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How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

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Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#81

Post by pyre »

tomkarlo wrote: post #70
beaumartinez wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, then, what is the "Western diet" if it isn't what the Western people eat? (I see your point, though; it's been changing over time, and you're right: it is getting more and more processed and less balanced {and dare I say "healthy"}). Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy.…

"Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy." Can you support this? I feel like most things I've read and most of what I've learned myself while training has been that diet in fact is a much bigger factor, to a level of say 75%/25%. It's very hard to exercise enough to undo a bad…

  > Moreover, the type of food you're eating has at least as
  > much effect as its theoretical caloric content. 300
  > calories of raw carrots is not equal to 300 calories
  > of potato chips, as far as your body is concerned.
  > We're not calorimeters.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#82

Post by tomkarlo »

pyre wrote: post #81
tomkarlo wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy." Can you support this? I feel like most things I've read and most of what I've learned myself while training has been that diet in fact is a much bigger factor, to a level of say 75%/25%. It's very hard to exercise enough to undo a bad…

> Moreover, the type of food you're eating has at least as > much effect as its theoretical caloric content. 300 > calories of raw carrots is not equal to 300 calories > of potato chips, as far as your body is concerned. > We're not calorimeters. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

Okay, but he was eating 1,800 calories of twinkies and lost weight, which is unsurprising. How much weight would he have lost if he ate only 1,800 calories of carrots, or maybe just a normal diet?

This was an experiment without a control. Not sure it proves anything.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#83

Post by nandemo »

SMrF wrote: post #63
kgo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm asking this sincerely, but don't people from traditionally healthy Asian countries eat a hell of a lot of rice? That's my first thought every time someone mentions how bad carbs are. But I have trouble finding any non-antecdotal data. I want to believe the obesity problem is more of a portion control thing, for example, when McDonald's opened, did a normal adult actually eat a hamburger and small fries for lunch…

"According to the latest health ministry figures, however, 29% of Japanese men aged 20 to 60 are overweight - an increase of 5% in only five years and a long way off its 2010 target of below 15%" http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/02/japan.justinmccu...

From the same article:

"About 24% of people aged 15 and over are considered overweight, compared with 65% in the United States."

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#84

Post by nandemo »

kgo wrote: post #48
viggity wrote: post #30

I've been overweight my entire life, and honestly, I blame the Surgeon General in the 1980s for telling my mom that feeding me low fat foods (which end up being high carb foods) will make me skinny. Everyone believed this cargo cult "science" and it has had a devastating impact for hundreds of millions of people.

I'm asking this sincerely, but don't people from traditionally healthy Asian countries eat a hell of a lot of rice? That's my first thought every time someone mentions how bad carbs are. But I have trouble finding any non-antecdotal data. I want to believe the obesity problem is more of a portion control thing, for example, when McDonald's opened, did a normal adult actually eat a hamburger and small fries for lunch…

I don't have any hard data for you but I believe you're right about the portion control.

Junk food is also popular in Japan, though probably not as much as in the US. However, in general portions are smaller here in Japan and people don't drink soft drinks all day. Apparently the average American geek needs as much food as a Japanese construction worker.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#85

Post by frankus »

If you're interested in this sort of thing, I can't recommend Gary Taubes' book Good Calories Bad Calories highly enough.

If you're not so interested, he wrote a TL;DR version called Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.

He also has a blog: http://www.garytaubes.com/blog/

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#86

Post by narrator »

tomkarlo wrote: post #70
beaumartinez wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, then, what is the "Western diet" if it isn't what the Western people eat? (I see your point, though; it's been changing over time, and you're right: it is getting more and more processed and less balanced {and dare I say "healthy"}). Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy.…

"Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy." Can you support this? I feel like most things I've read and most of what I've learned myself while training has been that diet in fact is a much bigger factor, to a level of say 75%/25%. It's very hard to exercise enough to undo a bad…

Have any of you guys ever seen pictures of the Woodstock festival in the 60s? Everyone is skinny. It's something besides "The western diet" and meat-eating that's causing obesity to increase. A lot of diet news these days has the appearance of vegetarian activism with a severe case of confirmation bias, in that any study that remotely hints that meat eating is bad for health gets front page coverage.

The exercise issue is a red-herring. Sure you can run for an hour and burn 600 calories, or you can just skip a meal. What's gone wrong with our diet is most likely occurring at the metabolic level with the types of processed foods we eat.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#87

Post by [deleted] »

ezy wrote: post #65
mkr-hn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you tried to eat this way regularly, and did you end up spending less? How long did you last?

[deleted]

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#88

Post by postfuturist »

A lot of broad conclusions are made in this article without citing specific sources of research or evidence. Mostly, it's just anecdotal evidence (fictionalized at that) and obscure references to plotting curves (I assume on a graph, though we don't get to see it).

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#89

Post by Florin_Andrei »

beaumartinez wrote: post #49
forgottenpaswrd wrote: post #23

Misleading title, it is not "western diet" what is bad for health, it is fast food, and sugar sweety food what is. What Americans were eating 70-50-30 years ago was healthy and "western". It has been people eating industrial foods instead of someone making the food what has changed. I use to look at obese people shopping cart and I see a lot of Coca Cola, pizza, industrial bread, industrial buns,cookies, chocolate,no…

So, then, what is the "Western diet" if it isn't what the Western people eat? (I see your point, though; it's been changing over time, and you're right: it is getting more and more processed and less balanced {and dare I say "healthy"}). Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy.…

> Regarding obesity, exercise is far more important than diet. You can eat all kinds of, well, crap, and if you exercise, you'll still be physically fit and probably even look healthy.

Sounds nice, but do not try this. Ask people who do this sort of thing a lot, or even for a living. E.g. bodybuilders. They have a saying: "you can out-diet bad exercise, but you can't out-exercise bad diet."

You need both, diet and exercise, dialed in reasonably well.

Re: How Western Diets Are Making The World Sick

#90

Post by rjbond3rd »

kgo wrote: post #48
viggity wrote: post #30

I've been overweight my entire life, and honestly, I blame the Surgeon General in the 1980s for telling my mom that feeding me low fat foods (which end up being high carb foods) will make me skinny. Everyone believed this cargo cult "science" and it has had a devastating impact for hundreds of millions of people.

I'm asking this sincerely, but don't people from traditionally healthy Asian countries eat a hell of a lot of rice? That's my first thought every time someone mentions how bad carbs are. But I have trouble finding any non-antecdotal data. I want to believe the obesity problem is more of a portion control thing, for example, when McDonald's opened, did a normal adult actually eat a hamburger and small fries for lunch…

Not all carbs are equal. The glycemic index for rice can be much lower than the glycemic index for bread or flour. (Glycemic index varies based on type of rice.)
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