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Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

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Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#941

Post by bean469 »

borroka wrote: post #864

There is a mix of culture and food at play here. Most people, left to their own devices, without cultural pressure, are lazy, unproductive, and slovenly. We can see that with food: as soon as the shaming of people for being fat weakened, as it happened primarily in the US and then in the Western world at large, people started to indulge without guardrails. We can see that with clothing and appearance: people started…

> We can see that with clothing and appearance: people started to dress slovenly, preferring comfort to being presentable and well-put together.

I know a 21 year old dude who dresses like he's from the 50s, suit, hat and all. He looks extremely presentable and is the biggest compliment machine that I know!

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#942

Post by sfn42 »

onefootincode wrote: post #940
mmooss wrote: post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always a fair request. I don't know it well enough or have time at the moment, but afaik it's the medical consensus: Obesity is a disease, (mostly) not a result of behavior. Eating less and/or more activity doesn't cure people; iirc bodies adjust to retain the same amount of fat, etc. under the new conditions.

It is a disease as in “your metabolism is slow” so you need to cut food even more. It is a disease as “you have problem with controlling your impulses and therefore crave food” Psychological diseases are not better or worse from psychical/metabolic ones. They are real, and for some of them we have or we develop medicine. Nobody is claiming that obesity can’t be a result of a disease, but under the hood it always ends…

Slow metabolism is a bit of a myth. By that I mean that it's not strictly wrong to say someone has a slow metabolism, but metabolism is an expression of your activity level so what you're really saying is the person is sedentary. If the person starts being more active their metabolism will necessarily increase.

So, slow metabolism is not a disease, it's not a genetic disorder, it is simply a result of the fact that someone is spending too much time on the couch.

I think this gets lost a lot when people talk about "slow metabolism", they turn it into this thing they're just helpless to influence, like they're just cursed with a slow metabolism and that's that. It's not like that at all, which is why I don't like the term. It just hides the reality of the situation.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#943

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

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.

This didn't happen in a vaccum.

The tobacco companies like RJR, packed with scientiests researching how to make cigarrettes more addictive, were trojaned into mass food companies like Nabisco [1]

It should not be a surprise that there's been a relentless pursuit of addictive food ever since.

[1] https://legalclarity.org/inside-the-rjr-nabisco-leveraged-bu...

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#944

Post by machomaster »

Aurornis wrote: post #829
machomaster wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat is really not that expensive compared to even simple vegetables. Most simple salads are actually more expensive than chicken (boneless thighs, ground meat) per kg! If you compare the price per kcal, as one really should, the difference becomes absurd.

> Most simple salads are actually more expensive than chicken (boneless thighs, ground meat) per kg! There are more food options than meat or salads. Citing salads and leafy greens as the alternative to meat is a common strawman, but there are more food options than those two extremes.

Maraconi and potatoes are cheaper, I grant you that.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#945

Post by S_Bear »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #885
joshocar wrote: post #792

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 realit…

I think the main problem with online recipes is that there's a lot of stuff that "cooks" and "people who cook" learn that carries over VERY STRONGLY from dish to dish that is just totally absent from online tutorials. Things like what done (but not dried out) chicken looks like, and how to position chicken in a pan so the thicker parts get more heat, and why your chicken went right from "looks plain" to burned with n…

For all the effort we put into science education, cooking is applied science we do every day. We should start in elementary school and keep at it through high school, in my opinion.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#946

Post by xnx »

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.

> engineered so that you want to eat a lot of them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperpalatable_food

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#947

Post by xnx »

m463 wrote: post #890
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.…

Processed food is easy, tasty (in a shallow way) and more available than the alternatives. I think the real problem is that it's hard to give up "easy" when so many things vie for time and attention in the US.

> Processed food is easy, tasty (in a shallow way) and more available than the alternatives.

Fiber is also removed so you can eat faster (less chewing) and don't feel satiated.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#948

Post by indymike »

phkahler wrote: post #175
brianpbeau wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just processed foods, there is also a genetic struggle as well. Looking at my family living in the US and in the EU, being overweight is a thing for a large portion of us. Even in my grandparents generation of family had issues as well, and they were all blue collar manual workers that lived before processed foods. This is not to say you are wrong. The food supply in the US is not healthy. The bad news is th…

>> It's not just processed foods, there is also a genetic struggle as well. Looking at my family living in the US and in the EU, being overweight is a thing for a large portion of us. It's not genetic, this is just your family refusing to take responsibility for their own eating habits. The proof is people who have bariatric surgery so that they can't eat as much, and people on GLP 1 drugs so they aren't hungry. Both…

> fact that you put too much food in your mouth (and probably the wrong kind of food)

I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes five years ago. I radically changed my diet to a hard keto diet with a cap of 50g of net carbohydrate per day (carbs - fiber = net carbs). My caloric intake quadrupled due to fats being high calorie. My weight dropped by 48 pounds. In every measurement, I'm healthier despite being older. My diet is also expensive and difficult:

Most foods in the us are high in carbohydrate. Cereals, added sugars, fake sugar free (sugar alcohol instead of sugar), and foods that have lots of integrated carbs... sandwiches, tortillas, etc. There's a huge preference for bad foods baked into the culture. It's hard to eat well. So culture is as much of a problem as any other factor.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#949

Post by subpixel »

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…

It’s a fact that drugs affect people very differently. There’s a big difference between “I must drink” and “I want to drink more”. My affliction is the latter and a far, far lesser burden than the former. Though one that can still fuck you up.

Re: Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy

#950

Post by subpixel »

riffraff wrote: post #699
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.…

Congrats and good luck! If I may ask, do you think you will be able to cope with the lack of willpower once you stop taking the drug? I don't want to sound dismissive or argumentative, I'm asking out of pure curiosity, forgive me if I sound negative, I'm rooting for people who try to improve their health.

Time will tell. I have experience losing weight but could never lose 10lbs - my goal is at least 20. And I have experience taking and tapering off other medication.

I also play sports and work out and am making time for those pursuits - literally calendering workouts as opposed to maybe sometimes doing it.

In years prior the stakes were pretty low. My last bloodwork was a wake up call. I’m optimistic I can stay where I want to be once I get there.

I’m more concerned about alcohol, and falling back into the habit of saying yes to that weird desire to have a drink at 6pm on a Tuesday that turns into a few more.

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