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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

#71

Post by vector_spaces »

nradov wrote: post #47
vector_spaces wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that. [1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/cha…

Food deserts do exist but appear to have no meaningful effect on eating habits. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growi...

You made a claim that plain yogurt is generally available in US food markets, attempting to make an inference about grocery store selections drawing from your own experience. I pointed out that it is not actually generally available and noted that your experience does not generalize.

I am not sure why you mention eating habits, since this is not what is being discussed

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#72

Post by wenc »

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…

As a Canadian living in the US, I’d say your sentiment depends on where you live and what you’re willing to pay.

In the Seattle area there are overpriced grocery stores like PCC and Met Market that sell healthy food at a premium.

There is also Whole Foods.

Even normal grocery stores like Safeway and Kroger have a ton of healthy foods — you just have to read the label.

The one thing you have to know if that American grocery stores are giant — they carry way more SKUs than the average European grocery store. It’s on the shopper to find what they want. It’s usually there.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#73

Post by fusslo »

benjaminclauss wrote: post #20
ArchOversight wrote: post #8

https://archive.is/eWcpP

Is it just me or is this super unreadable?

yeah, I think it's one of those annoyingly over stylized articles that animates/loads as you scroll and Archive doesn't preserve the javascript (or whatever) to make it look & work right

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#74

Post by BetaDeltaAlpha »

vector_spaces wrote: post #65
nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope that you recognize that your casual-outsider evaluation of the assortments of these stores is deeply flawed and not based on actual data. If you think about it even just a little bit, you'll recognize that it wouldn't make sense for a supermarket in one of the highest median income cities in the country to have assortment parity with a chain targeting cost conscious shoppers. The devil here is in the long-tail…

Safeway is the cost conscious option in Mountain View, compare it with the other options (Whole Foods, Nijiya). The comparison between Publix and Safeway is apt.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#75

Post by Guid_NewGuid »

Simulacra wrote: post #60
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.

It's exactly like cigarettes because it is the same companies. https://lsa.umich.edu/psych/news-events/all-news/faculty-new...

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#76

Post by nightski »

vector_spaces wrote: post #65
nradov wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope that you recognize that your casual-outsider evaluation of the assortments of these stores is deeply flawed and not based on actual data. If you think about it even just a little bit, you'll recognize that it wouldn't make sense for a supermarket in one of the highest median income cities in the country to have assortment parity with a chain targeting cost conscious shoppers. The devil here is in the long-tail…

I lived in rural areas a large portion of my life. What you are describing is limited to areas with extremely small populations. Meaning even my hometown of a few thousand has a Walmart (put up when I was a kid in the 90s) an Aldi, and two local grocery stores with tons of healthy options.

So yeah, there are a lot of towns that fit that criteria (less than 1000 residents). But as a portion of U.S. population it is not substantial in any way.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#77

Post by dragonwriter »

vector_spaces wrote: post #39
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n…

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that. [1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/cha…

While I don't live in a food desert where these kind of stores are the only option, I have, in fact, regularly found plain yogurt in gas-station convenience stores, the even smaller refrigerated-food sections in urban drug stores, etc.

Now, fresh produce, except—if you are very lucky—extremely expensive (for the quantity), relatively small packs of cut carrots and other things people might reasonably purchase as snacks, anything usable as a cooking fat excepted salted butter, and lots of other things, sure, you are going to be SOL, but plain yogurt (both the usually watery American kind and strained "Greek” yogurt) seems pretty common.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#78

Post by dragonwriter »

vector_spaces wrote: post #71
nradov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food deserts do exist but appear to have no meaningful effect on eating habits. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growi...

You made a claim that plain yogurt is generally available in US food markets, attempting to make an inference about grocery store selections drawing from your own experience. I pointed out that it is not actually generally available and noted that your experience does not generalize. I am not sure why you mention eating habits, since this is not what is being discussed

> I pointed out that it is not actually generally available

Actually, you pointed out that food deserts exist, and asserted that that meant that plain yogurt is not generally available, the thing you pointed out does not support the conclusion drawn from it.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#79

Post by secabeen »

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…

FWIW, Greek Yogurt is not the same as Yogurt, it's a different product. Those two items are not "essentially the same thing". Also, low/zero-fat yogurts dominate the market in the US. Plain Whole-Milk traditional yogurt is more available now than it was a decade or two ago, but it's still nowhere as common as the high-sugar flavored ones.

Re: How America got hooked on ultraprocessed foods

#80

Post by kulahan »

vector_spaces wrote: post #39
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr... The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/n…

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label. Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that. [1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/cha…

Looking at your source, it seems as though food deserts exist almost exclusively when you're very far from civilization.

In which case you can just grow the food.

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