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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

#51

Post by Jensson »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #41
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true. Also as "an European" whatever that means, I only spent a couple of months in the US as a tourist, and had no issues finding healthy foods from leafy greens, to good meats in places like Wholefoods. If he couldn't find it while actually living there, tells me he's not commenting in good faith.

I mean, Whole Foods targets upper middle class folks, you’re far away from the average American experience

Yeah, when I visited USA I was shocked to find lots of larger "grocery stores" didn't even stock the basics. In Europe that isn't a thing, everything larger than a regular room has fresh vegetables and meat and other staples, even in immigrant areas.

Sure it might be possible to find that in USA as well, but its so much harder as not every store has it.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#52

Post by bwv848 »

Herring wrote: post #5

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

Funny I recently ditched my rice cooker and got a clay pot, in response to the rising food price at restaurants. While I am chasing a perfect clay pot rice with golden crispy but not greasy and burnt bottom and fluffy center, I found out cooking rice on gas is not as complicated as we imagine. Soak the rice for a while, cook on high heat till water is evaporated on the top, dial down to low flame, put on toppings, closed the lid simmer for a while, then let the residual heat of the clay pot to finish the job. The result is perfectly serviceable, of course extra care would elevate the dish a lot. Also you can use a bowl and steam the rice, with toppings if you like.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#53

Post by Der_Einzige »

dgfitz wrote: post #46
Der_Einzige wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, "actual" grocery store for the purposes of finding reliably fresh and healthy food includes one of the following: 1. Upscale western grocery stores and markets, ideally located within the biggest and most affluent city possible. Pikes place market would be a great example of what I'm talking about for you seattle folks. 2. Asian grocery stores, like "H-mart" 3. Farmers markets, but these are hit and miss…

> America just sucks for foodies who don't have unlimited time to get through the slop. I think by definition, being a “foodie” means you have, and enjoy finding, the time to sort the wheat from the chaff. Nobody has unlimited time for anything. “I want to be be a ‘foodie’ but really I just want to be judgy” is a weak argument.

In America, google rating scores are straight up astroturfed to the point where the total number of ratings is far more important than their score.

When I travel to Japan, for example, I interpret a bad google maps review score for a location as a GOOD thing, because the average white tourists palette is incompatible with the local cuisine.

I can walk to basically any random place, anywhere in Japan, or France, or Singapore and get very high quality food that I don't have to worry about being full of bullshit. That's not true in America.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#54

Post by yesb »

nradov wrote: post #45
throwway120385 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's marked as "plain" yogurt. You can still find adulterants in it, just not added sugars. For example Trader Joe's "plain yogurt" is a mixture of yogurt and buttermilk.

I don't understand your comment. Trader Joe's sells plain yogurt with no added buttermilk. https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/greek-whole-mil... Or you can buy essentially the same thing for less at Walmart. https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mountain-High-Low-Fat-Yogurt-Vani... While there are some people who live in "food deserts" with very limited options, complaints by most HN users about the difficulty of find…

Not sure if they carry it anymore but yogurt marketed as "European style" often has buttermilk: https://oatmel.com/products/European_Style_Smooth__Creamy_Pl...

But not sure I would consider fermented milk to be an "adulterant" in a different fermented milk product...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#55

Post by nradov »

vector_spaces wrote: post #33
SirFatty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones." Sure, if you limit your purchases to Dollar General and Casey's. If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true.

In large swaths of the country, these "non-grocery stores" are a lifeline, as they are the only option. In others, you don't even have that -- gas station convenience stores might be that lifeline instead. [1] I am familiar with what the grandparent is referring to, having spent a decade running purchasing teams in US grocery stores. Even in urban areas with many different food retail stores, a typical supermarket in…

The SF Bay Area is hardly an outlier. There may be more specialty grocery stores here, but the large supermarkets where most consumers buy most of their food are the same as anywhere else. If you compare a Safeway in Mountain View, CA to a Publix in Daytona Beach, FL or a Kroger in Toledo, OH there isn't much difference in the products available.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#56

Post by colechristensen »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #9
colechristensen wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I assume for people who eat meat there's the additional concern of antibiotics resistance due to the antibiotics given to livestock. The concern isn't eating meat from an animal treated with antibiotics infecting you with resistant bacteria. The concern is treating animals with antibiotics puts evolutionary pressure towards breeding resistant bacteria that spill into the ecosystem and eventually get back to us. But…

Specifically: animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer, and sometimes that waste isn't treated properly to eliminate pathogens. Sometimes you're eating antibiotic-resistant-waste-laden plants, and sometimes those plants are fed to animals that humans then eat. Same for aquatic plants/animals downstream of animal waste. Even drinking water can be contaminated. Antibiotic resistant bacteria isn't the only harmful d…

Not really no.

I'm not saying eating a bit of cow poop on your lettuce never gets anyone sick, but that's not the mechanism of concern.

One: poop is mostly bacteria, by mass. It isn't infected with ... it is. Some can be "pathogens" but that's what the last stage of digestion is, fermentation with mostly a wide array of bacteria.

The concern is these gut bacteria developing antibiotic resistance and bacterial infections in the animal developing resistance. Then infections are spread between animals and across species and the waste is reintroduced into the environment. Resistant bacteria in the environment share. Horizontal gene transfer between species of bacteria can lead to these resistance genes being popular and everywhere. It's not cow poop infecting you, its the genetics getting spread into the environment and eventually ending up in a human pathogen.

>animal waste is sometimes used as fertilizer

More or less all industrial farmed animal waste ends up as fertilizer. Also a major component of the kinds of soil we grow crops in is bacteria, much of which has been through the digestive system of an animal. Again I don't know what people think soil is. If you want "clean"(?) never been poop growth medium for your plants you have to go completely artificial. And manure isn't sterilized before it goes into fields, it's alive.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#57

Post by nradov »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #41
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you spent time in an actual grocery store, you'd find that your comment isn't true. Also as "an European" whatever that means, I only spent a couple of months in the US as a tourist, and had no issues finding healthy foods from leafy greens, to good meats in places like Wholefoods. If he couldn't find it while actually living there, tells me he's not commenting in good faith.

I mean, Whole Foods targets upper middle class folks, you’re far away from the average American experience

I thought that Whole Foods targets folks who like their food flavored with rat droppings?

https://www.siliconvalley.com/2025/06/26/cupertino-whole-foo...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#58

Post by Milpotel »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #10

Due to the paywall I couldn’t get beyond the first image claiming convenience. I’ve no idea what the rest says so I’ll speak disconnected from the content and just to the concept. People assume ultra processed came about due to demand side factors but it’s actually more about supply side supply chain management and the scale in size of the US. By processing the food into more constructed ingredients they always enter…

That's a bit too naive considering how bad food became during the last decade. Formerly perfectly fine products now have artificial ingredients to increase profits.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#60

Post by Simulacra »

Insanity wrote: post #2

As a European who moved to Canada and spends a fair amount of time in the States, one thing that really surprised me is how hard it is to find healthy food options compared to the unhealthy ones. Food was a bit of a concern before moving, but I didn't know just how frustrating it would be. Even something as simple as Yogurt is usually insanely sweet / sugary compared to European variants. Ingredients that are banned…

My conspiracy theory is at healthier foods are deliberately made more expensive, to push people into the cheaper ultra processed foods. It's kind of like cigarettes, push them into the more addictive, cheaper products to hook them.
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