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Why is the American diet so deadly?

newyorker.com

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Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#131

Post by tonymet »

9rx wrote: post #84
tonymet wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When asked why restaurant food tasted so good, Anthony Bourdain chuckled and quipped that "everything you are served begins and finishes with a stick of butter". People would gasp if they prepared that food for themselves. When I finish a steak with 2 tbsp of butter it tastes luxurious, and any respectable steakhouse is finishing a steak with a stick of butter and garnishes it with an ice cream scoop of butter.

I am not all that bothered by the stick of butter as the meal is actually satiating and the calories consumed will remain within the calories I need to be consuming. Besides, most of it gets drained off anyway. The 1,000 calorie fast food meals that leave you still hungry afterward are troubling, though.

In most dishes like a pasta or curry, it’s not drained off. We’re not talking about a stick of butter, it’s butter, sugar, fat, carbs all in quantities that would make someone shudder if they were preparing food at home.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#132

Post by cf100clunk »

HEmanZ wrote: post #117
cf100clunk wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restaurants in the U.S.A. belonging to large franchise chains have portion sizes that are astonishingly large in comparison to those I've typically seen in my world travels, and the ingredients tend to be heavily processed. Even quick snacks found at U.S. gas stations (when I'm running late) consist chiefly of mass-produced, sugary, heavily processed desserts like Twinkies and HoHos, whereas options for fresh fruit a…

The cultural attitude about appropriate portions in America bothers me a lot. People blame restaurants but just anecdotally from my own life, Americans will refuse to eat at restaurants that serve “European size” portions. Restaurants in most of the US go out of business if they don’t serve a 3k calorie meal, American patrons won’t go there.

Agreed, portion size expectations by U.S. patrons presents a chicken-and-egg (worse if both are fried) problem for restaurateurs.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#133

Post by kmstout »

pmdulaney wrote: post #37

The truth about a good diet is not reducible to a simple rule of thumb; like life itself, it's more nuanced than that. Thank you, New Yorker, for letting me read the article without a subscription.

I lost track of how many articles I had to open to hit their paywall in Firefox, but disabling JavaScript will nicely bypass it.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#134

Post by tayo42 »

dingnuts wrote: post #15
apwell23 wrote: post #4

hope this doesn't hijacked by "WhAt Is EvEN UltRAPorCESSED FooD" crowd.

you could pre-empt them by defining ultraprocessed food instead of mocking them with the spongebob text if it's so easy to do so. go right ahead.

the article has a definition it uses for each of the types of ways food can be categorized based on how its processed

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#135

Post by piltdownman »

neom wrote: post #50
piltdownman wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emphasis on vegetables and fibre, niacin and trace mineral rich seafood, and pickled/preserved foods. Also ultra-processed is contextual. They're eating Nattō for breakfast, not McMuffins.

Friend of mine moved from South Korea to the US and within 6 months had gained a noticeable amount of weight, we discussed it and I said "just gotta watch the calories bud" - confused face - he didn't know how to actually go about calorie counting, he didn't know the calories in 1lb of fat (~3,500), he'd never had to do it in Korea.

Its impossible to not get blindsided by HFCS and the general sugar content of American foods if you compare the retail shelves like for like with Europe.

In Ireland and other European countries they literally have to 'cover up' the Breakfast Cereals in the 'American Speciality/Import' section due to their misleading nutritional information and/or child targeting.

For example, American formulation PopTarts have to legally cover up the claim on the front that they are "a good source of nutrition" and another sticker on the back with a factual nutritional breakdown, as is mandated by most EU members.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#136

Post by tayo42 »

Boredom snacking from starting a new job is killing me. I put 10 pounds on starting a new job, sit at the computer and snack on shit. Crept into "overweight" according to BMR. Hard exercise 3x a week, hard but milder exercise pretty regularly. Its too easy to snack my to 3k calories. I only maybe eat out/order in 3 meals a week.

Snacks and meat have too much calories

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#137

Post by tonymet »

logicchains wrote: post #96
verteu wrote: post #53

For me, the biggest mystery is this: If obesity is caused by poor diet, why doesn't dieting work long-term? https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work... > 121 eligible trials with 21 942 patients were included and reported on 14 named diets and three control diets ... At 12 months the effects on weight reduction and improvements in cardiovascular risk factors largely disappear.

Simple, it's called a selection bias. The people able to long-term control what they eat aren't obese, so by running a study on obese people, you're essentially biasing the study towards subjects who have difficulty controlling what they eat. This means most of the subjects will struggle to stick to the diet long term.

true, which is why you should never take life advise from studies. the worst examples are participating.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#138

Post by 9rx »

tonymet wrote: post #131
9rx wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not all that bothered by the stick of butter as the meal is actually satiating and the calories consumed will remain within the calories I need to be consuming. Besides, most of it gets drained off anyway. The 1,000 calorie fast food meals that leave you still hungry afterward are troubling, though.

In most dishes like a pasta or curry, it’s not drained off. We’re not talking about a stick of butter, it’s butter, sugar, fat, carbs all in quantities that would make someone shudder if they were preparing food at home.

> In most dishes like a pasta or curry

That seems like a waste of steak. Must be a lot cheaper where you are than where I am.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#139

Post by jeffbee »

bluedino wrote: post #68
Workaccount2 wrote: post #20

I think a big part of the problem is that even prepared foods are packed with garbage. There are a lot of Americans who can't/don't cook mainly for time reasons, and instead eat lots of prepared foods, whether that be from restaurants, shops, or grocery stores. If you are not cooking it from scratch yourself, it is almost guaranteed to be brimming with fat, salt, and sugar. This is true regardless of the source. Whet…

> There are a lot of Americans who can't/don't cook mainly for time reasons In that sense, the 10% of people who aren't that busy, should be cooking. Very few people are that busy. It's just not a priority. Americans spend an astonishing 4 hours and 37 minutes looking at our phones every day.

People pressed for time just need to learn better recipes. If I make a pot of beans (almost effortless, really) I can eat it for days.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#140

Post by darknavi »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #36

The problem is really quite simple: Americans overeat Processed foods are part of the problem (in that they are tastier and easier to consume than "rawer" foods), but increased wealth and ability to consume food is also a part of the problem Food has literally never been cheaper and tastier

On the flip side of portion size, the giant portions restaurants give out in the US means that my wife and I can split almost any meal we get when eating out.
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