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So many folks that have it say things like "I was super healthy! Did exercise, young, don't drink, etc." Then you dig deeper and realize the last vegetable meal
by rauljordan2020 7mo ago
So many folks that have it say things like "I was super healthy! Did exercise, young, don't drink, etc." Then you dig deeper and realize the last vegetable meal they ate was a soggy brussel sprout their mom made them when they were 17 years old, and also eat cold cut turkey sandwiches every lunch because they're "healthy", and maybe have a tiny shred of lettuce in the sandwich. For breakfast, they eat pancakes or sugary foods, and dinner is just a piece of steak
- gavinray 7mo agohttps://realfood.gov/ https://realfood.gov/
- hackyhacky 7mo agoLet's keep in mind that this is the recommendation from the same government that recently declined to regulate dangerous pesticides [1] and relaxed regulations on additives [2]. The current US administration is not at all interesting in addressing America's unhealthy food. [1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/glyphosate-roundup-bayer-monsanto-preemption-trump-executive-order/104/web/2026/03 https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/glyphosate-roundu... [2] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-takes-new-approach-no-artificial-colors-claims https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-take...
- gavinray 7mo agoIt's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Those standards put processed carbs like bread/pasta as the largest part of a "healthy diet". Whoops.
- hackyhacky 7mo ago> It's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Correct. The root of the problem is that corporate interests influence government regulation. [1] That hasn't changed. What has changed is which industry is offering the largest bribes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- triceratops 7mo agoHumans have relied on bread, pasta, rice, and tubers for most of their calories since time immemorial. Japanese people eat plenty of rice even today and they are very healthy. "Food pyramid dumb, eat meat" is a very reductive take.
- throwaway27448 7mo agoOnly the last hundred to twenty thousand years or so. Evolutionarily speaking, that's not our typical diet. Maybe excepting tubers.
- triceratops 7mo agoExplain Japan.
- throwaway27448 7mo agoI never said eating rice was bad for you, but fruits, nuts, meats are also human staples. The big thing domesticated cereal brought us was rapid population growth and the state.
- mixmastamyk 7mo agoFolks had to do the harvest and milling work themselves until recently, it’s not the same. Nor are the quantities.
- triceratops 7mo agoThat's what I mean by reductive. Lifestyle changes, processed food filled with sugar and marketed by corporations...they all played a part.
- h4kr1 7mo agoI love when the Food Pyramid and MyPlate are brought up as arguments on why Americans are unhealthy these days. National estimates suggest only 8%-14% of Americans ever followed MyPlate. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40752889/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40752889/ Also, MyPlate only used "grains" as a category, with a note to make half from whole grains...not just processed carbs. Big difference. And, vegetables are the biggest category. Adding on to that, if you workout in ANY capacity, you need simple carbs.
- tencentshill 7mo agoReal Food, Truth Social.
- boringg 7mo agoAre you serious? Do you really think thats the reason that this is happening -- that people don't just eat their veggies? Fiber is important but, um, that's a pretty hot take. I suspect there are other factors at play.
- Night_Thastus 7mo agoThe diet of most people in the US is pretty horrific. Absurd amounts of sugar, little to no vegetables, little fiber, lots of heavily processed foods. That certainly does not help the situation. Whether it's correlational or causal I'd leave up to people more knowledgeable in the subject.
- boringg 7mo agoRight but as I understand the problem of colon cancer its impacting people across the board in good health - not strictly this "core" US consistuency of high fat, high sugar, low fiber, high processed food. It is also across normal BMI, "healthy" diet and regular exercising population. Thats what's concerning about the uptick.
- gavinray 7mo agoNo health issue is so easily reducible, but the impact of eating a diet of "actual food" and moving around even a little bit daily cannot be overstated. The odds ratios for nearly all diseases and all-cause mortality shift so far from those two interventions it's almost unbelievable.
- unsupp0rted 7mo agoWe really don't know the reasons well. Food... some kind of bacteria or virus... 5 random things stuck together... it's silly to guess.
- throwawaytea 7mo ago"Guys, it's not the chemicals present in every packaged food you ever set your eyes on, or the pesticides every vegetable is grown in, it's just that you don't eat vegetables."
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoI can’t take hyperbolic appeals to the authority of chemical names = bad seriously. Let’s at least get specific and name a molecule with a known mechanism of action.
- throwawaytea 7mo agoYou don't have to take it seriously. If you think "mold inhibiting agent" on shredded cheese is good for you, keep eating it. It's probably been tested as safe and your body can't tell the difference.
- Enginerrrd 7mo agoI think the people that dismiss this concern are just as bad and unscientific. It's a pretty decent Bayesian prior to assume that regular exposure to synthetic organic compounds in quantities or concentrations that hominids didn't receive exposure to in our evolution are likely to be potentially problematic. This is especially true when they don't occur naturally in any organisms biochemical processes and yet are active enough to interact with many of these things. This is OBVIOUSLY true for things used as pesticides / herbicides. We have evolved a natural aversion to areas where all the plants and animals are dead and rotting. There are good reasons for this to be a really good heuristic. I'll go so far as to say that almost any pesticide or herbicide is likely to be bad for vertebrates and invertebrates alike. This is really likely the case for perservatives as well, for what should be obvious reasons. It's really not that crazy to assume they're probably not good as a default assumption. Go into a hardware store and almost every chemical, solvent, paint, etc. that you encounter is not good for you. Eat a salmon and enjoy billions of plastic particles. Open almost any prepackaged food and you'll be ingesting all manner of dyes, perservatives, anti-caking agents, etc. etc. etc. that simply weren't around in your food environment during our evolution. It's a surprisingly good baseline assumption that these things aren't likely to be good for you. If you think about the study design and epidemiologic studies, it should be clear that it's going to be very difficult to prove harm in a lot of cases for things that are only a little harmful, or only harmful in combination, or harmful only after 20 years have passed since exposure, etc. ...except that the science is VERY clear: something (or lots of things) associated with "processed food" is really bad for you.
- tptacek 7mo agoYou can quickly find historical availability & consumption data and I don't think it supports any trivially obvious hypotheses like these. You'll find headlines saying things like that we're at a low point in vegetable consumption going back to 1988, but I'm reading an NIH paper charting '70-'2010 and the patterns look stable, except for increases in total calories, in dairy, and in added dairy fats and oils. Whatever's going on, it's probably going to end up being complicated and multifactorial. (I do love me a crucifer, though).
- taeric 7mo agoTo add to your point, not only will you find that the patterns of consumption look somewhat stable, but that this cancer did like all other cancers in the last 50 years and plummeted in incidence.
- _zagj 7mo ago[flagged]
- tptacek 7mo agoThree things I love about this: (1) Somebody vouched it. (2) I had a glass of bourbon in my hand when I read it the first time. (3) It's written as if maybe I'd continue to debate the data after the first paragraph. Well played!
- casualscience 7mo agoVictim blaming cancer patients as cope so you can convince yourself "it won't happen to me" is a disgusting trend
- cm2012 7mo agoThe correlation to any of that stuff and cancer is basically meaningless in the scale of one persons life
- array_key_first 7mo agoIt's not at all. Red meat is carcinogenic, processed red meats more so. Processed meats are, too. If you want to reduce your risk of cancer, your best bets are quitting smoking, stopping drinking, eating less meat, and exercising more. Drinking, like, diet cola is nothing next to those. We know, without a doubt, tobacco, alcohol, and processed meats cause cancer.
- apple4ever 6mo agoThere is nothing wrong with red meat, it certainly isn't carcinogenic.
- thinking_cactus 7mo agoI wonder the flipside as well. I'm extremely confident a healthy vegeterian or vegan diet will be generally a bit healthier than a meat-heavy alternative. But I believe you can overdo it too, like if you eat enormous amounts of hard raw foods and leaves with low calories that might not be all that great for your gut either? (our gut is probably adapted to eating cooked stuff). My armchair recommendation: avoid processed foods (but you can have processed if you're really confident what goes in isn't harmful or just very occasional I guess), eat a good amount of salads and veggies alongside some cooked main course, like beans, rice, tofu, etc.. Eat some fruits throughout the day, and a reasonable amount of water. Chew your foods well. Exercise, bla bla bla, you know the drill ;)