True! 🙂

Yep, and they look just like “servings per bag = 1”, don’t they? 🙂

Just to clarify. I think we’re talking about two different things. Healthfulness and calorific value are related but not identical.

Let’s take one of these items: fruit juice. Is it “healthy” or not? How do we define healthy? It’s not actually simple to say.

Let’s say you’re a healthy weight and your meals that day haven’t met your requirements for vitamin C. You’ve not eaten for a few hours and are about to play sport for an hour. In that case orange juice is almost perfect for your needs. It it healthy for you as it gives you the energy and nutrients you need at that point. A glass of OJ fits the bill.

Compare this with someone who is overweight. They’ve already got their Vit C for the day and they’ve already gone over the calorie requirements. In this case drinking a pint of OJ in front of the TV is unhealthy for them.

Therefore you cannot say fruit juice is unhealthy. Similar arguments are valid for other items in the article.

What is true is that fruit juice is surprisingly (to some people) calorie dense. Just because it’s from fresh fruit doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain calories. If you need to watch your calories then you need to watch how much juice you drink. Same with dried fruit and so on.

I agree that there are some uneducated people who believe that just because something is a fruit, organic, says “light”, contains oats or is fat-free then it’s perfectly OK to eat lots of them whilst on a diet. They need educating. However I don’t think confusing people with ill-defined “healthy” or “unhealthy” labels actually helps in the long-run. Weight loss is ultimately a calorie balance issue. Healthly eating is far more complex.

That’s why I refer to the scientific consensus – what the majority view of science is. This very same website has articles on why the beliefs that grains and milk are unhealthy are not true. If you have specific, personal reasons for avoiding them then that’s your business but it is by no means established as healthy eating for the most people.

Science has never shown that the earth is flat. That is an anti-scientific belief. Even the ancient greeks knew the earth was a sphere. Just because some people at some point in history held a belief based on unscientific reasons does not help us today decide on evidence based nutrition.

Same with the “up there” argument. It’s non-sequiteur. Yes some people believe in a god. That’s not science. Beliefs (including your own) are not science. Science deals in testable facts.

I’ve not “attacked people”. I’ve not even attacked you. You wrote that moderation didn’t work for you. It works just fine if you apply it. That is a matter of self-control. If you wish to take that personally then that’s a shame.

You’re not actually addressing my point, which is that these foods and groups of foods are not “unhealthy” as such which is what the article is about.

The term “organic” does not tell you anything about the healthfulness. Neither does “low fat”. I won’t reiterate my entire case on all the foods mentioned.

You are personally interested in the fat-loss aspect. I’m not limiting my argument to that. I’m commenting on the article (this is the comments section of the article afterall) which is talking about their health value. Something can be healthy AND calorie dense at the same time. It then only comes unhealthy when you eat too much of it. That goes for almost any food.

I’m not offering advice. I’m criticizing the article.

Right there with you, Will!

OK Neil, you have lost all credibility now that you are just attacking people.

But let me set the record straight :

I do have the self control to eat normally. I am not overweight. I was overweight a long time ago and lost over 40 pounds to get lean and healthy.

My weight problem wasn’t due to self control, but due to ignorance about what I was eating and it’s impact on my weight.

It had nothing to do with self control, I just got educated and I was fine after that.

And the psychology of dieting is a large part of dieting my friend. What ridiculous advice would OMIT that when offering dieting advice?

YOU want to exclude it to make your argument more inviting. The fact is people all have pathologies of their own and you MUST include that when offering dieting advice.

“Everything in moderation” is crap advice. Dieters will eat that up and get fat from crap advice like that.

YOU may NOT, but as you said, YOU do not have a weight problem, so the advice really isn’t FOR people like you. Why on EARTH would you offer advice to dieters that only applies to a person (YOU) who doesn’t need to lose weight in the first place? lol

The advice Nina and I are advocating is FOR people who WANT and NEED to lose weight.

Everything in moderation is crap advice to anyone trying to and wanting to lose weight, yourself excluded.

Done deal.