Food Waste is Hard to Deal With.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Food Waste is Hard to Deal With.

deadly_pudding: May 13, 2009; who the fuck is scraeming
"LOG OFF" at my house.
show yourself, coward.
i will never log off

Discendo Vox posted:

That source says nothing about anything you are claiming, unless I missed something and this thread has been about France. Try this one from the ERS instead.

Here's the most relevant parts of the summary.

What I'm seeing is that you're extrapolating from limited information to make a bunch of assumptions in as uncharitable a manner as possible about the person you're arguing with in order to attack them personally. It has nothing to do with what's being argued and is intensely counterproductive. "junk food" isn't a meaningful descriptor, cheese on broccoli isn't likely to be particularly high in salt, manufacturer dependent. "fresh" isn't meaningful in terms of nutritional impact for most foods. "Processed" doesn't have health connotations either, except under specific circumstances not immediately relevant. Cooking is not a high-impact caloric activity, so complaining that the time displaced by not doing it is spent in a sedentary fashion isn't meaningful either.

Glancing at two different brands of frozen cheesey broccoli product, they both have about 50% of your daily sodium requirement if you eat the whole box, which probably a person who is using that as their whole meal is doing. Calorie-wise you could do worse at about 150 calories per package, but it's kind of empty where the only meaningful nutrients you're deriving are sodium and vitamin C. It's not a real useful food.

Liberal_L33t posted:

There may be a grain of truth to this, but you are also discounting the considerable (and, to the working poor and the hectic middle class, extremely unpalatable) time costs of shopping for, buying and preparing 2 or 3 meals consisting entirely of fresh produce every day. I am actually quite sympathetic to the unspoken argument that these peoples' time would be better used watching television, or whatever other sedentary entertainment which the tsk-tsking advocates of "slow food" would sneer at. If, hypothetically speaking, someone obsessively spends 2 hours a day cooking for themselves with fresh, healthy ingredients but takes up smoking cigarettes as a side effect of the increased stress and time pressure, are they actually better off?

People would probably get off his back if he wasn't reacting to the "moral grandstanding of slow food people" like he has something to defend. I'm a fat office drone who barely has his poo poo together and eats too much pizza, but I also I go to the gym, have a salad for lunch almost every day, and try to have a healthy dinner with a good balance of vegetables and protein at night most days. I consider myself a work in progress. Liberal_L33t just sounds kinda... I dunno, sad? He comes off like one of those soylent people, only his hill to die on appears to be TV Dinners. I'm probably opening up myself to a series of scathing remarks.

Anyway, I'll stop trying to repair L33t's life; if I'm being real I'm in no position to talk down to him.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 20:34

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# ? May 16, 2024 06:52

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

Why is the emphasis on how much food is wasted? It's not like people go hungry because there just isn't enough food to go around, it's because they can't afford the food.

Let's say 20% of food is wasted. Now let's say I wave a magic wand and nobody ever wastes food again. Is that 20% going to actually go to poor people, or are food producers just going to make 20% less food?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 20:47

Farmer Crack-Ass: Jan 2, 2001; this is me posting irl

deadly_pudding posted:

Glancing at two different brands of frozen cheesey broccoli product, they both have about 50% of your daily sodium requirement if you eat the whole box, which probably a person who is using that as their whole meal is doing.

What's the difference between the daily requirement and what would be considered unhealthy to eat on a daily basis? i.e. is there a range where you can go up to daily requirement +50% or something like that and still be perfectly normal, or are we assuming a linear no-threshold model where every milligram beyond the daily requirement is inching us closer to excruciating cardiac arrest?

Because if your assumption is that someone is using that box as a whole meal, then 50% of your daily sodium requirement in a meal doesn't strike me as that shocking - especially if the other meals had less than 50% of the daily sodium requirement.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 20:52

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

What's the difference between the daily requirement and what would be considered unhealthy to eat on a daily basis? i.e. is there a range where you can go up to daily requirement +50% or something like that and still be perfectly normal, or are we assuming a linear no-threshold model where every milligram beyond the daily requirement is inching us closer to excruciating cardiac arrest?

Because if your assumption is that someone is using that box as a whole meal, then 50% of your daily sodium requirement in a meal doesn't strike me as that shocking - especially if the other meals had less than 50% of the daily sodium requirement.

This gets even messier, because the sodium DRI is one of the most contentious metrics in nutrition science. People have been arguing about it for decades. There's basically no question that increased sodium intake past a certain threshold increases likelihood of hypertension (high blood pressure), but what that threshold is, if it varies for different people, why and when it varies, and whether the hypertensive effect causes other negative outcomes, are all basically questions without solid answers. This is made worse because extremely(as in hard to do unintentionally) low sodium diets have clearer and fairly severe negative health effects.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Mar 24, 2016

# ? Mar 24, 2016 21:08

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Food that isn't spoiled but is going to go to waste otherwise, should be canned, jarred, pickled, dried, frozen or otherwise preserved and given to those who need it.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 21:22

pinkacidbootson: Apr 8, 2011; Fun Shoe

Chomp8645 posted:

Yeah this is the real bullshit and probably a big part of my food waste. Either stuff isn't available in a proper portion, or it suffers from clown pricing that charges 80% or more of the cost for 50% or less of the product.

I would buy half loaves of bread. But I don't eat the artisanal whatever brands that provide such sizing. My local store just has their own loaves by the deli that they either bake themselves or get from some local bakery that are $2.50 for a loaf which is good for me but they only come in standard loaf size.

Other issues are harder to solve. Sometimes I want a pineapple but I'm just one guy so I'm probably not gonna eat the whole pineapple myself before it gets weird. Don't know what can be done about that. Pre-sliced portions of fruit always charge an absurd premium to the point that I will pay less to buy and slice the whole pineapple myself and throw half of it away than I will buying some smaller portion of ready to eat fruit.

Some easy solutions here. Bread can be frozen and then easily defrosted at a later date. If buying pineapple is causing you to throw half of it in the bin each time, then stop eating pineapple. There's plenty of smaller fruit to choose from. Really what a lot of household food waste comes down to is people not wanting to slightly inconvenience themselves - we've got more choices of products now than any time before but it doesn't mean we can't limit ourselves to a smaller range of products to reduce waste (and pollution e.g. from long distance shipping of food).

I lived on my own recently for six months and my food waste was the lowest it's ever been. Although I do get the impression that this problem with portions is something unique to the US - here in the UK and Europe it's easy to buy for one and to consume everything before the expiry date. Like a gallon bottle of milk - almost 4 litres - I've never even seen it outside of American films and TV.

Apart from that, I also believe that a lack of knowledge or willingness to compromise in cooking leads to more household waste than is necessary. I've been living with my wife and her family for the last month and the amount of food waste I witness here every day is an eye-opener. Last week my brother-in-law took one look in the fridge and was convinced that there was 'nothing left to eat'. The following three days I managed to cook a meal for 5/6 people six times before anyone did actually go food shopping. It's usually possible to either throw a meal together from what's left or to just eat a random selection of food for that day just for the sake of not chucking food away.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 21:32

doverhog: May 31, 2013; Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦

People are not going hungry because there is not enough food being produced. It's an economic and social issue that can and should be tackled with taxes and welfare programs. Specifically targeting "waste" is a red herring that absolves politicians and the populace from targeting the root causes of poverty and hunger.

All your anecdotes about cooking or freezing bread are completely besides the point, tho we did learn that eating TV dinners is dire so that's something I guess.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 21:57

Toasticle: Jul 18, 2003; Hay guys, out this Rape

wateroverfire posted:

Just to reiterate since it's in the OP..

Supermarket food waste is not a bigger source of waste than personal food waste. In aggregate, personal waste accounts for about 70% of wastage and supermarket waste about 10% if you include smaller markets. Large supermarkets represent like 5%.

There are ongoing programs run by governments, ngos, and the supermarket chains themselves, to increase donations of foods that would otherwise be wasted.

It is entirely appropriate to talk about personal food waste. A 10% decrease in food wastage at a personal level has 7 times the impact of a 10% decrease in wastage at the distribution level.

How much food do people throw away that's perfectly fine? how much food do restaurants and supermarkets throw away that's perfectly fine but is at its "sell by" date?

People mostly throw away rotten food, business mostly throw away perfectly fine food.

# ? Mar 24, 2016 22:05

Chocolate Teapot: May 8, 2009

Toasticle posted:

People mostly throw away rotten food,

Source?

# ? Mar 24, 2016 23:55

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

Why would anyone throw out fresh food?

Of course it was always going to be wasted so it's a pretty pointless distinction.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 01:03

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

wateroverfire posted:

Cool source with data from the US. thanks.

If 21% of food purchased is lost at the consumer level and 10% at the retail level, those statistics are consistent with the French figures.

The OP says that 67% of food is lost at the consumer level in France, no? That is a far cry from 21%, and suggests that legislation targeting businesses and producers is even more important here.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 01:19

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

Grundulum posted:

The OP says that 67% of food is lost at the consumer level in France, no? That is a far cry from 21%, and suggests that legislation targeting businesses and producers is even more important here.

That's measuring two different things. The French numbers are measuring where food is lost. The US numbers are measuring where food goes.

Of the total amount of food in the US, 31% is lost. Of that 31% lost, 67.7% (21/31) is lost at the consumer level. So the numbers are basically the same.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 01:23

Grundulum: Feb 28, 2006

Thanks for the correction.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 01:33

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

wateroverfire, could you do me a solid and put that ERS source in the OP instead of the crappy France-focused one? Everytime someone new enters the thread, the lack of detail and the problem of country comparison reoccurs.

Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Mar 25, 2016

# ? Mar 25, 2016 01:40

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Discendo Vox posted:

What I'm seeing is that you're extrapolating from limited information to make a bunch of assumptions in as uncharitable a manner as possible about the person you're arguing with in order to attack them personally. It has nothing to do with what's being argued and is intensely counterproductive. "junk food" isn't a meaningful descriptor, cheese on broccoli isn't likely to be particularly high in salt, manufacturer dependent. "fresh" isn't meaningful in terms of nutritional impact for most foods. "Processed" doesn't have health connotations either, except under specific circumstances not immediately relevant. Cooking is not a high-impact caloric activity, so complaining that the time displaced by not doing it is spent in a sedentary fashion isn't meaningful either.

"Junk food" is absolutely a meaningful description of a lot of fastfood, freshly cooked food does tend to be healthier, and processed food is often higher in unhealthy preservatives and additives. Cooking is valuable because it's a basic life skill and a fairly basic social ritual that can bring people closer together. Cooking some of your own meals also tends to correlate with paying more attention to your diet, which is usually healthier than just microwaving a premade meal and then plopping down in front of the TV.

Here's an open letter to the British government published in the Lancet raising the very real concern of poverty leading people to over consume processed foods. Note that the argument here is that wages are too low and food prices are too high, not that there's some kind of basic moral failing among the poor.

quote:

During the past 5 years, food has been one of the three top factors in price inflation, sufficient to worry even higher-income consumers. In a time of high fuel prices, this inflation has translated into families cutting back on fresh fruit and vegetables and buying cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods that need little cooking. A vicious circle is set in motion, with poorer people having worse diets and contributing to the worrying rise in obesity, diabetes, and other dietary-related diseases.

The third issue is the problem of stagnant incomes and wages among the low paid. In real terms, according to the ONS, incomes have fallen in the first substantial manner since the 1960s.[5] The ONS calculates that UK workers have experienced a 7�6% fall in real wages during the past 6 years.[2] Increasing numbers of people on low wages are not earning enough money to meet their most basic nutritional needs.

So to circle back to the start of this tangent: this kind of behaivour is understandable and totally fine in limited batches, but if it gets to the point where eating prepacakged processed food and engaging in a lot of "sedentary activities" is your lifestyle then you're at much higher risk for a range of mental and physical health problems, and the appropriate public policy response is to try and find ways to help people break that cycle rather than pretending it's a perfectly valid and problematic way to live.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:05

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

"Junk food" is absolutely a meaningful description of a lot of fastfood

This is not true. If you think this is true, feel free to give a coherent definition of junk food.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:10

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

unhealthy preservatives and additives

Please explain this too, while you're at it.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:13

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

twodot posted:

This is not true. If you think this is true, feel free to give a coherent definition of junk food.

Typically "junk food" refers to food that's high in calories and comparatively low in nutritional content. The fact it's a pejorative and colloquial word doesn't mean its either incoherent or useless as a description.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:15

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

Discendo Vox posted:

unhealthy preservatives and additives

Please explain this too, while you're at it.

What, exactly, do you find confusing?

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:19

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Helsing posted:

Typically "junk food" refers to food that's high in calories and comparatively low in nutritional content. The fact it's a pejorative and colloquial word doesn't mean its either incoherent or useless as a description.

That describes a lot of foods that have been staples of diets for most of history.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 19:24

TheImmigrant: Jan 18, 2011

Food-safety regulations in the US make it nearly prohibitive to give away food waste.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:24

Jarmak: Jan 24, 2005

It would be nice if people and orgs managed to divert some of the concentrated waste of food that isn't actually bad yet from the garbage to places that need it, but in reality 30% waste is actually somewhat impressive. The only way to lower that significantly would be to drastically lower the readily available variety of food we enjoy in the modern world, which wouldn't result in diverting food anywhere, just less production.

Honestly though having a healthy wastage of food is a good thing, having anywhere near 100% utilization on food production is catastrophically dangerous.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:37

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

Typically "junk food" refers to food that's high in calories and comparatively low in nutritional content. The fact it's a pejorative and colloquial word doesn't mean its either incoherent or useless as a description.

Please define "nutritional content" in a way that doesn't include calories and is a thing anyone should care about in a modern context.
edit:
Also to avoid being Socratic also consider what we should classify junk food that has a multivitamin (or 10) on top of it as.

twodot fucked around with this message at 20:44 on Mar 25, 2016

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:39

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

twodot posted:

Please define "nutritional content" in a way that doesn't include calories and is a thing anyone should care about in a modern context.
edit:
Also to avoid being Socratic also consider what we should classify junk food that has a multivitamin (or 10) on top of it as.

Or you could just lay your cards on the table and explain what point you're trying to make?

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:48

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

Or you could just lay your cards on the table and explain what point you're trying to make?

I thought this was obvious. My point is ""Junk food" is absolutely a meaningful description of a lot of fastfood" is not true. If I can put a multivitamin on top of a junk food, and it stops being a junk food then "junk food" is simply not a meaningful description.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:52

doverhog: May 31, 2013; Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦

Fresh vegetables or fancy home cooked dinners don't possess magic particles know as "nutrients". Or rather they do, but so does most food. Unless you are talking actual vitamin deficiency, like scurvy or something, the obsession with organic local super health foods we have today is like homeopathy or belief in magic crystals.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 20:59

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

twodot posted:

I thought this was obvious. My point is ""Junk food" is absolutely a meaningful description of a lot of fastfood" is not true. If I can put a multivitamin on top of a junk food, and it stops being a junk food then "junk food" is simply not a meaningful description.

You can freak out over the fact that "junk food" is a colloquialism and not a precise scientific term as much you as like, but that's what most fast food and a lot of instant microwavable meals are: junk food. Now aside from your incredible and misplaced pedantry regarding the term "junk food", do you actually disagree with the doctors in the Lancet who are warning about the dangers of eating too much "cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods that need little cooking" at the expense of " fresh fruit and vegetables"?

doverhog posted:

Fresh vegetables or fancy home cooked dinners don't possess magic particles know as "nutrients". Or rather they do, but so does most food. Unless you are talking actual vitamin deficiency, like scurvy or something, the obsession with organic local super health foods we have today is like homeopathy or belief in magic crystals.

Fresh food and home cooking isn't automatically more nutritious or healthier, but on average something you prepared with fresh ingredients from a grocery store is likely to be a lot healthier for you than something you popped in the microwave or purchased at a fast food restaurant. And you're the first person to bring up "organic" or "local" in this conversation. We're talking about really basic nutritional stuff that just about any doctor could confirm for you, not hippy dippy crystal healing poo poo.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 21:22

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

You can freak out over the fact that "junk food" is a colloquialism and not a precise scientific term as much you as like, but that's what most fast food and a lot of instant microwavable meals are: junk food. Now aside from your incredible and misplaced pedantry regarding the term "junk food", do you actually disagree with the doctors in the Lancet who are warning about the dangers of eating too much "cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods that need little cooking" at the expense of " fresh fruit and vegetables"?

Eating too much of anything is by definition bad. "processed foods" is another nonsense category, and I'd wager that "need little cooking" is a category that doesn't have any health impact, particularly in the light that fresh fruit and vegetables don't need any cooking. I'd need a better definition for "cheap", less expensive per pound, per calorie, per what? There's already been a pretty good post about the uncertainty regarding salt. "sweet" also describes fresh fruits so that seems out. I'm not sure what classifies a food as "fatty", classifying all of the fats together seems obviously stupid.
edit:
As a meta point, I don't understand when people say "X is Y" and they object when I say "X isn't Y". Like I get you probably don't care whether junk food is a meaningful descriptor (it isn't), but if it doesn't matter why bother replying?

twodot fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Mar 25, 2016

# ? Mar 25, 2016 21:34

doverhog: May 31, 2013; Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦

Helsing posted:

Fresh food and home cooking isn't automatically more nutritious or healthier, but on average something you prepared with fresh ingredients from a grocery store is likely to be a lot healthier for you than something you popped in the microwave or purchased at a fast food restaurant. And you're the first person to bring up "organic" or "local" in this conversation. We're talking about really basic nutritional stuff that just about any doctor could confirm for you, not hippy dippy crystal healing poo poo.

On average, sure. The second point was more directed at society and trends in general.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 21:55

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

twodot posted:

Eating too much of anything is by definition bad. "processed foods" is another nonsense category, and I'd wager that "need little cooking" is a category that doesn't have any health impact, particularly in the light that fresh fruit and vegetables don't need any cooking. I'd need a better definition for "cheap", less expensive per pound, per calorie, per what? There's already been a pretty good post about the uncertainty regarding salt. "sweet" also describes fresh fruits so that seems out. I'm not sure what classifies a food as "fatty", classifying all of the fats together seems obviously stupid.

So your position is that the doctors who signed on to that open letter I quoted from are incorrect and really just fear mongering.

quote:

edit:
As a meta point, I don't understand when people say "X is Y" and they object when I say "X isn't Y". Like I get you probably don't care whether junk food is a meaningful descriptor (it isn't), but if it doesn't matter why bother replying?

You're asking me why I'm bothering to reply to the posts that you're addressing to me? I'll be perfectly honest, since you just dismissed actual medical opinions out of hand I am also starting to wonder why i'm responding to you.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 22:02

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

So your position is that the doctors who signed on to that open letter I quoted from are incorrect and really just fear mongering.

I would classify the stuff you quoted as "not even wrong". You just can't make coherent statements about processed foods, because it doesn't have a coherent definition. Obviously, things like "food costs are rising faster than inflation" are reasonable concerns. I wouldn't say they are fear mongering, but charitably they are trying to engage with unsophisticated people by using terminology which doesn't mean anything, but is a proxy for actual categories that people recognize. I don't really have a problem with people using terms like "junk food" to communicate with people that don't have the training to understand why that doesn't make any sense, the problem happens when you claim it's a real category.

quote:

You're asking me why I'm bothering to reply to the posts that you're addressing to me? I'll be perfectly honest, since you just dismissed actual medical opinions out of hand I am also starting to wonder why i'm responding to you.

I'm asking why you're acting like me talking about a thing you said is irrelevant to what you are saying.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 22:16

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Helsing posted:

So your position is that the doctors who signed on to that open letter I quoted from are incorrect and really just fear mongering.

Yes, actually (most open letters aren't good claim sources, fyi). Doctors aren't nutrition scientists, and the lead author on that one is primarily a political actor. Lumping together "cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods" is a pretty good indication that something is wrong with their causal claim structure, as is any attempt to apply the word "fresh" as having nutritional connotations.

TheImmigrant posted:

Food-safety regulations in the US make it nearly prohibitive to give away food waste.

Not to my knowledge? Retail-side disposal policies are based on internal guidance, not, afaik, FDA or USDA regs. Sell by and use by dates are advisory only and based on manufacturer decisions.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 22:22

OwlFancier: Aug 22, 2013

Helsing posted:

You can freak out over the fact that "junk food" is a colloquialism and not a precise scientific term as much you as like, but that's what most fast food and a lot of instant microwavable meals are: junk food. Now aside from your incredible and misplaced pedantry regarding the term "junk food", do you actually disagree with the doctors in the Lancet who are warning about the dangers of eating too much "cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods that need little cooking" at the expense of " fresh fruit and vegetables"?

The main difference between those two aside from some vitamins is that raw vegetables are not very calorically dense, because humans can't efficiently digest them. So you would have to eat a huge amount of them to get a lot of calories out of them.

You could theoretically achieve similar results by just eating less calorically dense food, which is not inherently unhealthy, just easier to overeat.

Excessive sugar intake can be a problem but you can get a lot of sugar from say, eating a bunch of fruit.

OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Mar 25, 2016

# ? Mar 25, 2016 22:25

Helsing: Aug 23, 2003; DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU JOE BIDEN

twodot posted:

I would classify the stuff you quoted as "not even wrong". You just can't make coherent statements about processed foods, because it doesn't have a coherent definition. Obviously, things like "food costs are rising faster than inflation" are reasonable concerns. I wouldn't say they are fear mongering, but charitably they are trying to engage with unsophisticated people by using terminology which doesn't mean anything, but is a proxy for actual categories that people recognize. I don't really have a problem with people using terms like "junk food" to communicate with people that don't have the training to understand why that doesn't make any sense, the problem happens when you claim it's a real category.

I'm asking why you're acting like me talking about a thing you said is irrelevant to what you are saying.

Processed food does have a definition, it's just a broad one. And if something is "meaningless" then I don't know how it can be a proxy for an actual thing, since that's just another way of saying it actually does have meaning. You're just slinging words around in an attempt to sound authoritative. Also your whole spiel here seems to be in vein since I'm already seemingly using the term "junk food" in exactly the way you say you're fine with.

Discendo Vox posted:

Yes, actually (most open letters aren't good claim sources, fyi). Doctors aren't nutrition scientists, and the lead author on that one is primarily a political actor. Lumping together "cheap, sweet, fatty, salty, or processed foods" is a pretty good indication that something is wrong with their causal claim structure, as is any attempt to apply the word "fresh" as having nutritional connotations.

They're making generalizations that are pretty helpful in the context of someone shopping in a grocery or convenience store. If you go back and read my earlier comments on this subject, my interest here is more political, at least insofar as I think that eating habits have some room for improvement through changed policy. Anyway, if you want to elaborate more specifically on what else you disagree in that letter or it's "chain of reasoning" with then I'd be happy to read what you have to say.

OwlFancier posted:

The main difference between those two aside from some vitamins is that raw vegetables are not very calorically dense, because humans can't efficiently digest them. So you would have to eat a huge amount of them to get a lot of calories out of them.

You could theoretically achieve similar results by just eating less calorically dense food, which is not inherently unhealthy, just easier to overeat.

Excessive sugar intake can be a problem but you can get a lot of sugar from say, eating a bunch of fruit.

There are many roads to a healthy diet and plenty of room for indulgences along the way but at bare minimum your regular diet should include things like protein, fiber, vitamins, etc. A reliable way to achieve many of your basic nutritional goals is to eat a lot of whole foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables.

A piece of fruit does typically have a lot of sugar but it is also almost going to be a lot more filling than a bottle of Coke or a chocolate bar so you're a lot less likely to over consume. Fruit Juice, on the other hand, is definitely a sugary indulgence.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 23:22

DARPA Dad: Dec 9, 2008

So what exactly makes fresh vegetables more nutritious than frozen ones?

# ? Mar 25, 2016 23:29

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Helsing posted:

Processed food does have a definition, it's just a broad one. And if something is "meaningless" then I don't know how it can be a proxy for an actual thing, since that's just another way of saying it actually does have meaning. You're just slinging words around in an attempt to sound authoritative. Also your whole spiel here seems to be in vein since I'm already seemingly using the term "junk food" in exactly the way you say you're fine with.

You said junk food is a meaningful description, it is not. In certain audiences, "junk food" may correlate with ideas in their head you want to poke at, but that doesn't make it a coherent category, it just means your audience hasn't thought about the term long enough to realize it doesn't make sense. Clearly my preference is to avoid doing that in the first place, but I don't think someone noting a problem is necessarily fear mongering if they use nonsense terms. I've already pointed out two problems with the definition you gave.
edit:

DARPA Dad posted:

So what exactly makes fresh vegetables more nutritious than frozen ones?

I wouldn't be surprised if freezing vegetables had some sort of nutritional effect, it would just be an effect that can't possibly matter for almost everyone in the US.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 23:32

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

DARPA Dad posted:

So what exactly makes fresh vegetables more nutritious than frozen ones?

There is a nutritional difference between cooked and uncooked food but it hasn't been shown that the same applies to fresh & frozen.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 23:33

DARPA Dad: Dec 9, 2008

computer parts posted:

There is a nutritional difference between cooked and uncooked food but it hasn't been shown that the same applies to fresh & frozen.

Well, sure, but my question was operating under the assumption that they're cooked.

# ? Mar 25, 2016 23:57

Jarmak: Jan 24, 2005

DARPA Dad posted:

So what exactly makes fresh vegetables more nutritious than frozen ones?

They're not.

The nutritional issues here are correlation not causation. All the pedantry about these terms does not change the fact that overwhelming majority of prepared and frozen foods sold in US are nutritional nightmares. There's nothing about freezing, processing, or being prepared that inherently causes this.

Straight frozen ingredients have nothing to do with this, getting a bag of frozen broccoli or chicken breast is perfectly fine. The issue is living off of frozen dinners, sugary drinks, and fried snack foods.

# ? Mar 26, 2016 00:16

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# ? May 16, 2024 06:52

Manic_Misanthrope: Jul 1, 2010

PT6A posted:

If you're stressed out and miserable, what could be nicer than throwing on some music, pouring a glass of wine, and cooking a lovely quick meal? I get way more testy when I can't cook at home, for the most part.

Not everyone finds cooking relaxing, it's particularly stressful for me. I get paranoid about timing everything and one mistake potentially setting the house on fire like what happened when on my first day at University. Ready meals that can just be put in the microwave is more relaxing than trying to manage 3-4 things at once.

# ? Mar 26, 2016 00:50

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