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Why is the American diet so deadly?
- steinuil 2y agohttps://archive.is/8tYYn https://archive.is/8tYYn
- Fin_Code 2y agoA useful analogy is the Coca plant. Chewing its leaves will give a mild stimulant and is relatively benign. But if you extract and concentrate the active ingratiate it becomes highly addictive. This is pretty much what we have done with our food.
- snarf21 2y agoEven worse, our food has been specifically engineered to be as addictive as possible without increasing manufacturing costs.
- resource_waste 2y agoI agree. However, don't we grow tolerant to pleasures? For instance, the first time you have a salty chip, its great. The 100th time you had one, its not great. Also, curious if you are limiting it to processed foods, or are making claims that potatoes are more addictive than before. The first, obvious, but it has manufacturing and inventory costs. The latter is happening on such a tiny scale, its not noteworthy.
- feoren 2y ago> However, don't we grow tolerant to pleasures? Yes: growing tolerance is part of the addiction cycle that causes you to need ever more to satisfy the same urge.
- jacobr1 2y ago> don't we grow tolerant to pleasures For some, the tolerance doesn't cause them disinterest but rather a drive to go further. Can they get an even _saltier_ chip? Or rather more flavorful with increasingly exotic condiments. Or one bowl no longer does it, maybe 2 will do. You can see this in American supermarkets on the snack aisles. You see variants of the same products from plain/traditional, to novelty flavor, to 5x extra novelty flavor. It isn't just marketing or just the normal distribution of individual preferences. I think it is a hedonistic ratchet. You see it in the level of nuances specialists take to any field or hobby the deeper on delves. The craft beer connoisseurs to who keep wanting more hops in their IPAs are a good example too.
- gscott 2y agoDuring the packaging process I am pretty sure they spray on chemicals that cause addiction.
- Pigalowda 2y agoIt’s just sugar, fat, and salt but at scale. No need for more. Get it when you want and as much as you want. Doctors will say you can be healthy at size and advertisers will tell you to be body positive. Then when you’re over served and obese you can get weight loss injections and start all over. It’s the American way. An endless orgy of consumerism. Binge and purge like a hedonist Roman could never even imagine.
- lcfcjs6 2y agoI think this is an accurate point. I would also add preservatives. Companies have an incentive to increase shelf-life, so they pump these products full of them, despite their effects on health.
- bberrry 2y agoWhat evidence is there of preservatives having detrimental effects on humans (in the doses we actually receive)?
- ramblenode 2y agoPreservatives achieve their intended function by broadly destroying and preventing the growth of microbes, which are an integral part of our digestive system. So I would flip the question: what evidence is there that preservatives don't damage a healthy human microbiome? Here is a review of some of the research. It seems to still be an open question because of the many variables involved: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9864936/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9864936/
- apwell23 2y agohope this doesn't hijacked by "WhAt Is EvEN UltRAPorCESSED FooD" crowd.
- shermantanktop 2y agoI’m blissfully unaware of that POV. Links? Are they claiming that boiling noodles is “ultra processing” or something?
- collingreen 2y agoIt's just that the definition combines things that feel very different to folks under the ultra processed umbrella, grouping together things like pasta with "junk food" things like candy bars and deep fried anything. I don't know if your example of "boiling noodles" is supposed to be "obviously ultraprocessed" or "obviously not ultraprocessed" -- maybe that's accidentally the perfect example of the question the parent is mocking.
- healsdata 2y agoThe problem is that there's no definition of ultra-processed. It's generally a "I know it when I see it" type of thing but of course that means it's unevenly applied in a world without nuance. To use your example, surely hand made noodles aren't ultra processed. But are Bertolli noodles ultra processed? The only difference in ingredients is what emulsifier is used. Food, biology, etc. is complicated and reducing it to TikTok sound bites often results in squabbles.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shermantanktop 2y agoI routinely make noodles by grinding durum wheat in a home flour mill and making the dough by hand. Probably the lowest level of processing possible I guess.
- apwell23 2y ago
- cratermoon 2y agoWhy? ultra-processed food.
- dukeyukey 2y agoThen you need to explain why the Japanese diet, also filled with ultra-processed food, is vastly healthier.
- piltdownman 2y agoEmphasis on vegetables and fibre, niacin and trace mineral rich seafood, and pickled/preserved foods. Also ultra-processed is contextual. They're eating Nattō for breakfast, not McMuffins.
- neom 2y agoFriend of mine moved from South Korea to the US and within 6 months had gained a noticeable amount of weight, we discussed it and I said "just gotta watch the calories bud" - confused face - he didn't know how to actually go about calorie counting, he didn't know the calories in 1lb of fat (~3,500), he'd never had to do it in Korea.
- piltdownman 2y agoIts impossible to not get blindsided by HFCS and the general sugar content of American foods if you compare the retail shelves like for like with Europe. In Ireland and other European countries they literally have to 'cover up' the Breakfast Cereals in the 'American Speciality/Import' section due to their misleading nutritional information and/or child targeting. For example, American formulation PopTarts have to legally cover up the claim on the front that they are "a good source of nutrition" and another sticker on the back with a factual nutritional breakdown, as is mandated by most EU members.
- jeffbee 2y agoThe McMuffin is pretty much the most balanced meal at McDonalds! If you wanted to quibble over it, you could make it with a poached egg white instead of a whole egg, and dress it with olive oil instead of butter, to cut down on the cholesterol without removing too much energy. At ~300 calories a McMuffin is hardly sufficient for many people to get through the morning.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- CharlieDigital 2y ago> Why Is the American Diet So Deadly? Too much sugar. Too carb heavy. Not enough fiber (fruits, veg). Fats demonized for a long spell. No time for preparing whole foods in daily lives. No easy access to cheap, prepared whole foods. Edit: car-focused culture and zoning laws/planning that result in more sedentary day-to-day lifestyle that magnifies the effect of the poor diet.
- pfdietz 2y agoIt's the carbs.
- gonzo41 2y agoit's not carbs. It is inactivity and the volume of cheap easy calories eaten.
- lithocarpus 2y agoThere's truth here, and, as I understand it, carbs with high glycemic index do have the effect of blood glucose and then insulin spikes which cause metabolic disease and lead to diabetes which is the primary thing that's deadly here.
- jibbit 2y agois this true? If everyone prepared their own food from scratch, but still had as many carbs, outcomes wouldn't improve?
- bumby 2y agoIf calories remained constant, I predict the problem would persist.
- dietr1ch 2y agoI don't think it's just the carbs, but they likely don't help in today's society. We became too efficient at packing carbs in our diet and at the same time too sedentary. Beyond macro-nutrients, what I think the true reason food in the US is bad is because of the other stuff. Many things banned in Europe (which is special because they use science for improving quality of life before profits) are not banned in the US, even though it's an advanced enough nation to be able to deal with the ban and look for better options. The problem in the US is that profits are of utmost importance. Anything that lowers your costs is good for business as long as it's hard to point at it (does colourant X cause cancer? maybe we need more studies, or just didn't know, we'll try better next time).
- arijo 2y agoLot’s of people are chosing an healthy diet: https://www.feelingbuggy.com/p/how-the-ketogenic-diet-helped-me https://www.feelingbuggy.com/p/how-the-ketogenic-diet-helped...
- Workaccount2 2y agoI think a big part of the problem is that even prepared foods are packed with garbage. There are a lot of Americans who can't/don't cook mainly for time reasons, and instead eat lots of prepared foods, whether that be from restaurants, shops, or grocery stores. If you are not cooking it from scratch yourself, it is almost guaranteed to be brimming with fat, salt, and sugar. This is true regardless of the source. Whether it be a frozen meal from the grocery store, a sandwich from the local deli, a dish from the bistro, or a quick bite from the coffee shop. All of it is maximized fat, salt, sugar. Seriously, I live in a major metro are and if you put a gun to my head and said "You have 20 minutes to pick-up an unmodified meal that is filling, mildly flavored, and healthy", I'd have to eat the bullet. (And this doesn't even get into all the processed food ingredients)
- moojacob 2y agoDo you live near a Chipotle? Burrito bowl with brown rice, black beans, and chicken for $8.50. I really don’t understand this “I don’t have a choice all fast food is bad” some are pretty healthy even if they are less tasty. I think the real discussion is how addictive the trash foods are.
- greenavocado 2y agoIt is generally over $12 after tax https://chipotlemenu.me/prices/ https://chipotlemenu.me/prices/
- moojacob 2y agoYou are right. I go to college in a low cost of living area so it is $9 with tax. Is Chipotle the same price as a McDonald meal in other areas? Or just mine.
- greenavocado 2y agoNot sure; I never go there. McD prices https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/ https://mcdonaldsprices.com/mcdonalds-prices/
- hnpolicestate 2y agoI'd be curious to see if replacing seed oils with olive, peanut or avocado oil as the default would improve health.
- jeffbee 2y agoPeanut oil is a seed oil.
- hnpolicestate 2y agoI stand corrected. Then the question becomes are certain seed oils healthier than others? Soybean oil seems to be the default in most dressings, condiments now.
- lithocarpus 2y agoMaybe, but all of the ones commonly called "seed" oils do as far as I know use a similar refining process with toxic hexane and probably other toxic stuff if I were to guess. There may also be a difference in the polyunsaturated fats being worse as humans haven't been eating them in quantity for as long historically and maybe aren't well adapted, but I don't know as much about that.
- lithocarpus 2y agoIt probably would if it means oils with less chemicals, but might not affect diabetes much which is as I understand it, caused by glucose/insulin spikes. I did the math once and Americans ingest a lot of hexane just from seed oils every year on average. Peanut oil is a seed oil though and it's refined the same way as others using hexane. I don't know how much it's the fact of them being seed oils vs the toxic stuff added to them in the refining process.
- astroid 2y agoI only use olive oil or algal oil, and noticed a significant improvement after the switch. I deliberately tried my best to isolate that variable, but obviously some other changes are downstream from that decision. I don't think I could ever go back - I feel more clear headed, have begun losing the last stubborn 10-15 lbs which I have always found to be a challenge, and my skin has improved. YMMV, but to me the results are plainly obvious.
- exabrial 2y agoWithout reading the article: we've move to value convenience over everything else. So, fast food, preservatives, single use plastics, shelf stable processed food, etc all are a result.
- tombert 2y agoIn July of 2023, I was about 254lbs. I'm a pretty tall dude (about 6'5"), so it's not quite "obese", but it's pretty heavy, and it was only growing. Amusingly, by accident, I started losing weight a month later, because I bought a kegerator, and I had up to 10 gallons at a time of Diet Coke in the kegs. Suddenly, I almost completely lost my urge to go to Taco Bell for every meal. I guess it turns out that I wasn't addicted to fast food, I was addicted to "unlimited soda", and Taco Bell is the closest place to my house that had free soda refills. When I made it so that I could get as much cold soda as I wanted directly in my house, I completely lost the urge to go to Taco Bell, and I would eat comparatively-healthier stuff in my house. Within about a month, I had lost about 10lbs, and completely lost my cravings for real sugar. After that I started more aggressively counting calories and ended up getting to about 191lbs, which is more or less in the "normal" range for someone my height. I guess I thought that caffeine addiction didn't affect me, somehow, but I'm pretty convinced I was wrong about that. The kegerator more or less worked like a nicotine patch, but nowadays I've transitioned to the caffeine-free versions of soda now. ETA: Just looked it up, it actually was just barely on the "obese" side.
- jayd16 2y agoShort of a kegeraror, one can develop a taste for tea or black coffee. As long as you don't put anything in it, it's basically zero calorie and trivial to prepare.
- anovikov 2y agoOverdoing on coffee, especially being very tall, is quite dangerous for one's heart...
- plorkyeran 2y agoIt is not worse than getting the same amount of caffeine from diet soda, which is the point of comparison here.
- tombert 2y agoI tried, but I absolutely despise coffee. I think I'm really sensitive to the bitter compounds, I think it's vile even when I put a lot of sweetener in it, to a point where a small irrational part of me is kind of convinced that everyone who says they like it playing some kind of elaborate and expensive joke on me. Tea isn't as bad but I still dislike it. That said, if you can develop a taste for coffee or tea, that's definitely the cheaper option.
- amelius 2y agoCan the food industry be sued like they did with big tobacco?
- lithocarpus 2y agoThey are, we'll see how it plays out over the next decade by which time diabetes will likely have climbed even higher. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/12/11/major-food-companies-addictive-lawsuit/76903058007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/12/11/major-food-c... (I don't suggest this is the one lawsuit we need, it's just a start)
- imagetic 2y agoPaywalls are just exhausting.
- jeffbee 2y agoOddly the spoken recording of the article is above the paywall.
- coreyh14444 2y agoJust an observation as an American living in Copenhagen, Denmark: The typical diet for my coworkers involves the following attributes compared to the US: 1. Hot/big breakfast is rare. A roll with some butter and cheese + Espresso instead. 2. We have a "canteen" cafeteria and it is all fresh made foods, lots of fish options and of course Rugbrød (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugbr%C3%B8d https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugbr%C3%B8d) a super dense "bread" although IMO it isn't really bread as we understand it. 3. Most folks will pile a ton of food on their plate and lunch is served at 11:30. 4. Very little soda. A six pack of soda will last a week or more in an office of 25 people. 5. Almost no snacks. Our office will maybe have one small bag of nuts available and it can last two weeks before refilling. 6. Very little fast food options. There are a handful of fast food options in town, but they are very much an exception and probably serve more tourists than locals. 7. Dining out is expensive relative to income levels, so it is far less frequent. 8. Yes, portion sizes, again, particularly for drinks. A typical soda pour would be maybe 8-10 ounces in a restaurant. Danes do drink a lot of beer though and they start early. There's no "drinking age" and teens can buy beer/wine at 16 and booze at 18.
- soco 2y agoSo drinking age is 16/18, same as in Switzerland. Speaking of which, from what I've seen but also in stats, youth seem to drink less than back in my days. But that's tangent.
- lalaland1125 2y agoThe problem is really quite simple: Americans overeat Processed foods are part of the problem (in that they are tastier and easier to consume than "rawer" foods), but increased wealth and ability to consume food is also a part of the problem Food has literally never been cheaper and tastier
- cf100clunk 2y agoRestaurants in the U.S.A. belonging to large franchise chains have portion sizes that are astonishingly large in comparison to those I've typically seen in my world travels, and the ingredients tend to be heavily processed. Even quick snacks found at U.S. gas stations (when I'm running late) consist chiefly of mass-produced, sugary, heavily processed desserts like Twinkies and HoHos, whereas options for fresh fruit and locally made goods with natural ingredients are often not to be found. I take a pass and look for an open supermarket instead. I doubt that it is a supply chain issue: in the north of Scandinavia and Canada, the outback of Australia, and especially through Asia it is almost always possible to get somewheat healthy quick snacks of a local variety at roadside petrol stations.
- HEmanZ 2y agoThe cultural attitude about appropriate portions in America bothers me a lot. People blame restaurants but just anecdotally from my own life, Americans will refuse to eat at restaurants that serve “European size” portions. Restaurants in most of the US go out of business if they don’t serve a 3k calorie meal, American patrons won’t go there.
- cf100clunk 2y agoAgreed, portion size expectations by U.S. patrons presents a chicken-and-egg (worse if both are fried) problem for restaurateurs.
- nradov 2y agoEurope isn't a monolith. Restaurant portions in the Balkans don't seem any smaller. Maybe even larger on average. As a large man who exercises a lot I do refuse to patronize restaurants that serve tiny portions (unless I'm specifically intending to order multiple small plates for tapas or sushi or something). And you're exaggerating with the "3k calorie meal" thing. That rarely shows up on real restaurant menus. Most of them top out at around half that much for a regular entree and a customer would have to add beverages, appetizers, and dessert to reach 3k.
- pmdulaney 2y agoThe truth about a good diet is not reducible to a simple rule of thumb; like life itself, it's more nuanced than that. Thank you, New Yorker, for letting me read the article without a subscription.
- dillydogg 2y agoI agree, though the famous 7 word advice comes to mind. Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. In this sense, I think dietary advice has been relatively stable over the decades, though there is definitely arguments over how much is "too much" and what proportion is "mostly". Perhaps even what is covered by "plants".
- kmstout 2y agoI lost track of how many articles I had to open to hit their paywall in Firefox, but disabling JavaScript will nicely bypass it.
- asdasdsddd 2y agoImo, its mostly cultural which turns physiological. Every home cook I know has difficultly even putting on weight. The home cooks also enjoy the taste of vegetables and find the amount of sugar in store bought/fast food desserts nauseating. But I also know people who were fed pre-made food all their life and would literally throw up if fed broccoli. This problem needs to be addressed at home and from a young age, which is.. hard.
- highwayman47 2y agoSimple: Bad food is subsidized
- verteu 2y agoFor me, the biggest mystery is this: If obesity is caused by poor diet, why doesn't dieting work long-term? https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work-2020052519889 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/when-dieting-doesnt-work... > 121 eligible trials with 21 942 patients were included and reported on 14 named diets and three control diets ... At 12 months the effects on weight reduction and improvements in cardiovascular risk factors largely disappear.
- johnkpaul 2y agoYou might find this NYT piece on the winners of the Biggest Loser TV show interesting. Basically, "dieting" as a reduction in calories is a lose-lose game because your basal metabolic rate goes down so you have to keep eating less and less to keep it up. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weig... Keeping up the basal metabolic rate is part of the rationale behind intermittent/extended fasting instead of pure calories-in-calories-out weightloss advice.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoFasting also changes your bmr, often far more
- bumby 2y agoIf you are changing you metabolic rate, you are changing the "calories-out" so it's not like it's an entirely different approach.
- logicchains 2y agoSimple, it's called a selection bias. The people able to long-term control what they eat aren't obese, so by running a study on obese people, you're essentially biasing the study towards subjects who have difficulty controlling what they eat. This means most of the subjects will struggle to stick to the diet long term.
- galangalalgol 2y ago
- bluedino 2y agoWe don't have self-control. Nobody cooks. And if they do it's microwaved or frozen garbage. We eat out too much. To the point where we overpay to have shoddy delivery services bring us fast food. The portions are too big. 1,500 calorie burgers, 2,000 calorie appetizers (the thing you eat before you eat your meal), 1,600 calorie 'salads'. Let's not forget the copious amounts of soda. When's the last time you at a single slice of pizza? Plus ubiquitous snacks like chips or cookies that are precisely engineered to get to eat as many as you can.
- jeffbee 2y agoSomething that this genre of article fails to explain or even mention is the vast geographic differences between "the American diet" and other American diets. Health outcomes are quiet varied. Why are people in Minneapolis healthier? Are they immune to Wonder Bread and Gummi Bears? Why are people in Oakland fairly healthy despite the fried chicken wars?
- duhbrubro 2y agoBecause it creates customers for the Pharmaceutical companies.
- goaheadtryit 2y agoWell makes sense. We live in a closed system. Go ahead, jump off the planet. I dare you.
- tonymet 2y agoI'm a formerly obese person who has kept the weight off for 20 years. It is a mindset, though not in the way they claim. It's not about shaming yourself or having tremendous restraint. Dieting is like "not thinking about elephants" in that you'll obsess over it if you try not to. What has helped is understanding true hunger and the sensation nutrients have. Sugar can feel as strong as a narcotic in certain conditions. If you are eating 20g of sugar you should have a strong sensation. if you aren't, the calibration is off. Junk food (including restaurant cuisine) plays a part in disrupting that calibration. It's like listening to a deafening rock concert every day and then trying to distinguish a whisper. But junk food isn't poisonous. I eat "junky" food daily like chocolate truffles, marshmallows, butter, ice cream, bacon fat, donuts, brownies, chocolate cake, McDonalds. The difference is that a mouthful has an immediate sensation. Would you be able to catch a baseball by calculating the vectors? no, you just look at it and raise your hand.
- abeppu 2y agoNot at all the point, but I love that 3/4 through the article, the author meets with a nutritionist/molecular biologist with the last name Nestle, buys a chocolate cookie to eat in front of them "as a provocation", and Nestle says “Actually, I think it’s probably O.K.” Yes, "Nestle" != "Nestlé", but reading that she defended the chocolate chip cookie seemed so on the nose.
- geenat 2y agoSugar does not satiate effectively for the calories. It's too easy to over eat sugar and carbs yet still be hungry, nutritionally deficient. It's why Ozempic is effective- one feels satiated even if deficient.
- Jalad 2y agoThere's a great quote which I love, and think is relevant: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" It's from this NYT article and I think it hits the mark: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t...
- sema4hacker 2y agoI weigh myself every morning and have a chart of my weight going back 10 years. The chart plot looks like a roller coaster. Last March I hit 228, so started counting calories, limited myself to 1500/day, and hit 187 by August. Then I ate whatever I wanted and climbed back up to 232 at the end of 2024. So I'm counting calories again, feel comfortable at 1000/day of meat and potatoes, and have dropped 11 pounds the first 7 days of this year.
- incomingpain 2y agoThe food industry is fundamentally flawed, root cause tracing back to ~100 years ago. In 1904, a chemist published misleading information that has had a lasting impact on our understanding of nutrition. These myths, which have been perpetuated for a century, have led to widespread misconceptions about healthy eating. The sugar industry's manipulation of scientific research has further wrecked the industry, deflecting blame from refined sugar. Legacy of WW1's food rationing and the conscription of farmers has resulted in a food system unable to serve the population #s. As the joke goes, the British empire dominated the world to obtain spices... not to use any of them. Is British food supposed to be bland? Yes if correctly prepared. Our food culture has been shaped by a century of disinformation, perpetuated by governments and the education system. The consequences of this disinformation campaign are far-reaching, with many people developing unhealthy relationships with food. Want to fix this? Gotta start with the governments who are pushing the disinformation.
- merryocha 2y agoOne thing I rarely see discussed is the possibility of contaminants like machine grease, spray lubricants, and dust getting into food. When the process for making food is automated, it seems much more likely to me that some of the moving parts in the process end up getting coated with small amounts of machine grease or lubricants. Maybe a moving machine part was sticking, so a technician used some spray lubricant on it, some of which found its way to the conveyor belt that was transporting the food to the next stage of the process. Maybe a metal part that is used in the process was coated in some kind of oil to protect it during storage. Someone may install it without cleaning it off with a solvent. Maybe something is being stored in an open-air vat, and work is being done nearby that generates dust. The more processed a food is, the more opportunities there are for contaminants to find their way into the food. I think of these things because I worked in a kitchen that made dough, and our dough mixer always needed to be lubricated. I once found grease that had dripped from above into the mixing bowl. Luckily I am someone who takes such things seriously, but there are a lot of careless people out there. Even if you wipe off grease, an invisible trace amount will remain on the surface unless you clean it with a solvent. I also worked in a warehouse that stored machine parts used in food packaging equipment. There was drywall work being done at the time and the whole place was coated in gypsum dust. I remember handling "food grade" lubricant and looking up its safety data sheet (SDS) out of curiosity, and my takeaway from reading it was that it's still probably not something you would want to eat.
- bane 2y agoI have family connections into South Korea and this article makes me think of the changes in the Korean diet over the past few decades. When I was first started encountering Korean food over 20 years ago (both in the states and in Korea), everything was either sourced from fresh ingredients, or preserved using some kind of traditional method like pickling, fermenting, or curing. There were very few factory processed ingredients, maybe fish cake, and some condiments. There was a notable absence of sugars and sweetness, even in desserts. I ate more fruit in the first year with my wife than I probably had in the decade prior as it was constantly served as snacks and after meals. I never found Korean portion sizes appreciably smaller than American portions, but I struggled eating through a meal until I fully adapted to mixing banchan in between bites -- which introduced me to the palette cleanser. There were some problems in the diet, mostly lots of instant coffees, tons of alcohol, questionable "medicines", and everybody smoked. But people were generally fit or thin, walked a lot, were tall (a sign of good nutrition), and lived long lives. In the years since then I was introduced to concepts like the "Bliss Point" [1] and "Taste Satiety" which explained both the taste of Doritos and the use of Kimchi to cleanse the palette so you could eat more. Over time the Korean diet has changed and I've started to recognize that the food sciences are taking over for the traditional home-made meals and the flavors in Korean food are changing dramatically -- you can feel them targeting the bliss point in flavor. In some ways its getting harder to eat out because it's not hard to cook at home, and make it taste better, and we can keep ingredients fresh. You can still find small restaurants run by old people who make things the home cooked way, but all of the larger restaurants and chains have this new kind of sweetness in the food. There's a well known TV chef [3] who even advises people on how to make their home cooking taste more like restaurants. The magic ingredient? Add sugar to basically everything. Gone is the delicate sweetness from carrots or pears, now even beef dishes blast you in the face like a candy bar. It used to be unusual to see an obese person at all in Korea (I was usually the largest person anywhere, and I'm not big by American standards). But now it's not at all unusual. Korea is where the mukbang originated [4]. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food) 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory-specific_satiety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory-specific_satiety 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paik_Jong-won https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paik_Jong-won 4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukbang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukbang
- tayo42 2y agoBoredom snacking from starting a new job is killing me. I put 10 pounds on starting a new job, sit at the computer and snack on shit. Crept into "overweight" according to BMR. Hard exercise 3x a week, hard but milder exercise pretty regularly. Its too easy to snack my to 3k calories. I only maybe eat out/order in 3 meals a week. Snacks and meat have too much calories
- mediumsmart 2y agoBecause they switched from Thorpe's 1957 high-protein, high-fat and low-carbohydrate diet advice to Ancel Keys' (who had a BA in economics and a PhD in Fish Physiology) ration advice for the US forces declaring war on cholesterol and burying any discussions about sugar for years. would you like some low fat diet coke with your high carbohydrate freedom fries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Uqj35nHB0g
- ewgoforth 2y agoIndia has even higher cases of diabetes and heart disease. I think their diet is quite different than America.
- nojvek 2y agoIndia has higher concentration of fried foods, or foods high in sugar, salt and fats.