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The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
11–20 of 219 posts
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#12It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all , it's that fat makes us fat! The NY Times has even run other articles saying as much: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really... (by Gary Taubes, whose book "Why We Get Fat" is a must-read.) The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is o…
If "a colorie is a calorie", then why do you single out "eating too many carbs and sugars" as the cause of your occasional weight gain?
A colorie is a calorie (in the sense that a unit of energy is a unit of energy); however, there are some (I don't have science to cite, so I won't say it is factual) people that say fructose is worse for you than glucose (the two monosaccharides). Here's an interesting article you can read: http://www.eatingrules.com/2011/05/introduction-to-sugar/
In this sense, a calorie is not a calorie - but to be precise it's more that different sources of calories have different side-effects on the body when converted INTO energy/calorie.
Now to grains (specifically wheat-based products): gluten. The single reason why people in my athletic sphere (CrossFit) avoid wheat products as a source of calories when training is because of gluten (and sometimes yeast - as it does stimulate candida growth).
Gluten can cause all sorts of problems that aren't related to the calorie intake - diseases, obesity, inflammation, etc...
(I won't cite anything here for that because the information is widely available and in many books - although there are still "studies" that would say this information is bunk)
I consume around 4-5k calories per-day as part of my training. As long as you use it, the calories aren't bad for you but the source of the calories must be clean.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#13" small but crucial move: the industry should use the expertise of scientists — its own and others — to gain a deeper understanding of what was driving Americans to overeat. " LMAO, they probably employ dozens of scientists trying to figure how to get people to eat more. Could the speaker have been any more clueless? He would have been better off pushing some solution that had been user tested not to hurt sales. E.g.…
Yes, they sit around in smoke-filled rooms scheming about how to make kids fatter and fatter. They in fact would like nothing better than if all children died of diabetes before they reach puberty. They do like we all do. Try to develop a product, test it, refine it, in order to sell more of it. One of the common mantras here is that its good to do A/B testing to get better conversion. But when General Mills does it,…
When we do it, it's sometimes evil - see http://darkpatterns.org/.
But we're not poisoning people, even in the worst case. All we can do is screw up the internet.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#14... "As a culture, we’ve become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. ..."
Why aren't parents more responsible for their children's health?
As a parent myself, I know how damn hard it is for kids to eat anything consistently, especially "healthy" foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables. And our kids have snacks in moderation.
It seems to me that if parents were more "responsible", which is a horribly generalized term, then the food executives wouldn't have private meetings to discuss how to deal with obesity - their products would have adapted to the healthy market.
Parenting is hard. Being a "responsible" parent is harder. Tough shit.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#15The food that is most readily available to us is the food that is most profitable.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#161 second on the lips, for a lifetime on the hips.
Doing the slow carb diet for over a year now. Lost over 50lbs. With the 1 day to cheat rule, I definitely ended up eating more candy, sweets, cake, chocolate, etc. than I would have at any other point in my life. Crazy as it seems, I developed a sweet tooth while on this diet! But it just goes to show, a calorie isn't a calorie because our body has functions and reacts differently at different times.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#17It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all , it's that fat makes us fat! The NY Times has even run other articles saying as much: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really... (by Gary Taubes, whose book "Why We Get Fat" is a must-read.) The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is o…
Nitpick: Not exactly correct.
Once 30% of your total caloric intake is in the form of fat calories, genetics comes into play. Apparently, and for reasons no one yet understands, there is a gene marker APOC3 [0] and other apolipoproteins like it [1] [2] that will cause your body to no longer break down all consumed fats, and leading to part of that fat to be "absorbed" instead. However, this only affects around 5% of the population, for the other 95% your "calorie is a calorie" approach is correct, be it fat, carb, or protein.
0: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/health/research/12heart.ht...
1: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/10/2517.full
2: https://www.23andme.com/health/familial-hypercholesterolemia...
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#18It amazes me that this article still pushes the agenda that "fat makes us fat." If there's one thing that hasn't proven out at all , it's that fat makes us fat! The NY Times has even run other articles saying as much: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really... (by Gary Taubes, whose book "Why We Get Fat" is a must-read.) The problem with "low-fat" processed food in particular is that the fat is o…
Your point is great, but could you elaborate on how you read the article as pushing, "fat makes you fat"?
I read it much more as saying that large food companies have developed deep expertise in tuning the quantity of sugar, salt, fat, and texture to make their products bypass our body's natural mechanisms for feeling full.
I think if you're reading this through some kind of paleo/non-paleo lens, then you're missing the point of the article.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#19" small but crucial move: the industry should use the expertise of scientists — its own and others — to gain a deeper understanding of what was driving Americans to overeat. " LMAO, they probably employ dozens of scientists trying to figure how to get people to eat more. Could the speaker have been any more clueless? He would have been better off pushing some solution that had been user tested not to hurt sales. E.g.…
Yes, they sit around in smoke-filled rooms scheming about how to make kids fatter and fatter. They in fact would like nothing better than if all children died of diabetes before they reach puberty. They do like we all do. Try to develop a product, test it, refine it, in order to sell more of it. One of the common mantras here is that its good to do A/B testing to get better conversion. But when General Mills does it,…
>One of the common mantras here is that its good to do A/B testing to get better conversion. But when General Mills does it, it's somehow evil?
I doubt people's objection is to the methods. It's probably to what they're used for. A/B testing is not inherently evil. However, to illustrate with an example (not necessarily related to the discussion), if I were to do A/B testing to determine the best way to sell heroin to little children, then what I am doing is evil. It is irrelevant that I'm using a method used by legitimate people.
I would find no sympathy if I said that selling heroin using these methods is fine just because you use these methods to sell your mail app or whatever.
GP's argument is easy to understand: Companies are trying to sell more of their product. This is their primary aim. Their product is suboptimal for children's health. Telling them to sell less isn't going to work because they don't care about this. It's not that they're intentionally malicious. It's just not a priority. Therefore, if you want them to sell healthier product, convince them of a business opportunity.
There's no value judgement in that.
Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food
#20I do occasionally enjoy pointing out to people that the soda/pop/cola they've bought is a drink designed to disappear. The water is carbonated, so that you do not savour the drink but immediately try to gulp it down. There is phosphoric acid and a surprising amount of sodium, which both make you salivate, so that you briefly feel that you're refreshed -- and then your saliva is depleted so that your mouth goes dry. The other ingredients -- sugar, flavorings, and caffeine -- are essentially the same mixture which makes coffee so popular. The huge difference from coffee is that cola's design allows you to not merely sip at it as part of your morning routine, but gulp it down while you're not even paying attention, then reach thirstily for... presumably another cola.