I don't necessarily think this is the case, at least the US. It's time consuming and expensive to get testing done without an actual diagnosis, even with healthcare. Taking the time off or spending the money on allergy testing just isn't going to take command of the budget over necessities or more serious healthcare needs.

You're right about the rest of it though, but IMO the systemic issues with money in politics prevents anything from being done about it at the moment, and I don't know what it would take to push the working class into a general strike or revolt.

Realistically, this and seed oils are the only place you are going to really encounter GMOs. If you are avoiding such processed food anyway...

> GMOs everywhere unless you can pay extra for organic.

If you really must binge on the junk food and are concerned about any GMO content, why are you paying extra for organic? Why not just buy non-GMO products?

I think that is hard, since non-GMO can still contain GMO. Organic is a bit stricter, but I think also not 100% GMO free.

(Personally, I don't care about GMO, but organic)

This is inaccurate - the other day I wanted to get some cookies for a child - label said sugar content was like 25%, that's insane. I have baked cookies myself, you don't need that much sugar to get decent tasting cookies, they are not suppose to be junk food. it's everywhere, not just chocolates, even in bread.

It better be a malevolent conspiracy, because if not, then it's suicidal stupidity of our species.

Like the average bread meant to be highly appealing to the consumer isn't also junk food? Again, the only real sources of GMO products you are apt to find out there are corn-based (HFCS) and seed oils (soybean and canola). While you can make bread with those products, that doesn't mean you need to.

I think we can agree that there are breads that wouldn't be considered junk food, but they also wouldn't contain GMOs, because the ingredients typically used to make that type of bread literally have no GMO option anyway. (Yes, there was once a GMO wheat in the lab, but never became commercially available.)

If you buy commercial products, the non-GMO seeds are unquestionably being sourced from the very same GMO vendors, and thus can't be trusted either.

Goes without saying. It’s rare to find GMO vegetables even commercially (only zucchini and potatoes even could be), let alone in a garden.

But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about ensuring the GMO vendors haven’t ever touched the seed. How are you ensuring provenance as to avoid the trust issues?

If you're trying to do a "reflections on trusting trust" reference, well, this is the real world. You might not ever be 100% sure that something is what it says it is (you might be a brain in a jar!), but it's usually better to get it from the guy you trust than the guy you don't.

Of course, at least within some margin of contamination. Identity preserved allows no more than 0.5% contamination, which is the best in the biz. But, the problem is that the earlier commenter didn't trust GMO vendors, not GMOs themselves. As in: Non-GMOs from a GMO vendor are equally untrustworthy. Hell, even a hat with a GMO vendor's logo on it is untrustworthy according to that commenter.

Unless you're sticking to food that doesn't have GMOs to begin with (which, to be fair, is almost all food!), you're going to be searching high and low to find a vendor that doesn't also dabble in GMOs.

Yup, there are people who subscribed to the system and there are people that opted out.

I don't even try to explain to people anymore. If I did I am pretty sure there would be a downvote frenzy and then Dan might even get pinged.

All the factors you mention I suspect are completely meaningless in comparison to consuming excess calories and I am pretty sure research would back this up.

I was starting to have various health problems a year ago this time that have all gone away literally like magic.

I think what you are talking about is actually a form of denial. Blaming meaningless variables we can't control so we can ignore the fat elephant in the room right in front of us.

Don't be so sure. We don't really know what messed up with our satiety/hunger signals.

"our gluttonous foodie culture."

Our which one? Obesity is a global problem, not a specifically American one. You will meet a lot of obese people in Brasilian favelas or rural Serbia, not exactly places that have "foodie culture".

"Having lost 30lbs so far in 2024"

I am not trying to discourage you, but the main stumbling stone with obesity is not losing the weight, but keeping it off for years. Your comment would carry a lot more weight (pun intended) if you lost that weight in 2020 and kept it off until today.

Opinion: nothing. Our hunger/satiety signals are normal and evolutionarily advantageous. What changed was the access, and composition, of food.

Food is tasty. Like really tasty these days. High fat, sugar, salt. And it's super duper easy to get. This stuff is designed to perfect target your brain and make you say "mmm".

You wanting to eat more makes sense because these foods are highly, or over, nutritious. Cavemen didn't have fried chicken, they barely had chicken - they had nuts. This wanting to eat more and more is evolutionarily advantageous. Because you don't know when your next meal is. You should be greedy, eat as much as you can and as often as you can. I mean, look at dogs. Give them infinite access to foods and they will eat themselves to death. Sure we're smarter but much of this stuff is at a level below the brain.

For all of human history I'm sure this functionality was a very good thing. Now that we have food surplus... not anymore. And to top it off, for the first time ever, we don't need to move to live. People are sedentary. So we don't even offset this effect with movement.

It seems to me the human brain/body is incompatible with modern human life. We're broken. We're exploitable by addiction at every turn. The solution might be to change our brains. Ozempic seems to help a lot - less drinking and smoking too.

Vietnamese people in Czechia are also usually thin, even though they make more than average money, being either business owners or skilled professionals. The contrast with Czechs is visible.

I'm actually baffled that anything I mentioned would be considered "completely meaningless".