<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="utf-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <title>reasonable_diet-truth.txt</title>
  <script>
    (() => {
      let storedTheme = null;
      try {
        storedTheme = localStorage.getItem("theme");
      } catch (error) {}

      if (storedTheme === "dark") {
        document.documentElement.dataset.theme = "dark";
      }
    })();
  </script>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/%25latex/styles.css">
</head>
<body class="document-page">
  <button class="theme-toggle" type="button" aria-label="Switch to dark mode" title="Dark mode">
    <svg class="theme-icon theme-icon-moon" viewBox="0 0 24 24" aria-hidden="true">
      <path d="M20.4 14.5A8.2 8.2 0 0 1 9.5 3.6a8.7 8.7 0 1 0 10.9 10.9Z"></path>
    </svg>
    <svg class="theme-icon theme-icon-sun" viewBox="0 0 24 24" aria-hidden="true">
      <circle cx="12" cy="12" r="4"></circle>
      <path d="M12 2v2M12 20v2M4.9 4.9l1.4 1.4M17.7 17.7l1.4 1.4M2 12h2M20 12h2M4.9 19.1l1.4-1.4M17.7 6.3l1.4-1.4"></path>
    </svg>
  </button>
  <script>
    (() => {
      const button = document.querySelector(".theme-toggle");

      const setTheme = (theme) => {
        const isDark = theme === "dark";
        if (isDark) {
          document.documentElement.dataset.theme = "dark";
        } else {
          document.documentElement.removeAttribute("data-theme");
        }

        button.setAttribute("aria-label", isDark ? "Switch to light mode" : "Switch to dark mode");
        button.setAttribute("aria-pressed", String(isDark));
        button.title = isDark ? "Light mode" : "Dark mode";

        try {
          localStorage.setItem("theme", isDark ? "dark" : "light");
        } catch (error) {}
      };

      setTheme(document.documentElement.dataset.theme === "dark" ? "dark" : "light");
      button.addEventListener("click", () => {
        setTheme(document.documentElement.dataset.theme === "dark" ? "light" : "dark");
      });
    })();
  </script>
  <header class="site-header">
    <a class="back-link" href="/outline/reasonable_diet/">Back to directory</a>
    <h1>reasonable_diet-truth.txt</h1>
    <p class="path-label">outline/reasonable_diet/reasonable_diet-truth.txt</p>
  </header>
  <main class="document-shell">
    <pre class="document-text">## Truth


## Malnutrition

	mental health
		poor nutrition doesn’t just make people tyred
			it shifts mood, attention, and how safely people feel inside their own heads
		malnutrition (too few calories, missing nutrients, or both)
			raises baseline anxiety and irritability
			makes it harder to focus or plan
			keeps people in a constant low-level “something’s wrong” state
		people then reach for quick fixes:
			sugar, caffeine, ultra-processed food, more scrolling
		so a missing potato, egg, or mussel quietly becomes:
			worse sleep
			poorer decisions
			more arguments
			and a sense that life is harder than it has to be
		this doesn’t explain every mental health problem
			but it’s a big, fixable part of the background noise

	physical health
		people who don't get enough calories or nutrients aren't able to build their bodies
			not enough nutrients, and problems growing, obtaining or distributing them
		there are currently more people overweight than without enough food
		malnutrition doesn’t always look thin
			many people with obesity are still undernourished
			high calories, low nutrients
		missing basics (protein, micronutrients, safe starches)
			slow down recovery from illness
			make infections hit harder and longer
			keep inflammation simmering
		over years this shows up as:
			chronic fatigue
			mood instability
			autoimmune flares
			blood-sugar issues
			a general sense of “I’m always a bit wrecked”

	university students
		often live on the narrowest slice of the food system:
			packet noodles
			frozen snacks
			energy drinks
		not because supermarkets lack real food
			but because habits, time, and money pull them to the cheapest obvious options
		this creates:
			brain fog in lectures
			worse sleep
			higher stress
			tiny illnesses that never fully clear

	other groups
		young workers doing long shifts, eating whatever is open late
		low-income families stretching food until pay day
		share houses with no cooking culture, just snacks and takeaway
		in all of these:
			malnutrition is rarely dramatic
			it is a constant, mild deficiency that drags everything down
		the point of reasonable.diet:
			isn’t to diagnose or lecture
			but to make “fixing the basics” stupidly easy
			so food stops being one of the forces pushing people under



## Simple Nutrition

	some foods cover more ground than others
		if you get them right, everything else becomes easier

	potatoes
		almost-complete staple:
			store well
			grow almost anywhere
			can be cooked in minutes with a microwave
		high satiety
			they fill you before you can overeat
		they quietly solve:
			calories
			many minerals
			a sense of being actually full and warm

	mussels
		cheap in many places
		pack dense nutrients that are hard to get elsewhere
		cover trace minerals and omega-3s most people are low on

	liver
		strong, simple, efficient
		a tiny amount once a week covers a lot of gaps
		not for everyone’s taste, but worth knowing about

	together
		potatoes + mussels + liver + common veg
			can be adapted to almost any culture
			cover most human nutritional needs
		reasonable.diet doesn’t say “everyone must eat this”
			it offers the clearest, cheapest defaults
			so anyone can move from “barely getting by” to “properly fed”



## Plastic and Cardboard

	what most people buy now
		walk into a supermarket and try, honestly, to avoid:
			plastic (oil)
			cardboard (trees)
			single-use glass
			tins and cans
		what’s left is thin:
			fresh fruit and vegetables
			a few bulk bins if you’re lucky
			the odd refill station
		everything else is:
			plastic trays
			plastic film
			cardboard sleeves
			coloured boxes
			endless single-use containers

	recycling isn’t a real answer
		most plastic is never recycled
			it is downcycled once, then burned or buried
		cardboard and glass get reused more
			but only after huge energy and transport costs
		the total waste of one big supermarket each day
			is hard to even picture
			yet it’s treated as normal

	what has quietly worked
		for all its ugliness, the industrial system has:
			moved enormous amounts of food around the world
			made fresh produce available in places it never was
			reduced famine for millions
		the saving grace is:
			fresh, unpackaged things still exist on the shelves
			and they are usually the best options

	anti-consumption in practice
		if you treat:
			plastic as oil
			cardboard as trees
		then your available choices shrink:
			loose fruit and vegetables
			bulk staples decanted into your own containers
			the occasional tin that lasts a long time
		this is not hair-shirt minimalism
			it is simply noticing what is already true:
				the most nourishing foods usually come without a box
		if people:
			buy more from the unpackaged edges of the store
			use bulk staples in reusable containers
		then:
			household complexity drops
			local resilience increases
			costs fall quietly
		Reasonable.Diet’s stance:
			isn’t shouting “consume nothing”
			it’s offering a gentle, obvious path:
				more potatoes and loose veg
				less plastic and cardboard
				healthier people, less pointless rubbish



## Perfect Health Diet

	a small, serious attempt to answer:
		“what actually keeps humans well, if you strip away trends?”

	the people
		Paul Jaminet
			originally trained in physics and astrophysics
			turned to nutrition after his own long illness
			approached food like a systems problem to be debugged
		Shou-Ching Jaminet
			molecular biologist and cancer researcher
			brought lab discipline and caution to every claim
		together they:
			wrote *Perfect Health Diet*
			ran a blog and answered thousands of reader questions
			built a framework that many chronically ill people used to experiment carefully
		they now focus mainly on cancer and related research
			the diet work is technically “old”
			but the core ideas still hold up remarkably well

	the project
		PHD was never meant as a brand or personality cult
			it was a long, detailed attempt to:
				remove the most harmful modern foods
				add back the most nutrient-dense ones
				find a balance that matched how humans historically ate
		many readers reported:
			better energy
			clearer thinking
			improvements in chronic conditions
		it did not “cure everything”
			but it gave people a sane, well-researched starting point
			instead of guesswork and fads

### Methodology
		first-principles rather than ideology
			start with human biology
			add anthropology and history
			check against clinical and lab evidence
		two main questions:
			“is this food meaningfully toxic at normal doses?”
			“does this food provide something important that’s hard to get elsewhere?”
		the resulting pattern:
			safe starches (rice, potatoes, taro) as calm carb base
			moderate protein from meat, fish, eggs
			fats from animal sources, coconut, butter; avoid seed oils
			nutrient-dense extras (liver, shellfish, egg yolks, fermented vegetables, broth)
			remove or minimise:
				wheat
				refined sugar
				industrial oils
				ultra-processed foods

	what it offers here
		reasonable.diet uses Perfect Health Diet as:
			a backbone, not a rulebook
		it gives:
			a clear map of what tends to keep people stable
			a list of foods that quietly cover the gaps
			a way to talk about potatoes, mussels, liver, veg
				without inventing a new theory from scratch
		it also:
			respects the original work
			keeps attribution clear
			and tries to take their research into everyday kitchens
				where it can actually reduce suffering


## Recipe Sites and Search Engines

	Most recipe sites look strangely similar with
		Long pages, long stories, heavy layouts.
		how often have you had to scroll through 'why this recipe was important to uncle meemaw before she died'
		Not because anyone wants it that way,
		but because search engines reward certain shapes of content.
		If a page looks “long enough” and “busy enough,” it ranks.
		If it doesn’t, it sinks.
		This has quietly shaped how almost every recipe online is presented.

	Creators understand this better than anyone.
		Most would prefer to post a clean recipe and a short explanation.
		But if they don’t follow the pattern,
			their work becomes harder to find,
			traffic drops,
			and the income that supports their cooking disappears.
		Many talk openly about how frustrating this is.
		They add “jump to recipe” buttons,
		print-friendly pages,
		and little workarounds to help people skip the clutter.
		But the underlying incentives never really change.

	Readers feel it from the other side.
		They arrive just wanting to cook something
		and have to scroll through ads, stories, and scripts that load slowly.
		Extensions exist purely to hide the noise.
		People screenshot ingredients so they don’t have to reopen the page.
		Nobody is at fault; everyone is adapting to the same inhuman system.
</pre>
  </main>
  <footer class="site-footer">
    <a class="back-link" href="/outline/reasonable_diet/">Back to directory</a>
  </footer>
</body>
</html>
