You Are What You're Tricked Into Eating 499
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Two prominent nutrition experts have put forth the theory that the current obesity epidemic is, in large part, the result of processed foods tricking our appetite control mechanisms. They argue that evolution has given humans a delicately balanced system that balances appetite with metabolic needs, and that processed foods trick that system by making foods high in fats and carbohydrates have the gustatory qualities of proteins. As the researchers put it, 'Many people eat far too much fat and carbohydrate in their attempt to consume enough protein.'"
Ass time (Score:0, Insightful)
It's sedentary living. You will never get millions to eat so little that they avoid obesity while watching screens 16 hours a day.
Imaging elaborate "processed" food conspiracies suits malcontents and justifies more laws and regulations so there we go.......
Poppycock (Score:0, Insightful)
It would turn out that many people eat far too much protein in their attempt to consume "enough" protein. Meat consumption is far higher than healthy, leading to arthritis and circulatory system problems.
In general, people in the "civilized" countries eat far too much, period. While it's nice to blame food consistency for it, it's just lack of movement and overavailability of food that's totally suitable for explaining the balance between effort and intake to be so far off-whack that evolutionary grown organisms are not able to cope reasonably long-term. For now.
But that's where things are pointing right now. Would an attractive woman rather mate with a 250lb 6ft2 well-off millionaire with some height/weight induced back problems exacerbated by the office hours holding up his empire demands, or with a 90lb 5ft2 marathon runner from Kenia? I mean, the latter looks like a stick figure. A bit frail to feel well=protected when around. He's probably just going to run away when there is a problem rather than wheeze threateningly.
Re:Ass time (Score:5, Insightful)
The food industry didn't need to conspire for that. It was just that the food that was cheaper while still tasting nearly as good sold better than the high quality one, and with enough processing and flavoring, the cheaper food actually tasted even better. If you want success in the market, you have to offer the prices and the tastes only processed, flavored food can offer. Providers of high quality foods with low processing just got outcompeted. That's the invisible hand of the market, combined with thousands of years of cooking experience: selling shit for food.
Re:lol (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, the parent post is trolling, but it's the best kind of troll - the truth. Too many people want to blame others for their faults. If you want to lose weight, eat less, eat better, and get off your ass more often.
Evolution has given humans the following: (Score:5, Insightful)
That's it. Humans with exactly this strategy were most likely to survive the periods of hunger that were very much normal until a few decades ago.
Of course, this strategy fails completely if food is always available and hunger periods never occur. Constant availability of food is a relatively new phenomenon, too new for humans to have adapted to it.
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
That can be good advice for individuals, but as health policy it's terrible. Humans are largely unable to resist their instincts for long by willpower alone - that's why abstinence-only education fails.
Re:lol (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not even good advice for individuals. On the basis that very few people who are overweight manage to make any lasting change to their weight with that advice.
A much more reasonable explanation is... (Score:5, Insightful)
... food companies have scientists working 24/7 to hack human tastebuds for profit.
Much of this problem simply comes down to the fact that bad food is engineered to taste better than natural food we found in our environment over evolutionary history. The problem is our bodies aren't designed to deal with this new food environment and hence obesity. The environment that kids are raised in by clueless over stressed parents and shitty school environments doesn't help either.
Last but not least, human beings are not free. Probably one of the biggest myths that go along with the myth of responsibility.
Sam harris on free will
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:Ass time (Score:1, Insightful)
You also need to live somewhere with access to those ingredients, have a high enough income that you can afford the ingredients, and a high enough income that you can afford to be not-working long enough to cook and eat them. There are thousands upon thousands of people too poor for all three. They don't live anywhere with access to fresh food ("food deserts"), can't afford to travel to where they could buy fresh food, couldn't afford the food itself even if they could get there, can't afford to take the time out of their multiple jobs to go even if they could afford it, and can't afford to to take the time off to cook or eat it.
Proteins are expensive, fat and carbs are cheap (Score:5, Insightful)
That's basically the deal here: It's way cheaper to squeeze out kibble made of carbs and fat rather than creating something that contains protein. Protein can be found in animal based food (fish, meat, eggs, cheese) or a few vegetables (mainly certain nuts and pulse). And neither of them is easy or cheap to cultivate in large quantity.
It is, though, fairly cheap to produce fat, especially since we found out how to turn dirt cheap crap fat into shortening. And carbohydrates are a staple for pretty much any culture in existence anyway, and we managed to perfect its production.
Fat and carbs, carbs and fat. We excel at producing them and we can do it for cents per ton. Ain't that easy for protein. So processed food will contain as much fat and carbohydrates and as little protein as we can get away with.
But our bodies are not fooled that easily. They know what stuff should be in our diet, and if you don't eat what you're "supposed" to eat, you'll stay hungry. Now the vicious cycle starts because we're hungry, so we eat. The wrong crap again, so we stay hungry.
A solution is probably only possible if we simply forgo processed food and actually start cooking and eating sensibly again. But, and this is the next problem, can we still afford that? You, me, we probably can. We have money to "waste" on internet access, obviously. But how about people who're not as well off? Can they?
Re:Ass time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh well (Score:2, Insightful)
tree's
This made me scream.
Re:Oh well (Score:4, Insightful)
Amusing. Trying to derail a thread about how capitalism is fucking up people's diets by blaming "leftists"?
THAT is what this thread is about? :)
I guess to a hammer, every problem is a nail... and to a sickle, every problem is a stalk of wheat.
Govt propoganda (Score:0, Insightful)
Read the link. "They qualify as "low-access communities", based on the determination that at least 500 persons and/or at least 33% of the census tract's population live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (10 miles, in the case of non-metropolitan census tracts)."
They're not "food deserts"; they're places that only have small grocery stores. This is all political bullshit. Of course places with high real estate prices don't have suburban supermarkets. However, a lot of these have bodegas that don't count, because that wouldn't support the political agenda. Yes, I live in a "food desert" and buy fresh food off the subway every day.
Ever priced healthful food out? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Oh well (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't eat the seeds and crap them out somewhere random, in an environment similar to the one the fruit tree was growing in, you're breaking your contract with the tree. Not very ethical.
Re:Oh well (Score:2, Insightful)
If you don't eat the seeds and crap them out somewhere random, in an environment similar to the one the fruit tree was growing in, you're breaking your contract with the tree. Not very ethical.
Whereas with livestock, we fulfill our side of the contract by providing them with food, water, protection from predators, and ensuring the survival of their offspring. They fulfill their side by being docile and delicious.
Re:Sugar (Score:4, Insightful)
Completely bullshit. I am sorry, the pineapple I get from the store tastes NOTHING like the pineapple I had fresh picked an hour earlier when I was in Chile. The strawberries I pick fresh from a local farm taste heavenly, the ones I get from a supermarket are extremely bland. It's because they pick the stuff when it isn't ripe (they have to), and it ripens either in delivery or on the shelf of the grocery store. It loses a lot of flavour when it doesn't ripen naturally on a tree. When you go to the produce section and see all green bananas that take a day or two to ripen taste nothing like a banana picked fully ripe off a tree in Ecuador.