I grew up close to Winston Salem, North Carolina. The city with two cigarette brands named after it. Everyone died of emphysema or lung cancer there. As a 10 year old kid, I could buy cigarettes from stores. In the 6th grade, our class took a tour of the RJ Reynolds factory in Tobaccoville, NC (yes that is an actual place) and we watched as our school teachers were given free sample packs of cigarettes.
I tell that story because it is true.
And I wonder... is there a town named Twinkieville in the USA where everyone dies of obesity and/or diabetes and kids can buy pounds of candy at the store without an ID? Or, is every town in America Twinkieville?
Twinkies are just a simple yellow spongecake filled with cream. They are so unhealthy because in the quest to keep the price something that people can afford (or for greed in profits) companies are forced to turn it into processed zombie garbage but if you break it down, a Twinkie was only just originally a simple yellow spongecake with some cream. A treat served to guests during coffeetime.
Its financialization of everything including food, government tipping the scales against peoples well being and a declining purchasing power of the average american that has resulted in this awful reality where food isn't food.
"That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."
But then why work? Lets assume everyone will follow your advice, then we all could work less, may be just 4 a day. If so, then why do not we change the work day to 4 h? It is not like all bad food, tobacco, etc will be gone, but we will not produce all that in such huge quantities.
But but but the influencers are telling me to put nothing but cheeseburgers and testosterone in my body and that just coincidentally reinforces with what I want to do anyway!
I love how this gets presented as obvious advice, yet explains nothing and introduces an even less well defined thing it will do: "be maximally healthy".
My caveman brain was psyched out by the idea of stopping my coke drinking habit. I thought I had a soda addiction. Turns out I didnt, I just didnt drink enough water. After I pulled water bottles instead of coke cans from the fridge, the cravings went away.
Sometimes we don't need cold baths or extreme regimens to fix all the messed up things we're doing to our bodies. Simple changes go far to heal the damage.
I think what you experienced was behavioral addiction, tends to be a lot easier to overcome than chemical/physical addiction, often enough by just replacing the habit/behavior with something else.
Most people fighting addiction and having a hard time is fighting a chemical dependency, which is a lot harder and when people start looking beyond "Just do X instead".
I've mentioned this before but over 40 years ago the periodical R & D was originally known as Industrial Research, and the R & D 100 was the IR100, showcasing the most promising companies they picked out every year in their opinion.
It wasn't too much like an academic publication, there were plenty of those, but lots of times a breakthrough would be reported anyway, and everything was more commercially oriented by far.
You know how trade publications can be kind of uninteresting for non-insiders, IR could be so boring that college professors wouldn't even read it.
But you could tell when an author had recently left academia and joined industry though because their papers appeared more academic than very seasoned ones.
It's still a challenging transition to make, but I'll never forget how it was addressed one time in the back pages. Where you get the occasional cartoon comic like you would in consumer media.
There's two scientists in lab coats working at their benches, the boss comes on the intercom and they look at each other as he blasts from the overhead speaker:
"Hey you guys in Research, get off your butts and invent something that's habit forming".
What's your point? We regulated cigarettes and now they have a tiny fraction of their former customer base, saving millions of lives. These are solvable problems.
As someone who adds several of those by himself (instead of buying products with them already included), the stomach irritating effects of too much of those (with "too much", as usual, varying from person to person) are well known. That does make me wonder (Sorry, not watching videos) how much she consumed with sugar alcohols, or if she is just extraordinarily sensitive.
Seems to me that it would require quite a lot of sweets, frequently.
If sugar alcohols are causing bowel irritation, it may be worth avoiding all fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. These are known as FODMAPs and are common in may fruits and vegetables which are all healthy foods for those who are able to digest them without issue.
Keeping a healthy diet while avoiding them is extremely difficult, so if they are not causing irritation, avoiding them will likely do more harm than good. Excessive amounts, or a sudden increase in intake, can cause issues for anyone, so changes in diet, especially from an unhealthy diet to one high in fresh fruits and vegetables, may be best done gradually.
"UPFs share key engineering strategies adopted from the tobacco industry, such as dose optimization and hedonic manipulation. These parallels should inform how we classify and regulate UPFs."
------------
There was a "Nature of Things" episode on this titled, "Foodspiracy". The reason why UPF's have been designed and marketed with many of the same strategies as tobacco is because several big tobacco companies diversified into food. They literally transferred their expertise from marketing cigarettes to marketing junk food.
Companies like Joe Camel started out using cute/cool animal mascots to condition kids so they'd buy Joe Camel cigarettes when they were old enough to smoke (if not sooner). There was a lot of competition for adult smokers, so hooking kids on their brand before any other company got to them was a winning strategy. When they pivoted into UPF's, they immediately put animal mascots and cartoon characters on cereal boxes. They no longer had to wait for their target audience to grow up a bit.
It's sobering to find out that companies specializing in unhealthy addiction have literally gone from cigarettes to potato chips and breakfast cereals without missing a step, and kids are their preferred demographic.
So is tobacco ok if it's local? I eat mostly local food and once in a while someone offers me some locally farmed tobacco and I try it. That's not "industry" but it's also probably not great for me.
It's definitely "not great" for you. But there is also not an entire industry spending big bucks trying to get you addicted (and it sounds you do it every now and then, so that's not so bad). So there is a difference imho.
The problem is when someone makes a profit from your use of that tobacco, especially if they aren't covering the enormous costs of your premature illness or death
If you were to grow, dry, and roll your own tobacco it absolutely would be better for you than cigarettes. "Ok" is a judgment call so that's up to you.
Plain tobacco leaves are much less dangerous for your health than the highly engineered commercial cigarettes that have additives that increase addictiveness, inhibit coughing, "improve taste", improve shelf life, etc.
This area is very interesting and lots of this is on the money. That said, I think there are some places where it overreaches and possibly verges on fear mongering based on pretty weak evidence.
I'm not sure NSS are necessarily "healthwashing" - they are genuinely a healthier alternative, at least in SSBs. Pointing to some very speculative research about "gut microbiome disruption" as if that somehow means NSS are something we should be concerned about in our diet doesn't seem to reflect the body of evidence on the subject. On balance they seem to be either a neutral or beneficial product, depending on what they replace in the diet.
I think one important distinction between UPF and cigarettes is that we have lots of examples of healthy UPFs. Are there any such examples for cigarettes? Even those researchers who voice concerns about the health impacts of UPFs (Kevin Hall, Samuel Dicken) seem to be largely interested in identifying _which_ UPFs might drive poor health outcomes and why, so we can regulate industry to make their products more health promoting.
My concern with this analogy between cigarettes and UPFs is that we end up with a movement to completely ban UPFs when they have lots of useful properties (can be stored at ambient temperature, long shelf life, reliable quality) that make them very important for people with limited means. The dream scenario, IMO, is that we regulate out the worst of the harmful properties, rather than trying to get rid of them entirely (which I think is the dream scenario with cigarettes).
> The dream scenario, IMO, is that we regulate out the worst of the harmful properties, rather than trying to get rid of them entirely (which I think is the dream scenario with cigarettes).
Isn't that basically vapes? A nicotine delivery mechanism without the most harmful properties, created by regulation on tobacco.
The thing with tobacco is it doesn't really have any benefit. It isn't a social lubricant like alcohol and doesn't have medical use like opiates. Old World societies managed fine before tobacco.
What a load of crock! People have agency. Free will. So what if McDonalds puts out a cool new toy in their adult happy meal or some special sauce loaded with glutamates. Fuck em! Say that to them right now, in your head or out loud: fuck em!
You can stop this addiction right now by merely doing nothing and not eating "UPFs". You have the power. When you get stressed and want to burn time and energy eating because it's at least eating, how about doing a different thing? Each one of us is powered by a soul that can defy these behavior loops with some self-reflection.
Great analysis, let's also solve smoking and alcohol over-consumption by some self-reflection. No need for any regulations, people are always perfectly rational and have perfect information about any health implications of what they consume. Addicted to gambling? Just stop it.
Exactly. I have stopped eating out almost completely because it is addictive.
Forget McDonalds, almost any Italian or Thai restaurant to me is like a drug dealer.
There is no amount of chicken alfredo that is satisfying to me. It doesn't matter how it is made, the poison is in the dosage and I am going to eat way too much.
Awesome! Let me introduce you to our latest menu item! Heroin chips with meth dipping sauce. One bite and your agency will have you coming back for seconds, then minutes, then a lifetime (however short).
I hope you enjoy spending all of your mental energy self-reflecting to kick the addiction.
A lot of these UPFs are targeted at young people who don't have the same ability to think of long term consequences. If you start young, it's a much harder habit to break later in life.
And in many places UPFs are cheaper and more widely available than unprocessed food. If you're worried about paying rent, you're not questioning cheap calories for your family.
Even if we can agree that people should exercise more willpower, isn't there something wrong with companies weaponizing science to make food as addictive as possible?
There's also no proven causal link between UPFs and ill health.
By country the largest consumers of UPFs are also on average the longest lived. They are a by-product of wealth, as is obesity, what people are trying to pin on UPFs is much more likely to be a symptom of excess.
If you trace all countries by causes and incidences of death or morbidity there is nothing unusual or unexpected in the countries that consume the most UPFs, in some cases they even have lower figures.
Unprocessed food is usually a sign of quality, that is all.
Most food in supermarkets is now just slop. Foam for bread, veggies that have been grown as fast as possible and packaged as fresh despite being weeks or months old, sprayed with chemicals and shipped halfway around the world, meat raised in a shed and fed one food, which is then injected with water to increase it's weight, freerange eggs that were laid 6 weeks ago and have had their protective layer washed off so must be refrigerated...and on it goes.
seethishat|26 days ago
I tell that story because it is true.
And I wonder... is there a town named Twinkieville in the USA where everyone dies of obesity and/or diabetes and kids can buy pounds of candy at the store without an ID? Or, is every town in America Twinkieville?
nebula8804|26 days ago
Its financialization of everything including food, government tipping the scales against peoples well being and a declining purchasing power of the average american that has resulted in this awful reality where food isn't food.
jcynix|26 days ago
"That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy."
Unhappy Meals - Michael Pollan https://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/
baxtr|26 days ago
Just like: Don't smoke, don't drink, work-out, take walks, spend time with your family and friends, don't work too much. Also, don't worry too much!
All the real problems come in practice.
Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a solid basis.
However, 80% of success comes from applying these things in your messy life.
throwaw111|26 days ago
lukan|26 days ago
fakedang|26 days ago
Vegetarian India literally suffers from one of the highest rates of protein deficiency and stunted growth worldwide.
virgildotcodes|26 days ago
XorNot|26 days ago
DarkNova6|26 days ago
But I am biased. I‘ve seen this slogan everywhere to promote UPFs that claim to be healthy because they are „vegan“.
Now that the market for meat alternatives has collapsed I don’t see this reasoning anymore. What a strange coincidence.
prodigycorp|26 days ago
Sometimes we don't need cold baths or extreme regimens to fix all the messed up things we're doing to our bodies. Simple changes go far to heal the damage.
embedding-shape|26 days ago
Most people fighting addiction and having a hard time is fighting a chemical dependency, which is a lot harder and when people start looking beyond "Just do X instead".
blackbear_|26 days ago
teekert|26 days ago
fuzzfactor|26 days ago
It wasn't too much like an academic publication, there were plenty of those, but lots of times a breakthrough would be reported anyway, and everything was more commercially oriented by far.
You know how trade publications can be kind of uninteresting for non-insiders, IR could be so boring that college professors wouldn't even read it.
But you could tell when an author had recently left academia and joined industry though because their papers appeared more academic than very seasoned ones.
It's still a challenging transition to make, but I'll never forget how it was addressed one time in the back pages. Where you get the occasional cartoon comic like you would in consumer media.
There's two scientists in lab coats working at their benches, the boss comes on the intercom and they look at each other as he blasts from the overhead speaker:
"Hey you guys in Research, get off your butts and invent something that's habit forming".
smt88|26 days ago
fredley|26 days ago
michalxnet|26 days ago
A list of sugar alcohols including their classification numbers in Europe is:
Sorbitol (E 420)
Mannitol (E 421)
Isomalt (E 954)
Maltitol and Maltitol Sirup (E 965)
Lactitol (E 966)
Maltitol and Maltitol Sirup (E 965)
Xylitol (E 967)
Erythritol (E 967)
Semaphor|26 days ago
Seems to me that it would require quite a lot of sweets, frequently.
iammrpayments|26 days ago
dlcarrier|25 days ago
Keeping a healthy diet while avoiding them is extremely difficult, so if they are not causing irritation, avoiding them will likely do more harm than good. Excessive amounts, or a sudden increase in intake, can cause issues for anyone, so changes in diet, especially from an unhealthy diet to one high in fresh fruits and vegetables, may be best done gradually.
lotsofpulp|26 days ago
beloch|26 days ago
------------
There was a "Nature of Things" episode on this titled, "Foodspiracy". The reason why UPF's have been designed and marketed with many of the same strategies as tobacco is because several big tobacco companies diversified into food. They literally transferred their expertise from marketing cigarettes to marketing junk food.
Companies like Joe Camel started out using cute/cool animal mascots to condition kids so they'd buy Joe Camel cigarettes when they were old enough to smoke (if not sooner). There was a lot of competition for adult smokers, so hooking kids on their brand before any other company got to them was a winning strategy. When they pivoted into UPF's, they immediately put animal mascots and cartoon characters on cereal boxes. They no longer had to wait for their target audience to grow up a bit.
It's sobering to find out that companies specializing in unhealthy addiction have literally gone from cigarettes to potato chips and breakfast cereals without missing a step, and kids are their preferred demographic.
testhest|26 days ago
cobblestone32|26 days ago
neogodless|26 days ago
h33t-l4x0r|26 days ago
teekert|26 days ago
4gotunameagain|26 days ago
smt88|26 days ago
_heimdall|26 days ago
nkrisc|26 days ago
gostsamo|26 days ago
unglaublich|26 days ago
KempyKolibri|26 days ago
I'm not sure NSS are necessarily "healthwashing" - they are genuinely a healthier alternative, at least in SSBs. Pointing to some very speculative research about "gut microbiome disruption" as if that somehow means NSS are something we should be concerned about in our diet doesn't seem to reflect the body of evidence on the subject. On balance they seem to be either a neutral or beneficial product, depending on what they replace in the diet.
I think one important distinction between UPF and cigarettes is that we have lots of examples of healthy UPFs. Are there any such examples for cigarettes? Even those researchers who voice concerns about the health impacts of UPFs (Kevin Hall, Samuel Dicken) seem to be largely interested in identifying _which_ UPFs might drive poor health outcomes and why, so we can regulate industry to make their products more health promoting.
My concern with this analogy between cigarettes and UPFs is that we end up with a movement to completely ban UPFs when they have lots of useful properties (can be stored at ambient temperature, long shelf life, reliable quality) that make them very important for people with limited means. The dream scenario, IMO, is that we regulate out the worst of the harmful properties, rather than trying to get rid of them entirely (which I think is the dream scenario with cigarettes).
walthamstow|26 days ago
Isn't that basically vapes? A nicotine delivery mechanism without the most harmful properties, created by regulation on tobacco.
The thing with tobacco is it doesn't really have any benefit. It isn't a social lubricant like alcohol and doesn't have medical use like opiates. Old World societies managed fine before tobacco.
anArbitraryOne|26 days ago
midtake|26 days ago
You can stop this addiction right now by merely doing nothing and not eating "UPFs". You have the power. When you get stressed and want to burn time and energy eating because it's at least eating, how about doing a different thing? Each one of us is powered by a soul that can defy these behavior loops with some self-reflection.
cobblestone32|26 days ago
(For the record my only vice is coffee.)
fatherwavelet|26 days ago
Forget McDonalds, almost any Italian or Thai restaurant to me is like a drug dealer.
There is no amount of chicken alfredo that is satisfying to me. It doesn't matter how it is made, the poison is in the dosage and I am going to eat way too much.
_factor|26 days ago
I hope you enjoy spending all of your mental energy self-reflecting to kick the addiction.
ImPleadThe5th|26 days ago
And in many places UPFs are cheaper and more widely available than unprocessed food. If you're worried about paying rent, you're not questioning cheap calories for your family.
Even if we can agree that people should exercise more willpower, isn't there something wrong with companies weaponizing science to make food as addictive as possible?
jpfromlondon|26 days ago
By country the largest consumers of UPFs are also on average the longest lived. They are a by-product of wealth, as is obesity, what people are trying to pin on UPFs is much more likely to be a symptom of excess.
If you trace all countries by causes and incidences of death or morbidity there is nothing unusual or unexpected in the countries that consume the most UPFs, in some cases they even have lower figures.
Unprocessed food is usually a sign of quality, that is all.
Eat less. Lift more. Run more.
unknown|26 days ago
[deleted]
CrzyLngPwd|26 days ago
randomNumber7|26 days ago
slowhadoken|26 days ago
reverius42|26 days ago
fastThinking|26 days ago
Citizen_Lame|26 days ago