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The Great American Poisoning

justinmares.substack.com

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Re: The Great American Poisoning

#31

Post by nataliste »

> With food, the rule of thumb is to eat like your ancestors ate. Avoid ultra-processed foods, and avoid (or dramatically cut down on) the big 3: corn, soy, and wheat. These crops are in everything and are often the most processed, most pesticide-laden, and most fertilizer-intensive crops in our entire agricultural system.

Or you could buy (or grow, if you're hardcore enough) organic wheat, corn, and soy in their unprocessed forms and learn to cook. You know, like your ancestors did for thousands of years.

The problem is pesticides. Gluten intolerance only became a thing after they started dousing crops in round-up prior to harvest ("crop dessication").

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#32

Post by AlexandrB »

The oil diagram is pretty misleading. Steps like "blending" or "fractionation" happen with olive oil[1]. Not to mention that a lot of "cheap" (i.e. grocery store) olive oil is heavily processed[1].

[1] https://exauoliveoil.com/blogs/olive-oil/how-extra-virgin-ol...

[2] https://seloolive.com/en-ca/blogs/olive-oil/are-cheap-extra-...

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#33

Post by AlexandrB »

nataliste wrote: post #31

> With food, the rule of thumb is to eat like your ancestors ate. Avoid ultra-processed foods, and avoid (or dramatically cut down on) the big 3: corn, soy, and wheat. These crops are in everything and are often the most processed, most pesticide-laden, and most fertilizer-intensive crops in our entire agricultural system. Or you could buy (or grow, if you're hardcore enough) organic wheat, corn, and soy in their unp…

Not to mention that if you have any mesoamerican heritage your ancestors probably ate a lot of corn.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#35

Post by faizan-ali »

AlexandrB wrote: post #32

The oil diagram is pretty misleading. Steps like "blending" or "fractionation" happen with olive oil[1]. Not to mention that a lot of "cheap" (i.e. grocery store) olive oil is heavily processed[1]. [1] https://exauoliveoil.com/blogs/olive-oil/how-extra-virgin-ol... [2] https://seloolive.com/en-ca/blogs/olive-oil/are-cheap-extra-...

I think his point was that olive oil when done right is a result of crushing fruit. The bastardization of that product is a travesty but it is still possible to get the real stuff.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#36

Post by cyberax »

BowBun wrote: post #24
cyberax wrote: post #13

A typical mishmash of disproven nonsense and scary-sounding soundbites. With a typical tree-hugging nonsense of "Part 5: Health Is Simple and Natural". Yeah, sure.

A hand-wave without substance? Yeah, sure. At least point out something that is disproven if you want to make this kind of statement...

E.g. glyphosate causing cancer. Or that eating "natural" is going to make you more healthy. Or that BS factoid:

> And as a society, we see the highest cancer rates for parts of the body that accumulate toxin exposure

Or that nonsense about:

> When an animal is in its natural environment, the natural state of that organism is health.

It basically means that the dipshit author has seen animals only on the Discovery Channel.

The whole screed is basically a naturalistic fallacy with "scary" factoids mixed in.

You can look at other screeds from this author, like "Ozempic Makes You Fatter" to see the full inanity.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#37

Post by banish-m4 »

America is the second fattest OECD country in the world. Blaming the individual completely denies the partial culpability that for-profit agribusiness socializes the costs through addiction design of ultra-processed foods. Perhaps mega agribusiness revenue should be taxed proportionally to the exponent of the average caloric density of their total products sold. Proceeds of such should be specifically earmarked for nutrition supplementation, effective fitness programs, healthcare costs, and a myriad of preventative and curative interventions.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#38

Post by hax0ron3 »

A lot of this article smells like bullshit to me, but anecdotally speaking, I do think that there is something very wrong with the US food system.

I was in Russia a few years ago and I remember that basically all the food I ate at my relatives' rural town was remarkably, stunningly better than even the best locally grown farmer's market food that I have ever been able to find in the US. It practically radiated goodness.

Now, part of this might be because of childhood nostalgia or some genetic factor that predisposes me to the food of my homeland. But I think I can tell that most of it is not nostalgia. That Russian food I ate in that rural town really was much better than anything I've ever found in the US.

Which is remarkable given that Russia practices the same sort of massive highly technological agriculture that the US does, it is not like when I was there I was eating the products of some small farmstead.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#39

Post by autokad »

banish-m4 wrote: post #37

America is the second fattest OECD country in the world. Blaming the individual completely denies the partial culpability that for-profit agribusiness socializes the costs through addiction design of ultra-processed foods. Perhaps mega agribusiness revenue should be taxed proportionally to the exponent of the average caloric density of their total products sold. Proceeds of such should be specifically earmarked for n…

the only things that have changed is edicts by the government (some good, some bad). So either the government or the individuals are to blame. companies produce goods within the rules of the government that people are willing to buy. 'mega agribusiness' grows food that sells. people buy things they want, these have never changed. The only thing that changes is the government taxing and banning goods and services, thus, the reason we have gotten fat is likely the governments fault. But good luck waiting for them to accept the blame, as the government is the judge, jury, and executioner of sorts.

those edicts include forcing companies to use less animal fats, forcing people to stop smocking, etc.

> Perhaps mega agribusiness revenue should be taxed proportionally to the exponent of the average caloric density of their total products sold.

Rice is among the highest caloric density foods grown.

Re: The Great American Poisoning

#40

Post by justinmares »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #28
voviz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author doesn't suggest for the readers to go on paleo. The author says: > With food, the rule of thumb is to eat like your ancestors ate. Avoid ultra-processed foods, and avoid (or dramatically cut down on) the big 3: corn, soy, and wheat. These crops are in everything and are often the most processed, most pesticide-laden, and most fertilizer-intensive crops in our entire agricultural system.

> most pesticide-laden, and most fertilizer-intensive crops which isn't anywhere close to true. Wheat sells for $7/bushel, a bushel is 60 pounds. Corn & soy are similarly low value crops. Farmers just can't afford to put lots of pesticide and fertilizer on their crops. Fruits and some vegetables are far more valuable so spending more on inputs to increase yields makes sense.

This is just not true - corn/soy/wheat are the most sprayed crops in agriculture.
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