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The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

nytimes.com

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Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#101

Post by Aloisius »

crazygringo wrote: post #30

It's so funny how, over the past couple of years, good-tasting food is now a "conspiracy". When a Michelin chef meticulously constructs a dish to give you pleasure, he's a creative genius whose dedication to his art is applauded. But when the people behind Snickers do it to give you pleasure, they're nefarious conspirators trying to manipulate you and keep you addicted. Yes, people who make food are trying to make it…

Every Michelin starred restaurant I've ever been to has made food that has made me contented at the end of the night, not craving more. Nor do I remember any of them specifically engineering their food so that I could eat it every day and not get bored of it.

Would people even pay for a dinner that left them feeling empty at the end of the night? I don't think so.

Let's not pretend that restaurants and junk food engineers have the same goals.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#102

Post by anon1385 »

MDS100 wrote: post #91
anon1385 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meta-analysis of effect of saturated fat intake on cardiovascular disease: overadjustment obscures true associations http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/92/2/458.long I find it hard to take that site seriously when they call fish oil a "brain booster" next to a great big affiliate link to buy fish oil supplements on Amazon [1]. Also they don't seem to have a page about trans fats at all. Are they pushing an agenda thr…

Fish oil, via EPA or DHA, has been implicated in acting as [1]: An anti-inflammatory An anxiolytic A brain booster A heart health compound A liver health compound How is this misleading? See: http://examine.com/about/#support Trans fat page is in the works AFAIK. Also it's mainly a supplement site. (wiki for the evidence on supps) FAQ is just a useful addition.

My issue was that "brain booster" is a bullshit term that means nothing. I put it in the same category as "super food" and other such meaningless terms. If they want to be taken more seriously they should use more precise language.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#103

Post by danielweber »

rwallace wrote: post #58
127001brewer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it shouldn't stop the regulation of "junk food", but some parents will say, "Why are you telling me I cannot feed my family this?", and food companies will obviously complain as well. In my opinion (as a casual observer), the regulation of "junk food" will be nearly impossible. Edit: Fixed typo.

And my answer to that would be, "I'm not telling you you can't let your children eat junk food at home, any more than I'm telling you you can't let your children smoke at home. I'm just saying I don't want your children doing either of those things at school, because I don't want other children to have to deal with a social environment where those things are regarded as normal behavior."

I don't want your children doing either of those things at school, because I don't want other children to have to deal with a social environment where those things are regarded as normal behavior.

This is literally no way in which this could backfire.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#104

Post by justincormack »

NoPiece wrote: post #100
justincormack wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France you can get citron pressee in any bar, they just take a fresh lemon, ice, water and sugar (mix yourself how you like). Just keep some lemons in the fridge... it takes seconds.

Some big sit down chain restaurants in the US do a good fresh lemonade. California Pizza Kitchen comes to mind, and I'll often order it. But there is still all that fast food and canned/bottled/vending machine consumption to deal with.

Can we not build a robot real lemonade dispenser?

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#105

Post by fusiongyro »

columbo wrote: post #89
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, plus a million. Nobody wants to take responsibility for their own diet these days. Stop feeding your kids luncnables and prepare them a damn lunch! Put the chips down, and don't buy shit with HFCS in it. Make your own damn pasta sauce (Crushed tomatoes, green onion, and garlic, it's about as easy at buying prego, but with a million less sugars/salts) Walk places and take the stairs. (brief side note, living in…

Bleh. I may as well respond by bringing up the mother of three who works 12 hour shifts at walmart was expelled from highschool and never had even the most basic idea of food preparation or culinary training. I suppose she should simply 'bootstrap up' like the rest of us did when we were in that situation. Hah, oh that's right, the vast majority here are college educated and in the top 15% of income earners. This get…

I don't think you need to be a top 15% earner to know to stop eating when you're full.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#106

Post by gbhn »

rwallace wrote: post #62
DanBC wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'Carbohydrate' is a fine chemical term, but it is not a useful nutritional category That's why we have simple carbohydrates (sugars) and complex carbohydrates (starches). > The most useful nutritional term is 'junk food', That's not a useful term. Most people wouldn't think freshly squeezed orange juice is junk food, yet it contains a lot of sugar.

Again there's a distinction between a chemical analysis perspective and a practical nutritional perspective. Freshly squeezed orange juice contains sugar to be sure, but in practice very few people guzzle the stuff to the point of destroying their health, whereas lots of people do precisely that with Coke.

"If it comes in a package, it's candy" is probably the correct rule. It's not that eating candy will kill you, but if you eat a bag of chips, drink some soda, and eat a packaged snack, the reality is that you have almost certainly just had a meal consisting entirely of what is best described as "candy." So don't do that regularly. :-)

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#107

Post by terhechte »

ericabiz wrote: post #7

It 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…

I have the feeling that you misunderstood the article. It doesn't say that fat makes you fat, instead, it displays the lack of ethics and morality in the food industry when it comes to the obesity problem caused by overconsumption of processed food. Due to additional sugars, salts, fats, clever advertising and more, they managed to make people eat more of their processed and unhealthy food then necessary, thus causing a diabetes and obesity epedemic (not necessarily because of the contents of the junk food, but because of the amount of it being eaten).

I never understood this article as a cricicism of fat - that word doesn't even appear to often. Instead, it diligently describes the amount of money invested into making people eat more of this stuff even though more of it is not healthy for them. Moralics and ethics aside:

“How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#108

Post by davidtanner »

pvnick wrote: post #63
MDS100 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you are referring to insulin sensitivity and calorie partitioning. Still depends on genetic makeup (insulin sensitivity can vary 10-fold). P-ratio isn't the same for everyone. So not correct what you are saying (energy does not only go into muscle cells). You can still get fat(ter) with such a diet. Muscle and liver glycogen will be full at some point and more and more fatty acids will be stored in adipocytes.…

Then exercise with weights at high-speed on an empty stomach (empty glycogen supplies) and wait for a couple hours before enjoying your large amount of carbs and protein. Maybe consume some branched chain amino acids to signal to your body not to break down any muscle. You'll enjoy all the benefits of interval training and your body will tap directly into your fat for energy at this point to burn through whatever sma…

This sounds like a terrible, shoot yourself in the foot idea for the vast majority of weight trainees. Why on earth would you want to make something hellishly hard(weight lifting) even harder with shitty nutrition?

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#109

Post by diminoten »

randallsquared wrote: post #98
diminoten wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 12 pounds that had refused to come off previously no matter how much exercise I was doing or how religiously I tracked my caloric intake This, aside from other potentially valid points you may make, is utter nonsense. The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Your comment as a whole reeks of the pseudoscience that plagues the nutrition field and makes it incredibly difficult to determine fact from…

> The concept of "stubborn weight" simply doesn't make sense. Except, you know, in practice. There are many potential explanations for why this could happen, but "pretend it doesn't happen" is not one.

It's a false implication that it's the body's set of physiological processes that are to blame for the inability of a person to lose weight, when in reality it's a myriad of psychological issues which are really to blame.

So yes, in practice, it doesn't make sense.

Re: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

#110

Post by 127001brewer »

tptacek wrote: post #90
127001brewer wrote: post #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…

Because they spend 50% of their waking hours in school where it is impossible to monitor exactly what they're eating. Parents do take responsibility for what their kids eat at home. The alarm comes from schools marketing unhealthful food to them when we can't be there to ensure they make good choices.

The alarm comes from schools marketing unhealthful food to them ...

How are schools marketing unhealthful food? (I'm assuming this is different from the school lunches.)

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