One or both of the theories has to be wrong but I cannot decide. I can learn and read all about it and take both viewpoints into account but I still cannot decide. I could do my own research but I would come up with one or the other answer depending on what data I look at but it's not better than what I have already.
What should I do?
This is a real problem because science cannot provide the correct answer. It is more about choosing a side and sticking with it than about finding the truth.
I’m not from the US and in our country the industrialization of the food supply happened much later, along with obesity and diabetes, which back in my grandparents’ time were very rare. My grandparents lived on the countryside, working on their farm, raising their own crops and animals.
Grandpa died at 99 years old and worked his land until 95.
He ate 6 to 8 eggs per day (they had a lot of chickens). Meat was more expensive, sacrificing an animal about once per week, but they were cooking with lard and butter all the time. They also had plenty of milk and cheese from their own goat or cow. You know, the kind of really fat milk that you can’t find in stores. They also drank their own wine, daily.
They were not eating sugar. Or vegetable oils.
But in lieu of the same conditions, the logic to consume same diet isn't that sound.
They didn't eat ready-made processed meals loaded with salt and sugar, they didn't drink soda except on rare occasions, they didn't eat nearly the same amount of candy that we do today.
I'm only 33 and from my childhood I remember soda as a rare treat that was saved for birthdays and other special occasions, or if my dad and I had been working in the garden or on a DIY project. Very few things are more satisfying than a well-deserved ice-cold sugary fizzy drink while taking a break from hard work.
Soda was a luxury we didn't get every day, and 25cl was the standard serving size. Anything smaller than a 33cl can seems to be exceedingly rare now, and usually people go for the 50+cl bottles.
Our habits are completely out of whack.
Sure, but like often the case, it could be more complicated than that; different people can react differently to foods.
In one sense maybe but it's hard for any one other factor to be larger than sugar in contributing to the decline of American (and world-wide) health.
Wat. Data please.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/bigthink.com/two-maps-and-one-g...
It seems that obesity in Europe affects 1/4 to 1/5, while in the US is 1/3. The EU country with highest incidence of obesity is alse the one that is famous for its lack of a (decent) food culture, the UK.
As an Italian, I find it hard to convince myself that US obesity problems have one single cause to blame, sugar, rather than a food culture that is generally bent towards the childishly fancy: grilled meat, fried stuff, overwhelming sauces, the super-fatty, the uber-sugary, no vegetables and very little home cooking.
No surprise they have an obesity problem. Of course Americans are also usually nice people in a big way, let's not forget.
One of these things is not like the others...
Buying big soft drink bottles instead of small is both cost-effective (as they're usually cheaper per liter) and a plastic saving measure.
(What I particularly dislike about modern consumerism is the infatuation with small: small bags of chips, small bags of fruits, individually-packaged sausages, small bottles of drinks, small bottles/bags of cosmetics, etc. Combined with disposability of packaging, it's just a huge generator of plastic waste.)
Edit: I agree with your complaint about packaging, but it's another problem that's not uncompatible
True, but bigger serving sizes have been shown to increase consumption. If you reduce soft-drink serving sizes from 500ml to 350ml, for example, most people will not purchase two - and will consume less overall.
Carbonated drinks fizzle out quickly and they don't taste that good afterwards. So, if you buy bigger bottles, you are inclined to drink more so it doesn't go to waste.
They all make a great case that fat is good for you (proper fat like animal, not vegetables oils which really aren't from vegetables at all).
You're right it's more than just sugar, it's carbs in general. Which includes French fries, pizza etc. The sauces they have tend to be loaded with sugar also.
One can still be healthy eating no vegetables and just meat. Just cut out carbs. And eat lots of organ meats which have high vitamin content (more than vegetables).
Another problem with cutting the fat is that vitamins are fat soluble. So no fat makes it harder to absorb.
Why is the oil not from vegetables?
Hence you would rather use more stable animal oils like fat or oil from process that aren't so extreme like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil etc.
Calling them vegetable oils is a misnomer to help sell them. I bet just like in the original article, and just like transfats, it will come to light that these mass selling "vegetable" oils are also damaging. It took 90 years for them to admit transfats were bad and now replaced animal fats with vegetables oils.
Haha wow. Citation absolutely needed.
In my mind, I dont believe people have changed. People are still religious, our priests are just getting smarter at it by making more sensible crusades (and one that has legitimate environmental and especially world-security implications with respect to Russia standing to gain enormous competitive advantage). The politicians and Leonardo DiCaprio's flying around the world on private jets on one day flights to pick up participation trophies (yes, for global warming) see you as cattle, just as always. If they cared, the state of governance: corporatism and cronyism would be the exception.
Whatever the outcome of things like global warming, I just hope that the internet leaves more of a living record that people can try to learn and understand what it was like to experience this while living through it. We need many more organizations like archive.org. They, in the long run, may be providing one of the most relevant services in our society today. Here [1] is an archive of this site from 12 years ago. Outside of historical record it's also just remarkably interesting browsing. Now imagine when that is from 100 years ago, or 1000.
[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20070221033032/http://news.ycomb...