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Why is the American diet so deadly?

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Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#181

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

tombert wrote: post #167
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried adding cream (but no sweetener)? I've done it on occasion to get down a cup of coffee that's more bitter than usual.

I have; I think I've tried everything. I've tried instant coffee black, I've tried it with creamer, with sugar, with artificial sweetener. I've tried it at chain restaurants like McDonalds, I've tried yuppier places like Starbucks and a bunch of their concoctions, I've tried hipster independent places and different blends from them. I've tried cold brew, coffee slushies, different quantities of frapp'd up milk, diffe…

You might be a supertaster and have extra and more sensitive tastebuds. The extra sensitivity means they tend to prefer sweeter (and/or salty) foods and stay away from bitter food/drinks to greater extent.

https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/supertaster...

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#182

Post by soco »

coreyh14444 wrote: post #35

Just an observation as an American living in Copenhagen, Denmark: The typical diet for my coworkers involves the following attributes compared to the US: 1. Hot/big breakfast is rare. A roll with some butter and cheese + Espresso instead. 2. We have a "canteen" cafeteria and it is all fresh made foods, lots of fish options and of course Rugbrød ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugbr%C3%B8d ) a super dense "bread" alth…

So drinking age is 16/18, same as in Switzerland. Speaking of which, from what I've seen but also in stats, youth seem to drink less than back in my days. But that's tangent.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#183

Post by tombert »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #178
tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

Depends on your build. I'm 6'5" but my 'normal' weight when I was 19 with zero fat was 225 lbs. 30 years later at 250lbs, I'm continually annoyed that my BMI shows me as obese.

I don’t really exercise, there’s basically no muscle, so I’m inclined to believe the “obese” diagnosis.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#184

Post by apwell23 »

dabluecaboose wrote: post #27
apwell23 wrote: post #4

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

One of the laziest rhetorical approaches I see regularly on Hackernews is someone angrily complaining about commenters who aren't there. If you have an argument, make it. If you see an argument you want to refute, refute it. Complaining about people that aren't even commenting in the thread serves no useful purpose.

knock yourself out

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42246739

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#185

Post by pfdietz »

dietr1ch wrote: post #153
jibbit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is this true? If everyone prepared their own food from scratch, but still had as many carbs, outcomes wouldn't improve?

I don't think it's just the carbs, but they likely don't help in today's society. We became too efficient at packing carbs in our diet and at the same time too sedentary. Beyond macro-nutrients, what I think the true reason food in the US is bad is because of the other stuff. Many things banned in Europe (which is special because they use science for improving quality of life before profits) are not banned in the US,…

I wonder about micronutrients that aren't recognized as essential to life, but that have positive effects.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#186

Post by fortran77 »

tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

> In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi...

That's obese! I'm always amazed how may fat people are walking around who think they're athletic, buff, and fit.

I'm 5'10" 155# at age 61. I count every calorie. It's the only way today with so much convienient, calorie laden, "addictive" food. The body-positivity folks would tell you that it's a mental illness and obsessive to track every calorie, but if I didn't, I'd gain wait. The calories-in/out formula for weight gain and loss is simple, a law of physics, and works for everyone.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#187

Post by tombert »

fortran77 wrote: post #186
tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

> In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmi... That's obese! I'm always amazed how may fat people are walking around who think they're athletic, buff, and fit. I'm 5'10" 155# at age 61. I count every calorie. It's the only way today with so much convie…

If you look at the edit on the bottom, I actually acknowledged that already :)

I never thought I was “healthy” at that weight, to be clear.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#188

Post by verteu »

bumby wrote: post #113
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.

You cut out the part that said the diets improved people’s health at 6 mo. But they were hard to maintain for 12 months. I think a lack of consistency is the issue. From your link: > What if they'd lasted 12 months, or two years, or a lifetime? The benefit would likely have been greater and more long-lasting. The trick is to pick a diet with foods you actually like so that it's not so hard to stick with it. Meaningfu…

I think metabolic adaptation plays a larger role. In this Biggest Loser followup study, even after six years (!), participants' resting metabolism burned 20% fewer calories than a "typical person of their current weight":

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4989512/#:~:text=co...

> In contrast, a matched group of Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery patients who experienced significant metabolic adaptation 6 months after the surgery had no detectable metabolic adaptation after 1 year despite continued weight loss (17). It is intriguing to speculate that the lack of long-term metabolic adaptation following bariatric surgery may reflect a permanent resetting of the body weight set-point (18).

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#189

Post by m463 »

bglazer wrote: post #152
macNchz wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soda really is something—I drank plenty as a kid, but I kind of soured on it after an interactive exercise in a college class, where we each guessed the amount of sugar in a can of soda, scooped the sugar into a glass, and then were shown the actual amount. In seeing that, I realized I would simply never put that much sugar in anything on my own, if I were sweetening a drink rather than buying something pre-sweetened…

A decade ago, I saw an image that showed the amount of table sugar in a can of Coke and I haven't willingly drank one since.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=cubes+of+sugar+in+a+coke&ia...

:)

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#190

Post by MrSkelter »

jaybrendansmith wrote: post #178
tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

Depends on your build. I'm 6'5" but my 'normal' weight when I was 19 with zero fat was 225 lbs. 30 years later at 250lbs, I'm continually annoyed that my BMI shows me as obese.

As a guy your height 225lbs is not “zero fat” unless you are absolutely stacked with muscle. Likely on steroids unless you are a bodybuilder and eat and train like one.

Though he was shorter, natural bodybuilder Sean Connery was 6’3” and 190lbs at the start of his bond run. That’s a useful data point. Not only is he close to an ideal male physique for non bodybuilders, he was also very fit. Ad an inch and a half to him and 35lbs and that’s not “zero fat”.

Similarly I was once depressed and 260lbs. I was definitely obese.

Things are distorted in the US. We consider fat to be morbidly obese and dismiss fatness as normal now. Look at Trump. That’s normal obesity. Loot at Musk. That’s overweight.

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