All the stuff you mention are definitely factors, but I truly think the biggest factor is that Americans don't care. There are lots of Americans who more or less have to eat unhealthy fast food and ultra-processed snacks because they just don't have time, but I'm guessing many, many more do have time and would rather just eat something tasty and convenient. I'm sure some Americans do want to live in a walkable area, but it seems clear that many, many more like driving everywhere.
Our cultural values surrounding food are part of the system…our hatred of cooking, agreeing on dinner, cultural dislike of vegetables…opting to eat out (where the massive portions are)…it’s too easy to focus only on the food…
I agree, people have not become lazier, but also people are not taught to cook anymore, here in the UK and definitely not in in the US. It's not in the food industrys' interests to have us cook, and if we have the temerity to do so we are offered products (cans of soup, cake mix packs etc) as ingredients and told this is cooking and we should beam over the finished dish as though it was a miracle. It makes me really mad - all of it. In my own tiny part of the world (west Wales) I work with young families to get them cooking. It's incredibly rewarding but also, so often, depressing. Still, every little helps (which is also the strap line of my local behemoth supermarket who do not help at all with all their inferior ingredients and packaged crap).
It is definitely a bigger problem than people‘s habits and free will.
I live in Switzerland and here the first thing you see when you enter the supermarket is fruit&veg.
There is maybe one fridge with ready-made foods, and it is a relatively expensive choice.
McDonald‘s meal is around 15$, which makes it comparable to healthier take-aways and definitely more expensive than cooking at home from high-quality ingredients.
Needless to say, rich people in America are not fat.
I highly recommend reading Ultra-Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken for an understanding of just what we're up against in terms of addictive and fattening food additives.
Comparing a donut to 3 apples isn’t a fair comparison. Compare one apple to one donut is better. Price is similar but the apple has more nutrients and fewer calories. It takes longer to eat and slower to digest making you feel full. People aren’t typically trying to eat a certain number of calories they are trying to not feel hungry. The apple option essentially does what the drugs help people do.
It’s no coincidence that when I travel I go places you can walk about. More of these places would be great.
The calorie point can be looked at from both sides. I often take a low calorie thing like an apple or some carrots and then still chase it up with something ‘bad’ because one apple isn’t that filling. Then you might have three donuts instead of one because donuts are moreish, where apples aren’t moreish, nobody will eat three apples in a row. Almost nobody. But lots of people will eat three donuts. Because donuts were specifically designed to tempt you to do that. It’s really the moreishness that’s the key. You can easily down a whole bag of chips but you probably can’t polish off a whole head of cabbage.
I think it's still an unfair comparison as you say nobody eats 3 apples. I have the luxury of buying them at Costco and they are cheaper than donuts too.
When I was 16 and had to look after myself and feed myself for a bit I found you could buy a bag of day old donuts for $2 and that fed me for a day and might have helped cure me of eating them.
Yeah I feel like we are agreeing in a roundabout way. The point is that food that is good for you, high in nutrients and low in calories is hard to get - like you say a Costco membership is a luxury. So is having a car which you need in order to really benefit from Costco. But you have a Dunkin on every corner.
On my way to work I go through a train station and two metro stations, all offer food purchases, but none offer food that is both good and affordable. I bought myself a small beef sandwich and a smoothie the other day and the total was 22$!!!! I could have gotten a couple of Tim Hortons pastries for 3$. That’s how we are continually shoved towards the bad for us, profitable for others, choices.
My experience in Canada is that it hasn't been that hard to be near a grocery store even if I had to take a bus when I was much younger and it's almost always going to be cheaper to buy it there and cook it. Costco is a luxury though, there are things I couldn't afford at a regular grocery store.
At my poorest I ate $0.25 noodles, when I got a good income I got ice-cream and potato chips and some extra weight. At 40 I dropped the junk food and lost the extra weight and some. Everyone has a different experience and challenges though.
When we travel I still like to go to grocery stores to get some or all of our food and the only time that has been a problem is in Las Vagas. It seemed odd but hard to find a real grocery store and I had to settle for a convenience store.
Yes, as Lidija said, I think we can all agree that nobody eats three apples. That is the point. With the doughnut you will eat it in one sitting, and possibly have another so it make you fatter. Where I was in NYC, many of my students lived in food deserts where there were convenience stores with processed foods, but real grocery store were often scarce. They didn't have cars or access to Costco. Or the time it would take to travel to one.
Even in convenience stores you can often find a banana for the price of a donut. Apples in convenience stores might be a little less common. At some point you have to take responsibility for making the better choice form the options you do have. One banana though over priced in a convenience store is cheaper than 3 donuts and just as filling.
Definitely a list and blinders when I go to the grocery store. Aside from that, learning what low income people eat in other cultures has been invaluable in my life. Beans, rice, tofu, and inexpensive flavor enhancements like a bit of lemon on blanched broccoli or a simple marinade that can be used for multiple dishes.
I'll also walk or ride my bike anywhere, which... for better or worse isn't always safe, but I'm stubborn and willing to take risks that others might not feel comfortable with to make sure I get outside every day.
In the early 1970's the price of beef skyrocketed. Along with price freezes for meat, Nixon's economic team fingered prices for soy and corn as major factors and in a "never again" push, offered huge incentives in the farm bill for those crops, plus wheat to keep bread prices low. The eventual surpluses went on to support things like low corn syrup prices. I agree totally, in terms of pushed calories, we're in serious trouble.
Since reading more about the environment during our first Corona lockdown, I’ve been moving towards buying organic, and more recently towards less packaging. Looking for less packaging has led me to make incidentally healthier choices. My new x-ray eyes saw a pack of cookies had more packaging than content. Highly processed food tends to have more packaging.
This far from the extreme poverty of my student days, where I knew that a Snickers bar had the most calories for your money. Thank those day that I now hate candy?
I have the privilege of living in a place with a healthy food culture with farmers' markets and a local food section in the community supermarket; of having time, because I'm retired; of having sufficient means; and of surviving a major health scare about 10 years ago, which pushed me into becoming food and health literate.
We're vegan. We try to prepare our own food as much as possible. I make my own sourdough bread. Heavily processed vegan foods are barely healthier than their regular equivalents and are reserved for an occasional treat.
All that, and abundant exercise, keeps my health in a good place these days.
As a vegetable lover (non-vegetarian but my diet often looks vegetarian), if I wanted to replace meat, I‘d look to other cultures where meatlessness still is in cultural memory and take only as processed as they‘ve been making. Like Japanese tofu.
I’m wondering how much bacteria count as a meat replacement (as in non-pasteurized sauerkraut and such) 🤔
THe other element is that we're going to need de-growth if we have even a chance of surviving the climate catastrophe, which means rethinking our ENTIRE capitalist growth-oriented system. If you've got that bent -- buying ingredients, and cooking yourself, is a deeply revolutionary act.
And a part of that degrowth strategy needs to be removing punitive work requirements that have folks running from job to job with no time to eat anything other than calorie-dense, cheap fast food.
AND I've also seen places, like Taipei in the 80s, where outsourcing cooking to the folks who ran canteens in the market made all kinds of sense -- from conservation of fossil fuels to concentration of effort. But the way the West has outsourced all that onto fast food is problematic all the way around.
Yea corporations can’t really put a brand on fruits and veggies. The advice is to stay on the perimeter of the grocery store, that’s where all the healthy stuff is. Also alcohol has tons of calories and negatively affects the bodies systems (metabolism, hormones, etc) but it’s still popularly consumed.
I spent most of the summer in Denmark and ate more candy, potatoes, breads and pork than I eat in America and I LOST 12 lbs. I come back here, ate less and gained back 7.... it’s the crap in every food in this country! From the flours we use in our breads to the crap in just everything. I have no idea what these things are, but I know the EU has strict regs about what is and isn’t food and what crap you can pump into fruits and add to dairy, meats, etc. It’s gotta be the food...
I’ve heard this same thing from others, specifically about Italy. The quality of the food is so much better that they can go on vacation and eat indulgently and not gain weight. Also, those with gluten sensitivity weren’t as affected. So interesting.
And groceries were cheaper, like by almost half. Organic meant organic and no GMOs anywhere, no coating on the fruits and veg to make them last longer... definitely no red dye in anything and corn syrup was nowhere... it’s these little things I think had to have made a cumulative difference. American food corps - even when we think we are eating healthy - are poisoning us and charging us more to do it. I just don’t think a lot of people get out of this country so they don’t “feel” the effects (weight, sure, but the pain of bloating and headaches for a couple weeks getting used to American food ... pretty much abated by now, but... like what crack withdrawal must feel like... 😳)
All the stuff you mention are definitely factors, but I truly think the biggest factor is that Americans don't care. There are lots of Americans who more or less have to eat unhealthy fast food and ultra-processed snacks because they just don't have time, but I'm guessing many, many more do have time and would rather just eat something tasty and convenient. I'm sure some Americans do want to live in a walkable area, but it seems clear that many, many more like driving everywhere.
I agree, but there are also many people who do care and try. If there weren't the diet industry wouldn't be so profitable.
Our cultural values surrounding food are part of the system…our hatred of cooking, agreeing on dinner, cultural dislike of vegetables…opting to eat out (where the massive portions are)…it’s too easy to focus only on the food…
I agree, people have not become lazier, but also people are not taught to cook anymore, here in the UK and definitely not in in the US. It's not in the food industrys' interests to have us cook, and if we have the temerity to do so we are offered products (cans of soup, cake mix packs etc) as ingredients and told this is cooking and we should beam over the finished dish as though it was a miracle. It makes me really mad - all of it. In my own tiny part of the world (west Wales) I work with young families to get them cooking. It's incredibly rewarding but also, so often, depressing. Still, every little helps (which is also the strap line of my local behemoth supermarket who do not help at all with all their inferior ingredients and packaged crap).
Wow, what great work you're doing, though I can imagine it is hard.
Thank you - hard but sometimes just hilarious and really good too!
It is definitely a bigger problem than people‘s habits and free will.
I live in Switzerland and here the first thing you see when you enter the supermarket is fruit&veg.
There is maybe one fridge with ready-made foods, and it is a relatively expensive choice.
McDonald‘s meal is around 15$, which makes it comparable to healthier take-aways and definitely more expensive than cooking at home from high-quality ingredients.
Needless to say, rich people in America are not fat.
Like many other — it is a poverty problem.
Thanks for that perspective, Magda!
What should we call the confluence of calorie-inflation and shrinkflation in industrial foods? Stag-snacking?
I highly recommend reading Ultra-Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken for an understanding of just what we're up against in terms of addictive and fattening food additives.
thanks, I'll check it out!
I think the point is that this is such cool photo!
Comparing a donut to 3 apples isn’t a fair comparison. Compare one apple to one donut is better. Price is similar but the apple has more nutrients and fewer calories. It takes longer to eat and slower to digest making you feel full. People aren’t typically trying to eat a certain number of calories they are trying to not feel hungry. The apple option essentially does what the drugs help people do.
It’s no coincidence that when I travel I go places you can walk about. More of these places would be great.
The calorie point can be looked at from both sides. I often take a low calorie thing like an apple or some carrots and then still chase it up with something ‘bad’ because one apple isn’t that filling. Then you might have three donuts instead of one because donuts are moreish, where apples aren’t moreish, nobody will eat three apples in a row. Almost nobody. But lots of people will eat three donuts. Because donuts were specifically designed to tempt you to do that. It’s really the moreishness that’s the key. You can easily down a whole bag of chips but you probably can’t polish off a whole head of cabbage.
I think it's still an unfair comparison as you say nobody eats 3 apples. I have the luxury of buying them at Costco and they are cheaper than donuts too.
When I was 16 and had to look after myself and feed myself for a bit I found you could buy a bag of day old donuts for $2 and that fed me for a day and might have helped cure me of eating them.
Yeah I feel like we are agreeing in a roundabout way. The point is that food that is good for you, high in nutrients and low in calories is hard to get - like you say a Costco membership is a luxury. So is having a car which you need in order to really benefit from Costco. But you have a Dunkin on every corner.
On my way to work I go through a train station and two metro stations, all offer food purchases, but none offer food that is both good and affordable. I bought myself a small beef sandwich and a smoothie the other day and the total was 22$!!!! I could have gotten a couple of Tim Hortons pastries for 3$. That’s how we are continually shoved towards the bad for us, profitable for others, choices.
My experience in Canada is that it hasn't been that hard to be near a grocery store even if I had to take a bus when I was much younger and it's almost always going to be cheaper to buy it there and cook it. Costco is a luxury though, there are things I couldn't afford at a regular grocery store.
At my poorest I ate $0.25 noodles, when I got a good income I got ice-cream and potato chips and some extra weight. At 40 I dropped the junk food and lost the extra weight and some. Everyone has a different experience and challenges though.
When we travel I still like to go to grocery stores to get some or all of our food and the only time that has been a problem is in Las Vagas. It seemed odd but hard to find a real grocery store and I had to settle for a convenience store.
Yes, as Lidija said, I think we can all agree that nobody eats three apples. That is the point. With the doughnut you will eat it in one sitting, and possibly have another so it make you fatter. Where I was in NYC, many of my students lived in food deserts where there were convenience stores with processed foods, but real grocery store were often scarce. They didn't have cars or access to Costco. Or the time it would take to travel to one.
Even in convenience stores you can often find a banana for the price of a donut. Apples in convenience stores might be a little less common. At some point you have to take responsibility for making the better choice form the options you do have. One banana though over priced in a convenience store is cheaper than 3 donuts and just as filling.
Definitely a list and blinders when I go to the grocery store. Aside from that, learning what low income people eat in other cultures has been invaluable in my life. Beans, rice, tofu, and inexpensive flavor enhancements like a bit of lemon on blanched broccoli or a simple marinade that can be used for multiple dishes.
I'll also walk or ride my bike anywhere, which... for better or worse isn't always safe, but I'm stubborn and willing to take risks that others might not feel comfortable with to make sure I get outside every day.
Inspiring but also vexing. Thank you for writing.
One potentially related thought:
In the early 1970's the price of beef skyrocketed. Along with price freezes for meat, Nixon's economic team fingered prices for soy and corn as major factors and in a "never again" push, offered huge incentives in the farm bill for those crops, plus wheat to keep bread prices low. The eventual surpluses went on to support things like low corn syrup prices. I agree totally, in terms of pushed calories, we're in serious trouble.
Since reading more about the environment during our first Corona lockdown, I’ve been moving towards buying organic, and more recently towards less packaging. Looking for less packaging has led me to make incidentally healthier choices. My new x-ray eyes saw a pack of cookies had more packaging than content. Highly processed food tends to have more packaging.
This far from the extreme poverty of my student days, where I knew that a Snickers bar had the most calories for your money. Thank those day that I now hate candy?
great system!
Thank you
I have the privilege of living in a place with a healthy food culture with farmers' markets and a local food section in the community supermarket; of having time, because I'm retired; of having sufficient means; and of surviving a major health scare about 10 years ago, which pushed me into becoming food and health literate.
We're vegan. We try to prepare our own food as much as possible. I make my own sourdough bread. Heavily processed vegan foods are barely healthier than their regular equivalents and are reserved for an occasional treat.
All that, and abundant exercise, keeps my health in a good place these days.
yeah, I'm not vegan but we do buy a lot of plant-based meats to try and avoid meat. but i'm conflicted because as you say they are highly processed!
As a vegetable lover (non-vegetarian but my diet often looks vegetarian), if I wanted to replace meat, I‘d look to other cultures where meatlessness still is in cultural memory and take only as processed as they‘ve been making. Like Japanese tofu.
I’m wondering how much bacteria count as a meat replacement (as in non-pasteurized sauerkraut and such) 🤔
THe other element is that we're going to need de-growth if we have even a chance of surviving the climate catastrophe, which means rethinking our ENTIRE capitalist growth-oriented system. If you've got that bent -- buying ingredients, and cooking yourself, is a deeply revolutionary act.
And a part of that degrowth strategy needs to be removing punitive work requirements that have folks running from job to job with no time to eat anything other than calorie-dense, cheap fast food.
Agreed, cooking is resistance! And more of us need to have the chance to do it.
AND I've also seen places, like Taipei in the 80s, where outsourcing cooking to the folks who ran canteens in the market made all kinds of sense -- from conservation of fossil fuels to concentration of effort. But the way the West has outsourced all that onto fast food is problematic all the way around.
Yea corporations can’t really put a brand on fruits and veggies. The advice is to stay on the perimeter of the grocery store, that’s where all the healthy stuff is. Also alcohol has tons of calories and negatively affects the bodies systems (metabolism, hormones, etc) but it’s still popularly consumed.
truth! (though I still drink wine).
I spent most of the summer in Denmark and ate more candy, potatoes, breads and pork than I eat in America and I LOST 12 lbs. I come back here, ate less and gained back 7.... it’s the crap in every food in this country! From the flours we use in our breads to the crap in just everything. I have no idea what these things are, but I know the EU has strict regs about what is and isn’t food and what crap you can pump into fruits and add to dairy, meats, etc. It’s gotta be the food...
I’ve heard this same thing from others, specifically about Italy. The quality of the food is so much better that they can go on vacation and eat indulgently and not gain weight. Also, those with gluten sensitivity weren’t as affected. So interesting.
wow, fascinating!
And groceries were cheaper, like by almost half. Organic meant organic and no GMOs anywhere, no coating on the fruits and veg to make them last longer... definitely no red dye in anything and corn syrup was nowhere... it’s these little things I think had to have made a cumulative difference. American food corps - even when we think we are eating healthy - are poisoning us and charging us more to do it. I just don’t think a lot of people get out of this country so they don’t “feel” the effects (weight, sure, but the pain of bloating and headaches for a couple weeks getting used to American food ... pretty much abated by now, but... like what crack withdrawal must feel like... 😳)