3 ms·

The big surprise for me is how little things have changed when viewed in this manner. The majority of the diet is taken up by the things in the top row, and th

The big surprise for me is how little things have changed when viewed in this manner. The majority of the diet is taken up by the things in the top row, and those haven't changed as dramatically as I had assumed. In my mind there was this exponential explosion in sugar since the 70s, but the big change seems to be the drop in consumption of whole milk.

brianwawok 10y ago
The infusion of food as science is not represented in the chart. For example people eating boiled corn 30 years ago vs Doritos 10 years ago.. both would show up as "corn".
- nacs 10y ago
  Yes I was surprised at the "Potatoes" amount being so high and was thinking people couldn't possibly be consuming that much mashed potatoes at home then realized this probably included French-fries that are included with every meal from the majority of fast-food vendors.
CompelTechnic 10y ago
I tend to wonder if the demonization of fat harmed diets more than it did any good. Whole milk getting substituted out means more carbs getting substituted into the average diet.
ikawe 10y ago
At first I assumed this meant we were eating significantly less dairy, but it seems most of the loss in whole milk was just cannibalized by lower fat milk, coinciding with the low fat craze. Edit: Actually, on actually doing some math, there is a substantial decrease in overall milk consumption. It's just hard for me to visually account for this since there is so much shuffling between the categories. sum_milk= ->(Whole Milk + 2pct Milk + 1pct Milk + Skim Milk) sum_milk(1970)=.91 cups sum_milk(1990)=.74 cups sum_milk(2013)=.53 cups
Evgeny 10y ago
In my mind there was this exponential explosion in sugar since the 70s It was probably not so exponential, it's more like an increased intake of everything. ERS data show that on average, US adults consumed 363 more calories per day in 2009 than we did in 1960. The extra calories are coming from carbohydrate, fat, and protein, and increased intake of all three tightly correlate with increased obesity prevalence. In other words, we're eating more of everything than we did 50 years ago. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.dk/2014/04/calorie-intake-and-us-obesity-epidemic.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.dk/2014/04/calorie-intake-...

brianwawok 10y ago

The infusion of food as science is not represented in the chart. For example people eating boiled corn 30 years ago vs Doritos 10 years ago.. both would show up as "corn".

nacs 10y ago
Yes I was surprised at the "Potatoes" amount being so high and was thinking people couldn't possibly be consuming that much mashed potatoes at home then realized this probably included French-fries that are included with every meal from the majority of fast-food vendors.

CompelTechnic 10y ago

I tend to wonder if the demonization of fat harmed diets more than it did any good. Whole milk getting substituted out means more carbs getting substituted into the average diet.

ikawe 10y ago

At first I assumed this meant we were eating significantly less dairy, but it seems most of the loss in whole milk was just cannibalized by lower fat milk, coinciding with the low fat craze. Edit: Actually, on actually doing some math, there is a substantial decrease in overall milk consumption. It's just hard for me to visually account for this since there is so much shuffling between the categories. sum_milk= ->(Whole Milk + 2pct Milk + 1pct Milk + Skim Milk) sum_milk(1970)=.91 cups sum_milk(1990)=.74 cups sum_milk(2013)=.53 cups

Evgeny 10y ago

In my mind there was this exponential explosion in sugar since the 70s It was probably not so exponential, it's more like an increased intake of everything. ERS data show that on average, US adults consumed 363 more calories per day in 2009 than we did in 1960. The extra calories are coming from carbohydrate, fat, and protein, and increased intake of all three tightly correlate with increased obesity prevalence. In other words, we're eating more of everything than we did 50 years ago. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.dk/2014/04/calorie-intake-and-us-obesity-epidemic.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.dk/2014/04/calorie-intake-...