Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

news.cornell.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

641–650 of 985 posts

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#641

Post by pixl97 »

nemomarx wrote: post #220
XorNot wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother was on it for a bit (and should go on it again) and the thing he noted was that it makes it easy to not eat but it gives you no useful habits to keep that up because it's so easy. Which makes sense. I still calorie count everything generally because I know I'll let myself creep portion sizes unchecked.

I think durable habits there are just hard honestly. I was losing weight when I was very strict about calorie counting and lived with a roommate who was on the same diet, but when I moved out and stayed with family my habits and intuition about safe foods didn't last long and temptation got me again. It does make me think we're applying bandaids over some other issue with the available foods - it's hard to imagine th…

It's really closer to 70 years ago to see the roots of the obesity epidemic in the US and had a lot to do with the post war world. To put it in another way, machines have taken over the vast majority of labor. Even people that do 'hard' jobs are still using a ton of tools that decrease the amount of physical effort they put in the job. Add in we converted the country from a human oriented place to one where cars rule, all while increasing the ease of consumption and we now have an epidemic.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#642

Post by pixl97 »

calpaterson wrote: post #82
spockz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Around here fruit is significantly more expensive than snacks. In fact, replacing the snacks with healthy food in our case increased spending. So it is awesome that these households managed to cut spendings.

> fruit is significantly more expensive than snacks This is a commonly repeated claim but it's usually not true. Fruit is, in fact, pretty cheap: In the US, bananas average $1.68/kilo: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_price_rankings... A kilo is usually ~6 bananas. So a banana costs maybe 28c on average. Find a cost-competitive ultra-processed snack for the calories and satiety that a banana provides. He…

This leaves out spoilage. Fruit is a pain in the ass to get enough of without running out before the next shopping trip or having it rot.

I think a lot of people that say quickly perishable items are cheap shop every few days and buy in small quantities.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#643

Post by pixl97 »

zahlman wrote: post #597
jjk166 wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does a loaf of white bread cost? How much does a load of whole grain cost? Whatever it is you are trying to argue in your comment, it has nothing to do with the cost comparison I am making.

A loaf of white bread here costs a minimum of $1.99 (all prices CAD) and contains by my reckoning a bit over 400 grams of wheat. So nearly $5 per kilogram. A kilogram of rolled oats can be easily found for about $3; white rice around $1.50 if you shop around; pasta from $1.33 to $2.22 depending (usually on the higher end of that); white flour $1 (in large bags).

These are not comparable items.

A person can have a sandwich made of bread ate before your rolled oats are cooked. I think a huge portion of some people's confusion on why people eat what they eat need to look at time from picking the item from the panty to mouth to see that people spend a lot less time in the kitchen then they do.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#644

Post by pixl97 »

bluedino wrote: post #287
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I decided to check one of my local grocery stores because I honestly wasn't sure where they stood relative to each other. Most Little Debbie varieties, for a standard package containing 6 or 12 items depending on the size of the items, are listed at $3.19. Apples are commonly sold in 3 pound bags, which the internet suggests would contain 6-12 apples depending on the variety of apple and individual sizing. The 3 poun…

Maybe I should have compared individuals then. One apple can be had for less than dollar and one snack cake is over a dollar Either way people should be eating apples, bananas, pears (as well as cheese, nuts...), instead of snack cakes.

That snack cake can sit on the panty shelf for 6 months. The apple might have a week. Cheese and nuts can hang around a while, but they are super expensive and your ass will get just as fat if you over consume them.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#645

Post by phil21 »

WheatMillington wrote: post #612
jacobthesnakob wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is no surprise to anybody with common sense, the data for discontinuing GLP-1s show exactly the intuitive outcome. Zero diet change, zero habit change for the vast majority of users. Weight loss is accomplished via biochemical tricks to eat less volume of calorie dense junk food, rather than diet substitution. When the artificial appetite suppression ends, volume of the same food increases again leading to weig…

Weight gain/loss is not a matter of motivation and discipline.

It absolutely can be. It was for me.

Is it for everyone? Perhaps not. But to outright unequivocally say it's not is simply outright incorrect.

It was absolutely motivation and discipline for me. One day I just decided enough was enough and I threw the proverbial kitchen sink at it.

I am perhaps an outlier in that I'm not ashamed to say I was obese in the past because I simply lacked the motivation and desire to do the work to change it. It was easier and more comfortable being fat than in shape.

I definitely agree telling an obese person to eat less and move more is about as useful as telling a depressed person to just stop being depressed. But lets not make outlandish claims either.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#646

Post by pixl97 »

deadbabe wrote: post #639

Becoming addicted to food can seriously wreck your life. Nothing makes every aspect of your life harder than being fat. And it just sneaks up on people because no one talks about it, like alcohol, it’s just a thing people assume you will do. When I’m hungry, I eat, and that’s it, I don’t think about food until hours later when I get hungry again. It blows my mind that there’s people that just never stop thinking abou…

Most people get their eating habits in the first 5 years of their life. If your parents aren't looking out for you, you're screwed.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#647

Post by phil21 »

pixl97 wrote: post #630
zahlman wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That argument has been tried for years and yet it fails nearly 100% of the time. No, it doesn't. Saying that people lack an ability is not the same as claiming that the problem is a simple matter of instilling that ability. > Should we be trying something different than claiming it's a moral issue? It also isn't the same as shaming people or making a moral issue out of it. > Or is that too scientific? The snark is…

>No, it doesn't If you owe the bank $100,000 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $10,000,000,000 that's the banks problem. Obesity is a 'bank problem' issue. When everyone around the globe is massively gaining weight, in every country on this planet that's not in a war or famine, this isn't a human willpower issue. Something has changed, and to ignore that is unscientific.

All that has changed is the environment and lifestyle humans live in, and it's quite obvious discipline and willpower cannot overpower that environment on average.

The change was far too rapid for anything else to be remotely the primary cause.

If you put a past heroin addict locked in a room with unlimited heroin readily available, chances are likely 9 times out of 10 that person is going to partake eventually. Same goes for our food environment and way of life.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#648

Post by [deleted] »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #449
giuliomagnifico wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After discontinuation of Ozempic, people start to gain the weight again (and buy again more food), that’s why the spending changes again.

Processed foods are much cheaper per calorie than "healthy" options. GLP-1 helped me kick my cravings for junk food, but that just meant I was eating more of the "expensive" stuff. Instead of $0.50 worth of Doritos as a snack, I'm eating $1.50 worth of Greek yogurt and $1.50 worth of fruit.

[deleted]

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#649

Post by phil21 »

pixl97 wrote: post #641
nemomarx wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think durable habits there are just hard honestly. I was losing weight when I was very strict about calorie counting and lived with a roommate who was on the same diet, but when I moved out and stayed with family my habits and intuition about safe foods didn't last long and temptation got me again. It does make me think we're applying bandaids over some other issue with the available foods - it's hard to imagine th…

It's really closer to 70 years ago to see the roots of the obesity epidemic in the US and had a lot to do with the post war world. To put it in another way, machines have taken over the vast majority of labor. Even people that do 'hard' jobs are still using a ton of tools that decrease the amount of physical effort they put in the job. Add in we converted the country from a human oriented place to one where cars rule…

It also coincides with the rise of manufactured foods available for incredibly cheap prices. And the average percentage of a monthly budget spent on food going down.

Basically incredibly tasty food became plentiful and cheap and convenient right when physical labor went away.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#650

Post by rootusrootus »

deadbabe wrote: post #639

Becoming addicted to food can seriously wreck your life. Nothing makes every aspect of your life harder than being fat. And it just sneaks up on people because no one talks about it, like alcohol, it’s just a thing people assume you will do. When I’m hungry, I eat, and that’s it, I don’t think about food until hours later when I get hungry again. It blows my mind that there’s people that just never stop thinking abou…

Part of the problem is the prevalence of useless advice like this along with the implication that it’s a moral failing to be overweight.

I think I’d rather be fat than a thin, condescending jerk, because at least then I could GLP1s to help lose weight.

Post reply on HN