Is it possible to live a long life with a bad diet? (relative, meal)
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Have you witnessed your partner, parents, relatives, peers, etc live to a long age with a poor diet? I'm not talking obesity but people who just have poor eating habits and it never seems to catch up with them? Talking about those who seem to live on canned goods, processed meats, microwavable dishes, take out, sugary foods, fried foods, basically anything that is said to shorten your lifespan.
I'm excluding smokers and alcoholics and focusing on poor food choices. Can genetics sometimes trump a life filled with a bad diet?
Sure, my mom lived to 87 never getting any exercise at all and eating mostly junk food and sweets. When she passed away, it was due to her advanced dementia, and her heart was so strong she went on for nearly three weeks in hospice.
Have you witnessed your partner, parents, relatives, peers, etc live to a long age with a poor diet? I'm not talking obesity but people who just have poor eating habits and it never seems to catch up with them? Talking about those who seem to live on canned goods, processed meats, microwavable dishes, take out, sugary foods, fried foods, basically anything that is said to shorten your lifespan.
I'm excluding smokers and alcoholics and focusing on poor food choices. Can genetics sometimes trump a life filled with a bad diet?
You're actually asking more than one question.
First - Is it possible to eat processed foods and live a long life? Certainly, especially if in eating such foods you don't become obese. This is more a question of the "safety" of these foods, apart from whether you are using them in a way that makes you obese and in so doing impacts other body systems related to heart and metabolic disease.
Second - Can you be obese and live long? A few people do, many do not. What do you consider a "long" life? 65? 75? 85?
Obviously we've all seen obese people over the age of 65 and 75 but the older you get the less common - doesn't mean it's impossible But - you don't know if genetics will "save" you until it's too late. Best to try to control what you can with yeah, a good diet.
My mother fed my family a depression-era diet -- the only kind she knew -- but luckily, there was always the minimum. A little meat, fresh fruits/vegs only in season, three trips a day to the dinner table for home-coooked meals with no additives, no junk food, that was it. Nobody died before 90.
One thing I notice about the "depression-era" diet...I think people ascribe it a certain amount of false qualities.
Because there were very real concerns with long term preservation of food, they often had a lot of salt, a lot of sugar, or both.
"Junk food" has more nutrition than it's given credit for by the Whole Foods cult. I, for one, am still going strong; I'm healthier and stronger than most people my age.
My grandmother and her husband both lived to the age of 92, and my grandmother was German/Swiss/French who fully subscribed to the Julia Child way of cooking -- she probably used two pounds of butter a week, and why use milk when you can use cream? Plus plenty of German sausages and cheese, etc. And she averaged being about 20-30 pounds overweight for most of her adult life and the only exercise she got was some housework -- and she got a part-time housekeeper for that once she turned about 75 or so.
I think genetics has a LOT to do with how long one lives.
Have you witnessed your partner, parents, relatives, peers, etc live to a long age with a poor diet? I'm not talking obesity but people who just have poor eating habits and it never seems to catch up with them? Talking about those who seem to live on canned goods, processed meats, microwavable dishes, take out, sugary foods, fried foods, basically anything that is said to shorten your lifespan.
I'm excluding smokers and alcoholics and focusing on poor food choices. Can genetics sometimes trump a life filled with a bad diet?
Sure. Anything is possible. I’ve known lifelong 2-3 pack a day smokers live into their 90’s. My great great grandmother smoked a pipe, and died at 94. Her daughters died in their 20’s. TB.
My in laws were in their mid 80’s when they left the planet. They ate 50/50 good/bad. Their son, my husband, died at 59. Glioblastoma brain cancer. By the way? The man lived on grocery store cookies and lunch meat. Getting him to eat a veggie was almost impossible. I’d make enough for me, split with him, and get them back.
Do I think his diet gave him a GBM? No. Luck of the draw. Although, it interesting my ex brother in law died from a GBM. No relation to husband.
Where do you get this? just curious how you arrived at this idea, and if you have any research to back it up?
not criticizing, just asking.
Sorry, but anything that comes in a box or a wrapper isn't really food.
Cereal? Joke. It's mostly bread crumbs coalesced together with corn syrup as the glue.
Any kind of sauces/condiments. Look at the top five ingredients, which are typically water, sugar, corn syrup and perhaps vinegar and something else like tomato puree. Blech. Artificial colors/flavorings typically make up the rest, as well as chemical preservatives.
Frozen dinners? Oh gosh. Just flip them over and look at the ingredients and calorie count. Atrocious.
Juices? All sugar.
Milk? All the vaccines and hormones that go into those cows also make their way into your body. Man-boobs are a visible symptom of this. Switch to something else.
And why do grocery stores have two entire aisles devoted to junk food? If you think about most grocery stores having about 12-14 aisles, you can literally shop in just 2 or 3 for almost anything you need. The rest is basically nutrition-less garbage, typically found in the middle. Shop the ends if you want to eat well.
If you want proof that you are what you eat, just observe what obese people are putting into their carts. Typically I see bags of chips, boxes upon boxes of cookies/doughnuts/sugarbuns/etc., and multiple bottles of sodas. If the cart is overflowing with boxes it's usually an obese person.
Meanwhile healthy people are pushing around carts that never seem to be more than 1/20th full, and usually you'll see fruits, veggies, some meats, and maybe (though not always) a loaf of bread and some miscellaneous items like a block of cheese or butter which if you shop around aren't actually bad for you.
TLDR/Moral of the story: just skip the middle aisles.
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