
A Cultural History of Fat - whocansay
https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/weight-world
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pygy_
A company that produces food that is more appetizing and less filling than its
competitors will sell more of it and beat them in terms of revenue and profit.
They either have to align themselves or die/be assimilated.

Even without any ill intent, growth seeking in the food industry would have
lead to an obesity epidemics.

[https://soundcloud.com/user-876103472/grow](https://soundcloud.com/user-876103472/grow)

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stdbrouw
If I eat a snickers bar and afterwards I'm still hungry, I'm not necessarily
going to eat another snickers bar. If I eat a very flavorful salad but perhaps
am not feeling quite satiated, next time I'm not necessarily going to order
the competitor's product that is drenched in olive oil.

I'm sure there is some truth to these sorts of "survival of the fittest"
arguments, but you can only simplify how people reason about food or how they
consciously or subconsciously decide what to eat so much before it becomes a
parody of itself.

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pygy_
I'll put it aletrnatively:

Since 1) we eat too much and 2) we're not being force-fed, what drives the
food down our collective throats?

How do you explain the obesity epidemics which is a very recent phenomenon, if
not through perverse market forces?

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titanix2
Laziness. Supermarkets still sell raw food (vegetables, meat, etc) that can be
used for cooking. But it takes time and effort to do it (+washing) so buying
already made but unhealthy dishes is appealing for a lot of people.

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rayiner
But why are the ready made meals unhealthy? It’s not because they’re ready
made rather than fresh cooked.

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HappyRobot
Ready made meals are usually higher in sodium and fats than fresh cooked
meals.

Edit - [https://www.consumerreports.org/food-shopping/supermarket-
pr...](https://www.consumerreports.org/food-shopping/supermarket-prepared-
meals-what-to-watch-out-for/) The article doesn't call out higher amounts of
fat in prepared food, but does mention higher cost and added preservatives.

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usmanshaikh06
This article does not discuss in depth the change in diet from mainly protein
and fat based diets of the hunter-gatherers to carb-rich diet of today.

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pygy_
We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution.

The obesity epidemics started after WW2.

I don't think that they are related.

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otabdeveloper1
> We've had a carb rich diet since the neolithic revolution.

This isn't true.

The modern diet gets 90% (asspulled number, sorry) of its energy from sugar,
white flour and potatoes.

None of these three really existed in any measurable quantities three hundred
years ago.

Sugar especially is something only very modern people started to eat in huge
quantities.

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pygy_
Bread was the staple food for most of that period. GP was contrasting modern
and paleo diet.

It would be wiser to contrast 1918 with 2018 (and I agree with you that
refined sugar and starch are most likely involved in the current mess).

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otabdeveloper1
> Bread was the staple food for most of that period.

No, not really. The refined white flour we eat today basically didn't exist
until very recently.

Their bread wasn't like our bread. It was coarsely-ground and made of bran,
barley and rye. Compared to what we eat today, it had much higher fiber
content and more fat. It would have been much harder for our ancestors to
mainline pure carbohydrates by eating bread like we do.

Carbs in themselves aren't so bad, but the problem is that your body won't
ever be sated by eating carbohydrates. (Kids around Halloween will attest.)
Eating pure carbs is a very bad idea.

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pygy_
I never said it was white bread... Besides, I agree with the rest of your
comment.

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emsal
How are the cultural metaphors verified, like the connection between focus on
the afterlife and fatness attributed to the rise of Christianity in Europe?

I still can't put a handle on how historians are able to determine what a
culture's prevailing attitude is toward something when it seems so ephemeral.

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_i____ii_______
This is a slim summation of the contents of a fat book.

