The official theme song for this thread.
Not everything is bigger. I don’t know about all candy bars, but Snickers (one of my biggest vices) were 2 oz for the regular bar and 4 oz. for the jumbo size when I was in college (late 70s and early 80s). Now a regular bar is 1.86 oz and the jumbo is 3.29 oz.
Just wanted to elaborate on the discussion of sugars.
Our farmers are REALLY GOOD at growing corn and wheat. Corn, wheat, and soybeans receive the lion’s share of gov’t subsidies. Is that because they are the best foods for us? I’d contend not. Once we produce all this wheat and corn, we have to figure out how to use it.
Who prepares dietary recommendations? A health organization? No - Agriculture.
Food manufacturers are a HUGE lobby, and make FAR more money than the raw food producers/farmers. Food manufacturers invest considerable resources into making products that are - I’m not sure “addictive” is an entirely inappropriate term. People crave salt, sugar, and fat, and food manufacturers want to convince your mind AND body that you are not sated.
Crappy food TASTES good, and is readily available. It can take considerable effort to decide to eat healthy, and to figure out where to obtain and how to prepare such foods.
My wife and I are not going full vegan, but we are reducing refined grains and animal protein. The improvement in our blood levels has been pretty rapid and dramatic. Making tasty combinations of beans, lentils, salads, etc is quite easy when you decide to go that route. But MANY factors in advertising, grocery stores - AND ESPECIALLY in most restaurants - work against you.
I’d be cautious stating crappy food tastes good. It doesn’t. It’s average at best. It hits the vague flavor points; salt, spicy, bland/bready, soft or crunchy.
Most obese people would sooner consume a 50 piece basket of honey bbq wings with blue cheese dressing over say healthy portion of hot chicken tikka with brown basmati rice, fresh relishes and a platter of vegetables. Not using Indian food as some sort of healthy perspective because Indian food for the most part isn’t particularly healthy. Or using your example a salad comprised of various chopped greens, thinly sliced toasted nuts, thinly shredded vegetables, beans, quinoa tossed with a low calorie but flavorful dressing.
beacuse of eating too much and after eating not walk
If you’re making the claim that a bean and quinoa salad is better tasting than honey bbq wings, then I think you’ve lost me on your claim.
Of course, you’re also falling for the same problem that all Americans make. We assign food to ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ categories and then proceed to make unhealthy choices based on those assumptions. They’ve actually done studies on calories in Boston Restaurants including one published in JAMA. Your Chicken Tikka Masala on average has 1430 calories at the average Boston Restaurant. The largest size of BBQ wings at BW3 has 1420. Why? One is that meat isn’t as calorie dense as most people think. It’s one of the reasons that Atkins can work for a lot of people. The second as stated above is quantity. American restaurants serve an enormous amount of food, including Chicken Tikka Masala. Salads actually run into the same problem. American salads are notoriously calorie dense and incredibly large. Let’s say again that you are out at BW3s (just because I have their nutrition information up) and you are a good little person who wants to watch their weight, so you order a southwest salad while your gluttonous friends get medium wings. Haha you say smuggly as you stuff your face with greens. They may enjoy their wings, but I will be fit and trim and they will be fat tubs of lard. Unfortunately, your salad has 1080 calories in it (A salad?, you may ask. Yes, because in America, we do salads right) Your gluttonous friends? Well, it depends upon the sauce, but largely they’ll come in within 30 calories of you and some sauces will have them having fewer calories than you. If they decided to opt for a burger? They could have hundreds of fewer calories (of course, no one in America would have a burger without fries, and sides are really what throw you through the roof, so I doubt that they would really come in lower, but again, it harkens to portion control.)
The way around this dillemma is to order ‘side salads’ Again, this is marketing. You look at a reasonable side salad that is reasonably priced and you go, "Huh, will my friends think I’m cheap? Will the waiter be mad at a smaller tip? It’s just a side salad, that’s not a real meal and it’s just salad, it’s not unhealthy, so you get the ‘dinner salad.’ and you watch your calories explode up into the realm of our gluttonous fictional Americans. The bottom line is that the American food economy is geared toward you eating way more than you think and even if you try to make good decisions, it’s there to compel you to make bad ones. Someone who doesn’t actually think extremely consciously about their health doesn’t stand a chance. They go, “All I’m eating is Chicken Tikka Masalla and salads. Why am I fat?” without realizing what’s actually happening. We have no conception of proper food sizing. Take a look on youtube sometime at people from Europe visiting the US. There is a constant theme throughout these videos. Everything is enormous, everything is cheap and everything tastes like rainbows and unicorns mixed with crack. That’s the world we live in and it’s awesome that we have food that is crazy delicious and cheap, but it wreaks havoc on our waistlines.
Clearly you have because you and I have different tastes. I don’t find honey bbq wings particularly tasty since they’re one-sided in flavor and aren’t filling.
You also seem to not be able to comprehend what you quote.
Clearly you have because you and I have different tastes. I don’t find honey bbq wings particularly tasty since they’re one-sided in flavor and aren’t filling. And I’m not sure what salad you’re referencing that’s over 1K calories. The hell are you adding in there? 8+ tablespoons of oil?
1 cup cooked quinoa = 220 calories
100 g shredded carrot = 42 calories
100 g chopped and wilted kale = 50 calories
50 g cooked garbanzo beans = 183 calories
100 g various sweet peppers = 30 calories
100 g cucumber = 16 calories
60 g sweet red onion = 25 calories
1 tbsp of olive oil = 120 calories
Juice of 1 whole lemon
chopped cilantro
chili powder
splash of apple cider vinegar
Hell, throw a chicken breast in there. This is over 1 lb of food you can split into two meals or have a large lunch. I’d be shocked if you end up hungry. I have a very solid understanding of human nutrition. I don’t need a lesson from someone who is incapable of reading and listing logic and not some tangent they pulled out of their behind. If you want to say honey bbq wings taste better, that’s up to you and that’s your opinion. Others may share it. Compared to this salad, which I’ve made thousands of times in the last decade, it tastes like crap.
Also, FWIW, Chicken Tikka can be ordered in two forms. Your calorie rich example can be served in a rich, creamy tomato sauce or plain marinated and grilled served with plain rice or salad. The plain grilled variant is marinated in spice rich yogurt (similar to a runnier Greek yogurt) and grilled. It doesn’t exceed 400 kcal let alone over 1200. Maybe if you opt for a large sized creamy dish variant.
Is it the same formula though? Is it possible they increased the sugar content, and the current bars have just as much calories as the older larger bars?
Food preferences are very dependent on what one is used to eating. If you are used to eating greasy, fatty, saucy food, then a vegetarian meal doesn’t sound very appetizing. The truth is that there are very delicious healthy meals and, if you get used to eating that way, the greasy/fatty stuff is the food that feels heavy and unappetizing.
I went to “Chuck’s Southern Comfort Cafe” in Burbank a few weeks ago. They make fantastic barbecue chicken, tips, ribs, shrimp and the like. After eating there, though, I just couldn’t envision eating that heavy, saucy food again for quite a while. Just not used to it, and my stomach reminded me of that fact.
As someone who is non-American and fat, let me answer: you eat too much and exercise too little. That’s it. Everything else is just (ahem) dressing.
When I moved to Japan, I lost about 25 pounds within my first 6 months. I attribute some of that to a little bit of disorientation and trying to figure out where to buy my go-to foods, which sometimes occasionally led to me even skipping certain meals during the day. I also snacked a lot less for reasons I’m still not quite sure of.
But I credit much of that weight loss to a LOT more activity, and smaller portions. As I didn’t have a car, I walked everywhere I went, and much of that walking was spent climbing a hill to get to the train station. Additionally, as others have noted, the portion sizes in the US were just gargantuan by comparison. A “set” (combo) in Japan consisted (at least then) of a smaller drink size, a smaller burger, and a smaller pack of fries.
Not surprisingly, when I returned to the US, I gained about 35 pounds. Some of that was probably due to mild depression, but bad food was always within reach, and the portion sizes were just gigantic. They haven’t gotten any smaller either.
What surprised me the most upon my return to the US was something that was mentioned up thread: how really large soft drinks became the norm. I remember being on a road trip and thinking that I wanted a little more than just a can of soda but I didn’t want so much that my bladder would explode. All I could find was 24 oz drinks.That stunned me.
Growing up in the South, I was surrounded by fatty foods, and we’ve been eating it for generations, so I don’t think it’s just the fat that’s to blame. It’s the explosion of heavily processed, sugary, low-nutrition food that has probably done more harm than anything else. And it’s not just responsible for making us look unhealthy; it’s ruining our quality of life as we approach mid-life with chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and even liver failure that isn’t even alcohol-related.
Well yes. But I think we are discussing WHY we eat so much and WHY we exercise so little.
I think the second part is easy, we drive everywhere. The first part is a little more complicated.
The why is easy: self-discipline. People like me need to say, “No, thank you; I’ve had a pleasant sufficiency.” more often, and actually get out and exercise. Neither is psychologically easy. But it really is that simple.
This still doesn’t show how bigger portion sizes are the cause of obesity. I still say they’re a symptom.
For bigger portion sizes at restaurants to cause obesity in the average American, the average American needs to:
- Eat out more regularly than eat in
- Always eat everything they’re given.
You guys are acting like all Americans are forced to line up at McDonald’s every day for dinner and order what used to be Large in the 50s but is now Much Larger in the 2000s and finish every bit before we waddle home and sit in front of the TV until it’s time to go back for an Even Bigger McMuffin in the morning.
I, as a fat person with a fat family, am here to assure you that we’re all perfectly capable of getting this fat and remaining this fat without the help of restaurants dictating how much we’re going to eat in a given day.
I’m saying that if we go eat someplace and there’s not enough food, we’ve got a whole pantry full of snacks to fill that last bit of room when we get home. If one McDonald’s cheeseburger meal isn’t enough for us, we’ll add a second and/or a third burger to our order. If Outback’s dinner isn’t big enough, we’ll add an appetizer or dessert.
There are fat people who don’t eat out. There are Americans who don’t finish their meals. I don’t buy the theory that we’re all being forced to eat more calories than we need because of The Great Depression.
It’s like saying a drug crisis is ramped up because a hit became 2x the size than it was previously. Man, if a drug addict wants more drugs they’ll just buy more drugs. If a drug dealer can sell more drugs because their addicts are ramped up to where they need more drugs, they will. The cart isn’t pulling the horse. Same with food addicts.
And if I’m full of shit, and Americans are actually eating out all the time and cleaning their plates, and I sit home too poor to eat out all the time and remain fat, well I guess I’m just doing it wrong.
The concept of “clearing your plate” has been mentioned a few times in this thread. Is that an American thing? It was in place in my home when I was growing up.
For those that live, or have lived, in another country, is that a common practice?
It is rather uniquely American, as America ended up at the end of WW2 with a food surplus, and other nations needed help.
You’re got a false premise there: you don’t need to eat out often if your average restaurant meal packs three days worth of calories into one sitting.
But a restaurant meal does give you a misleading indication of an appropriate portion size which people will replicate at home.
There is also the growing size of food bought in a grocery store that dupe people into thinking it’s appropriately portioned.
And that other countries have government-produced and promoted healthy eating guides (and get celebrity chefs involved as well) while this idea has no traction in the U.S.
Add in ever-growing commutes and the decades-long trend of fewer social gatherings, and you have a combination of factors resulting in expanding waistlines.
If your activity level, your age, and your total muscle mass change, while your dietary intake remains the same, your weight will change, slowly. If you eat in restaurants, the portion size will be the same on days when your activity level is low, so someone will need to engage rational thought, and perhaps temperance to avoid storing the extra calories as fat.
That’s the hardest exercise of all, for most people.
Tris
If you are not actually starving, or habitually hungry, I don’t care what you eat. Please return the favor. If you are either of those things, please, have something to eat.