Why aren't healthier foods priced lower than junk foods?
Replies
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The more "real" a food is... the more expensive it is.
This is nonsense. Give an obese person £6 to go and buy lunch and he/she will more likely go to the local burger takeaway to buy a half pounder with cheese and chips, rather than go to the supermarket and buy a low calorie chicken bake which would be half the price. Call me stereotypical if you like but laziness, gluttony and ignorance to reasonably priced healthy options are the real reason for the obesity epidemic. The quicker that people stop blaming external factors for being overweight, the better.0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.0 -
Several reasons. In the United States a large part of the reason is because of Government subsidies on corn and soybeans, most of which is Genetically modified. A lot of that taxpayer subsidized GM corn is turned into High Fructose Corn syrup which is used in most packaged foods, fast foods, etc. There is a similar story with the soybeans, it is very difficult to find packaged foods without soy products in them.
Now, add to that the longer shelf life of foods that are packed with preservatives, the higher yields of GM crops that are sprayed with pesticides, and the higher demand for junk foods because so many people like them. You get lower prices for the junk, and higher prices for the healthy food.
However, there is still no excuse for eating huge amounts of crap. People do that because they prefer it. No, not everyone can afford to eat completely clean, organic food all the time, but if you can afford junk you afford lentils and brown rice. If you can afford twinkies you can afford oranges. If you can afford McDonalds than you can afford to to make whole wheat spaghetti at home...0 -
There's nothing about buying foods and preparing and cooking them that is "dietary optimization." The rest of the world calls it cooking.
And there's nothing beneficial about the blanket statement that "canned foods are bad."
That's called ignorance.0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.0 -
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.
I agree with this. Environmental challenges are a factor, however, plenty of people who eat canned foods, etc. are fit. It is an additional challenge. Not one that is impossible to overcome, but a challenge.0 -
There's nothing about buying foods and preparing and cooking them that is "dietary optimization." The rest of the world calls it cooking.
And there's nothing beneficial about the blanket statement that "canned foods are bad."
That's called ignorance.
What's beneficial about your misquoting, making false assumptions, and taking everything out of context to suit your needs?0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.
Yeah ... no. That's not a good reason, either.
Nearly every fresh veg, fruit, and meat can be bought frozen. Frozen foods are often on sale and can be bought in bulk. Some vegetables and fruits are actually more nutritious when flash-frozen then 'fresh' after transport. They certainly aren't significantly less nutritious, so no real reason not to buy them other than preference. Obviously, people with severely limited space won't be able to buy in bulk, but they can still buy 'normal' amounts on sale.
I do agree about the farmer's market. Around here, for most items they are just as if not more expensive than the grocery.
The real issue is that people want to find all kinds of external factors that 'make' them eat poorly (or do other things they know they shouldn't do). External factors do make the 'right' choices more difficult. But they don't exonerate each person for taking responsibility for themselves. No one is ever going to eliminate all negative influences on their life. You (generic) have to make the 'right' choice despite them.0 -
There's nothing about buying foods and preparing and cooking them that is "dietary optimization." The rest of the world calls it cooking.
And there's nothing beneficial about the blanket statement that "canned foods are bad."
That's called ignorance.
What's beneficial about your misquoting, making false assumptions, and taking everything out of context to suit your needs?
Well, let's see... Am I misquoting?Of course not. The problem is the buying food in a can to start.THE problem?
There are plenty of things wrong with canned foods.
So, let me get this straight...
You're NOT saying canned food is bad? I am supposed to derive that you DON'T think canned foods are bad from those statements?
I lack the superpower to read minds. Sorry about that.
Then...
you said:There are people here who are morbidly obese, for which the fitness journey is much more long term endeavor. Some of them will put in the work to get back into a normal body composition and just try to saty there, some will continue thier fitness journey. ... It's not a value judgement of the individual, it's simply acknowledging that improvement is about the work you put into it and that the more fit you get, generally the more work you have to put in to see improvement from that point. Not everyone wants to keep improving and there's nothing wrong with that.
after saying:And no one was suggesting that one cannot lose weight restricting calories on a diet composed of almost anything. And yes, that might improve overall health somewhat if you were at least overweight to begin with only because losing adipose tissue by any means (including surgical removal) will generally increase health relative to what it had been. I just don't confuse weight loss with health or think that "better" relative to very unhealthy is anything to pursue as a goal.
So, which is it?
Is it "okay" to go from terrible dietary habits to "better" habits, or not? In the first paragraph, you say "yes", in the second you say that it's not.
Look, I can only go by the things you say to figure out what you mean. I can't read your mind..
From the beginning, I only tried to tell you that adopting a particular diet does NOT mean that you'll be fit, and it's NOT the cause for obesity in this country.... someone can home cook everything and still be unhealthy and/or obese.
At the same time, someone can home cook NOTHING and be fit.0 -
You had no problem reading minds, as opposed to actual text, when it suits your needs.
I'm not sure if you're deliberately being obtuse, or whether you really cannot comprhehend that those two paragraphs are not contradictory.
If all you have tried to do is " tell [me] that adopting a particular diet does NOT mean that [I'll] be fit" save your tedious typing. I never argued that point. All you have done is fabricate the arguments you think I'm making and the supposed thinking behind them. If all you want to do is argue with the points you suppose other people want to make, you can stop hijacking the thread and do that in alone.0 -
You had no problem reading minds, as opposed to actual text, when it suits your needs.
I'm not sure if you're deliberately being obtuse, or whether you really cannot comprhehend that those two paragraphs are not contradictory.
If all you have tried to do is " tell [me] that adopting a particular diet does NOT mean that [I'll] be fit" save your tedious typing. I never argued that point. All you have done is fabricate the arguments you think I'm making and the supposed thinking behind them. If all you want to do is argue with the points you suppose other people want to make, you can stop hijacking the thread and do that in alone.
If anyone has hijacked the thread, it is you.
Additionally, you have demonized canned food yet have provided little evidence to substantiate your claims. While canned food is not the best choice, not all canned foods are created equal.0 -
What, now canned food is bad?
Good grief.0 -
If anyone has hijacked the thread, it is you.
Additionally, you have demonized canned food yet have provided little evidence to substantiate your claims. While canned food is not the best choice, not all canned foods are created equal.
I made a single, qualitative comparison of frozen foods vs. canned vegetables. A statement which, incidentally, isn't an opinion of moral value, but actual micronutrient content.
Then apparently rather than refute that, we had to have a long "educational" discussion involving lots of supposition about sweeping beliefs to which I don't adhere, but apparenlt can be deduced from a basic statement about the relative merits of food.
Certainly not all canned foods are equal. Some actually are now packed as "lower sodium" and so have about the same sodium as their frozen counterparts. Many of them have BPA, though that is finally decreasing. They're certainly better if you frequently live through hurricanes. But, thankfully, no one wanted to discuss actual merits. And we quickly got away from my actual point, which was that healthier veggies don't have to cost more.0 -
What, now canned food is bad?
Good grief.
Apparently baked beans are one of your 5 a day
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Honestly, I don't need the supermarkets or the government stepping in to get me to make healthy choices.
THIS!0 -
Much blame in this post. Maybe look in the mirror and remember just who's been shoveling all that garbage in your mouth in the first place. And who hasn't been exercising. No. Sadly the government is not to blame.
And don't give the old boohoo i can't afford to be healthy cough out excuse. Do you really think that somehow you're going to succeed with this attitude? No. Stop making excuses. You can lose weight eating cheap, you can lose weight eating junk. I'm pretty sure you can afford $20 a week on veges/ fruit/meat and rice/mei goreng. And if you can't, get off your butt and learn how. No one else is losing this weight for you no matter how much you cry about it and pass the blame. No pills ever going to magically make your dreams come true.
You need to change your lifestyle and if you make up reasons why you can't, then enjoy your poor health.
Also OP how can you afford WW and yet can't afford to eat veges? Yep sorry but that's a load.
At the end of the day you're in charge of you and the world knows it. So why lie to yourself? Who and why and what are you lieing for?
If you're serious about this then go figure out how to change your life style. Making a protest for the government to fix your weight issues isn't going to do much but making people angry that you're trying to make tax payers pay for your laziness yet again. As i said. It's not hard to lose weight on a budget. That's why you have myfitnesspal. If you still think someone else needs to pay for you to lose weight, feel free to message me and i'll even try helping you sort out a meal plan. Add friends on here they'll love helping you out too! Make a post asking for people in your area to help you with a meal plan. Seriously. Use your time effectively. Stop passing the blame and get off your behind.
Your bad lifestyle ends with you making it happen, you and only you. Tough love.0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.
I lost A LOT of weight eating McDonalds, Canned food, pizza, ice cream. Never once ate "clean" but yet i still lost weight. Also if people don't know how to google "cheap healthy recipe" Well in this day and age that's pretty pathetic in a country like america or england. The only people i'm seeing that don't " have the resources to do it." Are starving in 3rd world countries. And i'm fairly sure they're not obese.
You want to slow down obesity. Educated people when they're children/young adults. Stop the issue before it gets worse. Most people will still eat garbage when they have the choice over healthy food. Why? Because they just don't know and don't care and because people keep blaming obesity on genetics and anything else they can think of instead of just educating people about basic nutrition. I went to school in the US Finland and England and i NEVER learnt anything about nutrition. EVER. It's disgusting they don't teach this.
I don't know 1 obese person that has admitted to being obese because they eat too much and do too little. I've NEVER met any. It's always, genetics, thyroid, depressed, had a baby a few years ago, work too much, can't afford healthy food..ect. Which is just plain BS most of the time. I highly doubt all obese people have a thyroid issue. If they did and they knew it i'm sure their GP would have them fixed and on a diet within a month. And Yes you gain weight while pregnant but i'm pretty sure 100lbs isn't natural and is more deadly than anything.
Reeducating the population about basic nutrition i think will have a huge affect.0 -
This is a very complex topic. It's admirable to try to start initiatives on the small community scale, but the problem is larger. It starts with having certain food commodities subsidized by the govt. HFCS, for example, which is why its in everything. Next, because of the subsidied products, they are more available, and marketing floods commercials, billboards, etc in our everyday. Evolution is partly to blame, because we seek out naturally fatty, salty, and calorie dense foods. This is why tracking our food consumption is so imporant. Lastly, and probably most importantly in my opinion, is the huge overwhelming power of the health care industry, and how they basically want to keep people sick to make more money off them and the treatment of preventable diseases bad diets cause. There are many books and documentaries about this, you will probably find interesting. Lots of aspects of this are out of our control, but we can only help the choices we make from day to day, for our own health and well being.0
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But, thankfully, no one wanted to discuss actual merits. And we quickly got away from my actual point, which was that healthier veggies don't have to cost more.
Actually, you were asked repeatedly for proof of your assertions and eventually it was finally ascertained that you were referring to vitamin and mineral content of canned goods... something that is a complete non-issue unless you are known to be specifically deficient.0 -
Why can't it be both?
There is an overabundance of unhealthy foods that can be cheaper and easier to get. Society should promote healthier eating and lifestyles, but even if (hopefully when) that does happen, the choice to be healthy still exists.
Also, whether one is addicted to food or the feeling of eating or bingeing or whatever, there are chemical changes that occur in the brain similar doing other drugs.0 -
Tesco also sell hammers, doesn't mean I'm going to repeatedly hit myself in the face with one.0
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But, thankfully, no one wanted to discuss actual merits. And we quickly got away from my actual point, which was that healthier veggies don't have to cost more.
Actually, you were asked repeatedly for proof of your assertions and eventually it was finally ascertained that you were referring to vitamin and mineral content of canned goods... something that is a complete non-issue unless you are known to be specifically deficient.
Something is a non-issue to a particular person simply because they cease to care about it or value a difference, not based on whether one is deficient in something or not. I made a statement about quality and nutrients degrading over time. If all you care about is base calories and keeping them low enough so that at your activity level you can stay in a certain size pants or a certain weight on the scale, yes, you probably won't care much about anything other than basic calorie counting. That does not mean that is how everyone eats of lives. Again, this community is skewed a bit toward the weight loss end of the spectrum rather than more of a focus on health, fitness, or performance.Also, whether one is addicted to food or the feeling of eating or bingeing or whatever, there are chemical changes that occur in the brain similar doing other drugs.
Everything a person eats causes chemical changes that occur in the brain - that's not addiction, that's just biology. If it didn't have any effect, there would be little point in consuming it.0 -
That isn't even remotely true.
If you've spent any amount of time observing the people with the most success on this website, you'll find they don't try to micromanage their weight loss and fitness. And if you go and find a beautiful thread called "What do your meals look like (show me pictures)..." people will get a fantastic idea of how varied the diets are of - arguably - the fittest people on these forums.
As I said previously, unless you are known to be specifically deficient in a particular vitamin or mineral, a balanced and varied diet will get you close to - if not over - your RDI without any problems, regardless of whether your veggies are canned, frozen, fresh, steamed, boiled, grilled, roasted or microwaved.0 -
I'll say it one last time. You're talking about losing weight as if it's the reason everyone is here and the only reason that someone would use this site. While that may be what motivates most people to eventually monitor what they eat, there are plenty of people who track what they consume who have never been overweight. People track for food intake for strength gains, muscle bulking, performance enhancement and a variety of other things. When you have different goals, you have different concerns. If you have weight to lose, you probably don't have the motivation or desire to focus on much more than calories and basic macros because prioritizing those is most important to get you out of a a very unhealthy body condition.
Focusing on basic RDIs or RDAs is fine for those people as well, but even regardign macros those guidelines are performance inhibiting if you stick to them. Take protein for example. If I consumed the FDAs RDA or the standard setting that MFP defaults to for me, I would be dramatically underconsuming protein and I would lose muscle in the process.
Different goals, different values in food. Quite simple.0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.
I lost A LOT of weight eating McDonalds, Canned food, pizza, ice cream. Never once ate "clean" but yet i still lost weight. Also if people don't know how to google "cheap healthy recipe" Well in this day and age that's pretty pathetic in a country like america or england. The only people i'm seeing that don't " have the resources to do it." Are starving in 3rd world countries. And i'm fairly sure they're not obese.
You want to slow down obesity. Educated people when they're children/young adults. Stop the issue before it gets worse. Most people will still eat garbage when they have the choice over healthy food. Why? Because they just don't know and don't care and because people keep blaming obesity on genetics and anything else they can think of instead of just educating people about basic nutrition. I went to school in the US Finland and England and i NEVER learnt anything about nutrition. EVER. It's disgusting they don't teach this.
I don't know 1 obese person that has admitted to being obese because they eat too much and do too little. I've NEVER met any. It's always, genetics, thyroid, depressed, had a baby a few years ago, work too much, can't afford healthy food..ect. Which is just plain BS most of the time. I highly doubt all obese people have a thyroid issue. If they did and they knew it i'm sure their GP would have them fixed and on a diet within a month. And Yes you gain weight while pregnant but i'm pretty sure 100lbs isn't natural and is more deadly than anything.
Reeducating the population about basic nutrition i think will have a huge affect.
Yeah, that's fascinating but really doesn't have anything to do with what I said. I never said people weren't responsible for their actions, I merely pointed out that there are other factors that can affect a person's choices. Advances in technology and social change have impacted the way we live, right down to the foods we choose and how we prepare them. You have to look at the big picture.0 -
That isn't even remotely true.
If you've spent any amount of time observing the people with the most success on this website, you'll find they don't try to micromanage their weight loss and fitness. And if you go and find a beautiful thread called "What do your meals look like (show me pictures)..." people will get a fantastic idea of how varied the diets are of - arguably - the fittest people on these forums.
As I said previously, unless you are known to be specifically deficient in a particular vitamin or mineral, a balanced and varied diet will get you close to - if not over - your RDI without any problems, regardless of whether your veggies are canned, frozen, fresh, steamed, boiled, grilled, roasted or microwaved.
Agreed. You said this well.
The bolded part applies to anyone seeking mere "fitness", not just those trying to lose weight.
Above and beyond is optimizing - going beyond "fitness"
I have no issues with people who are here for optimizing health or performance reasons as long as they don't get butthurt over being underrepresented.0 -
Because unhealthy foods are cheaply put together andcovered in salt and sugar to give it flavour, but healthy foods involve time and effort to produce.0
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I'll say it one last time. You're talking about losing weight as if it's the reason everyone is here and the only reason that someone would use this site. While that may be what motivates most people to eventually monitor what they eat, there are plenty of people who track what they consume who have never been overweight. People track for food intake for strength gains, muscle bulking, performance enhancement and a variety of other things. When you have different goals, you have different concerns. If you have weight to lose, you probably don't have the motivation or desire to focus on much more than calories and basic macros because prioritizing those is most important to get you out of a a very unhealthy body condition.
Focusing on basic RDIs or RDAs is fine for those people as well, but even regardign macros those guidelines are performance inhibiting if you stick to them. Take protein for example. If I consumed the FDAs RDA or the standard setting that MFP defaults to for me, I would be dramatically underconsuming protein and I would lose muscle in the process.
Different goals, different values in food. Quite simple.
No, I'm not. I'm using losing weight as an example because if you can get in your vitamin & mineral RDIs in at a caloric deficit - which you can - then those eating at maintenance or surplus values will have no problem whatsoever.
With regards to protein, not even MFP goes by RDI values... and, in my opinion, MFP overemphasises carbs to the detriment of protein intake (should be higher at a calorie deficit). However, RDI of protein is sufficient for maintenance of lean mass when eating maintenance calories. Carbs, fats and protein are all protein-sparing sources of nutrition.0 -
No, I'm not. I'm using losing weight as an example because if you can get in your vitamin & mineral RDIs in at a caloric deficit - which you can - then those eating at maintenance or surplus values will have no problem whatsoever.
With regards to protein, not even MFP goes by RDI values... and, in my opinion, MFP overemphasises carbs to the detriment of protein intake (should be higher at a calorie deficit). However, RDI of protein is sufficient for maintenance of lean mass when eating maintenance calories. Carbs, fats and protein are all protein-sparing sources of nutrition.
They will have no problem doing what? Metting the basic micronutrients to sustain life? I haven't seen anyone suggest that isn't possible.
RDI of protein might sufficient for maintenance of lean mass when eating maintenance calories, assuming the person lives a lifestyle of basic light activity, but it will not maintain lean muscle mass for all levels of activity. The more muscle you damage, the more needs repairing.
Different goals, different values in food.0 -
This. I am all for personal responsibility, but some like to pretend that people live in a vacuum and that outside influences never matter (e.g., the childish refrain of "nobody is fooooooooorcing you to eat crap!"). They do, to various extent.I wouldn't completely disregard what the OP is saying. After all, living in an environment that doesn't support healthy living does have an impact on people.
Obesity is a huge and worsening problem in this country (the US) and some others. You could smugly blame it all on a lack of personal responsibility, but maybe, just maybe, you could entertain the notion that there are ALSO SYSTEMIC reasons for it, as with some other great ills that plague us.
In the context of improving one's life, it's far more useful to focus on the former. But let's quit categorically (and quite absurdly) denying the existence of the latter.
^^^This. I'm not disagreeing that people will often make poor food choices, but there are other factors leading to those choices than just a desire to eat crap. Distance to the grocery store and work schedules mean that a lot of families rely heavily on canned, jarred, and preservative-filled foods for their meals. Fresh ingredients simply don't last as long, so if you don't get a chance to use them, they go bad and you've wasted your money. Not everyone has the time or knowledge to cook from scratch, or the space available in their homes to make up batches of healthy foods on the weekend to freeze for later or store after canning and preserving the fresh fruits and veggies. Depending on where you live, even the farmer's markets are not a deal; the ones local to me only run through the summer and their prices are comparable to what you see in the grocery stores on produce. For meats, it's off the charts. There are definitely ways to save money out there, but you have to have the resources to do it.
I lost A LOT of weight eating McDonalds, Canned food, pizza, ice cream. Never once ate "clean" but yet i still lost weight. Also if people don't know how to google "cheap healthy recipe" Well in this day and age that's pretty pathetic in a country like america or england. The only people i'm seeing that don't " have the resources to do it." Are starving in 3rd world countries. And i'm fairly sure they're not obese.
You want to slow down obesity. Educated people when they're children/young adults. Stop the issue before it gets worse. Most people will still eat garbage when they have the choice over healthy food. Why? Because they just don't know and don't care and because people keep blaming obesity on genetics and anything else they can think of instead of just educating people about basic nutrition. I went to school in the US Finland and England and i NEVER learnt anything about nutrition. EVER. It's disgusting they don't teach this.
I don't know 1 obese person that has admitted to being obese because they eat too much and do too little. I've NEVER met any. It's always, genetics, thyroid, depressed, had a baby a few years ago, work too much, can't afford healthy food..ect. Which is just plain BS most of the time. I highly doubt all obese people have a thyroid issue. If they did and they knew it i'm sure their GP would have them fixed and on a diet within a month. And Yes you gain weight while pregnant but i'm pretty sure 100lbs isn't natural and is more deadly than anything.
Reeducating the population about basic nutrition i think will have a huge affect.
Yeah, that's fascinating but really doesn't have anything to do with what I said. I never said people weren't responsible for their actions, I merely pointed out that there are other factors that can affect a person's choices. Advances in technology and social change have impacted the way we live, right down to the foods we choose and how we prepare them. You have to look at the big picture.
More excuses. Seriously. Geeeezzzz... This thread has so much fail.0
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