Vegetables

 I am changing my mind from an optimising nutrition view towards a ray peat view of vegetables. 

The optimising nutrition view is that getting nutrients with low amounts of calories is an unalloyed win. My evolving position is that improving your metabolism will improve your nutrition. Since your metabolism can vary widely +/- 25%, that will effect your micronutrients drastically. Its much easier to get your RDAs on 3500 calories a day as opposed to 2800. 

 Ray peats view, is that plants evolved to kill us if we ate them, so we should avoid them. His starting point was a study designed to counter concerns about carcinogenic chemicals in manufactured products. It showed that many plants were as mutagenic as the industrial agents, with the point being that they were as safe as all natural plant products. RP took that to show that plants were somewhat dangerous. He reasoned that being immobile they would evolve chemical defenses to protect themselves - poisons of various sorts, and that we should not eat them.

However, totally eschewing vegetables is not warranted. There is sufficient evidence that vegetable consumption does improve health. I believe it is a u shaped curve with either too much or too little hurting us. The specific agent would be polyphenols and anti-oxidants and probably similar compounds. These started out as poisons, but over long exposure our bodies* became acclimated to them, and used them for its normal functioning. Thus there is a median exposure that is just right. This intuitively makes sense. Why would we have an inversion to eating vegetables if they were so good for us.

My practical plan is: Eat a variety of vegetables to a point that I stop enjoying them. Vegetables aren't as pleasurable as other foods, a much more subtle enjoyment, but there is a definite point where it becomes a bit of trudgery to eat them. Basically they should be garnish or a small side, never the center of a meal. Drenching them in dressing to make eating it bulk palatable is short circuiting your normal intuition about what to eat.

I also think its important to get some from various families to cover your bases rather than a bunch from one.

Cruciferous or brassica family - About 2/3 cup of sauerkraut would be my standard go to.

The carrot-celery etc family (whose name escapes me) - A carrot a meal?

leafy greens (dark green, so no iceberg lettuce doesn't count) - a bit on a sandwich or with your meat.

mushrooms - a couple with the main dish.

berries - a much looser limit on these, as they are something a plant wants you to eat. (but not digest the seeds)

Fruit of course would be good. I would probably cut it out when you are trying to lose weight. As per the torpor theory, fructose is something that increases torpor and slows your metabolism. Useful if you are prepping to hibernate, but terrible if you want to lose fat. Also I wonder if there is a fructose limit we have, after which it starts clogging up our liver, which has to convert it MUFA before it enters the bloodstream. Which leads to a fatty liver, the worst kind of visceral fat.

*Our meaning our evolutionary history.