David, at some point after people have overcome their orthorexia, they may begin to realize that whereas obsessing over calories and micronutrients was definitely a bad thing, there is still need to give some attention to these.
Now you propose an interesting solution to one side of the equation: the calories. However, what about nutrients? Your solution MIGHT not address that issue. And what about nutrients? Which ones do we need? How much? Etc. Etc. Well, there is no definitive answer to that question. It is frequent enough that some new nutrient is discovered, followed by someone making it into a supplement and touting it as a super food. Then often it doesn’t live up to the hype and/or it is found that when taken in excess without some other ‘synergistic’ vitamins, it can actually cause problems. So round and round we go looking for the right nutrients.
How to get around this problem? Simple. You eat a wide variety of foods. As wide a variety as possible. I think this is my only issue with your calorie solution. I don’t have a vast knowledge of the eating habits of the world population, so I won’t claim authority on the subject, however, my experience is that other cultures do eat a wide variety of foods, barring famine, drought or some economic calamity that prevents such.
This is a major point of contention that I have with Ray Peat, Rick Roddy and their merry crew of OrangeJuiceAholics. You drink your OJ, you drink your milk and coffee, you eat your gummy bears, you eat your salt, you eat those three fruits found only on the Yucatan Peninsula. Don’t forget the weekly dose of liver. Throw in a little Mexican cytomel and, basta, you’re good to go. OK, I am exaggerating there…but not by much.
While I am on the subject I don’t know where Ray Peat gets this wild idea that greens are only eaten traditionally when people are starving. I grew up in the South (of the U.S.) and my grandmother used to serve us all kinds of greens (mustard, turnip, kale, etc, etc) usually cooked in hamhock. The Chinese eat a huge variety of greens. Are greens anti-thyroid as Peat suggests? I don’t know, but they certainly have been eaten traditionally by people who are not in starvation mode.
