Mavrović's bread

Walter Moore4 said:Furthermore, when it comes to the land itself, do you really think Mavrovič and the rest of his crew haven't already factored that in? What if the terrain is naturally elevated compared to the neighbors, or maybe there's some other clever system in place to shield against exactly what you're worried about? Even if none of those excuses hold water, it’s still fundamentally different from dumping chemicals at regular intervals and letting whatever runoff happens eventually seep through via indirect routes. Besides, the leaching doesn't just move sideways; it moves vertically. Though, I suppose gravity does play its part in all of this.

👋

Actually, that's not quite right—groundwater flows toward areas of lower potential. If you're dealing with a clay layer, the water will divert away from the hills, but it'll also drain out of the valleys too (since the flow rates through clay layers are measured at a tiny 10e-3 cm/h), so even while accounting for gravity—which I'm certainly not disputing—the real question remains: where exactly is that contaminated water going to end up? There's supposed to be a hydrological map held by the US Water Authority, but honestly, I have no clue how one would even go about accessing it.
Secondly, there is absolutely no way Mavrovič is pulling off production levels this massive on his own property alone; he must be leasing or sub-leasing additional acreage, and for that leased land, there’s no organic certification (you can't get it unless the soil has been free of synthetic fertilizers for five years, free of herbicides for seven, and I can't recall the specific requirements for the rest...).
I still find myself questioning the actual fiber content in those whole grain rolls, loaves, and pastas...

Megan Morales5 said:Ahem... excuse me, can I jump in here for a sec? Look, I don't know what your actual expertise is—you mentioned food is your thing—but honestly, that last comment kind of totally undermined your point. There’s a massive difference between some whole-grain brown rice you cooked at home and a pile of greasy French fries fried in God-knows-what kind of oil.

But wait, nimbledriver81 didn't even say that brown rice and fries were the same thing.

I mean, look—cooked rice (usually the glazed kind, where the starch concentration is actually higher than in the whole-grain stuff) and boiled potatoes—basically anything prepared without adding fat—fall into that same category, you know, the "bread and starch replacements" group.

If you're more into the whole-grain rice vibe, fine by me. Totally cool. But let's not pretend they belong to different universes... starch is starch is starch.

Trust me, if you actually had diabetes and had to count every single gram of carbs just to stay alive, you'd get exactly what I'm getting at...

Do you honestly believe there’s no such thing as "bad" food? That everything is equally fine? Like, a serving of fresh artisanal cheddar is just as good at killing hunger as a massive pile of McDonald's fries—which, let's be real, is what we've actually been arguing about this whole time, not boiled potatoes. As for rice... I much prefer it unprocessed. Same goes for sugar. It doesn't have to be all that fancy organic stuff or whatever—though, personally, I'll take whole grain over plain white flour any day of the week.

Megan Morales5 said:Why is veggie better than grains?

It’s because they aren't just pure starch.

It's great you don't have any extra weight to worry about—but have you ever actually stopped to wonder why someone else ends up struggling with it? (Even if you haven't lived it personally, surely you know someone who has).

😂 Are you really trying to lecture me here? Where on earth did you pick up all this expertise on "proper nutrition"?
If you grab some fries once a month (or a piece of chocolate, like I do), it’s absolutely fine—no big deal! But if you're crushing them every single day? Well, that's pushing it a bit too far.

People gain weight because someone sold them a bill of goods—just like what driftinggull13 is trying to sell me—claiming there's basically NO food left. 😉

No, they gain weight because they're eating more than their body actually needs (and yes, I'm speaking from experience as a former heavy-set person myself).

Besides, like I mentioned before, knowing what constitutes a healthy diet is one thing, but having the sheer discipline to actually apply that knowledge to your own life? That is an entirely different beast.

And that is spot on.

Where on earth did you pick up all this nutrition advice?

Just from experience, really—it started back in my mom's kitchen and stuck once I moved out and started cooking for myself about ten years ago. Grains aren't just pure starch; they actually pack a decent amount of other nutrients too.
I highly doubt any woman only eats chocolate once a month... what I mean is, it's not an issue if you have it twice a week—as long as you actually BURN it off.

No, they gain weight because they eat more than they need (take it from a former chubby girl).

So, what’s the "ideal" serving size for fries? How many pieces before it counts as too much? Is it better to grab four turkey sliders with mashed potatoes or just a bowl of thick vegetable soup? But then again, who am I kidding... theories always have one fatal flaw—they never actually work in the real world...

Megan Morales5 said:I find it impossible to believe that any woman eats chocolate just once a month...

Believe it or don't, but I'm a woman and I don't touch chocolate at all. Honestly, I don't even like it. 😎

The whole thing with French fries is kind of a joke—you really have to know what you're putting in your body and how much... if you want to indulge in some fries, you basically have to sit there calculating the starch-to-fat ratio in that serving and then try to balance it out with everything else you plan on eating that day. If you tried doing that math every single day, you'd end up having to eat tiny, pathetic amounts of food just to keep from gaining weight, and you'd be starving most of the time. But hey, there are definitely people out there (women 😁 ) who actually live their lives that way...

rustymoose54 said:Believe it or not, I’m a woman and I don't eat chocolate at all. I actually don't even like it.😎

The whole fries thing... you have to know what you're eating and how much. If you want fries, you really ought to estimate the starch-to-fat ratio in that serving and then factor that into your total daily intake. If someone were doing that every single day, they'd basically have to eat tiny amounts of everything else just to avoid gaining weight—which means missing out on actual nutrition. But there are people out there (women, 😁 ) who live exactly like that.

Maybe I should stop making such absolute statements—look where that gets me. Fine, fine... most women I know will eat more than one chocolate bar a month and not think twice about it, but it's true that some genuinely don't care for it. And regarding the fries point—that's exactly what I've been driving at this whole time. What are the odds that "Person X" eats ONLY that specific portion of fries for the entire day? They'll probably grab breakfast too... and the average adult isn't exactly used to surviving on a single serving of fried potatoes. Isn't it more normal (for a healthy person, mind you—I'm not talking about anyone managing diabetes, that's a different story and I don't have any experience there so I won't weigh in) for an adult to have soup, fish, and some steamed vegetables instead of a tiny pile of fries that hits the same calorie count? Even if you assume the meal is perfectly balanced to match the calories in those fries, the first option is still more varied, easier on my stomach, and so on...

Megan Morales5 said:Isn't it just... I don't know, more normal—for a healthy person, anyway (not commenting on anyone with diabetes, that’s a whole different ballgame and I don't know enough to weigh in)—for an adult to eat some soup, fish, and maybe some steamed veggies instead of (calories notwithstanding) a tiny serving of fries? I mean, assuming you balance the meal so the calories match that portion of fries, the first option is still way more diverse, easier on my stomach, etc.

No hard feelings, but I've got Type 1 diabetes and I'm perfectly healthy.
Which actually makes it even more important—my diet doesn't look any different from what any healthy person, diabetic or not, should be eating. The only things I dodge are alcohol and super sugary stuff because it's just easier to stay balanced that way, but if I really wanted to, I could go for them.

Eating fries doesn't mean you're skipping the fish and veggies, since we're talking about totally different food groups here. If you grab a side of fries, you're hitting carbs and fats, while fish falls under "meat and substitutes," and veggies... well, depends on the veggie. If it's leafy greens and you aren't inhaling more than like 150-200 grams (without adding grease), you're looking at maybe 40 kcal max.

So, on those days when I randomly decide I need fries for lunch—when my usual spread is 200g of boiled potatoes, 90-100g of meat, some greens, and 15g of oil for cooking (you gotta factor in the oil in the soup and the starch in the broth, which then gets subtracted from the potato count)... yeah, I have to carefully measure out enough fries so I don't blow past that 15g fat limit. That ends up being a pretty small pile of fries, honestly... you'll get used to it. But the meat, the veggies, the soup? They stay. I'm not tossing those out.

You answered based on how YOU behave when fries are on the menu, whereas I was talking about what the average person—someone who doesn't have to follow strict dietary restrictions for health reasons—does. They eat the fries, they eat the whole portion, and they go about their business...
I’m no expert on diabetes, so I won't pretend to be, but when someone tells me they have it, I don't view them as being at 100% physical health. I know plenty of people living with it who actually eat much better than "healthy" people just because they have to watch every bite, but the reality is still an outlier situation. The difference between a healthy person and someone with diabetes is that the former isn't going to pass out from a sugar crash even if they eat total garbage three days in a row—you know, like alternating between a bar of chocolate, a large order of McDonald's fries, and a glass of wine, three times a day... Anyway, 100 grams of meat is a bit meager if you ask me; you'd still be hungry. When I have guests over, I plan for at least 7 ounces per person, though we usually end up eating closer to 9 ounces... I'm not trying to rub your diabetes in your face, really, it's just that the statement "I have diabetes and I am healthy" doesn't quite make sense to me.

So, diabetes.

Look, I’m perfectly healthy because—thanks to a little help from insulin—my metabolism is basically identical to yours. Everything else too: my ability to actually live life...

The only real catch is if, for some crazy reason, insulin just vanished from the face of the earth. Then yeah, I’d be in deep trouble. 😁

I’ll grab about 4 ounces of meat for lunch since I still have to eat dinner later, and honestly, since I’m a bit of a knockout, it’d be a crime to let myself pack on the weight. 😎

Most women with my build and frame find that 4 ounces at lunch is plenty—assuming they’re eating breakfast and dinner, obviously.

As for my whole thing with fries: it’s about the principle of the thing. If other people overeat, that’s on them and their own lack of knowledge. Though, not everyone is clueless—take driftinggull13 and nimbledriver81, for example. They know just as much about nutrition as I do, yet they don't have diabetes.

And where on earth did you get the idea that someone with diabetes is going to "fall into a coma" just because they eat junk for three days straight? A coma from high blood sugar usually happens after months of *extremely* high levels, which rarely happens now that insulin was invented back in 1921. In other words, I could feast on pure junk food for years—massive amounts, really—and as long as I balance it out with enough insulin, I'll be fine. Aside from looking like an elephant, but that’s a problem for another day... 😁

If you ever saw someone with diabetes slip into a coma, it was probably a hypoglycemic coma, caused by having too much insulin in their system relative to what their body actually needed at that moment.

Anyway, hope I wasn't being too much of a bore with this lecture... 🙂

You weren't being boring—it’s just that my own ignorant take on this stuff is pretty hard for me to stomach... looks like we were both reading the same thing at the exact same time http://diabetes.webmd.com/nutrition

where did you get the idea that someone with diabetes would just "fall into a coma"?

What I meant was regarding that specific type of diabetes where things are managed strictly through diet alone, without insulin—I can't recall the exact medical term or stage—but specifically when someone trying to manage it solely through food intake starts consuming exactly what I described.

Walter Moore4 said:driftinggull13, buddy, maybe pull your head out of the clouds for a second; you’re typing like you’ve swallowed all the world's wisdom, or maybe you just ate too much 😁......👋

I eat nothing but red meat, and honestly, that’s where all this intelligence and aggression comes from.😉
See, who says food doesn't make you smarter? I'm living proof. I steer clear of seafood (the whole phosphorus compound smell is a dealbreaker), I don't touch plants, it's just red meat, white bread, and beer for me. I'm one of those old-school guys who loves soft rock and heavy meals. 🙂

Regarding the question about Mavrovič's land... you're asking what if it's more extensive, or what if it's protected... but what if it isn't? And even if it is, that's just the answer regarding the water; the winds blow from all sorts of directions, so there's NO such thing as organic food because everything is contaminated, more or less.
The regulations basically just require that certain fertilizers and herbicides haven't been used for a specific amount of time, and that's it. In other words, nobody is going to tell you there's less herbicide or synthetic fertilizer being used there (because there is), since making that claim would be hard when you're trying to sell "organic" food.
Food digestion and metabolism are pretty well understood; obviously, we don't know everything about human physiology, but it's not on the level we're discussing here. It's settled science. Your argument makes about as much sense as me saying there's no point in learning math because we don't know everything and some things remain unknown.
The body stays in homeostasis, because if it didn't, it would have kicked the bucket a long time ago. Smokers have their own issues, just like former coal miners do, but that has nothing to do with diet, and yeah, their bodies are also in homeostasis.
Curing something through food? Maybe from hunger, sure.
Expelling toxins at the cost of energy? So what? Why shouldn't the body spend energy? Using that as an argument against something is like claiming physical exercise isn't good because, hey, it uses up energy.
Look, while we're on the subject, go compare the energy required for the process of converting glucose into energy versus the energy gained from glucose absorption, and then come tell me about energy costs and who's spending more.
Same goes for fats, and for amino acids—how much it "costs" to take them in versus how much it costs to build proteins in the body.
Osmosis is also passive transport, and yeah, we're all a little smarter now, especially those hearing it for the first time.
You can get other micronutrients elsewhere without much trouble because they're... well, micronutrients, and you only need tiny amounts of them anyway; you were getting them before Mavrovič's media-hyped bread.

I'll say it again: that bread isn't somehow healthier or more nutritious than any other kind. Maybe it has slightly more vitamins and micronutrients because it uses the whole grain, though I'd love to see a chemical breakdown of the ingredients so we aren't just guessing. I think it's mostly down to taste. Some people like it, some don't.

One more thing, my mention of Guyton wasn't to act like a genius, but because a huge number of people write about nutrition without knowing the basic elements of digestive physiology. They talk about "better carbohydrate digestion" without actually knowing anything about how carbohydrates are digested. How can you claim something is better when you know nothing about it? That's like claiming natural Vitamin C is better than synthetic Vitamin C. Vitamin C is Vitamin C, just like a specific carbohydrate is the same whether it's from Mavrovič or Claire, and they both behave exactly the same way during digestion.

Yeah, we’re talking Type 2 diabetes here—which, in most cases, isn't even insulin-dependent.

And look, people with Type 2 aren't necessarily going to crash into a coma from one bad meal... maybe they won't ever, but they *will* be sick. Oh yeah, they definitely will.

Anyway, the whole deal with the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 comes down to how it starts. With Type 1, those specific cells in the pancreas just suddenly stop pumping out insulin—they basically just die off because the body’s immune system goes rogue and attacks them like they're some kind of foreign protein—it's an autoimmune thing.

Then you’ve got Type 2—these folks actually have plenty of insulin, sometimes way too much if we're being honest, but their bodies just can't use it because they've become resistant to it. That's why cutting back on calories helps so much; it lowers the total demand for insulin, making it easier for the body to manage the mess. As weird as it sounds, Type 2 is actually a much more complicated beast than Type 1, even though Type 1 usually hits in childhood and Type 2 is linked to obesity—so everyone loves to jump to conclusions and blame these people for their own illness, which is only half the story...

Ugh, sorry, I'm back in professor mode again, I'll shut up now.😁

Does Mavrović's bread count as whole grain?