The concern for human health is a growing issue, and as the conversation inflates, so does the marketing for "healthy" foods, and so does our ability to trick ourselves into thinking we're eating healthier than we are.
You could ask, "Is agave healthy?" Well it's definitely healthier than all refined sugars! So then yes of course it's healthy. To an agave salesman this is true. To your kidneys it's not.
This is a huge problem! Because our organs don't care how healthy things are relative to other things. We don't have a "dessert" part of our stomach that sees blueberry muffins and goes "Wow, great job on the blueberries!" Your digestive system hates blueberry muffins. And the fact that you reward yourself for picking the blueberry muffin is wrong.
Just because something is relatively "healthier" doesn't make it "healthy." This is so critical.
I promise it's not merely a semantic issue. It has to do with the fact that "healthy" is defined
relativistically, either by marketing (see
health halo) or our own heuristics.
Human brains are so crafty at justifying our bad habits. Most of the foods we'd consider to be healthy - blueberry muffins, granola bars, Slim Fast, Emergen-C, Raisin Bran, fruit smoothies - these are all garbage.
Humans are pleasure seekers through and through, and we'll find the loopholes that give us guilt-free pleasure. It's not bad, it's just how we work, and it's something we should be aware of. A vegan will exploit the fact that sugar is vegan, and a paleo will exploit the fact that dates wrapped in maple bacon is paleo. All diets have loopholes, and we will find and exploit them.
So what then?
Well, I've made the Robot Diet. Which, to my knowledge, is the only diet that has no loopholes. It's the healthiest diet by definition, and it serves as a model that is immune to culture and emotional biases and exploitation.
When you assess the health-factor of food, compare it to the ideal, not just food within its class, and not just within your bounded frame of healthiness. Your digestive system doesn't classify foods and neither should your brain. Don't compare agave to refined sugar; compare agave to no agave.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't eat agave. It means that you should not trick yourself into thinking agave is healthy just because it's healthier than refined sugar. You should not give yourself points for eating the agave candy bar. A candy bar is a candy bar.
The robot diet is the pillar of extreme health that all things should be compared to. If it's not robot food then you're making compromises for flavor. It's as simple as that. Nothing is wrong with eating for flavor, just be honest with yourself that flavor is your motivation
Of course you should not beat yourself up for eating a blueberry muffin. Eat what you eat. Just don't lie to yourself.
You will probably never eat like a robot. That's not the point. This diet is an ideal. Use ideals to orient yourself in the direction of good. Use the robot diet to orient yourself in the direction of eating healthier. That's it.
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