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How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

nytimes.com

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Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#291

Post by tpmoney »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #85
jjtheblunt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just as a datapoint: we learn to carefully (compulsively perhaps) read labels stateside, for all the reasons you mention. i.e., these same revelations and frustrations are shared by a huge swath of people born in the States (probably Canada too), and it is indeed a pain in the neck being continually paranoid about what nutritional rubbish is included in ingredient lists.

Food labels in the US and Canada suck as well compared to the UK and Australia. How big is a serve, who's percent daily value? Those numbers just aren't useful. Here in Australia we have a column for grams per 100g by weight. It makes it much easier to compare foods.

The RDV is based on a 2000 Calorie / day diet as noted on the same labels.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#292

Post by supportengineer »

parineum wrote: post #171
supportengineer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good example of a food desert would be an inner-city neighborhood, the first time I heard this term, they were talking specifically about places in Oakland, CA. Which ironically is a short train ride away from the Food Mecca of the USA.

If it's a short train ride away, what's the qualifications fir food desert?

Here's a very detailed article

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/537685fafa614d80ac83a60...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#293

Post by BobaFloutist »

asdff wrote: post #256
arp242 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 do…

Widespread individual failure becomes a social problem, and social problems call for social, not individual, solutions.

You can say it's their fault all you want, but that doesn't actually help you fix it.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#294

Post by BobaFloutist »

jeffbee wrote: post #137
portaouflop wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that you have to buy this stuff online. I can go downstairs to a grocery store and just buy it from real humans, not lining bezos pockets.

I don't have to buy it online. I live in Berkeley, California where, if anything, we have a totally unsustainable flood of food outlets that keep going out of business because the competition is too great. I only point to Amazon because it's a website, anyone can order from it even if their local grocers are bozos.

I didn't realize how obscenely spoiled I was with Berkeley Bowl until I moved. Sure, I knew the quality was good, but I didn't realize that the produce and the bulk sections were actually comparatively quite cheap too! It's ridiculous.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#295

Post by asdff »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #293
asdff wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 do…

Widespread individual failure becomes a social problem, and social problems call for social, not individual, solutions. You can say it's their fault all you want, but that doesn't actually help you fix it.

How would you solve the fact people seem happy to eat bad food even given better alternatives that compete on price and convenience?

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#296

Post by selimthegrim »

vel0city wrote: post #66
Yizahi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that to a European citizen this is a bit unexpected. In Europe, in all countries, you can find roughly the same level of "safeness" of food across all tiers of stores. Go to a cheapest one and the most expensive one, and the yogurt, tomatoes or meat would be approximately the same quality and have the same nutritional components. The only difference would be that expensive store would additionally carr…

Its not just a "tier" of store, its a "genre" of store. Stores like Dollar General are not really grocers, they just happen to carry some food products. They typically do not carry any fresh foods. So its not a matter of their tomatoes are somehow worse quality, its that they do not sell tomatoes . Its not that their meats are worse quality, they do not sell fresh meat . They practically only sell pre-packaged goods.…

Certain Dollar Generals do carry fresh foods and there’s a sub brand called Dollar General Market that targets the grocery dollar.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#297

Post by BobaFloutist »

asdff wrote: post #295
BobaFloutist wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Widespread individual failure becomes a social problem, and social problems call for social, not individual, solutions. You can say it's their fault all you want, but that doesn't actually help you fix it.

How would you solve the fact people seem happy to eat bad food even given better alternatives that compete on price and convenience?

Regulation.

Not to say that bad food should be illegal, but you can constrain portion sizes, you can constrain ubiquity (limit the # of fast food places per square mile/per population), you can constrain ingredients, you can constrain their marketing, you can limit how they decorate their buildings, you can do all sorts of things if the public will is there.

Now, whether or not the public will is there is another matter entirely. Policy prescriptions are easy, patient compliance is harder.

Edit: And frankly, I think we're in more agreement than you might realize. I grew up in the Bay Area, and it still drives me crazy how many of my peers would eat Chipotle. McDonalds is one thing, it's bad but at least it's unique, but Chipotle is just bad, expensive Mexican food. What's the point?? But, eventually, you have to accept that people will have bad taste and make bad decisions, and once those bad decisions start affecting society as a whole it's a policy issue, not an individual issue.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#298

Post by selimthegrim »

asdff wrote: post #289
Herring wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When Jobs came out with the iPhone were you like “I don’t get it just use a phone and a mp3 player perfect”

We are talking about cooking rice here...

Clean up is much easier with a ceramic vessel and properly sealing rice cookers use less water.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#299

Post by nradov »

ikr678 wrote: post #288
nradov wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you want plain yogurt with no added sugar then you can find that just by looking at the front label. Have you ever been to a supermarket?

Lots of people in this thread missing that unsweetened yogurt options are probably not distributed evenly across US supermarkets. Your local coastal city store might have a half dozen plain greek yogurts but I bet there are plenty of areas where they are not stocked because they know it won't sell.

You would lose that bet. I eat plain unsweetened yogurt. I have seen it on the shelf in supermarkets everywhere, not just coastal cities.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Most large supermarkets now offer online ordering. Pick a few small Midwestern cities at random and look what dairy products the major local supermarkets have in stock. It's hilarious how people keep posting uninformed comments here without taking 5 minutes to do some trivial fact checking.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#300

Post by NicuCalcea »

pessimizer wrote: post #228

Why is someone so determined to force this "ultraprocessed foods" meme? Is it just so they can get a government definition of "ultraprocessed foods" that somehow doesn't include foods that are 1/3 teflon by weight? There are plenty of specific processes that are extremely questionable and probably dangerous. Europe bans a lot of them, or to be fair almost everybody bans them but the US. But somehow, when the referenc…

I didn't read any of the points you're arguing against in the article.
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