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People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

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Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the US, it's basically an intractable problem the way restaurants operate and are staffed. Low margin, high failure rate businesses with many fly by night small operators. Front of house staff is high turnover, while back of house staff is largely non-English speaking of sometimes questionable immigration/work permit status. And then there is the supply chain since most restaurants are not cooking every si…

Why would you run a bakery and not make donuts yourself? They're dead simple if you have a fryer.

I didn’t know their simple and will try. To answer your question, perhaps donuts aren’t her main product, for me it’s more about pastry which is a side bonus for bakeries, thought if I go to a personal shop I expect 95% hand made products but that my differ depending on the culture (I’m not from the US). Also they may be just cheaper (taking into account your time)

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#382

I try calorie count with My Fitness Pal and holy shit it’s a lot of effort. Eat out and you’re screwed (estimated at best). When you include sauces and oils etc it’s really hard to be accurate in the best of times, and it’s just a pain to keep on top of. Best option is to avoid any so you don’t have to count. I imagine almost everyone will add bad data in a study at some point with the best of intentions.

I found it to be useless for my cooking style. I imagine if your meals were a chicken breast, a single veggie, and a single starch it's useful. However, I tend to do stir fries with lots of different veggies, spices, oils, etc... It was extremely difficult and even more cumbersome to try and enter those meals into that.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a really complex game. The basic reasoning is that for every X carbohydrates ingested, you need to inject Y insulin (according to a personal ratio). However, everything is complicated by numerous factors and the technology you use. Factors: how you feel, stress, exercise, what you ate in previous meals, your blood sugar level at the start of the meal, and the activities you’ll engage in after the meal (physical or…

> È un mondo difficile E vita intensa Felicità a momenti E futuro incerto I was curious, for the other curious: "It's a tough world And intense life Happiness in moments And uncertain future"

Diabetes is a complex and mentally demanding disease. It affects you in the short term and has a significant impact in the long term. Everything is in your hands, fully aware that every mistake has immediate consequences but, worse, accumulates over time. That phrase (from this song) perfectly capture the mental state of my 20 years living with the disease. No tragedy (there are worse things), just deep awareness.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3K1njbYqs

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also watch out for "sugar by another name" ... pineapple puree, white grape juice/concentrate, apple juice/concentrate are very common commercial dressing ingredients to load up on sugar. Sure always ask for the vinaigrette eating out, but at home make your own salad dressing: * get a mixing bowl big enough to toss salad in, and a whisk * add 1T dijon mustard, 1T not-balsamic vinegar (balsamic is high sugar! I like s…

I just use old dijon bottles with a bit left in it to get the rest out and shake the heck out of it but I go through a lot of mustard. The lengths I’ve seen brands go To avoid having sugar as their 1st or 2nd ingredient… after that you have invert sugar, corn syrup, molasses, brown rice syrup etc. as following ingredients…

A few years ago organic/natural products were marketed as containing "Evaporated Cane Juice" (aka Cane Sugar) but my understanding is the FDA put an end to that one.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you run a bakery and not make donuts yourself? They're dead simple if you have a fryer.

I didn’t know their simple and will try. To answer your question, perhaps donuts aren’t her main product, for me it’s more about pastry which is a side bonus for bakeries, thought if I go to a personal shop I expect 95% hand made products but that my differ depending on the culture (I’m not from the US). Also they may be just cheaper (taking into account your time)

Right, and to a consumer this is all opaque.

You go to a place advertising itself as gluten free / vegan / celiac safe / whatever .. and its been outsourced.

Once it's outsourced, all bets are off. Who knows if the vendor subbed it out further, etc.

Which is why for a certain level of food sensitivity it's almost not worth eating out. It comes down to - do you trust random strangers with your life?

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#386
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they struggle with actually putting it into action [...] conceding to their cravings The trouble is that people who have no problems to do this ... are the ones at risk for anorexia. They lack the instincts that make the rest of us safe from that particular hell.

That's just a healthy relationship with food, not a risk for anorexia.

Healthy relationship with food does not involve restriction or conscious attempts to loose weight. You eat when hungry and stop when not hungry.

The thing that makes anorexia possible (among other things) is you being able to ignore hunger. Healthy organism will instinctively eat when hungry or missing something. The instincts takes over, body produces hormones to override behavior and diet ends.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> commercial salad dressing almost always has sugar in it. Look at the nutritional facts label next time you're shopping for it. There's a few brands that offer "simple vinegar and oil" style dressings that don't have any sugar in them, but MOST salad dressings Americans come in contact with are full of sugar. Making salad dressing is really easy btw in case anyone wants to try. Often all you need is olive oil, vineg…

> Often all you need is olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and you're set for most salads. Why do you need a "dressing"? In my corner of Europe they put the above by default on every restaurant table and the salad has nothing in it (or maybe a tiny bit of oil and vinegar), you adjust it to taste. The only places that offer salad "dressings" are american inspired and even those mostly serve it separately so you can i…

> or maybe a tiny bit of oil and vinegar

That's what I mean by "dressing". We're talking about the same thing.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#388

This is why sleep studies are conducted in clinics, not left to patients to self-report. they want accurate data? They will need to conduct a real study, portion the meals out themselves, give people a schedule.

Such studies do exist - randomized feeding trials. In these studies the participants are provided all meals and snacks, and sometimes are under constant surveillance for weeks and sometimes months on end. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39134209/ Obviously such studies are far more invasive and expensive to run than the classic "fill out of a survey" observational study [1], so they tend to be the outliers. But they…

The study you point to here is a guideline on conducting studies. It was unfortunately not available online so I can't evaluate their recommended methodology. Looking for actual studies that tried to do randomized feeding trials, I found "A randomized controlled-feeding trial based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans on cardiometabolic health indexes"[1] as a top hit, which fortunately had the full text [2] available.

Randomized controlled-feeding sounds good, let's check it out. After trudging through this for a bit I came to the meat of the methodology:

> Participants were provided a daily meal checklist (Supplemental Figure 1) that included each menu item with space for documenting the amount consumed; the time each item was consumed; a checkbox to confirm having only eaten study foods; a checkbox to confirm not taking any medications, supplements, or other remedies; space for documenting any adverse events related to eating the meals; and space for documenting any nonstudy foods, drinks, medications, supplements, or other remedies. They were also instructed to return all unwashed packaging; visual inspection was documented by the metabolic kitchen. In addition to the checklists and returned packaging, participants were educated on food safety as well as provided tips on managing challenging social situations while participating in a feeding study. Repeated reinforcement of the value of honesty over perfection was provided. Study coordinators reviewed the returned checklists with the participants to verify completeness.

So ... self reported with some extra steps.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30101333/

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000291652...

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#389
post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m rather unknowledgeable on diabetes, so here’s a question that may seem basic: does choosing healthier meal, a salad instead of sweet ribs, not suffice for a good blood sugar?

So, first off, commercial salad dressing almost always has sugar in it. Look at the nutritional facts label next time you're shopping for it. There's a few brands that offer "simple vinegar and oil" style dressings that don't have any sugar in them, but MOST salad dressings Americans come in contact with are full of sugar. Even low GI foods still cause blood sugar to raise by some amount. All of the vegetables in the…

I buy a salad kit at Trader Joe's. It has sugar in it. And I buy arugula and make 4 salads out of that one salad. I add a dash of olive oil and pecans. And end up throwing out 1/3 of dressing that came with the salad.

So I get some of the sugar sources in the kit. Just smaller amounts.

Otherwise, I just use olive oil and balsamic vinegar with arugula, pecans.

Arugula is a good source of nitrates, which are good for nitric acid.

Re: People are bad at reporting what they eat. That's a problem for dietary research

#390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often all you need is olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and you're set for most salads. Why do you need a "dressing"? In my corner of Europe they put the above by default on every restaurant table and the salad has nothing in it (or maybe a tiny bit of oil and vinegar), you adjust it to taste. The only places that offer salad "dressings" are american inspired and even those mostly serve it separately so you can i…

> or maybe a tiny bit of oil and vinegar That's what I mean by "dressing". We're talking about the same thing.

Ah well, above us they seem to call mayonnaise and other fat and high calorie stuff "dressing"?
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