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Bad diets killing more people globally than tobacco, study finds
- Thread starter Saya
- Start date
Not surprised as people eat absolute garbage
But my neighbor eating shit doesn't impact me nearly as much as inhaling their trash
But my neighbor eating shit doesn't impact me nearly as much as inhaling their trash
The economy doesn't help at all. People can get a lot of food from MD, wendy's, etc for very cheap.
I should have specified the US, because it's very cheap most places here, and there aren't a ton of good options to get that are also cheap outside of having like soup and salad constantly.
89 cent hamburgers, dollar cheeseburgers
their app has deals too, where you can get two order of fries for the price of one
(in america specifically)
Fast food isn't necessarily cheaper, it's just... well, faster and more convenient.
My lunches are around € 3-4 each (the entire meal) - fruits, yoghurts, whole grain bread, nuts etc.
1 cups of greek yoghurt is like 1€, add some blueberries, some nuts, a banana, and you got yourself a wonderful lunch for less than a fiver. Also, regular old tap water.
Of course, water tastes 'worse' than soda (even if it's diet) for some - but you don't need a flavoured fizzy drink just to keep yourself hydrated.
What i'm saying is: The "fast food is just cheaper" argument is fallacious. Sure, it is cheap, but it's not the cheapest option. People eat fast food not because it's economically more feasible, but because they like the taste and there is zero effort involved.
Sadly time and convenience is just as important as money nowadays. As a very bad cook, I admit that I often lack the time, energy or creativity to buy and cook things, even simple. For lunch, there is often some good place to eat outside, and for dinner you can order on your phone easily... Obviously financially and health-wise these solutions should be limited. But it's a struggle for me as food has always been at the same time a source of stress (picky since I was a child which is difficult within a group, weight control) and comfort. I do make an effort though, it's my biggest daily challenge.
Well at least I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol, I'm not overweight and I walk a lot. That should do it for a while, but I'm hoping to improve my diet in the long run.
Well at least I don't smoke, I don't drink alcohol, I'm not overweight and I walk a lot. That should do it for a while, but I'm hoping to improve my diet in the long run.
Diet is just the term used to describe the total food consumed by a person. It doesn't inherently connotate "good" or "bad". So yes, there are both healthy and unhealthy diets and every living organism is on that scale somewhere. Even if all you're eating is burgers for every meal of every day, that's still a diet. A good diet highly depends on the individual's needs but in general, between 1800 and 2600 calories (depending on biological sex, size and caloric output) spread across 3 meals and 2 snacks made up of nutritious, non-processed food is a "good diet". Doesn't need to be something fancy.
Edit: Goofed my numbers.
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may not necessarily be cheaper but if you're uneducated, on the lower end of the economic spectrum, chances are a steady diet of McMeals is part your daily norm. hence the 'economic' factor
Yep even in Australia where fast food is much more expensive, this was basically my childhood. A single mother working 10 hour days would prefer to spend some of that limited money on quick, easy food you don't have to think about even if it was quite a bit more expensive in the long run, much more so if you count the long term health costs. The mental energy and time it took to cook more than a couple of times a week was too much for her to deal with so fast food was the obvious answer.
Everyone eats.
Not everyone smokes.
Last I heard is that they still had to figure out the result of having liquid shits.
Not everyone smokes.
Last I heard is that they still had to figure out the result of having liquid shits.
Well, I've lost 110 lbs (50kgs) in the span of one year due to the change of my eating regime, but I've never called it "diet". When you look at it like this, I get the term.
Unfortunately nutrition isn't as simple as taking a pill, you have to find a diet that works for you, everyone's body is different. My diet has been tweaked many times over the course of the last 4 years. I get burnt out on one recipe, and i find another. i find a new food that i like and i add it to my diet, i find a cheaper food that replaces another, etc etc.
Thankfully there are apps like Myfitnesspal that will give you a pretty good idea of what kind of nutrition your body needs, and there's countless thousands of healthy recipes online that you can find to hit those numbers.
Vegetarian and especially Vegan diets are awesome for your health, but of course the omnis will tell you otherwise...
I mean even if you aren't a big veggie fan, you can probably fix up some kind of smoothie you enjoy. It's how I get a lot of my current intake of veggies and fruits. Hate chewing 'em but it's easy to blend it up and drink it.
The soylent stuff seems to be pretty legit as far as meal replacement drinks go, but yeah most articles I read (of the "I spent a week/month just drinking this" variety) indicate it does get boring. Whichever way you go, you're eventually going to want solid, hot food and diversified meals.
I seem to remember you being French. Where in France, apart from small interior towns I suppose, is 10 eur not considered cheap for a McDonald's menu?
Considering you can eat for like 3-6€ if you don't buy lazy shit, I think 10€ for trash food is expensive
Grats! It's hard work, I'm closing in on the 50kg mark as well and it feels so fricking good losing the weight even if it's hard and tiring.
As someone who has been on Optifast for the past 5 months and drinks at least 2 meal replacement shakes a day, holy shit does it get boring. But it's also easy, predictable and regimented which makes up for a lot of the boredom and self-control you have to exert to not completely fall off.
If it were up to me, cooking classes should become mandatory in school. Even if you stop cooking for yourself later in life due to time constraints or stress, the knowledge of how good food is prepared will change your buying and spending habits. At the very least you will be a more independent person. Also cooking for yourself or others can build social skills and help with depression.
I will have to look into this. I love a lot of fruits and nuts won't be a problem either. It's the lack of veggies that will kill me, because I'm to lazy to prepare and I absolutely don't like them.
Cooking and nutrition classes should be standard classes in grading school period. It's no wonder people constantly shove shit into their bodies when they're never taught what nutrients they need for optimal health.
But are you talking restaurants or buying stuff and cooking yourself? Because if there are restaurants in France where you can eat for 3-6 eur, I had no idea. Damn.
Spinach is pretty easy to cover up with fruits, and I actually grew pretty fond of a smoothie that was yogurt, cucumbers, lemon, spinach and/or kale, and celery (just a little celery because it adds kind of a salty flavor in large amounts). Carrots I absolutely hate unless they're juiced or blended into smoothies.
You can also wash, chop and pre-prepare little baggies of frozen ingredients of you have spare time. Makes morning smoothies easier when you can just pull out a baggie and dump it all in a blender.
They really should! We had a general home ec for a year in high school and only cooked like twice. One of those times was making a salad... and that's more than most get.
Here a "menú del día" is about 8-12€. It's much healthier than a junk-food menu, consisting in two main dishes and a desert/coffee. Problem it's only on workdays, so on weekends eating on traditional restaurants goes up to 15-25€, and places like McDonalds remain the same, with their 1€ burgers or cheap menus.
Some examples said:
I don't know why sparkling water is so consistently absent from discussions about soft drinks and health. Flavored sparkling water is quite common here, usually cheaper than soda, and I'd much rather drink that than put up with the disgusting aftertaste of the sweeteners in diet sodas.
Absolutely, i'm not debating the fact that it's especially people on the lower end of the economic spectrum who eat too much cheap fast food. I'm simply arguing that we're not talking causation - they're poor and for that reason they (have to) resort to junk food. But rather a certain correlation.
Like, as you said, bad education can be a common origin of both, low household income, but also a certain ignorance vis-a-vis affordable and healthy nutrition.
From a purely ecological standpoint, "bottled sparkling water" is almost the bigger 'sin', imho. Like, soda - i consider a treat, in a sense - but bottled flavored water is so close to what you can easily just mix yourself.
This is of course highly dependent on the quality of your local tap water - of couse, if you live in an area where tap water has a strong chloride taste, i won't make you drink that.
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I recommend everyone moves to Switzerland, I am the healthiest I have ever been because fast food here is expensive, meat is expensive and I am only working part time. I make all of my meals from scratch and only really eat chicken a couple of times a week.
Fast Food has become a treat I sometimes go for, rather than when I lived in the UK and it was probably the same price as cooking a meal so easy to just pick it up on the way home and be lazy.
Fast Food has become a treat I sometimes go for, rather than when I lived in the UK and it was probably the same price as cooking a meal so easy to just pick it up on the way home and be lazy.
I'm not sure where in Europe fast food is cheaper than home cooking or where travelling to a fast food place, queueing up and paying for the meal takes less time than stir frying some vegetables and a bit of extra protein. This is not a problem we have, there are other more likely factors such as poor food education (preparation and the science), poor regulation on the foods that are making people fat and sick and insufficient investment in mental health provisions. While people do need to take personal responsibility, the government should do a better job of nudging people in the right direction (stop subsidising dairy!) and provide investment so those who do need help are able to get it.
Lately I notice a big trend in the politicisation of diets... an increase of assuming liberal minded people are vegetarian/vegan, the alt right associating things like soy beans with a lack of masculinity... even right wing extremists proudly talking about how they eat a RAW MEAT DIET.
It's long been an unspoken cultural thing i guess, with people acting like fruit and vegetables are FEMININE and meats and carbs are MAN FOOD. Utter nonsense, but I see it internalised in the demographics of my peers. Guys getting gout, women living the flexitarian dream (though with more pressure to undereat, because diminishment is also feminine)
Education is good but I guess I think if you would like to see a diet of steak and fries every day as an assertion of your masculinity I don't really mind... I don't need those people to live long rich lives its fine :)
It's long been an unspoken cultural thing i guess, with people acting like fruit and vegetables are FEMININE and meats and carbs are MAN FOOD. Utter nonsense, but I see it internalised in the demographics of my peers. Guys getting gout, women living the flexitarian dream (though with more pressure to undereat, because diminishment is also feminine)
Education is good but I guess I think if you would like to see a diet of steak and fries every day as an assertion of your masculinity I don't really mind... I don't need those people to live long rich lives its fine :)
I'm surprised they aren't. It's a standard part of education in UK high schools.