Food companies ‘sweetened the world’ and increased the risk of disease(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
Food companies ‘sweetened the world’ and increased the risk of disease
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/jul/14/how-food-companies-sweetened-the-world-and-increased-the-risk-of-disease-acc
246 comments
The psychological aspect is the biggest one. Even using artificial sweeteners that might have no effect on the body, you are still accustoming people to a completely skewed level of sweetness in foods. Someone who drinks Coke Zero every day might not get diabetes, but will sure crave more sweets outside the beverage itself and will probably get its sugar from somewhere else.
When my wife and I went to Italy on our honeymoon, and subsequently decided to use carbonated water as a way of dropping our coke addictions, the next few months felt like I was a drug fiend breaking an addiction.
Vegetables tasted so good. Vanilla added to our Starbucks coffee started to taste awful. It felt like a world of taste opening up. Food started to satisfy so much more. It was easier to identify when I was full and avoid overeating.
The sugar industry has so evil and has done so much damage to this country and to the world.
Vegetables tasted so good. Vanilla added to our Starbucks coffee started to taste awful. It felt like a world of taste opening up. Food started to satisfy so much more. It was easier to identify when I was full and avoid overeating.
The sugar industry has so evil and has done so much damage to this country and to the world.
Years ago, I started seriously disliking soda because it was far, far too sweet for me. I don't know if soda got sweeter or my taste became more averse to sweet. Since I have a terrible sweet tooth and eat too much candy[1], I suspect the former.
In any case, I stopped drinking soda entirely because it was too unpleasant. Then I discovered how easy it is to make my own and started doing that. That way, I can make it to my preferred sweetness level.
[1] I realize that soda is literally candy, but it's too sweet for me anyway. I've never understood why it's different than, say, a hard candy that is 98% sugar.
In any case, I stopped drinking soda entirely because it was too unpleasant. Then I discovered how easy it is to make my own and started doing that. That way, I can make it to my preferred sweetness level.
[1] I realize that soda is literally candy, but it's too sweet for me anyway. I've never understood why it's different than, say, a hard candy that is 98% sugar.
A nutritionist I spoke to said that if you have to consume sugar, it's better to eat it than drink it since eating can at least make you feel full (esp. if the sugar comes in the form of something like a pastry which has extra non-sugar carbs contributing to your fullness).
Anecdote of 3: I agree, I gave up soda for a couple months and my sense of sweet changed massively. Years drinking soda like water, dipping bread in coke, and supersizing at McD's, all gone because now soda simply tastes much too sweet. Seems like there's some sort of sensory dulling involved.
Contrary n=1 anecdata:
When I experience aspartame, the host product tastes "wrong", and if I consume more than a wee bit, my stomach gets a bit upset. So, let me ignore that sweetener…
When I use most artificial sweeteners, at first they can seem enjoyable and freeing. A 50:50 blend of Stevia-in-the-Raw and Splenda can seem more like real sugar to me. But with repeated frequent use (say, daily in a mug of tea), I gradually come to feel not an anticipation of something good and satisfying but an expectation of doing something 'empty'. Sweetness in general becomes increasingly distasteful.
Perhaps the distaste is due to lack of metabolic reward. However, after a few days of not wanting sweetness, a little bit of real sugar can reset me to enjoying sugary things. Takes longer to again enjoy an artificial sweetener.
When I experience aspartame, the host product tastes "wrong", and if I consume more than a wee bit, my stomach gets a bit upset. So, let me ignore that sweetener…
When I use most artificial sweeteners, at first they can seem enjoyable and freeing. A 50:50 blend of Stevia-in-the-Raw and Splenda can seem more like real sugar to me. But with repeated frequent use (say, daily in a mug of tea), I gradually come to feel not an anticipation of something good and satisfying but an expectation of doing something 'empty'. Sweetness in general becomes increasingly distasteful.
Perhaps the distaste is due to lack of metabolic reward. However, after a few days of not wanting sweetness, a little bit of real sugar can reset me to enjoying sugary things. Takes longer to again enjoy an artificial sweetener.
That's not really the same thing, you simply dislike the taste of artificial sweeteners. I dislike Stevia too, I can drink a cup of coffee with it once a day, but if I eat two subsequent things sweetened with stevia I feel like throwing up. Aspartame on the other hand tastes pretty much ok in soft drinks, dunno about other foods.
I think you've misunderstood what they're saying.
[deleted]
In my experience, it's the residual sugar (in everything that comes in a box/wrapper/bag) that keeps this "sweetness sensitivity" high.
I've done strict keto off and on for 10+ years and drank Diet Coke like it was going off the market. When I cut out carbs (we're talking < 30g per day), it becomes obvious that it's real sugar that triggers the cravings for me. Never did a diet soda make me crave a candy bar. Instead, it was generally something like a bite of a real hamburger bun, or a couple french fries.
It's really hard to isolate the effects of things like artificial sweeteners when "real" sugar is absolutely everywhere.
I've done strict keto off and on for 10+ years and drank Diet Coke like it was going off the market. When I cut out carbs (we're talking < 30g per day), it becomes obvious that it's real sugar that triggers the cravings for me. Never did a diet soda make me crave a candy bar. Instead, it was generally something like a bite of a real hamburger bun, or a couple french fries.
It's really hard to isolate the effects of things like artificial sweeteners when "real" sugar is absolutely everywhere.
Why is there something in Coke Zero that makes you crave sweets more?
Because it tastes sweet which changes your palette to prefer sweeter things generally. Some of these will likely contain sugar. So you’ll eat more sugar than if you drank water.
Because your palate gets saturated by sweet and as such many things that have a low sugar content are not appealing to you anymore. For example, when I was younger I was the only one in the family who drank soft drinks. Every time my mother made an apple pie it almost tasted sour to my mouth even though the rest of the family found it very sweet and pleasant. Wouldn't you know it, when I stopped with the sweet soft drinks my palate adjusted and I could finally enjoy my mother's low sugar pie
Some here may be concerned enough to consider this article https://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/tips/a2471/suga...
The proteins in skin most prone to glycation are the same ones that make a youthful complexion so plump and springy—collagen and elastin. When those proteins hook up with renegade sugars, they become discolored, weak, and less supple; this shows up on the skin's surface as wrinkles, sagginess, and a loss of radiance.
The proteins in skin most prone to glycation are the same ones that make a youthful complexion so plump and springy—collagen and elastin. When those proteins hook up with renegade sugars, they become discolored, weak, and less supple; this shows up on the skin's surface as wrinkles, sagginess, and a loss of radiance.
I was not familiar with glycation. Thanks for this rabbit hole...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_glycation_end-product
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9867518/
Something I still don't see generally acknowledged by society is that obesity, type 2 diabetes etc are all symptoms of one thing: food addiction.
Food addiction is real and just as harmful as other addictions like smoking and alcohol. But for some reason we still laugh about it like it doesn't exist. We even welcome with open arms new products that will try to make us addicted.
Next time you see a fat person, frame it as food addiction. You think they want to exist as a useless, grotesque blob? You think they don't know they have an embarrassing body and their oversized clothes don't really hide it? You think they are happy feeling uncomfortable and incapable all the time? They know it's the food, but they can't stop.
Next time you go out, start mentally replacing junk food with cigarettes. Replace the "golden arches" with Benson and Hedges. That waft of carefully engineered and pumped out Subway smell with cigarette smoke. The advertising, the vending machines, all of it. Then ask yourself why people are obese. It's an addiction with no escape.
Food addiction is real and just as harmful as other addictions like smoking and alcohol. But for some reason we still laugh about it like it doesn't exist. We even welcome with open arms new products that will try to make us addicted.
Next time you see a fat person, frame it as food addiction. You think they want to exist as a useless, grotesque blob? You think they don't know they have an embarrassing body and their oversized clothes don't really hide it? You think they are happy feeling uncomfortable and incapable all the time? They know it's the food, but they can't stop.
Next time you go out, start mentally replacing junk food with cigarettes. Replace the "golden arches" with Benson and Hedges. That waft of carefully engineered and pumped out Subway smell with cigarette smoke. The advertising, the vending machines, all of it. Then ask yourself why people are obese. It's an addiction with no escape.
Food addiction is for sure one reason for obesity, but the last few decades or so of research has really challenged the “you’re fat because of personal accountability” assertion.
The single best read out there on the topic, for the layman like myself, is probably this series of articles: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p.... It does a really good job of laying out all the contradictory information out there in a normal-human readable format while referencing studies to keep it real.
The single best read out there on the topic, for the layman like myself, is probably this series of articles: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p.... It does a really good job of laying out all the contradictory information out there in a normal-human readable format while referencing studies to keep it real.
You're completely missing my point. It is not down to personal accountability. It is due to certain sectors of our society leveraging the strong addictive potential of food.
Imagine confronting a recovering alcoholic with a glass of beer. Not just offering it but tempting him, wafting it in front of his nose, holding it up to the light to show the bubbles. And then saying "well it's your fault for drinking it" when he can't resist any longer.
We're all susceptible to addiction. Some more than others, of course. When it comes to food we're all descended from animals that evolved with food scarcity. We didn't evolve with refined sugars. What we're seeing in obesity figures is simply the susceptibility of people and ability to cope with their addictions. More than a quarter of all people are obese in France, a country once thought to be the prime example of healthy eating. And, guess what? McDonalds is very popular in France. Maybe it wasn't their genetics, maybe it was just the lack of McDonalds?
Imagine confronting a recovering alcoholic with a glass of beer. Not just offering it but tempting him, wafting it in front of his nose, holding it up to the light to show the bubbles. And then saying "well it's your fault for drinking it" when he can't resist any longer.
We're all susceptible to addiction. Some more than others, of course. When it comes to food we're all descended from animals that evolved with food scarcity. We didn't evolve with refined sugars. What we're seeing in obesity figures is simply the susceptibility of people and ability to cope with their addictions. More than a quarter of all people are obese in France, a country once thought to be the prime example of healthy eating. And, guess what? McDonalds is very popular in France. Maybe it wasn't their genetics, maybe it was just the lack of McDonalds?
I’m not missing your point, I’m saying that addiction/over-consumption is not the primary reason for the obesity epidemic, and I gave you a series of articles going into a very deep dive on the topic.
Can you give a TLDR of the thesis, because on its face that just doesn't make any sense at all when obesity only exists in countries where calories are plentiful and cheap.
History doesn’t support the idea that we’re simply eating more calories today. Going as far back as the American civil war we have records of what people were eating and what their general BMI was, and there is no causal link demonstrating that we are eating more today than we were then.
To the contrary, there is evidence that we were eating more calories in the past than we are today, and that general levels of exercise are actually greater today than they were in the past as an average across the populace.
Honestly, read the articles. There is a ton of information in there challenging what we “know” that no summary will do justice.
Here’s an excerpt:
> A popular theory of obesity is that it’s simply a question of calories in versus calories out (CICO). You eat a certain number of calories every day, and you expend some number of calories based on your metabolic needs and physical activity. If you eat more calories than you expend, you store the excess as fat and gain weight, and if you expend more than you eat, you burn fat and lose weight.
> This perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as body fat, and that it doesn’t have any tools for using more or less energy as the need arises. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. When we look closely, it turns out that “calories in, calories out” doesn’t match the actual facts of consumption and weight gain.
> “This model seems to exist mostly to make lean people feel smug,” writes Stephen Guyenet, “since it attributes their leanness entirely to wise voluntary decisions and a strong character. I think at this point, few people in the research world believe the CICO model.”
To the contrary, there is evidence that we were eating more calories in the past than we are today, and that general levels of exercise are actually greater today than they were in the past as an average across the populace.
Honestly, read the articles. There is a ton of information in there challenging what we “know” that no summary will do justice.
Here’s an excerpt:
> A popular theory of obesity is that it’s simply a question of calories in versus calories out (CICO). You eat a certain number of calories every day, and you expend some number of calories based on your metabolic needs and physical activity. If you eat more calories than you expend, you store the excess as fat and gain weight, and if you expend more than you eat, you burn fat and lose weight.
> This perspective assumes that the body stores every extra calorie you eat as body fat, and that it doesn’t have any tools for using more or less energy as the need arises. But this isn’t the case. Your body has the ability to regulate things like its temperature, and it has similar tools to regulate body fatness. When we look closely, it turns out that “calories in, calories out” doesn’t match the actual facts of consumption and weight gain.
> “This model seems to exist mostly to make lean people feel smug,” writes Stephen Guyenet, “since it attributes their leanness entirely to wise voluntary decisions and a strong character. I think at this point, few people in the research world believe the CICO model.”
The problem with food addiction is that while you can not drink anhalcohol or not smoke, not eating is simply not an option. For addiction the risk is always that using it once, means falling back into old habits.
You have to partake in your addiction and food producers are doing their best to give you the most gratifying foods.
You have to partake in your addiction and food producers are doing their best to give you the most gratifying foods.
Yeah, in my experience it is definitely easier to completely abstain from something than it is to limit yourself. I think this is why things like intermittent fasting and low-carb/keto diets seem to work. They involve some element of complete abstinence, ie. no food at all at certain times or no carbs at all.
However, it's not like everyone has to occasionally consume McDonalds. You can (and should) completely abstain from that. You can also completely abstain from buying any ready made food at all (as wisely suggested in other comments in this discussion).
The problem is you can't avoid the advertising and seeing the junk in the supermarkets when you go. I find that I don't have to exercise any moderation at home, but I do have to at the supermarket. We could all abstain from the advertising if we as a society choose to.
However, it's not like everyone has to occasionally consume McDonalds. You can (and should) completely abstain from that. You can also completely abstain from buying any ready made food at all (as wisely suggested in other comments in this discussion).
The problem is you can't avoid the advertising and seeing the junk in the supermarkets when you go. I find that I don't have to exercise any moderation at home, but I do have to at the supermarket. We could all abstain from the advertising if we as a society choose to.
> I find that I don't have to exercise any moderation at home, but I do have to at the supermarket.
I find it very helpful to buy all the groceries online (here this is being offered by supermarkets for a very small delivery fee, but the order needs to be substantial: between 1-2 weeks worth of groceries). Or, if i need to go in the supermarket, i have a shopping list prepared in advance. This means I’m not browsing; i go in, get the specific items i want, and leave. I pay no attention to the anything else. Also, i don’t go in a supermarket if I’m hungry.
I find it very helpful to buy all the groceries online (here this is being offered by supermarkets for a very small delivery fee, but the order needs to be substantial: between 1-2 weeks worth of groceries). Or, if i need to go in the supermarket, i have a shopping list prepared in advance. This means I’m not browsing; i go in, get the specific items i want, and leave. I pay no attention to the anything else. Also, i don’t go in a supermarket if I’m hungry.
> It's an addiction with no escape
There is hope through sheer willpower and lifestyle changes. Similar to stopping smoking. And it isn't easy. It is simple to do (CICO), however. I used to be 130kg. Now I'm sitting around 85kg (and would be better around 80kg), but the addiction never really goes away. I am forever aware of my calorie intake and expenditure. It's so easy to eat out of boredom and to eat more than I should. I have to police my behavior and preempt it. Can't eat junk food if you never buy any. But even then each one of those choices takes mental effort and will power to the point where to help ensure I continue fighting my addiction I've had to completely rethink my view point on food and purposefully try not to enjoy it. Food is not a reward. It is not a treat. It is fuel that I need to be active. And once I've had enough fuel for my current activity level, I don't need any more.
Not everyone can do this kind of introspection, lifestyle modification. It is a continual struggle where I've had to optimize my life around knowing just how much mental effort I'm capable of to manage my addiction. And western society doesn't make it any easier where you are shamed and called grotesque blobs for making poor choices in a system geared toward exploiting your weaknesses for profit. The most insidious aspect is that unlike smoking tobacco, you can't simply quit food. You need it to survive. Food should be regulated much like gambling is regulated or smoking for that matter. Otherwise, the sociopaths in our society will prey on people that literally can't help themselves.
There is hope through sheer willpower and lifestyle changes. Similar to stopping smoking. And it isn't easy. It is simple to do (CICO), however. I used to be 130kg. Now I'm sitting around 85kg (and would be better around 80kg), but the addiction never really goes away. I am forever aware of my calorie intake and expenditure. It's so easy to eat out of boredom and to eat more than I should. I have to police my behavior and preempt it. Can't eat junk food if you never buy any. But even then each one of those choices takes mental effort and will power to the point where to help ensure I continue fighting my addiction I've had to completely rethink my view point on food and purposefully try not to enjoy it. Food is not a reward. It is not a treat. It is fuel that I need to be active. And once I've had enough fuel for my current activity level, I don't need any more.
Not everyone can do this kind of introspection, lifestyle modification. It is a continual struggle where I've had to optimize my life around knowing just how much mental effort I'm capable of to manage my addiction. And western society doesn't make it any easier where you are shamed and called grotesque blobs for making poor choices in a system geared toward exploiting your weaknesses for profit. The most insidious aspect is that unlike smoking tobacco, you can't simply quit food. You need it to survive. Food should be regulated much like gambling is regulated or smoking for that matter. Otherwise, the sociopaths in our society will prey on people that literally can't help themselves.
That's a great summary of things the way they are.
"Sweetened the World" is a good phrase and fits well the situation.
One of the very best examples is sugar added to applesauce.
It's particularly nefarious because many consumers may be attempting to avoid sugary food and provide healthy foods for children ... only to unknowingly buy, essentially, candy.
One of the very best examples is sugar added to applesauce.
It's particularly nefarious because many consumers may be attempting to avoid sugary food and provide healthy foods for children ... only to unknowingly buy, essentially, candy.
Also sugar in fucking BREAD!!! Turkey is the worst offender i've come across here so far but the US is on a shameful close second.
Every single country in Asia would like a word.
Sugar is normal for starting yeasts. It's a small amount.
The type of "bread" they are referring to doesn't use yeast. McDonald's buns are basically sweetened dough with air beaten into it. Definitely suggest people eat McDonald's "food" bit by bit if you're into it. Might just put you off.
And, in any case, you don't need to put sugar in for yeast. The best bread has nothing of the sort. Just flour, yeast, salt and water.
And, in any case, you don't need to put sugar in for yeast. The best bread has nothing of the sort. Just flour, yeast, salt and water.
Even the salt is optional.
I prefer to not include salt in bread, but I add the required daily amount of salt to other kinds of food, where the added salt really improves the taste.
I prefer to not include salt in bread, but I add the required daily amount of salt to other kinds of food, where the added salt really improves the taste.
Salt really does improve the flavour of bread. I’m impressed you have got used to bread without salt because it tastes awful to me unless eaten with salty foods.
The Tuscany region of Italy traditionally uses unsalted bread.
When used “correctly” as part of a charcuterie plate and/or along with salty stews and meats, this works.
However, many tend to use this bread like they would any other, and frankly it’s well known for how horrible it tastes.
Bread without salt does not taste good at all, unless you’re a highly partisan Tuscan.
When used “correctly” as part of a charcuterie plate and/or along with salty stews and meats, this works.
However, many tend to use this bread like they would any other, and frankly it’s well known for how horrible it tastes.
Bread without salt does not taste good at all, unless you’re a highly partisan Tuscan.
>> Bread without salt does not taste good at all, unless you’re a highly partisan Tuscan.
Have you personally tried it? I cook for a relative who can't eat salt for health reasons and I make bread for them too, without salt. It tastes from bland to quite-decent=actually, depending on the amount of wholemeal flours I use. For example, 1/3 each of strong white flour, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal dark rye tastes good and smells divine as it bakes.
I think when people say that saltless bread tastes bad they mean plain white bread.
Have you personally tried it? I cook for a relative who can't eat salt for health reasons and I make bread for them too, without salt. It tastes from bland to quite-decent=actually, depending on the amount of wholemeal flours I use. For example, 1/3 each of strong white flour, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal dark rye tastes good and smells divine as it bakes.
I think when people say that saltless bread tastes bad they mean plain white bread.
I usually eat the bread mixed with olive oil which has a strong flavor. Adding salt would have little if any positive effect.
Nah, salt isn't optional. It's totally possible to eat well and enjoy it. In my experience, people who are afraid of salt usually consume tons of hidden salt in things they don't make themselves.
It's optional in the sense that it isn't required in order to successfully produce a loaf of bread. Same with sugar.
Bread certainly tastes a whole lot better with salt, which is why it's used, but that doesn't make it mandatory.
Bread certainly tastes a whole lot better with salt, which is why it's used, but that doesn't make it mandatory.
Ain't the best bread without some gochujang. :^)
It might be needed for industrial production, to reduce the risk of costly failures.
For home-made bread, I have never used sugar and I have never had a case when the dough failed to grow. I make a bread every day.
For home-made bread, I have never used sugar and I have never had a case when the dough failed to grow. I make a bread every day.
I love the smell of fresh baked bread in the morning... I dunno what other smell would be better to wake up with, maybe the sea.
Do you have any recipies? I have a bread maker and would like to know more
During the last years, I have switched to baking the bread in a microwave oven.
It is much faster and more reproducible than in a traditional oven and this allows me to bake a bread every morning, for my breakfast.
The baking time should be determined experimentally. In my microwave oven, the dough made of 500 g wheat flour is baked well in a glass vessel covered with a glass lid in a time of 14 minutes at 1000 W. One minute less or one minute more make little difference. The baking vessel must be large, to allow for expansion.
A basic bread can be made by putting 500 g wheat flour in a hemispherical glass bowl of suitable size (e.g. about 20 cm/8 inches in diameter), adding instant dry yeast (here sold in 7 g bags suited for 500 g flour) to the flour, mixing the yeast with the flour, adding water about 75% of the flour weight, and then kneading the dough.
For this amount, kneading needs about 6 to 7 minutes. I knead with one hand, keeping the bowl in the other hand. In this way, one hand remains clean, free of sticky dough. You need to keep around a pie spatula (or a spoon, if you do not have a pie server), to be able to remove the sticky dough from your kneading hand, when you finish. The kneading should stop when the dough becomes homogeneous, elastic and cohesive. After you do it a few times, it becomes easy to recognize when it is ready.
Then you can transfer the dough from the bowl into the baking vessel and leave it to rest and grow. For maximum growing, you may let the dough rest for an hour, but if in a hurry you can bake it earlier without much difference in the final product.
For the best growing, the dough should stay in a warm place. While I knead the dough, I boil water for tea in the microwave oven. Then, when the dough is ready, I take out the glass teapot and I put the baking vessel on the now warm plate of the microwave oven. I close the oven and one hour later I press the button to start the baking.
It is also possible to make unleavened bread (by not adding yeast), which still grows in a microwave oven much more than traditional unleavened bread. Its main advantage is that it can be ready faster. To make the bread fast, one can also use baking powder instead of yeast, which allows skipping over the resting time. The bread made with baking powder grows well, but it has a more compact and much finer structure than the bread made with yeast.
To the basic bread, there are a myriad possible additions. Most people want salted bread, so salt should be added to the flour, together with the yeast. You can add various spices, seeds or ground seeds. Some spices are best combined with sugar, but this should not be done everyday. With the exception of salt, I prefer to not add anything else uniformly but to lay flat and thin the dough, deposit on it layers of spices, seeds, sugar etc., then roll the dough to incorporate the additions and form it in the baking vessel. In this way, the bread will have alternate layers of plain bread with spices or seeds, so that a smaller quantity of those will produce a taste as intense as a greater quantity that would have been dispersed uniformly in the bread.
It is much faster and more reproducible than in a traditional oven and this allows me to bake a bread every morning, for my breakfast.
The baking time should be determined experimentally. In my microwave oven, the dough made of 500 g wheat flour is baked well in a glass vessel covered with a glass lid in a time of 14 minutes at 1000 W. One minute less or one minute more make little difference. The baking vessel must be large, to allow for expansion.
A basic bread can be made by putting 500 g wheat flour in a hemispherical glass bowl of suitable size (e.g. about 20 cm/8 inches in diameter), adding instant dry yeast (here sold in 7 g bags suited for 500 g flour) to the flour, mixing the yeast with the flour, adding water about 75% of the flour weight, and then kneading the dough.
For this amount, kneading needs about 6 to 7 minutes. I knead with one hand, keeping the bowl in the other hand. In this way, one hand remains clean, free of sticky dough. You need to keep around a pie spatula (or a spoon, if you do not have a pie server), to be able to remove the sticky dough from your kneading hand, when you finish. The kneading should stop when the dough becomes homogeneous, elastic and cohesive. After you do it a few times, it becomes easy to recognize when it is ready.
Then you can transfer the dough from the bowl into the baking vessel and leave it to rest and grow. For maximum growing, you may let the dough rest for an hour, but if in a hurry you can bake it earlier without much difference in the final product.
For the best growing, the dough should stay in a warm place. While I knead the dough, I boil water for tea in the microwave oven. Then, when the dough is ready, I take out the glass teapot and I put the baking vessel on the now warm plate of the microwave oven. I close the oven and one hour later I press the button to start the baking.
It is also possible to make unleavened bread (by not adding yeast), which still grows in a microwave oven much more than traditional unleavened bread. Its main advantage is that it can be ready faster. To make the bread fast, one can also use baking powder instead of yeast, which allows skipping over the resting time. The bread made with baking powder grows well, but it has a more compact and much finer structure than the bread made with yeast.
To the basic bread, there are a myriad possible additions. Most people want salted bread, so salt should be added to the flour, together with the yeast. You can add various spices, seeds or ground seeds. Some spices are best combined with sugar, but this should not be done everyday. With the exception of salt, I prefer to not add anything else uniformly but to lay flat and thin the dough, deposit on it layers of spices, seeds, sugar etc., then roll the dough to incorporate the additions and form it in the baking vessel. In this way, the bread will have alternate layers of plain bread with spices or seeds, so that a smaller quantity of those will produce a taste as intense as a greater quantity that would have been dispersed uniformly in the bread.
I used to hate dough sticking on my fingers so I started making no-knead bread. Usually that's made with sourdough but it turns out it works just fine with yeast also (I use instant dry yeast).
I make an 80% hydration dough with strong white, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal rye and give it a few good pulls every 15 minutes. I wet my fingers first and I get almost no dough sticking on them, even in the first few pulls when the dough is the most mushy. I shape it after a couple of hours (depending on how it's going), let it proof for a half-hour and bake it. I get a very healthy oven spring that way especially for a 2/3s wholemeal bread. All thanks to our little fungal friends who essentially do the kneading for me.
I need to figure out the baking though, or perhaps the hydration, because it ends up a bit too humid inside even after 35 minutes baking at close to the oven's max (which should be around 250 C).
I make an 80% hydration dough with strong white, wholemeal wheat and wholemeal rye and give it a few good pulls every 15 minutes. I wet my fingers first and I get almost no dough sticking on them, even in the first few pulls when the dough is the most mushy. I shape it after a couple of hours (depending on how it's going), let it proof for a half-hour and bake it. I get a very healthy oven spring that way especially for a 2/3s wholemeal bread. All thanks to our little fungal friends who essentially do the kneading for me.
I need to figure out the baking though, or perhaps the hydration, because it ends up a bit too humid inside even after 35 minutes baking at close to the oven's max (which should be around 250 C).
It never occurred to me that you could cook bread in the microwave. Thanks for sharing this. I may have to give it a try.
I heard that it helps speed up the rise time and extends shelf life as well.
I do also see bread on the shelf at the store that contains no sugar at all, so industrial production without sugar is possible.
I do also see bread on the shelf at the store that contains no sugar at all, so industrial production without sugar is possible.
The majority of the store-bought bread around here has much more than a small amount, though. It has enough that you can taste it, and it's not usually one of the last ingredients in the list on the package. (I'm counting high fructose corn syrup and the like as "sugar" here.)
Only to “validate” the yeast, e.g. to test a new batch or if it has been unused for a long period of time.
In actual bread dough, yeast finds all it needs to activate in the flour itself.
In actual bread dough, yeast finds all it needs to activate in the flour itself.
Rephrasing some of the comments below, if you are looking to avoid the effects of a candy or a soft drink, you should avoid fruit juice - eat the whole fruit instead, that's actually healthy. Blending fruit makes the entire sugar content immediately available to your digestive system, causing a spike in the glycemic index (aka the level of sugar in your blood), which has unhealthy consequences.
I am actually not sure if a candy has enough sugar to cause a spike in an adult, but I imagine the threshold would be lower in a child. Not to mention, children don't understand the meaning of addiction: they just want (more) candies and you had better oblige or else!
I am actually not sure if a candy has enough sugar to cause a spike in an adult, but I imagine the threshold would be lower in a child. Not to mention, children don't understand the meaning of addiction: they just want (more) candies and you had better oblige or else!
Applesauce isn't avoiding sugary or unhealthy food. It already is, essentially, candy before adding more sugar. An apple and a snickers bar have similar sugar content. Fruit is "healthy" because of the fiber and the way it's processed by your body in the whole fruit form. It is, however, very sugary.
Really, fruits should be viewed very much like candy.
Really, fruits should be viewed very much like candy.
Fruits are nothing like candy, and it's sad that diet science has gone so backwards as to make this type of statement seem reasonable--that all of diet can be boiled down to carbs, fiber, protein, and fat.
A fruit is a complex matrix of sugars, fiber, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals which undergo a type of metabolism that our bodies are principally adapted for and which allows us to assimilate the various components at a relatively optimal rate and quantity, with many self-limiting reactions along the way.
Candy is highly distilled; impacts the GI tract, liver, and pancreas fast and hard; has no nutritional value outside of calories; and is generally a food that the human body has no biological intelligence for assimilating.
Contrast that to fruit, which is the oldest source of nutrition for hominids. We like sweet things and have color vision because fruit has been such a valuable source of nutrition.
A fruit is a complex matrix of sugars, fiber, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals which undergo a type of metabolism that our bodies are principally adapted for and which allows us to assimilate the various components at a relatively optimal rate and quantity, with many self-limiting reactions along the way.
Candy is highly distilled; impacts the GI tract, liver, and pancreas fast and hard; has no nutritional value outside of calories; and is generally a food that the human body has no biological intelligence for assimilating.
Contrast that to fruit, which is the oldest source of nutrition for hominids. We like sweet things and have color vision because fruit has been such a valuable source of nutrition.
While you're not wrong, this needs a couple of qualifications:
1. Modern fruit (last 50ish years in particular) is nothing like wild fruit and is being bred to have higher and higher sugar content. I'm failing to find a decent source for this but what my memory says is that sugar content has gone up 50% or more in most modern fruit varieties compared to heirloom equivalents.
2. Apple sauce is stewed for a long time and doesn't have the same nutritional qualities at a molecular level as raw fruit.
3. Store bought apple sauce always has a least sugar and often a load of other crap added.
I would say apple sauce is somewhere between candy and fresh fruit on the health scale.
1. Modern fruit (last 50ish years in particular) is nothing like wild fruit and is being bred to have higher and higher sugar content. I'm failing to find a decent source for this but what my memory says is that sugar content has gone up 50% or more in most modern fruit varieties compared to heirloom equivalents.
2. Apple sauce is stewed for a long time and doesn't have the same nutritional qualities at a molecular level as raw fruit.
3. Store bought apple sauce always has a least sugar and often a load of other crap added.
I would say apple sauce is somewhere between candy and fresh fruit on the health scale.
Once i read that the Bananas we bred would be to sweet for monkeys to consume. Not sure if this is true though.
Thankfully there are other goals than increasing sugar. Almonds were bred to a lower cyanide content to make em edible. Bet there are plenty other examples.
Vegetables and don't want to be eaten and protect themselves with mild "poison" or a strong shell. Fruit does and can be eaten raw. Vegetables need to be cooked to destroy antinutrients and help digestion. Egg and meat protein can be digested easier after denaturing the proteins through heat. Milk becomes digestible through the enzymes in Rennet. Cheese would make sense to me, no clue about fermented milk products.
Thankfully there are other goals than increasing sugar. Almonds were bred to a lower cyanide content to make em edible. Bet there are plenty other examples.
Vegetables and don't want to be eaten and protect themselves with mild "poison" or a strong shell. Fruit does and can be eaten raw. Vegetables need to be cooked to destroy antinutrients and help digestion. Egg and meat protein can be digested easier after denaturing the proteins through heat. Milk becomes digestible through the enzymes in Rennet. Cheese would make sense to me, no clue about fermented milk products.
> Once i read that the Bananas we bred would be to sweet for monkeys to consume. Not sure if this is true though.
The common banana we have today, the Cavendish, is actually a bit less sweet than the common banana before the 1960s.
Back then, it was the Gros Michel, which was sweeter and more flavorful[1]. But these bananas are all a monoculture, clones, and the Gros Michel was wiped out by a disease. The Cavendish is currently in the process of being devastated by a new disease as well, so it's very possible that future generations will be eating a different banana than we are.
[1] One of the reasons why a lot of banana-flavored candy only roughly resembles banana is because it tastes like a Gros Michel, not a Cavendish. Candymakers don't change it because that's the flavor that people have come to expect and want from that candy.
The common banana we have today, the Cavendish, is actually a bit less sweet than the common banana before the 1960s.
Back then, it was the Gros Michel, which was sweeter and more flavorful[1]. But these bananas are all a monoculture, clones, and the Gros Michel was wiped out by a disease. The Cavendish is currently in the process of being devastated by a new disease as well, so it's very possible that future generations will be eating a different banana than we are.
[1] One of the reasons why a lot of banana-flavored candy only roughly resembles banana is because it tastes like a Gros Michel, not a Cavendish. Candymakers don't change it because that's the flavor that people have come to expect and want from that candy.
> 1. Modern fruit (last 50ish years in particular) is nothing like wild fruit and is being bred to have higher and higher sugar content. I'm failing to find a decent source for this but what my memory says is that sugar content has gone up 50% or more in most modern fruit varieties compared to heirloom equivalents.
I keep reading that, but I experienced (and also heard) the opposite. Store-bought fruit are engineered for maximum shelf-life, size, and looks, primarily. At expense of taste, including sweetness. Organic produce or just garden grown fruits are smaller and uglier, but far sweeter.
I keep reading that, but I experienced (and also heard) the opposite. Store-bought fruit are engineered for maximum shelf-life, size, and looks, primarily. At expense of taste, including sweetness. Organic produce or just garden grown fruits are smaller and uglier, but far sweeter.
The Red Delicious apple is very much red, and very much not delicious. But it does have shelf life and looks going for it.
Organic produce doesn't have an appreciably better taste in my experience, nor is it necessarily smaller, but garden-grown definitely wins for flavor - you can optimize the time of picking for the sometimes incredibly narrow window of ripeness. I haven't grown them in several years, but I used to plant strawberries every year. I'd get 2-3 perfectly ripe strawberries a day, and they were delicious.
Raspberries are another fruit that has a very, very short shelf life. Even the commercial varieties are only good for about a week after picking, and I've read that the very best varieties for flavor are only good for about one day.
If you're doing anything with berries where flavor is paramount, and whole-fruit texture is not (anything made from a puree), farm-fresh is best and frozen is a very close second. Flash-frozen fruits and vegetables lose the texture of fresh, but they are picked at peak ripeness and typically frozen within an hour or two.
Organic produce doesn't have an appreciably better taste in my experience, nor is it necessarily smaller, but garden-grown definitely wins for flavor - you can optimize the time of picking for the sometimes incredibly narrow window of ripeness. I haven't grown them in several years, but I used to plant strawberries every year. I'd get 2-3 perfectly ripe strawberries a day, and they were delicious.
Raspberries are another fruit that has a very, very short shelf life. Even the commercial varieties are only good for about a week after picking, and I've read that the very best varieties for flavor are only good for about one day.
If you're doing anything with berries where flavor is paramount, and whole-fruit texture is not (anything made from a puree), farm-fresh is best and frozen is a very close second. Flash-frozen fruits and vegetables lose the texture of fresh, but they are picked at peak ripeness and typically frozen within an hour or two.
> 1. Modern fruit (last 50ish years in particular) is nothing like wild fruit and is being bred to have higher and higher sugar content. I'm failing to find a decent source for this but what my memory says is that sugar content has gone up 50% or more in most modern fruit varieties compared to heirloom equivalents.
Interesting. Also of note, fruits and the fruits of vegetables world wide seem to be increasing in size and caloric content while decreasing in nutritional content, correlated with rising atmospheric CO2.
Interesting. Also of note, fruits and the fruits of vegetables world wide seem to be increasing in size and caloric content while decreasing in nutritional content, correlated with rising atmospheric CO2.
CO2 fertilization effect. It's well known. Farmers have used CO2 enrichment for a long time to bring on crops in greenhouses. But the growing season is also getting longer, leading to some massive yield increases in places. Global greening.
Regarding modern fruit, it's also worth noting that many wild tropical fruits are naturally very sweet.
50% is a low number! 10x is a more accurate one.
But you cannot compare todays fruits to those that our bodies have evolved on. Over the last couple of thousand years we have selectively most (if not all) of them for higher sugar contents.
That is not to say that a diet should not contain fruits, it probably should and fruits are most definetly more nutritious than candy, but its not that black and white.
That is not to say that a diet should not contain fruits, it probably should and fruits are most definetly more nutritious than candy, but its not that black and white.
You are right about cultivated fruits, but the distance in sugar content between them and candy remains very high.
Most cultivated fruits have a sugar content of around 10%, while only a few have a sugar content slightly above 15%, e.g. grapes and (raw) figs.
Only the dried fruits have a sugar content similar to chocolate and candy, i.e. starting from around 60% to much more.
So dried fruits should be avoided, but fresh or defrosted fruits up to a few hundred grams per day should be OK (when no other sweets are eaten).
Most cultivated fruits have a sugar content of around 10%, while only a few have a sugar content slightly above 15%, e.g. grapes and (raw) figs.
Only the dried fruits have a sugar content similar to chocolate and candy, i.e. starting from around 60% to much more.
So dried fruits should be avoided, but fresh or defrosted fruits up to a few hundred grams per day should be OK (when no other sweets are eaten).
True, but still on a whole other level than candy. A snickers bar or coke hurts my teeth it is so sweet and a bag of gummies churns my gut. I feel fine after eating an apple. Fruits honestly don’t even seem that sweet unless you’re just eating those genetic modified grapes and new apples. Many (most?) fruits are quite tart. Maybe it’s my equatorial bias speaking and I eat a wider range of fruits than the average person, but I just don’t see fruits I enjoy as particularly sweet.
It seems the missing things when considering food composition is absorption and availability.
Calories alone are measured by burning things but it maters if your body has to do work to access those calories.
The more processed or broken down an ingredient is the more available those calories are to the body vs the same amount in its raw form.
I suspect, but don’t know, that liquid sugar in sodas is far worse than in fruit form because your digestive system isn’t processing fibre to get to it.
Think sweetcorn vs cornbread. They could have the same calories but processing cornflour means you’re unlikely to see it again in undigested form. That same can’t be said for raw sweetcorn.
Calories alone are measured by burning things but it maters if your body has to do work to access those calories.
The more processed or broken down an ingredient is the more available those calories are to the body vs the same amount in its raw form.
I suspect, but don’t know, that liquid sugar in sodas is far worse than in fruit form because your digestive system isn’t processing fibre to get to it.
Think sweetcorn vs cornbread. They could have the same calories but processing cornflour means you’re unlikely to see it again in undigested form. That same can’t be said for raw sweetcorn.
Plenty of related discussion over here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36728033
Regulation through voluntary goodwill never works in aggregate. Blaming actors rather than regulators will always be futile in the end as players in a system will almost always trend towards self interest in the long run, as has been proven time and time again
Of course many would argue there's no need to regulate at all, and that's a fair position to hold too.
There's nothing inherently wrong with providing products that offer a tradeoff between health and enjoyment. As long as consumers are aware of the longer term costs
Of course many would argue there's no need to regulate at all, and that's a fair position to hold too.
There's nothing inherently wrong with providing products that offer a tradeoff between health and enjoyment. As long as consumers are aware of the longer term costs
Clearly people are choosing sugary products. The only thing that would be inappropriate for food companies to do would be to lie about the health effects of that sugar. This article seems to imply they're lying (or at least misleading) quite a bit.
Don't forget <s>bribing</s> funding researchers to say fat was worse than sugar [0]
>Early warning signals of the coronary heart disease (CHD) risk of sugar (sucrose) emerged in the 1950s. We examined Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) internal documents, historical reports, and statements relevant to early debates about the dietary causes of CHD and assembled findings chronologically into a narrative case study. The SRF sponsored its first CHD research project in 1965, a literature review published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of CHD and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor. The SRF set the review’s objective, contributed articles for inclusion, and received drafts. The SRF’s funding and role was not disclosed. Together with other recent analyses of sugar industry documents, our findings suggest the industry sponsored a research program in the 1960s and 1970s that successfully cast doubt about the hazards of sucrose while promoting fat as the dietary culprit in CHD. Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry–funded studies and include mechanistic and animal studies as well as studies appraising the effect of added sugars on multiple CHD biomarkers and disease development.
[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...
>Early warning signals of the coronary heart disease (CHD) risk of sugar (sucrose) emerged in the 1950s. We examined Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) internal documents, historical reports, and statements relevant to early debates about the dietary causes of CHD and assembled findings chronologically into a narrative case study. The SRF sponsored its first CHD research project in 1965, a literature review published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which singled out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of CHD and downplayed evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor. The SRF set the review’s objective, contributed articles for inclusion, and received drafts. The SRF’s funding and role was not disclosed. Together with other recent analyses of sugar industry documents, our findings suggest the industry sponsored a research program in the 1960s and 1970s that successfully cast doubt about the hazards of sucrose while promoting fat as the dietary culprit in CHD. Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry–funded studies and include mechanistic and animal studies as well as studies appraising the effect of added sugars on multiple CHD biomarkers and disease development.
[0] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl...
Careful though because all that doesn't mean fat isn't a cause of CHD. As far as I can tell the evidence for fat's relation to CHD was not fabricated by teh sugar lobby, it was only drummed up to try and hide the evidence for sugar's role.
I am admittedly not up to date on the latest literature, but my understanding was that sugar was significantly worse than fat. Not necessarily that fat was free of negative health outcomes.
> Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry–funded studies
> The SRF’s funding and role was not disclosed.
LOL!
> The SRF’s funding and role was not disclosed.
LOL!
It’s not much of a choice when most available food products are all sugar laced, and the healthier alternatives are typically much more expensive.
You know what's actually better and often cheaper (unless you're billing your own time for it): buying basics and making your own!
Here's a good essay on the broad topic "Fight Back with Real Tomato Sauce": https://sue.coulstock.id.au/fight-back-with-real-tomato-sauc...
Here's a good essay on the broad topic "Fight Back with Real Tomato Sauce": https://sue.coulstock.id.au/fight-back-with-real-tomato-sauc...
In the US, there are plenty of canned tomato products -- sauce, crushed, puree, whole -- that are pretty much just tomatoes. I find that it's hard to beat canned tomatoes, because the fresh tomatoes available at the supermarket are cardboard. The canned sauces can be canned close to where they're picked, and thus don't have to be optimized for transportation and storage. And they're convenient.
Like the article says, the glass jar stuff is loaded with sugar.
Of course I still enjoy fresh tomatoes from my garden every summer, but am not too disappointed if I don't get enough to freeze or can.
Like the article says, the glass jar stuff is loaded with sugar.
Of course I still enjoy fresh tomatoes from my garden every summer, but am not too disappointed if I don't get enough to freeze or can.
Pretty much just tomatoes, and then loads of salt. I have to hunt around to find some that don’t have 20% of my daily sodium, per serving. It’s fine to eat 20% in one serving of a meal, but tomatoes are always accompanied by other stuff, including ingredients that are always salty, like cheese.
Fortunately our supermarket has sufficient number of no-salt selections.
The tomatoes in your super market where bread for their appearance, like a rose, not their taste. Heirloom tomatoes will always taste much better.
Let's also keep in mind that the folks who are notoriously exposed to sugar also happen to be poor, and those folks may not have the time to prepare meals that they otherwise could if they weren't poor. I grew up in a relatively poor family (five boys, single mom most of the time), and my mom spent a lot of her time struggling with her own issues. She can still cook a mean lasagna, but those dinners were tempered by macaroni and hotdog slices (which I love, btw, and still make). Ketchup (edit: and single packaged cheese) on toast? Yes please!
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I make my own tomato sauce. Super easy and freezes well. Tastes better too. There’s also plenty of non-sugary options at the supermarket if you’re pressed for time.
Where do you get good tasting tomatoes though? It’d become increasingly hard and expensive pursuit in the US for example, not sure where you get yours.
Canned work great. In fact, most Italian cookbooks recommend canned. I like Cento and it’s found in most grocery stores.
Try farmer's markets (you can find these even in urban areas if you know where to look, e.g. Boston's Haymarket) or a food co-op.
I don’t understand this comment at all. Unless you only buy pre-packaged foods, it’s easy to avoid sugary foods at the grocery store. And even pre-packaged foods have nutrition labels.
It’s not a lack of choices; it’s either consumers are unaware or (more likely) knowingly prefer sweeter options. Unless you are of the position those in charge should dictate food choices, the only option is greater consumer education.
It’s not a lack of choices; it’s either consumers are unaware or (more likely) knowingly prefer sweeter options. Unless you are of the position those in charge should dictate food choices, the only option is greater consumer education.
I don't think your comment and the parent's comment are at odds.
I agree with your assertion that consumer education is a much more effective and reasonable long term solution than government intervention (I used my own words, please correct me if I've misinterpreted). Likewise, I agree with the commenter whose comment you can't relate with: it really isn't helping that so much food is "fortified" with sugar (used my own words again).
I am totally guessing (as in I could be completely wrong) that the reason this viewpoint doesn't resonate with you is because you are one of the people who has educated themselves about nutrition, and imo even more importantly, it sounds like you may have been introduced to healthy eating (and food preparation) habits early on. I apologize if any of these assumptions are flat out incorrect regarding your upbringing, but I don't think they are too far fetched in any case (i.e. while it may not be true for you, it is reasonable that it may be true for others).
It's not just education about food that makes a difference, it also matters a lot being exposed to healthy eating and food preparation habits.
Both of you can be right in this case without any actual disagreement.
I agree with your assertion that consumer education is a much more effective and reasonable long term solution than government intervention (I used my own words, please correct me if I've misinterpreted). Likewise, I agree with the commenter whose comment you can't relate with: it really isn't helping that so much food is "fortified" with sugar (used my own words again).
I am totally guessing (as in I could be completely wrong) that the reason this viewpoint doesn't resonate with you is because you are one of the people who has educated themselves about nutrition, and imo even more importantly, it sounds like you may have been introduced to healthy eating (and food preparation) habits early on. I apologize if any of these assumptions are flat out incorrect regarding your upbringing, but I don't think they are too far fetched in any case (i.e. while it may not be true for you, it is reasonable that it may be true for others).
It's not just education about food that makes a difference, it also matters a lot being exposed to healthy eating and food preparation habits.
Both of you can be right in this case without any actual disagreement.
Fair enough, and I am a foodie and scientist to boot. By habit, I almost turn the container over to look at the nutrition label; others probably look at thing’s differently.
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But vegetables are some of the cheapest things you can buy. Like a 5 pound bag of potatoes or onions or carrots. Or dry beans and rice. Etc
Ingredients, yes. Prepared foods, no.
> It’s not much of a choice when most available food products are all sugar laced, and the healthier alternatives are typically much more expensive.
This IS what humans in aggregate are choosing / have chosen.
This IS what humans in aggregate are choosing / have chosen.
Regulatory capture prevents regulators from doing their jobs, and I'm not sure any amount of regulator blaming will change that.
Naming and shaming companies, however, can make them change their strategy.
Naming and shaming companies, however, can make them change their strategy.
I’m not so sure. Placing the blame at regulators would encourage people to vote for politicians that will regulate more effectively. That’s a direct link, versus hoping corporate shame trickles through to regulation.
No it won't. Nobody is going to make something like this the center of their platform, and most voters don't do nuanced appraisals of a candidate's whole platform because it's a waste of time, they go with their gut feeling about 2 or 3 big issues and whether the politician has an appealing personality. If this wasn't true then height wouldn't be so strongly correlated with political success.
Furthermore, look at a recent example of a pro-strong regulation policy: the Obama admin believed in a well run regulatory state, and the first lady led a public health campaign promoting healthier school lunches with more fruits and vegetables as well as exercise. You'd think encouraging kids to eat unprocessed food and exercise would be wholly inoffensive, but the other political party and its media surrogates treated it like the imposition of communism and complained endlessly about 'freedom' and 'waste'.
Your version is how things ought to work, and how it was more or less assumed it does work for many years, but it's based on an obsolete understanding of political markets. Ubiquitous networking has made it easy for like-minded people to find and coordinate with each other, and some people favor perverse outcomes. Approximately 30% of people are willing to suffer an economic loss in order to inflict a greater loss on their opponents, and that personality type now controls one of the country's two major political parties.
Furthermore, look at a recent example of a pro-strong regulation policy: the Obama admin believed in a well run regulatory state, and the first lady led a public health campaign promoting healthier school lunches with more fruits and vegetables as well as exercise. You'd think encouraging kids to eat unprocessed food and exercise would be wholly inoffensive, but the other political party and its media surrogates treated it like the imposition of communism and complained endlessly about 'freedom' and 'waste'.
Your version is how things ought to work, and how it was more or less assumed it does work for many years, but it's based on an obsolete understanding of political markets. Ubiquitous networking has made it easy for like-minded people to find and coordinate with each other, and some people favor perverse outcomes. Approximately 30% of people are willing to suffer an economic loss in order to inflict a greater loss on their opponents, and that personality type now controls one of the country's two major political parties.
Another example would be Bloomberg as mayor of NYC. A sugar tax was attacked as an attack on the poor, minorities, overreach of government, attack on freedom to name a few. I can’t see it being supported any time soon by another politician as Bloomberg was in a position to be able self fund a campaign and be a bit more drastic in certain areas. You mention Michelle Obama who got more crap as well for trying to get kids to exercise as well.
Good point. I disliked Bloomberg as an individual (although he proves me wrong in that height isn't everything) but thought the sugar tax was a great idea. I was quite depressed by the reaction to it, because a lot of left-leaning people took umbrage at it, citing the popularity of soda among minorities and the poor. I was more into party politics at the time, and was astonished at how intense and sustained the opposition was on Democratic forum sites.
Thoughtful arguments about public health policy, corporate greed, agricultural subsidies, etc. etc. were dismissed with bullshit rhetoric about people's right to enjoy their favorite soda flavor. It was organic too, in the sense of not being astroturfed - I knew the people on the forums quite well, but they just dumped all their regular principles once they felt they were affected b¥ an issue that hit their taste buds.
Thoughtful arguments about public health policy, corporate greed, agricultural subsidies, etc. etc. were dismissed with bullshit rhetoric about people's right to enjoy their favorite soda flavor. It was organic too, in the sense of not being astroturfed - I knew the people on the forums quite well, but they just dumped all their regular principles once they felt they were affected b¥ an issue that hit their taste buds.
Expanding the regulatory state is the last thing we need. Instead we should constrain the power of unelected regulators to set rules in most areas, thus decreasing the impact of regulatory capture.
If restricting sugary foods is a good idea then let the elected politicians do so directly and take the heat for it. Don't allow them to escape responsibility by delegating their authority to bureaucrats.
If restricting sugary foods is a good idea then let the elected politicians do so directly and take the heat for it. Don't allow them to escape responsibility by delegating their authority to bureaucrats.
What prevents companies from bribing the next guy though? It worked well enough the first time and the funds are already in the budget for this.
What should a more effective regulator be doing with respect to food?
Blaming Regulators or industry almost never works. Ultimately the consumer is the only one capable of making the thousand choices a day necessary.
I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it that some government regulator should or even can micromanage the diet of ordinary citizens.
The idea that it is possible for them to control the nutritional composition of food and the balance consumed is absurd at face value.
Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it that some government regulator should or even can micromanage the diet of ordinary citizens.
The idea that it is possible for them to control the nutritional composition of food and the balance consumed is absurd at face value.
Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
I don’t know why everyone thinks these things are so black and white.
For example, corn subsidies inevitably lowers the price of sugar, which means — on a micro level - some food engineer might replace some fat with sugar to reduce costs but keep appeal - which, in a macro level, encourages higher sugar content in processed foods.
It can be argued that subsidies are for national security by ensuring there will always be US farmers in case some country cuts imports to us.
But as for heightened sugar problem, you can’t exactly blame the company, food engineer, industry, farmers, Congress or consumers directly. No one intended this side effect — it just kinda happened.
It’s like it’s a complex problem and there’s 1000 angles and you just have to look at these micro-issues individually. You can’t just say “regulate it” or “consumers should be responsible.”
For example, corn subsidies inevitably lowers the price of sugar, which means — on a micro level - some food engineer might replace some fat with sugar to reduce costs but keep appeal - which, in a macro level, encourages higher sugar content in processed foods.
It can be argued that subsidies are for national security by ensuring there will always be US farmers in case some country cuts imports to us.
But as for heightened sugar problem, you can’t exactly blame the company, food engineer, industry, farmers, Congress or consumers directly. No one intended this side effect — it just kinda happened.
It’s like it’s a complex problem and there’s 1000 angles and you just have to look at these micro-issues individually. You can’t just say “regulate it” or “consumers should be responsible.”
You're the one making up the idea - that's not an idea people have.
Regulators and middle managers provide me with limited options for each of those thousand choices, and I, without having to think much, can pick one of them safely.
For each of my choices, various regulators and managers have all gotten many says already.
Some bureaucrat does manage my diet, and your diet too, but they don't micromanage it, and nobody is saying they should micromanage it
It's perfectly feasible for regulators to identify when companies are adding sugars - look at the recipe, inspect the factory, put things in bomb calorimeters. Thats not at all absurd, and there's already standards maintained for basically everything, including foods like peanut butter (see: https://youtu.be/esQyYGezS7c )
If it was absurd, it would be impossible to do food safety regulation, like ensuring that food doesn't contain toxins or heavy metals
Regulators and middle managers provide me with limited options for each of those thousand choices, and I, without having to think much, can pick one of them safely.
For each of my choices, various regulators and managers have all gotten many says already.
Some bureaucrat does manage my diet, and your diet too, but they don't micromanage it, and nobody is saying they should micromanage it
It's perfectly feasible for regulators to identify when companies are adding sugars - look at the recipe, inspect the factory, put things in bomb calorimeters. Thats not at all absurd, and there's already standards maintained for basically everything, including foods like peanut butter (see: https://youtu.be/esQyYGezS7c )
If it was absurd, it would be impossible to do food safety regulation, like ensuring that food doesn't contain toxins or heavy metals
>You're the one making up the idea - that's not an idea people have.
If you look at the other responses, you'll see a number of people who want food pulled from the shelves and their options limited so they don't have to exercise self-control and take responsibility for what they consume or don't consume.
There our hosts calling for a bureaucrats to micromanage diets so that they are more healthy.
There are post claiming that people our powerless to resist advertising, therefore the government should be making the choices for those people
If you look at the other responses, you'll see a number of people who want food pulled from the shelves and their options limited so they don't have to exercise self-control and take responsibility for what they consume or don't consume.
There our hosts calling for a bureaucrats to micromanage diets so that they are more healthy.
There are post claiming that people our powerless to resist advertising, therefore the government should be making the choices for those people
I'm not going to pretend that regulators are perfect, but I simply can't agree that food safety regulation hasn't improved our quality of life compared to 100 years ago. That's just one of many, many ways that industry, regulators, and consumers interact.
And I know the overall topic is about dietary choices, but I'm responding to your blanket anti-regulation statement.
And I know the overall topic is about dietary choices, but I'm responding to your blanket anti-regulation statement.
Well, see, the main reason we found ourselves needing large-scale food-safety regulations was because of ballooning large-scale food production, distribution, and restaurant service.
If your society has an agrarian model, where you locally produce, distribute, and serve all the food you need to subsist, and these chains are small-scale and numerous, then there is more trust inherent in that model, and less pressure for profit or growth. Therefore, many of the motives are removed for adulteration or poor-quality food. These can be relatively self-regulating industries as described.
In an industrial, developed first-world country, you have massive factory farms scaling up, you have ginormous distribution networks on rail, water, tarmac, and asphalt, and they all run with help from the massive oil industry, and finally you have large-scale food service operations and restaurant chains and mega-groceries all over town. So yeah! There's gonna be a lot of motive to mess with food, and there's gonna be a lack of trust in the Big City, because these supply chains are so long and deep, spanning oceans and borders, that it's very impersonal. So those are ripe conditions for adulteration, reductions in quality, false labeling, and all those things the FDA/USDA/FTC have striven to eliminate on the behalf of the consumer, I guess.
If your society has an agrarian model, where you locally produce, distribute, and serve all the food you need to subsist, and these chains are small-scale and numerous, then there is more trust inherent in that model, and less pressure for profit or growth. Therefore, many of the motives are removed for adulteration or poor-quality food. These can be relatively self-regulating industries as described.
In an industrial, developed first-world country, you have massive factory farms scaling up, you have ginormous distribution networks on rail, water, tarmac, and asphalt, and they all run with help from the massive oil industry, and finally you have large-scale food service operations and restaurant chains and mega-groceries all over town. So yeah! There's gonna be a lot of motive to mess with food, and there's gonna be a lack of trust in the Big City, because these supply chains are so long and deep, spanning oceans and borders, that it's very impersonal. So those are ripe conditions for adulteration, reductions in quality, false labeling, and all those things the FDA/USDA/FTC have striven to eliminate on the behalf of the consumer, I guess.
I agree that basic safety and accurate labeling are an appropriate scope for regulation. My comment was in the context of the discussion of diet.
Mandatory fortification of milk , flour and other staples has done wonders for reducing malnutrition, massively improving public health in both developed and developing countries.
It's precisely because people have so many choices and possible vendors that regulation is more needed, not less. We can't all be experts in everything. And we all have different levels of self control.
Some producers are becoming so large they can afford to bribe the scientists and regulators. Smaller players are struggling to compete without resorting to adding sugars themselves.
For all these reasons we collectively develop laws and regulations to keep things within some reasonable limits. Considering the obesity epidemic, despite few wanting to be obese, I think tightening the reigns a bit is warranted.
Some producers are becoming so large they can afford to bribe the scientists and regulators. Smaller players are struggling to compete without resorting to adding sugars themselves.
For all these reasons we collectively develop laws and regulations to keep things within some reasonable limits. Considering the obesity epidemic, despite few wanting to be obese, I think tightening the reigns a bit is warranted.
I don't subscribe to the idea that people are too stupid to figure it out.
Nutrition isn't rocket surgery. If you can read numbers, you can discern the calories and sugar content. You even get a recommended daily percent.
If some people feel like they can't control their lives, maybe there should be an option for those people to give the state parental controls over them, telling them what they can and cannot eat. As for myself, I think what foods I choose to consume are none of the government's business
Nutrition isn't rocket surgery. If you can read numbers, you can discern the calories and sugar content. You even get a recommended daily percent.
If some people feel like they can't control their lives, maybe there should be an option for those people to give the state parental controls over them, telling them what they can and cannot eat. As for myself, I think what foods I choose to consume are none of the government's business
> If you can read numbers, you can discern the calories and sugar content. You even get a recommended daily percent.
Is it not regulation that forced the display of this information?
Is it not regulation that forced the display of this information?
> As for myself, I think what foods I choose to consume are none of the government's business
There is a difference though: it's not about choice as much as it is about "good defaults". As a state you should want your folk to have better food, but if some person wants the choice of micromanaging their diet then sure, go ahead.
I shouldn't be struggling to find non-processed food in a supermarket. This is often the case right now, which is why I would very much welcome some more regulation on this.
There is a difference though: it's not about choice as much as it is about "good defaults". As a state you should want your folk to have better food, but if some person wants the choice of micromanaging their diet then sure, go ahead.
I shouldn't be struggling to find non-processed food in a supermarket. This is often the case right now, which is why I would very much welcome some more regulation on this.
> I shouldn't be struggling to find non-processed food in a supermarket. This is often the case right now, which is why I would very much welcome some more regulation on this.
What supermarkets do you go to that don't have a produce section and a meat section? Is there some other form of unprocessed food you expect?
Even something like pasta and bread are technically processed (but maybe not ultraprocessed unless its wonderbread)
What supermarkets do you go to that don't have a produce section and a meat section? Is there some other form of unprocessed food you expect?
Even something like pasta and bread are technically processed (but maybe not ultraprocessed unless its wonderbread)
Surely don't all supermarkets sell potatoes, carrots, green vegetables, fruit, nuts, minimally processed cereals (husk removal and cleaning), fresh meat, fish, cheese, eggs and dairy products including naturally processed cheeses?
I wonder if the term 'micromanaging [their diet]' is a touch perjorative. Given the prevalence of serious chronic diseases which are reported to be strongly linked to what you eat, shouldn't everyone be encouraged to take a serious look at how to 'macro' manage their diet, an action which is almost certainly likely to improve quality of life and maybe life span?
I wonder if the term 'micromanaging [their diet]' is a touch perjorative. Given the prevalence of serious chronic diseases which are reported to be strongly linked to what you eat, shouldn't everyone be encouraged to take a serious look at how to 'macro' manage their diet, an action which is almost certainly likely to improve quality of life and maybe life span?
It's not about being too stupid, it's about having so much else in your life to balance mentally that you don't have the resources to investigate the minutiae of diet science.
I'm not advocating for making consumption illegal. I'm saying regulate the commercial production and sale. In some markets sugary foods must be clearly labeled with scary warnings. That's a step in the right direction.
I would like to live in a world, with very little tempting foods when i walk around.
I would like to live in a world where me and maybe a person i trust, could together limit of the foods i can buy, and than program that into my credit card.
I would like to live in a world, where instead of scienticts and engineersand businessmen working on optimizing the addictiveness of food, which isn't a good social goal, would work on optimizing the long term happiness derived from food.
And sure, while I would lose some freedom and fun in this process, given the role food plays in mood and health, over the long term i would likely be happier, much happier.
I would like to live in a world where me and maybe a person i trust, could together limit of the foods i can buy, and than program that into my credit card.
I would like to live in a world, where instead of scienticts and engineersand businessmen working on optimizing the addictiveness of food, which isn't a good social goal, would work on optimizing the long term happiness derived from food.
And sure, while I would lose some freedom and fun in this process, given the role food plays in mood and health, over the long term i would likely be happier, much happier.
The idea that it is possible for them to control the nutritional composition of food and the balance consumed is absurd at face value.
It doesn't seem that absurd to me. If the government banned the production and import of potato chips, you could still make them at home, but people would probably make a lot less of them. Unlike drugs, food is not conveniently hidden and the value is too low per unit volume to justify illicit production. Therefore food which is banned generally will not be produced at scale.
If the government did set out to materially improve the dietary habits of the citizenry, it would definitely be possible. It would be politically infeasible and possibly tyranny, but it would be very doable.
It doesn't seem that absurd to me. If the government banned the production and import of potato chips, you could still make them at home, but people would probably make a lot less of them. Unlike drugs, food is not conveniently hidden and the value is too low per unit volume to justify illicit production. Therefore food which is banned generally will not be produced at scale.
If the government did set out to materially improve the dietary habits of the citizenry, it would definitely be possible. It would be politically infeasible and possibly tyranny, but it would be very doable.
I meant the word can in the context of a free society, with practical constraints.
I agree that if you ignore the constraints it would be trivial. There are so many brutal and oppressive solutions it isn't even worth listing examples.
I agree that if you ignore the constraints it would be trivial. There are so many brutal and oppressive solutions it isn't even worth listing examples.
I honestly think you're overstating it a little. For example there are places where foie gras is banned. I would not characterize it as brutal and oppressive. I guess there are some libertarians who would say oppressive is the proper word, but surely we can agree that brutal is a step too far?
Such a program could be done as a rachet, similarly to how tobacco use was driven to the margins.
Such a program could be done as a rachet, similarly to how tobacco use was driven to the margins.
The article isn't talking about niche goods like foie Gras, it is talking about
sugar and salt. Any proposal to control intake of those would have to be much more complex.
Again I'm not saying it would be trivial, but we know how to tax food. It is not as complex as you're making it out to be. Putting a 400% tax (or whatever, not a health economist) on all ready to drink liquids with sugar concentrations greater than X g/L, and banning their sale outside grocery stores, would make a significant dent in overall sugar consumption.
Sometimes there are too many bad choices for consumers to shift through and having a regulator eliminate, discourage or label them is a good thing actually.
Yes I do want a bureaucrat back by the best nutritional science available to nudge the market to provide me with better, healthier options.
The danger is, of course, that the agency gets captured by the AG industry. Such as the old "food pyramid" that suggested a quarter of your diet should be straight carbs. Or the "fat free" movement that was really just replacing fats with sugars.
Yes I do want a bureaucrat back by the best nutritional science available to nudge the market to provide me with better, healthier options.
The danger is, of course, that the agency gets captured by the AG industry. Such as the old "food pyramid" that suggested a quarter of your diet should be straight carbs. Or the "fat free" movement that was really just replacing fats with sugars.
> The danger is, of course, that the agency gets captured by the AG industry
While I wouldn’t dispute the undue influence of corporate interests on lawmakers, I would bet that the bigger factor is the tax revenue that the government collects from increased corporate profits. It is int eg government’s interest for companies to thrive because then it gets more funds via taxation.
While I wouldn’t dispute the undue influence of corporate interests on lawmakers, I would bet that the bigger factor is the tax revenue that the government collects from increased corporate profits. It is int eg government’s interest for companies to thrive because then it gets more funds via taxation.
The trouble is that most nutritional "science" is bunk, or at least rather low quality. We would be better off without the government making nutritional recommendations or food pyramids or anything like that. There is zero reliable scientific evidence that that stuff produces better public health outcomes. It's a huge waste of tax dollars.
> Ultimately the consumer is the only one capable of making the thousand choices a day necessary.
In an ideal world that would be the case. But in an era of mass media, consumers really aren't making the choice. The choice is being made for them by ads.
> I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it that some government regulator should or even can micromanage the diet of ordinary citizens.
Pretty much everything a supermarket, restaurant, etc sells is regulated by the government. Whether you like it or not, government is involved in our diets.
> Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
A geniunely independent bureacrat? Maybe. On the other hand, do you want a world where corporations with their ads control your diet? It's a complex question.
In an ideal world that would be the case. But in an era of mass media, consumers really aren't making the choice. The choice is being made for them by ads.
> I'm not sure where the idea comes from that it that some government regulator should or even can micromanage the diet of ordinary citizens.
Pretty much everything a supermarket, restaurant, etc sells is regulated by the government. Whether you like it or not, government is involved in our diets.
> Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
A geniunely independent bureacrat? Maybe. On the other hand, do you want a world where corporations with their ads control your diet? It's a complex question.
> The choice is being made for them by ads.
Advertising doesn’t replace human agency, only—at most—informs the choices that people make.
The choices others make that inform (but do not decide) someone’s diet are the following:
1. Congress or an agency empowered by Congress choosing to prohibit certain crops. Note: not choosing to allow, unless they previously prohibited it.
2. Private farms and businesses choosing which crops to farm and livestock to raise.
2b. Controls on the handling and raising of crops and livestock may have an effect on the profitability of those choices, so legislation can also inform this choice at this level, but again, doesn’t decide it.
3. What farm products distributors and manufacturers choose to purchase for resell.
4. What stores and supermarkets choose to purchase for sale.
5. What the customer chooses to purchase for their own consumption, which is the ultimate test for the market viability of crops and livestock if there is no other commercial use for them.
Advertising doesn’t replace human agency, only—at most—informs the choices that people make.
The choices others make that inform (but do not decide) someone’s diet are the following:
1. Congress or an agency empowered by Congress choosing to prohibit certain crops. Note: not choosing to allow, unless they previously prohibited it.
2. Private farms and businesses choosing which crops to farm and livestock to raise.
2b. Controls on the handling and raising of crops and livestock may have an effect on the profitability of those choices, so legislation can also inform this choice at this level, but again, doesn’t decide it.
3. What farm products distributors and manufacturers choose to purchase for resell.
4. What stores and supermarkets choose to purchase for sale.
5. What the customer chooses to purchase for their own consumption, which is the ultimate test for the market viability of crops and livestock if there is no other commercial use for them.
As opposed to the world where corporations manage it, and they stuff everything with sugar?
It sucks that this is the dichotomy, but yes, absolutely, a bureaucrat will probably end up getting better food to you than corporate interests.
It sucks that this is the dichotomy, but yes, absolutely, a bureaucrat will probably end up getting better food to you than corporate interests.
You don't think food companies can control what goes into their food? If that were true how are they able to label food with the grams of sugar it has and how is liquor able to have exactly the alcohol labeled? I can't believe someone would actually argue this.
Blaming Regulators or industry almost never works.
It literally worked for tobacco
Blaming Regulators or industry almost never works.
It literally worked for tobacco
Imagine how many lives could be saved if we eliminated the privatization of food and had all food distributed by government nutritionists.
Sounds like a nightmare to me though, even though theoretically one massively reduce diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc. with such a system.
Sounds like a nightmare to me though, even though theoretically one massively reduce diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc. with such a system.
> Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
Absolutely. My direct personal life and the world around me would be better if there were less sugar available (especially for children and teens, as with alcohol and tobacco for example), it were more expensive, and/or it were better labeled.
Absolutely. My direct personal life and the world around me would be better if there were less sugar available (especially for children and teens, as with alcohol and tobacco for example), it were more expensive, and/or it were better labeled.
I would be ok with your opinion if we made advertising for food illegal. As it is now, we have a massive onslaught of marketing for unhealthy foods that's designed to exploit every weakness of the human psyche. It's a massive imbalance.
> Blaming Regulators or industry almost never works. Ultimately the consumer is the only one capable of making the thousand choices a day necessary.
It's all of this, all at once, millions of times over.
We're an ant colony solving a problem we don't really grok as individuals.
It's even bigger than just these choices. Sugar subsidies. You know what else sugar is used for? Ethanol. Fuel. Transportation. Trade. National defense. You name it, these decisions are intertwined at scale.
If some negative externality grows to great, the system will rebalance. It does so almost thermodynamically.
It's all of this, all at once, millions of times over.
We're an ant colony solving a problem we don't really grok as individuals.
It's even bigger than just these choices. Sugar subsidies. You know what else sugar is used for? Ethanol. Fuel. Transportation. Trade. National defense. You name it, these decisions are intertwined at scale.
If some negative externality grows to great, the system will rebalance. It does so almost thermodynamically.
Depends on how you define the system. Unregulated markets can get so far up their own ass they destroy the health and lives of their own consumers. Then just shift marketing to target younger and younger demographics. The end game looks like Wall-E, where everyone is obese, even kids. All kinds of health issues. Shorter and less fulfilling lives. Yet skyhigh profits for a few.
>Do some people actually want to live in a world where some bureaucrat manages their diet?
The (very unfortunate) answer is 'yes'. The people who say 'no' are in the minority.
The (very unfortunate) answer is 'yes'. The people who say 'no' are in the minority.
the same govt that made the flawed food pyramid should regulate food lol
Maybe I'm letting my own existential dread and depression into the policy debate, but I've often made short-sighted decisions because there's not much else to live for and little hope for the long-term in general. Why drink water instead of soda if you'll never be able to retire? Perhaps we should look for a political solution to this problem first. Anyone else ever felt this way, or am I just depressed?
eating like crap isnt going to help your depression besides a quick feeling of happiness/dopamin from sugar
"As long as consumers are aware" is important, yet insufficient. Those consumers must also have alternative options available in the market. Competition isn't just on price, but on features.
Consumers, aware, are pissed, but if a boycott means they starve, an agro company can just wait for the next season of insulin consumers.
> As long as consumers are aware of the longer term costs
I'm OK as long as consumers rather than society are expected to bear the longer term costs. There is nothing worse than hearing "legalize hard drugs!" followed by "let's sink billions of dollars into treatment for those poor drug addicts!"
I'm OK as long as consumers rather than society are expected to bear the longer term costs. There is nothing worse than hearing "legalize hard drugs!" followed by "let's sink billions of dollars into treatment for those poor drug addicts!"
It depends on your countries health system of course. If that one is sponsored by the government, it's only fair to tax the shit out of unhealthy food.
exhibit a of why we don’t want socialized medicine. because it justifies this exact thought process
I'm from Belgium, and it's actually pretty great here to go to the docter, dentist, surgeon or pharmacy. Not the craziness of US. To each their own I guess.
There needs to be more strict management of the capacity for humans to screw other humans over.
Thomas Hobbes talks about this a good amount in The Leviathan
Thomas Hobbes talks about this a good amount in The Leviathan
As if anyone had a choice about climate change. Cigarettes, oxy, sugar, and carbon are all alike in that their detrimental effects were hidden, downplayed, or denied for decades. Now, here we are with a destroyed ecosystem and rampant addiction. Choice is a meaningless word in the context of capitalism. There is only manipulation.
Regulation was needed 60 years ago, and now we are the ones left holding the bag.
Regulation was needed 60 years ago, and now we are the ones left holding the bag.
In a competitive system is it selfishness or survival?
paulddraper(3)
Seems like a headline that's going to get people riled up, while its discussing misleading and lies in marketing of food towards uneducated people in developing parts of India.
tough country to deal with problems in, idk how you reach everyone to educate them.
tough country to deal with problems in, idk how you reach everyone to educate them.
Let’s not give FDA, NIH and other standard and quality control monitoring agencies pass while food conpanies did this. They also purposely pushed “fat is bad” while the whole diet chart with the carb/milk and dairy was plain misleading. And they knew they were lying, most of their propositions were pushed by one guys research. And of course big pharma always sponsored and benefited these types of research.
When I see populist cranks getting traction in the culture and in politics, I find myself being as angry at the establishment for this as I am at the cranks or perhaps even more.
I feel like our main establishment entities like the FDA, NIH, major universities, pharma companies, etc. still aren't willing to take any responsibility for why people don't trust them anymore.
Cranks are filling the vacuum, but the cranks didn't create the vacuum.
I feel like our main establishment entities like the FDA, NIH, major universities, pharma companies, etc. still aren't willing to take any responsibility for why people don't trust them anymore.
Cranks are filling the vacuum, but the cranks didn't create the vacuum.
It’s always funny to me when I see institutions publish reports in the credibility crisis, because their solution is always to do more media operations. But the lack of trust comes from the behavior of these institutions and their use of the media to cover up their mistakes in the first place!
They’re stuck in the old broadcast media era. It’ll probably take a generational shift in who is running these things.
Broadcast transmissions have always been regulated world over, not cuz the Regulators are great or act fast or are trusted, but cuz the Cost to Mass Broadcast, whatever shit occurs to a 3 inch chimp brain, is much greater than 0.
The cost to multiply has always been the real barrier to prevent cancer from spreading faster than the immune system can react.
Whether it is setting up a printing press and distributing newspapers/books or radio/tv station, movie studio broadcasts, it used to cost a lot. Even with chat/email/phone/sms there is a high cost. The email list of everyone on the planet is easy to assemble these days. But try emailing everyone on the list every few minutes.
The whole story breaks down when Youtube/Facebook/TikTok made Cost to Broadcast 0 for everyone.
The cost to multiply has always been the real barrier to prevent cancer from spreading faster than the immune system can react.
Whether it is setting up a printing press and distributing newspapers/books or radio/tv station, movie studio broadcasts, it used to cost a lot. Even with chat/email/phone/sms there is a high cost. The email list of everyone on the planet is easy to assemble these days. But try emailing everyone on the list every few minutes.
The whole story breaks down when Youtube/Facebook/TikTok made Cost to Broadcast 0 for everyone.
Cranks are filling the vacuum, but the cranks didn't create the vacuum.
lol, really? The former president (still lying about the 2020 election), Fox News (paid near $1B settlement for lying), and the Republican party repeatedly saying all the Federal institutions can't be trusted because they're run by the Deep State or crooked liberals.
Which cranks didn't create the distrust again?
lol, really? The former president (still lying about the 2020 election), Fox News (paid near $1B settlement for lying), and the Republican party repeatedly saying all the Federal institutions can't be trusted because they're run by the Deep State or crooked liberals.
Which cranks didn't create the distrust again?
Fox and 45 are just suppliers meeting demand. They say what their audience expects. They’re the symptom, not the disease. Distrust is deeply rooted in tens of millions of places around the US, for a constellation of reasons. These representatives aren’t innocent, but they’re no more the cause of the widespread distrust than a cough is the cause of leukemia. And in both cases, you have far more important things to worry about than the loud mouth.
There’d never have been a Trump without Bush II and the Iraq war or the bank bailouts, to name just two things that destroyed trust in institutions.
Populist demagoguery is an opportunistic infection. It’s taking hold because the host is weak.
I still maintain that Bush II was the worst president of the last hundred years. Trump may look superficially worse, but Bush caused Trump.
Populist demagoguery is an opportunistic infection. It’s taking hold because the host is weak.
I still maintain that Bush II was the worst president of the last hundred years. Trump may look superficially worse, but Bush caused Trump.
Bush II and the lies about WMDs was amazingly bad.
But Trump is still lying about the 2020 election.
And before leaving office installed Barry Myers (a climate change denier) to run NOAA because he got all butthurt from sharpie gate.
And clowns are running on "defund the <insert fed dept here>", because reasons.
It sounds very much more pro-active than ever.
But Trump is still lying about the 2020 election.
And before leaving office installed Barry Myers (a climate change denier) to run NOAA because he got all butthurt from sharpie gate.
And clowns are running on "defund the <insert fed dept here>", because reasons.
It sounds very much more pro-active than ever.
The Trump lies didn't cause an entire region to collapse in war and cause hundreds of thousands of deaths. The only way to think of bush as being better than Trump is if you are completely neck deep into American partisan politics. Lying about elections is not worse than a war that ruined entire generations in the middle east. Not even close actually.
The middle east was on the verge of collapse/total war before the Bush administration.
And Iraq played a large roll in causing it to happen.
People looking back if 9/11 didn't happen towards Bush administration would've been a lot more positive due to no incentive to form war on terror.
And Iraq played a large roll in causing it to happen.
People looking back if 9/11 didn't happen towards Bush administration would've been a lot more positive due to no incentive to form war on terror.
That's rationalization. The middle east wasn't on the verge of collapse, that's ludicrous. even if it was, it doesn't justify the invasion! Again, those deaths are squarely americas fault. It would be like arguing that eh, Putin isnt so bad since Ukraine was in a state of quasi civil war anyways. But the civil war was caused in huge part due to Russian meddling in Ukraine, just like the instability in the middle east in 2003 was due to the war on terror and the decades of playing king makers by the US.
In any case, Trump still led to an order of magnitude less deaths than Bush. As a non American (and a Muslim) that's all that matters. Everything else is irrelevant outside of the US. And arguing that lying is worse than killing is again, quite extreme partisanship.
It's weird to see the rhetoric shifting to "well the Iraq war was acshually not that bad because... We need to rehabilitate bush and we need Trump to be the worse like, ever!". No, Iraq did not deserve an invasion based on lies. No matter how bad Saddam was, the most affected were the Iraqis.
In any case, Trump still led to an order of magnitude less deaths than Bush. As a non American (and a Muslim) that's all that matters. Everything else is irrelevant outside of the US. And arguing that lying is worse than killing is again, quite extreme partisanship.
It's weird to see the rhetoric shifting to "well the Iraq war was acshually not that bad because... We need to rehabilitate bush and we need Trump to be the worse like, ever!". No, Iraq did not deserve an invasion based on lies. No matter how bad Saddam was, the most affected were the Iraqis.
It literally was, Saddam Hussein started 2 wars, 1 genocide alone - he was during the 90s the biggest risk for stability in the Middle east.
Syria was still trying to do pan-arabism by destabilizing any country it deemed going against this ambition.
Lebanon had JUST stopped it's 25 year civil war, countless terrorist organizations springing up and the list goes on and on.
I never stated it justified the invasion, I'm just pointing out that proclaiming that the USA with 1 war caused the entire middle east to implode is not true.
The only truth to the instability of the middle east is a mixture of the Cold war and political movement such as pan-arabism and Islamism, these caused the biggest political instability and thus decadent and stagnant power structure in those countries (effectively that of typical power over everything).
You said it yourself, as a non-american, of course, I never said "globally speaking", I specifically said for Americans.
The Iraq war would have been a different story if there was an actual understand by the Bush administration of what actually was the fundamental issues with Iraq beyond the maniac decision making of Saddam Hussein.
The fact that the Bush administration in it's arrogance believed the naive belief of bringing democracy & freedom to Iraqis was all would be required to ensure stability in the region was and still is a painful lesson for the western world on how to create stability in an unstable nation.
From what I know people are nostalgic towards Bush because he seems more diplomatic, compromising and composed than what Trump does - while defiantly not true while Bush was in office, people like putting on rose tinted glasses when presented with the bleak present.
Syria was still trying to do pan-arabism by destabilizing any country it deemed going against this ambition.
Lebanon had JUST stopped it's 25 year civil war, countless terrorist organizations springing up and the list goes on and on.
I never stated it justified the invasion, I'm just pointing out that proclaiming that the USA with 1 war caused the entire middle east to implode is not true.
The only truth to the instability of the middle east is a mixture of the Cold war and political movement such as pan-arabism and Islamism, these caused the biggest political instability and thus decadent and stagnant power structure in those countries (effectively that of typical power over everything).
You said it yourself, as a non-american, of course, I never said "globally speaking", I specifically said for Americans.
The Iraq war would have been a different story if there was an actual understand by the Bush administration of what actually was the fundamental issues with Iraq beyond the maniac decision making of Saddam Hussein.
The fact that the Bush administration in it's arrogance believed the naive belief of bringing democracy & freedom to Iraqis was all would be required to ensure stability in the region was and still is a painful lesson for the western world on how to create stability in an unstable nation.
From what I know people are nostalgic towards Bush because he seems more diplomatic, compromising and composed than what Trump does - while defiantly not true while Bush was in office, people like putting on rose tinted glasses when presented with the bleak present.
You cannot regulate away everything that may be harmful or unhealthy (also has personal variations).
Perhaps putting the efforts into education, teaching what is what and more importantly why? And who wants to influence/manipulate you for their own benefit while causing you harm?
I ate lots of sugar as a child slowly steered away by good advice, avoiding it by the time became young adult and since (decades).
Informed self reliance is much more reliable than relying on a regulatory 'father figure'.
Perhaps putting the efforts into education, teaching what is what and more importantly why? And who wants to influence/manipulate you for their own benefit while causing you harm?
I ate lots of sugar as a child slowly steered away by good advice, avoiding it by the time became young adult and since (decades).
Informed self reliance is much more reliable than relying on a regulatory 'father figure'.
There is a really, really easy way to avoid all of this.
In the supermarket, only buy things that have one ingredient. Only eat and drink things that have one ingredient.
As Michael Pollan says: "Eat FOOD, mostly greens, not too much."
In the supermarket, only buy things that have one ingredient. Only eat and drink things that have one ingredient.
As Michael Pollan says: "Eat FOOD, mostly greens, not too much."
I agree on the approach, and I try my best, but it isn't easily. You almost have to make food preparation a hobby.
Not necessarily. I used to spend a lot more time cooking but nowadays it doesn't consume much time. Having the right equipment is the most important thing. It starts with a sharp knife. Then a good array of pots and pans, utensils. All can be acquired second hand for peanuts. You can get rid of your microwave. Save some space in your kitchen. You won't need that any more.
The problem is, back in the day people learnt the skills to prepare food out of necessity. Now you have to want to do it. I suggest a good book on a favourite cuisine. Convince yourself that what you cook at home is nicer than the shit you can buy in shops and you won't want it any more. Don't forget to give your own food a chance and put just as much salt in it as they do, though. I see this mistake a lot. People think prepared/processed food is nicer just because it has more salt. Use salt.
The problem is, back in the day people learnt the skills to prepare food out of necessity. Now you have to want to do it. I suggest a good book on a favourite cuisine. Convince yourself that what you cook at home is nicer than the shit you can buy in shops and you won't want it any more. Don't forget to give your own food a chance and put just as much salt in it as they do, though. I see this mistake a lot. People think prepared/processed food is nicer just because it has more salt. Use salt.
I've found the actual cooking time is just 1/3 of the whole process. The rest is washing the produce, pealing, dicing AND lastly, cleaning all the pots, pans, etc.
And no, not everything can go in the dishwasher.
And no, not everything can go in the dishwasher.
You get better at it, like you start washing things up as you go rather than letting it pile up. But some things definitely do take a lot of time. It used to be part of a full time job. But now we all work full time for someone else and have to somehow find the time to work for ourselves and our families afterwards.
Yes to only buying stuff with one ingredient. With a few exceptions like fresh bread which is made traditionally. Don't know about only eating stuff with one ingredient, though. Not sure how you'd ever eat onions and garlic, for example. Maybe you meant only eat/drink stuff made with those ingredients?
A bit of of insight here: in a lot of places the availability of sweetened food it’s not only higher than no processed food but it’s cheaper. For less privileged folks it’s quite hard to dodge high carb + high sugar foods.
Even fruit/vegetables have become sweeter over the decades with selective breeding.
That’s the least of societies concerns. Corn syrup and sugar infused everything is a massive problem.
no they haven't[1][2]. Please stop perpetuating this myth
1. https://twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/1149968041964396545
2. https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/
1. https://twitter.com/Botanygeek/status/1149968041964396545
2. https://deniseminger.com/2011/05/31/wild-and-ancient-fruit/
It's not a myth. You're both kinda right:
1) The fruit that we eat today is hyper-sugarized and available 24/7 all the time. Eg European ancestors NEVER had access to this amount of fruit. Apples, bananas, (water)melons, sweet grapes, ...these things didn't exist 150 years ago in the form we know today. People eat these sugar bombs all the time.
2) There does exist high sugar natural fruit.
1) The fruit that we eat today is hyper-sugarized and available 24/7 all the time. Eg European ancestors NEVER had access to this amount of fruit. Apples, bananas, (water)melons, sweet grapes, ...these things didn't exist 150 years ago in the form we know today. People eat these sugar bombs all the time.
2) There does exist high sugar natural fruit.
Even your modern European cousins don’t have quite the same level of access to super-sugary fruits year-round, or at least we see some blatant price differences.
Cherries right now (mid-July) in northern Bavaria: $3/lb at the grocery store, cheaper if you buy direct from farmers just outside the towns. Various small plums are free for the taking from trees along trails and rivers. I’m planning some serious jam-making over the next few weekends.
Cherries in January: if available at all, approximately $20/lb, import from South Africa or Chile. Plums are also available, about $8/lb, but not very flavorful.
Cherries right now (mid-July) in northern Bavaria: $3/lb at the grocery store, cheaper if you buy direct from farmers just outside the towns. Various small plums are free for the taking from trees along trails and rivers. I’m planning some serious jam-making over the next few weekends.
Cherries in January: if available at all, approximately $20/lb, import from South Africa or Chile. Plums are also available, about $8/lb, but not very flavorful.
[deleted]
Not many things have only one ingredient.
The point is that ideally all food processing occurs in your own kitchen. Of course the food you end up eating will be comprised of multiple ingredients; by only buying food ingredients that are in their original unprocessed form, and combining them yourself in constructing a meal, you have full control over the ingredients you are consuming.
Bulllshit.
Steak, chicken breast, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, turkey thighs, spinach, corn on the cob, some organic peanut butters, flour, salt, zucchini, eggplant, pork chops, tomatoes, potatoes, yams, vinegar, olive oil, bok choi, broccoli, asparagus, beef liver, canned tuna fish (are we really going to split hairs over the salt brine?), ground beef, garlic, onion, shallots, spring onion, iceberg lettuce, watermelon, peaches, bananas, apples, eggs, mahi mahi, chives, cod, romaine, gem lettuce, kale, walnuts, almonds, leek, etc.
Even if you don’t apply common sense to this heuristic and include milk, cheese, bread, good quality bacon, etc., there is a veritable cornucopia of strictly single-ingredient foods available.
But yeah, you’re gonna have to buy ingredients and cook actual meals to be healthy. No way around it, I’m afraid…
Steak, chicken breast, cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, turkey thighs, spinach, corn on the cob, some organic peanut butters, flour, salt, zucchini, eggplant, pork chops, tomatoes, potatoes, yams, vinegar, olive oil, bok choi, broccoli, asparagus, beef liver, canned tuna fish (are we really going to split hairs over the salt brine?), ground beef, garlic, onion, shallots, spring onion, iceberg lettuce, watermelon, peaches, bananas, apples, eggs, mahi mahi, chives, cod, romaine, gem lettuce, kale, walnuts, almonds, leek, etc.
Even if you don’t apply common sense to this heuristic and include milk, cheese, bread, good quality bacon, etc., there is a veritable cornucopia of strictly single-ingredient foods available.
But yeah, you’re gonna have to buy ingredients and cook actual meals to be healthy. No way around it, I’m afraid…
Fruits, great. Many vegetables. And steak.
You're not putting anything on the chicken or turkey? You're going to have ground beef by itself? Are you biting into that onion like an apple? And the garlic? Iceberg lettuce by itself sucks. What do you mean "flour", what do you mean "salt"?
You're not putting anything on the chicken or turkey? You're going to have ground beef by itself? Are you biting into that onion like an apple? And the garlic? Iceberg lettuce by itself sucks. What do you mean "flour", what do you mean "salt"?
Combining the "single" ingredients into a home-cooked meal is perfectly fine.
Keep reading to the end.
I also have a hard time believing this is a genuine source of confusion…
I also have a hard time believing this is a genuine source of confusion…
I read to the end. If "cook actual meals" is supposed to imply combining ingredients then you broke the rule of "only eat and drink things that have one ingredient". Otherwise I don't know what you're referring to.
I'm not confused by minimizing processing via home cooking, I'm confused by how your list was supposed to be relevant to the comment you replied to. That comment had a very specific objection.
(And yes, I see that the OP has now replied saying you can combine ingredients at home. But I think the skepticism toward the original phrasing was valid.)
I'm not confused by minimizing processing via home cooking, I'm confused by how your list was supposed to be relevant to the comment you replied to. That comment had a very specific objection.
(And yes, I see that the OP has now replied saying you can combine ingredients at home. But I think the skepticism toward the original phrasing was valid.)
You're playing dumb. We know this.
I'm not playing dumb. At this point I'm accusing them of saying the wrong thing. (Though I don't mean to be hostile toward them for it.)
"Buy things with one ingredient" is one idea. "Only eat things with one ingredient" is a very different and much more narrow idea.
And don't say it was obvious what they meant. I've seen people claim much wilder things about healthy eating than "don't combine ingredients".
"Buy things with one ingredient" is one idea. "Only eat things with one ingredient" is a very different and much more narrow idea.
And don't say it was obvious what they meant. I've seen people claim much wilder things about healthy eating than "don't combine ingredients".
Literally everything I buy and eat/drink has one ingredient.
Every single vegetable. Every single fruit. Water (I get it from the tap), rice, pasta, noodles. Meat. Eggs. Fish.
Every single vegetable. Every single fruit. Water (I get it from the tap), rice, pasta, noodles. Meat. Eggs. Fish.
Depends on how you shop. If you buy premade food, you’re right. If you buy ingredients and prepare yourself, you’re less right. It’s a scale.
You can have pasta, or sauce (crushed tomatoes), but not both. No salt, no garlic, no onions, no olive oil. One ingredient.
So you don't know how to cook and prepare food? Get a book about it. If you read English, and especially if you are American, you might as well get Joy of Cooking.
Interesting tragedy of the commons.
Not really. Excess sugar consumption has a direct negative impact on the consumer. The only commons here is health care.
The Commons here is the 'market for healthy food'.
The first entity that adds extra sugar to their food to gain mind share inevitably causes the rest of the competitors to all add more sugar, bringing them back to parity while also destroying 'the market for healthy food'.
This race towards everyone being worse off because of economic incentives not to be left behind is a tragedy of the commons in the market sense.
The first entity that adds extra sugar to their food to gain mind share inevitably causes the rest of the competitors to all add more sugar, bringing them back to parity while also destroying 'the market for healthy food'.
This race towards everyone being worse off because of economic incentives not to be left behind is a tragedy of the commons in the market sense.
first it was cigarettes that were bad, understandably enough, so graphic warnings labels were put on the packages. and now with cigarettes having been conquered , time for warnings on vaping and sugary dinks ,too. maybe people just want bad stuff?
They’re now “vegetizing” the world with “plant-based” (read: highly processed) products and lab-grown meats (ditto).
The sooner we realize that food industry are engaged in capitalism and not public health, nor ecology, the better. What the food industry pushes is best read through the lens of patentable intellectual property and market disruption in an economic sector with razor-thin margins. I would encourage all conscientious people not to be their useful idiots.
The sooner we realize that food industry are engaged in capitalism and not public health, nor ecology, the better. What the food industry pushes is best read through the lens of patentable intellectual property and market disruption in an economic sector with razor-thin margins. I would encourage all conscientious people not to be their useful idiots.
Wouldn't eating a salad of all vegetables be "plant-based"? Are you saying they use that phrase misleadingly too?
I think that's the misunderstanding here. Things like Beyond Meat aren't really any better for you than real meat. It's just another push from the capital class to co-opt the medical profession's message that we should all be eating less meat. The ingredients, textured vegetable protein and highly processed lentils, have had almost all of the really healthy stuff removed from them and they serve only as a substrate for particular flavors that mimic meat.
Insofar as it isn't recognizably an ingredient that is picked from a field and marketed as a plant or animal part, it's part of what's causing all of us to be really unhealthy in the US.
Insofar as it isn't recognizably an ingredient that is picked from a field and marketed as a plant or animal part, it's part of what's causing all of us to be really unhealthy in the US.
Real evidence-based medicine guidelines don't call for eating less (unprocessed) meat. The studies that purport to show better health outcomes from eating less meat have been low quality observational ones that didn't properly control for confounders like the healthy subject effect. If there is an impact one way or the other then it is very small relative to more important dietary factors such as total caloric intake and macronutrient levels.
If you want to eat less meat for other reasons then go ahead. But there is no legitimate scientific consensus on this point in the medical profession.
If you want to eat less meat for other reasons then go ahead. But there is no legitimate scientific consensus on this point in the medical profession.
That’s fair enough, but it still has a far lower impact on the planet, for those times when someone just really wants a burger.
Fair enough, but for most people, health of themselves is way more important than the health of the planet.
The reason for eating things like Beyond Beef isn't for the vegetables it's to prevent the death of animals and environmental cost of factory farming.
> Beyond Meat aren't really any better for you than real meat
They aren't. Majority of meat products are also heavily processed and far from being healthy food. Sausages, cutlets, etc. The only good meat is some cut that you cooked yourself.
So from the health perspective there isn't much difference between processed meat and processed vegetables. Both aren't good for our guts. Sadly, buying unprocessed food and/or cooking is often more expensive and not scalable to cover every single individual or family on this planet.
They aren't. Majority of meat products are also heavily processed and far from being healthy food. Sausages, cutlets, etc. The only good meat is some cut that you cooked yourself.
So from the health perspective there isn't much difference between processed meat and processed vegetables. Both aren't good for our guts. Sadly, buying unprocessed food and/or cooking is often more expensive and not scalable to cover every single individual or family on this planet.
> Sadly, buying unprocessed food and/or cooking is often more expensive and not scalable to cover every single individual or family on this planet.
I've heard this line a few times, and people say it as if there will be billions more people starving in Africa if processed foods didn't exist. This simply isn't true though, processed foods are only an issue in highly developed countries.
In developing countries poorer people eat very few processed foods. Why? Because it's cheaper to buy raw foods. People eat what is in season and often what they can grow themselves or some neighbour has grown. Yes they probably eat something similar every day, but so what, it works for them.
I live in a small, not terribly well off, European country where meals are typically prepared from scratch. In the supermarket the most processed food you will find is a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps. We don't have 'ready meals', if you want to eat say a fish pie, you need to buy the raw ingredients and make it yourself from scratch.
I've heard this line a few times, and people say it as if there will be billions more people starving in Africa if processed foods didn't exist. This simply isn't true though, processed foods are only an issue in highly developed countries.
In developing countries poorer people eat very few processed foods. Why? Because it's cheaper to buy raw foods. People eat what is in season and often what they can grow themselves or some neighbour has grown. Yes they probably eat something similar every day, but so what, it works for them.
I live in a small, not terribly well off, European country where meals are typically prepared from scratch. In the supermarket the most processed food you will find is a chocolate bar or a bag of crisps. We don't have 'ready meals', if you want to eat say a fish pie, you need to buy the raw ingredients and make it yourself from scratch.
It's not just the medical profession pushing a less carnivorous diet. Folk trying to save the planet are doing the same, because the meat industry is really hard on the planet.
That position is predicated on a series of back-of-napkin estimates that, among other methodological limitations, exclude emissions related to the industrial transformation of plants into bullshit like Impossible Foods from their analysis.
Again, food-industry trends are best read through the lens of capitalism, not ecology. We’re not taking about eating a bowl of beans.
Again, food-industry trends are best read through the lens of capitalism, not ecology. We’re not taking about eating a bowl of beans.
That's disingenuous. The problem is not plants per se (which are great and tasty), but the use of plants as input to industrial food production. I don't mean the industrial logistics of harvesting, storing, and distribution, but the industrial/chemical processing of feed stuffs for separation, purification, and recombination of foods that are miles away from anything resembling normal cooking.
I make an omelette for breakfast every day which involves a bunch of preparation, mixing and cooking, but when eating it's easy to identify the ingredients - this is a piece of pork, that's a radish, that's a piece of garlic etc. The closest thing to food product is some ground-up red pepper and other herbs that are there to modulate the flavor, but don't make up the main substance of the dish.
I've thought about buying some of these meat substitute products a few times, but for one thing they're quite expensive and for another when I look at the ingredients I can't easily conceive of what went into the product or how. I know vegetarian and vegan food can be delicious and nutritious thanks to friends who are great cooks, but again when I eat their cooking I can easily identify what I'm putting in my mouth.
I make an omelette for breakfast every day which involves a bunch of preparation, mixing and cooking, but when eating it's easy to identify the ingredients - this is a piece of pork, that's a radish, that's a piece of garlic etc. The closest thing to food product is some ground-up red pepper and other herbs that are there to modulate the flavor, but don't make up the main substance of the dish.
I've thought about buying some of these meat substitute products a few times, but for one thing they're quite expensive and for another when I look at the ingredients I can't easily conceive of what went into the product or how. I know vegetarian and vegan food can be delicious and nutritious thanks to friends who are great cooks, but again when I eat their cooking I can easily identify what I'm putting in my mouth.
ah: i see the distinction, and thanks for clarifying. the phrase "plant-based" is being bandied about misleadingly because the leaf nodes of ingredients are ultimately plants, essentially, but they don't mean "only directly plants" like i was thinking with the salad example.
I’m trying very hard to interpret this in a charitable way and coming up dry. You’re clearly not stupid, judging from your comment history, so what exactly are you playing at?
I don’t believe for one second that you cannot distinguish between salad and things like Huel.
I don’t believe for one second that you cannot distinguish between salad and things like Huel.
Right : i mean it seems to be the case that "plant-based" is purposefully used to sound like a salad, though it's being used for things far from a salad in terms of direct ingredients. i think we're thinking the same thing but, yes, my phrasing on reflection kinda sucked, because it's not clear i'm saying something about tyranny of misused and purposefully misleading labels. it's true i had not realized just how misleadingly the phrase was used, though.
Ah! Okay, now it all makes sense :)
This is true - everything along the lines of plant based food has an underlying capital cost transformation driving it, not a cultural or environmental basis.
That’s why they need to convince/mandate people to eat it; it tastes worse and is worse for you.
That’s why they need to convince/mandate people to eat it; it tastes worse and is worse for you.
Judging by the responses of surprised enthusiasm I get from meat eaters when I cook vegetarian for them: if it tastes worse, that's the chef's fault rather than the plants'.
I think the parent post is referring to processed foods, not the cooking of actual, recognizable produce.
That shouldn't matter, the point remains the same: it's the chef's fault if it doesn't taste good, even if the chef works in corporate and is designing a factory.
As a different point: "Processed" feels to me like a slippery word. Bread? Looks nothing like wheat. Beer? Grown in a vat. Beef? Take a wild animal, selectively breed it for hundreds of generations, feed it all kinds of weird things that combine "cheap" (surprise cannibalism leading to BSE) and "encourages weight gain" (we're only recently getting serious about stopping antibiotics being used this way), kill one, after all the main cuts are taken spray the rest of with a high pressure hose, dry off the resulting slurry, ta-dah mechanically recovered "100% beef" you can't use in much else besides mince, and by extension burgers and sausages.
The term seems like it's some combination of a complaint more about the long list of ingredients and that these sound new and/or scary, implying no awareness of how much of a mess biochemistry is and where most of the chemicals in question were first isolated from.
As a different point: "Processed" feels to me like a slippery word. Bread? Looks nothing like wheat. Beer? Grown in a vat. Beef? Take a wild animal, selectively breed it for hundreds of generations, feed it all kinds of weird things that combine "cheap" (surprise cannibalism leading to BSE) and "encourages weight gain" (we're only recently getting serious about stopping antibiotics being used this way), kill one, after all the main cuts are taken spray the rest of with a high pressure hose, dry off the resulting slurry, ta-dah mechanically recovered "100% beef" you can't use in much else besides mince, and by extension burgers and sausages.
The term seems like it's some combination of a complaint more about the long list of ingredients and that these sound new and/or scary, implying no awareness of how much of a mess biochemistry is and where most of the chemicals in question were first isolated from.
If you can’t distinguish between bread and something like Impossible Foods, I’m not sure what to tell you.
I didn't say I can't distinguish, I'm saying the word is wildly misleading.
Leavened bread is made by taking some flour, yeast, and water, and letting the yeast grow so the waste it makes turns the dough light and fluffy, and then baking it.
If you don't add a preservative to this, you'd better eat it quickly, because otherwise a fungus that produces a precursor to LSD will quickly grow on it (ergot is all over the place, and it really likes bread), and even if you don't get high, the alkaloids can poison you.
The yeast is a whole complex thing with bajillion chemicals all by itself, because life is like that.
The flour is from taking wheat etc. kernels and grinding them in what is one of our earliest industrial processes.
The wheat etc. have been selectively bred for countless generations and are now different from their wild relatives; and again, like the yeast, being alive they're full of things like "aneurine", "Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate", and "N-(4-{[(2-amino-4-oxo-1,4-dihydropteridin-6-yl)methyl]amino}benzoyl)-L-glutamic acid" and that's more than fine, it's vital, and we'd want to put them in if they were missing.
(Those three chemicals sound a whole lot friendlier when I use their common names; but biochemistry is too complex for every chemical to get an approachable friendly name even when they're vital — a quick search suggests you'd die without the N-Acetylaspartylglutamate in your brain, and that it has no non-systemic name).
And that fresh baked bread smell?
> The most aroma active compounds identified were 3-methylbutanal, (E)-2-nonenal, 3-methyl-1-butanol, and 2,3-butanedione
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002364381...
Leavened bread is made by taking some flour, yeast, and water, and letting the yeast grow so the waste it makes turns the dough light and fluffy, and then baking it.
If you don't add a preservative to this, you'd better eat it quickly, because otherwise a fungus that produces a precursor to LSD will quickly grow on it (ergot is all over the place, and it really likes bread), and even if you don't get high, the alkaloids can poison you.
The yeast is a whole complex thing with bajillion chemicals all by itself, because life is like that.
The flour is from taking wheat etc. kernels and grinding them in what is one of our earliest industrial processes.
The wheat etc. have been selectively bred for countless generations and are now different from their wild relatives; and again, like the yeast, being alive they're full of things like "aneurine", "Pyridoxal 5'-phosphate", and "N-(4-{[(2-amino-4-oxo-1,4-dihydropteridin-6-yl)methyl]amino}benzoyl)-L-glutamic acid" and that's more than fine, it's vital, and we'd want to put them in if they were missing.
(Those three chemicals sound a whole lot friendlier when I use their common names; but biochemistry is too complex for every chemical to get an approachable friendly name even when they're vital — a quick search suggests you'd die without the N-Acetylaspartylglutamate in your brain, and that it has no non-systemic name).
And that fresh baked bread smell?
> The most aroma active compounds identified were 3-methylbutanal, (E)-2-nonenal, 3-methyl-1-butanol, and 2,3-butanedione
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002364381...
I mean plant based meat replacement meals, the fuck?
Loads of such things, not just whatever you're thinking of.
Quorn is pretty good if you can get it; Tofu needs to be seasoned right to taste good, and when it is it can be fantastic; nut roast is something I've only gotten right once, but that occasion it worked very well.
Tried making some nutritionally balanced cookies a while back; starting with a basic shortbread recipe and modified heavily, the one with banana as the main sugar and added vegan protein power worked pretty well.
Some protein shakes even fail to suck as drinks, but I find them so much faff I just buy milk (soy or cow, I'm vegetarian not vegan) or prepackaged[0] instead.
[0] My "This Is Food" label is leading to many questions answered by the label: https://www.yfood.eu/collections/tasterpacks/products/probie...
Quorn is pretty good if you can get it; Tofu needs to be seasoned right to taste good, and when it is it can be fantastic; nut roast is something I've only gotten right once, but that occasion it worked very well.
Tried making some nutritionally balanced cookies a while back; starting with a basic shortbread recipe and modified heavily, the one with banana as the main sugar and added vegan protein power worked pretty well.
Some protein shakes even fail to suck as drinks, but I find them so much faff I just buy milk (soy or cow, I'm vegetarian not vegan) or prepackaged[0] instead.
[0] My "This Is Food" label is leading to many questions answered by the label: https://www.yfood.eu/collections/tasterpacks/products/probie...
I read the Guardian's top articles every morning, and then listen to either BBC, NYT or a Vox podcast and a couple of never-Trump "center right" podcasts on economics and foreign policy. Once in awhile I'll read something on a Murdoch-owned property.
Of all of these, I find the Guardian to be the most viscerally alarming and the most consistently hysterical on every subject. Every Guardian article about a pollutant, about the climate , or about any judicial decision thay goes against what they believe is given the same treatment of elevating it to the level of apocalyptic clickbait and then doubling down with four paragraphs of boilerplate about how it disproportionately affects marginalized communities. I've stopped reading the last four paragraphs, because they're always the same regardless of the subject matter... this saves me some time in the morning.
I used to think it was only the crazy far right who preyed on people's fears... but now it's just alarmist clickbait left right and center. I just got done being extremely annoyed with John Podhoretz on a podcast claiming that aspartame can't cause cancer because he needs to imbibe it and because other artificial sweeteners were prematurely vilified and banned, which is a reductionist, reactionary, emotional and stupid argument. Personally, I still believe saccharine causes cancer, I've always assumed aspartame did, and I never eat or drink anything with artificial sweeteners. But I'm so sick of the hyperbolic screeching on both sides of every single fucking thing from gas stoves to coke baggies in the white house to abortion rights to Disney and Target and Bud Light to how climate change will kill us all to PFAS in my dental floss to how nuclear war or AI Holocaust is imminent... I just wish they would all shut up. Stop. Just stop finding new things to for me to fucking worry about. Go away.
Of all of these, I find the Guardian to be the most viscerally alarming and the most consistently hysterical on every subject. Every Guardian article about a pollutant, about the climate , or about any judicial decision thay goes against what they believe is given the same treatment of elevating it to the level of apocalyptic clickbait and then doubling down with four paragraphs of boilerplate about how it disproportionately affects marginalized communities. I've stopped reading the last four paragraphs, because they're always the same regardless of the subject matter... this saves me some time in the morning.
I used to think it was only the crazy far right who preyed on people's fears... but now it's just alarmist clickbait left right and center. I just got done being extremely annoyed with John Podhoretz on a podcast claiming that aspartame can't cause cancer because he needs to imbibe it and because other artificial sweeteners were prematurely vilified and banned, which is a reductionist, reactionary, emotional and stupid argument. Personally, I still believe saccharine causes cancer, I've always assumed aspartame did, and I never eat or drink anything with artificial sweeteners. But I'm so sick of the hyperbolic screeching on both sides of every single fucking thing from gas stoves to coke baggies in the white house to abortion rights to Disney and Target and Bud Light to how climate change will kill us all to PFAS in my dental floss to how nuclear war or AI Holocaust is imminent... I just wish they would all shut up. Stop. Just stop finding new things to for me to fucking worry about. Go away.
The Guardian is regarded as a joke. About a third of their of their journalist/editors are nincompoops who sole function is to throw read meat to the rabid Left. I still donate $50/yr to the Guardian because about 5% of their reporting provides a useful counter perspective.
Absolutely agree they are a useful counter perspective... that's why I read them daily. I just wish they would dial down the rhetorical hysteria in whatever attempt it is to counterbalance the hysteria on the other side.
[edit] I'm also of a time where the concept of 'throwing red meat to the left' raises serious cognitive dissonance for me, because prior to Twitter, or at least through the 90s and 00s, red meat style feasting and crowing behavior was exclusively for the right. For awhile it seemed almost axiomatic to me that the left didn't need to resort to fear mongering or hyperbole in communicating their points, because objective truth and logic was on their side. I don't think that was just my own blind bias; it was a major selling point of the left to rid these issues of religious-type appeals to emption, and drill into facts in a way that made the opposition look hypocritical at best or mendacious at worst. By adopting the hysterical and emotive tactics of the right, I feel that the Guardian, et. al, have ceded the high ground.
[edit] I'm also of a time where the concept of 'throwing red meat to the left' raises serious cognitive dissonance for me, because prior to Twitter, or at least through the 90s and 00s, red meat style feasting and crowing behavior was exclusively for the right. For awhile it seemed almost axiomatic to me that the left didn't need to resort to fear mongering or hyperbole in communicating their points, because objective truth and logic was on their side. I don't think that was just my own blind bias; it was a major selling point of the left to rid these issues of religious-type appeals to emption, and drill into facts in a way that made the opposition look hypocritical at best or mendacious at worst. By adopting the hysterical and emotive tactics of the right, I feel that the Guardian, et. al, have ceded the high ground.
Yes, sounds like we have similar perspectives. While there always was a fringe left, I felt that in the 90s and 2000s the left to center left could at least be depended on to be rational. Not so much anymore. I partly blame Congressional Republican’s intransigence after Obama was elected. Many on the left figured why be reasonable if the opposition is going to refuse to compromise? Things have deteriorated since then and gotten far worse under Trump who has fed the extremes on both sides. It’s a mess nowadays.
What happened to "when they go low, we go high"? Just a loss of faith in general intelligence? I don't buy the argument that this has been A/B tested to a point where there's no use arguing against its effectiveness.
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I used to live in Britain in 2005-2012. And, while the British "nanny state" had gotten on my nerves even back then, I was truly shocked when I returned for a short vacation this year.
I made a point of seeking out various sweet treats I remembered from back in the day that I can't buy where I live now, and discovered they all taste like shit now, having replaced sugar with artificial sweeteners. I went to a pub and ordered "a coke", and the bartender gave me something that vaguely looked like coke. I took a sip and discovered that it tasted like shit. I said "This is not coke. What is this?" He replied "This is Pepsi Max". "Well, Pepsi Max was not what I ordered!" -- I'm assuming that all of this is related to the sugar tax they introduced in the mean time [1].
When they discover the health implication of artifical sweeteners (many of them are already known, but I'm sure we will discover more and more as time goes by) Britain will probably be the country worst hit, and they will have their government to thank for it.
I think it's high time that we start acknowledging that people want access to some kind of a quick/easy/cheap source of gratification, and the nanny state can't just wage war on all of them: There's a tax now on alcohol, on tobacco, and on sugar.
But sugar is the odd one out in this listing, because there's no such thing as "passive consumption" of sugar (like there is on tobacco), and people "high on sugar" don't endanger others (as is sometimes the case with alcohol). The normal rationale when governments limit peoples freedoms is that they limit some people's freedoms, if that serves as a means to preserve other people's freedoms. But with sugar, I just don't see the harm that accrues to anyone except the person consuming the sugar, and so, a government trying to limit people's freedoms to enjoy sugar, is precisely crossing a line that no government of any free people should ever cross.
Also, by taxing alcohol, tobacco, and sugar, you've now weirdly "levelled the playing field". While sugar is clearly the "least bad" of the three, you now no longer have a tax incentive to prefer a Coke Classic to a beer.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_Kingdo...
I made a point of seeking out various sweet treats I remembered from back in the day that I can't buy where I live now, and discovered they all taste like shit now, having replaced sugar with artificial sweeteners. I went to a pub and ordered "a coke", and the bartender gave me something that vaguely looked like coke. I took a sip and discovered that it tasted like shit. I said "This is not coke. What is this?" He replied "This is Pepsi Max". "Well, Pepsi Max was not what I ordered!" -- I'm assuming that all of this is related to the sugar tax they introduced in the mean time [1].
When they discover the health implication of artifical sweeteners (many of them are already known, but I'm sure we will discover more and more as time goes by) Britain will probably be the country worst hit, and they will have their government to thank for it.
I think it's high time that we start acknowledging that people want access to some kind of a quick/easy/cheap source of gratification, and the nanny state can't just wage war on all of them: There's a tax now on alcohol, on tobacco, and on sugar.
But sugar is the odd one out in this listing, because there's no such thing as "passive consumption" of sugar (like there is on tobacco), and people "high on sugar" don't endanger others (as is sometimes the case with alcohol). The normal rationale when governments limit peoples freedoms is that they limit some people's freedoms, if that serves as a means to preserve other people's freedoms. But with sugar, I just don't see the harm that accrues to anyone except the person consuming the sugar, and so, a government trying to limit people's freedoms to enjoy sugar, is precisely crossing a line that no government of any free people should ever cross.
Also, by taxing alcohol, tobacco, and sugar, you've now weirdly "levelled the playing field". While sugar is clearly the "least bad" of the three, you now no longer have a tax incentive to prefer a Coke Classic to a beer.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_Kingdo...
Why are you ignoring other changes in ingredients in your story?
Tons of well liked foods got bought out by mega corporations who then penny pinched the ingredient list to the point that while visually similar the taste was no where near as good.
And this is coming from the US one of the sugar capitals.
You also talk about taxes as being the same without acknowledging the quantity of tax. Certainly the 20p/liter sugar tax on soda isn't "leveling the playing field" compared to 16.5% of the retail price plus £5.89 on a packet of 20 tax on cigarettes...
Tons of well liked foods got bought out by mega corporations who then penny pinched the ingredient list to the point that while visually similar the taste was no where near as good.
And this is coming from the US one of the sugar capitals.
You also talk about taxes as being the same without acknowledging the quantity of tax. Certainly the 20p/liter sugar tax on soda isn't "leveling the playing field" compared to 16.5% of the retail price plus £5.89 on a packet of 20 tax on cigarettes...
> You also talk about taxes as being the same without acknowledging the quantity of tax.
I used Wikipedia [1] as a source for the sugar tax and this [2] as a source for alcohol.
According to that, its 18p per litre for a sugary drink above 8g per 100ml (like the Coke Classic I used for the example), and 19p per litre for a beer between 2.8 and 7.5 % ABV. Let's call the one penny a rounding error. Cigarettes can't really be compared, because you can't compare apples to apples quantity-wise.
> Why are you ignoring other changes in ingredients in your story?
Because I don't have savant-level memory and don't remember the entire ingredients list of treats I liked 10 years ago, and the reduced sugar levels were the thing that jumped out at me.
How much research do you expect someone to do, to throw out a quick opinion on something? If you're going to set the bar that high, and are then going to attack an argument on the grounds of "not enough research" without even presenting a counter-argument, you're not really creating an atmosphere that's very conducive to friendly conversation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_Kingdo... [2] https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/alcohol-tobacco
I used Wikipedia [1] as a source for the sugar tax and this [2] as a source for alcohol.
According to that, its 18p per litre for a sugary drink above 8g per 100ml (like the Coke Classic I used for the example), and 19p per litre for a beer between 2.8 and 7.5 % ABV. Let's call the one penny a rounding error. Cigarettes can't really be compared, because you can't compare apples to apples quantity-wise.
> Why are you ignoring other changes in ingredients in your story?
Because I don't have savant-level memory and don't remember the entire ingredients list of treats I liked 10 years ago, and the reduced sugar levels were the thing that jumped out at me.
How much research do you expect someone to do, to throw out a quick opinion on something? If you're going to set the bar that high, and are then going to attack an argument on the grounds of "not enough research" without even presenting a counter-argument, you're not really creating an atmosphere that's very conducive to friendly conversation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugary_drink_tax#United_Kingdo... [2] https://www.gov.uk/tax-on-shopping/alcohol-tobacco
You didn't quote any numbers so I looked them up for you.
The first hit of "why do snacks taste different" would have answered your idea about snacks tasting bad. (While blaming a tax on sugary soda)
Your post was ranting about something you disliked without anything to back it up.
The first hit of "why do snacks taste different" would have answered your idea about snacks tasting bad. (While blaming a tax on sugary soda)
Your post was ranting about something you disliked without anything to back it up.
So, your way of forming your belief was to Google for "why do snacks taste different?" and then believe the first result that came up, which was a weird theory about penny-pinching big sugar megacorps. You then further perpetuated that theory by restating it, without giving your source.
You also threw in the statement "And this is coming from the US one of the sugar capitals" as if that made the weird theory any more credible. The fact that I had been discussing sugary drinks in the UK should make it more questionable whether anything that's happening in the US is even relevant to the discussion.
And my way of forming my belief was to attribute the difference in taste to the blinding obvious, namely that they've replaced the source of sweetness in a drink that's supposed to taste sweet as evidenced by the ingredients list on that particular drink's packaging.
Independent thought can sometimes be correct, and total bullshit can often be stated in a way as to include numbers and references.
You also threw in the statement "And this is coming from the US one of the sugar capitals" as if that made the weird theory any more credible. The fact that I had been discussing sugary drinks in the UK should make it more questionable whether anything that's happening in the US is even relevant to the discussion.
And my way of forming my belief was to attribute the difference in taste to the blinding obvious, namely that they've replaced the source of sweetness in a drink that's supposed to taste sweet as evidenced by the ingredients list on that particular drink's packaging.
Independent thought can sometimes be correct, and total bullshit can often be stated in a way as to include numbers and references.
Linguist oddity. Sweets is never used to refer to a drink in the US so your statements about "the war on sugar" appeared to apply to non-drinks.
If talking about non-drinks a tax on sugar in drinks is always not the answer. I didn't know why you made the leap and missed evaluating your phrasing to see why the expansion of complaint occurred.
I guess I assumed you were following the original post which was talking about sugar in general.
Honestly your independent thought was "I don't like Pepsi Max as much as a different drink" without listing the other drink or mentioning whether the store even offered alternatives.
Fundamentally I saw "I ordered a cola and didn't like that I got a low sugar one by default"
You then expanded on that independent thought to imply a lot of things that are not in fact dependant on that independent thought.
Remember you said "sugar drink = cigarettes" from a taxing standpoint
If talking about non-drinks a tax on sugar in drinks is always not the answer. I didn't know why you made the leap and missed evaluating your phrasing to see why the expansion of complaint occurred.
I guess I assumed you were following the original post which was talking about sugar in general.
Honestly your independent thought was "I don't like Pepsi Max as much as a different drink" without listing the other drink or mentioning whether the store even offered alternatives.
Fundamentally I saw "I ordered a cola and didn't like that I got a low sugar one by default"
You then expanded on that independent thought to imply a lot of things that are not in fact dependant on that independent thought.
Remember you said "sugar drink = cigarettes" from a taxing standpoint
> When they discover the health implication of artifical sweeteners
No matter how bad any artificial sweetener may be found to be in the future, it won't be any worse than having consumed an analogous quantity of sugar. By all means, avoid the choice entirely and just drink water, but if you must choose between one or the other, the artificial sweetener will be the healthier choice in the long run, and it won't even be close.
No matter how bad any artificial sweetener may be found to be in the future, it won't be any worse than having consumed an analogous quantity of sugar. By all means, avoid the choice entirely and just drink water, but if you must choose between one or the other, the artificial sweetener will be the healthier choice in the long run, and it won't even be close.
Hmm to what extent is there harm done to others in the form of increased future healthcare expenses if this is the UK we’re talking about?
If you are going to permit "increased healthcare cost to a taxpayer-funded health system" as a line of reasoning, then you allow for a lot of absurd outcomes, like the government could forbid risky sports. This is not an "appeal to extremes" or a strawman argument, it's actually a valid reductio ad absurdum.
Opponents of public health care in the U.S. use precisely this as an argument: They say, if we're going to have taxpayer-funded health care, it gives the government a reason to start regulating aspects of our lives which we don't want any government to regulate.
There are only two ways out of that that I can see: The first is to agree with them and say: If we want to be a free people, we can't have taxpayer-funded healthcare.
The second (which I personally subscribe to), is to say that there's some kind of a "bar" that has to be met, and that "increased healthcare costs to the taxpayer" doesn't meet the bar of how much your freedoms need to be impeded by my actions, before it starts to justify government taking away my freedoms.
Opponents of public health care in the U.S. use precisely this as an argument: They say, if we're going to have taxpayer-funded health care, it gives the government a reason to start regulating aspects of our lives which we don't want any government to regulate.
There are only two ways out of that that I can see: The first is to agree with them and say: If we want to be a free people, we can't have taxpayer-funded healthcare.
The second (which I personally subscribe to), is to say that there's some kind of a "bar" that has to be met, and that "increased healthcare costs to the taxpayer" doesn't meet the bar of how much your freedoms need to be impeded by my actions, before it starts to justify government taking away my freedoms.