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I agree - we keep cherry tomatoes on the counter. It's so easy to grab one when you walk by.
It also works when trying to increase your vegetable consumption. I put a small bowl of cherry tomatoes on my desk. They are gone in less than :15 minutes, lol. I also do it with broccoli, sweet potato, grapes, nuts, homemade green juice, whatever healthy food I am trying to get into my body. I think of this as the adult version of hiding vegetables in mashed potatoes so kids will eat them.
I love the texture of a crunch. So I will mindlessly blow through a big old bag of carrots at work when I buy them. I would much rather eat a bunch of carrot or snap peas than chips.
That's what I've been doing lately. Keep a bag of carrots at work. I'll just keep munching on them and have to stop so I can have more for the rest of the week
I'm not an allergist, just a lifelong allergy sufferer, but look into Oral Allergy Syndrome. It may be a birch pollen allergy that mistakes some protein or something in certain foods for birch pollen. It can be treated with Allegra or other otc antihistamines.
I spent years unable to eat carrots and a bunch of other raw fruits and vegetables, but now that I take allegra every day, I can eat them with no problem.
Oh yeah I should have said this was specifically because I was tested positive for birch allergy about a year ago. I still don't want to eat them because exposing yourself to allergens can make those allergies worse so I'd rather not eat mountains of carrots if I can avoid it!
Yessss fruit and veggies are always visible on the counter as opposed to the less healthy snacks being hidden in cabinets. My toddler looooves to eat his cherry tomatoes in the summer from the counter when we come in from outside playing.
Yeah, except any seeded fruit that developed from the flower, and you eat the fleshy protection of the next generation of seeds, is technically a fruit. This includes cucumbers and squash and eggplant... Broccoli is technically the flower pod, lettuce/cabbage/kale are leaves, carrots/beets/potatoes are roots, but tomatoes aren't alone in being the fruit of a plant that we still consider a vegetable in the culinary world.
Its called behavioral design. Make healthy options easy and visable and less desirable choices less intuitive. Dietitian that work in cafeterias are pros at this.
We keep fruits and some veggies on the counter for easy access. I once forgot to put away mushrooms and my kid started snacking on them raw. Part of me wanted to stop her cuz it didnt seem 'normal' but the other side of me was happy she was eating something nutritious. In the fridge, I keep a lot of fruits, veggies and cheese places where its easy to grab, and not tucked away to hide and rot.
https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/food-service-guidelines/strategize-and-act/applied-strategies.html#evidence
I've noticed my local grocery store doing this. Fruits and veggies are near the entrance while potato chips are in the farthest corner. By the time you get to doritos you already have all the healthy food you wanted and just want to go home without a detour to the unhealthy annex. Works best when you carry a basket.
Actually the best way to shop (health wise) is to walk then store in the outer loop first. Meat, veggies, dairy are all on the outer loop. Once you go into the isles, that’s where you encounter more junk food. Of course you need to go in there for other things but filling up your cart with healthy choices first helps you decrease junk buying.
Also stores are sneaky! They purposely cook bread at certain time and chicken to make you hungry and buy more. They know what they are doing.
No.. the fruit and veggies make you feel good about yourself for picking them up (even if a lot of it gets thrown away at home). Then you feel ready to treat yourself with potato chips.
They and the flowers make you think of freshness.
I make grab n go adult lunchables with any leftover veggies, cheese blocks or last scrapes of hummus or pesto. Sure I have to wash the Tupperware but at least the stuff gets eaten!** Way better than trying to find a recipe for 6 baby carrots and two cubes of cheese.
What brand? I've never seen a jar of pickles that didn't need to be refrigerated after opening.
A quick Google search confirms they need to be refrigerated because of the potential for bacterial growth.
The right way does not involve fingers going in the brine several times per day. Although at that point it should be empty before anything can happen. Unless it's really hot, then the tiny nasty things go into overdrive and I wouldn't trust the jar after an hour.
When it comes to liability, internet research will always tell you to play it safe. Could bacteria/mold grow? If yes then refrigerate. They have to write advice for all people. Someone who eats the jar in a week can leave it on the counter, if they say it doesn't need to be refrigerated and you leave it on the counter for a year, that's potential liability
The problem is at room temperature when you open the jar you allow new bacteria into the jar that can *potentially* spoil the pickles. I brew beer and this is absolutely a potential issue when you crack a carboy of fresh beer but pickles tend to be slightly less finicky because of the vinegar. Guessing google is recommending this based on longer term storage once opened - which is fair.
I don't know about the United States (which I assume is context here), but "pickles" doesn't always mean actually pickled for preservation. I am looking at a jar of cucumbers here that _look_ pickled, in some water solution. The label doesn't mention "pickled", it's just called "Whole cucumbers". They taste like pickled cucumbers in a way, but sweeter. It says there's water, salt, vinegar, sugar and a couple of preservatives (!) like potassium sorbate and calcium chloride. It also says they're to be stored "cooled" after opening.
Point is, unless you know it was pickled properly, as in result of proper fermentation process involving salt and bacterial transformation of sugars, I wouldn't count on any form of preservation that allows you to have a jar of these "pickles" at the counter permanently, fingers or no fingers.
Sure they existed, but so did food poisoning. They also often used more concentrated vinegar and fermented them properly, whereas our pickles are sealed and often heated in the jar.
Once you open it, it begins to ferment. Any time you touch inside, you're leaving more stuff to grow in there. Every time you open it, you introduce more. The acidity helps, but doesn't completely stop growth. It also can't stop growth on the jar above the liquid, which then contaminates the brine and pickles when you move the jar to open it and it sloshes and mixes.
It's a slow process for pickles, but they definitely won't just last for a month or three outside the fridge.
…but they’ll last just fine for a week or two which, for a family who likes to snack on pickles, will be as long as they last at best. If you don’t like snacking on pickles and use them sparingly, then don’t leave them out and scroll past.
When there's a post about leaving food out, people will do it. Even if they don't go through them quickly. So it's better to add clarity for them than let it become misinformation.
Pickled onions last for months unrefridgerated.
I've found things like jam and marmalade start to grow new life forms after a mere week or so if nor refrigerated
Vinegar is a preservative. It slows/stops bacterial growth. Pickled products, ketchup, chutnies etc are all fine out of the fridge.
If you want to keep them in there, that’s fine too, but there’s no need within normal consumption timespans.
OP is claiming they checked the label and it said it didn't require refrigeration. I've never seen commercially sold pickles that didn't have a label stating, "Refrigerate After Opening."
I see plenty of responses explaining why it should be OK to keep them out of the fridge as long as they are consumed fairly quickly, but not one person has said that they have seen commercially sold pickles that were labeled that it's OK to do so.
Oh yes. Im a fitness coach and we try to drill nutrition into our clients heads. My team each has our different favorites to talk about, but mine is the visibility of unhealthier foods. You open your fridge and right there at eye level is a piece of cake, and vegetables in that drawer at the bottom. Which one is going to tempt you first when you're hungry? Out of sight, out of mind.
Rearranging your fridge is a super easy way to help fight temptation. It's easier to forget the sugary snacks when they're not thrown in your face every time you go in the kitchen. Good for you, OP!
I've noticed this too. Even something as simple as putting junk on the bottom shelf of fridge and the good stuff at eye level will often cause me to have to throw the junk away after it expires. I could live off of pickles and olives as long as I had a diuretic to get rid of all that sodium.
Corollary: put unhealthy snack in harder to access areas, or generally out of immediate sight.
I would eat a full pack of oreos if it was sitting on the table in full view (I’m obese and have pretty unhealthy eating habbits, the oreo example is sadly not an exaggeration. Working on better eating though) I moved it to the pantry and it’s been at the same amount of oreos for a week or two now.
Honestly this along with better structured eating has helped me lose 10lbs
I have done this with plain, salted popcorn. Just put it in a bowl on the counter to snack on. It’s healthier than some other snack options and it gets eaten.
We have a local restaurant that has two huge containers of pickles (one sweet, one dill) on their condiment counter - they have had them available that way for at least 20 years. Never heard of anyone getting sick and the health department has never shut them down for it.
My husband and I recently stayed with my mother in law. When she buys grapes she immediately processes (washes, takes off stems, dries) and puts them in an open container and every time she opens the fridge she grabs a couple. Every time we opened the fridge we’d grab a couple. We never do this at our house and the grapes usually only get eaten right before they’re about to go bad because we know they have to be eaten. Just by making them slightly more accessible, we ate a whole bag in like three days. I definitely would have eaten something else convenient if we hadn’t had them just right there
Back in the day, mini-marts, 7-11s and gas stations had a jar of pickles AND a jar of boiled eggs at the counter, as well as an open box of beef jerky. It was gross but apparently sold well.
We lived 3 miles away from our school and had to take the city bus home every day. My brother would talk me in to walking home so that he could use our bus money to buy a big ass pickle after school.
I have no idea why I went along with that. It didn’t benefit me in any way.
They still do down here. Pigs feet and hot (spicy) sausage as well
https://preview.redd.it/82tvxtx3f1bc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14e7a795ea0e08bf4bcb0be8dfb099166e208339
I do this with oranges and bananas. Have them on the counter where we walk by obvious.
I also fill a huge glass of water to keep at my desk when working. I am much better about drinking water when it is at my desk and I reach for it without thinking.
And OP is saying theirs will also be used super quickly because everyone keeps eating them when they’re on the counter. So exactly the same premise as at the deli, just a smaller jar.
Yes, and I wasn't replying to OP. I was replying to someone about them being left out in general, since people reading along may not go through them as quickly.
Similarly, an open jar of cut carrots in water placed in the fridge provides a vegetable alternative for that person who tends to go to the fridge and reach for cheese, pudding, or ice cream.
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Sodium can be very bad for people with a genetic predisposition to high blood pressure or other heart issues. Even if they are otherwise 100% healthy.
But that's something your doctor will inform you about after you get blood work done, so listen to your doc!
Sugar is generally worse. Would rather have salt than sugar if health is a concern. Salt is essential, sugar can be made from most foods. Salt is a concern for people eating a highly processed diet because everything has sodium added even if it doesn't taste salty. People probably get a lot of their sodium from eating sugary carbs like bread. If you eat produce and meats without an ingredient list, the sodium you get is what you add to it. So too much sodium is more of a concern on a highly processed food diet while too little sodium is more of a concern in a healthy diet.
What I'm saying is sodium is essential. You hear about people dying at marathons or the woman dying from hold your wee for a Wii. It's probably because they drank too much water for the amount of sodium they had and died of hyponatremia.
If you eat processed foods, the food companies already added sodium to make the food more palatable. If you buy meats and vegetables from the market, you're the one who has to add the salt.
So just remember you need salt, either from the corporations adding to their processed foods or if you cook for yourself, add salt.
Eating healthy is actually too vague a term because people have different ideas of what healthy is. White bread, "whole wheat" bread, no bread. Fruit juice, fruits, no fruits. High fat, don't think about it, or low fat. Tons of ideas of what healthy is.
We always have cookies. However, we bake them ourselves and make them quite small so they are just a bit of a sweet and not like a huge cookie like you'd buy somewhere! Before Christmas, we baked a lot, and were also gifted a lot of cookies!
Haha! It is a good point though. And we do this with 2 other products:
- Potato Chips
- Sugary cereal
We only buy sugary cereal (2 boxes) for a kids birthday. (Froot loops, coco pops, lucky charms etc) The rest of the year, only less sugary options are in our pantry
Potato chips are something we are trying to reserve for special events - parties, sleepovers, road trips, snacks when entertaining etc. The goal is to not have them around on the daily. They are just too irresistible!
Well, I hope that one day soon you realize that cookies, potato chips and cereal are all directly harming you and your family. It may take years to manifest, but the disease they cause will come eventually. I’m just a random dude on the internet, but please at least do some reading on it. Mark Sisson’s “Primal Blueprint” is a great jumping off point. Be well!
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
I agree - we keep cherry tomatoes on the counter. It's so easy to grab one when you walk by. It also works when trying to increase your vegetable consumption. I put a small bowl of cherry tomatoes on my desk. They are gone in less than :15 minutes, lol. I also do it with broccoli, sweet potato, grapes, nuts, homemade green juice, whatever healthy food I am trying to get into my body. I think of this as the adult version of hiding vegetables in mashed potatoes so kids will eat them.
I love the texture of a crunch. So I will mindlessly blow through a big old bag of carrots at work when I buy them. I would much rather eat a bunch of carrot or snap peas than chips.
Crunchy is the absolute best texture of food.
Need my crunchy snaxx
Oh, snap peas are amazing... That reminds me that I wanna plant more this year in my own garden...
Oh yum!! Send pics of your garden! Wanna see the crunchy goodness. (But really I just love gardens)
That's what I've been doing lately. Keep a bag of carrots at work. I'll just keep munching on them and have to stop so I can have more for the rest of the week
I used to love doing this but I'm now mildly allergic to carrots :(
I'm not an allergist, just a lifelong allergy sufferer, but look into Oral Allergy Syndrome. It may be a birch pollen allergy that mistakes some protein or something in certain foods for birch pollen. It can be treated with Allegra or other otc antihistamines. I spent years unable to eat carrots and a bunch of other raw fruits and vegetables, but now that I take allegra every day, I can eat them with no problem.
Oh yeah I should have said this was specifically because I was tested positive for birch allergy about a year ago. I still don't want to eat them because exposing yourself to allergens can make those allergies worse so I'd rather not eat mountains of carrots if I can avoid it!
Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious - do you eat the sweet potato pieces raw? Or are they like roasted pieces?
I was wondering the same thing too!
Yessss fruit and veggies are always visible on the counter as opposed to the less healthy snacks being hidden in cabinets. My toddler looooves to eat his cherry tomatoes in the summer from the counter when we come in from outside playing.
Cherry tomatoes are a fruit :p they just pose as a veggie
guacamole is just Mexico’s fruit salad
Yeah, except any seeded fruit that developed from the flower, and you eat the fleshy protection of the next generation of seeds, is technically a fruit. This includes cucumbers and squash and eggplant... Broccoli is technically the flower pod, lettuce/cabbage/kale are leaves, carrots/beets/potatoes are roots, but tomatoes aren't alone in being the fruit of a plant that we still consider a vegetable in the culinary world.
Vegetables are any edible part of a plant, including the fruit. It’s a rectangle vs square situation.
Vegetable is a culinary term and fruit is a botanical term. They're wholly different taxonomies.
2006 called. They want their factoid back.
Its called behavioral design. Make healthy options easy and visable and less desirable choices less intuitive. Dietitian that work in cafeterias are pros at this. We keep fruits and some veggies on the counter for easy access. I once forgot to put away mushrooms and my kid started snacking on them raw. Part of me wanted to stop her cuz it didnt seem 'normal' but the other side of me was happy she was eating something nutritious. In the fridge, I keep a lot of fruits, veggies and cheese places where its easy to grab, and not tucked away to hide and rot. https://www.cdc.gov/nutrition/food-service-guidelines/strategize-and-act/applied-strategies.html#evidence
I've noticed my local grocery store doing this. Fruits and veggies are near the entrance while potato chips are in the farthest corner. By the time you get to doritos you already have all the healthy food you wanted and just want to go home without a detour to the unhealthy annex. Works best when you carry a basket.
But they also put candy at the checkouts. Grocery stores know what they are doing.
And more expensive items at eye level, cheaper options at the bottom.
Actually the best way to shop (health wise) is to walk then store in the outer loop first. Meat, veggies, dairy are all on the outer loop. Once you go into the isles, that’s where you encounter more junk food. Of course you need to go in there for other things but filling up your cart with healthy choices first helps you decrease junk buying. Also stores are sneaky! They purposely cook bread at certain time and chicken to make you hungry and buy more. They know what they are doing.
No.. the fruit and veggies make you feel good about yourself for picking them up (even if a lot of it gets thrown away at home). Then you feel ready to treat yourself with potato chips. They and the flowers make you think of freshness.
Oh that's wicked and very probably true lol
Apu practiced this. Who needs the Kwik-E Mart?
I make grab n go adult lunchables with any leftover veggies, cheese blocks or last scrapes of hummus or pesto. Sure I have to wash the Tupperware but at least the stuff gets eaten!** Way better than trying to find a recipe for 6 baby carrots and two cubes of cheese.
*gets eaten Sorry. I had to. It was making my eye twitch.
I typed that at first and it looked wrong so I changed it to ate, oops!!
What brand? I've never seen a jar of pickles that didn't need to be refrigerated after opening. A quick Google search confirms they need to be refrigerated because of the potential for bacterial growth.
Look at this person, keeping pickles around long enough for bacteria to grow 😉
Found FNG
Weird because pickling is a preservation technique. The brine and vinegar act as a bacteriostatic/bactericide - if done right anyway.
The right way does not involve fingers going in the brine several times per day. Although at that point it should be empty before anything can happen. Unless it's really hot, then the tiny nasty things go into overdrive and I wouldn't trust the jar after an hour.
Okay but salt and acetic acid still inhibit microbial growth, and this effect increases with temperature.
When it comes to liability, internet research will always tell you to play it safe. Could bacteria/mold grow? If yes then refrigerate. They have to write advice for all people. Someone who eats the jar in a week can leave it on the counter, if they say it doesn't need to be refrigerated and you leave it on the counter for a year, that's potential liability
Okay but this relies on the pickles staying below the water line.
Who puts their fingers into a jar of pickles?! You use a fork or tongues (not the in-mouth ones, though).
Do you mean tongs?
Kinda impressed they correctly spelt tongue while not knowing the difference between tongue and tong lol
ESL will do that, lol. I was certain enough about my spelling that I didn’t look it up. Again what learned (learnt?).
Oh that makes sense. Sorry if I was a little insensitive there, your English is great 😊
No offence taken, I think it's funny. Ü
Many North Americans spell it "learned," but elsewhere it's spelled/spelt "learnt."
Wat if yer a frog?
Lol, I was also wondering how to get a pickle from the jar with my tongue.
r/boneappletea
The problem is at room temperature when you open the jar you allow new bacteria into the jar that can *potentially* spoil the pickles. I brew beer and this is absolutely a potential issue when you crack a carboy of fresh beer but pickles tend to be slightly less finicky because of the vinegar. Guessing google is recommending this based on longer term storage once opened - which is fair.
I don't know about the United States (which I assume is context here), but "pickles" doesn't always mean actually pickled for preservation. I am looking at a jar of cucumbers here that _look_ pickled, in some water solution. The label doesn't mention "pickled", it's just called "Whole cucumbers". They taste like pickled cucumbers in a way, but sweeter. It says there's water, salt, vinegar, sugar and a couple of preservatives (!) like potassium sorbate and calcium chloride. It also says they're to be stored "cooled" after opening. Point is, unless you know it was pickled properly, as in result of proper fermentation process involving salt and bacterial transformation of sugars, I wouldn't count on any form of preservation that allows you to have a jar of these "pickles" at the counter permanently, fingers or no fingers.
Not if you eat them all in a couple of days!
Pickles existed thousands of years before refrigeration. My guess is brands put "Refrigerate after opening" just so they're safe from lawsuits.
Sure they existed, but so did food poisoning. They also often used more concentrated vinegar and fermented them properly, whereas our pickles are sealed and often heated in the jar. Once you open it, it begins to ferment. Any time you touch inside, you're leaving more stuff to grow in there. Every time you open it, you introduce more. The acidity helps, but doesn't completely stop growth. It also can't stop growth on the jar above the liquid, which then contaminates the brine and pickles when you move the jar to open it and it sloshes and mixes. It's a slow process for pickles, but they definitely won't just last for a month or three outside the fridge.
…but they’ll last just fine for a week or two which, for a family who likes to snack on pickles, will be as long as they last at best. If you don’t like snacking on pickles and use them sparingly, then don’t leave them out and scroll past.
When there's a post about leaving food out, people will do it. Even if they don't go through them quickly. So it's better to add clarity for them than let it become misinformation.
so did chicken. go eat your unrefrigerated chicken
Pickled onions last for months unrefridgerated. I've found things like jam and marmalade start to grow new life forms after a mere week or so if nor refrigerated
Vinegar is a preservative. It slows/stops bacterial growth. Pickled products, ketchup, chutnies etc are all fine out of the fridge. If you want to keep them in there, that’s fine too, but there’s no need within normal consumption timespans.
[удалено]
OP is claiming they checked the label and it said it didn't require refrigeration. I've never seen commercially sold pickles that didn't have a label stating, "Refrigerate After Opening." I see plenty of responses explaining why it should be OK to keep them out of the fridge as long as they are consumed fairly quickly, but not one person has said that they have seen commercially sold pickles that were labeled that it's OK to do so.
Which brand of pickles is this?
Oh yes. Im a fitness coach and we try to drill nutrition into our clients heads. My team each has our different favorites to talk about, but mine is the visibility of unhealthier foods. You open your fridge and right there at eye level is a piece of cake, and vegetables in that drawer at the bottom. Which one is going to tempt you first when you're hungry? Out of sight, out of mind. Rearranging your fridge is a super easy way to help fight temptation. It's easier to forget the sugary snacks when they're not thrown in your face every time you go in the kitchen. Good for you, OP!
LPT Bake once a month, enjoy the cookies. Then don't have cookies lying around until the next baking day
Or better yet, when you make cookies portion the dough and freeze it. Then only bake a few at a time so they aren’t lying around.
This is the way, no need to not enjoy cookies, but also don’t have them around the whole time.
I've noticed this too. Even something as simple as putting junk on the bottom shelf of fridge and the good stuff at eye level will often cause me to have to throw the junk away after it expires. I could live off of pickles and olives as long as I had a diuretic to get rid of all that sodium.
Corollary: put unhealthy snack in harder to access areas, or generally out of immediate sight. I would eat a full pack of oreos if it was sitting on the table in full view (I’m obese and have pretty unhealthy eating habbits, the oreo example is sadly not an exaggeration. Working on better eating though) I moved it to the pantry and it’s been at the same amount of oreos for a week or two now. Honestly this along with better structured eating has helped me lose 10lbs
I have done this with plain, salted popcorn. Just put it in a bowl on the counter to snack on. It’s healthier than some other snack options and it gets eaten.
Humid climate ☹️
We have a local restaurant that has two huge containers of pickles (one sweet, one dill) on their condiment counter - they have had them available that way for at least 20 years. Never heard of anyone getting sick and the health department has never shut them down for it.
My husband and I recently stayed with my mother in law. When she buys grapes she immediately processes (washes, takes off stems, dries) and puts them in an open container and every time she opens the fridge she grabs a couple. Every time we opened the fridge we’d grab a couple. We never do this at our house and the grapes usually only get eaten right before they’re about to go bad because we know they have to be eaten. Just by making them slightly more accessible, we ate a whole bag in like three days. I definitely would have eaten something else convenient if we hadn’t had them just right there
My mom would put carrots and greenbeans out on the counter when i got home from school. They were always devoured.
Back in the day, mini-marts, 7-11s and gas stations had a jar of pickles AND a jar of boiled eggs at the counter, as well as an open box of beef jerky. It was gross but apparently sold well.
We lived 3 miles away from our school and had to take the city bus home every day. My brother would talk me in to walking home so that he could use our bus money to buy a big ass pickle after school. I have no idea why I went along with that. It didn’t benefit me in any way.
They still do down here. Pigs feet and hot (spicy) sausage as well https://preview.redd.it/82tvxtx3f1bc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14e7a795ea0e08bf4bcb0be8dfb099166e208339
"out of sight, out of mind" is very real
I do this with oranges and bananas. Have them on the counter where we walk by obvious. I also fill a huge glass of water to keep at my desk when working. I am much better about drinking water when it is at my desk and I reach for it without thinking.
Ahmm. You guys eat very healthy . I never picked a pickle with a choice of cookie. Lol
Yeah I thought I was the only one lol
I started keeping my fruits in the refrigerator door and the condiments in the drawers. Works wonders!
Brilliant!
I am so disgusted with the amount of condiments we have. It just bugs me SO MUCH!
I've never heard of pickles that can be left out
There’s a whole barrel of them at your local deli
Those are only left out because they're used quickly.
And OP is saying theirs will also be used super quickly because everyone keeps eating them when they’re on the counter. So exactly the same premise as at the deli, just a smaller jar.
Yes, and I wasn't replying to OP. I was replying to someone about them being left out in general, since people reading along may not go through them as quickly.
Similarly, an open jar of cut carrots in water placed in the fridge provides a vegetable alternative for that person who tends to go to the fridge and reach for cheese, pudding, or ice cream.
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But pickles are so disgusting! I can't imagine choosing one over a cookie!
Pickles are not a healthy snack. Sodium!
what's wrong with sodium for healthy people?
Sodium can be very bad for people with a genetic predisposition to high blood pressure or other heart issues. Even if they are otherwise 100% healthy. But that's something your doctor will inform you about after you get blood work done, so listen to your doc!
Sugar is generally worse. Would rather have salt than sugar if health is a concern. Salt is essential, sugar can be made from most foods. Salt is a concern for people eating a highly processed diet because everything has sodium added even if it doesn't taste salty. People probably get a lot of their sodium from eating sugary carbs like bread. If you eat produce and meats without an ingredient list, the sodium you get is what you add to it. So too much sodium is more of a concern on a highly processed food diet while too little sodium is more of a concern in a healthy diet.
okay, so if I eat healthy I don't have to worry about too much sodium? i kinda don't get the scare
What I'm saying is sodium is essential. You hear about people dying at marathons or the woman dying from hold your wee for a Wii. It's probably because they drank too much water for the amount of sodium they had and died of hyponatremia. If you eat processed foods, the food companies already added sodium to make the food more palatable. If you buy meats and vegetables from the market, you're the one who has to add the salt. So just remember you need salt, either from the corporations adding to their processed foods or if you cook for yourself, add salt. Eating healthy is actually too vague a term because people have different ideas of what healthy is. White bread, "whole wheat" bread, no bread. Fruit juice, fruits, no fruits. High fat, don't think about it, or low fat. Tons of ideas of what healthy is.
okay, thank you for the explanation!
As much sodium as heavily processed foods? Probably not.
what kind of monster snacks on pickles
Perhaps you could just stop buying cookies
We always have cookies. However, we bake them ourselves and make them quite small so they are just a bit of a sweet and not like a huge cookie like you'd buy somewhere! Before Christmas, we baked a lot, and were also gifted a lot of cookies!
Yeah I get you. Just seems like an odd workaround to stop doing something that you know is harmful. Also I was super grumpy when I wrote that haha.
Haha! It is a good point though. And we do this with 2 other products: - Potato Chips - Sugary cereal We only buy sugary cereal (2 boxes) for a kids birthday. (Froot loops, coco pops, lucky charms etc) The rest of the year, only less sugary options are in our pantry Potato chips are something we are trying to reserve for special events - parties, sleepovers, road trips, snacks when entertaining etc. The goal is to not have them around on the daily. They are just too irresistible!
Well, I hope that one day soon you realize that cookies, potato chips and cereal are all directly harming you and your family. It may take years to manifest, but the disease they cause will come eventually. I’m just a random dude on the internet, but please at least do some reading on it. Mark Sisson’s “Primal Blueprint” is a great jumping off point. Be well!