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How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

npr.org

11–20 of 168 posts

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#11
Once we realize that obesity is (by and large) a modern lifestyle disease caused by needless stress and a diet consisting of mostly fake food perhaps we'll return to eating a whole food diet consisting of real food?

e.g. margarine (which has color added to it to make it look yellow, otherwise it'd be gray) is NOT a healthy alternative to butter.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#13
post #2

Good question and answer at the end of the article. Fat is not what's making Americans fat. It's the prevalence of carbohydrates in our diets, and overeating of the same. I was in KY last week interviewing my great aunt who is 108 years old. Do you think she never ate bacon, beef, etc? Haha, their diets would be today's poster child for meatlovers. They didn't eat too much sugar, or carbs, but more importantly they n…

When my friends ask about nutrition, explaining fat is the very first thing I try to do.

Eating fat does not necessarily make you fat, nor is it in itself a bad at all. Many fats are among the best things for your brain and heart. At the same time, fat-free foods can quite easily be bullshit.

A pound of sugar is fat-free, after all, but has an insane calorific value. (110 per oz)

Sugar is 100% total carbs.

A ounce of feta cheese has plenty of fat, and less calories per ounce than zero-fat sugar (feta is 75 per oz).

Feta cheese is 75% fat, 20% protein, 5% total carbs.

Then I try to show them some fat-free products that nonetheless has immense amounts of sugar and calories.

I think that using this topic as a lead-in has been the most effective way to get my friends to change their diets and consider what they eat.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#14

It's scary that KFC and processed food is now equated with "Western diet." Michael Pollan says it best: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

The article is mostly about Inuits. Their traditional diet was pretty much 100% meat and was healthy.

So maybe Michael Pollan's advice has to be reduced to "Eat food. Not too much."

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#15
post #6
post #4

Do you think we'll ever get to a point where people make food choices and limit their intake based mainly on a rational weighing of available information? I like to think we will but so far the track record is not too encouraging.

or we just make healthy food taste better.

I think we need to make it cheaper (via subsidizing fresh produce instead of the corn and cattle industry) relative to processed food and the rest will take care of itself. Funny thing is, people will scream "social engineering" if you say this, yet they're perfectly content to ignore the current social engineering.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#16
post #6
post #4

Do you think we'll ever get to a point where people make food choices and limit their intake based mainly on a rational weighing of available information? I like to think we will but so far the track record is not too encouraging.

or we just make healthy food taste better.

Or realize that healthy food actually tastes better than unhealthy foods

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#17
post #10

Am I the only one that felt like he was holding the Afghanistan people up as a model of health because they lack fat? Their life expectancy is a mere ~44 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ). Neighboring Pakistan is 66 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ).

It would be more interesting to limit the comparison to those who die of causes other than, say, gunshot wounds. It would also be interesting to see a comparison of health, rather than just length of life.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#18
post #7
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or we just make healthy food taste better.

The other factor is cost. Healthy food costs more, often significantly more.

Stuff labeled "healthy" tends to be, but you can make healthy food for cheap. You can make a lot of meals out of a couple dollars in ingredients.

Example: http://imgur.com/RYSLX [1] and http://imgur.com/xjJXR [2]

That could be made for a dollar or two, and it's easy to make stuff like that quickly and with different ingredients. I'd feel pretty content eating like that every day, and most of the parts are things you can freeze.

[1] Tuna + slightly melted shredded cheddar + cucumbers + salad mix + hot salsa + boiled egg + pepper

[2] Cabbage base, tuna, carrots, mozarella cheese, bell pepper

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#19
post #10

Am I the only one that felt like he was holding the Afghanistan people up as a model of health because they lack fat? Their life expectancy is a mere ~44 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ). Neighboring Pakistan is 66 years ( http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_dyn_le... ).

He actually mentions that in the audio clip, not mentioned in the article.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#20
post #6
post #4

Do you think we'll ever get to a point where people make food choices and limit their intake based mainly on a rational weighing of available information? I like to think we will but so far the track record is not too encouraging.

or we just make healthy food taste better.

healthy good DOES taste better. you've just been raised on rubbish so therefor you think that is how all food should taste.

I was the same. I hated peas, carrots, sweet potato, that sort of thing. A few years ago I was at a friends place and she grew all her own produce. It was the first time I had ever tasted fresh vegetables. Oh wow.

If (in Australia) the major super markets that advertise "We're the fresh food people" I'm sure more people would be enjoying something other than lollies (candy). As it stands at the moment any vegetable you buy from our two major players (coles and woolworths) are terrible.

Eating better? http://robbwolf.com/ try him.

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