8 ms·

I agree, the macros look sort of the same, but the source of those calories is much different. Just the types of cooking oil we use has changed a lot. Look at

by com2kid 11y ago

I agree, the macros look sort of the same, but the source of those calories is much different. Just the types of cooking oil we use has changed a lot. Look at what goes into cookies now. It used to be butter, now I've seen recipes with canola oil. (if anyone tells you to use canola oil in your baked goods, ignore them and use butter!) There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. I am sort of on the fence about processed foods. A lot of canned food was eaten previously, fresh vegetables were not available year round, but a lot of the canning was done at home in glass jars. I am not one to be paranoid, but now all our canned food comes in coated aluminum cans. We have a few decades of aluminum cans being coated on the inside with BPA. It is know known that BPA can have harmful effects that take a long time to manifest. The point is, there are a lot of potential culprits, and it is going to take a long time to figure out what state unbridled capitalism has left public health in.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorders. I wonder if anyone has done genome sequencing of gut bacteria to determine if its one of the primary causes of America's obesity problems. "One woman suffering recurrent C. difficile infection was recently successfully treated with this procedure, but interestingly, she also rapidly went from normal weight to becoming obese after receiving the transplant. While the weight gain could be due to a variety of factors, the donor was also overweight, and the recipient had never struggled with her weight before. Researchers are therefore speculating whether something in the transplant could have played a role in her weight gain, and have described the intriguing case in Open Forum Infectious Diseases." http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature07540.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature0... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/
- peteretep 11y ago
  > one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Stuff's ridiculously loaded with sugar. I stopped eating sugar for a few months on a whim. It's rather difficult to do so. Everything just pointlessly has loads of it. Even trying to use no-calorie sweeteners is difficult as some places like to tout how natural they are. I went back to eating sugar but I can no longer stomach a lot of foods I would happily have eaten before. Everything is so sweet.
    - peteretep 11y ago
      The sugar's not pointless - it's a cheap and effective way to make low-fat food taste good. I gave up sugar (well, candy, anything that had refined sugar added, most fruit) for four months. I lost a lot of fat quickly, but it was exceptionally hard from a willpower perspective, and I'd get a massive high when I accidentally ate sweetened food. I'd love to give it up again, but my self discipline is currently needed elsewhere...
      - MichaelGG 11y ago
        Is sugar that much cheaper than aspartame, sucralose, erythritol, or other fake sweeteners? I found that chewing on erythitol-based bars (Quest) sorta satisfied most of my need to eat sweets. I suppose it's a bit of an arms race: keep adding sweetness to add a bit more flavour and soon we're escalated so far up the sweetness chain with no commercially viable way to back down.
        peteretep 11y ago
        I believe that high-fructose corn syrup is, because of subsidies.
tracker1 11y ago
I think this is spot on, and came to comment likewise... I think the types of product we are using for our macros is way off base from even a few decades ago. I only had a little glimpse of how much so because I know someone very allergic to soy, and it's in almost everything these days. I don't think that most things in particular are necessarily bad for you, but it might be worth taking a few steps back and switch to less processed foods... I don't think organic makes much of a difference for most foods (aside from berries)... But using oils that have to be heavily refined, perfumed and dyed to make them palatable doesn't make so much sense. There's also recent studies on the affects of artificial sweeteners on digestion, trans fats and a bunch of other stuff. I think the push towards vegetarianism, low-fat, low-carb, etc as fads combined with industrialization of food has done a lot of harm to the public. If you're young and relatively healthy, avoid processed/refined foods as much as possible, eat a variety of things and don't consume too many calories on a weekly average, and you should be okay. I'm 40, diabetic, insulin resistant, and wish I'd received that advice when I was younger. I just think it sucks how much it really costs to actually cook for yourself... over the weekend I made 3 different pots of soup to have this week. I had some chuck roast that I braised in beef broth (store bought), used the roast in a menudo inspired soup (I don't like tripe), the braising liquid was combined with mushrooms and onions for another soup... I used the left over carcase from a roasted chicken to make another broth that I then used to make vichyssoise (sub some potato with cauliflower and parsnips). All told it cost about $160 for everything with about a gallon each of three soups... breakdown to 2-cup servings comes out to just under $7 a serving for a low-gl diet with a variety of veggies... That doesn't count adding other protein in my diet too. Now make it a family of 4-5 and that budget is too high for families making under 40-60K/year. It's no wonder that boxed mac & cheese, hamburger helper and the like rule the roost at home along with the dollar menu at fast food places. With all the heavily refined, packaged, canned, frozen and just plain overly processed food that we all consume too much of, is it any wonder why we as a society are experiencing the problems we are? I don't know how well supported it would be, but would really love to see food/nutrition/cooking as a core material in elementary schools... Actually bringing cooking into school lunches with a required prep rotation for all students would go a long way. It would cost more than those programs do today, but is using subsidy trades to turn chickens into chicken nuggets for school lunches really a good thing?
tolmasky 11y ago
> The point is, there are a lot of potential culprits, and it is going to take a long time to figure out what state unbridled capitalism has left public health in. Or the state public regulation has left public health in, such as the war on fat and the subsidies on corn. I think what's best is to try to continue research in this area and try really hard to not declare that we've figured it all out yet again and throw the food pendulum in another random direction for the next x years.
maxerickson 11y ago
Most food cans are steel. And the liners contain a small amount of BPA, they are not composed of it. I agree that people shouldn't shy away from butter, cookies should be an indulgence and the type of fat shouldn't be a big deal, but canola oil is probably a better choice in general than corn or soy oil (that is, it's better than "vegetable oil").
kale 11y ago
I'm in the United States, and I don't know if I've ever seen an aluminum food can here. All of the Campbells Soup Cans, Canned vegetables, etc, are in steel cans. They are usually coated with a polymer that can break down into nasty things if it's heated, though. I found that out after heating many meals in the can over a campfire.

by com2kid 11y ago

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> There is evidence that gut bacteria is passed down from generation to generation, we could very well be seeing a delayed effect from public policy and health decisions made around the time the previous generation was growing up. oops. This is something that doesn't get mentioned enough. Your gut bacteria play a large role in your health, and we're going so far as to do fecal transplants to resolve GI tract disorders. I wonder if anyone has done genome sequencing of gut bacteria to determine if its one of the primary causes of America's obesity problems. "One woman suffering recurrent C. difficile infection was recently successfully treated with this procedure, but interestingly, she also rapidly went from normal weight to becoming obese after receiving the transplant. While the weight gain could be due to a variety of factors, the donor was also overweight, and the recipient had never struggled with her weight before. Researchers are therefore speculating whether something in the transplant could have played a role in her weight gain, and have described the intriguing case in Open Forum Infectious Diseases." http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-... http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature07540.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7228/full/nature0... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1176910/

peteretep 11y ago
> one of the primary causes of America's obesity > problems. As any European who's spent time in the US can tell you, a dramatically simpler explanation is that portion sizes are enormous and many foods are "low fat" which mean they're loaded with sugar.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Stuff's ridiculously loaded with sugar. I stopped eating sugar for a few months on a whim. It's rather difficult to do so. Everything just pointlessly has loads of it. Even trying to use no-calorie sweeteners is difficult as some places like to tout how natural they are. I went back to eating sugar but I can no longer stomach a lot of foods I would happily have eaten before. Everything is so sweet.
  - peteretep 11y ago
    The sugar's not pointless - it's a cheap and effective way to make low-fat food taste good. I gave up sugar (well, candy, anything that had refined sugar added, most fruit) for four months. I lost a lot of fat quickly, but it was exceptionally hard from a willpower perspective, and I'd get a massive high when I accidentally ate sweetened food. I'd love to give it up again, but my self discipline is currently needed elsewhere...
    - MichaelGG 11y ago
      Is sugar that much cheaper than aspartame, sucralose, erythritol, or other fake sweeteners? I found that chewing on erythitol-based bars (Quest) sorta satisfied most of my need to eat sweets. I suppose it's a bit of an arms race: keep adding sweetness to add a bit more flavour and soon we're escalated so far up the sweetness chain with no commercially viable way to back down.
      - peteretep 11y ago
        I believe that high-fructose corn syrup is, because of subsidies.

tracker1 11y ago

I think this is spot on, and came to comment likewise... I think the types of product we are using for our macros is way off base from even a few decades ago. I only had a little glimpse of how much so because I know someone very allergic to soy, and it's in almost everything these days. I don't think that most things in particular are necessarily bad for you, but it might be worth taking a few steps back and switch to less processed foods... I don't think organic makes much of a difference for most foods (aside from berries)... But using oils that have to be heavily refined, perfumed and dyed to make them palatable doesn't make so much sense. There's also recent studies on the affects of artificial sweeteners on digestion, trans fats and a bunch of other stuff. I think the push towards vegetarianism, low-fat, low-carb, etc as fads combined with industrialization of food has done a lot of harm to the public. If you're young and relatively healthy, avoid processed/refined foods as much as possible, eat a variety of things and don't consume too many calories on a weekly average, and you should be okay. I'm 40, diabetic, insulin resistant, and wish I'd received that advice when I was younger. I just think it sucks how much it really costs to actually cook for yourself... over the weekend I made 3 different pots of soup to have this week. I had some chuck roast that I braised in beef broth (store bought), used the roast in a menudo inspired soup (I don't like tripe), the braising liquid was combined with mushrooms and onions for another soup... I used the left over carcase from a roasted chicken to make another broth that I then used to make vichyssoise (sub some potato with cauliflower and parsnips). All told it cost about $160 for everything with about a gallon each of three soups... breakdown to 2-cup servings comes out to just under $7 a serving for a low-gl diet with a variety of veggies... That doesn't count adding other protein in my diet too. Now make it a family of 4-5 and that budget is too high for families making under 40-60K/year. It's no wonder that boxed mac & cheese, hamburger helper and the like rule the roost at home along with the dollar menu at fast food places. With all the heavily refined, packaged, canned, frozen and just plain overly processed food that we all consume too much of, is it any wonder why we as a society are experiencing the problems we are? I don't know how well supported it would be, but would really love to see food/nutrition/cooking as a core material in elementary schools... Actually bringing cooking into school lunches with a required prep rotation for all students would go a long way. It would cost more than those programs do today, but is using subsidy trades to turn chickens into chicken nuggets for school lunches really a good thing?

tolmasky 11y ago

> The point is, there are a lot of potential culprits, and it is going to take a long time to figure out what state unbridled capitalism has left public health in. Or the state public regulation has left public health in, such as the war on fat and the subsidies on corn. I think what's best is to try to continue research in this area and try really hard to not declare that we've figured it all out yet again and throw the food pendulum in another random direction for the next x years.

maxerickson 11y ago

Most food cans are steel. And the liners contain a small amount of BPA, they are not composed of it. I agree that people shouldn't shy away from butter, cookies should be an indulgence and the type of fat shouldn't be a big deal, but canola oil is probably a better choice in general than corn or soy oil (that is, it's better than "vegetable oil").

kale 11y ago

I'm in the United States, and I don't know if I've ever seen an aluminum food can here. All of the Campbells Soup Cans, Canned vegetables, etc, are in steel cans. They are usually coated with a polymer that can break down into nasty things if it's heated, though. I found that out after heating many meals in the can over a campfire.