A Chemical Hunger – Part V: Livestock Antibiotics • Hacker News Board

Re: A Chemical Hunger – Part V: Livestock Antibiotics

#51

Post by armchairhacker » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

lmilcin wrote: post #43

i_am_proteus wrote: post #12

I had never heard of slime mold time mold dot com until today, so I read back through the author's theories and I'm not convinced there's anything here. His initial premise, that the cause of obesity is a mystery, doesn't seem to be that well-researched. Most importantly, he does not really poke holes in the basic premise that the cause is linked to increased availability of food in general coupled with more people l…

General availability of food as a driver of obesity is a false premise IMO. It does not explain a lot of countries where food had been available for well over half a century in any quantity you wanted and yet people don't have problem with obesity. Saying these countries are somehow "special" because of their cuisine or tradition seems like admitting that something else rather than availability of food is an importan…

Also even though starvation was much more common back then, people still had access to excess food and didn’t get fat. Some animals will eat until they literally explode. People have a fullness indicator but we ignore it, or it gets shifted towards eating too much.

I’m on the side that we’re overthinking it and a big contributor to obesity is just really bad cultural habits. A lot of people barely exercise at all, even walking, and when they get hungry they grab an unhealthy snack in 5 seconds. Even though are ancestors didn’t understand or care about exercise or getting fat, I doubt they had those habits.

Unfortunately once someone develops those habits, even as a kid, they’re hard to unlearn and they could affect the body’s set point. And they’re so ingrained into our culture that even people who try to be healthy (e.g. by eating a “healthy” fruit bar or exercising 30min on top of their sedentary lifestyle) don’t avoid them.

Now, there are people who got obese even though they exercise and eat whole foods, but I would be surprised if they aren’t a minority.

Re: A Chemical Hunger – Part V: Livestock Antibiotics

#52

Post by teachrdan » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #31

i_am_proteus wrote: post #12

I had never heard of slime mold time mold dot com until today, so I read back through the author's theories and I'm not convinced there's anything here. His initial premise, that the cause of obesity is a mystery, doesn't seem to be that well-researched. Most importantly, he does not really poke holes in the basic premise that the cause is linked to increased availability of food in general coupled with more people l…

I know plenty of fat vegetarians/vegans. It seems they would not be exposed to those antibiotics. I remember seeing a Ted Talk years ago where the speaker said that obese people have an issue with androgenesis. His theory was that it was causally linked, but I believe that was unconfirmed.

Might vegetarians still be exposed through eggs and dairy products?

Re: A Chemical Hunger – Part V: Livestock Antibiotics

#53

Post by giantg2 » Thu, Jul 22, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #52

giantg2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of fat vegetarians/vegans. It seems they would not be exposed to those antibiotics. I remember seeing a Ted Talk years ago where the speaker said that obese people have an issue with androgenesis. His theory was that it was causally linked, but I believe that was unconfirmed.

Might vegetarians still be exposed through eggs and dairy products?

Possibly, but not if they are also eating those items selectively, like organic etc. Some of the vegetarians I know are pretty selective about the treatment of the animals that those items come from. I believe they said organic standards require eggs to be produced by chickens that have some outdoor exposure instead of sitting in cages their whole lives.

Re: A Chemical Hunger – Part V: Livestock Antibiotics

#54

Post by dTal » Sat, Jul 24, 2021, 7:14 PM UTC

Knufen wrote: post #37

simiones wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He even mentions that average daily caloric intake has gone up c. 400 kcal since the turn of the 20th century. Which, for someone with a maintenance-level diet, would cause a 35-45 lb. annual weight gain. That's one data point, but they also show that caloric intake has been decreasing since 2010 and yet obesity is still increasing. They also mention that the 400 Cal figure is based on consumption in the 1960s-70s…

>This is nonsense - there is no way to predict weight gain based on calorie intake - variance between people is too huge on this metric - individual BMR alone varies between 1000 kcal/day up to 2500 kcal/day. Please site your sources. A variance of basal metabolic rate (BMR) of 2500 kcal/day sounds too extreme to be true, but I am open to learning something new. At least according to ( https://examine.com/nutrition/d…

Well, with a 35-45 lb. annual weight gain, after 40 years you would literally weigh as much as a car. Obviously that doesn't happen with any regularity, so clearly an equilibrium is reached and the curve flattens off at some relatively modest point. Therefore, the heavier you are, the more food you need to maintain your weight. Asymptotically, calorie intake predicts your final weight, not weight gain.