Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition • Hacker News Board

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#311

Post by com2kid » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 7:49 AM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #292

jriot wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking in general is time consuming. You and I appear to eat vastly differently, yet we both make our own food from scratch. For breakfast I eat 10oz whole milk, 2 - 3 strips of bacon, 2 - 3 eggs, and grits with butter (at time I'll have potatoes or toast depending). Our other other meals will include roasted vegetables, potatoes and meat. Preparing each meal everyday is time consuming but I view as the best investm…

It's extremely time consuming. It takes hours to properly cook meals for an entire family. That's time I'd rather spend doing something else since I don't really enjoy the process of cooking itself. There's also the time required to prepare the dining room, clean the dishes, shop for ingredients and supplies and more incredibly boring tasks that I'm probably forgetting. Doing this every single day is just so tiresome…

Apps like "Eat This Much" can simplify meal planning by helping you make dishes that last multiple days. It lets you optimize each meal for time to prepare, variety, cost, etc. It also prepares a weekly shopping list. (Seriously, great app, few rough edges though and onboarding is not friendly)

Also, sauces. 1 day making bolognese is 3 days of main courses.

Ideally you are only making 2 or 3 main courses during the week.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 8:31 AM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #171

acuozzo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Please forgive the scattered reply. I'm tired and I've mostly pieced this together from other discussions I've had on this topic.) I firmly believe that the problem stems from a mass unspoken refusal to address obesity as a symptom of food addiction. Food addiction is among the hardest to kick because humans not only need food to survive, but also need glucose (and/or ketone bodies) in order to have sufficient menta…

> I firmly believe that the problem stems from a mass unspoken refusal to address obesity as a symptom of food addiction. Meh, it's also easy in the United States to be stuck in a lifestyle where you can't walk anywhere.

I walk a lot, exercise a lot, but whether I have a (small) belly or not, is almost fully determined by my eating habits.

Not to mention that there is a vicious cycle at work. Once you are heavy enough, physical movement becomes very unpleasant, especially in hotter climate (American Deep South, Mexico).

But even though the US really leads the heavy charge, other countries are catching up. I believe we (Central Europe) are like 25 years behind you, but following. And there are sidewalks everywhere here.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by inglor_cz » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 8:44 AM UTC

Damorian wrote: post #193

Miraste wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the US and recently tried to find bread--standard, sliced bread--without sugar in it at my local store. They don't have any. The lowest I could find was a gram of sugar per slice!

I bake various types of bread on a weekly basis, and have never seen a recipe that doesn't require sugar or honey. I'm pretty confident it's needed to fuel the yeast for the rising process vs the flour alone.

When I was a kid, my grandma baked home bread (1930s rural style, she was born in 1926 in eastern Slovakia) and never used any sugar for that.

Bread has been staple food for millennia. For most of that time, sugar was rare, expensive or totally unavailable.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by andrei_says_ » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 8:47 AM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #171

acuozzo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Please forgive the scattered reply. I'm tired and I've mostly pieced this together from other discussions I've had on this topic.) I firmly believe that the problem stems from a mass unspoken refusal to address obesity as a symptom of food addiction. Food addiction is among the hardest to kick because humans not only need food to survive, but also need glucose (and/or ketone bodies) in order to have sufficient menta…

> I firmly believe that the problem stems from a mass unspoken refusal to address obesity as a symptom of food addiction. Meh, it's also easy in the United States to be stuck in a lifestyle where you can't walk anywhere.

The human body is incredibly efficient. Obesity is roughly 90% diet and 10% lack of exercise. Sugar puts the body into “convert and store all this excess energy into fat, right now, because we might starve later! overdrive” and most foods in the US are packed with sugar.

Of course the sugar and processed food industries fight tooth and nail to reframe the conversation and somehow obfuscate the above.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

#315

Post by chithanh » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

bumby wrote: post #273

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High-end restaurants are such a microscopic part of the problem that this isn't really a point worth fighting over.

I can understand the utility part of the argument. But human beings have an innate drive for fairness in society. People will actually work against their self interest if they feel they are being treated unfairly. The counterpoint is that the “small part of the problem” logic works both ways. If it’s such a small part, it shouldn’t matter if it gets taxed. Taxing would have little impact on the consumption dynamics w…

I disagree that caloric drinks like sugary soda (along with hyperpalatable food) are a small part of the problem.

From the standpoint of public health policy, it is a good idea to introduce simple measures that are effective for 90% of the target group. If it turns out necessary, you can find a (perhaps less optimal) solution for the other 10% later.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by KozmoNau7 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 10:19 AM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #300

at-fates-hands wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think its the food, I feel its several cultural shifts: - The tamping down of phy ed classes and general removal of exercise from elementary schools with more of an emphasis on learning. If you are not ok shape in middle school, it leads to learning issues. One problem begets the other - Shifts in parenting. When I grew up in the 1980's, our family ALWAYS ate dinner at home, together as a family. My mom got h…

One other thing: I think more jobs are desk jobs these days. Jobs that are desk jobs are more tied to the desk than they ever were. Oh, and one big thing I don't thing anyone mentioned yet: Smoking. When I was a kid, a lot more people smoked. That has a well known side-effect of reducing calorie intake.

I've been working desk jobs my whole career, and I consider it absolutely mandatory to just get up and walk around often. Always take the stairs, walk to the water cooler, take a walk outside after lunch, stand up at your desk.

Unfortunately management and company culture tends to frown on doing these things.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by program_whiz » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 10:53 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #265

program_whiz wrote: post #169

Ok sorry to rant but the HN community lectures about processed food are misguided. As always, people trot out the "just eat less, its simple calories" and "stop eating junk food stupid Americans". This rests on the critical fallacy that those who do not have a weight problem are smarter, more active, or somehow make better choices. Do you really believe its that simple? This is a bit like the software devs who always…

You can't by raw meat and a sack of potatoes in rural America? Or loose tomatoes and apples? Or dried beans?

Ok I get the argument, and like I said "yes its possible with great discipline", but I'll again reiterate: the reason we have a problem isn't "stupid lazy people", its a matter of influences. I get that you are probably more evolved and its so easy -- but then again if you had been raised on a steady diet of targeted misinformation to shape your brain and fed a constant diet of food engineered to maximize tastes and addictive behavior, it might not be so easy to just "eat an apple" or at least that's what the scientific evidence, and piles of cash the industry is stacking up suggests.

Its a bit like taking someone with a gambling addiction and saying "its so easy, just understand gambling is a fallacy and you can walk away anytime", or "why not just have fun with something else?" -- the casino is designed to exploit human biases and mental weaknesses for an especially vulnerable population. If those biases and weaknesses were simple misunderstandings, they wouldn't be powerful enough to form those addictions, and casinos would probably be much smaller and less successful.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by dojitza1 » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 11:05 AM UTC

It is a problem of optimising for taste and perceived nutrition instead of nutrition. Humans will buy tasty things that are marketed as nutritious. Companies will try to widen the profit margin by optimising the process in that direction (investing into marketing and taste). A solution that comes to mind is providing tax relief for nutritiously rich non-luxury foods.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by bonoboTP » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

program_whiz wrote: post #317

bonoboTP wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't by raw meat and a sack of potatoes in rural America? Or loose tomatoes and apples? Or dried beans?

Ok I get the argument, and like I said "yes its possible with great discipline", but I'll again reiterate: the reason we have a problem isn't "stupid lazy people", its a matter of influences. I get that you are probably more evolved and its so easy -- but then again if you had been raised on a steady diet of targeted misinformation to shape your brain and fed a constant diet of food engineered to maximize tastes and…

Ban junk food sale in schools. No vending machines, no advertisement, etc. No snacks, candies. Ban colorful attractive marketing to kids, teach basic nutrition in school.

Make school lunch easy to afford, perhaps free and put limits on sugar, salt etc. No pizza and fries, but proper cooked meals. If you don't eat it, you can't get anything else.

Buuut freedom, companies, free markets, economic growth!! Parents would be outraged, kids wouldn't eat it etc. Good luck.

Re: Ultra-processed foods and the corporate capture of nutrition

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Post by bonoboTP » Fri, Dec 18, 2020, 11:37 AM UTC

hogFeast wrote: post #289

mike00632 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the "you" in this case to be the person losing weight. If I want to lose weight then I'm going make such a commitment and it doesn't really matter who I send the photos to. It's rather just an exercise in documenting what I eat. I'd send the photos to you if you agreed to be my accountabili-buddy.

Again, that works if you assume that you won't fail at any point and/or react poorly to failure. But you will fail at some point, and very few people are determined enough to continue. Investing yourself creates risk. It is far more effective to take a less judgemental approach, track the things that matter, and do it for yourself...not because you don't want to be shamed (most fat people get a rough ride, shame isn'…

Ultimately you can't make people want something and shouldn't get too caught up trying to please their resisting minds. Lay out the information, people who want it will take it.

Judgment and shame shouldn't enter the picture. Your body is a biological machine. Cheating is a misplaced word. You put the materials in there, they get digested and used for storage or energy. It's not some kind of magic or divine thing. Thinking in terms of failure / guilt / success etc. is bad altogether. The mental model becomes [ritual I do] -> [the fatness/fitness gods are pleased or judgy] -> [I get fat or fit]. Instead, you need to think in terms of [put this piece of food from hands to stomach] -> [it gets digested and enters the blood stream, etc] -> [I grow my fat cells] -> [I am fat].