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Obdicut posted:Cool of you to literally use a straw man accusation there. Nobody accused Helsing of spewing about "DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE IN MY FOOD! OH MY GOD!". He was arguing against what are essentially preserved foods in a food waste thread, and conflating the dangers between a processed food like salami and a processed food like canned tomatoes. He has weird ideas about nutrition, recommending first someone home cook pasta, vegetables, and rice in order to eat more healthily than prepared foods--this is lovely because pasta and rice are things we try to get people to eat less of because they're calorific, not satisfying, and have a high glycemic index. He hasn't got a leg to stand on at any point, especially since his poo poo was one massive derail anyway. Let me remind you that this derail literally started because a goon actually argued against cooking for himself because he is a loving manchild who wanted more time to watch TV. Somehow this is a solution to food waste because....?
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Apr 5, 2016 16:35
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P-Value Hack posted:Let me remind you that this derail literally started because a goon actually argued against cooking for himself because he is a loving manchild who wanted more time to watch TV. Somehow this is a solution to food waste because....? That's not a solution, but he was defining part of the problem: People like him do not have time and energy to cook and buy groceries, or they don't perceive themselves as doing so--which works out to the same thing. Thinking people like this re just 'manchilds' and not, maybe, super loving tired and alienating after a crummy day at work and not able to get the activation energy up to cook is dumb. Changing that tired dudes' behavior is extremely hard. Changing his beliefs about his behavior is even harder. So if you actually want him to eat healthier, the best way is to make prepared food healthier, not to scold him about cooking. He made the point that he'd probably waste more food if he did home cooking, so he was on point. And it didn't start because of that, it started because Helsing took issue with that. I have no idea why you decided to swoop in and pronounce your judgement, but again: prepared foods are an essential part of fighting food waste. Helsing's beliefs in what makes people happy and nutrified are slipshod and wrong and lead to food waste.
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Apr 5, 2016 16:47
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Did you guys check out the ReFED report? I was one of the lead analysts on it, so if anyone has questions about the economics of dealing with food waste I'm happy to try and answer.
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Apr 5, 2016 17:05
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pugnax posted:Did you guys check out the ReFED report? I was one of the lead analysts on it, so if anyone has questions about the economics of dealing with food waste I'm happy to try and answer. Really cool stuff. I heard about ethylene absorption at some point but never dug into it, so glad to be reminded of that. And I like your focus on portion sizes--double public health benefit there.
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Apr 5, 2016 17:21
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pugnax posted:Did you guys check out the ReFED report? I was one of the lead analysts on it, so if anyone has questions about the economics of dealing with food waste I'm happy to try and answer. This is pretty cool but it's unfortunate that they've gone with standard corporate-speak e.g., quote:Strong corporate leadership is needed to overcome organizational silos, since managers, chefs, and kitchen staff all need to buy in to the benefits to coordinate implementation.
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Apr 5, 2016 18:04
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Baronjutter posted:I'm starting to think there's a "processed food" autism link due to this thread. I actually find food waste an interesting topic and think reducing food waste is a good idea, as well as other ways of reducing our ecological footprint. Would be cool to see some discussion related to the topic. Well, see the bottom of my post for some comments on food waste. But I'd also say if you really want to change the direction of the conversation then post something. Based on the op 31% of food goes uneaten, about 20% of it thanks to consumers and 10% thanks to companies. It was pointed out very early on that while restaurants and stores aren't the main cause of food waste they are the easiest target for government policy due to fairly obvious reasons. Honestly, there's not much to say on the topic beyond that in my opinion and it's natural that the thread would either branch into adjacent topics or else it probably would have just dropped off the front page a while ago. A large amount of the waste in the current system is probably unavoidable in practice, and as I argue below a lot of our anger at food waste is likely just a proxy for our frustration with deeper and more systemic problems in society. If anything, I'd say the bigger concern, and an area that I think would be an easier target for systematic intervention, would be food packaging. The amount of plastic we seem to waste packaging food is probably a bigger issue that the wasted food itself, at least some of which is inevitable. Obdicut posted:Cool of you to literally use a straw man accusation there. Nobody accused Helsing of spewing about "DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE IN MY FOOD! OH MY GOD!". He was arguing against what are essentially preserved foods in a food waste thread, and conflating the dangers between a processed food like salami and a processed food like canned tomatoes. He has weird ideas about nutrition, recommending first someone home cook pasta, vegetables, and rice in order to eat more healthily than prepared foods--this is lovely because pasta and rice are things we try to get people to eat less of because they're calorific, not satisfying, and have a high glycemic index. He hasn't got a leg to stand on at any point, especially since his poo poo was one massive derail anyway. Almost everything you've written here is a huge micharacterization or misunderstanding of what I've written in the thread. I'm not going to rehash the argument yet again when you're not saying anything new so hopefully this is my final word on the subject. What I've done is to reproduce fairly straight forward and basic guidelines for shopping, supported by numerous sources, and using the exact same language that professional nutritionists have used. When you tried to refute this you immediately ended up citing other sources that used the same "processed" terminology that I've been using. You also made some wildly inconsistent statement about vitamins and about whether anything other than calories actually mattered when it comes to evaluating the health value of food. When all this was pointed out to you ducked out of the thread and just ignored that particular reply until a few days passed and it was buried a couple pages back, at which point you made another post rehashing points I'd already responded to. Obdicut posted:That's not a solution, but he was defining part of the problem: People like him do not have time and energy to cook and buy groceries, or they don't perceive themselves as doing so--which works out to the same thing. Thinking people like this re just 'manchilds' and not, maybe, super loving tired and alienating after a crummy day at work and not able to get the activation energy up to cook is dumb. Changing that tired dudes' behavior is extremely hard. Changing his beliefs about his behavior is even harder. So if you actually want him to eat healthier, the best way is to make prepared food healthier, not to scold him about cooking. He made the point that he'd probably waste more food if he did home cooking, so he was on point. Well, at least we can have one point of partial agreement here. Our society produces a lot of unhealthy but, for all purposes, addictive food. More importantly, though, our society denies large numbers of people the time, energy and resources to exercise true agency over their diets. That's a serious problem. The thing is, if we're going to talk about how to improve the nutritional outcomes of most of the population then we need to be able to articulate what's wrong with the way food is currently created and distributed. It seems like here you're implicitly acknowledging that there are problems and that they're serious enough to warrant some kind of policy intervention by the government. quote:And it didn't start because of that, it started because Helsing took issue with that. I have no idea why you decided to swoop in and pronounce your judgement, but again: prepared foods are an essential part of fighting food waste. Helsing's beliefs in what makes people happy and nutrified are slipshod and wrong and lead to food waste. Ok, I can't help but comment on the irony of you chastising someone else for this. "I have no idea why you would swoop in and pronounce your judgement, only I am allowed to do that!" More substantively though, I think that in your own way you're refocusing this conversation onto individuals and their conduct. As was discussed early in the thread the majority of food waste is attributed to individual households, but restaurants and stores remain the easier targets of government policy for reasons that should be obvious. And more generally I think the focus on food waste is actually a proxy for two other problems: inequality and climate change. I think that we have a general perception that a lot of people are hungry, and also that our environment is being damaged by human activities and human waste. As such we're primed to be offended by the idea of throwing away food: how can we throw food away when our industrial agriculture is damaging the environment and when our capitalist system forces some people to go to bed hungry? It's natural that we'd zero in on food waste as a symbol of these two upsetting issues. But is food waste really a problem? A large amount of it seems inevitable given the realities of modern food distribution. There's only so much you can do from stopping a consumer from throwing out the excess milk left in a bowl of cereal, which is technically "wasted". I feel like, whether we realize it or not, a lot of the conversation about food waste is a sublimated way of talking about the problems of environmentalism and inequality.
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Apr 5, 2016 19:24
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Fwiw, I started taking a multivitamin again and shortly afterwards found myself with enough surplus energy to go to the gym on my lunch break 3 times a week, instead of just watching anime on my phone. It's possible that "not enough energy to cook, so I heat up this frozen dinner product" is actually a self-perpetuating cycle. Like, I'm not sure what I was running low on, but I probably could have seen similar results by getting less lazy with the composition of my salads. None of that has anything to do with food waste, but it does factor into food distribution. As you said, your processed and marketed prepared foods are designed to be easy and addictive; actual nutritional value doesn't really factor into the marketing here. A person who doesn't have access, or believes they don't have access, to foods outside of prepared convenience foods, is still experiencing a form of food crisis. That's more of an education/infrastructure problem than it is an actual supply problem, though. Clearly food is available to people in that situation, since they are buying food, but it may be unfeasible to reach it given available transportation options, or there may be a lack of will to abandon the convenience of a microwaved meal after a hard day at the office/warehouse/whatever. deadly_pudding fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Apr 5, 2016 |
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Apr 5, 2016 19:42
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Yeah food packaging can be weird, although it depends on what you're buying. Meat comes on those little foam trays in most places, produce you put your self into a very thin bag, eggs in recyclable cardboard trays, liquids generally in some sort of carton or bottle. I'm not sure how to reduce the packaging for most normal food beyond what it already is, and almost everything is recyclable or biodegradable (or even better, re-usable!). Really though in most cases I'm not sure how to reduce packaging beyond just walking out of a store holding a bunch of raw meat in your hands and your pockets filled with eggs. Children's snack/junk food can often be a bit over-packaged, with a main package then filled with a bunch of individually wrapped what evers but if you're buying these in large enough amounts that their waste is an issue you are a bad parent and your kid is getting the diabeatus. Fast food packaging is insane though. You'll get this huge paper bag filled with several smaller boxes and packages plus 50,000 napkins and condiment packages and some plastic cutlery nothing you ordered needs. Most of it all seems pretty biodegradable though. I often have left-over at restaurants and the packaging they give is generally a pretty useful and re-usable little plastic jar/tub or some sort of cardboard based box/carton. Obviously the stats don't lie, but all the worst food waste I see is always at restaurants (vs next to none at the homes of all my friends). Idiots ordering too much food or being too lazy/wasteful to take away left overs, or whole big buffet trays and raw ingredients thrown out at the end of a night. Just yesterday I was at a fairly expensive japanese place and the table behind us left after eating maybe 50% of their food. Expensive fish just sitting there, bento boxes almost untouched, soups and sides totally ignored. I see poo poo like that all the time, are people just ordering way more than they can eat and after decades still have no idea how to order food? It's infuriating to see the waste, specially when it's something expensive and delicious. I don't know if it's a social/class/peer group thing but when I see waste it's usually very much table-wide. Either everyone at the table wasted their food or no one did.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:08
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I'll admit I never take home food at restaurants. Fully cooked dishes generally don't make good leftovers, with a few exceptions. Luckily, this only results in waste at bad restaurants that don't know how to size a loving portion properly. If I'm cooking at home, I can portion things correctly or save some of my protein before it gets sauced/finished/etc.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:13
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I don't understand how there could be a single method to sizing portions properly across all restaurants and customers. Can you explain further?
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Apr 5, 2016 20:22
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Doc Hawkins posted:I don't understand how there could be a single method to sizing portions properly across all restaurants and customers. Can you explain further? Some people are too shy to ask about portion sizes, although that's not really the fault of the restaurant. Price is often a good measure but not always, and servers often give bad or highly subjective advise on portions. I'm going to assume that $9.50 entree is smaller than the $15.00 one, but that's not always the case, sometimes it just has more expensive stuff in it or it's a rip off or you've accidentally walked into a "tapas" restaurant. Scope out other tables and see the general sizes of stuff. When in doubt, ask, and know your self too. Better to order too little than too much, you can always order more. Me and my wife are usually totally good to share an entree + a smaller side, or one big entree. Many of my friends can put away a large entree them selves plus multiple large beers plus a side and then still have room to be the table garbage disposal if anyone else can't finish. These garbage disposal people are very useful for making sure your table has no shameful food waste. We tend to never order anything we might not be able to finish if it's something that doesn't make good left overs (day old chinese or thai is generally great, sushi no way). Everyone fucks up now and again and is caught off guard by a huge portion, or misjudged their appetite, or just hated their food. That's what friends are for! But like I said, I notice that people who waste a ton of food in restaurants are usually seated together. Those 6 ladies who just left each left half their food on their plates, while the other tables all ate 90-100%. It's very rare that I ever see a table where all the plates are cleared except for one. I'm guess this is a mix of social/class/culture and the "collective stomach" of the table being full. Friends can only help friends finish if they aren't totally full them selves.
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Apr 5, 2016 20:47
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Helsing posted:What I've done is to reproduce fairly straight forward and basic guidelines for shopping, supported by numerous sources, and using the exact same language that professional nutritionists have used. Absolutely zero competent nutritionists suggest 'pasta, veggies, and rice'. quote:When you tried to refute this you immediately ended up citing other sources that used the same "processed" terminology that I've been using. No, dude, they said processed meat. I and several other people told you that there are only a few, very similar, processes of preserving meat, whereas there are a billion different ways to process food. And again, processed food is absolutely vital in not wasting food, yknow, the thread topic? quote:You also made some wildly inconsistent statement about vitamins and about whether anything other than calories actually mattered when it comes to evaluating the health value of food. Nope: Vitamins, in the US and the developed world, are nowhere near as important to worry about as calories. It's not even close. The overwhelming problem in diets is 'consumes too many calories'. No other problem has anything even close to the public health burden as that. If you think so, provide the nutritional deficit you think has anywhere close to the impact, but there isn't one, so you won't be able to. quote:When all this was pointed out to you ducked out of the thread and just ignored that particular reply until a few days passed and it was buried a couple pages back, at which point you made another post rehashing points I'd already responded to. I don't even know what you mean by ducked out of the thread. quote:Well, at least we can have one point of partial agreement here. Our society produces a lot of unhealthy but, for all purposes, addictive food. More importantly, though, our society denies large numbers of people the time, energy and resources to exercise true agency over their diets. That's a serious problem. A lot of it is not that unhealthy, especially when compared to 'pasta, veggies, and rice'. quote:The thing is, if we're going to talk about how to improve the nutritional outcomes of most of the population then we need to be able to articulate what's wrong with the way food is currently created and distributed. It seems like here you're implicitly acknowledging that there are problems and that they're serious enough to warrant some kind of policy intervention by the government. Not really, no. We need to get people to exercise and to eat fewer calories. That is the 'nutritional outcome' of importance: fewer calories. quote:Ok, I can't help but comment on the irony of you chastising someone else for this. "I have no idea why you would swoop in and pronounce your judgement, only I am allowed to do that!" I meant that the conversation was over and you'd admitted it was a huge derail, so why resurrect it? quote:And more generally I think the focus on food waste is actually a proxy for two other problems ... No poo poo-tons of it is avoidable, see the link provided above. Please, please don't rehijack this thread on your 'nutritional' ideas man. I'm not going to respond to you any more on it, so feel free to declare I'm 'ducking out' and declare victory. pugnax posted:Did you guys check out the ReFED report? I was one of the lead analysts on it, so if anyone has questions about the economics of dealing with food waste I'm happy to try and answer. I've read it thoroughly now and can I ask if you if the composting is calculated as 'not waste' if it is composted alone, or does it have to be composted and likely to be used? I'm surprised to see it as such a huge portion of the plan (from the waste perspective)
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Apr 5, 2016 21:44
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Obdicut posted:I've read it thoroughly now and can I ask if you if the composting is calculated as 'not waste' if it is composted alone, or does it have to be composted and likely to be used? I'm surprised to see it as such a huge portion of the plan (from the waste perspective) Heroic assumptions were made about the successful marketing of finished compost. We assumed that most of it would be sold, some donated, and a portion of contamination would be landfilled. There is tremendous untapped demand for compost, especially in the arid southwest, where it could be used to great benefit. Currently the market value is too low for it to be economical in many of the places that would benefit most from increased soil water retention. Even if the compost isn't used immediately, it is still a valuable and (mostly) inert product, so it can pile up for a while.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:03
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shrike82 posted:This is pretty cool but it's unfortunate that they've gone with standard corporate-speak It's definitely targeted at those who like the corporate speak. We were trying specifically to influence big players (walmart, big hotel chains, darden foods, etc) that could potentially build out a lot of infrastructure. Stuff like backhauling food waste to distribution centers that have AD on site, etc.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:06
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Obdicut posted:Absolutely zero competent nutritionists suggest 'pasta, veggies, and rice'. That was in reply to someone who claimed that food preparation was so stressful that having to make their own food would cause them to develop an anxiety disorder, hence my suggestion of very simple and easy to prepare foods. I've been pretty consistent about the fact people's diets can include lots of stuff that isn't perfectly healthy. You're so desperate to find an inconsistency that doesn't exist that you're tying yourself up into knots. quote:No, dude, they said processed meat. I and several other people told you that there are only a few, very similar, processes of preserving meat, whereas there are a billion different ways to process food. And again, processed food is absolutely vital in not wasting food, yknow, the thread topic? Since leading health authority Obdicut can be seen here using "processed foods" as a perfectly legitimate category for discussing food I will continue to use it as well  quote:Nope: Vitamins, in the US and the developed world, are nowhere near as important to worry about as calories. It's not even close. The overwhelming problem in diets is 'consumes too many calories'. No other problem has anything even close to the public health burden as that. If you think so, provide the nutritional deficit you think has anywhere close to the impact, but there isn't one, so you won't be able to. Nobody ever denied that obesity, which is mostly a matter of too many calories, is the largest nutrition related health problem facing the USA. But just because something is the largest single problem doesn't mean it's the only problem. I showed you research which you haven't disputed indicating that in some populations we've found evidence of vitamin deficiencies effecting upwards of 30% of certain demographics. Your comments here are under estimating or willfully ignoring a real public health problem. Whatever else we disagree on I would think that this is an area that there should be some agreement. These kinds of health problems aren't acceptable in a first world country (or any country for that matter). And I'll be the first to admit that there's no viable solution, at least in the short to mid term, that doesn't include these people consuming a lot of processed food. So the question really becomes how can their health incomes be improved, and I think this is a case where what you said earlier about the need to improve the quality of pre-made meals is entirely on point. quote:No poo poo-tons of it is avoidable, see the link provided above. There have been a lot of links slung around, which one? This was a study pasted into the op after it was cited by Disceno Vox: quote:The study also reviewed the literature and found that food loss is economically efficient in some cases. There is a practical limit to how much food loss the United States or any other country could realistically prevent, reduce, or recover for human consumption given: (1) technical factors (e.g., the perishable nature of most foods, food safety, storage, and temperature considerations); (2) temporal and spatial factors (e.g., the time needed to deliver food to a new destination, and the dispersion of food loss among millions of households, food processing plants, and foodservice locations); (3) individual consumers’ tastes, preferences, and food habits (e.g., throwing out milk left over in a bowl of cereal); and (4) economic factors (e.g., costs to recover and redirect uneaten food to another use). Obviously there is some preventable food waste but all the low hanging fruit here, so far as I can tell, comes from tighter regulations on commercial enterprise rather than consumer habits. I also think it needs to be recognized that by packaging food in smaller containers you could end up reducing food waste but proportionately increase other forms of waste. It'd be interesting to see if anyone has tried to crunch the numbers there and see what kind of tradeoffs might be entailed.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:07
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Industrial operations are actually really efficient at managing their food waste streams, it's grocery stores and restaurants that are the real commercial problem children. Household food waste is a huge problem because there is virtually no infrastructure in place to manage it.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:14
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pugnax posted:Industrial operations are actually really efficient at managing their food waste streams, it's grocery stores and restaurants that are the real commercial problem children. Household food waste is a huge problem because there is virtually no infrastructure in place to manage it. While industrial operations are efficient at dealing with their own waste streams I think the concern being raised by some posters here is that the portions they're selling aren't always efficiently sized, meaning that, especially if you live alone, you might end up not being able to consume the full portion you bought. Like I said above I would worry that trying to solve this problem could backfire and lead to more unnecessary packaging, but I suppose the devil would be in the details.
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Apr 5, 2016 22:20
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pugnax posted:Heroic assumptions were made about the successful marketing of finished compost. We assumed that most of it would be sold, some donated, and a portion of contamination would be landfilled. There is tremendous untapped demand for compost, especially in the arid southwest, where it could be used to great benefit. Currently the market value is too low for it to be economical in many of the places that would benefit most from increased soil water retention. Totally, and that's fair enough. I think--does compost storage require any water use? And I assume that compost has much lower ground-water contamination than fertilizer, so it'd be good for use in low-water places like the Southwest? pugnax posted:Industrial operations are actually really efficient at managing their food waste streams, it's grocery stores and restaurants that are the real commercial problem children. Household food waste is a huge problem because there is virtually no infrastructure in place to manage it. And transportation, right? There's something on your site about an unblocked cold chain which indicated that there's significant loss in transport, which I assume is nearly all about periods of non-refrigeration?
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Apr 5, 2016 22:23
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pugnax posted:Did you guys check out the ReFED report? I was one of the lead analysts on it, so if anyone has questions about the economics of dealing with food waste I'm happy to try and answer. Thanks for the link. I can't believe that in the shadow of the Mothra vs. Godzilla slugging in this thread there is an actual expert in this field. The report seems to be on the sloppy side though. I found "committed to reducing United States food waste in the United States" and links that offer LEARN MORE > but are impossible to click on... and I've only been clicking around for a minute or two. edit: And different fonts used in the same sentence. Is this work in progress? Doctor Malaver fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 01:34
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Haha honestly I had nothing to do with the website. There should be a link somewhere to the actual report (as well as a technical appendix that lays out a bit more of the methodologies involved). I won't deny sloppiness though - it's a crazy thing to try and model and it's never been done this comprehensively before. I had many conversations with people in the EPA and the ERS folks at USDA, about trying to get a grip on the total amounts of food waste generated. We actually used some figures put forth by WRAP (and if you aren't familiar with their work you should check it out - they're amazing). There are a million things that I'd like to go into more detail on (like the effects of flooding the compost market on the retail price, or the difference in fugitive emissions from sewer convergence depending on the elevation change within a wastewater system) but holy poo poo did this project go way over budget. My company (a small consultancy) basically ran out of money back in October but kept working on it all the way into February and early March. There is likely to be some follow up studies, especially around small scale AD systems that could generate power and/or gas on site. Hopefully they'll be well done!
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Apr 6, 2016 02:09
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Baronjutter posted:Some people are too shy to ask about portion sizes, although that's not really the fault of the restaurant. Price is often a good measure but not always, and servers often give bad or highly subjective advise on portions. I'm going to assume that $9.50 entree is smaller than the $15.00 one, but that's not always the case, sometimes it just has more expensive stuff in it or it's a rip off or you've accidentally walked into a "tapas" restaurant. Scope out other tables and see the general sizes of stuff. When in doubt, ask, and know your self too. Better to order too little than too much, you can always order more. Me and my wife are usually totally good to share an entree + a smaller side, or one big entree. Many of my friends can put away a large entree them selves plus multiple large beers plus a side and then still have room to be the table garbage disposal if anyone else can't finish. These garbage disposal people are very useful for making sure your table has no shameful food waste. We tend to never order anything we might not be able to finish if it's something that doesn't make good left overs (day old chinese or thai is generally great, sushi no way). These are all methods for a restaurant-goer, banal enough to be the basis of a Kevin James bit. You said that the restaurants themselves should "know how to size a loving portion properly," that's the secret technique I'm interested in. E: vvvv sorry, I'm an idiot. Though I wanted to clarify my question anyway. Doc Hawkins fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 02:38
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Doc Hawkins posted:You said that the restaurants themselves should "know how to size a loving portion properly," that's the secret technique I'm interested in. Please don't confuse me with pt6a 
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Apr 6, 2016 04:17
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Obdicut posted:
Uhh, to be fair here, I was the one who resurrected it, to call out your dumb characterizations of his argument and Helsing even asked me not to in order for this conversation not to be rehashed.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:22
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That reminds me, for the person who had half an onion left and didn't know what to do with it, the answer is potato salad! Seriously, always have a bunch of potatoes, they last a long loving time, are a nice supplement to just about anything, taste OK even when cold, and it's hard to imagine a situation where something potato-based ends up being thrown away. My biggest issues are things like dairy products, since they spoil really fast, but most of them except stuff like sour cream have ridiculous prices for packages small enough for me to consume before they spoil.
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Apr 6, 2016 04:34
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Doc Hawkins posted:These are all methods for a restaurant-goer, banal enough to be the basis of a Kevin James bit. You said that the restaurants themselves should "know how to size a loving portion properly," that's the secret technique I'm interested in. If you're not specifically offering tapas or a tasting menu, your portions should be sized such that an average adult can eat an appetizer, an entree and a dessert without being unpleasantly full or hungry. I average around 2800 calories per day: if I can't finish a three course meal, the portions are way too big. Restaurants with smaller portions are actually better, because I can just continue ordering plates until I'm full, allowing time to digest in between. The very best meal I ever had was 24 courses, and I didn't leave feeling unpleasantly full, nor did I waste any food. This is a solved problem in many respects, it's just that Olive Garden and their lovely ilk want to increase the perception of value by providing a greater quantity of food, because ultimately they know they're serving poo poo-tier food. EDIT: Or to phrase it differently: portions which are too small are, at worst, a value problem. Portions which are too large are, on the other hand, a food waste and public health issue. I wish more restaurants would err on the side of the former rather than the latter. PT6A fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Apr 6, 2016 |
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Apr 6, 2016 05:36
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This might have been posted before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=il14X_zKvbA quote:Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.
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Apr 14, 2016 17:26
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PT6A posted:The very best meal I ever had was 24 courses, and I didn't leave feeling unpleasantly full, nor did I waste any food. This is a good point, perhaps we should subsidize 24 course meals for all Americans.
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Apr 14, 2016 17:28
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:This might have been posted before: How loving hungry was this guy every single day? I can't imagine he ever felt satiated and full.
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Apr 14, 2016 17:36
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WampaLord posted:How loving hungry was this guy every single day? According to the interview in the video, the first two days were the hardest part where he felt as bad as when he started a low-carb diet. By the end of the week he felt fine.
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Apr 14, 2016 18:05
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my dad posted:That reminds me, for the person who had half an onion left and didn't know what to do with it, the answer is potato salad! Naturally the Slav in the thread is in the pocket of Big Potato.
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Apr 14, 2016 18:18
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:This might have been posted before: In light of stuff like this, how people can give lectures and make definitive statements in this thread about what foods are healthy and are not healthy is beyond me. Honestly, I'm convinced that a lot of health benefits which are attributed to "eating healthily" are knock-on benefits from exercising, getting regular sleep, not heavily drinking or doing drugs, and avoiding stress, since people who "eat healthily" tend to do those things too.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:37
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:This might have been posted before: This is really interesting and I'm glad you posted it but there are a couple things to keep in mind when reading this and thinking about its significance: 1. The point being demonstrated here is that calorie counting is by far the most consequential strategy for weight loss. As was discussed up thread, there are millions of people in the USA who suffer from diet related nutritional deficiencies (certainly, obesity is a much more widespread problem, but that doesn't mean we should ignore the statistics showing millions of people, mostly concentrated in already vulnerable communities, suffering from vitamin deficiency). 2. I'm not in a position to watch the youtube video right now, but based on the article I do not see any mentions of mood, energy levels or satiety. This wasn't an issue for the Prof in the experiment for reasons outlined below, in point 4, but it's worth keeping it in mind when you think about these results. 3. Like any half decent nutritionist he doesn't dismiss the importance of eating your veggies: quote:"I'm not geared to say this is a good thing to do," he said. "I'm stuck in the middle. I guess that's the frustrating part. I can't give a concrete answer. There's not enough information to do that." quote:To avoid setting a bad example for his kids, Haub ate vegetables in front of his family. Away from the dinner table, he usually unwrapped his meals. 3b. The dreaded use of the word "junk food" Those dastardly nutritionists should really consult somebody with a proficiency in the English language the next time they presume to make any statements about health. (Even worse, later in the article they also use they irresponsibly use the term "processed" as though it's an incredibly common and uncontroversial way of describing food!). 4. This is the big point for me, and the one I hope people will consider. Prof. Haub took conscious control over his diet and portion sizes. This is the really crucial thing to emphasize, I think. He may not have been choosing the best foods but he was choosing, exercising conscious decision making, monitoring his diet, and selecting his portion sizes in a very self conscious and directed fashion. The upshot here is that taking conscious steps to actually regulate and control your diet is crucial. And that's exactly why learning to prepare food yourself is such a prominent part of so many plans for healthier eating. This is also why I think that's important to introduce people who are uncomfortable with home cooking to starter meals like rice and pasta: it's less about the nutritional value of those meals and more about introducing someone to the act of consciously shopping for and preparing a meal. This is the habit that really needs to be built, and this is the basic reason why it makes sense to load shoppers up with a bunch of simplified but helpful heuristics about eating (such as checking the ingredients of processed foods, selecting for at least some whole foods, etc.). Now, all that having been said, this is still a pretty fascinating little example of how hard it is to reach firm and scientifically ironclad conclusions about human nutrition. As the prof says: quote:"I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it's healthy. I'm not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it's irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn't say that." Of course we do know that over eating is unhealthy and we do know that certain kinds of food are much more strongly correlated with over eating, but the point stands and is worth emphasizing given how contentious the debate in this thread ended up becoming.
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Apr 14, 2016 19:46
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:According to the interview in the video, the first two days were the hardest part where he felt as bad as when he started a low-carb diet. By the end of the week he felt fine. Thanks for clarifying this. I'll have to check the video out later today. Edit - Apparently food is an emotional topic for some people
Helsing fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 19:46
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How does D&D feel about low carbohydrate diets? I'm guessing "they're terrible and everyone who uses them is an idiot"?
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Apr 14, 2016 20:24
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Helsing posted:3b. The dreaded use of the word "junk food" edit: I also hope we aren't taking "Dude who ran an experiment with sample size 1 and no control group who also said we shouldn't take the experiment seriously" seriously. twodot fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 14, 2016 |
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Apr 14, 2016 20:27
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Radbot posted:How does D&D feel about low carbohydrate diets? I'm guessing "they're terrible and everyone who uses them is an idiot"? I don't know who dares speak for the sub forum as a whole, but I think it's a religion: it can be helpful, is on average no better or worse than the alternatives available, but there's certain people who can't shut up about how it's the answer to every problem, and they can give it a bad reputation.
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Apr 15, 2016 04:40
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Helsing posted:
We shouldn't ignore it, but we should definitely acknowledge that obesity is a bigger problem by several orders of magnitude. Obesity easily, easily causes more than 100x the deaths and DALYs vs any vitamin deficiency in the US. And we have probably been underestimating deaths from obesity, as the best methodological study to date shows. http://europepmc.org/articles/pmc3780738 So, the absolutely overwhelming majority of our 'nutritional' approach should be getting people to reduce calories. The populations that have vitamin deficiency area also identifiable demographic groups so they can be targeted, the blanket message to the US should focus only on reduction of calories.
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Apr 15, 2016 10:33
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Obdicut posted:We shouldn't ignore it, but we should definitely acknowledge that obesity is a bigger problem by several orders of magnitude. Obesity easily, easily causes more than 100x the deaths and DALYs vs any vitamin deficiency in the US. I agree, I've done out and inpatient clinics in the USA and other Western countries and the amount of people I've seen with clinically relevant nutritional deficiencies not related to an underlying pathology can be counted on one hand. Obesity related cardiovascular disorders are present in nearly half of the patients I see. To me, nutritional deficiencies feel like more of an academic problem. Though this is ofc not my area of expertise
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Apr 15, 2016 12:58
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Obdicut posted:We shouldn't ignore it, but we should definitely acknowledge that obesity is a bigger problem by several orders of magnitude. Obesity easily, easily causes more than 100x the deaths and DALYs vs any vitamin deficiency in the US. What do you think are the most effective steps the government can currently take to actually reduce the rate of obesity in the country? quote:So, the absolutely overwhelming majority of our 'nutritional' approach should be getting people to reduce calories. The populations that have vitamin deficiency area also identifiable demographic groups so they can be targeted, the blanket message to the US should focus only on reduction of calories. Given that these goals are actually complementary, since they both involve taking a more conscious approach to dieting and managing what you're eating, I don't know why you imply that there's some kind of dichotomy. As I've already argued, any realistic approach to helping people reduce calories probably has to take into account that some food is more satiating. Then again, I also think you're making a mistake here by conflating all dieting information provided to the public with the fight against obesity. I don't know why it would be a bad thing for the government to have advisories on, say, what gets fed to children in a school nutritional program. Doesn't it make sense for the government to take some interest, beyond calories, in roughly what the kids are being served? You might ask the same thing for other populations that the government controls, like the military. So far as I can see, and I'm happy to hear out your counter argument, but it seems like there are plenty of situations where various levels of government are actually called on to plan meals and having a slightly better guideline than just the maintenance level of calories for your current weight seems like something worth thinking and talking about.
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Apr 15, 2016 15:48
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Helsing posted:What do you think are the most effective steps the government can currently take to actually reduce the rate of obesity in the country? Mostly campaigns to increase physical activity, make cities and other communities more walkable, and try to edge out the spurious and lovely nutritional information that obsesses over 'carbs' or 'balanced meals' and make sure people understand that, while some foods might have ancillary risks, their overall concern should be on calories. There is a possibility of regulation of portion size, of packaging food, even for home, in serving suggestions. Stricter regulations on vending machines would also help, but again, constitutionally it's a bit of a hard sell. quote:Given that these goals are actually complementary, since they both involve taking a more conscious approach to dieting and managing what you're eating, I don't know why you imply that there's some kind of dichotomy. I've made it super clear but here it is again in plain language: the vast majority of Americans do not have a nutritional deficiency, so these approaches are not complimentary. most people need no action at all, or would benefit only sightly, from a more 'balanced' diet, except to the extent that that would reduce their calories. If someone were to continue eating their 'unbalanced', 'processed' food, but eat less of it--which is entirely possible to do, and much easier to get real human beings to do than to actually switch food types--they will have superior health outcomes. quote:As I've already argued, any realistic approach to helping people reduce calories probably has to take into account that some food is more satiating. It doesn't, and we don't have any reliable data on the biology of this, and it probably changes wildly with individual differences in amylase, protease, and lipase production and sensitivity. The majority of factors around satiation are habit-based and somatic. quote:Then again, I also think you're making a mistake here by conflating all dieting information provided to the public with the fight against obesity. I don't know why it would be a bad thing for the government to have advisories on, say, what gets fed to children in a school nutritional program. I didn't say it would be bad. It'd be great--to control the amount of calories they get. other than that, the reason to conflate it is, again, because obesity is orders of magnitude a bigger. And again, you continue to pretend we have solid science on the nuances of nutrition: we don't. quote:Doesn't it make sense for the government to take some interest, beyond calories, in roughly what the kids are being served? No, for the reasons I've stated clearly. it is nowhere, at all, in any way, even close to the same level of problem. This is like saying in our efforts to reduce hep C prevalence in gay men we should also focus on tinea cruris at the same time. No, because it's trivial compared to the larger problem and winds up complicating the issue. The above section on packaging would actually be the best, both in terms of food waste and in nutrition. Widely available prepared food in a realistic serving size would be awesome for public health. But again, it's hard to envision how we get there constitutionally--making them part of WIC-payable items and restricting calorie-dense foods from WIC might be good but if the meals get associated with poverty in our hosed-up culture that'd breed resistance. To hopefully end the dumbass nutritional derail: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0804748 Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/diets-weight-loss-carbohydrate-protein-fat/ And all of the associated health indicators increased due to the weight loss. Obdicut fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Apr 15, 2016 |
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Apr 15, 2016 16:38
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