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How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

nytimes.com

251–260 of 387 posts

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#251
post #4

They're cheap, easy to find and easy to prepare. With grocery prices going up, what little progress has been made might get reversed, unfortunately. Making America healthy again means making non-ultraprocessed groceries available to everyone & cheaper, and ensuring that working families have time to cook. Pressuring Coke to create a new product with sugar is not going to move the needle.

Imo it isn't an availability issue. Polling my friends who are not poor of course but very few of them actually cook. They have the means to, the time to, and they still don't because they don't know how to cook. Greatest generation was still cooking at home and they were far from wealthy especially at the end of their lives living on fixed income and still making meals for all the relatives. It is just like we have collectively forgotten how to cook. Not just cook but to make the sort of intermediary ingredients you use to make many other meals too.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#253

People in the US are so trained by the food industry, that they do not know what good food is. Yogurt for example. Here is an experiment you can do at home if you want to disbelieve my statement. Step #1 Make good yogurt and eat it. 1. Go buy a quart of milk, full fat. 2. Buy some yogurt culture. Bulgarian preferred. 3. Follow the directions. You need to keep the temp at around 110F, warm water bath, heating pad, hot…

Finding full fat, no sugar added yogurt is quite easy, and completely subjectively up to taste. You may make your own yogurt yes. But perhaps the flavor difference you are experiencing is due to the intensive labor you spent time to produce said yogurt. - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/product/painterland-sisters... - https://www.hy-vee.com/aisles-online/p/2284457/Siggis-4-Milk... - https://www.jewelosco.com/shop/s…

Intensive labor? It is one of the easiest things to do. Here is my process step by step:

1) 32oz of whole milk into a pot, set burner to 6, set a 7 min timer (whats optimal for my burners), walk away.

2) Come back, check temp with thermometer, should be between 180°-190°f. Shut off burner. Set 10 min timer. Go do something else.

3) Come back, put burner on low simmer, set 20 min timer, do something else.

4) Come back, shut off burner, crack lid of pot open, do something else for about a half hour.

5) Come back, check temp, should be around 110°f now. If not wait. If it is, add last scoop from last batch of yogurt to pot.

6) Pour into mason jar. Put in instapot. Put in 1 cup water into instapot. Hit yogurt button. Get yogurt in 12 hours.

This is like less than 5 mins of actual hands on work. Probably the easiest thing you can do in the kitchen beyond like making spaghetti. I started my initial batch with one of those premium yogurts so I stole their cultures.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#254
post #147

People in the US are so trained by the food industry, that they do not know what good food is. Yogurt for example. Here is an experiment you can do at home if you want to disbelieve my statement. Step #1 Make good yogurt and eat it. 1. Go buy a quart of milk, full fat. 2. Buy some yogurt culture. Bulgarian preferred. 3. Follow the directions. You need to keep the temp at around 110F, warm water bath, heating pad, hot…

I mean there are things you can reasonably do better than the grocery store but something things are unrealistic. Like "just go to a gourmet cheese store" is not something you can do in most of the country. I live in one of the largest metro areas with quite a few Michelin star and recommended eateries, lovely food culture, and we love our dairy. I think there are two dedicated cheese mongers you can walk into in the…

If you live in a metro city then your regular old kroger/vons/ralphs whatever will have cheese monger tier cheese cut from wheels and sold by the pound. Hard, soft, moldy, sheep, goat, all of that stuff is pretty widely proliferated in this country. Maybe not if you lived hyper rurally but in a city of at least 100,000 this should certainly be possible.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#255
post #5

For convenience, my rice cooker has been a godsend. I'm basically making homemade chipotle bowls every day.

I don't get the rice cooker hype. Its so easy to make rice in the pot already. Cup of rice. Cup and a half of water. Pinch of salt. Bring to boil then set to simmer. Put lid on. 15 min timer. Perfect rice.

The way people talk about making rice online and having to seek out a rice cooker makes me wonder what they are even doing when they fail at making rice.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#256
post #115
post #36

I just opened up www dot amazon dot com and filled my cart with $50 worth of food that will be delivered to my door in a few hours: rice, potatoes, farro, beans, peppers, ginger, onions, garlic frozen peas, frozen carrots, plain low-fat yogurt, chicken thighs, and good bread. I don't want to hear anyone telling me that American capitalism has robbed us of real food. If anything, American capitalism has heaped upon us…

> some people just can't stop shoveling down Flamin' Hot Froot Loops. If over a third if the country has serious problems with this then it seems to me there is a systemic problem, and you can't only chuck it to individual failure. Doesn't mean there is no individual responsibility at all – but there's a reason obesity rates have risen so sharply and why there are quite big differences between countries of comparable…

Explain to me how socal works then. For $12 you can get a massive burrito. A plate of excellent tacos. A decent amount of sushi. All sorts of sandwiches. Pupusa. Kebab. Salads. Ramen. Bahn mi. All from local businesses making real food made to order in maybe 10 mins.

And yet, mcdonalds still does tidy business in this environment despite everyone saying mcdonalds is more expensive than ever.

Explain to me how that doesn't reflect widespread individual failure? Why does mcdonalds even exist in this market where you can eat amazing food from around the world in about the same time for about the same price? It isn't like these people are devoid of choice or limited by price. They are actively choosing mcdonalds over other options that are objectively better. I mean its like smoking cigarettes still despite all the information out there.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#257

Not sure this is a good post, but might be so taking the risk. I am snacking right now on some UPF - my 10% vice. However, my 90% is pretty good. One NOT-UPF staple is steel cut oats that are slow cooked. Very easy, healthy and likely as NOT-UPF as you can get. Recipie: 3 cups steel cut oats (I use Bob's Red Mill Organic), 1+ Qt water, 1 Qt Skim Milk, 1+ Teaspon salt. Combine everything into a suitable pot. Slow cook…

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Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#258
For anyone having gastrointestinal issues from processed foods in America, I implore you to take a trip to the EU and experience the lack of digestive issues their foods have on your gut.

It really changed my relationship with food knowing that it’s not my gut malfunctioning but stems from what I’m putting in me.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only get the bacon that says "No nitrates, no nitrites"

If you're talking about American-style bacon, and it tastes like bacon, there's no such thing. They're just exploiting labeling rules by selecting very specific nitrite sources. Nitrites are what give bacon (and ham) its flavor. This is before we get to the whole premise of avoiding nitrates. Would you eat a beet? That's a serving of industrial bacon's worth of nitrates right there. Later (Actually, super bad example…

This is partially true. The use celery extract or whatever they can get away with legally. Smoking is what gives bacon the flavor. Buy your cut of meat, season, and smoke it with a very low temp for long time, you have bacon. No nitrates.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#260
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does yogurt need carrageenan though? The bacteria already solidifies the milk.

Some yogurt formulations will separate without it.

Yeah you get whey sure. Not an issue either dump it out or stir it.
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