[HN Gopher] 50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists...
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50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists to Blame Fat
(2016)
Author : mgh2
Score : 352 points
Date : 2021-02-13 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| geofft wrote:
| Previous discussions of this article and related ones, if you're
| curious:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18944011
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480733
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941
|
| As a side note, I recently remembered the existence of
| SnackWell's (they're still around a bit, I just haven't seen them
| in stores lately) - which were sold as "healthy" because they had
| no fat. But they were cookies! And full of sugar!
| 762236 wrote:
| Exercise, and you don't have to worry nearly as much about sugar
| or other foods. Your exercise should probably include high-
| intensity for carb oxidation, and low-intensity for fat oxidation
| (zone 2, for at least 90 minutes). The diets people try are hacks
| to avoid exercise, and to work around the mitochondrial
| dysfunction that results from insufficient exercise. Worry about
| diet when exercise isn't sufficient. We've evolved to eat lots of
| carbs. When you deplete your glycogen stores, which I do multiple
| times a week, you have to eat carbs like crazy. Carb restriction
| hurts athletes.
| michannne wrote:
| Diet is most important, you can exercise as much as you want
| but if you're eating 2 Big Macs for every meal you won't last
| long on this Earth. Most diets I agree are supplements that are
| designed to make people "feel good" without doing the extra
| effort to track the foods they are eating. Maybe you mean meal
| plans/diet plans, because actual dieting is really what slims
| you down/bulks you up
| GuardianCaveman wrote:
| I have gone from 33% body fat to 22% in 7 months. It has been
| purely through moderate calorie restriction but eating the same
| stuff. I used to swim and do CrossFit and it was so hard to
| lose weight because I would inevitably have an injury that
| would prevent me from working out and would lead to weight gain
| until a few weeks. I have been unable to lose weight for 12
| years because I focused so much on exercise and diet when
| really just doing diet was the key. Once I get to my goal body
| fat percentage I plan on starting exercising a lot again but
| until then it's just 8k steps or so a day. I do agree people
| try diets to avoid exercise but most people I know do both when
| trying to lose weight.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| My experience is exercise makes less difference for weight loss
| than diet. Calories in calories out. A choco bar take a decent
| run to burn it off.
|
| I agree exercise is good but being fatigued I have relied
| mostly on diet to lose weight. I really enjoy running though so
| it's a bit sad.
| mathiasrw wrote:
| So important info for people who wants to understand our current
| health crises.
|
| This, and the normalization of frying with plant based oils that
| denaturalize at those temperature seems to me equivalent to how
| the romans society was led poisoning themselves because most
| kitchenware like spoons and pots were made of led.
| mauflows wrote:
| Can you expound on the plant based oil part?
| erdewit wrote:
| Most seed-based oils contain a lot of linoleic acid, for
| example sunflower oil has 65%. It is an essential fatty acid,
| but the average consumption nowadays is way too high. It
| oxidizes easily which leads to health problems when too much
| of it is incorporated into cell and mitochondrial membranes.
|
| Plant oils such as those from olive, coconut, palm, cocoa or
| avocado have much less linoleic acid.
| ip26 wrote:
| Plant based oils often have low oxidation temperatures, and
| oxidized oils are not particularly healthy. Saturated fats
| usually have higher oxidation temperatures making them more
| suited to high temperature cooking.
| fantod wrote:
| What qualifies as plant-based? I always use peanut oil
| because I heard it has a high smoke point.
| ip26 wrote:
| Peanut oil is a pretty good choice for high heat pan
| frying. The makeup is really what matters- saturated,
| polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, etc.
|
| Although for what it's worth my life got a lot better
| when I learned roasting, braising, simmering, reductions,
| etc and stopped trying to pan fry everything.
| majidazimi wrote:
| EVOO, Ghee (from grass fed butter), Coconut oil, Avocado
| oil, Sesame oil, Tallow, Lard and Butter (from grass fed
| animal) is all that you should be eating. Everything else
| belongs to trash bin.
| bitkrieg wrote:
| Polyunsaturated fats have many unstable double carbon bonds,
| so especially under heat a wide range of new fat compounds
| form which were never present in the human diet.
| f6v wrote:
| Is it fine if I use olive oil? Italians seem to have
| exceptional health.
| buu700 wrote:
| No. Olive oil is great, but don't put it in your deep fryer.
| I like to use ghee, personally.
| odiroot wrote:
| Yes, as long as you're not heating it until it smokes.
| amit9gupta wrote:
| The problem with olive oil is that because of its' popularity
| it is often adulterated (with seed-oils, often at source). So
| do your research before you buy.
| xwdv wrote:
| NO. Different oils are meant to be cooked at different
| temperatures. Find the right one for your use case.
| ip26 wrote:
| It doesn't seem like Italian cooking has much high
| temperature pan frying.
| hntrader wrote:
| Yeah, extra virgin olive oil is one of the good ones and
| there's a sizeable research literature which backs that up.
| You can consume it liberally. Make sure you buy it in a dark
| glass container (since it's UV sensitive) and it should leave
| an itchy feeling in your throat after you swallow a teaspoon.
| Olive oil fraud is rather common and this is a method to
| detect that. There's some sites which analyse EVOO and rank
| them based on the above factors, I just pick the best brands
| from that list.
|
| Common advice is to avoid seed oils - the cheap stuff used in
| restaurants such as canola oil. We didn't evolve with this
| stuff, it contributes to inflammation and is generally not
| good for you, but is used because it's cheap and not illegal
| yet.
| Pyramus wrote:
| > Common advice is to avoid seed oils - the cheap stuff
| used in restaurants such as canola oil.
|
| I'd say common advice is to avoid cheap (refined) oils
| rather than seed oils. Point in case linseed oil is
| arguably even healthier than olive oil. Sunflower oil (cold
| pressed) is a great source of Vitamin E (in moderation
| because of omega 6:3 ratio). Cold pressed rapeseed oil
| (canola) is great, too. So is pumpkin seed oil ...
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I don't like that we call the macronutrient "fat". We don't call
| protien "muscle".
|
| I think we'd be healthier if we officially renamed fat to lipids
| rco8786 wrote:
| We call it "Vitamin F" in our house.
| masterofmisc wrote:
| It would be better if "fat" was renamed to "fuel" because
| that's exactly what it is. Fuel for the body.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| What about hydrogenated carbon, for extra confusion.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| So is sugar...
| noir_lord wrote:
| Protein as well, Our bodies roughly prefer to burn sugar,
| fat then protein but if all that's available is protein
| we'll metabolise that (including our own in starvation
| scenarios).
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| Also ethanol. 7 kcal per gram.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Basically rocket fuel for our body on a Friday night.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| And protein!
| [deleted]
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| The lies we are told go on and on. The only defense seems to be a
| combination of strong analytical skills and healthy skepticism of
| all information we consume.
|
| Some other examples you already know:
|
| - Big tobacco and lung cancer, cigarettes sold has healthy for
| decades [0]
|
| - Big Auto and seat belts, they fought mandatory seat belts for
| decades [1]
|
| - Big sugar (this article)
|
| - Big Media and the apparent massive degradation in truthfulness
| of the 2010's
|
| It seems that the truth can be purchased at the right price from
| the right organizations.
|
| Teaching analytical skepticism needs to become a core curriculum
| for our schools.
|
| [0]
| https://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/16/6/1070#:~:text=Seni....
|
| [1] https://www.wpr.org/surprisingly-controversial-history-
| seat-...
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| And most of the time when you point it out on social media, you
| get downvoted and censored!
| polote wrote:
| > Big Auto and seat belts, they fought mandatory seat belts for
| decades
|
| The linked article doesn't mention any lie. It was mostly some
| people saying that it should be up to the person to decide
| whether or not he wants to wear a belt.
| eplanit wrote:
| And to me one of the worst, also recently covered by NPR: the
| big lies we were told about plastic being recyclable[1].
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-
| misled-...
| fsflover wrote:
| And anti-GMO lobby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically
| _modified_food_cont....
| [deleted]
| markbnine wrote:
| Good documentary on this: https://frontlinetv.com/plastic-
| wars-full-film
| merb wrote:
| well the thing is, it's not impossible to recycle plastic,
| but the article also explains that really simple:
|
| > Recycling plastic is "costly," it says, and sorting it, the
| report concludes, is "infeasible."
|
| 1. no infrastructure for sorting, there is no 100% method as
| of today (basically no research is done on this topic) 2.
| even if it is feasible, nobody does it becasue it is
| expensive. 3. there are countries where plastic recycling
| works, but these are outliners and countries who heavily
| invest in sorting, recycling on the consumer side.
| 88840-8855 wrote:
| This is super interesting to me. Can you help out?
|
| - what infrastructure is needed for sorting? - what
| countries are successfully doing that? Taiwan? - can
| "expensive" be quantified?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| It requires human labor so it is expensive in countries
| where that is expensive. In countries where it is cheap
| there it isn't prioritized by the public, who
| ubderstandably instead want better paying jobs
| vmception wrote:
| > It seems that the truth can be purchased at the right price
| from the right organizations.
|
| Yes, this is an instruction manual.
| wwww4all wrote:
| The lies go on because the establishment media is paid to do
| propaganda for establishment big business.
|
| Jeff Bezos owns Washington Post. The biggest companies own the
| media distribution channels, Disney, google, facebook, etc.
|
| Think about that fact when you see all the people being
| censored and deplatformed.
|
| Think about why the establishment media shouts out racism 24/7,
| when using anti trust to break up big companies will help all
| races by improving their economic status?
|
| Why is establishment media fermenting animosity amongst the
| lower classes, while the establishment people are getting
| richer by the second?
| mncharity wrote:
| > The lies [...] The only defense seems [...] strong analytical
| skills [...] skepticism
|
| Those skills seem unaffordable to many. Suggesting this defense
| unpacks as belief in conspiracies. Which does seem a widespread
| strategy in low-trust societies, but doesn't seem helpful.
|
| But I'm reminded of recycling's misdirection, encouraging
| people to act as an individuals to mitigate damage, rather than
| collectively through representative government to prevent it.
|
| Perhaps the most impactful recent measure to increase
| truthfulness in US society, was making corporate officers
| personally liable for misleading statements? How might that be
| improved upon?
|
| And there seem divergences between self image and action, with
| respect to honesty, among many US subcultures. Potentially
| providing leverage for change?
| ta8645 wrote:
| And 50 years from now, what will the story be about say Corona
| virus, or global warming? Why are we so sure that this time
| everything is on the up and up? For instance Big pharma stands
| to make billions of dollars on the back of Corona, so it's not
| like they're just our disinterested saviours.
|
| Maybe everything is exactly as it is reported on the news and
| by the politicians. I mean, they have a great track record so
| we should probably trust them.
|
| But how is everyone so damn sure? I look at the history of
| manipulation like outlined in this story and am now mostly
| unmoved by the demands that we "listen to the science" when
| used as a cudgel.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| Because science.
| ta8645 wrote:
| I'm not sure if you meant that sarcastically? The very
| point of the examples given above is that "the science"
| isn't a fixed beacon of shining truth. It is an idealized
| process overseen by flawed and biased humans with their own
| personal agendas. We often fall short of the ideal, and are
| led astray by those claiming to have the truth supporting
| their demands.
|
| How do we know today is any different than those examples
| above?
| d26900 wrote:
| Yes, powerful lobbying organizations not only had success with
| the food industry, but with things like Brexit too.
|
| There's also an interesting finding[1]:
|
| "Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and
| organized groups representing business interests have
| substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,
| while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have
| little or no independent influence. The results provide
| substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination
| and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of
| Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."
|
| [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-
| poli...
| amelius wrote:
| The main problem is we can't blame any kind of conspiracy
| theorist anymore when there is so much BS science in the things
| we eat and nobody in power seems to care.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I would argue even that those in power have setup the system
| to produce BS science. Maybe inadvertently...
|
| Research output is in the end one main criterias that we
| measure. Actual quality of it not so much. Thus science is
| driven to deliver publications. Now how valid these are is
| open to questions. And how many of them actually prove the
| mechanisms behind the findings? Probably comparatively fewer
| to those describing some correlation.
| DenisM wrote:
| Don't forget alcohol. There was a period where every single
| movie had the main characters sipping big round glasses of red
| wine every day. And of course all the studies and articles
| about red wine being good for you. This became so normal we
| don't even think about it.
| naebother wrote:
| Wonder what the lie is today?
| godelmachine wrote:
| Add to that -
|
| 1) Red wine is good for health is consumed little daily.
|
| 2) WHO preaching at the start of the pandemic that everyone
| doesn't need to wear masks.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I think the WHO wasn't intentionally lying here - the other
| examples appear to be cases where a truth was hidden in order
| to promote/protect a product (lobbying for sugar to be
| considered a health food for example).
|
| We do need to be critical of what's told as truth in social
| or personal circumstances, for sure. I just sincerely doubt
| the WHO intended to harm people by making that claim.
| dxgarnish wrote:
| So, I've got a highly speculative hypothesis that BIG COFFEE
| will have a similar tobacco-like health event in the future.
| These are my semi-conspiratorial circumstantial evidences:
|
| 1. It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a marketing
| term.
|
| 2. The constant rate of "New Study Finds Coffee Improves
| [insert health benefit]" articles
|
| 3. The incredibly powerful forces (industrial, corporate,
| personal) that would hold back such an event
|
| I'm not willing to defend this hypothesis, but I would love
| some steel-manning
| aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA wrote:
| > It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a
| marketing term.
|
| So, does that make toast "basically burnt bread"?
| danesparza wrote:
| I think you know the answer is "yes".
| xwdv wrote:
| Steaks are just basically burnt meat.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Ideally they aren't
| wombatpm wrote:
| Knock the horns off and make sure it doesn't moo was how
| my grandfather ordered his steak
| Teever wrote:
| I know an acquaintance who refers to bread as raw toast.
| SilasX wrote:
| And they're both pointless, fallacious (non-)insights.
| Argument from inflammatory reframing? It doesn't change the
| facts on the ground. If you like the taste and/or
| psychoactive effects of coffee, relative to the cost, drink
| it! The fact that you can call it burnt bean water
| shouldn't matter to that.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I think it means toast is "basically burnt seed mush"
|
| I'd be curious about the coffee studies compared to how
| people consume coffee. So many people seem to drink theirs
| with a lot of cream and sugar.
| burundi_coffee wrote:
| > It's basically burnt bean water. Roasted is just a
| marketing term.
|
| I take offense to this line. Roasting is a very complex
| thing, you have to adjust the roasting curves to each coffee
| individually for optimal results, to get the best out of it.
| There's more coffee than you might think.
|
| Search for Specialty Coffee and the Specialty Coffee
| Association. You may also watch some of James Hoffmann's
| videos on youtube. He's the World Barista Champion of 2007
| and has his own roasting company. Coffee doesn't have to be
| bitter or taste burnt, it can be fruity and sweet. There are
| more tastes to be found in coffee than in wine. In addition
| to that, the community is not filled with as many snobs as
| the wine community and there's a lot of science being done on
| all kinds of things (for example by the Coffee Excellence
| Center in Switzerland).
| fartcannon wrote:
| That's all really neat, but same went for tobacco. Highly
| elaborate and detailed methods for ingesting poison.
|
| I think alcohol is next, before coffee. But we shall see!
| DavidPiper wrote:
| I think the cat's already out of the bag with alcohol. At
| this point the issue is probably more that people just
| like cats.
| grawprog wrote:
| >I think alcohol is next,
|
| I doubt it. There's a reason why it was considered an
| 'essential item' in a lot of places during the pandemic,
| why the soviets gave out vodka rations etc.
|
| Alcohol's a useful tool for keeping a population
| compliant and sedated, people love it, it's super easy to
| make, hence why in many places the production and
| distribution of it tends to be highly regulated,
| otherwise just about anyone could do it, it's big
| business and in a lot of places, it brings massive tax
| revenues through sales so...I doubt it's going anywhere
| any time soon.
|
| I mean what are they gonna do, ban yeast and sugar? Ban
| leaving fruit sitting too long? You can't really ever
| stop the production of alcohol. It just kind of happens
| naturally. It's not really possible to just ban the
| process of fermentation...
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| I think if people had to drink prison hooch or wait weeks
| to brew their own substandard beer, as opposed to
| drinking bottled craft beer or tasty wines there would be
| less alcohol consumption.
| wil421 wrote:
| The coffee industry isn't spraying chemicals and
| Bronchodilators on their products. At least to my
| knowledge.
| j45 wrote:
| Coffee can be burnt bean water if it's not made well.
|
| I have a few coffee snobs in my life and they slowly are
| helping me see a light.
|
| I am ok with caffeine being medicinal as needed than
| seeking a transcendant experience.
| ta988 wrote:
| You know, there is a lot more done on the taste and flavors
| of wine than for coffee (in term of funding and research
| output). And a lot of science with that. In US the research
| is almost inexistent, but big at least in Portugal, France,
| Italy...
| danesparza wrote:
| The margins on burnt bean water are insane. Even when
| accounting for paying a 'fair wage' to workers in a foreign
| country.
| ta988 wrote:
| We see that most stimulants, legal or not. They don't lead
| to fair wage for producers unfortunately.
| d26900 wrote:
| > The constant rate of "New Study Finds Coffee Improves
| [insert health benefit]" articles
|
| Yep, this has become so inflationary, but it doesn't mean
| that studies and findings are invalidated per se. If multiple
| (independent) findings come to the conclusion X, then the
| correlation becomes stronger and stronger. When the
| correlation is strong (multiple findings conclude X), then
| you can be reasonably certain that X is likely. Or am I wrong
| with this?
| DenisM wrote:
| > Or am I wrong with this?
|
| Some percentage of studies will produce random (erroneous)
| results, so if one cherry-picks favorable outcomes and
| buries the rest an impression can be created to suit any
| narrative. Are they cherry-picked? I don't know. What I do
| know is that there is a strong demand for positive studies
| both the dealers to sell more stuff and from the addicts to
| justify their addiction.
| d26900 wrote:
| Then how would you decide whether a finding/study is
| valid or not? What is your modus operandi in that case?
| Is there an algorithm for this (for selecting good
| studies or for finding the truth)?
| DenisM wrote:
| Meta-studies are most useful since someone proficient in
| the art has taken the trouble to find and analyze all
| relevant papers. Often times they also publish the method
| they used to discover and discard papers in addition to
| the analysis, specifically to avoid selection bias.
|
| Studies published in reputable scientific journals like
| Nature are usually not bogus, especially if they were
| already replicated. However applying the results to
| everyday life is tricky - one certainly must not assign
| more meaning to them than the authors did, but also
| probably even less than that. Remember the mantra: the
| experiment shows only what the experiment shows, not the
| great opportunities you want it to show.
|
| Note that "nutritional science" is not a hard science,
| their track record is abysmal. The nearest hard science
| we have to that is microbiology.
|
| As a rule, all observational studies are junk - too many
| hidden variables, etc. There are some exceptions to it,
| but you will be best served by just assuming junk. If
| you're not willing to discard a particular observational
| study at least check if the study controls for obvious
| hidden variables - wealth, age, sex, health level, etc.
| For example there were "studies" that showed red wine
| correlates with good health, and the coverage was that we
| should all drink red wine. But guess what - rich people
| drink red wine and live longer because rich. Controlled
| for wealth, the effect disappears.
| d26900 wrote:
| Thank you, I really appreciate your input!
| Ekaros wrote:
| Not to forget for the people doing studies to be able to
| publish and deliver something... Losing the income is
| quite big incentive to get out studies that at least on
| surface look good.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also it's very good question of what type of coffee we are
| talking about. Black? Espresso? Or the sugar laden version
| with various various milk substitutes?
| eloff wrote:
| The problem with this idea seems to be that lots of studies
| show health benefits to drinking coffee. Now maybe it's just
| a correlation and not an actual benefit - but you'd be hard
| pressed to say it has negative health effects because the
| correlation goes in the opposite direction.
| samstave wrote:
| Lets wait and see what today's Big Vaccine will show in a few
| years (Vaccinating 100% of the earths population wherein they
| are trying to push vaccine passports now (several countries
| in EU are beta-testing the digital passports as I type - with
| the help of IBM (in Denmark)))
|
| ---
|
| I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented.
|
| ---
|
| When my youngest was getting her shots, she weighed like 20
| pounds and they wanted to give her SIX shots at once...
|
| When my middle got the Chicken pox vax a few days before we
| went to chicago, and she got the fn chicken pox and instead
| of enjoying chicago, she had to sit in a calamine bath and we
| had to stay an extra week as she couldn't fly.
|
| She was 3 years old.
|
| So - I told the DR NO FN WAY you are giving a 20-pound child
| SIX FN shots at once. She looked incredulous.
|
| I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every vax,
| she was lathargic for the next few days.
|
| So yeah Big Vax Babba Yaga is coming
| djakaitis wrote:
| Your post claims you are not anti-vax and all it states is
| how anti-vaccine you are.
| samstave wrote:
| Reading comprehension: I said I am not anti BAC, but I'm
| not going to let them put 6 vaccines in my daughters 20
| pound body all at once
| javagram wrote:
| " I am not "anti-vax" -- but this shit is unprecedented."
|
| I'd suggest you hit up Wikipedia and learn about medical
| history. The smallpox (eradicated worldwide) and polio
| (eradicated in all but a couple countries) vaccine pages
| might help you learn that a worldwide vaccination campaign
| to stop a dangerous disease isn't unprecedented.
|
| " I said NO - she can have ONE shot per week. After every
| vax, she was lathargic for the next few days."
|
| So you made her lethargic for 6 times a few days instead of
| a few days for just one time. Congrats on that?
|
| The people who follow the recommended vaccine schedule
| don't have any problems, according to scientific studies.
| Your concerns appear to be based on FUD you read on the
| internet or imagined yourself.
| trianglem wrote:
| People also roast chestnuts and cashews over a fire.
| Marshmallows are also roasted. It's seems like a term
| originating in common parlance and not specifically a
| marketing term. I seriously doubt coffee is carcinogenic (if
| that's what you're suggesting) besides the baseline
| grilled/roasted food danger to the stomach/small intestines.
| anonisko wrote:
| You're forgetting a big one.
|
| It's a cognitive stimulant that increases worker
| productivity.
|
| So not only does the coffee industry have an obvious, direct
| incentive to promote the benefits and downplay any long term
| negatives, but EVERY corporate entity and even our government
| has an indirect incentive to downplay any negatives.
|
| A company or society that hypes up it's young worker
| population on caffeine will likely out-compete organizations
| of humans that don't, even if major health problems show up
| later in life.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| none of those are even close to "evidence" You could say all
| of them about almost anything. Here's an example:
|
| Listening to music:
|
| 1. it's just vibrations
|
| 2. constant rate of studies "listening to music improves
| mental health", "fetuses get smarter with music" etc.
|
| 3. the incredibly powerful forces behind music and keeping
| you listening to music
|
| Therefore we'll hear that music is terrible for us soon.
| DavidPiper wrote:
| In a way this has already happened though?
|
| We know excessive consumption (can't think of a better word
| off hand) of loud noises leads to hearing loss, tinnitus,
| etc.
|
| Certainly not the same as "music is terrible for us", but
| more of an "everything in moderation" kind of argument.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Eh, I can listen to music for 16 hours a day without
| hearing damage if it's not too loud. So what exactly
| would that mean? Like dont drink 212F coffee because it
| would boil your throat?
| S_A_P wrote:
| I don't think there is anywhere near the anecdotal evidence
| to support this. Even when big tobacco was in full swing
| people knew smoking was correlated with cancer/lung
| disease/etc. I felt noticeably healthier when I quit smoking
| years ago. I've quit coffee and aside from caffeine
| withdrawal little difference in how I felt. What negative
| health effects do you propose are caused by coffee?
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| You asked for proposals, and that's how I present this. Not
| as a fact. But it seems to me looking into acrylimides as
| it relates to coffee roasting processes and the finished
| product is not an entirely absurd line of scientific
| inquiry.
|
| And they can have my coffee when they pry it from my cold
| dead hands.
| parineum wrote:
| The first three are 3 events over nearly 100 years. That's not
| very common.
|
| The last one, I'd argue isn't new but the internet's ability to
| provide direct-from-the-source accounts of events and access to
| opposition sources allows the media to be fact checked in real
| time (or at least to notice incongruities with other stories).
| I'd be surprised if the situation is at all new. In fact, I'd
| argue that the media are the root cause of the previous three
| phenomenon you describe.
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I think fact-checking is still in its infancy, and is
| currently nearly worthless, due to a lack of any ability to
| verify who is doing the fact-checking. It's just more noise
| in the same system. Once you can attach web-of-trust or a
| similar provable system, then fact-checking will have some
| value.
| Judgmentality wrote:
| The history of leaded gasoline and how it was believed to be
| incredibly safe for decades is easily my favorite example of
| buying credibility as a corporation (it's a long story, but I
| bet this will be the most interesting thing you read this
| week).
|
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-sc...
| pmarreck wrote:
| Can someone be class-action sued for this?
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| This doesn't quite explain why companies that are in the "fat"
| business - bacon producers, takeout chains, cheese and butter
| manufacturers - why wouldn't _they_ publicize the alternative
| view?
| mberning wrote:
| Gary Taubes and many others were crucified for realizing this 10
| years ago.
| hnarma wrote:
| Taubes seems to be professionally dishonest and misrepresent
| people to push his Atkins diet and make profit.
| hansthehorse wrote:
| This video was posted to YT 11 years ago.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM It's very difficult
| to eliminate sugar from your diet. The food industry has almost
| 55 different terms for sugar to hide it. The easiest thing to
| do is stop, or at least restrict, eating things from boxes, can
| and jars.
| nogbit wrote:
| Bags as well, the bread in the grocery stores is full of
| sugar. In the US anyway.
| hntrader wrote:
| For countries that have compulsory food labelling, is it
| sufficient to just look at the carbohydrate content as a
| proxy for the upper bound on sugar content? Of course I'm not
| talking about artificial sweeteners which is another can of
| worms.
| DenisM wrote:
| Hardly crucified. He published a couple of books, has some
| followers, made a business.
| tonymet wrote:
| why are you trusting these people?
| kergonath wrote:
| This ought to be as big a scandal as FUD from the tobacco or oil
| and coal industries.
| [deleted]
| ineedasername wrote:
| This is hardly to first case of an industry flexing its muscles
| to fund science in a way that influences health policy &
| individuals' decisions in potentially bad ways. How the heck to
| you fix a problem like this?
| tim333 wrote:
| I don't know about fix but you can argue against stuff more
| easily on the internet these days.
| d26900 wrote:
| By keeping up with lobbying organizations and lobbies disguised
| as "think tanks". (Lobbies had a major influence on Brexit for
| example. In other words, lobbies are really powerful.)
| whoarewe wrote:
| This same thing is probably happening today. Big meat companies
| and big oil (dietary) companies are surely doing the same.
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the vaccine companies are funding
| "research" also.
| williesleg wrote:
| The science!
| koboll wrote:
| So... which food additive's trade group is quietly paying
| scientists to point blame elsewhere right now? I'd prefer not to
| find out fifty years after the fact.
| alecco wrote:
| > So... which food additive's trade group is quietly paying
| scientists to point blame elsewhere right now? I'd prefer not
| to find out fifty years after the fact.
|
| The soy scare made by the dairy and meat industries. A few
| years ago they caused a mass hysteria with the meme "google
| phythoestrogens". Sure, they bind to estrogen receptors, but
| their action actually inhibits mostly, so it kind of block
| estrogen.
|
| Meanwhile, the same people would have no problem consuming
| products from the dairy industry abusing cows by pumping them
| with actual hormones. Dairy products full of actual estrogen
| and progesterone (not phyto-, the real deal).
|
| https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=es&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=dair...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytoestrogen#Effects_on_human...
| gherittwhite wrote:
| Vegetable oil is the big thing to avoid. I don't know if anyone
| is being paid off.
| objektif wrote:
| What is it exactly? Which type of oil is labelled as
| vegetable oil?
| f6v wrote:
| There's a palm oil hysteria in Russia. Social media is full
| of moms saying that palm oil has been banned in the EU. Yet
| here I am, enjoying pastry with palm oil in Belgium.
| gherittwhite wrote:
| Specifically vegetable seed oil, like sunflower oil or
| canola oil.
|
| The other thing I'm very skeptical of now is milk
| replacements, like oat milk.
|
| For cooking just use olive oil, coconut oil, or regular
| butter.
| Pyramus wrote:
| What do you mean?
|
| > Specifically vegetable seed oil, like sunflower oil or
| canola oil.
|
| Please be more specific, my understanding is there is no
| easy X is harmful in nutrition. Your example vegetable
| seed oil:
|
| Refined sunflower oil at high temperatures --> bad Cold
| pressed sunflower oil --> ok (great source of Vitamin E,
| but too much omega 6 compared to 3) Cold pressed linseed
| oil --> good
|
| > The other thing I'm very skeptical of now is milk
| replacements, like oat milk.
|
| Could you elaborate? You can make oat milk easily at
| home. Let oat flakes soak in cold water over night,
| blend, sift, done. Go fancy and add a drop of rapeseed
| oil (will work as a natural emulsifier) and a pinch of
| salt.
| gherittwhite wrote:
| So the problem with all of those oils is the high
| concentration of PUFA which is more susceptible to
| oxidation and thus causes inflammation.
|
| Commercial oat milk like that made by Oatly has rapeseed
| oil added into it and is then pasteurized. Heating
| vegetable oils is bad. https://www.sciencedirect.com/scie
| nce/article/abs/pii/S15371...
|
| Maybe something home made isn't bad.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Food is generally OK, the problem is with the packaging. A huge
| range of plastics are hormones disruptors and should not be
| permitted to be in contact with food or liquid meant for human
| consumption.
|
| An example - BPA is used to coat the inside of tin cans. If you
| use a metal spoon to scrape out the contents, you're scraping
| away that lining into your food.
|
| https://www.merieuxnutrisciences.com/corporate/en/news/endoc...
|
| PVC pipes can leach hormone disruptors into drinking water:
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315702292_Transfer_...
| alexalex wrote:
| *PEX (not PVC which is used on waste lines)
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| The relative effects of sugar and obesity dwarf the
| disruption of the endocrine and immune system compared to the
| average levels of plastic pollution. I'm not saying it's not
| a problem, but we're talking lifetime effects of 1 in 4
| (cancer via obesity, sugar) vs lifetime effects of <1/1000
| (plasticizers etc).
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| That's true for the average person, but you cannot avoid
| these plastics in the same way that you can avoid sugar.
|
| Packaging materials are not disclosed on the ingredients
| list, for example. Few people would know that the insides
| of drink cans or food tins are coated with plastic.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| The average person doesn't need to avoid plastics is my
| point. They are a walking carcinogen already. Eliminating
| plastics for the average Joe is just rearranging deck
| chairs on the titanic.
| f6v wrote:
| Buy eggs, vegetables, crops and meat from the butcher. To
| say it otherwise, avoid processed foods.
| sdljfjafsd wrote:
| Maybe whatever group benefits from the gluten free trend? Also,
| maybe the soy and corn industries?
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Maybe whatever group benefits from the gluten free trend?
|
| People with Coeliac disease mostly... doesn't seem like a
| very wealthy and well connected bunch though.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| I don't know who might be paying whom.
|
| But speaking to regretful food decisions with lots of industry
| support and relatively little public awareness, I would rather
| our foods didn't have so many emulsifiers in them.
|
| Their risks to our gut biomes and immune systems weren't
| appreciated when they were approved. Today they remain
| ubiquitous in typical American diets.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Artificial sweetners, perhaps.
|
| Apparently they wreak havoc on your gut flora.
|
| And it's basically the most important thing for overall health.
| alecco wrote:
| Stevia is reasonably safe
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia#Safety_and_regulations
|
| You could also argue Sucralose in moderate use, too. It's for
| sure much safer than the old sweeteners.
| Black101 wrote:
| My guess would be (some) preservatives.
|
| edit: the bad ones like sulfites, sodium benzoate, nitrites,
| etc...
| Droobfest wrote:
| Damn ascorbic acid is killing everybody.
| Black101 wrote:
| yeah, not all of them... I was thinking more like,
| sulfites, sodium benzoate, nitrites, etc...
| jgoodknight wrote:
| Anti-GMO groups maybe? I certainly hope in 50 years we have
| embraced their ability to improve human and environment health
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Why do you think it is the anti-GMO groups and not the other
| way around? I'm naturally more suspicious of the groups that
| have the most money invested, in the same way tobacco
| companies had more investments at stake than medical
| researchers funded by government grants, and big oil and coal
| have more (money) to lose than climate scientists.
|
| Of course Monsanto et al have invested a lot of money into
| research that shows that GMOs are safe. That is of course not
| in any way proof that there is anything wrong with that
| research, but it definitely makes me more careful in
| interpreting the results.
| fsflover wrote:
| >Why do you think it is the anti-GMO groups and not the
| other way around?
|
| How about checking the research papers cited in Wikipedia:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_con
| t...
| Ma8ee wrote:
| The ones funded by Monsanto and Cargill? Don't you see
| the problem?
| DenisM wrote:
| There are agri businesses that use GMO and those who don't.
| Naturally they would try to use what they can - real
| studies, fake studies, activists, etc.
|
| Point being, there is money to be made on both sides.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| I can understand not trusting Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer,
| etc., but humans have been genetically modifying plants
| since the dawn of agriculture, we just have tools to do it
| with way more precision now. Borland and others have used
| Mendelian genetics to create rust-resistant wheat, golden
| rice, and other "miracle" crops. With modern tools, you can
| test genetic variants more intentionally without relying on
| random selection each generation.
|
| There is nothing inherently dangerous about doing this, and
| it has the potential to do a lot of good for humanity. It's
| important not to conflate the demagoguing of massive
| agricorps with a useful scientific technique.
|
| The bigger scam is that, despite producing more calories
| than we could possibly use, they've continued modifying
| crops for calorie yield and chemical resistance, which has
| made a lot of crops less nutritious (per kg eaten), less
| tasty, and more dependent on advanced human intervention to
| successfully grow.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| The most common use of the concept GMO exclude simple
| breeding, which is what we have done for thousands of
| years. We didn't use to transfer genes between species or
| even between kingdoms.
|
| I'm not that worried, but I'm not that fast to exclude
| the possible that something goes dangerously wrong
| somewhere, say some crop with new genes that make it
| spread uncontrollable through a whole ecosystem, in the
| same way invasive species sometimes do.
|
| And then of course the issues you bring up in your last
| paragraph. The technique is in general not used to help
| humankind or the world, but to maximise revenue for the
| corporations. At least in the industrialised world, it is
| now more important to increase biodiversity than to
| maximise yield.
| ineedasername wrote:
| GMO's are one of the reasons that food is still relatively
| abundant despite the population growth, where a few decades
| ago there were predictions that the world simply couldn't
| sustain the population growth that began around the 1960's. I
| suspect that continued growth will render the GMO debate moot
| by virtue of few alternatives to starving. As it is, AFAIK,
| GMO farms & imports are already relatively common in poorer &
| less developed countries.
|
| I honestly never understood the objection to GMO. Identifying
| the gene that some plants have to resist disease & turning it
| off never struck me as any more inherently risky than the end
| result of a multi-generational cultivation process that
| ultimately selects for the same or similar variations.
| f6v wrote:
| Who benefits from GMO prohibition? Big chemical and agtech
| would make a fortune on designer crops. I imagine they could
| easily lobby if that was simply a matter of money.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Lobbying can be very powerful, but it's also very far from
| the cynical caricature that legislation is consistently
| sold to the highest bidder.
|
| One trivial example is that Google, one of the richest
| company in the world, has been trying to build housing in
| its home town of Mountain View for 20 years. Last I heard,
| nothing had happened.
| parineum wrote:
| Non-GMO and organic products still require fertilizers and
| pesticides that are manufactured by the chemical and
| agriculture industries. Organic, specifically, is
| essentially just freezing pesticide technology to the 50s.
| Somehow that's a good thing.
| Fordec wrote:
| The existing agri corporations.
|
| Don't prohibit GMO, just invalidate the patents and
| regulate the results. If everyone can select the seeds that
| are designed best downstream farmers and consumers benefit
| from the reduction of monopoly.
| genericone wrote:
| Organic is a huge industry which actively fights gmo
| products. Regardless of actual organic produce, you have to
| pay to get the organic certifiers and organic labeling.
| Tenoke wrote:
| Different for different types of GMO. Some would allow use
| of currently unusable land and easier entry so those who
| already have the usable land and don't want new entries
| perhaps. Everything that labels itself 'Organic', too or
| builds their brand around it, too I'd imagine.
|
| At any rate, I'm not convinced it's so much a lobbying
| problem than appealing to a questionable public sentiment.
| How much of that sentiment is driven by profit and how much
| of it is driven by more mundane misconception is hard to
| tell (for me).
|
| Edit:
|
| > Big chemical and agtech
|
| Not necessarily. Some GMO strains require less chemicals
| and make some of the tech redundant.
| konjin wrote:
| Pesticide manufacturers, fertilizer manufacturers, seed
| companies without the gene editing know how. A very large
| number of people who are happy with the status quo and see
| disruption as a danger to their bottom line.
| f6v wrote:
| I can imagine that a huge corporation does both
| fertilizers and genetic engineering. German BASF is one
| such example.
| konjin wrote:
| I can imagine a lot of things, most of them cost a lot of
| money.
| [deleted]
| kortilla wrote:
| > Who benefits from GMO prohibition?
|
| Literally the entire current farming industry. Especially
| the high markup "organic" segment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't think that applies for monoculture commodity
| crops like corn and soy.
| [deleted]
| jszymborski wrote:
| There's certainly a balance that needs to be struck with
| GMOs.
|
| The environmental and health impacts of new GMOs should be
| studied and regulated, but this "don't eat frakenfood"
| rhetoric or "No GMO" labeling aught to disappear as (as
| you've mentioned) it can be a huge win for hunger concerns.
| jrjfkgmtnt wrote:
| More likely the other way around:
|
| > "We found that ties between researchers and the GM crop
| industry were common, with 40 percent of the articles
| considered displaying conflicts of interest," said the study.
|
| > Researchers also found that studies that had a conflict of
| interest were far more likely to be favorable to GM crop
| companies than studies that were free of financial
| interference.
|
| > Conflicts of interest were defined as studies in which at
| least one author declared an affiliation to one of the
| biotech or seed companies, or received funding or payment
| from them
|
| https://phys.org/news/2016-12-gmo-financial-conflicts.html
| jb775 wrote:
| Not food, but the plastic containers food comes in. Big-plastic
| essentially created the recycling industry purely as a
| smokescreen, and everyone is still believing it. Barely any
| plastics actually get recycled, and it creates tons of
| pollution during production and disposal. And who knows if any
| chemicals seep into the food.
| [deleted]
| ip26 wrote:
| Really we know that chemicals absolutely do seep into the
| food... but we don't know if they are harmful yet. All
| plastics shed & leech.
| DenisM wrote:
| How could it be that all plastic leach and yet some
| plastics remain in nature for thousands of years before
| they decompose?
| titzer wrote:
| Plastics absorb and then leach several compounds used to
| make the plastic itself, e.g. BPA. Plastics in general
| act as attractors for any number of harmful toxins. So
| yes, both can be true.
| f6v wrote:
| I keep reading these comments, but too lazy to research
| myself. Anyone has any links handy?
| keanebean86 wrote:
| This one seems to have some decent info on the situation
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-
| misled-...
| mgh2 wrote:
| Past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24714880
| bushbaba wrote:
| We could also burn the plastic for peaker plant electricity.
| Good short term solution considering all the factors.
|
| Why we don't I have no idea. The fuel is basically free. And
| the co2 impact is much less than building energy storage.
| sircastor wrote:
| I think it's optics that prevent the US from doing this.
| Too many people are convinced that plastic is highly
| recyclable and burning it would be wasteful.
|
| I think people too often Go for the recycle (get it out of
| my sight) instead of the reuse and reduce angles of the
| conservation triangle.
| ineedasername wrote:
| As a petroleum product, wouldn't the co2 impact be very
| similar to something like coal or gasoline?
| HaggardFinical wrote:
| Probably closer to coal than gasoline. Plus You have to
| factor in the fact that coal plants are designed to be
| most efficient with the kind of coal they are built to
| burn and with burning plastic waste it's usually some
| kind of a mix, so there's a good chance the CO2 emissions
| from burning plastic waste would be even higher per watt
| than with coal, which is already super bad.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Well.. i mean, it's not as if we'll stop using plastic
| soon, and since the whole world has issues with it now
| (since china doesn't but it anymore), investing in such
| redesigned burners would be a good investment now.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Per lb of fuel? Yes. But the idea is that this would
| offset other oil consumption. It's marginally better to
| turn plastic products into energy than it is to throw
| plastic away _and_ burn more oil for power.
| iguy wrote:
| Ideally, we would think of this as getting a second use
| for your heating fuel. Between being mined and being
| burned, it's temporarily used to let you cary milk home
| from the store.
| ineedasername wrote:
| That's an excellent point, thanks.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I used to feel bad when I had a plastic container of a type
| that my town didn't recycle. Then China stopped accepting a
| lot of our "recyclables", a move that put a lot more scrutiny
| on the industry and what really happens. Apparently paper is
| only a little better, especially since 2018. Glass & aluminum
| though are supposedly well utilized, though notable in that
| their raw materials already require-- and can sustain-- being
| molten down to liquids in a process that gets rid of the
| dirty bits we leave on them.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Aluminum is actually quite profitable to recycle. The
| aluminum smelting process uses a ton of electricity, re-
| melting is much cheaper.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Aluminium is one of the best recyclable materials very
| low losses and initial energy output is multiple times
| higher for pristine material than one in recycling.
|
| I suppose copper and steel aren't too bad in that regard
| either.
| hanche wrote:
| Amazing statistics: 75% of all aluminium ever produced is
| still in use today.
|
| https://aluminiumtoday.com/news/international-aluminium-
| inst...
| ineedasername wrote:
| That makes me disproportionately happy.
| zeristor wrote:
| Glass, at least in the UK, just seems to be broken into
| aggregate to be used in building roads:
|
| http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1907207.stm
|
| I believe they've given it the catchy name glassphalt
| yudlejoza wrote:
| Try to become part of the evidence-based nutrition movement.
|
| Things are improving (slowly) through online forums, and MDs
| and PhDs creating content (like youtube, blogs, etc).
|
| Heck, just be part of the longevity movement that is trying to
| do something about aging itself.
| d26900 wrote:
| Valter Longo? Nutrition science is fuzzy. It isn't like
| physics or mathematics. Water fasting, calorie
| restriction[2], keeping your protein low and having a joyful
| life[1] seem convincing to me (Blue Zones), but I am yet
| another layman here.
|
| [1] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-
| nearly-8...
|
| [2] https://nintil.com/longevity/
| yudlejoza wrote:
| Thanks. I didn't about Valter Longo. Will sure check his
| content. I was mainly referring to folks like Peter Attia,
| Rhonda Patrick, etc.
|
| For longevity, check out SENS foundation (and Aubrey de
| Grey).
| rriepe wrote:
| It's carbon and nitrogen today.
| elevenoh wrote:
| Everyone is blaming meat.
|
| Everyone I know who eats 90%+ carnivore diet looks/feels great.
|
| CheapProcessedVeganFood co's perhaps?
| kar5pt wrote:
| Are you claiming there's some wealthy Vegan lobby that's
| paying scientists blame meat for health problems? You really
| think that vegan food producers are more powerful than the
| meat and dairy industries?
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| Vegan food producers are just big agriculture, so it
| actually isn't that unrealistic that some multinational soy
| or corn corporation is pushing this because they make more
| money from food additives than animal feed.
| tbihl wrote:
| "Perhaps" = "claiming"?
| d26900 wrote:
| Maybe the person should have used: "suggesting"? Anyhow,
| I share the sentiment that the "vegan lobby" is an easy
| target to pick.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Soy and corn are the largest and most destructive
| monoculture crops in America, though a large amount is used
| as animal feed.
|
| Nonetheless, "veganism" does not imply good agricultural
| practices or less money or power -- likely the opposite. Do
| not think of veganism as your local farmers market. Think
| of it as mostly destructive monoculture farming.
|
| Healthy ecosystems require ruminants _and_ other animals
| _and_ plants to thrive. Modern agriculture is usually split
| up -- barren feed lots, barren corn fields, etc.
| Regenerative agriculture like what the Savory Institute
| espouses is what 's needed.
|
| Vegans are also a great target market and quite lucrative.
| People who can afford to be vegan will pay higher prices
| for lower cost goods. I wouldn't be surprised to see
| lobbying from vegan food companies.
| Pyramus wrote:
| > People who can afford to be vegan will pay higher
| prices for lower cost goods.
|
| It's kind of funny how "vegan" has become a marketing
| term to the extent that vegan food is supposed to be
| expensive.
|
| Vegan food is the cheapest food there is and powers
| nutrition on a global scale. Think wheat, rice, potatoes,
| beans, every single vegetable, all fruit, and products
| made thereof, bread, pasta, noodles, oils, etc.
|
| In most parts of the world the standard diet is
| predominantly plant-based and meat is a luxury.
|
| It used to be the same in Europe - my grandparents had
| meat at most once a week, usually on a Sunday.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Oh, agreed, for sure. My grandparents were Germans who
| grew up during the war, and for them meat was seen as a
| great luxury -- even bread was seen as a speciality.
|
| But in the US (and I think it is mostly an American
| phenomenon), veganism has taken on a sort of strange
| alter ego as a life of expensive vegan donuts and vegan
| restaurants that charge (no joke) $18 for a small
| sandwich.
|
| So I think it's important to differentiate between the
| two kinds of veganism/mostly veganism -- the expensive
| fad diet kind, and the one borne out of necessity.
| Avshalom wrote:
| Soy and corn in america is the meat industry
| phkahler wrote:
| Which makes them commodities unless you can upsell them
| as health foods.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| Seriously? The "nutrition" industry is absolutely huge and
| banks off of the fact that we don't really know anything
| about diet, except that trans fats are bad, lots of refined
| sugar is bad, and folic acid is important for pregnant
| women. They point the finger at all manner of foods from
| red meats to fruits and everything in between, in order to
| sell supplements, fad diets, overpriced
| holistic/integrative medicine sessions, etc.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| There's a lot of trends and over interpreted small
| studies within popular nutrition science, but the basics
| are quite solid and quite simple: eat less, eat much more
| vegetables and fruit. There's also solid evidence that
| too much red meat causes cancer.
| Pyramus wrote:
| Exactly. Here is another point in case: Go to the website
| of whichever body governs nutrition in your country (or
| the WHO) and see what they recommend and why.
|
| There is no global conspiracy against red meat, it's
| simply our current scientific understanding.
| TaupeRanger wrote:
| No one said it's a conspiracy. It is clearly a
| misunderstanding of our actual knowledge, which is why we
| have studies that show everything from associations
| between red meat and cancer, no effects whatsoever
| between the two, and even reduction in some cancers from
| red meat consumption. That is standard across the entire
| field of nutrition epidemiology, but "nutritionists" and
| health "experts" rely on the fact that, if they cite a
| single study showing a cancer connection, people will eat
| it up and accept it as fact.
| Firerouge wrote:
| Why is that hard to imagine?
|
| The plant based meat industry alone had a $4 billion market
| in 2020, about 39% of which is in the US, and it's total is
| forecasted to grow to $14 billion by 2027. [1]
|
| While not a direct comparison, the US meat market is around
| a $7 billion annual market. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-
| analysis/plant-ba...
|
| [2] https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-
| size/me...
| TheRealSteel wrote:
| That doesn't make sense to me at all. You're telling me
| the plant-based meat market in America is 57% of the size
| of real-meat, and that the average spend on meat in the
| US is only 20$ per person per year?
| casefields wrote:
| >The market value of the processed meat is expected to
| rise from 714 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to over 1.5
| trillion dollars by 2022.
|
| https://www.statista.com/topics/4880/global-meat-
| industry/
| Firerouge wrote:
| It looks like the ibisworld link might be conflating US
| exports of meat with the US market total
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > You really think that vegan food producers are more
| powerful than the meat and dairy industries?
|
| The corn lobby is definitely more powerful than meat or
| dairy are, yes.
| ronyeh wrote:
| There may be something else in play: carb consumption. If you
| are 90% carnivore, you eat very few carbs per day, and lots
| of protein. If you are vegan, it is possible to eat rice and
| vegan muffins and croissants all day. (The vegan muffins I
| tried from whole foods were some of the sweetest things I've
| ever eaten. The vegan croissants I had from WF used margarine
| and didn't taste anywhere as good as the butter croissants.)
| So a vegan diet can definitely be less healthy than a
| omnivore diet.
|
| I think if you are vegan and ate 90% tofu / pea protein /
| rice protein products, and spent the rest of your intake on
| avocados and olive and coconut oil and almonds and pecans,
| you might also look and feel great.
| d26900 wrote:
| I think it boils down to ketosis/water fasting/calorie
| restriction.
| sidr wrote:
| Even if you eat a very protein-rich diet, your body is
| not going to accidentally slip into ketosis unless you
| are really fastidious about keeping carbs almost entirely
| out. There is no benefit to ketosis for the average
| person versus a diet that is similar calorically, and
| also low on carbs/starch but not low enough to be in
| ketosis.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think the overall meat thing is not necessarily dietary
| science related. That seems to stem more from environmental
| or ethical concerns.
|
| It seems to be more of a red meat and saturated fat issue. I
| don't know about who might be behind it, or if it is even
| misguided.
| d26900 wrote:
| Could it also relate to ketosis perhaps? (Water) fasting
| and calorie restriction seem to have favorable effects on
| living organisms.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't know. I tend to just follow the "everything in
| moderation" philosophy and look to stay away from some
| things when possible, like trans fats, soda, and
| artificial stuff. I figure if both sets of my
| grandparents made it to their 80s and 90s that way
| (without major issues up to that point), then it should
| be good enough for me.
| Nbox9 wrote:
| I think CheapProcessedVeganFood (Big Soy, and food processors
| downstream of Big Soy) is being more opportunistic then
| causing. The case against meat is very wide and much of it is
| based on more solid science then the anti-fat science 50
| years ago. I suspect in the next decade we'll see a very
| clear connection between lower meat/dairy consumption and
| better gut health, which will explain most of the health
| benefits we see in a plant based diet.
| d26900 wrote:
| I think you are basing your worldview on hearsay evidence,
| elevenoh.
| j45 wrote:
| I recently stopped cooking with oil and started using a smaller
| amount of clarified butter (ghee) again.
|
| It seems like it made it much easier to lose weight. Maybe food
| has more flavour and less is needed to eat.
| phkahler wrote:
| TIL that some Harvard scientists can be bought fairly easily.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| People often wonder, "Why don't other people just _trust_
| science? Why all of the skepticism? " I feel like I ought to have
| a big handout (I would do a wiki but hey, it'd get deplatformed)
| from Tuskegee to this.
| [deleted]
| samstave wrote:
| I was flying back from Christmas and I sat next to this nice lady
| and we talked for three hours - she used to be the main lobbyist
| for the Sugar industry in DC - She now produces a big money
| podcast in NYC -- She worked for Domino Foods/Florida Crystals -
| the largest sugar producer.
|
| Incredible story - they were super wealthy in Cuba - then played
| poor to come to the US to Miami - they are like one of the
| largest land owners in florida - their story is NUTS
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fanjul_brothers
|
| These guys are largely responsible for a lot of the sugar
| consumption we have
| ta988 wrote:
| Now it is highly distributed as well, with all the dietary
| supplements industry feeding people the new craze of the
| moment... Raspberries lactones, turmeric/curcumin, cbd...
| muzster wrote:
| RIP: British Scientist John Yudkin - The man who tried to warn us
| about the perils of sugar.. Source(s) :
| http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Yudkin
|
| Lest we not forget his arch-enemy Ancel Keys
| jimnotgym wrote:
| This is shocking behaviour from this industry. Who would have
| thought it? If they are capable of this then what else have they
| been up to? Sponsoring political upheaval to gain trading
| advantages? Slave labour?
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/08/brexit-back...
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mp-raking-cash-s...
| sky_rw wrote:
| This is clearly isolated to the food industry. No way at all
| this happens in any other industry like climate change or covid
| policy.
| titzer wrote:
| Or finance.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| Can you define exactly what you think the "climate change
| industry" is?
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Exactly, the fossil fuel industry knew about climate change
| in the 1980s, yet paid for false research to spread
| uncertainty and doubt about the damage they are still
| causing.
| colordrops wrote:
| Both sugar and the wrong kinds of fat are bad in excess. It's not
| either/or. Rancid seed oils are extremely bad for you.
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