What's your favorite fruit?

[dwindley]

ohh tough question. but ill try.

bananas, mango, pineapple, apples and oranges.

i feel a little bit bad for not putting strawberry in my top five. but only alittle

[Dream Sphere]

I've enjoyed most of the fruit I've ever tried, but my favourites of the bunch would have to be bananas, mango, oranges, pineapple, cantelope, red grapes, honeydew, and golden berries.

The few times I've tried starfruit I think it mustn't have been ripe, because it essentially tasted like slightly citrusy cucumber. I was quite intrigued at first because of its shape, but after giving it so many chances on different occasions, I'm unsure if I'll ever be having it again for a long time.

Also, I feel very lucky that I was able to taste golden berries when they were perfectly ripe, because I would've written them off like starfruit had I first eaten them when they were unripe which is typically pretty poor, or past the ripening stage which I've discovered tastes absolutely horrible. But when they're just right, they're excellent and definitely a "top five favourite fruits of mine" list contender.


Edit: I also really like D'Anjou Pears. Bartletts are good too, but I don't care for them as much.

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

I really like grapefuit. For some reason, I often get intense cravings for grapefruit juice. There must be something in it that my body is lacking.

[brimstoneSalad]

There must be something in it that my body is lacking.

Tell that to a cigarette smoker.

That's common pop-pseudoscience, and it's 99% bullshit. Specific "Cravings", beyond say being thirsty and some other very basic feelings, generally have nothing to do with that your body actually needs in a nutritional sense (or at the very best, a grotesque parody of them).

Cravings are more commonly founded on psychological and physiological addiction (most often due to things that are harming your body) caused by their metabolic effects, or the feelings you experience while or associate with consuming them.

That is, if you have a craving for something, chances are your body needs to NOT have that thing, because you've become addicted to it.

Exercise your will power by breaking cravings and not letting them control you.

Grapefruit juice isn't very harmful (beyond the mostly empty calories and excess sugar and acids which will rot your teeth), and grapefruit do have some redeeming qualities, so in this instance it probably won't hurt you as long as you don't do it often and you clean your teeth after, but that kind of attitude towards "cravings" is in itself very dangerous, because it can very easily mislead you to consume incredibly unhealthy food under the false belief that because you want it, you actually need it for some reason.

The unscientific fallacy you are making is a close relative to the appeal to nature fallacy, and easily summarized as the false generalization: "Because something feels good it is therefore right/healthy/etc."

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

Grapefruit juice isn't very harmful (beyond the mostly empty calories and excess sugar and acids which will rot your teeth), and grapefruit do have some redeeming qualities, so in this instance it probably won't hurt you as long as you don't do it often and you clean your teeth after, but that kind of attitude towards "cravings" is in itself very dangerous, because it can very easily mislead you to consume incredibly unhealthy food under the false belief that because you want it, you actually need it for some reason.

Just because someone assumes that cravings for a particular food are due to a nutritional deficit, it doesn't follow that they think that all cravings are due to a nutritional deficit (e.g. cigarettes). No one is addicted to grapefruit anyway. It has no addictive properties. Your comment was knee-jerk and presumptuous.

[brimstoneSalad]

Just because someone assumes that cravings for a particular food are due to a nutritional deficit, it doesn't follow that they think that all cravings are due to a nutritional deficit (e.g. cigarettes).

It uses the same reasoning -- bad reasoning. That was my point. That's WHY I used cigarettes as an example; I assumed you did NOT agree that cravings for cigarettes are due to a real need in the body.

Get it? I was making a comparison to help you understand. Evidently you're not interested in understanding, but I'll try again anyway:

You employed fallacious reasoning, and a blatant disregard for evidence. There's no reason to believe that cravings for ANY particular food or substance beyond basic thirst and hunger are due to nutritional deficits, and yet you state it as fact none the less.

My point was that cravings for food are NOT DIFFERENT than cravings for other substances that engage in your biochemistry.

Here's somebody else saying the same thing, maybe if it's on a news site you won't be as arrogantly dismissive?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/0 ... 40299.html

Remember I said 99%? Well, there may be some reason to believe that certain kinds of pica (as it mentions there -- that is easting non-food substances) could be linked to deficiency, but the things people eat to satisfy those cravings don't necessarily contain what they're deficient in (this is something observed more effectively in wild animals where the things they eat are more likely by dumb luck and circumstance of environment to contain those things).

Evolutionary physiology only deals with things very generally as they are crudely useful in 'the wild'. The body is neither so clever nor so exact as you make it out to be.

I really like grapefuit. For some reason, I often get intense cravings for grapefruit juice. There must be something in it that my body is lacking.

No, there mustn't be.

This is just bad moonbat "logic". It's not based on reality, or anything resembling science. I bet you think it has something to do with evolution too -- which indicates complete ignorance on your part of that topic as well.

No one is addicted to grapefruit anyway. It has no addictive properties.

That's false. But again, you aren't much for doing any research or caring about facts. You're happy to pull assertions out of your ass and call it a day aren't you?

Grapefruit is composed of many substances, "grapefruit" is not some element on the periodic table. Some of those substances more active and habit forming (or potentially so) than others. The key to being "addictive" as in forming habits and creating cravings is that something creates, directly or indirectly, a dopamine rush.

While whether you actually get technically physiologically "addicted" to something (which is sort of a fuzzy line, with a poor definition) depends on the person, grapefruit juice is high in sugar (without the larger helping of fiber in actual grapefruit, it has about twice the Glycemic index), which is now generally understood to be strongly habit forming and physiologically addictive for many people -- although others may prefer to call it something like pathological obesity, it's not a trait exclusive to the obese or that even requires removing all fiber from fruit (many raw foodists are an interesting case of that which is deserving or more study).

And since you didn't even imagine grapefruit contained sugar apparently, you'll certainly be shocked that it contains other things too!
Things that are Highly Pharmaceutically Active.

The arrogance of your assertion, because you apparently have some kind of god complex, that you know EVERYTHING that's in grapefruit, and you have determined beyond any doubt that NOTING is addictive, is staggering.

No, you do NOT know that. You can NOT assert that. It would take extensive research to determine exactly how much potential grapefruit has to be physiologically addictive, which would only place it on a long spectrum, with water at one end and something like crack on the other. Psychological factors are much more complicated still, and likewise have nothing to do with real nutritional needs.

Your comment was knee-jerk and presumptuous.

Your comment was idiotic. Is this the road you want to take? Are you trying to make people dislike you right off the bat by insulting them? Is this what we're doing?

Because I can try to be nice, or we can do this.

I fairly politely corrected you.
Food cravings are not clearly linked to nutritional deficiencies. No, your grapefruit cravings do not, counter to your bald assertion, mean you need something in grapefruit in particular.

Grapefruit is reasonably healthy, so it's not a terrible habit to have in moderation (again, if you brush your teeth after -- and ideally prefer whole fruit over the juice), but it's absurd to claim with such preposterous certainty that you have some magical intuitive insight into your nutritional state and can express that through cravings when all of the evidence is against you.

Cravings do not (not for any particular food food, drink, or anything else) indicate some particular nutritional deficiency which is resolved by consuming that particular item.

Anyway, may I recommend taking a shot at being a little less arrogant, and a little more polite next time. I'll respond in kind.

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

No, your grapefruit cravings do not, counter to your bald assertion, mean you need something in grapefruit in particular.

I've had low cortisol levels in the past at the same time I had the cravings. That probably has something to do with it because grapefruit juice is used to replenish them.

Anyway, may I recommend taking a shot at being a little less arrogant, and a little more polite next time.

Did you write that with a straight face? You are hardly a sterling example of humility and cool-headedness.

[brimstoneSalad]

I've had low cortisol levels in the past at the same time I had the cravings. That probably has something to do with it because grapefruit juice is used to replenish them.

No, it doesn't probably have anything to do with it, unless as I said you had become somewhat addicted to grapefruit (although if you had, it probably wasn't cortisol).

Do you understand the concept of why anecdotal evidence is useless?

This is not proof of your needing something in grapefruit, even if that were accidentally true.

Plenty of people have low cortisol, and they don't magically crave grapefruit. The body doesn't have some kind of supernatural intuition on how to self medicate -- it's profoundly bad at figuring out what it actually needs.

The ONLY way you could plausibly know grapefruit made you feel better is if you had been consuming very large quantities of grapefruit off and on, and your body had developed a physiological dependence on the suppression of cortisol metabolizing enzymes -- which is what grapefruit does.

As I said, grapefruit is pharmacologically active, like any drug, and large amounts of it could upset your equilibrium. When suddenly removed, this could create an imbalance and lead to low cortisol which would make you feel bad. Rinse and repeat a few dozen times, and you develop an association with the feelings and the presence or lack of grapefruit (like it takes more than one cigarette to get most people addicted).

That's how addiction works.

That in itself, with regards to cortisol, is unlikely due to the amount of time it takes for the effects to kick in - potentially several hours - and the time it lasts. Addiction works best with an immediate hit that can be associated with the substance, and a relatively sharp fall after. It is at least remotely plausible -- addiction, what I said -- though not enough to say it's probable, or that it must be.

But if you want to claim that you have a magical intuition to self-medicate with grapefruit without the buildup of a dependency and the on-off cycle it takes to make those associations through addiction, that's nonsense.

That's not how bodies work. We're terrible at figuring out what, if anything, genuinely correlates with gradual improvement in health; worse yet at guessing at variables. That's why actually doing science with proper controls is essential to gain knowledge in the domain of health and nutrition.

Did you write that with a straight face? You are hardly a sterling example of humility and cool-headedness.

Says the asshole who deliberately antagonizes vegetarians by calling them effeminate for not killing animals.

What's it going to be?

[Lord Daddy Lombrosis]

As I said, grapefruit is pharmacologically active, like any drug, and large amounts of it could upset your equilibrium. When suddenly removed, this could create an imbalance and lead to low cortisol which would make you feel bad. Rinse and repeat a few dozen times, and you develop an association with the feelings and the presence or lack of grapefruit (like it takes more than one cigarette to get most people addicted).

That's how addiction works.

That in itself, with regards to cortisol, is unlikely due to the amount of time it takes for the effects to kick in - potentially several hours - and the time it lasts. Addiction works best with an immediate hit that can be associated with the substance, and a relatively sharp fall after. It is at least remotely plausible -- addiction, what I said -- though not enough to say it's probable, or that it must be.

But if you want to claim that you have a magical intuition to self-medicate with grapefruit without the buildup of a dependency and the on-off cycle it takes to make those associations through addiction, that's nonsense.

You overreacted to a throwaway comment. It was obviously not a serious analysis of my diet. Your pedantic, long-winded reply made it seem as though I was at risk of addiction. Then you responded in an even more brusque, condescending manner and accused me (apparently in earnest) of being arrogant! This is some kind of narcissistic delusion. Anyone who would pounce on a comment in such a manner, and then accuse its author of arrogance is lacking in self-awareness. No sane person would read your responses and think you were humble and polite.

My hunch was based on the properties of grapefruit not just on the cravings. I've never craved other sugary foods. If it was sugar my body wanted then why didn't I crave soda pop and candy bars? The cravings are sporadic. I've never heard of grapefruit addicts and I've never been dependent on grapefruit. Some food cravings are based on dietary needs. I know an older man who gets cravings for sodium rich food because he excretes so much of it. But maybe you're right. Maybe it's all in my head and the inference I made was baseless. I still don't see why that calls for a hysterical lecture on the dangers of addiction unless you assume that I think that grapefruit juice cravings are analogous to food cravings generally. Rest assured, if I suddenly developed strong cravings for lard and Coca-Cola, I wouldn't go out and indulge myself. But thanks for your concern. I can see why a gentle soul like yourself wouldn't hurt animals....

Did you write that with a straight face? You are hardly a sterling example of humility and cool-headedness.

Says the asshole who deliberately antagonizes vegetarians by calling them effeminate for not killing animals.

That's not my position. I don't kill animals either (not directly, at least). It's effeminate to think you can "empathize" with animals because they are sentient and feel pain. That doesn't take into account what makes human suffering so profound. We can imagine what it would be like to be a slave, or a concentration camp internee, or even livestock in a human slaughterhouse. But we can't imagine what it's like to be a cow bred for slaughter. I'm amazed that some members of this forum want to claim that cows can form the concepts of loss, dread, hopelessness, etc, based on looking at their apparently sad faces in cattle cars! That's not reason and evidence, it's sentimentalism. Maybe I'm wrong and you guys have evidence that farm animal cognition is the same as human cognition, even though cattle sounds don't have a syntax. But then the development of language to express abstract concepts in the human species is a wild coincidence.

What's it going to be?

Have a happy New Year.

[brimstoneSalad]

You overreacted to a throwaway comment.

You advocated pseudoscience, and I corrected you. Don't make ignorant throwaway comments if you don't really believe them and don't want to be corrected.

You seemed to be serious. If somebody said something like that homosexuality was contagious, I would similarly correct them.

Don't say stupid things, and you won't risk being called out on them.

Your pedantic, long-winded reply made it seem as though I was at risk of addiction.

No, I explained that cravings are related to addiction, and not actual need. It's a spectrum, of course, and grapefruit is not a hard drug, so the risk isn't extreme, and the dangers aren't either (even if you were addicted to grapefruit, it wouldn't be a big deal). It's only important that you understand that your body doesn't provide you with magical intuition into your nutritional needs and what will fulfill them. Cravings are based on very different factors, both physiological and psychological.

Then you responded in an even more brusque, condescending manner and accused me (apparently in earnest) of being arrogant!

You were being arrogant. You were making very bold assertions without any evidence. Arrogance itself isn't necessarily a bad thing (it can be good), but not when combined with ignorance. Arrogance and ignorance together are idiocy, and that's what you were expressing.

Ignorance is perfectly forgivable if it comes with a bit of humility, which is what you needed.

No sane person would read your responses and think you were humble and polite.

My first comment was relatively polite, as I said. Compare to my second, and my average comment. I was being nice to you because you were new.

Who said I was humble? I see little value in being unnecessarily humble when confronting pseudoscience.

You can call science arrogant if you want; it has every right to be, because it is correct.

My hunch was based on the properties of grapefruit not just on the cravings.

The properties are unrelated to your cravings, but coincidence.

You saw a correlation, and made a false assertion of causation.

You should have just said you've been craving grapefruit, but that may be a good thing because as a coincidence it happens to be a decent treatment for low cortisol, which you suffer from.

Not that craving is an evidence of it possessing something you need, which it is not. It's called a coincidence.

Let's say I trip and fall on the ground, but while I'm down there I find a key I lost. Must I have tripped because I needed to find that key and my body mysteriously knew it was down there and made me trip to show me? NO. That's absurd. It was a coincidence. Your claim about cravings indicating nutritional needs was even more absurd.

I've never craved other sugary foods. If it was sugar my body wanted then why didn't I crave soda pop and candy bars?

No, because it has nothing to do with your body wanting sugar. Your body doesn't want things, your mind does, based on the feelings it gives you. Grapefruit gives you a dopamine rush for a number of reasons. Sugar is one, but so is the aromatic component, and the combination of bitter and sweet taste, which triggers a region in your brain associated with sense memory and tells you this is pleasurable -- it may also be tied in with emotions, such as childhood experiences with grapefruit juice at grandma's house, and an association with familial love, and any number of feelings which you may not even be fully aware of.

Cravings are complicated, but there's no statistically relevant correlation between the foods being craved and nutritional deficiencies.

Even in the case of iron deficiency pica, which has a correlation between a deficiency and a general class of cravings, the subjects may end up eating ice -- which contains little to no iron.

Some food cravings are based on dietary needs.

No, they aren't. Do you understand the concept of science? Of controlled studies? Of statistical significance? No, you don't. Stop making such ignorant and arrogant assertions.

If you want to claim that, then back it up with peer reviewed evidence, not by pulling anecdotes out of your ass, which can "prove" anything.

Like that tripping and falling on the ground is often based on physical need, like finding keys, or dodging bullets that one didn't know about. Plenty of examples of those kinds of things too.

I know an older man who gets cravings for sodium rich food because he excretes so much of it.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Read this and stop being a tool.

But maybe you're right. Maybe it's all in my head and the inference I made was baseless.

Not maybe, probably.

I still don't see why that calls for a hysterical lecture on the dangers of addiction unless you assume that I think that grapefruit juice cravings are analogous to food cravings generally.

There's your misogyny again.

It wasn't a lecture on addiction, it was a lecture on you being an idiot and advocating pseudoscience.

The addiction part was explaining how cravings work, in part, and based on another baseless assertion you made.

Go snort crack if you want, I'm not here to warn you about addiction (grapefruit being of least concern), I'm here to criticize your bad science, and ignorant assertions, so nobody else reads them and thinks that kind of behavior is acceptable.

Rest assured, if I suddenly developed strong cravings for lard and Coca-Cola, I wouldn't go out and indulge myself. But thanks for your concern. I can see why a gentle soul like yourself wouldn't hurt animals....

Like I said, I don't care if you in particular snort crack because you crave it. Give into your cravings if you're weak like that, it's not really my problem.

What I do care about is people going around and arrogantly spouting pseudoscience, which could mislead other people.

I don't kill animals either (not directly, at least).

What a bullshit cop-out. You pay somebody else to do it for you. So if I pay somebody to kill you, my hands are clean, right? I haven't killed you?

Nonsense. If course I've killed you; I was the only reason you were killed. My order and payment set the whole thing into motion, and resulted in your death to satisfy my wants.

If you're looking for something 'un-manly', shirking responsibility for things you do and pretending your pure little hands are clean of any wrongdoing because you had somebody else do it for you to protect your delicate sentiments is probably up there.

I can and have killed plenty of animals with my own hands; it's not a manly thing to do. I do recognize my culpability, and don't try to offload my wrongdoings onto others.

It's effeminate to think you can "empathize" with animals because they are sentient and feel pain.

You don't need to empathize. If you even think you can fully empathize with another human being, you're an idiot. Obviously everybody is different, and experiences the world in slightly different ways. That doesn't mean we should turn to solipsism and deny the reality of their suffering.

You don't need to empathize with anybody, you just have to recognize the suffering as wrong in some sense, accept your responsibility, and endeavor to lessen it for rational reasons in attempt to be morally consistent.

Maybe I'm wrong and you guys have evidence that farm animal cognition is the same as human cognition, even though cattle sounds don't have a syntax. But then the development of language to express abstract concepts in the human species is a wild coincidence.

Human language is not a coincidence, but every human speaks a slightly different language, and many languages are mutually unintelligible. Humans who speak radically different languages also THINK differently. Language does affect cognition, and you'll see differences among humans too, to that end.
It doesn't affect the capacity to feel the most primordial forms for pain and suffering, which are felt by humans without language (there are some) and non-human animals alike.
More "advanced" concepts can be understood with language; including by apes who are taught the abstract symbols of sign language (their behavior is radically different from those without language), and social species of animals who have more advanced languages (like cetaceans and Elephants), and this may correlate with some forms of existential angst. It's really trivial, though, to the magnitude of suffering.

You must be insane to believe that the majority of human suffering has to do with high level existential philosophy, because the vast majority of people have no grasp on those notions, and of those who do, that only makes up their suffering because they're so extremely comfortable in every other way as to have the luxury to suffer thusly. In most cases, language actually reduces suffering, by increasing understanding which reduces fear, and providing coping mechanisms such as rationalization (look at religion).

Humans in concentration camps didn't experience great existential suffering; they didn't have the luxury to. When you're in that state, and I gather you've been fat and happy your whole life and never gone without food and never been too cold to think, your brain isn't churning with the machinations of advanced language and high level concepts. You are reduced to the most primitive animal state of yearning and survival. In this sense, the suffering is as identical as anybody who isn't a solipsist could ask for.

Go find somebody to waterboard you. Experience something genuinely unpleasant for once in your life, then come and tell me how advanced language allowed you to understand that suffering while it was ongoing.