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Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

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Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#121

Post by cptskippy »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #47
forgetfulness wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the situation in many parts of the US is, but is not freshly baked bread, the kind with unsurprising ingredients and that goes stale when you'd expect it, not an option? The stuff made to sit on the supermarket's shelf for long times has such an odd consistency and flavor, very spongy and very tangy and sweet, you can't spread anything on it without toasting it first. I wouldn't take it as the stand…

You can buy fresh products at a reasonable cost in the USA, just have to make the effort to look. Talking about processed bread, here is an example from Sam's Club [0] for sourdough boules, at $6 for four (about 1kg total). The ingredient list contains nothing ultra-processed. [0]: Soudough boules at Sam's Club https://www.samsclub.com/p/members-mark-sourdough-boules-4-c...

> just have to make the effort to look.

That is the problem, people aren't going to take the effort to look.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#122

Post by olddustytrail »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #94
idopmstuff wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you just need to avoid taking an all-or-nothing attitude here. Knowing that ultra-processed foods are bad is valuable, even if you can't totally eliminate them from your diet. I do agree it's an overbroad category with stuff that ranges from abysmally terrible to stuff that's just kinda bad, but it has the upside of relatively low complexity (if you had ten different categories of processed food, most people…

Careful of your rice intake. Lots of rice has arsenic, cadmium, and lead. It is part of growth and nothing to do with processing or packaging. There are even warnings from the FDA not to feed babies baby food that contains rice products.

This is scaremongering nonsense. Literally 30 seconds of Googling would have told you that. Make more effort.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#123

Post by orangepurple »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #120
orangepurple wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US in many places trash disposal is a flat rate included in your utility bill, rolled up into your rent, or you have a common dumpster area you can throw trash into for free. This isn't Switzerland where you have to pay two bucks for a LICENSED small plastic trash bag. Here you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself.…

Maybe its just me, or maybe I've spent too much time working in kitchens, but there is an overriding sameness to restaurant food even if you are considering the full spectrum of McDonald's to fancy steakhouse takeout. Something about the necessary restrictions and specificity in cooking commercially in big kitchens creates certain tendencies around flavors and salt and such that I just personally need a break from if…

In the big chains it's overwhelming consolidation and cost cutting that completely eliminated flavor. Sugar and heat compensate for the lack of flavor. Finally, overweight and obese people perceive the things they eat differently than if their BMI was normal (personal experience going from obese class 1 to normal). If the majority of your clientele are obese or overweight, you will update the menu to appease their palate. Forty-one percent of U.S. adults, on average over the past five years, from 2017 to 2021, have characterized themselves as overweight or obese.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#124

Post by ben_w »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #71
RobertRoberts wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freshly baked bread is available to _everyone_. Buy some flour, take a cup of flour, mix some water, maybe some salt, squish it some and bake it. The downfall of society will happen within arms length of wisdom and knowledge.

There's a reason bakeries are so prevalent in many areas. That "squish it" part is a lot of work, and you have to wait long enough that it's not available for breakfast. Making it yourself counts as hard to obtain every day.

I do sympathise: not only is kneading by hand something I can absolutely believe people can't be bothered with after a long day at work, but also I can't even remember when I last tried even though I have access to an electric mixer.

That said, a DIY/health POV, what's given here (no yeast) can be relatively quick.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#125

Post by akiselev »

dfxm12 wrote: post #109
orangepurple wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). The average American may assemble food from time to time but generally does not cook. That said, there are hundreds of millions of people in that country, so this is obviously a generalization, and should be treated as such. That said Lidl is making aggressive inroads into…

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). This is the crux of the matter: we can only buy what is on our shelves. If we have to start looking at ingredients lists, I think we've already lost the plot. Why are these questionable things on our shelves in the first place? Likely because they're cheaper to make, or wor…

I think it's a two sided chicken and egg type problem: we can only buy what's on our shelves but - having personally come from a country that's hardly famous for its cuisine - I think American food culture ranges from poor to nonexistent. The bar for agricultural and processed products that the average consumer recognizes as edible food is shockingly low whether we're talking about bread or what passes for tomatoes here. There is plenty of ultraprocessed rye breads in Europe, for example, that are far more nutritious and produced at similar industrial scales because most consumers would recoil at the thought of eating Walmart's value brand of sugar bread.

Here in Southern California there are plenty of food desserts that sit adjacent to immigrant enclaves that provide critical mass for amazing grocery stores with a wide variety of higher quality, cheap produce and a diverse collection of nutritious processed and ultraprocessed food simply because that's the stuff that their communities demand. Replacing such a supermarket with a McDonalds would never work within these communities because most families simply don't consider fast food an alternative to their existing diets. These are huge supermarkets that are often similar in size to Costco or Walmart stores (see Shun Fat, 99 Ranch, Zion Market, etc).

We could do with a little more culinary elitism among consumers in my opinion.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#126

Post by yurishimo »

ldkdodkd wrote: post #105
orangepurple wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US in many places trash disposal is a flat rate included in your utility bill, rolled up into your rent, or you have a common dumpster area you can throw trash into for free. This isn't Switzerland where you have to pay two bucks for a LICENSED small plastic trash bag. Here you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself.…

> you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. They charge a fee if you do that in my county, and the "flat rate" is dependent on the size of your bin, as a proxy for how much trash you generate. If you have more trash than fits in your bin you have to buy stickers for the extra bags to pay for them to be picked up. Where are…

It's highly dependent on where you live. Some cities/suburbs find it easier to financially manage flat rate payments instead of usage-based. Many would argue this is counterproductive and they are probably overcharging some citizens, but the upside in logistical billing makes it worth it (for now).

Garland TX, a suburb of Dallas, has a flat rate per bin, with free curbside large item/landscaping waste twice a month. Throw your old washing machine on the curb and move on with your life!

My mother in law, lives about 50 miles outside the DFW Metroplex and pays a flat rate based on the average of her trash usage. She rolls 2 bins up to the curb once a week. She can put more out and they will take it, but if she consistently puts out more trash, they will bill her extra when it comes time to renew every year. The guys on the trash truck keep a rolling tally of your "usage" and then the office works out who needs to pay more if the customer skews towards more usage than they signed up for.

I live in Europe now and moved here last year. I pay $12 PER PICKUP for residential trash here in the Netherlands. The catch? They pickup that bin ONCE every TWO MONTHS. If I want to throw more stuff away, I need to somehow transport all my trash to the local dump, pay a fee, and unload and sort it all myself.

On a more positive note though, recycling plastic is free. Some of my neighbors generate an entire large bag of plastic every day. My wife and I fill up one bag a week. Our "normal trash" bin is usually half full when it's time for pickup.

Pricing for waste is largely dependent on the municipality as well here in the Netherlands.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#127

Post by Dylan16807 »

parineum wrote: post #93
Dylan16807 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason bakeries are so prevalent in many areas. That "squish it" part is a lot of work, and you have to wait long enough that it's not available for breakfast. Making it yourself counts as hard to obtain every day.

I have a mixer. I made pizza dough the other day in about 10 minutes. It takes a while to stretch into pizza and add toppings but, if you're just making bread, that'd be ready to bake by morning. Are you actually trying to argue that bread, ine if the simplest things to make and the bedrock of civilization for thousands of years, is too difficult to make?

I didn't say too difficult, no.

But there are so many super-local bakers around the world. Single neighborhoods are willing to pay full-time wages to a baker just so they don't have to make their own bread. Explain why they do that if daily bread-making isn't a pain in the ass.

Or is this just that you don't think I should use the word "hard" to mean "pain in the ass"? It comes out of your money/time budget either way.

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#128

Post by yurishimo »

emodendroket wrote: post #115
orangepurple wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to understand what the average American consumes the answer is whatever is on the shelf of their local Walmart (they sell groceries). The average American may assemble food from time to time but generally does not cook. That said, there are hundreds of millions of people in that country, so this is obviously a generalization, and should be treated as such. That said Lidl is making aggressive inroads into…

Walmart sells fresh-baked bread too. Come on.

But it costs twice as much...

Re: Ultra-processed foods may contribute to cognitive decline

#129

Post by sqeaky »

ldkdodkd wrote: post #105
orangepurple wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US in many places trash disposal is a flat rate included in your utility bill, rolled up into your rent, or you have a common dumpster area you can throw trash into for free. This isn't Switzerland where you have to pay two bucks for a LICENSED small plastic trash bag. Here you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself.…

> you can generate as much residential trash as you want for the same price or for free if you drive the trash to the county dump yourself. They charge a fee if you do that in my county, and the "flat rate" is dependent on the size of your bin, as a proxy for how much trash you generate. If you have more trash than fits in your bin you have to buy stickers for the extra bags to pay for them to be picked up. Where are…

I have live in 5 different states, 3 had "free" municipal trash, 2 had cheap flat rate trash. Currently, I am in Omaha and if your weekly trash fits in the generous 100 gallon or so bin it is flat rate. If you need a second bin you pay extra for just that bin.

My household typically throws away 3 or 4 ten gallons bags per week leaving the bin maybe a quarter full. The neighbors across the street are constantly having food delivered and routinely fill two bins.

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