Could be due to you being in a better mental state. Gut-brain axis is very evident for me personally. If I am tense gut is the first to get affected.
Its because a lot of the weird artificial junk that are allowed to be put into your food is illegal in Europe. Even things like popular sweeteners have been shown to have a negative effect on your gut health.
And of course high sweetener consumption is must be strongly linked with in general high calorie input and overweight people trying to reduce calorie consumption.
It is not just tastier water.
Acid I can get behind but soda is by far the least acidic thing I consume on the daily.
Of the of the issues with diet soda in particular is your tastes favor sweets. I used to drink 4-8 cans of Diet Dr Pepper daily. When I stopped, after a couple of weeks I found my taste preferences to be very different. I’d favor savory more attractive and sweet stuff would seem too sweet.
None of these are anywhere near the "weird chemicals category". You'll find that all euro foods have Es in them, but it doesn't mean they have half-tested industrial food additives in them.
E100–E199: Food coloring, such as turmeric (E100) and paprika (E160c)
E200–E299: Preservatives, such as sulfur dioxide (E220)
E300–E399: Antioxidants and acidity regulators, such as ascorbic acid (E300)
E400–E499: Thickeners, stabilizers, emulsifiers, and gelling agents
E500–E599: Acidity regulators and anti-caking agents
This is pretty much the spectrum. Red 40, aka Allura Red AC aka E129 is illegal in the US, legal in the EU, and carries a warning in the EU. Let’s not pretend that the wonderful world of chemicals and industrialization doesn’t exist in Europe.
Allura red isn't illegal in the US.
Also, just wondering, what do you think is the problem with turmeric and paprika?
Ironic in a way, because E numbers mean that the specific chemical has been cleared as a foodstuff in the EU, IIRC.
Though I suppose it’s more concerning if an approved substance has some unforeseen effect versus an unapproved one and you’d want to investigate further.
I guess it shows how government regulation of naturally occurring substances (though perhaps synthesized, or refined) carries with it a new set of incentives, and reasons to be political. Not that I’m against regulation, but it’s hard if not impossible to have a truly politically neutral approach.
What are some examples? A list would be helpful.
One of the things you notice is shorter ingredient lists on prepared food. The ingredients in Italy for McDonald’s French fries are: potato, salt, oil. In the US there’s 7-8 including hydrogenated soybean oil and flavor/color agents. Oreos were similarly different, and arguably better tasting.
I believe they regulate flavors and coloring additives differently, and many people feel both of these type of items can be problematic.
The opposite minority argument, that variety, depth, richness, are important, not luxuries, don't have their own dead babies to present. They do exist, but they aren't visible except in aggregate. You can measure a change in average health over the course of entire generations, and from that you can extrapolate the change in number or frequency of deaths, and then you could compare numbers of dead babies. But you can't obviously show any particular cause & effect because there are so many other variables, and even if you could, it took entire generations whole lives lived and died before they could benefit anyway.
The option to spend more money, or have your own garden, or do some kind of home production is a vanishingly insignificant individual action that solves nothing except for like 11 people.
Home fermentation of foodstuffs is allowed, and always has been.
Lots of people do it. Kits are available on Amazon, and many grocery stores will even sell them in-store. As other people on this thread of have pointed out, they ferment a lot of their own foods and drinks.
What isn't allowed is selling home-fermented stuff to others. When someone goes commercial, rules kick in to protect their customers
It's possible. A wave could go through where it becomes popular and the majority adopt some new attitude on that topic. But it "can never" because of the dynamic I expressed. That works against it. The new thought is not developing in a vacuum.
This is a nonsensical train of thought that conflates multiple distinct issues.
Fermented products are already widely sold in stores and restaurants. And homemade foodstuffs can already be sold but are subject to the same rules and regulations that govern foods made in commercial facility. These rules generally preclude the sale of homemade fermented foodstuffs, because the risk of contamination if the foods are improperly fermented is extremely high and most home kitchens lack the necessary equipment or facilities needed because this is all very expensive compared to consumer equipment. This is why there are so few fermented foodstuffs available at farmer's markets in the U.S.; the initial capital outlay puts it out of reach.
I seem to recall a post here a while ago showing that dishwasher residue was genotoxic as well but can't find it atm.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492...
It's very, very definitely a thing.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009167492...
I just put water in the rinse aid dispenser of my dishwasher.
Looking at the back of a bottle of Finish Jet Dry (which I have refilled with water), the original stuff's first ingredient (after water) is "C 12-15 Alcohols Ethoxylated Propoxylated". These are nonionic surfactants, and are not what one normally means by "alcohol" (ethanol).
I can understand where the idea came from. Drinks like wine will exhibit sheeting on the sides of glasses too. The concentration of alcohol needed for that to happen is probably too high in a dishwasher, I'd imagine.
Curious... Rinse cycle already uses plain water, so you are adding water to... water?
> living in France
I have had similar experience where my gut health was immediately, noticeably better in Europe. I was eating the same foods and somehow it was better.
> Eating stinky raw cheeses and different fermented foods
Raw and fermented foods in cultures across the world are linked to better gut health. However, industrial fermentation and packaging won’t help you as much because the diversity of microbes drops and packaging often kills most of them. We need to bring back the culture of home fermentation.