So there is a great new
study where the subjects were given a controlled diet to compare processed vs unprocessed foods.
Quote:
The study, conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, is the first randomized, controlled trial to show that eating a diet made up of ultra-processed foods actually drives people to overeat and gain weight compared with a diet made up of whole or minimally processed foods. Study participants on the ultra-processed diet ate an average of 508 calories more per day and ended up gaining an average of 2 pounds over a two-week period. People on the unprocessed diet, meanwhile, ended up losing about 2 pounds on average over a two-week period.
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"The difference in weight gain for one [group] and weight loss for the other during these two periods is phenomenal. We haven't seen anything like this," says Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina who has studied the role of ultra-processed foods in the American diet but was not involved in the current research.
Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, agrees that the findings are striking. He says what was so impressive was that the NIH researchers documented this weight gain even though each meal offered on the two different diets contained the same total amount of calories, fats, protein, sugar, salt, carbohydrates and fiber. Study participants were allowed to eat as much or as little as they wanted but ended up eating way more of the ultra-processed meals, even though they didn't rate those meals as being tastier than the unprocessed meals.
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Essentially those processed foods are going to fuck you up by making you more hungry. They are also more carb/fat heavy and less protein dense, meaning you have to go through a lot more calories to get the same level of protein.
A popular theory is that we basically are hungry until we have had enough protein. Which is why a bit of meat and veggies is so damn filling but you can clear an entire basket of bread and butter and not feel all that "full" (at least for very long).
The article doesn't say this, but based on my experience with ultra low carb diets, I would say the same is true for certain veggie nutrients and small number of carbs as well. It seems after awhile meat doesn't fill you up like it used to. So I'm guessing that might be because your body wants more glycogen stores.
It's all about balance from what I can tell. Not too much food. Not getting rid of any food group or over eating any other.
You can get away with not eating meat if you eat the hell out of beans and nuts though. Basically a bean dish and a bunch of nuts for a meal. Also high protein veggies like kale and green peas. Spinach is like 1 gram of protein per serving, and I challenge anyone to eat more than like 6 servings of that.
Cheese would actually be very helpful to prevent all that fiber from giving you the constant shits. A little bit of cheese to balance out your fiber rations would probably be good. It also has some protein in it.
I honestly think that a non bodybuilding person might benefit the most from a veggie/fish diet with maybe 1 steak a week. But I personally just like the low expense chicken/turkey/beef/pork dominated diet ATM. If I get more $$ maybe ill change it up more. Fish are expensive, nuts are expensive.