George burns smoked cigars from the time he was 14... lived past 100.
I don't see how it is in any way relevant to this discussion. If you mean that I should start smoking to live long, I don't think it works that way!
My theory: eat what your family eats if they live to be old. If they don't, then think about changing your diet. At worst, you'll live about as long as they do.
There is some luck involved, so this is not reliable. There is also a chance that they live old not because of diet, but because of some other thing, like their job, and they may have lived even longer if they had a good diet. I would probably trust in research, instead of personal experiences.
Why should I reduce my happiness so that I can live a few more years that I probably won't contribute any more to the world than I already have?
Bad diet does not only cause death, but may cause you a lot of suffering before the death comes, few people regret that they didn't eat lard at their deathbed. If one only pursues happiness and does not care what happens after he dies, why not just buy hardest drugs you can find? Happiness reduction from not eating lard is a minor thing. It may even do the opposite, increase happiness, because you may feel better when you don't eat stuff like that. Many people have given up eating meat, and have felt better ever since.
French cooking has always used a lot of lard and butter, yet they have a traditionally longer life span than many other nations and cultures that had similar levels of fats in their diet
There are other things that affect to lifespan statistics than whether you eat lard and butter or not. So this doesn't prove anything without first (trying) to eliminate those other things away.
Nobody knows for sure what the exact "killer ingredient" in food is because it can be extremely different from one group to the next.
Lots of research has been done on nutrition, and there are also results. If you say that eating lard is as healthy (or healthier) than stuff like canola oil, it's just absurd. People who deny it I would compare to antivaxxers. It is a rather large conspiracy if it was the opposite. If all experts, doctors, recommendations by governments of many countries say that excess salt is dangerous, they may be right. But of course you know better because you have googled a few papers which say the opposite? With salt there is also a quite logical explanation for why too much of it is not good, admittedly for many things the explanations may be complicated, which may result in people not believing the claims.
Rexz wrote:If you alter your diet, you may find that there are a lot of ways to make things yummy while still being relatively healthy compare to the more popular options.
Sure they may not be as rich as stuff that are loaded with sugar or fat, but they can be still delicious with the right ingredients and preparation.
Taste is relative anyway, and for me personally, it has swung wildy over the years. I remember being homeless for a couple days when I ran out of money while backpacking in Europe, and someone offered me heated canned broth with some thick crackers, and I enjoyed it as much as a juicy steak I could be having back home, all just because I was struck by hunger as a weary traveler.
I agree, I was a typical Finn, eating lots of meat, like every day, until recently I tried to just stop eating it, because of health concerns. I haven't regretted. I sometimes eat it if there is no alternative or I feel like it (which is like chicken 1-2 times a month), I eat fish though.
This also resulted in my taste changing. I don't think that tofu was that good on the first try, but now I eat tofu straight from the fridge and I think that it tastes pretty good, even without any spices, I even think that the texture is better than what ground beef is, which I ate a lot before.
Recently I also ate some food with beans, lentils and mushrooms, which sounds very suspicious and not-good-tasting, but it was surprisingly good.
People think that meat is good probably only because they have eaten it for a long time and decided that meat is the best and other things are not as good, even though they could just try to change their taste and get same amount of satisfaction from healthier alternatives.
