I don't think it's even about low carb vs. high protein to begin with. Many countries and regions in the world are fine with a high-carb diet, and people there live long, healthy lives.
Americans eat so much processed food simply because it is much cheaper than fresh food. Processed food is made to get consumers addicted (through convenience, taste, etc.) and encourage them to consume much more. Fresh food is almost the opposite.
I grew up in a country where freshly made food is actually cheaper than processed food, even to this day. People who stick to a traditional diet are mostly thin, while those who stick to a processed food diet gain a lot of weight.
Yes, but look at the comments. Americans are obsessed with meat. They actively believe that mostly meat diets are somehow much more healthy than mostly carb and vegetable diets.
None of them want to eat only grains and vegetables, and meat is both the most expensive food and also the most damaging to the environment, which I guess is a second thing Americans seem not to care about.
Something like 15% of the Americans I know are vegetarian or vegan. Though you've characterized the others well.
I think we need more education around glycemic index. Protein and fats burn slowly enough that they're not going to spike your blood sugar. Many Americans think that they're the only nutrients with that property.
You're absolutely right but Americans don't consider rice + legumes (the standard international poverty meal) to be a "real meal" like the rest of the world.
In general the American diet is very meat-based. Once you hold meat as constant, you realize that fast-food or ultraprocessed food are the cheapest way to get a meat-based meal. E.g. McDonald's is probably the cheapest way to buy a hot meal containing beef (and it used to be even cheaper, you could add fries+coke for just 50c in the past). A lot of poor Americans eat hotdog sausages, microwave meals etc just to get some kind of meat even if it's low quality.
> fast-food or ultraprocessed food are the cheapest way to get a meat-based meal
Are you sure? Let's take the example of the McDonald's Big Mac which is $6.72 [0]
The between the 2 patties, the sandwich contains 25g of protein (not grass fed beef) per sandwich. It's fair to assume the majority of the cost of the ingredients of a burger is the meat. The rest is pretty cheap because you only need a small quantity of it to complete the meal.
Here are prices of Costco grass fed beef patties: [1]
15 patties for $36.31
Each patty contains 26 grams of protein, which is more protein than both patties of the Big Mac combined.
cost per patty = $36.31/15 = $2.42
cost of Big Mac = $6.72
That doesn't even come close to the majority of the cost of the Big Mac. I could do a full analysis of each ingredient, but I think it's clear from this data that fast food is not significantly cheaper, especially considering that the Costco patties are higher quality.
Edit:
formatting, and also burgers are super fast and easy to cook at home.
It's not just the price of the food, it's the time cost of going to the store, preparing the ingredients, cooking, washing dishes... You are looking at the issue through a myopic lens.
You are assuming access to a grocery store. Disproportionately poor people live in food deserts and have to rely on dollar stores and other things where fruit and vegetables are expensive.
Also, if you are busy single person, basically anything not shelf stable is expensive because you have to buy it in high quantities and it will go to waste if you are not skilled at storage. I, a mature adult, know how to store things, but as a younger person things went to rot a lot from inexperience.
Then there is prep. I spent literally all day on sunday just preparing food for the week. It's about 10-12 hours. That's what 2 hours a day to cook during the week. I have lied to myself and said, "oh, I'll cook something" and then eaten out all day from being busy or being exhausted. To save money stuff I could jam into the microwave was cheaper.
This is how you get there. I cook from fresh vegetables all the time now, but I have the time and energy for it. That just wasn't true at all when I was younger.
> an estimated 13.5 million people in the United States have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store [0]
That's 4% of the population. Food deserts explain some of it but not the majority
The rest yeah I absolutely agree with. People are stressed and time deficient, don't have food storage and prep skills
Maybe in a roundabout way it just comes back to money? If you need to work or study too much and don't feel you have the time to cook, you'll get the easiest options you know
Part of it can be overcome with strategy. I spend 15 minutes a day on food prep and couldnt imagine how I'd make my diet healthier. I'm sure what you make is much more elaborate though haha
> I don't understand how people come to this conclusion
Then maybe you shouldn't speak on it until you understand how they came to this conclusion. Knowing you have opinions based on ignorance and refusing to change isn't a good way to live.
When I was visiting the US I was shocked how much more expensive “real” food is. Here I am spending more if I eat out or processed food versus cooking my own food at home.
In the US it was basically the inverse, didn’t make any sense to me.
(N=1 and 10 year old experience, but it seems to have only gotten more extreme since)
I don't see this at all. Staple foods are cheap and abundant. Fruits and vegetables don't cost much at all. Some animal proteins can get a bit pricy (beef mostly) but chicken and pork aren't that expensive. Eggs are like $2 a dozen.
I love my meat but if I switched to a vegetarian diet it would be trivial to make varied, delicious meals at $1.50-$2 a portion.
Where? It's $4 for a dozen eggs where I am and I think that's pretty cheap. It's $5 for a bag of shitty apples. And then another $5 for a bag of oranges, so my kid can have fruit for the week. I cook from nothing but fresh and my kid gets one bag of chips or cookies a week. I buy 2lbs of meat for us both. I still spend over 100 dollars.
I guess we could have beans and rice every day, but I don't think it's a lot to give my kid a varied diet based on what's in season. Out of season is awful and that's how I ended up spending $15 on berries my kid wanted.
When people talk about these cheap meals, I wonder if they just expect everyone to eat the same thing every day at the lowest quality. I can go to a budget grocery store and get $3 eggs. That's true, but I feel like the local national chain should ve a good enough yard stick.
I do most of my grocery shopping at Target. In my large Midwestern city 12 large eggs are $2. A 3 lb bag of apples is $4. A 3 lb bag of oranges is $4.29.
>When people talk about these cheap meals, I wonder if they just expect everyone to eat the same thing every day at the lowest quality.
Eating cheap doesn't have to mean eating the same shit meal every day. I like to have a framework to work from where I have some structure but can vary it a lot based on what I want to eat. Rice+vegetable(s)+protein has endless variations. One week I might do a taco style rice bowl. The next maybe I do an Asian bowl. Stews are also great for this. By varying the ingredients a bit and using different spices I can get stews with very different flavor profiles that taste great.
I bought 12 eggs from trader joe's yesterday for $2, organics were $5
I get 18 eggs from another grocery store for about $5 and kroger has them really cheap too. Even Whole Foods has 18 for $5-ish in one brand and much more $$ in another.
Publix is the egg-gouger around me (and just overpriced in general)
IMHO the same cheap whole food meals are healthier than a variety of $2 frozen dinners.
You can hit a middle-ground with some frozen stuff to save a little time and money a few days per week too.
I don't consider myself an anti-vaxxer. But I do have doubt in vaccines especially mRNA vaccines nowadays, and I wish these studies do more than just this.
I have 4 kids, and 3 of them got vaccinated for the covid (1 is a baby 2 years old) for the very first time with Delta. They struggle for weeks to recover, they get tired, they seem to have heart related symptoms. Eventually, those went away after months. The baby has never had covid (no vaccine). I then have never covid vaccinated them, and they have never been sick with covid even though my wife and I caught covid after our 3rd vaccine shots. We didn't do any isolation, we share things and direct contacts with them. They might have had Covid but very mild, the quick tests never showed positive.
My wife got blood clot issue that I saw blood coming out from her skin.
I struggled many months with the vaccines with weird fatigues (I'm normally very healthy in my late 30s). My gut biome seemed to change and I became quite sensitive to some food (milk proteins mostly, not just lactose intolerance)
My mom who lived in a different country got 3 shots and she struggled with heart condition for more than a year, Drs couldn't find the reason why. It was difficult for her to do anything with strength. She finally recovered after 1+ year.
There're many real and true stories like mine, I really have no idea what these studies saying anymore.
I'm having a hard time following your second paragraph, but I don't see where you're questioning the cause of these issues to be covid itself instead of the vaccines?
That's my biggest problem with the "I now have X problem after the vaccine" crowd; quick to blame the vaccine, but they never question whether it was the virus itself that caused it.
My dad is one of these people and it infuriates me to no end that he defaults to "vaccine bad" and not his irresponsible behavior during the height of the pandemic which caused him to get very sick from the virus itself. Nor the fact that he had a very visible lyme disease rash 20 years ago and refused to get treatment because "MDs bad". He's quick to blame his neurological disease on the covid vaccine though, so frustrating.
We all started getting weird symptoms after the vaccines, not after having covid, you got it backward.
I am not quick to blame the vaccine. If you take the vaccine and immediately after you start develop symptoms, then the chances that the vaccine are doing something strange to the body are very likely, not the virus infection.
And these don't get diagnosed with Covid or having Covid symptoms before, it must be something related to the vaccine. That's evidence, not just observation.
I went to UCI, SoCal Kaiser hospitals and cardiologists 6-7 times, a bunch of tests, no doctors could explain why.
I took the vaccines myself, I am no anti-vaxxer, and when it comes to this situation, I don't see there's conclusive studies about the vaccines.
so you think that we suddenly have symptoms after the vaccines because of covid infection and the real symptoms started appearing instead of asymptomatic symptoms .
Appealing to an informal fallacy, and not even using it right. The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy hinges on the fact that one's argument assumes that just because one event happened chronologically first, it must have caused the one(s) that chronologically came after.
GP did more than that and didn't simply say "X happened first, so I think it's responsible for Y." He gave correlative observations and suspected a possibility of causation OUTSIDE of chronological timeline. Regardless of whether I agree with him, it's easy to see this comment having more than fallacy.
I didn't appeal to one, I pointed one out.
And there's something wrong now with pointing out fallacies just because they are informal? Apparently you don't understand what "informal" means in logic. (Or there's bad faith--a good case can be made here.)
> it's easy to see this comment having more than fallacy.
And yet you failed to point out a single one. You say that I used post hoc ergo propter hoc incorrectly, which I disagree with, but even if I did, that isn't a fallacy, it would simply be an error of fact. But remarkably you find multiple unnamed fallacies (formal, or informal?) in my one sentence.
I grew up in Vietnam, where freshly cooked meals were a daily staple. Getting them was effortless—just a few steps from home.
Coming to the U.S., however, turned this into a major challenge, especially while raising my own kids. Ultra-processed food is everywhere, and preparing fresh meals takes significant time, even though I’ve become quite efficient (a typical meal takes 30–60 minutes).
While this doesn’t fully solve our food challenges for kids, it’s a step in the right direction for the future.
For zoning, there's plenty of places that don't allow commercial operations near residential zones- hence the push for more mixed-use zoning. Unfortunately, urban environments still have very high rents, so to stay cheap enough you'd have to get permission to operate a good truck or sidewalk stand.
For regulations, there's no way to run (or rent) a commercial kitchen and sell low cost freshly made food and make enough money, especially if you aren't operating out of a food truck. There's several other licenses involved depending on the nature of the business.
The US is a rich country (compared to Vietnam), so I'd have thought they'd have the resources to automate much of the process of making healthy meals, and thus cheaply. Yet here we are.
That is such a huge question! I feel like the answers are many and varied.
For one obvious one, US health codes are much stricter, and your average Vietnamese food cart or street vendor would probably be flat-out illegal anywhere in the US, because they probably don't have the equipment to handle safe food holding temperatures. Not to say that the vendors aren't skilled and capable of serving safe food; just that the US health codes don't take that as a given and require you to prove it. It's why the hot dog stand is about the only iconic American food stall these days. Consider also the fairly prolific business of selling home-cooked food on Facebook Marketplace. Totally illegal, but it fills an underserved niche.
A second factor might be the cost of doing business. Ingredients are much more expensive, and so is labor, and that makes cheap food harder to produce cost effectively. The labor is probably the most expensive part of any prepared meal in the US, so you see "fast food" shift towards ultra processed foods that are quick to produce and serve.
Likewise, US real estate is just less conducive to this behavior. In cities, sure, you might see foot traffic that can support a food stall or small restaurant. But even a small location in a busy city area can be very expensive to rent, and the US has less by way of semi-permanent market areas that vendors can leverage to have easy access to customers. There's a Thai Buddhist temple in Dallas that runs a weekend market with food vendors after their Sunday services, and it's always busy. There's almost certainly demand, but reasonable locations are hard to come by.
Lastly, I just want to point out that fresh does not necessarily mean healthy! Consider salt, for example. If your freshly cooked dish is over seasoned, then you might not be getting something as healthy as you wanted, even though you might recognize all the ingredients and their sources. Be careful to avoid biases in labeling certain foods healthy and some foods not based on perception and not actual contents.
While US food codes focus on safety, they don't necessarily equate to healthy food either. Many processed items that meet regulations are loaded with unhealthy additives. Freshly made food, even if it contains a lot of salt, at least provides more control over ingredients and is often more digestible. The challenge is educating people on how to cook fresh food in a balanced and nutritious way. We need to look beyond just 'safe' and focus on whole, minimally processed foods.
Dentists in the U.S. are often driven by profit rather than patient care, much like many other healthcare providers. Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen more than ten dentists, and only one genuinely seemed to care about my dental health, doing everything necessary to save a tooth. She may have cared because we’re distantly related.
Here are a few examples from my experiences:
1. I went in for a routine cleaning, but they recommended $2,500 worth of unnecessary procedures. When I declined and asked for just the cleaning, the dentist spent less than five minutes on it.
2. Dentists seem overly eager to drill and fill, often doing poor-quality work that requires repeated visits. I still have six fillings from when I was young, and they've lasted for over 30 years.
3. For a minor broken corner on a tooth, one dentist recommended a $2,500 procedure (above my insurance coverage) and insisted on treating all my teeth for better care. I declined, but still received a $250 bill for the consultation. My previous dentist fixed it for $120 in cash.
4. My wife’s teeth had no visible signs of major cavities, yet one dentist filled six teeth. Fortunately, the fillings were minor and are still holding up after 10 years.
5. I have several friends with similar stories. For example, dentists often recommend extensive procedures like root canals on baby teeth, costing between $2,500 and $7,000. In one case, a root-canaled tooth fell out the very next day.
6. Orthodontists often put braces on young children, as early as age 6-8, even though in many other countries (like Korea), the average age is around 18. I’ve read stories of people who regret early braces, particularly when the wrong teeth were extracted.
6. Orthodontists often put braces on young children, as early as age 6-8, even though in many other countries (like Korea), the average age is around 18. I’ve read stories of people who regret early braces, particularly when the wrong teeth were extracted.
This happened to me and caused me all sorts of jaw problems later in adulthood.
> Dentists in the U.S. are often driven by profit rather than patient care
Isn't this arguably the case for any healthcare treatment in the US? It's all profit motivated and you are essentially gouged at every step of the way.
My 3 years old iPhone mini 13 is still very fast, reliable, and I love every part of the phone. It's such an amazing phone that functions well. The only thing got worsened is the battery, now at 87% even though I always charge it to 80-85%, now I have to charge it to 100% to use through the day. I still have extra power (like 30%) for a whole day. Replacing the battery isn't a problem. If Apple does support it like other models, it should last another 4-5 years more. I have no plan to upgrade to anything as I don't see anything comparable on the horizon.
I find food in the US contains too much toxin that harms the body. They have a lot of synthetic chemicals and preservatives. Many of which have very bad long term damages to the body. Even with these labels, sometimes it doesn't really tell the whole story about the ingredients. Most of the food that sits on the shelf for weeks shouldn't be consumed.
> Most of the food that sits on the shelf for weeks shouldn't be consumed.
Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks. I guess none of these are safe to be consumed, all just "toxins".
Or months plus. Flour probably gives better results for yeast breads in the weeks timeline but the average household isn’t buying a new bag of flour every couple weeks.
Pretty much all oils are processed foods. Vinegar is a preservative and is a processed food. Most salts are processed and are common preservatives. Flour is a processed food.
The reasons why Twinkies are so shelf stable are largely the same reasons why flour or rice or olive oil is shelf stable.
Better be careful of those chemicals like sodium chloride and dihydrogen monoxide.
> Salt? Flour? Oil? Oats? Rice? Garlic? Black pepper? Most ground spices? Nuts? Beans? Honey? Vinegar? Quinoa? All of these can reasonably sit on a shelf for weeks.
They're probably full of things that are bad for you too.
Your salt is full of microplastics (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/micro...). Your oats are full of chlormequat. Your spices are full of heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, and lead), and the same is true for vinegar, nuts, beans, and rice.
Most honey sold in stores isn't real honey but comes from China and can be filled with chloramphenicol and other illegal animal antibiotics. Almost all of the extra virgin olive oil sold in US stores is fake and can also be contaminated with phthalates. Around half the garlic sold in the US comes from china and according to some this is Communist Sewage-Garlic, and a threat to national security (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67662779) which can also be covered in chemicals (the common claim is methyl bromide is used although I haven't seen anything to back that up)
I think there has not or not much. However, we seem to consume the meat differently like processing it heavily, cooking it at very high temperature. These actually produces lots of carcinogens that add up over time. Sugary food can cause lots of body inflammation which can fasten the process.
i don't know if i agree that it possibly will be too late—but i sincerely doubt i'll be around long enough to find out one way or the other. i think that's another inherent part of the problem.
Everyone has only 1 life, imprisonment of a life is one of the ultimate forms of torturing. This basically is killing his most meaningful years away.
I can only agree this form of imprisonment for murderers, rapists, ones who physically and mentally hurt people with permanent losses.
Ones can argue that he mentally & physically hurt others, but we need evidence. We should have a better system to force these individuals to pay back or make up the losses. Of course, he will never be able to pay back all the losses, but at least that's a better punishment and I'm almost certain every prisoner will agree to do. They will absolutely trade all of their finances for x years in exchange for freedom.
I think what's going on right now isn't deterring people from committing frauds like SBF either.
I think imprisonment doesn't make it's one of the fairest penalty. A set of humans made that up to imprison/strip away freedom/rights of other humans. No human at birth signs these laws, it is all made up by the people with power.
I agree that creating a system to force him payback is challenging, there's no easy way to create a system like that. Maybe something as simple as 50% tax to start with for the rest of his life as long as he belongs to this society.
Personally, I think we should offer prisoners corporal punishment alternatives. Flogging every six months for ten years, plus fines, plus community service, plus you can't handle investors money or be in the c-suite or start a company, and you pay double taxes seems fair to me.
This type of imprisonment is just as much to scare other people as it is to punish him. Repaying the people he stole from is also required here, but that has no meaning as a deterrent.
It's clearly wrong, and it will be a nightmare down the road, period. So you know the path to take even if it's meant to break the relationship or the company. There goes your negotiation skill 101.
Americans eat so much processed food simply because it is much cheaper than fresh food. Processed food is made to get consumers addicted (through convenience, taste, etc.) and encourage them to consume much more. Fresh food is almost the opposite.
I grew up in a country where freshly made food is actually cheaper than processed food, even to this day. People who stick to a traditional diet are mostly thin, while those who stick to a processed food diet gain a lot of weight.