensate and regulating the correct amount of airflow around the food actually keeps fruit & vegetables fresher, longer. Weeks and weeks out of things like carrots & celery & broccoli, etc.
Tupperware™ may seem expensive in comparison to other plastic products (especially in Australia)… but it really is good value, especially considering you get replacements for free. To quote a friend (who is a Tupperware demonstrator), it's like getting a perpetual license to use the product.
Any covered bowl will work as well. What you need is to keep the vegetables out of direct contact with the condensation moisture inside the container. That is why I rarely use bags any more for vegetables in the fridge, but even recycled sherbet containers work very well. It does need to be covered, and preferably airtight, or they'll dry out and wilt (though wilted veggies are perfectly edible, they just don't look as good or have as good a texture).
I think you have to seperate vegetables from herbs. I would never finish even cilantro, parsley, basil etc.
But I can finish vegetables and fruit. I shop once a week and it takes like an hour, and everything I get lasts all week. Get your bannanas a little green and it will be fine. Vegetables usually last longer than that.
I also get a lot of frozen broccoli, green beens, peas, corn. They last forever and are simple to make but very healthy. They also double as ice packs if you hurt yourself.
This is something that doesn't get stated enough. Great link.
For example, Richard Branson credits working out and staying in shape with much of his success.
I kind of see physical fitness on two sides--internal and external.
Internally, if you're in better shape you're capable of performing better for longer periods of time. Less time sick, etc.
Externally, there is a lot of social science that thinner, i.e. more attractive, people are viewed as more disciplined, get better promotions, make more money, etc.
That doesn't mean you can't be successful as someone that's not attractive or thin, but all things constant, why put yourself at a disadvantage? I say all of this not as someone who is thin, but someone who's taken a prolonged approach to being in better shape. When I graduated college I was at 255, and now I'm at 200. I could stand to lose some more weight, but the effects of eating better, working out and sleeping better have been of immeasurable benefit.
As a note, I love unhealthy food. It’s
delicious and I’m not saying it’s evil.
I’m just saying it’s not a productive
addition to a 14-hour, high stress work
day.
Also: don't do 14h of high stress work a day on a regular basis.
Kind of a dearth of facts here... "The biggest reason is by only fueling your body with shit, you’re also fueling your brain with shit" I'd like to see some kind of evidence to support that.
I'd be all for preparing the meal he suggests, but with shopping, prep, cooking, and cleanup it's a significant time investment compared to pizza so I'd like evidence it's doing my startup better.
Anecdotal only, but a friend of mine put himself in the hospital once by eating crap for months. It was the first time he was the primary numbers guy on a multi million dollar deal and basically didn't leave the office for months. His meals consisted of soda and vending machine snacks.
He ended up with some organ issues that put him in the hospital for a little while and when he got out he had to take it easy for awhile.
Unless you're starving, your brain pretty much only runs only on glucose. That means that whatever you eat, good/bad fresh/packaged, whatever, just gets converted to glucose.
Assuming you're getting basic levels of required vitamins, I don't see any reason why one diet would be beneficial over another in terms of brain performance.
Glucose isn't the problem, glucose regulation is. If you eat refined carbs or sugars you get slammed with it all at once, and your body becomes more insulin resistant and fat-generating as a defense mechanism. Meanwhile, you run into the "blood sugar rollercoaster" effect - a high, followed by a crash causing extreme hunger. The blood sugar shenanigans have the side effect of manipulating blood pressure as well, which can make some activities difficult or dangerous.
When you eat fats, proteins and slower-digesting carbs the glucose regulation problem doesn't occur, at least not on the same scale, so your brain and body can perform undistributed for potentially many, many hours. Consequently the only problems come from nutritional content and digestive efficiency.
For elite endurance athletes there is still reason to "carb up" to pump as much glyogen into the muscles as possible, but that isn't most of us, and it isn't something you need for brain work.
right. lets run a case study. go buy yourself a 50lb bag of sugar, a years supply of multivitamins, and report back in a year with how that worked out for you.
Well as a college student who went on a 2 month coco pebble binge (and only ate that because of sheer laziness), I didn't feel significant effects on brain power. But it does trash your body and leaves you feeling lethargic and lose motivation to actually do anything productive. I think the latter effects are just as dangerous as reduced "brain effectiveness". (this is just my experience, certainly not any scientifically proven study)
I didn't make the original claim, so I don't see why it would be my job to prove or disprove it.
That's sort of beside the point though. I'm just tired of the ridiculous amount of misinformation in the diet, nutrition, and exercise fields. It's not like there isn't a long history of claims that are "just common sense" turning out completely wrong ("eating fat makes you fat", "eating high cholesterol food gives you high cholesterol" (mostly genetics), "diet and exercise are equally important to losing weight" (reality is that it's mostly diet), etc.)
Bottom line, if you're going to make a claim that certain food improve your brain's performance, you should have just a shred of evidence.
i'd assumed you were trolling, hence the flippant response. i dont think all statements need to be supported with citations. there's a certain amount of knowledge that at some point has to be considered common sense. wiping your ass is one. not fueling your body with trash is another. i can understand your position of frustration at mis-information and pseudo-science, and appreciate a fellow critical thinker, but i do think it's important to choose your battles, and i do not think that this issue is one that's worth discussing much further, considering the overwhelming amount of data out there. vis a vis. et al. lorem ipsum.
The process converting these things to glucose, and some of the other ingredients in this food, result in all sorts of chemicals being released into your body. (not bad -- vitamins are chemicals... etc). These in turn affect how the body operates. Depending on how the body is operating, various other chemicals, such as hormones are released -- creating various brain reactions -- and since the brain is affected, presumably this means the brain is affected. (Yes it's a tautology -- done for effect).
This doesn't even include the fact that some things in food directly affect the brain, such as caffeine.
Yes, a lot of things are stated from "common sense", but that doesn't mean they are true ("Reading in the dark will make your eye sight bad", "Going out without a coat will make you sick", etc...).
I grew up eating nothing but TV dinners and ramen, in college I added pizza and fast food to the mix. Since I've gotten married I eat regular healthy meals. Anecdotally, I don't notice any difference in my brain function, but I do weigh 40 pounds more then college :)
Yes, it is more expensive than $0.25 per meal eating ramen noodles but it uses even less time than cooking the ramen and you can eat while you keep working easier.
Do startups require anything remotely near peak mental fitness? It's oft debated here, but i'm pretty sure the consensus is talent and intelligence isn't that big of a deal. it's commitment.
To put it another way, how many startups that depend on doing original research get funded? I (perhaps foolishly) believe startups bring technology to the masses, but only after research shows it can be done.
I guess another argument would be, if you were to invest in a company, would you tie your investment to the founders to sleeping a minimum number of hours? Lack of sleep is easily as detrimental to mental fitness as poor diet.
This is actually a good line of thinking. Although you feel your best and think the clearest when you've kept near-perfect sleep and nutrition hygene, sometimes you need a different bag of emotions to get an idea. That could mean fasting, sleep deprivation, alcohol, caffeine, smoking...
However, not knowing which one is useful to you at any time, it's hard to know which is the most effective for work. But being mostly sober/mostly healthy is known to be the best (long-term) for staying alive and well, and startups are, on a human scale, a long-term game. You don't make $1,000,000 because you stayed up all night to ship.
Here's (http://www.dana.org/news/brainhealth/detail.aspx?id=9854) an excellent article, but I'd think it'd be pretty common-sense that you cannot live on starches and fats alone. Your body does actually use vitamins, fiber and different types of fats (monounsaturated is one you might not find in pizza, for instance) to function. Your brain requires them as well.
The specifics are easily found on Google–go for it. The article I linked has some good information as well.
-- body does actually use vitamins, fiber [...] Your brain requires them as well --
Just nitpicking here - by definition fiber is 'the indigestible parts of plant food'(1). So even if it can possibly be said that the body uses fiber - it is probably used in some non-nutritious way - we can be certain that the fiber does not reach the brain.
The habit of cooking your own healthy meals is a fine way to improve your productivity in just an hour or two a day plus saturday mornings at the farmer's market. The problem is the hour or two a day, not the cost.
There are a million ways to spend an hour a day on something to improve your startup.
Personally I ate nothing but processed, microwaveable meals for 3 years during university. I find it hard to believe that this significantly affected my performance since I still managed to get the best result in my year (twice) and second best (once). I also failed to get fat or develop any health problems at all.
So you can colour me sceptical about the true value of eating "healthy" or freshly-cooked food.
very true. but all the shopping and prep (despite the claim that it is easy) is a big pain in the ass. I'd gladly pay twice as much for healthy fare that was convenient as fast food.
Fortunately, the company I work for provides incredibly fresh organic salad that's as cheap as fast food.
I love this thread. Mainly because I am a total food geek.
I have to say that yes, getting started is a pain, and yes, the easy way seems, well, easier, but better food is a HELL YES reason to overcome the first two.
Just like your startup, starting to get a healthy kitchen going requires a lot of investment before you start to see any outcome. Deep Breath. You're going to need to go... Shopping.
But, once you're boot strapped with supplies, regular top ups is all that's required. I feel better when I eat crap less then I eat well. It's sorta annoying, but not once you get into the rhythm of it.
Provided food is a great idea if it's good quality. Providing junk at the workplace just exacerbates the issue. That said, it's not too hard to prepare extra meals at home and bring them to the office, especially if you can convince your founder/self to install a chest freezer. Sure, fresh stuff is usually better, but don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Microwaves rock when you don't use them as a magic-1-button-make-hot machine. You can cook grains, make sauces, steam things and even do some poaching in a Nucleonic Oven, as long as you're not totally impatient. If I can stand to wait, you sure as hell can.
Not having greasy fingers helps prevent your keyboard and mouse from getting manky, and stops colouring leaching out of where your wrists rest on your lappy:P
Nice article. If you want something cheaper than Raman that is better for you, just go to the Asian grocery store. You can get a pound of bok choy for less than $1. Pick up some tofu and some chicken broth (and noodles). Boil all that for about 1.5 minutes and now you have yourself a sodium free, healthy meal that costs less than the disgusting Cup of Noodles or any fast food you might be eating.
it's actually now understood that the balance of sodium to potassium in your diet is what's important, and not necessarily your sodium intake levels alone.
I agree with you and all, and am working hard on eating healthy myself, but do you have any idea how much ramen $7 can buy you?
I'm certain there are people out there who would have trouble affording $4-7 per meal & funding the early stages of a company. And don't forget you have to own the facilities to cook properly- ramen can be made in a paper bowl with a $5 water heater or $20 microwave.
You could also buy 20 pounds of sugar - the point is that ramen is actively bad for you and you shouldn't be eating it except in the most dire of circumstances.
Is pizza that bad? I home cook all pizza ($1-$2 per pizza), and it doesn't seem too bad if you look at the ingredients. Pizza + salad seems perfectly healthy.
Flour + tomato + cheese + onion + garlic + olive oil + whatever you put on your pizza.
Fat is what causes me to gain weight. I cut out fat and I lose weight. This is no surprise that you lose weight when you your weight was stable and cut something, anything with calories out.
That said, if your goal is to lose weight then pizza may not be for you. But that wasn't the goal posed in the article.
Really? I just checked my cheese in the fridge and it costs €3.83 per kg. At that price that would mean about half a kg of cheese on one pizza. Anyway:
- flour: lets say 200g for €0.10
- cheese: 100g for €0.40
- olive oil: say €0.10
- mushed tomatoes: €0.10
- onion: €0.10
- yeast, salt, water, etc: €0.10
I think I'm being pretty generous here with the amounts and the cost. Total is €1.
It should seriously not take much more time than it takes to warm up a nasty styrofoam cup of noodles to cook something cheap, easy and - above all - tasty.
The first step is to get a rice steamer. The second step is to realize that you can, in fact, prep your vegetables, meats and sauces ahead of time and just leave them in the fridge. Feeling hungry? Pour a little oil into a pan, toss in some ingredients, and voila - stirfry in no time at all. Grab a bowl, stuff some rice into it, and top it over - lunch!
It's more cost-effective than takeout, at the very least. Timesink may be an issue - if you aren't working with one or two cofounders. If you are, the minimal amount of competence to use a rice steamer and heat up pre-prepped ingredients means you /should/ be able to safely rotate cooking duties without excessive risk to your health.
Or, at least, less risk than a diet of salty ramen and oily pizza.
I guess it's all about balance. A lot of these foods get eaten because they are quick and simple and easy to distribute round the office for late night food runs. I don't see many late night salad delivery joints. I've been guilty of it myself far too often.
That said I completely agree with the article. There's no point working/eating yourself to death if you can't enjoy the proceeds. Take some time out from work/coding. Cook a nice healthy meal and follow up with some exercise.
I like the recipe in the article; it's easy to cook, and it's what I often have for dinner: lightly fried meat and vegetables, although I usually have rice rather than beans. But for things that I plan on heating later, I prefer things that taste as good when heated up later, like borscht and other dense soups, beef stroganoff, curry (I'd sent my Japanese curry recipe to enough people that I put it on github: https://gist.github.com/57898 ).
What's wrong with pizza? It's essentially bread + toppings. Bread can be a fine healthy food, and if you pick healthy toppings, you can have a healthy pizza.
I think this would be better advice. First, spend a weekend reading "In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan. The take away from that is the healthy eating is a systematic thing, not a matter of individual ingredients.
Second, watch a lot of episodes of "Good Eats" on the Food Network.
Ordering pizza gets you tons of cheese and a crust with a lot of sugar in it. Making your own is fine…though I can't remember what's in the frozen pizza crusts, or how good they are.
Absolutely agree: eating a healthy diet is worth both the money and the time. Longevity is extremely important. Life is a marathon even if you only see it as a series of sprints.
Most plant-derrived protein sources have an incomplete profile of amino acids. Humans have eight essential amino acids (amino acids that we must get from the diet as we cannot synthesize them) that are plentiful in animal sources and lacking to various degrees in plant sources. Plant sources of protein, even when combined to provide all the essential amino acids, are too heavy in carbohydrate, irritate the gut, and steal vitamins and minerals from the body via anti-nutrients.
So you combine beans and grains. That is how most of humanity exists, after all. I think the last part of your comment is patently untrue.
The American Dietetic Association released a position paper stating that they believe vegetarian and vegan diets are perfectly healthy and sustainable.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12826028
Our knowledge of health is ever-changing. The ADA has been wrong before and will be wrong again. When this happens the ADA will simply revise its position. This is to be expected.
This research has been around for 11 years and to my knowledge has gone unchallenged and mostly ignored:
Just like the research showing that diabetic complications could be averted via normalizing blood sugars in the 1970’s or that gluten could actually be an allergen and that celiac disease is a real condition in the 1990’s.
As a vegetarian or vegan you can definitely survive, but you won't thrive.
Some text about wheat hardly proves your assertions. That doesn't address how beans, nuts, etc. supposedly drain you of vitamins.
Hundreds of millions of people are perfectly healthy eating vegetarian diets. You should turn your attention to people eating the typical American diet... surely they need it more than people who eat big handfuls of vegetables all day.
That's definitely more than a "text about wheat". I encourage you to read some of it. You'll find answers to your questions about legumes and nuts as well (anti-nutrient density is higher in these types of foods over the rest of vegetables).
Great, but I'm still not sure what your point is. Consumption of grains, nuts and legumes is not exclusive to vegetarians. Most people consume more protein than is actually needed, also. Vegetarians aren't plagued with health problems, in my experience, and I don't know of any credible source that says they are. While some people report that they are unhealthy under vegan diets, I can point at plenty of people who are unhealthy under omnivorous diets as well.
No, the above comment is untrue. Scientific and dietary organizations have affirmed that vegan diets are perfectly healthy and sustainable. The only issue is B12.
Some people don't want to eat meat for ethical reasons, others because they think it's bizarre. Would you eat a dog, a horse, or another human if you didn't have to worry about the conditions of it's death? Probably not. Many vegans and vegetarians feel the same way about chickens, cows and pigs.
But for most people that is also harder to digest. The "sleepy hour" after eating a huge burrito isn't a mystery, it's because you've eaten something that made your body focus only on digestion.
That said, I also know someone with a sensitivity to meat, so there's no one-size-fits-all rule.
I was a vegetarian for a couple of years in my teens, and then I ate a hamburger. I was very, very tired mmediately afterwards and for the whole next day... I actually think your body works harder digesting meat vs. vegetables and grains.
1. Fact is, in your teens and early 20s your body can digest pretty much anything. Eat a bowl of cereal in the morning (and I mean something like oatmeal or raisin bran rather than some sugary crap) and it barely matters what else you eat (other than calorific content);
2. Eating the same thing every day gets real old real fast;
3. There is an investment required in cooking in terms of equipment, etc;
4. Cooking takes time between shopping, cleaning and the actual cooking. That's time that could be better spent doing many other things.
5. Even getting something for lunch can be a huge time sink and minimally takes half an hour unless you're eating out of a hot dog stand right outside your office.
This is why I'm a huge fan of companies providing a cafeteria or some find of catered meals. Of course, this requires both being a certain size and obviously costs money but, I would argue, the cost is well worth it in terms of:
- variety of meals - not needing to shop, cook or clean - time saved in not going out for lunch and other transit - time that can be spent talking over work-related stuff while eating with your colleagues - other intangible benefits such as the team-building aspects of socializing with your colleagues
These benefits are so huge I think that it'd be worth having everyone chip in to pay for something like this and would probably be an economic form of eating.
Now I'm lucky enough to work somewhere that has almost legendary catered meals (Google), which must cost them a fortune (eg dinner was steamed mussels, beef stroganoff, garlic whipped potatoes, green beans, steamed broccoli and a pineapple and blueberry salad, and that's just what I had) but IMHO they make their money back in terms of employee satisfaction and saved time on all of the above things.
Fact is I have more variety of food than I'd ever cook myself (or probably even buy).
That of course is a cafeteria type situation. Like I said, on a smaller scale, catered meals are a cost-effective doing this on a smaller scale. Your best bet would probably be to hire a cook rather than outsourcing the entire process (eg someone in or just out of culinary school).