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Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

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Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#791

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

rootusrootus wrote: post #499
Y_Y wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but you see that's unfair, because Europe has much better beers than Asia.

That is certainly true. But now I feel like we need to talk about beer in America. Because as much as I love a real German beer, the variety and quality of beers we have to choose from in America is pretty astonishing. At least it seems that way in my bubble (and it certainly helps that I live in an area of the PNW that has a high per-capita number of breweries).

Yes, I still enjoy weissbier sometimes but currently mass-produced German beers can't hold a candle to all the incredible US craft breweries that popped up during the last two decades (Monkish, Other Half, Evil Twin, etc.)

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#792

Post by joshocar »

anon7000 wrote: post #553
subpixel wrote: post #551

> It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them in the US The American diet is insane, full stop. However, I've just begun a GLP-1 regimen to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem. I'm not quite young anymore and have given lots of other approaches a shot over the years, but have persistently failed to achieve a weight that is not a threat to my health.…

And crucially, many of those bad foods can be pretty addictive. They’re quite literally engineered so that you want to eat a lot of them and buy more. So it’s not surprising many people struggle to change that habit when the food ecosystem is working against you. Junk food both tastes better and is easier to eat than home-cooking a very healthy meal. You’re not exactly set up for success here.

I also think there is an education gap. People grow up eating processed food and don't learn to cook. People often try to cook, but online recipes are not really teaching you anything and are often far more work than they need to be or turn out bad, so people think or learn that cooking a meal takes a long time, is a lot of work, and doesn't taste as good. Cooking becomes the exception rather than the norm.

In reality you can have a piece of salmon, with a veggie and side in ~20m with 2m of prep and 2m of cleanup. An online recipe would have you cooking down a sauce, making a complicated side, and use some random ingredient that you need to buy for that one meal.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#793

Post by ChrisRR »

subpixel wrote: post #551

> It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them in the US The American diet is insane, full stop. However, I've just begun a GLP-1 regimen to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem. I'm not quite young anymore and have given lots of other approaches a shot over the years, but have persistently failed to achieve a weight that is not a threat to my health.…

> to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem

I think those are one and the same.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#795

Post by chrisco255 »

DrBazza wrote: post #752
subpixel wrote: post #551

> It's insane to me that so many people need these to get off the processed foods killing them in the US The American diet is insane, full stop. However, I've just begun a GLP-1 regimen to address a willpower problem, not a nutritional problem. I'm not quite young anymore and have given lots of other approaches a shot over the years, but have persistently failed to achieve a weight that is not a threat to my health.…

The American shopping experience is weird as well. There's a spectrum of supermarkets. Versus the UK, any US supermarket I've ever visited (I lived there for a couple of years) seemed to have far less fresh food, especially vegetables and fruit, but stuff in boxes was piled high. Then again, the UK vs. Spain or France is weird, by the same metric, they have even more fresh food than us in supermarkets, and much less…

What grocery store chain in the U.S. are you referring to? Every major chain grocery store generally stacks fresh food around the entire perimeter of the grocery store, reserving the aisles for boxed, canned, and frozen food.

You can find dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables, tons of fresh beef, pork, chicken and fish, milk, cheeses, even bread, in every major chain grocery store in the U.S.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#796

Post by Tanoc »

bsder wrote: post #673
anon7000 wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And crucially, many of those bad foods can be pretty addictive. They’re quite literally engineered so that you want to eat a lot of them and buy more. So it’s not surprising many people struggle to change that habit when the food ecosystem is working against you. Junk food both tastes better and is easier to eat than home-cooking a very healthy meal. You’re not exactly set up for success here.

> They’re quite literally engineered so that you want to eat a lot of them and buy more. Even if it's not intentional, I find that the enshittification seems to run along these lines. The things that finally drove it home for me this year were "peppermint bark" and "ranch dip". I used to buy this stuff or use the premade. This year I worked out how to do them properly myself. People raved about both. But I noticed th…

The enshittification has taken even the foods that were staples of the carb and sugar funnel. Many people aren't buying these foods not just because of GLP-1s, but because the quality of the food itself has gotten so bad. Doritos for example have almost no cheese dust on them, and the chips themselves are much thinner and now made with palm olive which makes them crumble rather than crunch. The satisfaction of both the flavour and the mechanics of eating Doritos is gone. Cheez-Its are more salt than cheese flavouring, and are overbaked until they're thin and crackly like flint flakes so as to maintain volume while using less dough. Faygo has reverted to using sucralose, which is mildly toxic and is a known carcinogen. Sucralose also tends to trigger sugar backlash, where the body mistakenly assumes it has taken in far less sugar and carbs than it actually did and then proceeds to rush and crash. Gushers come in packs of just four to seven now, and use far more xanthum gum as filler which makes them trend more towards chalky than gummy. Bagel Bites are now just bagels with cheese, as their is almost no sauce and hardly any toppings. Corn dogs are likely to be chicken or chicken and pork with soy fillers rather than beef or beef and pork. Little Debbie Swiss Rolls have a chocolate coating so thin that you're almost guaranteed to find holes on the top and sides where you can see the bare cake and have also switched to using palm oil.

I could go on and on. But the point is, these foods are no longer a source of contentment. I've spoken to a lot of people who stress eat who have told me that the terrible quality of their comfort foods has become a stressor in and of itself. They eat an entire box of Cheez-Its without noticing because the thinness of the cracker walls and the salt triggers them to eat more, they feel sick after eating frozen tacquitos because the tortillas have so many fillers, or they get anxiety that they've wasted their money because they get so little in a Payday bar. It's driving them away from these foods.

On the upside maybe it will drive them to cook for themselves like it has to you.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#797

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

array_key_first wrote: post #525
Aurornis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lot of women who might be overweight are healthy because different % of fat are acceptable depending on the structure of the body This is a tired argument. Most people who have BMI in the obese range do not have one of oft-cited exceptions that make BMI an imperfect measure. Everyone knows BMI is imperfect at this point, but the number of people who have BMI in the obesity range yet have healthy body composition…

It's important to note that overweight and obesity are not the same thing. Most people are overweight, and from what I've seen of modern studies, the health risk of being overweight is almost negligible. But being obese is a higher BMI than overweight, and the bar is actually quite low. Lower than most people think. A lot of people think they're overweight, but they're not, they're obese.

> Most people are overweight, and from what I've seen of modern studies, the health risk of being overweight is almost negligible.

Health risks of being overweight are very well researched and are significant (cancer risk, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular health). If you meant the mortality, then it is also worse for overweight people when confounding for smoking and reverse causality.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#798

Post by joshocar »

mettamage wrote: post #747
cush wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol is no joke. It can take hold of families and persist for generations. Kudos to you!

> Alcohol is no joke. I never got this, other than seeing it's hard for others. So in that sense I agree. I've seen the effects on others and how hard it is to quit. That's no joke indeed. I just don't get why I find it quite easy to stop drinking for a year (or longer). While I haven't been able to stop for life, doing those yearly challenges is relatively easy, for me. If I'd be a normal person then that's whatever…

People develop drinking problems for two reasons, they have a genetic predisposition to getting more reward from drinking and/or they have untreated trauma that they are medicating. In my family, my grandfathers war trauma was transferred to his kids, who then transferred it to their kids or dealt with the trauma and didn't.

For the genetic side, people often slide into it by culture/habit. For example, it starts with a drink with friends, then a few times a week with friends, then on your own and with friends, after a few years it turns into every night on your own, then a few each night, then you hide how much you are drinking from loved ones, until you (hopefully) realize that you might have a problem. Bill Barr talked about this last year in his standup, for a good example and an example of how you can get ahead of it if you are self-aware. Many people keep going and end up with the physical addiction.

The trauma side is why I think some people have a real hard time shaking the addiction, and tend to go back. The drinking can also cause you more trauma, making it harder.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#799

Post by warmedcookie »

stasomatic wrote: post #545
francisofascii wrote: post #14

> a handful of categories showed increases. Yogurt rose the most, followed by fresh fruit, nutrition bars and meat snacks. Interesting. Wonder what it is about yogurt and ozempic users. Probiotics?

It’s hard to force yourself to eat at all while on Ozempic. Yet, you need the protein, and yogurt, cottage cheese and protein bars go down easier than regular meals.

I see this sentiment everywhere, but I eat more than I did now that I am on Ozempic (1.7). I've always been perpetually starving + lift weights every day since I was a teen though.

Haven't noticed muscle mass decrease either, at least from the perspective that I can do the same reps / sets for my weight routine.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#800

Post by 542354234235 »

jacobthesnakob wrote: post #563
542354234235 wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that people can't seem to grasp that the brain is just as biological as the kidney or pancreas? If your pancreas isn't producing the right chemicals in the right quantities at the right times for normal healthy functioning, of course we need to treat that. But if the brain isn't producing the right chemicals in the right quantities at the right times for normal healthy functioning, then obviously its willpo…

> Why is it that people can't seem to grasp I imagine the perceived gap here is that “those” people understand thermodynamics and the failure to grasp is entirely in your hands.

Literally no one is saying overweight people are magically defying the laws of physics. Managing weight involves the brain, and the brain is a biological organ that is affected by genetics and the chemical and hormonal signals from other organs in the body. this moralizing about using a drug to lose weight being wrong or lazy or cheating or whatever is no different than people saying depressed people need to just stop being sad or ADHD people need to just pay attention.

The solipsistic idea that because your brain has the ability to do X means that everyone must work the exact same way, therefore if my brain is able to do something everyone else must too. If I can sit down and focus, ADHD must just be lazy and choosing not to. If my feelings of hunger are mild and easy to moderate, overweight people must just be weak willed and gluttonous.

To frame this as trying to argue for basic thermodynamics is such a strawman that my pet crow flew out the window in fear. If you think fat people are lazy and refuse to use willpower, and using a drug is a lazy substitute for mental willpower, then say so and have an honest discussion.

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