Something that often gets brought up in international discussions about diet is the quality - or lack thereof - of American food products. Europeans will rag on Americans about poor food quality, Americans themselves will complain about it, I can go on.
In reality, it's multifaceted. I am an American that is in Europe, I've seen both sides of this. It is true, America has a larger quantity of pure slop, and that pure slop is much worse than European slop, but this is not an excuse to consume it.
American whole foods are no different in general from European ones. Europe has banned the worst pesticides still used in the us (on paper), but the major pesticide companies are zaibatsus that bypass these laws all the time, so you still end up eating the same pesticides. Only some gmos are banned, most of the gmos used by both areas are still widely used in Europe, only a few countries have banned gmos outright. Factory farms still exist in europe, actually a larger amount of european husbandry is intensive than America (largely due to smaller space, but still one of the few areas where europe truly does worse in all regards). Growth hormones are banned in both places. Animals are bred to comically large sizes by factory farms to circumvent hormone bans anyways in both places. This pretty much covers most of the problems regarding whole foods, and as you can see europe isn't much different from America here, maybe slightly better overall.
What am I droning about? The main thing is that the American food problem rests on 2 main issues:
The first is the laziness and stupidity of the average American consumer, which is leaps and bounds above any other developed nation on earth. The average American does not want to cook, probably does not even know how to cook, and settles on Ramen noodles, random snacks, TV dinners, and fast food every day for sustenance. It is not about the money. Yes, super healthy shit that you would find at whole foods costs an arm and a leg. But what does a 5 lb bag of frozen tilapia, a bag of rice the same size, and frozen vegetables cost you? Probably less than the single McDonald's meal. It's not cream of the crop, but it's a hell of a lot better. What does a 1lb tube of quaker instant oats cost? Not terribly much more than a 1lb bag of fruit loops, but you're too fucking lazy to cook oats aren't you?
The second point ties into the first point: it's the predatory nature of the advertisement of the food that is slop, and the nature of the slop itself. In Europe, the slop is rather inconspicuous and do not overcrowd anything. In america, you have to dig through the slop to find anything decent. The bullshit takes center stage. In Europe, TV ads for fast food and what have you are not aimed at children, in america they're almost always aimed at children (get them hooked from a young age).
Another point: In america, as I mentioned at the beginning, the slop tends to be much worse than it is in Europe. Also, it is much more addictive, and it is much less filling, leading to more consumption of it. Anecdotal story: I actually witnessed this firsthand with my (very not american) wife. One time when we were still dating, I was going back to the states to visit family. I asked if she wanted anything. She said "I'd like a box or 2 of strawberry poptarts, I saw them in a movie once and I'd like to try them" (they do not exist in europe, at least not our locale). I returned with 2 boxes of poptarts, she developed quite a fondness towards them and would not stop eating them. By the time I woke up that night (I went to bed before her), she had eaten the entire box, and she ate more (real, thankfully) food afterwards because she felt hungry still, and she is an extremely small and slightly built person (her weight is not even in triple digits and she gets filled up by half a bowl of rice, so this is very uncharacteristic). I was personally shocked and somewhat concerned by this. This is 1600 calories consumed all at once by someone whose daily maintenance calories are less than this and she was still hungry afterwards.
But it led me to a realization. Americans eat more and get fatter because the food that we eat is just garbage that does not actually nurture anything. It is just metabolized instantaneously. However, it is addictive garbage, and we keep eating it because it's addictive. This is a 2 pronged attack. You have to eat more to stop feeling hungry and you eat more because it's addicting.
So the slop is marketed towards Americans from the cradle to the grave, Americans eat it because it's what we know and we're too lazy to do anything else, Americans need to eat more of it to be satiated, Americans get addicted to it because of the mysterious cocktail of ingredients in it, Americans become obese. The problem isn't a lack of quality across the board, the problem is judeo capitalism and societal laziness
And it isn't some bullshit about the food pyramid or carbs or whatever the fuck. Yeah, the way nutrition is taught in school is fucking retarded, but technically if you did eat by the book according to the food pyramid, you definitely wouldn't be fat, actually you'd probably be underweight if anything. It isn't optimal, but if Americans were actually following this, we'd be a pretty damned skinny country. Europeans (and east asians) actually eat way more grains than Americans (almost never a meal without bread, pasta, rice, or something), and Americans are not eating the amount of whole grains recommended by the nutrition guidelines set in school. Nobody ever cared about these things as children either. Did you? Doubt it. Children follow what their parents do and their parents are lazy fucks that throw a kid cuisine or a happy meal in front of their kids for dinner every night, followed by a bowl of pure sugar in milk for breakfast every morning. With intermittent bags of potato chips and candy bars.
Furthermore, I consider that Israel must be destroyed
In reality, it's multifaceted. I am an American that is in Europe, I've seen both sides of this. It is true, America has a larger quantity of pure slop, and that pure slop is much worse than European slop, but this is not an excuse to consume it.
American whole foods are no different in general from European ones. Europe has banned the worst pesticides still used in the us (on paper), but the major pesticide companies are zaibatsus that bypass these laws all the time, so you still end up eating the same pesticides. Only some gmos are banned, most of the gmos used by both areas are still widely used in Europe, only a few countries have banned gmos outright. Factory farms still exist in europe, actually a larger amount of european husbandry is intensive than America (largely due to smaller space, but still one of the few areas where europe truly does worse in all regards). Growth hormones are banned in both places. Animals are bred to comically large sizes by factory farms to circumvent hormone bans anyways in both places. This pretty much covers most of the problems regarding whole foods, and as you can see europe isn't much different from America here, maybe slightly better overall.
What am I droning about? The main thing is that the American food problem rests on 2 main issues:
The first is the laziness and stupidity of the average American consumer, which is leaps and bounds above any other developed nation on earth. The average American does not want to cook, probably does not even know how to cook, and settles on Ramen noodles, random snacks, TV dinners, and fast food every day for sustenance. It is not about the money. Yes, super healthy shit that you would find at whole foods costs an arm and a leg. But what does a 5 lb bag of frozen tilapia, a bag of rice the same size, and frozen vegetables cost you? Probably less than the single McDonald's meal. It's not cream of the crop, but it's a hell of a lot better. What does a 1lb tube of quaker instant oats cost? Not terribly much more than a 1lb bag of fruit loops, but you're too fucking lazy to cook oats aren't you?
The second point ties into the first point: it's the predatory nature of the advertisement of the food that is slop, and the nature of the slop itself. In Europe, the slop is rather inconspicuous and do not overcrowd anything. In america, you have to dig through the slop to find anything decent. The bullshit takes center stage. In Europe, TV ads for fast food and what have you are not aimed at children, in america they're almost always aimed at children (get them hooked from a young age).
Another point: In america, as I mentioned at the beginning, the slop tends to be much worse than it is in Europe. Also, it is much more addictive, and it is much less filling, leading to more consumption of it. Anecdotal story: I actually witnessed this firsthand with my (very not american) wife. One time when we were still dating, I was going back to the states to visit family. I asked if she wanted anything. She said "I'd like a box or 2 of strawberry poptarts, I saw them in a movie once and I'd like to try them" (they do not exist in europe, at least not our locale). I returned with 2 boxes of poptarts, she developed quite a fondness towards them and would not stop eating them. By the time I woke up that night (I went to bed before her), she had eaten the entire box, and she ate more (real, thankfully) food afterwards because she felt hungry still, and she is an extremely small and slightly built person (her weight is not even in triple digits and she gets filled up by half a bowl of rice, so this is very uncharacteristic). I was personally shocked and somewhat concerned by this. This is 1600 calories consumed all at once by someone whose daily maintenance calories are less than this and she was still hungry afterwards.
But it led me to a realization. Americans eat more and get fatter because the food that we eat is just garbage that does not actually nurture anything. It is just metabolized instantaneously. However, it is addictive garbage, and we keep eating it because it's addictive. This is a 2 pronged attack. You have to eat more to stop feeling hungry and you eat more because it's addicting.
So the slop is marketed towards Americans from the cradle to the grave, Americans eat it because it's what we know and we're too lazy to do anything else, Americans need to eat more of it to be satiated, Americans get addicted to it because of the mysterious cocktail of ingredients in it, Americans become obese. The problem isn't a lack of quality across the board, the problem is judeo capitalism and societal laziness
And it isn't some bullshit about the food pyramid or carbs or whatever the fuck. Yeah, the way nutrition is taught in school is fucking retarded, but technically if you did eat by the book according to the food pyramid, you definitely wouldn't be fat, actually you'd probably be underweight if anything. It isn't optimal, but if Americans were actually following this, we'd be a pretty damned skinny country. Europeans (and east asians) actually eat way more grains than Americans (almost never a meal without bread, pasta, rice, or something), and Americans are not eating the amount of whole grains recommended by the nutrition guidelines set in school. Nobody ever cared about these things as children either. Did you? Doubt it. Children follow what their parents do and their parents are lazy fucks that throw a kid cuisine or a happy meal in front of their kids for dinner every night, followed by a bowl of pure sugar in milk for breakfast every morning. With intermittent bags of potato chips and candy bars.
Furthermore, I consider that Israel must be destroyed
Check out Ezekiel bread, it is the best. But like most healthy things, not super tasty...
> The unfortunate thing is that insulin resistance is uncurable. Once you passed that boundary, you basically fucked yourself on carbs and the benefits of consuming that macro for the rest of your life. You can improve it significantly, but it will never be gone, and management will become part of your daily life forever, even if you manage to become rail thin, your cells are still going to act at least kind of fucky towards glucose.
Check out the book "The End of Diabetes" if you're interested. Basically, if you fix your diet and lifestyle, you can return to a normal life, even if you have T2D.