I was pretty sure it was the over eating but I'll happily blame plastic...
Plastic might be making us obese
131–140 of 392 posts
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, I think that's a very plausible explanation. It also points to specific, testable policy changes. For example, a government could build a low cost (subsidized), healthy competitor to fast food. Alternatively, a government could implement a comprehensive "sin tax" scheme on "low quality" calories coupled with expanded food stamps (to ensure the poorest people can afford healthy alternatives). Governments could e…
I've often thought that government-run "soup kitchens" providing basic nutritional food in small portions should be everywhere - no requirements to eat there, if Bill Gates and Buffet want to have lunch at the free soup kitchen who cares.
I like the Japanese school-lunch system. Kids develop a familiarity with real food, which stays with them into adulthood (and reduces the likelihood of obesity ever occurring), and parents don't have to worry about it.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
So avoid "food deserts". It's not difficult. -arbitrage > Food Desert: Urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. Yeah, just move somewhere else! Lol. This is the kind of half-baked bullshit answer I expect from reddit not from Ycomb. Troll somewhere else dude.
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I'm fairly certain imchillyb is a member of the group of humans who need to eat food and think other humans also need to eat food.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#134Our food chain has a lot to do with obesity. There are many studies on this stuff. We eat 5 times as much meat on average as people did 100 years go. Animal based products are a major source of fat. People used to eat more fruits and vegetables. The fat type has shifted with more fat (which has higher calorie per gram amounts than carbs or protein) and fat moving from polyunsaturated fats to saturated fats (which cau…
Your comment completely ignores the content of the article you are commenting upon.
You concentrate on the "normal" nutrition stuff like fat, fiber and carbohydrates, without even asking why do people eat more than 100 years ago.
The article talks about the fact that food now contains a lot of totally unnatural chemical substances that our ancestors never encountered and that such substances may throw off our sense of satiety and disrupt other mechanisms directly related to obesity.
That is a serious problem. An apple or a piece of meat laced with various chemicals isn't the same as 100 years ago. It seems you choose to ignore this difference.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#135Is it the plastic though, or is it the sugar? Over my last few years of reading, I've convinced myself that sugar is the main culprit in massive obesity in Western countries, especially the US (i.e. high fructose corn syrup). Sugar is in everything (like plastic, I suppose). Look at the ingredients of what you buy and you'll be surprised where it turns up. Peanut butter, mayonnaise, beef jerky, even bog standard brea…
> even bog standard bread Yes, we definitely have too much sugar in everything, but as an amateur baker I will defend sugar in bread. Sure, you don't need it in a baguette or a rustic boule, but it is indispensable for a nice, soft sandwich loaf. It's not there to make the bread sweeter. It makes the bread softer, it boosts the yeast for a nicer rise, and it keeps it from going stale as quickly. Granted, I don't use…
> Sure, "bog standard" bread could have less sugar, but some sugar is essential for this style of bread.
I fully agree. As a German I do want to point out that American style sandwich bread is a very specific style. Sugar goes into it much as it does into challah dough or brioche - but all these stradle the cake-bread boundary for me.
If you want sugar in your bread, you gotta suffer through the process of making pumpernickel like everyone else, gosh darn it! /j
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's poor people who eat more calories now, not rich people That's my point; if you look at a map of obesity rates in the US overlaid with a map of poverty, there's a very strong correlation. The cheap access to calories today makes it easier to overconsume. In the past, the high cost of calories meant that only the wealthy could really ever become obese (outside of genetic factors).
The snide comment would be that obesity and unbearable debt are indicators of lack of control, and that poor people will have this more (because lack of control leads to being poor). But even if absolutely true, how do you solve for that? Laws limiting what you can purchase/eat would simply be a non-starter.
I mean, if we were confident one particular food source contributes more to obesity than others, we have a solution that we know would work: tax it (and ideally dedicate revenues to some kind of universal food tax credit). People would consume less of it at the margin and then be less obese.
It would rankle some people, but so do taxes on alcohol and nicotine. My big concern is that I'm skeptical whether we can really identify those "bad" foods and that even if we could whether we could ensure the government would whitelist/blacklist the correct foods.
As far as lack of control goes, I'd be curious if fatter/poorer people would do worse on some kind of adult marshmallow test. Maybe see if you can get them to sit perfectly still for 20 minutes in exchange for a monetary reward. I don't have a strong sense that they'd do worse than skinnier/richer people.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s weird about it? Is emmer or kamut much better? What about red fife, a strain of wheat from ~170 years ago?
The hybrid varieties bred in the late 50's have about 50x the amount of gluten as previous strains of wheat did.
Fascinating. I was curious because I eat the three I mentioned kind of like rice (along with barley and oats).
I’m behind on this science. A 50x increase in gluten sounds crazy, but I don’t know how much gluten is known to be bad. For example, I sometimes eat things with wheat gluten powder as a primary ingredient. It doesn’t seem to cause harm, but maybe I’m missing something.
I certainly don’t think of it as a health food (nothing so heavily processed is), but is it actually harmful?
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those diets also didn't have added sugars and salts to everything. It's serious work requiring reading all the nutrition labels to get groceries sans questionable additives in the US.
Thanks to corn subsidies, we have high fructose corn syrup in many foods you wouldn't expect to find it. Milk by-products are the same way. My wife recently developed lactose intolerance, so we've been finding milk products in tons of things you wouldn't have expected it. Instant ramen? The flavor mix includes milk solids. Cheap hot dogs? More milk solids. Flavored chips, even when not cheese flavored? They have lact…
French fries often have dairy in the coating. It's everywhere.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#139I have a fri3nd that has an over active thyroid and she's very fit. she had a six pack when she was younger. she didn't really work out. so makes me think hormones are a big part of it too.
Plastics and many other things happen to mess with hormones.
Re: Plastic might be making us obese
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
So avoid "food deserts". It's not difficult. -arbitrage > Food Desert: Urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food. Yeah, just move somewhere else! Lol. This is the kind of half-baked bullshit answer I expect from reddit not from Ycomb. Troll somewhere else dude.
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And are you not upset because of psychopathic tendencies? You certainly seem to be disdainful when someone expresses empathy. I’m upset about climate change because it personally affects me, but I’m also upset about armed agents of the state murdering Black citizens without repercussion. I’m white. Do you find my response to be “overly-emotional”?