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How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

nytimes.com

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Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#31

Post by FirmwareBurner »

SirFatty wrote: post #14
Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

>If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

Also as "an European" whatever that means, I only spent a couple of months in the US as a tourist, and had no issues finding healthy foods from leafy greens, to good meats in places like Wholefoods.

If he couldn't find it while actually living there, tells me he's not commenting in good faith.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#32

Post by SirFatty »

garciasn wrote: post #15
SirFatty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

Depends on the grocery store. If you shop exclusively at Target, a company that caters primarily to those who ‘prepare’ as opposed to those who ‘cook’ you’ll find less healthy options than actual grocery stores.

Target (and Wal-Mart) are not grocery stores. Sure they have groceries, but a limited select selection compared to a proper store.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#33

Post by vector_spaces »

SirFatty wrote: post #14
Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

In large swaths of the country, these "non-grocery stores" are a lifeline, as they are the only option. In others, you don't even have that -- gas station convenience stores might be that lifeline instead. [1]

I am familiar with what the grandparent is referring to, having spent a decade running purchasing teams in US grocery stores. Even in urban areas with many different food retail stores, a typical supermarket in the US is a fairly difficult place to shop for someone with specific food sensitivities. Hopefully folks here who live in the SF Bay Area appreciate that it's a total outlier in both the diversity of stores available and the assortment of products sold in a typical Bay Area supermarket

[1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#34

Post by Der_Einzige »

SirFatty wrote: post #14
Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

To be clear, "actual" grocery store for the purposes of finding reliably fresh and healthy food includes one of the following:

1. Upscale western grocery stores and markets, ideally located within the biggest and most affluent city possible. Pikes place market would be a great example of what I'm talking about for you seattle folks.

2. Asian grocery stores, like "H-mart"

3. Farmers markets, but these are hit and miss, especially in smaller communities

Most other grocery stores, including Costco, Trader Joes, etc are full of extremely unhealthy trash slop. It's still extremely hard to find reliable low sugar options nearly anywhere, including at health and "organic" oriented grocery stores.

America just sucks for foodies who don't have unlimited time to get through the slop.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#35

Post by dfxm12 »

pchristensen wrote: post #7
dfxm12 wrote: post #4

They're cheap, easy to find and easy to prepare. With grocery prices going up, what little progress has been made might get reversed, unfortunately. Making America healthy again means making non-ultraprocessed groceries available to everyone & cheaper, and ensuring that working families have time to cook. Pressuring Coke to create a new product with sugar is not going to move the needle.

Don't forget non-perishable. If you're already having a hard time affording groceries, it really hurts to throw away wilted veggies or moldy fruit.

Perhaps this is a function of "easy to find". Food deserts are a problem with regards to a lot of families only having little access to fresh foods. When you have to drive 30 min to the IGA, maybe you overbuy compared driving the 5 min to shop at the dollar general. The consolidation of big supermarket chains contributes to the creation of food deserts.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#36

Post by jeffbee »

I just opened up www dot amazon dot com and filled my cart with $50 worth of food that will be delivered to my door in a few hours: rice, potatoes, farro, beans, peppers, ginger, onions, garlic frozen peas, frozen carrots, plain low-fat yogurt, chicken thighs, and good bread. I don't want to hear anyone telling me that American capitalism has robbed us of real food. If anything, American capitalism has heaped upon us the cheapest and most convenient selection of food imaginable, but some people just can't stop shoveling down Flamin' Hot Froot Loops.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#37

Post by Der_Einzige »

dfxm12 wrote: post #4

They're cheap, easy to find and easy to prepare. With grocery prices going up, what little progress has been made might get reversed, unfortunately. Making America healthy again means making non-ultraprocessed groceries available to everyone & cheaper, and ensuring that working families have time to cook. Pressuring Coke to create a new product with sugar is not going to move the needle.

You can make America far more healthy by doing the following:

1. Mandating lower amounts of sugar, and significantly switching to zero calorie non glycemic sweeteners.

2. Removing plastic packaging and eliminating sources of microplastics and other endocrine disruption contamination of our food supply/

3. Banning most of the stuff that the European food agencies ban

4. Getting GLP-1's in the hands of every overweight person in America.

It's that easy, but "Make America Healthy Again" was made by a guy who had a worm eat his brain.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#38

Post by Yizahi »

SirFatty wrote: post #14
Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

The problem is that to a European citizen this is a bit unexpected. In Europe, in all countries, you can find roughly the same level of "safeness" of food across all tiers of stores. Go to a cheapest one and the most expensive one, and the yogurt, tomatoes or meat would be approximately the same quality and have the same nutritional components. The only difference would be that expensive store would additionally carry some imported fancy tomatoes or some fancy steak cuts. But those steak cuts would be subject to the same standards as a cheap chicken meat in the cheap store.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#39

Post by vector_spaces »

nradov wrote: post #12
Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n…

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label.

Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that.

[1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#40

Post by yesb »

throwway120385 wrote: post #30
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n…

It's marked as "plain" yogurt. You can still find adulterants in it, just not added sugars. For example Trader Joe's "plain yogurt" is a mixture of yogurt and buttermilk.

Plain yogurt is strictly defined by the FDA. It's when you have flavored versions that the rules get loose.

For example this contains only milk, cream, bacteria: https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/plain-whole-mil...

This is basically sugary milk with thickeners added to make it vaguely like yogurt: https://www.yoplait.com/products/original-single-serve-straw...

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