Summary of Key Points
This is a conversation between the 9YueDao team and Professor Song Jun from the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention about healthy eating, focusing on 5 questions that ordinary people are most concerned about: the deeper meaning of paying attention to what you eat, how to consume “real food” at a low cost, the proper use of AI calorie-tracking apps, whether dietary guidelines are reliable, and whether diet can help prevent aging. The conversation addresses misconceptions such as “paying attention to eating = eating less” and “healthy eating = luxury,” emphasizing that health is not an additional task but should be integrated into daily choices, with the ultimate goal of restoring the body’s ability to sense and repair itself.
1. Paying Attention to What You Eat: Not to Eat Less, but to Reclaim Your Body’s “Voice”
Many people think that paying attention to eating means controlling portion sizes, but this simplifies the matter. Eating is an information exchange involving the brain, stomach, and hormones. Once food enters the mouth, chewing, taste, stomach expansion, and intestinal sensations continuously send signals to the brain that you are full, but this process requires time and attention.
The problem today is that people often eat quickly while using their phones, and by the time they finish, they don’t even remember what they ate. This not only leads to overeating but also to a loss of the ability to sense our own bodily needs—we no longer know when we are hungry or full, and we may start eating in response to external stimuli (such as seeing delicious food on videos).
Professor Song’s advice is simple: dedicate the first 10 minutes of each meal to your body—stop using your phone, chew slowly, and experience the flavors and the signals that you are becoming less hungry. You don’t need to perfect this, but the key is to re-establish the feedback loop of “hunger → eating → fullness → stopping,” allowing your body’s signals to reach your brain instead of relying solely on willpower.
2. Eating Real Food Is Not Luxury: Making Better Choices in a Busy Life
Many believe that eating “real food” (lowly processed, natural ingredients) requires more time and money. However, Professor Song argues that it’s about not rushing through life. For example:
- At convenience stores, instead of buying bread and sweet drinks, opt for large tomatoes, eggs, milk, and rice balls;
- When ordering takeout, add extra vegetables and make sure to include a source of protein (like chicken legs or tofu); don’t let the staple food fill up the entire box;
- For instant noodles, add an egg and some frozen vegetables to turn a simple meal into a proper one.
It’s also important to consider the long-term benefits: saving time on junk food now may save you money on medical expenses and lost productivity in the future. Health is not something only the wealthy and idle can afford; it’s about making better choices in your daily life—adding an egg to your meal can be much more cost-effective than hospital visits later on.
3. AI Calorie Apps: Don’t Let Your Body Become a “Calorie Counter”
AI and calorie-tracking apps can be useful, but don’t let the numbers dominate your decisions. First, the numbers may not be accurate; the same dish with 5 grams or 30 grams of oil might look the same in a photo, and the amount of water in a bowl of rice can affect blood sugar levels differently. Second, your body is not a calculator. The same amount of calories from vegetables and fish or from a cake and sweet drinks can have vastly different effects on satiety and blood sugar. Use apps as a guide; knowing that a cake is high in calories is enough. In the future, we hope AI will consider factors like your age, muscle mass, sleep, and blood sugar levels to recommend foods that suit you. Remember, AI helps identify patterns, but your body provides the actual answers.
4. Dietary Guidelines: A Map, Not a Navigation System—Core Principles Are Key
Global dietary guidelines are not set in stone, but they are not completely unreliable. For example, the new U.S. guidelines recommend eating more real food and have increased the recommended amount of protein, including red meat, which has sparked debate. This shows that science is always evolving, but the core principles remain the same: eat more vegetables and fruits, get enough high-quality protein, and reduce processed foods, sugar, and salt.
How to use these guidelines? Treat them as a map that shows the general direction, not a set of rules to follow strictly. These guidelines are designed for millions of people, so you need to consider your own circumstances: how old you are, whether you have diabetes, and whether you have enough muscle mass. A 20-year-old athlete and a 70-year-old elderly person cannot eat the same diet. Focus on the core principles and adjust them to your needs.
5. Diet and Anti-Aging: Not About Reversing Age, but About Enhancing Your Body’s Repair Capacity
“Dietary self-healing” doesn’t mean curing diseases through food, and “anti-aging” doesn’t mean looking 30 years younger at 60. The key is to enhance your body’s ability to repair itself. We constantly experience wear and tear (such as from staying up late or eating unhealthy foods) but also have the ability to repair (such as through new blood vessel formation and muscle regeneration). Repair processes are faster when we are younger, and as we age, if the wear and tear exceeds the repair, we age. Diet’s role is to provide the body with the materials it needs for repair (protein, vitamins, etc.) and reduce metabolic stress (by avoiding high-sugar foods and excess energy). The goal of anti-aging is not to have no wrinkles, but to have enough muscle at 60, be able to travel at 70, and stand on your own at 80—to slow down the physiological aging of our organs and extend our healthy lifespan.
In other words, you don’t need expensive technologies to start anti-aging; just start with your next meal: eat more vegetables and fewer processed foods to help your body repair itself.
Conclusion
The essence of this conversation is that healthy eating is not about adopting a monk-like lifestyle but about returning to our body’s natural instincts—perceiving hunger and fullness, choosing natural foods, and adjusting our diet to our individual needs, allowing our body’s repair mechanisms to keep up with the pace of life. By dedicating just the first 10 minutes of each meal to these principles, you can gradually regain control over your health.