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A Cultural History of Fat

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Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#41

Post by pygy_ »

agumonkey wrote: post #34
glastra wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find "appetising" and "less filling" are understatements. When I think of the food industry, I tend to think more in terms of "behaviour reinforcement" and "psycho- and physiological addiction".

I'd even say 'brain damage'. Processed food industry seriously limits what you will taste. Most natural fruits/vegetables have so much variety and subtlety in flavour.. they also often come with built-in satiety triggers. You rarely consume as much salad/carrots than pringles/cookies. Modern life is pretty toxic in the end.

I wouldn't go as far as damage, because it is reversible. If you stay away from saturated stimuli you relearn to taste subtler nuances.

Capsaicin, and similar substances (TRPV1 agonists) which are found in hot peppers and ginger do kill nociceptive neurons, but that's AFAIK the only case where some food directly damages your nervous system.

I think food addiction is mostly reversible (it may be easier to relapse than to become addicted in the first place).

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#42

Post by pygy_ »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #38
pygy_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, the amount of refined sugar in our diet exploded recently. More generally, even if the molecular building blocks didn't change, the way food is prepared industrially and marketed makes us more likely to eat too much of it.

A lot of our modern economy seems to be relying on human predisposition to addictions. Think sugar / carbs, alcohol, tobacco, certain games, news and social media and their recommendation engines. All exploiting similar neural pathways.

Yup. The free market as the end to all means relies on several incorrect assumptions:

1) humans are not rational agents that always pursue their best interest

2) local optimization (what the market does) doesn't always lead to a global optimum

3) oftentimes the interest of investors and consumers diverge and the former have far more power (information asymmetry).

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#43

Post by molloy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #37
stdbrouw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil. I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest" arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason abou…

Sure you are. Are you buying an individual snickers bar or a 5 lb bag of Mars, Inc confections? Also, the use case and marketing strategy for your two scenarios are different. A product like Snickers is a quick on-the-go fix of food. The marketing connection for a salad is different -- the money and full feeling is in the dressing. Many people translate "salad" as leaves with goops of fat/sugar on them. If you are a…

A lot of plant milks are unsweetened, and there is a high and growing demand for these products—yes these companies want to make money, but it's not as if they were manufacturing the demand, they're merely capitalizing upon it.

Better yet is to make one's own oat milk; I agree that they're exorbitantly expensive, albeit (here in the US) the dairy industry is immensely subsidized and so we consumers don't see the true cost of our cow's milk.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#44

Post by close04 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #37
stdbrouw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil. I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest" arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason abou…

Sure you are. Are you buying an individual snickers bar or a 5 lb bag of Mars, Inc confections? Also, the use case and marketing strategy for your two scenarios are different. A product like Snickers is a quick on-the-go fix of food. The marketing connection for a salad is different -- the money and full feeling is in the dressing. Many people translate "salad" as leaves with goops of fat/sugar on them. If you are a…

I think marketing plays a huge role here. Being told again and again that you "need/want" it might act on your subconscious at one point.

And people tend to trust the marketing and the big text on the label more than anything sometimes. The label says it's healthier, that promo on TV said cool young people consume it, etc. So you won't stop to "objectively" evaluate the product. Many blind tests for products turned over results that were completely the opposite of what the market was saying via sales numbers. Because without the label and the marketing driving the decision people had to fail back to good old fashioned taste (ex: this tastes better) and common sense (ex: this offers more for the same taste / price).

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#45

Post by Spooky23 »

molloy wrote: post #43
Spooky23 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you are. Are you buying an individual snickers bar or a 5 lb bag of Mars, Inc confections? Also, the use case and marketing strategy for your two scenarios are different. A product like Snickers is a quick on-the-go fix of food. The marketing connection for a salad is different -- the money and full feeling is in the dressing. Many people translate "salad" as leaves with goops of fat/sugar on them. If you are a…

A lot of plant milks are unsweetened, and there is a high and growing demand for these products—yes these companies want to make money, but it's not as if they were manufacturing the demand, they're merely capitalizing upon it. Better yet is to make one's own oat milk; I agree that they're exorbitantly expensive, albeit (here in the US) the dairy industry is immensely subsidized and so we consumers don't see the true…

Subsidies for milk benefit processors, not producers. Producers today are going bankrupt left and right as they are forced to sell at fixed prices unless they go direct to consumer.

It's all the same problem. Allowing a cartel of dairy processors to control to production and delivery of dairy products is equivalent to allowing a cartel of producers (in the case of almonds) and big food is the same.

All benefit from extensive subsidy (that corn syrup isn't market-based), with the added risk of food security issues, especially for nut milks that are exclusively sourced from a few counties in California.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#46

Post by ip26 »

otabdeveloper1 wrote: post #35
pygy_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. The obesity epidemics started after WW2. I don't think that they are related.

> We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution. This isn't true. The modern diet gets 90% (asspulled number, sorry) of its energy from sugar, white flour and potatoes. None of these three really existed in any measurable quantities three hundred years ago. Sugar especially is something only very modern people started to eat in huge quantities.

Yeah, I begin to wonder if we need to be a little more specific when talking about this, e.g. not just "carbs" but "simple carbs" and "complex carbs", or "refined" & "unrefined". We've dealt with this once before with saturated & unsaturated fats, vs trans fats.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#47

Post by ip26 »

navaati wrote: post #17
ionised wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The carbs we get now in modern processed foods are not the same carbs we've been used to for millenia.

Please tell me more ? At which level ? Genuinely interested :) !

Carbohydrates used to come from fruits (with fiber), vegetables (in small amounts & with fiber), and starchy vegetables (starches are complex & slow to digest). Today, carbohydrates are consumed in simpler forms and refined to be more concentrated.

In the former case, they digest slowly. In the latter case, they digest quickly. The practical implications of this are immediately obvious if you have ever heard of glycemic index and glycemic load, but in short, fast digestion & large quantities results in a big spike in blood sugar which is hard on your body & leads to diabetes.

Also important is that the original forms of carbohydrates came with all kinds of other nutrients. A sweet potato includes vitamin A, vitamin C, manganese, copper, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, potassium, niacin, vitamin B1, vitamin B2 and phosphorus. Sugar on the other hand is the quintessential "empty calorie", carrying no vitamins, minerals, only calories.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#48

Post by xutopia »

mrob wrote: post #30
thatswrong0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were all hunter-gatherer diets protein and fat based? https://www.scientificamerican.com/media/inline/paleo-diet-h...

Is that percentage by weight, percentage by dry weight, percentage by calories, or something else? And no matter which I interpret it as, all those diets are "protein and fat based" by Standard American Diet standards. Seeds and nuts are very high in fat.

This specific graphic seems to be by weight. The type of meats the Inuits eat is really high in fat.

Re: A Cultural History of Fat

#49

Post by leetcrew »

rayiner wrote: post #24
titanix2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laziness. Supermarkets still sell raw food (vegetables, meat, etc) that can be used for cooking. But it takes time and effort to do it (+washing) so buying already made but unhealthy dishes is appealing for a lot of people.

But why are the ready made meals unhealthy? It’s not because they’re ready made rather than fresh cooked.

I don't know the exact reasons why, but food made in large batches tends to be less tasty than food made in smaller batches at home. if the food is made in large batches and it's not fresh, it takes another "tastiness" penalty. adding excessive fat and/or salt is an easy hack to make ready made meals a bit more palatable.

I suspect it would be very difficult (ie expensive) to make ready made meals anywhere near as appealing as home cooked without using these tricks.

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