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Why is the American diet so deadly?

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Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#91

Post by deeviant »

cableshaft wrote: post #59
moojacob wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live near a Chipotle? Burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, and chicken for $8.50. I really don’t understand this “I don’t have a choice all fast food is bad” some are pretty healthy even if they are less tasty. I think the real discussion is how addictive the trash foods are.

Brown rice isn't that good for you. Although if you remove that (or at least tell them to do 'light' rice) and add the lettuce, one of the salsas and the fajita veggies instead it starts getting pretty healthy (at least as far as I know).

> Brown rice isn't that good for you

Based on what, exactly? Japan has one of the highest average lifespans, and the healthiest demographic in this already top-of-the-lifespan-pack nation consume significant amount of white rice, let alone brown.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#92

Post by anovikov »

jayd16 wrote: post #86
tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

Short of a kegeraror, one can develop a taste for tea or black coffee. As long as you don't put anything in it, it's basically zero calorie and trivial to prepare.

Overdoing on coffee, especially being very tall, is quite dangerous for one's heart...

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#93

Post by lithocarpus »

amelius wrote: post #26

Can the food industry be sued like they did with big tobacco?

They are, we'll see how it plays out over the next decade by which time diabetes will likely have climbed even higher.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/12/11/major-food-c...

(I don't suggest this is the one lawsuit we need, it's just a start)

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#94

Post by jeffbee »

piltdownman wrote: post #23
dukeyukey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you need to explain why the Japanese diet, also filled with ultra-processed food, is vastly healthier.

Emphasis on vegetables and fibre, niacin and trace mineral rich seafood, and pickled/preserved foods. Also ultra-processed is contextual. They're eating Nattō for breakfast, not McMuffins.

The McMuffin is pretty much the most balanced meal at McDonalds! If you wanted to quibble over it, you could make it with a poached egg white instead of a whole egg, and dress it with olive oil instead of butter, to cut down on the cholesterol without removing too much energy. At ~300 calories a McMuffin is hardly sufficient for many people to get through the morning.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#96

Post by logicchains »

verteu wrote: post #53

For me, the biggest mystery is this: If obesity is caused by poor diet, why doesn't dieting work long-term? https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work... > 121 eligible trials with 21 942 patients were included and reported on 14 named diets and three control diets ... At 12 months the effects on weight reduction and improvements in cardiovascular risk factors largely disappear.

Simple, it's called a selection bias. The people able to long-term control what they eat aren't obese, so by running a study on obese people, you're essentially biasing the study towards subjects who have difficulty controlling what they eat. This means most of the subjects will struggle to stick to the diet long term.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#97

Post by gscott »

snarf21 wrote: post #8
Fin_Code wrote: post #3

A useful analogy is the Coca plant. Chewing its leaves will give a mild stimulant and is relatively benign. But if you extract and concentrate the active ingratiate it becomes highly addictive. This is pretty much what we have done with our food.

Even worse, our food has been specifically engineered to be as addictive as possible without increasing manufacturing costs.

During the packaging process I am pretty sure they spray on chemicals that cause addiction.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#98

Post by moojacob »

KPGv2 wrote: post #79
moojacob wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live near a Chipotle? Burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, and chicken for $8.50. I really don’t understand this “I don’t have a choice all fast food is bad” some are pretty healthy even if they are less tasty. I think the real discussion is how addictive the trash foods are.

> I really don’t understand this “I don’t have a choice all fast food is bad” some are pretty healthy I agree with you, but when you factor in cost, availability, familiarity, and other psychological factors, you end up with people instinctively choosing really unhealthy options. There's an acculturation issue IMO. I grew up white trash, while my wife grew up wealthy in an Asian household. I cook lots of healthy food…

So you’re saying eating low quality food is a deeply ingrained habit because you grew up with a family that ate those foods. They are comfort foods.

That’s a really good point.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#99

Post by tombert »

jayd16 wrote: post #86
tombert wrote: post #25

In July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't ad…

Short of a kegeraror, one can develop a taste for tea or black coffee. As long as you don't put anything in it, it's basically zero calorie and trivial to prepare.

I tried, but I absolutely despise coffee. I think I'm really sensitive to the bitter compounds, I think it's vile even when I put a lot of sweetener in it, to a point where a small irrational part of me is kind of convinced that everyone who says they like it playing some kind of elaborate and expensive joke on me. Tea isn't as bad but I still dislike it.

That said, if you can develop a taste for coffee or tea, that's definitely the cheaper option.

Re: Why is the American diet so deadly?

#100

Post by Workaccount2 »

moojacob wrote: post #48
Workaccount2 wrote: post #20

I think a big part of the problem is that even prepared foods are packed with garbage. There are a lot of Americans who can't/don't cook mainly for time reasons, and instead eat lots of prepared foods, whether that be from restaurants, shops, or grocery stores. If you are not cooking it from scratch yourself, it is almost guaranteed to be brimming with fat, salt, and sugar. This is true regardless of the source. Whet…

Do you live near a Chipotle? Burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, and chicken for $8.50. I really don’t understand this “I don’t have a choice all fast food is bad” some are pretty healthy even if they are less tasty. I think the real discussion is how addictive the trash foods are.

That's kinda why I added in "unmodified", because you can often put in enough subtractive mods to make something meet the requirements.

The issue here though is that no place ever subtracts cost as you cut ingredients. Add extra bacon? +$1.75. Subtract bacon? -$0.00. Chipotle prices in you getting a bunch of extras off the bat.

So you end up getting bent over for trying to be health conscious. All the junk is already priced into the cost, so you become the sucker for leaving it out.

I personally cannot eat dairy, so every sandwich I get I still pay for the cheese, and every coffee I get I still have to pay for the oat milk (despite not getting any sugar or pumps or whatever). I could rant a lot about this, as my girlfriend knows well, hah

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