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Anon travels overseas (europe.pub)
submitted 10 months ago by [M] to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works
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[–] 96 points 10 months ago (19 children)

Hilarious that this is true and yet the US is still somehow fatter.

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  • [–] 15 points 10 months ago*

    There is a vast difference between eating shitty food once a day while being able to walk everywhere and eating shitty food three meals a day and not walking anywhere.

    The US both massively overeats the shitty food and is very sedentary for the most part. A bit contributor is our absolutely terrible work culture that wears people out so much that they seek pleasure from food and entertainment in the few spare hours they have each week because they are constantly advertised to encouraging that behavior.

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  • [+] -36 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (17 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 17 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Replying to your edit since you felt it was reasonable to retroactively be rude in an edit like a coward instead of at least in reply.

    Damn, i guess managing my weight to be within 10lbs of my desired target weight for the last 10 years doesnt count because ive never in my life weighed enough to have to lose a lot of weight.

    I consciously work to shed weight when I'm over and gain weight when I'm under. But what do i know?
    I'm just a fuckbrained dogmatist.

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago

    It's the HFS. Not fucking milk. Like, yes, milk as a drink is high calorie and was forced on us by marketing in the 90s-00s, but drinking milk isn't what's making people fat.

    The people who managed to NOT gain an extra 160 pounds that they needed to lose might know something about not gaining weight...

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  • [–] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    It's not just the milk but milk is a rich source of nutrition and over consumed in the west.

    The obesity crisis is due to excessive calories in all foods, including massive overuse of sugar in processed foods, high levels of red meats and fat etc and low levels of fruit and vegetables. This is combined with physical inactivity.

    Southern Europe doesn't have the same levels of obesity - about 10% in Italy compared to 20% in the UK and 36% in the US. They have a "Mediterranean diet" which is low fat, low sugar, with more fish, fruits and vegetables. Japan also has low obesity rates of 5-6% and again has a much healthier diet. Their rate is going up and it seems to be due to increasing westernised diet.

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  • [–] 14 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    And the overuse of sugar is because the sugar can mask cheaper ingredients and lower amounts of spices.

    Why sell an instant curry full of expensive spices if you can cut half of them out and just replace them with sugar and salt? Why use decent meat if you can just use cheap shitty meat and add sugar to hide the fact that it's flavorless? Why use real cream in the sauce if you can add some skim milk powder, palm oil, a thickening agent, and yet more sugar at half the price?

    Or food is getting enshittified and it's having a real impact on our health. But since public health doesn't factor into food companies' bottom line that's not just tolerated but desired.

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  • [–] 10 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Having just come back to the US from Europe, I immediately miss nutriscore on groceries. A to E letter grades for the purpose of comparing two similar products to tell which are higher in sugar/salts/saturated fatty acids and which have more protein/fiber/fruits/vegetables/healthy oils. It was so nice picking up, say, two boxes of cereal and going "oh. This one is full of garbage and this one isn't." Not a perfect system, but a very valuable one

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  • [–] 8 points 10 months ago

    In a similar vein, Germany has a neat labeling system¹ for the conditions under which animals (for meat, dairy, etc.) are kept. There are five levels, each of which has specific minimum criteria per type of animal. Basically, 1 and 2 are shit-tier, 3 is semi-decent, 4 is vaguely free-range, and 5 is "organic" (as vaguely defined as that term is).

    That makes it easier to avoid buying from animal torture dungeons, plus it stands to reason that products from animals kept on better conditions have a better chance of being of good quality.

    The labels are voluntary. However, you can find them on a good number of products, especially since a label with one of the higher levels has marketing value. I know I definitely prefer products that are at least level 4.

    Notably, there are efforts to pressure supermarkets into abandoning level 1 and 2 products altogether, with Aldi having promised to do so for most products by 2030 and other chains giving weasely but vaguely affirmative statements.

    ¹ Yes, the website doesn't seem to be fully translated. But at least the level definitions are in English.

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