Over the past couple of years, my better half has been experimenting with dairy replacements.
She began to experiment after returning from a vacation on which she had very little dairy and subsequently noticed some physical improvements. While she has found some reasonable alternatives, one of the main challenges in most situations is finding an option that contains an amount of protein per serving similar to that of the dairy option it’s meant to replace.
Last Sunday the dairy & protein topic came up while we were eating breakfast. Specifically, we were discussing the fact that the high-protein Kodiak Power Cakes–Flapjack & Waffle mix that we use to make our typical Sunday morning pancakes contains a variety of protein ingredients including wheat protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, and milk protein concentrate.
We both agreed it was nice that the mixture doesn’t seem to cause issues for her, given the inclusion of milk-based ingredients, and then turned the discussion to comparing protein isolates to concentrates.
I explained the basic differences while she was finishing her last pancake and completed the explanation by saying that the differences probably didn’t really matter in 99% of situations. As she stood up to take her now-empty plate back to the sink, she posed the question:
Why does this stuff always have to be so complicated?
She probably asked the question rhetorically, but I answered it anyway. (What can I say? I’m a boy. And sometimes—in other words, usually—boys can’t help but ignore the rhetorical nature of questions that have interesting answers. In any case, that answer is the point of this tip!)
The short answer was: At a high level, stuff often isn’t complicated. We just perceive things as complicated because we often apply information out of context or get bogged down with unnecessary or unimportant details.
In this case, trying to understand the reason behind why the variety of protein types had been added to the mixture—and whether it even mattered—are the unnecessary details. Those details become unimportant when we consider the fact that the mixture helps to fulfill her daily protein needs while also being tasty and not causing any issues for her.
Now, that’s not to say the information isn’t interesting or we shouldn’t pay attention to ingredients or nutrition labels. Building an accurate knowledge base and bringing awareness to any situation typically provides useful data for making better future decisions.
But when information complicates a situation without seeming to affect the outcome, chances are good that it’s just “noise” that can be safely ignored.
Putting it into practice
If you have a known food allergy (e.g. eggs, shellfish, peanuts) or a medical condition acutely affected by nutrition (e.g. Celiac disease, diabetes), certainly follow your doctor’s and nutritionist’s advice regarding what to avoid.
If you don’t have such a condition, spend a little time today considering any foods that you currently avoid. Do you have specific personal experiences that have caused you avoid these foods? Or do you avoid them because a diet book, TV personality, friend, or nutrition “guru” suggested it? If the latter, do you miss eating a specific food that you’ve given up, particularly if that it’s fairly minimally processed (e.g. potatoes, specific fruits, lean red meats, nuts or seeds, eggs, whole grain bread)?
When you have the answers to those questions, use some logic to consider whether the information you’ve been operating on makes sense—in which case you can probably continue what you’re doing—or if the info may contain some holes (even if it was provided with the best of intentions).
Then ask yourself whether experimentally adding the food back into your diet could make sense. If it does, do it! You just might rediscover your love of a food that wasn’t so bad after all.