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Modern processed food managed to increase our daily calories intake while decreasing the essential nutrients that we need. Malnutrition is becoming a problem ag

Modern processed food managed to increase our daily calories intake while decreasing the essential nutrients that we need. Malnutrition is becoming a problem again and worse, for the first time in history you can see overweight kids that are malnourished. And I disagree that the "western diet" has anything to do with our wins against malnutrition. > a diet lower in fibre and higher in protein, fat, and sugar can equally be found in China and Indonesia On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions? The normal diet in China and Indonesia is plant based. Yes, they eat a lot of rice, but that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flour that we call bread nowadays. And don't mistake the food that you can eat in your local Chinese restaurant to what the Chinese are actually eating. For example much of the food promoted in western Chinese restaurants (at least the ones where I've been) is unbelievably greasy and sweet. But guess what, the food being eaten in China is not sweet, sugar and soy sauce being used only sparingly in only some meat-based dishes, but that's not the norm. Also singling out one nutrient or another is reductionist science and represents everything that's wrong with western nutrition and health-care. Remember cholesterol? That was a fucking fiasco for which the medical community never apologized for. We need more Omega-3? Sure, put some in the supermarket sliced bread. Does our food have so much high-fructose corn syrup or other corn derived substances in it, that we can effectively be called the corn people? Oh, point to the Chinese for also eating sweat stuff. Do the French eat saturated fats and wash it with wine? Call it a paradox.

mc32 11y ago
A lot of people in China, maybe not Japan, but China eat from street vendors, it's cheap and tasty, and yrs very sweet and greasy, alternatively salty and greasy. You can buy more expensive food at restaurants etc where things can be better, but few people, in my experience actually cooked at home. Just too busy. YMMV.
jzwinck 11y ago
> On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions? > And don't mistake the food that you can eat in your local Chinese restaurant to what the Chinese are actually eating. I live in Asia. My local Chinese restaurants are Chinese, and if I want Indonesian food I can eat it in Indonesia. I should have given a shout out to Thailand as well, where sugar is put in lots of things you wouldn't expect, like fresh fruit juice. I suppose you can call Indonesian meals "plant based" when they largely consist of a heap of white rice, but I defy you to find the plants in the ever popular "bakso" and Indomie.
wdewind 11y ago
> that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flour that we call bread nowadays. On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions?
- jff 11y ago
  What basis? "Asians wise, Westerners dumb"
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
> Chinese are actually eating. Considering how popular street vendors are and crappy restaurants, who have been caught using gutter oil, well, China may not be the miraculous country of healthy eaters you think it is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/you-may-never-eat-street-food-in-china-again-after-watching-this-video/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28... Fried foods and obesity are huge concerns in China right now: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/feb/12/chinas-body-mass-time-bomb-policymakers-tackling-rising-obesity http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-... Chinese kids are almost as fat as American kids: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/as-obesity-rises-chinese-kids-are-almost-as-fat-as-americans/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/as-obesity-ris... "The country is now No. 2 for obesity, with its number of obese residents outstripped only by the U.S. Its obesity rate has skyrocketed over the last three decades, resulting in 46 million obese Chinese adults and 300 million who are overweight" They have more overweight people than the US has people! >Modern processed food managed to increase our daily calories intake while decreasing the essential nutrients that we need. This sounds like bullshit that falls into the nostalgia of the past fallacy.
- giardini 11y ago
  "Chinese kids are almost as fat as American kids:" Likely because for centuries Chinese believed that "a fat child is a healthy child". Some children are almost force-fed from infancy to early teens. Often only then does the _child_ realize there is a problem. Encouragement to eat is ubiquitous in the Chinese culture. A "hearty appetite" is always considered a good thing, regardless of age or obesity. It may require two generations to nullify this Chinese traditional belief.
mmorris 11y ago
>> The normal diet in China and Indonesia is plant based. Speaking of a group of about 1.6 billion people as if they were a monolith is not particularly productive. Just looking at China itself, there is huge variation in the "average" diets between different provinces (e.g., Shanghainese dishes tend to be sweeter, Sichuanese dryer and spicier, etc.). And even at that provincial level it's kind of silly to lump everyone into a single average.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Couldn't this criticism be said of the grandparent as well, who lumped all of China (and other countries) together in one statement?
  - mmorris 11y ago
    I think it's the specific phrasing that becomes problematic. The GP said "can equally be found in China and Indonesia", which means that there are individuals with said diets in the those countries. This is categorically either true or false. The parent discussed the diet of these huge countries as if they were consistent across all (or even most) individuals. In my opinion, this becomes highly subjective very fast. Granted, this argument is pretty pedantic, and the threshold which determines when a group is too large to discuss as a single unit is squishy and highly contextual.
- dghughes 11y ago
  I find it funny when people see China as a single country imagine if someone referred to Europe with all its cultures as a single culture who all ate the same thing. Now picture China with probably 5,000 years of culture must be immensely more diverse.
  - muddyrivers 11y ago
    Exactly. I am kind of annoyed when people assume I speak Cantonese simply because I am Chinese. Cantonese speakers only constitute 5% of total Chinese population. Nobody assume if you are European, then you speak Italian.
TheCraiggers 11y ago
> On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions? The normal diet in China and Indonesia is plant based. Yes, they eat a lot of rice, but that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flower that we call bread nowadays. Likewise, I'd ask you what data you used to arrive at your conclusion that rice is healthier for you than bread? A quick googling of white rice vs white bread told me the exact opposite, or at best, that they were relatively equal. Other colors compared similarly, assuming I kept them similar. The terms "rice" and "bread" are way too generic to compare, really.
- jack9 11y ago
  > Likewise, I'd ask you what data you used to arrive at your conclusion that rice is healthier for you than bread? There was no conclusion to question. You created a false equivalence because there's an assumption that one MUST be better than the other. That presumption is what the original post questioned. There was no "conclusion"/assertion that flour > rice.
  - TheCraiggers 11y ago
    > There was no "conclusion"/assertion that flour > rice. In your original post, you say "... but that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flower that we call bread nowadays." So, perhaps not a conclusion, but an assertion then. Semantics aside, I believe a statement like that should be backed up by data, and I've been unable to find any data that backs up your claim. So again, I ask to know what you're basing that assertion on.
SolaceQuantum 11y ago
I'm actually Chinese and can attest against this. A huge chunk of China relies on wheat as is main grain in the form of noodles, dumplings and steamed buns. White flour is typical for this. Where my family is from, we can't afford much more to flavor our dishes than salt, sugar, vinegar, soy, garlic and maybe something spicy. I literally don't know what you're talking about, as a Chinese person. Health in China has been getting bad. The reason obesity and other statistics were low compared to other places is because China is very big and there are many places where people are only a generation from starving subsistence farmers.
LordKano 11y ago
And I disagree that the "western diet" has anything to do with our wins against malnutrition. Western technological advancements have pretty much everything to do with our wins against malnutrition. Without question, there are still far too many hungry people in the world. Chronic persistent hunger is an enormous problem that will be difficult to overcome but these people aren't hungry because there isn't enough food. There's food aplenty, we haven't been able to come up with a system for providing it to everyone in adequate amounts.

mc32 11y ago

A lot of people in China, maybe not Japan, but China eat from street vendors, it's cheap and tasty, and yrs very sweet and greasy, alternatively salty and greasy. You can buy more expensive food at restaurants etc where things can be better, but few people, in my experience actually cooked at home. Just too busy. YMMV.

jzwinck 11y ago

> On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions? > And don't mistake the food that you can eat in your local Chinese restaurant to what the Chinese are actually eating. I live in Asia. My local Chinese restaurants are Chinese, and if I want Indonesian food I can eat it in Indonesia. I should have given a shout out to Thailand as well, where sugar is put in lots of things you wouldn't expect, like fresh fruit juice. I suppose you can call Indonesian meals "plant based" when they largely consist of a heap of white rice, but I defy you to find the plants in the ever popular "bakso" and Indomie.

wdewind 11y ago

> that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flour that we call bread nowadays. On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions?

jff 11y ago
What basis? "Asians wise, Westerners dumb"

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

> Chinese are actually eating. Considering how popular street vendors are and crappy restaurants, who have been caught using gutter oil, well, China may not be the miraculous country of healthy eaters you think it is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/you-may-never-eat-street-food-in-china-again-after-watching-this-video/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28... Fried foods and obesity are huge concerns in China right now: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/feb/12/chinas-body-mass-time-bomb-policymakers-tackling-rising-obesity http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-... Chinese kids are almost as fat as American kids: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/as-obesity-rises-chinese-kids-are-almost-as-fat-as-americans/ http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/29/as-obesity-ris... "The country is now No. 2 for obesity, with its number of obese residents outstripped only by the U.S. Its obesity rate has skyrocketed over the last three decades, resulting in 46 million obese Chinese adults and 300 million who are overweight" They have more overweight people than the US has people! >Modern processed food managed to increase our daily calories intake while decreasing the essential nutrients that we need. This sounds like bullshit that falls into the nostalgia of the past fallacy.

giardini 11y ago
"Chinese kids are almost as fat as American kids:" Likely because for centuries Chinese believed that "a fat child is a healthy child". Some children are almost force-fed from infancy to early teens. Often only then does the _child_ realize there is a problem. Encouragement to eat is ubiquitous in the Chinese culture. A "hearty appetite" is always considered a good thing, regardless of age or obesity. It may require two generations to nullify this Chinese traditional belief.

mmorris 11y ago

>> The normal diet in China and Indonesia is plant based. Speaking of a group of about 1.6 billion people as if they were a monolith is not particularly productive. Just looking at China itself, there is huge variation in the "average" diets between different provinces (e.g., Shanghainese dishes tend to be sweeter, Sichuanese dryer and spicier, etc.). And even at that provincial level it's kind of silly to lump everyone into a single average.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Couldn't this criticism be said of the grandparent as well, who lumped all of China (and other countries) together in one statement?
- mmorris 11y ago
  I think it's the specific phrasing that becomes problematic. The GP said "can equally be found in China and Indonesia", which means that there are individuals with said diets in the those countries. This is categorically either true or false. The parent discussed the diet of these huge countries as if they were consistent across all (or even most) individuals. In my opinion, this becomes highly subjective very fast. Granted, this argument is pretty pedantic, and the threshold which determines when a group is too large to discuss as a single unit is squishy and highly contextual.
dghughes 11y ago
I find it funny when people see China as a single country imagine if someone referred to Europe with all its cultures as a single culture who all ate the same thing. Now picture China with probably 5,000 years of culture must be immensely more diverse.
- muddyrivers 11y ago
  Exactly. I am kind of annoyed when people assume I speak Cantonese simply because I am Chinese. Cantonese speakers only constitute 5% of total Chinese population. Nobody assume if you are European, then you speak Italian.

TheCraiggers 11y ago

> On what basis have you arrived to those conclusions? The normal diet in China and Indonesia is plant based. Yes, they eat a lot of rice, but that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flower that we call bread nowadays. Likewise, I'd ask you what data you used to arrive at your conclusion that rice is healthier for you than bread? A quick googling of white rice vs white bread told me the exact opposite, or at best, that they were relatively equal. Other colors compared similarly, assuming I kept them similar. The terms "rice" and "bread" are way too generic to compare, really.

jack9 11y ago
> Likewise, I'd ask you what data you used to arrive at your conclusion that rice is healthier for you than bread? There was no conclusion to question. You created a false equivalence because there's an assumption that one MUST be better than the other. That presumption is what the original post questioned. There was no "conclusion"/assertion that flour > rice.
- TheCraiggers 11y ago
  > There was no "conclusion"/assertion that flour > rice. In your original post, you say "... but that rice is much more healthy than the vitamin-fortified substance made out of bleached, white flower that we call bread nowadays." So, perhaps not a conclusion, but an assertion then. Semantics aside, I believe a statement like that should be backed up by data, and I've been unable to find any data that backs up your claim. So again, I ask to know what you're basing that assertion on.

SolaceQuantum 11y ago

I'm actually Chinese and can attest against this. A huge chunk of China relies on wheat as is main grain in the form of noodles, dumplings and steamed buns. White flour is typical for this. Where my family is from, we can't afford much more to flavor our dishes than salt, sugar, vinegar, soy, garlic and maybe something spicy. I literally don't know what you're talking about, as a Chinese person. Health in China has been getting bad. The reason obesity and other statistics were low compared to other places is because China is very big and there are many places where people are only a generation from starving subsistence farmers.

LordKano 11y ago

And I disagree that the "western diet" has anything to do with our wins against malnutrition. Western technological advancements have pretty much everything to do with our wins against malnutrition. Without question, there are still far too many hungry people in the world. Chronic persistent hunger is an enormous problem that will be difficult to overcome but these people aren't hungry because there isn't enough food. There's food aplenty, we haven't been able to come up with a system for providing it to everyone in adequate amounts.