5 ms·

It's worth noting that "lifestyle" decisions, are mostly not decisions. They're based on the systemic implications of a person's class, wealth, and status. If a

It's worth noting that "lifestyle" decisions, are mostly not decisions. They're based on the systemic implications of a person's class, wealth, and status. If a person has more time, and money, and is of a high-enough class, they will be better educated on self-care and health, will have the time to devote to continually ensuring good health, and will have the money to afford high-quality food and activities. Diabetes is a disease of poverty, not of character failure.

jfritsch1984 7y ago
Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. The problem is education and motivation. I think diabetes is more a disease of affluence. When you can buy twinkies and pork chops you're not actually poor. When you are really poor you eat rice and beans and some vegetables you grow for yourself. And then you don't have diabetes typically. Disclaimer: Not every T2D is purely from a bad diet. But many are.
- Arubis 7y ago
  When you’re sufficiently poor and live in a society that insists that you work to qualify for benefits, you absolutely do not have time to cook healthy meals. Prepared, junky food is a staple.
  - jfritsch1984 7y ago
    If you are well informed you could just cook once a week and eat that. I do that on the weekend with my family of five and it's quite a nice ritual. We cook rice and potatoes, put beans and sauce on top. And then put it in 20 containers for the week. I can prepare these meals within 2 minutes with a microwave. Breakfast is basically the same every day: Oat meal with some fruits. In the evening we eat bread with spread (which we also make on the weekend). I would say we spend way less on food than your typical American. It's really THAT cheap. Also we have a lot of food for CoViD-19 as we store a lot of food in our cellar all year around (lentils, whole oats, canned beans, etc.). Ah, and we are not poor in any way. I'm among top 5% in Germany. I think it's just healthy and sustainable (for the same reason we don't own a car).
    - flexblue 7y ago
      Without any further context, this is most likely not a healthy diet. You're certainly missing out on B vitamins and heme iron due to lack of meat and likely have a poor Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio due to the use of plant oils over other fats. Just a guess. You also probably get way too much sugar from sugary fruits which you overindulge in because your diet otherwise is so "healthy". Instead of soft drinks you have fruit juices, which have effectively the same amount of sugar. Again, just a guess. You probably got your nutrition advice from ideologically based publications, or you're just "winging it" based on what makes sense to you, in which case you're likely going to be wrong as well.
      - jfritsch1984 7y ago
        I did my research. Also I tracked my nutrition with Cronometer in the first weeks. Not a single day did I miss on B-vitamins. Heme iron is associated with disease in all major studies. I don‘t see a reason to ingest it. I have a great O3/O6 ratio. I don‘t use oil at all and avoid foods that are filled with plant oils. My breakfast contains lots of flax seeds. Our usual foods contain hemp seeds. All good sources of O3. And all without pollutants from fish. I get a lot of information from nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger offers free information as in free beer. No ads, no sponsors, even the earnings from his books are given to charity. I highly recommend you check him out. He certainly has his biases but still way less than most other doctors.
        flexblue 7y ago
        > I did my research. Also I tracked my nutrition with Cronometer in the first weeks. Not a single day did I miss on B-vitamins. If you didn't have any animal foods, you're going to be missing out on B-vitamins, because of low bioavailability[1]. > Heme iron is associated with disease in all major studies. I don‘t see a reason to ingest it. An excess of many essential nutrients and vitamins is associated with disease, that doesn't mean you should cut them out. Non-heme iron is way less bioavailable, especially in combination with plant antinutrients[2], so you can end up iron-deficient. > I have a great O3/O6 ratio. I don‘t use oil at all and avoid foods that are filled with plant oils. You probably should be using oil, just not plant oils. > My breakfast contains lots of flax seeds. Our usual foods contain hemp seeds. All good sources of O3. Unfortunately not, because those sources also have low bio-availability. > And all without pollutants from fish. Pollutants are unfortunate, but when it comes to nutrition, you have to pick your poisen. Salmon roe is a good source of Omega 3 that is low in pollutants. > I get a lot of information from nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger offers free information as in free beer. No ads, no sponsors, even the earnings from his books are given to charity. I highly recommend you check him out. He certainly has his biases but still way less than most other doctors. A plant-based diet is ideology that is cherry-picking and misrepresenting some insights of nutrition science while sweeping others under the rug. With his exaggerated claims[4], Greger isn't any more credible than certain people on "the other side". [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2843032 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2843032 [2] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1461S/4597424 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1461S/4597424 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24261532 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24261532 [4] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-by-veganism/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illnes...
  - pengaru 7y ago
    This is nonsense, you don't even need to cook anything at all to eat healthy from the grocery store. You just have to get off your ass and actually go buy perishable fresh groceries regularly and plan for the week ahead. Laziness and convenience prevails. If it's a lack of time, then it's a lack of time to even hit the grocery store. Which depending on where you live, if it's a food desert situation, may be valid.
- flexblue 7y ago
  > Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. This isn't true, at least in the US. Or maybe we have a very different idea about what "healthy" food is. Rice, beans and starchy vegetables are problematic for various (different) reasons and non-starchy vegetables generally aren't very nutritious from a macro perspective, which makes them relatively expensive.
  - jfritsch1984 7y ago
    Could you tell me why rice and beans are problematic? The studies I know are typically in favor of these kinds of food. Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. Is this some kind of carb-phobia?
    - flexblue 7y ago
      In the context of T2 diabetes, white rice is a high GI food. Brown rice, legumes and grains contain plant toxins and antinutrients which are poorly researched, but at least anecdotally can cause all kinds of issues especially in sensitive people. Also, in the west, a lot of the culture of preparing these foods (such as fermenting or vigorous soaking) is bypassed. > Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. That data suffers from the usual issues related to nutritional studies. Consuming beans in place of donuts may be a good predictor of health, that doesn't mean that beans themselves are healthy relative to other healthy foods.
      - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
        Rice may be relatively high GI but it and similar foods do not usually give you type 2 diabetes. Junk food does. Rice is far cheaper than that. I don’t really think you can make the case that T2 diabetes is a poor man’s sickness.
        friendlybus 7y ago
        White rice is linked with 10% increased chance of t2 with each serving per day(1). I don't know if poor Americans are doomed to diabetes, but it is certainly orders of magnitude easier for the poor to eat poorly compared to the rich. Boosting morale in the poor is difficult without cheap fatty/sweet food and drugs, other poor people have nearly nothing else to get by excessive stressors except exercise. Running a perfectly clean life is admirable and very difficult with limited resources, social standing and spare time. (1)https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-linked-to-diabetes-risk https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-link...
- pengaru 7y ago
  > When you can buy twinkies and pork chops you're not actually poor. When you are really poor you eat rice and beans and some vegetables you grow for yourself. And then you don't have diabetes typically. The EBT program here in the US completely distorts the situation. My local grocery store serves a very poor community, most of the customers pay with EBT. I get to see what kind of things these folks buy, it's idiotic. We could do a lot of good if EBT were only applicable to fresh perishable goods like produce/eggs/milk/fish/meat. It almost seems like people on EBT hate themselves for being poor and lean in on being self-destructive while at the store paying for things with EBT. They largely buy processed/prepared junk food, it's unbelievable, but if you view the food they buy as another drug prodding the reward centers of their brains, it's making them feel good in the short-term while giving them diabetes and other ailments in the long-term. EBT enables affording it by being almost equivalent to cash.
  - jfritsch1984 7y ago
    As I said: These people should be educated and motivated. They have to learn about the consequences of these decisions. Only if that does not work I would restrict EBT to healthier foods. On a personal note: I agree with you. It‘s hilarious what people buy even when they are on a tight budget.
    - ficklepickle 7y ago
      Is it hilarious? Is the misfortune of others humorous? Perhaps it's the people with poor impulse control and lack of education that end up economically poor. Maybe they never learned better. Taking pleasure from those less fortunate than yourself is a trick of the ego. It makes you feel better about yourself by labeling someone else inferior. It comes from a place of insecurity about one's own worth. By simplifying the problem to a group of people simply being inferior, you miss all the nuance, the complex system of factors that created the result. It's much easier to dehumanize. But if we don't counter these primitive tribal urges, we are bound to repeat the tragedies of history.
bsanr2 7y ago
There's a type of "virtue masturbation" that seems to follow discussion of diet-related illness. Thank you for pointing out that "diet," much as The Devil Wears Prada explained in regard to fashion, is something that all participate in, but that is ultimately chosen for you. There is also a large hereditary component to T2D. My father was a naval officer who was subject to annual physicals, who grew up in a middle class household, and who was on the way to holding multiple advanced degrees when he was diagnosed with T2D in his late 30s. Lifestyle barely factored in. If I had to guess, silent sleep issues might have been the most major factor.

jfritsch1984 7y ago

Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. The problem is education and motivation. I think diabetes is more a disease of affluence. When you can buy twinkies and pork chops you're not actually poor. When you are really poor you eat rice and beans and some vegetables you grow for yourself. And then you don't have diabetes typically. Disclaimer: Not every T2D is purely from a bad diet. But many are.

Arubis 7y ago
When you’re sufficiently poor and live in a society that insists that you work to qualify for benefits, you absolutely do not have time to cook healthy meals. Prepared, junky food is a staple.
- jfritsch1984 7y ago
  If you are well informed you could just cook once a week and eat that. I do that on the weekend with my family of five and it's quite a nice ritual. We cook rice and potatoes, put beans and sauce on top. And then put it in 20 containers for the week. I can prepare these meals within 2 minutes with a microwave. Breakfast is basically the same every day: Oat meal with some fruits. In the evening we eat bread with spread (which we also make on the weekend). I would say we spend way less on food than your typical American. It's really THAT cheap. Also we have a lot of food for CoViD-19 as we store a lot of food in our cellar all year around (lentils, whole oats, canned beans, etc.). Ah, and we are not poor in any way. I'm among top 5% in Germany. I think it's just healthy and sustainable (for the same reason we don't own a car).
  - flexblue 7y ago
    Without any further context, this is most likely not a healthy diet. You're certainly missing out on B vitamins and heme iron due to lack of meat and likely have a poor Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio due to the use of plant oils over other fats. Just a guess. You also probably get way too much sugar from sugary fruits which you overindulge in because your diet otherwise is so "healthy". Instead of soft drinks you have fruit juices, which have effectively the same amount of sugar. Again, just a guess. You probably got your nutrition advice from ideologically based publications, or you're just "winging it" based on what makes sense to you, in which case you're likely going to be wrong as well.
    - jfritsch1984 7y ago
      I did my research. Also I tracked my nutrition with Cronometer in the first weeks. Not a single day did I miss on B-vitamins. Heme iron is associated with disease in all major studies. I don‘t see a reason to ingest it. I have a great O3/O6 ratio. I don‘t use oil at all and avoid foods that are filled with plant oils. My breakfast contains lots of flax seeds. Our usual foods contain hemp seeds. All good sources of O3. And all without pollutants from fish. I get a lot of information from nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger offers free information as in free beer. No ads, no sponsors, even the earnings from his books are given to charity. I highly recommend you check him out. He certainly has his biases but still way less than most other doctors.
      - flexblue 7y ago
        > I did my research. Also I tracked my nutrition with Cronometer in the first weeks. Not a single day did I miss on B-vitamins. If you didn't have any animal foods, you're going to be missing out on B-vitamins, because of low bioavailability[1]. > Heme iron is associated with disease in all major studies. I don‘t see a reason to ingest it. An excess of many essential nutrients and vitamins is associated with disease, that doesn't mean you should cut them out. Non-heme iron is way less bioavailable, especially in combination with plant antinutrients[2], so you can end up iron-deficient. > I have a great O3/O6 ratio. I don‘t use oil at all and avoid foods that are filled with plant oils. You probably should be using oil, just not plant oils. > My breakfast contains lots of flax seeds. Our usual foods contain hemp seeds. All good sources of O3. Unfortunately not, because those sources also have low bio-availability. > And all without pollutants from fish. Pollutants are unfortunate, but when it comes to nutrition, you have to pick your poisen. Salmon roe is a good source of Omega 3 that is low in pollutants. > I get a lot of information from nutritionfacts.org. Dr. Greger offers free information as in free beer. No ads, no sponsors, even the earnings from his books are given to charity. I highly recommend you check him out. He certainly has his biases but still way less than most other doctors. A plant-based diet is ideology that is cherry-picking and misrepresenting some insights of nutrition science while sweeping others under the rug. With his exaggerated claims[4], Greger isn't any more credible than certain people on "the other side". [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2843032 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2843032 [2] https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1461S/4597424 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/91/5/1461S/4597424 [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24261532 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24261532 [4] https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illness-curable-by-veganism/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/death-as-a-foodborne-illnes...
- pengaru 7y ago
  This is nonsense, you don't even need to cook anything at all to eat healthy from the grocery store. You just have to get off your ass and actually go buy perishable fresh groceries regularly and plan for the week ahead. Laziness and convenience prevails. If it's a lack of time, then it's a lack of time to even hit the grocery store. Which depending on where you live, if it's a food desert situation, may be valid.
flexblue 7y ago
> Healthy food is typically less expensive than junk food. This isn't true, at least in the US. Or maybe we have a very different idea about what "healthy" food is. Rice, beans and starchy vegetables are problematic for various (different) reasons and non-starchy vegetables generally aren't very nutritious from a macro perspective, which makes them relatively expensive.
- jfritsch1984 7y ago
  Could you tell me why rice and beans are problematic? The studies I know are typically in favor of these kinds of food. Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. Is this some kind of carb-phobia?
  - flexblue 7y ago
    In the context of T2 diabetes, white rice is a high GI food. Brown rice, legumes and grains contain plant toxins and antinutrients which are poorly researched, but at least anecdotally can cause all kinds of issues especially in sensitive people. Also, in the west, a lot of the culture of preparing these foods (such as fermenting or vigorous soaking) is bypassed. > Bean consumption is typically a good predictor for survival in elderly people. That data suffers from the usual issues related to nutritional studies. Consuming beans in place of donuts may be a good predictor of health, that doesn't mean that beans themselves are healthy relative to other healthy foods.
    - read_if_gay_ 7y ago
      Rice may be relatively high GI but it and similar foods do not usually give you type 2 diabetes. Junk food does. Rice is far cheaper than that. I don’t really think you can make the case that T2 diabetes is a poor man’s sickness.
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        White rice is linked with 10% increased chance of t2 with each serving per day(1). I don't know if poor Americans are doomed to diabetes, but it is certainly orders of magnitude easier for the poor to eat poorly compared to the rich. Boosting morale in the poor is difficult without cheap fatty/sweet food and drugs, other poor people have nearly nothing else to get by excessive stressors except exercise. Running a perfectly clean life is admirable and very difficult with limited resources, social standing and spare time. (1)https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-linked-to-diabetes-risk https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20120315/white-rice-link...
pengaru 7y ago
> When you can buy twinkies and pork chops you're not actually poor. When you are really poor you eat rice and beans and some vegetables you grow for yourself. And then you don't have diabetes typically. The EBT program here in the US completely distorts the situation. My local grocery store serves a very poor community, most of the customers pay with EBT. I get to see what kind of things these folks buy, it's idiotic. We could do a lot of good if EBT were only applicable to fresh perishable goods like produce/eggs/milk/fish/meat. It almost seems like people on EBT hate themselves for being poor and lean in on being self-destructive while at the store paying for things with EBT. They largely buy processed/prepared junk food, it's unbelievable, but if you view the food they buy as another drug prodding the reward centers of their brains, it's making them feel good in the short-term while giving them diabetes and other ailments in the long-term. EBT enables affording it by being almost equivalent to cash.
- jfritsch1984 7y ago
  As I said: These people should be educated and motivated. They have to learn about the consequences of these decisions. Only if that does not work I would restrict EBT to healthier foods. On a personal note: I agree with you. It‘s hilarious what people buy even when they are on a tight budget.
  - ficklepickle 7y ago
    Is it hilarious? Is the misfortune of others humorous? Perhaps it's the people with poor impulse control and lack of education that end up economically poor. Maybe they never learned better. Taking pleasure from those less fortunate than yourself is a trick of the ego. It makes you feel better about yourself by labeling someone else inferior. It comes from a place of insecurity about one's own worth. By simplifying the problem to a group of people simply being inferior, you miss all the nuance, the complex system of factors that created the result. It's much easier to dehumanize. But if we don't counter these primitive tribal urges, we are bound to repeat the tragedies of history.

bsanr2 7y ago

There's a type of "virtue masturbation" that seems to follow discussion of diet-related illness. Thank you for pointing out that "diet," much as The Devil Wears Prada explained in regard to fashion, is something that all participate in, but that is ultimately chosen for you. There is also a large hereditary component to T2D. My father was a naval officer who was subject to annual physicals, who grew up in a middle class household, and who was on the way to holding multiple advanced degrees when he was diagnosed with T2D in his late 30s. Lifestyle barely factored in. If I had to guess, silent sleep issues might have been the most major factor.