## 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.