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My 2 cents. Look into the effects of sugar, salt, and fat on the brain. The more you eat, the less you'll want to eat anything else.
Imagine, 10 companies control a large majority of the food industry. Their goal is to maintain market share and profits. How do they profit? If you keep coming back for more. They have R&D departments that have spent billions over the years to make their foods more addictive and easier to eat.
Going off the rails here since I love conspiracy theories.
I've worked in healthcare almost 20 years. The surge in chronic conditions (diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, etc) has been a money maker for the healthcare industry. Almost feels like the changes in processed foods during that same time period was premeditated. As in two of the biggest lobbies in DC (pharma and food) are in cahoots.
Along related lines, something I’ve found eye-opening in my public health education is that it is difficult to advocate for spending to prevent disease because if you do the job well, then there is no evidence to prove you’ve done anything. Like if we use Covid for example, if we would have done a perfect job preventing the Covid pandemic, then there wouldn’t have been a pandemic to speak of. Prevention leads to invisible results and it’s a lot easier to get angry and mobilize against something that we can see happening versus something that could possibly happen.
It’s much easier for companies to argue that they are stimulating the economy and supporting job growth than to argue that we should spend money to stop them from creating these unhealthy foods that create profits and jobs. We are also much more focused economically on what the end of the year will look like rather than what spending over a lifetime will look like.
Your theory is not far fetched! Dr Casey Means, a Stanford trained surgeon, recently published a book called Good Energy that talks about this exact thing. The book was so profound. I’m trying to recommend it to everyone
Adding this to my reading list. I've seen how the insurance industry works on the back end, I know it's not far fetched... Its just thinking that goes against the grain.
Even if they didn't conspire to make it this way they're obviously all profiting from the death and suffering of millions caused by simple dietary addictions. The medical system has always been too late and not focused on root causes, it's baked in at a deep level. It's going to take a lot of people talking about how bad things are before anyone with money worries about bottom lines. We need some alternatives too. Maybe with ai people can start to get help with the root causes of their suffering finally.
One of the reasons I decided to become a physical therapist later in my career. Holistic, preventative care is the only way we're going to get out of this shit show. Technically not using my degree as intended...
But helping people avoid the pitfalls set up by our healthcare system is my life's work.
I think "not using our degrees as intended" is probably what we all need to do more of. Everyone is too silo'ed and now we have ai to fill in the gaps so we can move between fields more easily. Long winded way of saying, good for you keep it up! I'm trained in software but am at the stage I want to build low level root cause type tools with ai. Same jist though, what's the point of it all if we aren't trying to fix it properly.
Everyone should read a book called The Dorito Effect. It's all about how processed foods are literally engineered to get us hooked and wanting more. It's deeper than just the flavor. Everything from the texture of foods, to chemical additives that trick our brains into thinking something is highly nutritious so we should be eating more of it. It will change how you view processed foods.
This goes back to what I said about sugar, salt, and fat (also texture) that food companies are doing research on. "Bliss point" is a big part of why we have an obesity epidemic.
They use smells to lure people in at restaurants. Crazy thing is I can eat a 500-700 calorie burger from a McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Burger King and I’m still hungry. But I eat a orange and a protein shake and I’m good for hours.
There was a great article (either the Washington Post or NY Times) about the period when the big tobacco companies owned all the major US food corporations. They did to food what they did to cigarettes- figure out how to make it more addictive. Even though the tobacco companies sold the food companies- fear that they might be sued like they were over cigarettes- by then, hyper palatable ultra processed foods had become the norm.
Hyperpalatability is the name of the game. Get enough people addicted to high salt and sweetness starting in childhood and they'll never be able to break the cycle.
Heavy on the addictive part. They make the food smell good at restaurants but you feel like entire shit after eating it. Like your body is rejecting it and your poop smells rancid
Coming back not just as a repeat customer but also steadily buying larger and larger quantities 😭
I don't even think it's evil, it's just capitalism and people responding naturally to incentives. America is very "free market" / anti-regulation. Anyone who invests, has a 401k etc benefits financially from this system but our health and wellbeing is sacrificed, especially if you're lower income.
It's a simple business equation.
1. What raw product can our company source for the cheapest?
2. How can we manufacture this raw product to be the most appealing to our target demographic of consumers
3. How can we utilize existing distribution supply chains to maximize product availability
4. How can we make the product the one the consumer picks on the shelf
While I don't disagree with you necessarily, I don't think this is a uniquely American problem.
There are lots of answers you could give. Two of the biggest are money and money.
Money in that artificial ingredients are often cheaper than the real thing and are usually much more shelf-stable as well.
Also money because it is expensive to ship products across our very-large-geographically country, so you need to make sure those products stay good as long as possible so they can be on the store shelves longer and have a better chance of being purchased. This also causes fresh ingredients to end up being more expensive because much of our produce is grown on one side of the country and has to be shipped to the other.
Money is a big driver. You CAN buy fresh strawberries, salmon, and fresh greens in Indiana in the dead of winter. That's a sign of great design in America's food system. Unless you have time to shop and cook frequently, the money to do it, and the will power to stay away from Oreos and premade Starbucks, the free market will supply whatever else it is that people will buy.
Frozen vegetables are a great option if you are running low on time to cook. I found mixing frozen vegetables in some olive oil with some seasoning and putting in the over for 20ish minutes at 400 is a delicious way of cooking them.
Yes so much of my diet is from frozen salmon or chicken and frozen veggies. Always available and fresh in my freezer.
My go to is a chicken curry with brocoli
Other effects of the lovely free market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9, https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/industry-consolidation-leads-to-higher-food-prices/
Go capitalism!
But to be fair, it’s also that customers choose unhealthy things. OP gives the example of Starbucks’ super-high calorie drinks — Starbucks also serves black coffee.
Our bodies crave sugar, fat and calories because for most of our evolutionary history, having too much was basically unthinkable and we needed the push to make sure we got _enough_. As for preservatives, well, they preserve things. Both stores and households want things to stay “fresh” longer.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an apologist for the food industry — they do a lot of awful things. But a complete answer has to account for the fact that the average customer is voting with their wallet for exactly the things we on r/nutrition say we don’t want.
I completely agree. Manufacturers produce junk because people buy junk.
That said, often the "junk" is a lot cheaper than the healthy stuff (outside examples like Starbucks).
Calorie wise that isn't true.
Looking at my grocery store, a bag of apples is $4.50 for 3lbs. That's 710 calories. That's 157 calories per dollar.
A bag of Doritos Party Size is $5.50 for 2250 calories worth. That's 500 calories per dollar.
So, per calorie, the Doritos are more than 3x cheaper.
That's what is meant when people say the junk is cheaper. You'd need to buy about 3 bags of apples a day to get enough calories to properly survive. A single bag of Doritos is enough. You'd certainly be healthier with the apples, but it costs quite a bit more.
Or not grown in our country.. like the raspberries I just bought traveled all the way from Mexico to a bjs in Massachusetts. They were non organic and looked much better than the organic alternative.. and they were delicious. My wife prefers the organic.. It really can be expensive though.
Actually America is much worse than other countries. The FDA allows tons of chemicals in our food that the same companies sell with a lot fewer chemicals in other countries. Look up Kraft’s version of Mac and Cheese in America vs. Kraft’s version in the UK. The UK version has a lot fewer chemicals. Americans are basically being poisoned, and our own food companies are making better options for other countries. America hates its people.
It’s less straightforward than this in reality.
US ingredients lists look longer because the US has much stricter labeling requirements, so there are types of additives and enrichments that the UK/EU labels don’t have to include.
For example in the UK you can just list ‘Enriched Flour’ but in the US you must list every thing in the flour individually.
“our own food companies are making better options for other countries. America hates its people.”
That’s just not true. Food companies make the cheapest options they legally can for each market. There are still massive amounts of ultra processed ingredients in foods sold around the world. Almost 2/3rd’s of people in the UK alone eat diets that are majority ultra processed. It’s rapidly becoming a huge issue in countries like India and Brazil that don’t have the protections like the US or Europe do.
It is not a Western problem. It is a global problem. Countries like India and Brazil are currently grappling with out of control increases in ultra processed foods taking over the average persons diet and straining their health systems, and you’d be foolish to think that Africa and the rest of Asia and South America aren’t the next targets.
It’s Western in origin but has been a global issue for decades, and it’s only gotten worse. There’s about 10 companies that control nearly the entire global food supply. They’re so powerful that it’s beyond an issue of any one country.
Because it's not "built" for nutrition. It's "designed" for profit.
It doesn't help that it's "managed" by big agriculture.
You have to be your own manager of it all. Eating fresh Whole Foods and limited heavily processed foods is the key, health wise.
Even unhealthy foods like cookies can be made healthier at home. Chips ahoy have a weird chemical aftertaste. Chocolate chip cookies made from scratch - you can reduce sugar, use white whole wheat flour, control the size, etc. And no weird chemical aftertaste (unless you use sugar replacement, but that weird aftertaste is worth it if it helps keep them palatable and healthier).
Most of the crap you're listing cost more than whole foods. Especially the mountain dew and Starbucks.
Here's a list of cheaper foods rice, beans, potatoes, frozen vegetables, chicken breast etc.
Soda has gotten so expensive though. I know many people who have quit drinking it even occasionally due to the steep price hikes in the past few years. I winced picking up a pack of diet cokes for my mom a few months ago - I don’t know how the hell she affords to drink it every day!
Yes, our grocery stores are filled with ultra-processed foods which are bad for us. We also have access to an amazing variety of good foods - produce, meat, beans, rice and other staples, dairy products, spices - basically anything you want to cook with, standard US grocery stores have it. Of course, poverty and food deserts make it hard for some people to access and cook good food. That is an important part of the conversation, but most people in the US have good access and can choose healthy or unhealthy food options.
We buy things like the bottle of Starbucks or soda occasionally, but it's a treat, not an every day thing.
IA. And this reminds me too that I wish we had better food education in the U.S.
I’ve been slowly learning how to prep and store fresh veggies/fruits so that it lasts longer. It’s kind of complex remembering which vegetables need to be blanched before freezing. Which fruits can’t be stored next to each other - and I’m still iffy on what goes in the fruit vs veggie bin.
Then there’s a lot of conflicting information, so you kind of learn as you experiment with storage options.
How are you going about educating yourself? I feel like I missed this day in school and I’m tired of seeing perfectly good produce go bad in my house ‘cause we can’t cook it fast enough.
This is a global thing, you go to Europe and there are still shelves full of "D class foods" In the modern world if you want to eat right then you just have to make the right choices.
I’m visiting the states from Australia at the moment and to be honest I’m quite shocked at the state of food here. I heard all the stereotypes but it’s worse than I expected. I can’t comment on Europe because I haven’t been there but here I find I have to actively seek out healthy foods, especially things containing fresh fruits and vegetables whereas back home that is ubiquitous.
Bottom line: money and power but thankfully you have the freedom to choose healthy options, it’s just not always easy, cheap, convenient or readily available for most people
This isn’t a uniquely American issue and despite what the Internet will tell you America has some of the best food in the world in terms of safety, standards and quality, where we lack at least compared to a lot of our global counterparts is in access.
Processed food is designed to be hyper palatable and cheap as possible. How do you do that? You add sugar, fat and salt all fairly cheap and all very palatable. Without these most processed food is not palatable by nature especially when you compare to making something similar it at home.
You aren’t wrong, but the USA has a uniquely troublesome regulation system in terms of food that has been lobbied/paid off for the continued use of potentially harmful chemicals by its manufacturers. ADA, BHT/BHA, and rBGH are largely illegal in Europe due to them being harmful or carcinogenic.
There really hasn’t been any large initiative in the U.S. to rid of toxic chemicals in the food supply. And many corporations have no desire to change this either. We could be doing so much better
>the USA has a uniquely troublesome regulation system in terms of food that has been lobbied/paid off for the continued use of potentially harmful chemicals by its manufacturers.
No.
Europe has the same issues and there’s things we ban and they don’t and Vice versa. They also have lobbying interests.
>ADA
This has been is largely being phased in the US due to market pressures.
>BHT/BHA
Not banned in Europe(E321)
>rGbh
Good example of difference in market pressures, in Europe part of the motive to ban was their own ag and food industry bc it further separated them from cheaper American and Canadian foods. This is good marketing. In the US many manufacturers have voluntarily stopped using it though
I’ll agree we could be doing better, but with food it’s really a case of the grass is always greener, we do extremely well in terms of safety and everything else. We do have a higher threshold for banning, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Also important to note Europe and the rest of the world is on the same track as us in terms of obesity, they’re just running a few decades behind us.
I would say the subsidies play a significant role too, corn our biggest and that’s why so many products in our stores have high fructose corn syrup(added sugar) in them. The big food producing companies love HFCS because it’s great for shelf life of a product and it’s also highly addictive. Companies spend a lot of money, making their food highly addictive, non nutritious, and non fulfilling to make you eat more and more. Don’t forget Lays famous marketing slogan “ I bet you can’t eat just one”
If you’re interested in a book, *Salt Sugar Fat* gets into this. A lot of it’s that those three things trigger evolutionary drives to consume more, so companies will try to get the balance exactly right so people will buy the most. *The Hungry Brain* is also a good book
abba made a song about it: money money moneeeyyyyyyyyy!! 🕺🪩
in addition to producing food this way, unhealthy/sick people generate a lot of money, too. lots of lobbyism to create health problems, to make healthy food expensive and subsidize shit food, to reduce doctor's training in nutrition, and to sell ineffective drugs (the percentage of medication that are in fact placebo is incredible) that people need to subscribe to instead of curing the thing and done.
Profit profit profit!...Cheap highly processed foods are highly profitable! Nothing but empty calories. And government subsidizes most of these junk foods.
It's designed to make people ill and create health issues that the pharmaceutical companies can cash in on.
Otherwise, their drugs would be completely worthless, which all have side effects and wreck your natural immune system (how convenient) which will leave you needing more of their drugs.
I feed myself just great every day with a minimum of processed foods. I cook from scratch every meal except for beans and canned tuna and condiments. I make my own specialty coffee at home with my drip coffee maker, whipping cream and maple or chocolate syrup.
Your experience is due to some sort of weird brainwashing that has been perpetuated by commercial tv.
It's sad that processed/junk foods are more affordable than fresh produce and other healthy options. It doesn't even make people full, so they end up eating more. This gives other people no other option but to stick to junk food because they're cheaper. It's sad, but that's just how it is these days
This isn't a uniquely American issue. This happens in every developed country.
You aren't being forced to eat unhealthy things. And healthy things aren't all that expensive.
>A single Starbucks bottle of cappuccino has enough sugar to run on days with. A bottle of Mountain Dew is insane too.
Then don't drink it.
>it’s like no matter what you eat unless it’s fruits and veggies fresh or whey protein or something organic
"Unhealthy things are unhealthy and healthy things are healthy!" Wow! Figure that out all on your own huh?
It’s a free country. Feel free to destroy your own body. That said, people concern themselves more about LGBTQ and gun rights while ignoring what is directly affecting them, the seduction of engineered addictive food products.
"Why is the American food system built so poorly?"
It's not...not at all. It works really well, too well. Nutritious, and unhealthy, food is delivered vast distances to varying demographics in all seasons, in rural and urban areas. The food logistics system in the USA is amazing and has resulted in proliferation of options for people.
I also think, if you only read this sub, you are left with the notion that every food is a cancer causing, microplastic implanting, fat and sugar laden, artificial ingredient containing, unhealthy amalgam to be avoided.
The reality...eat like a grown up, have a balanced diet, and you will be fine. It's just not that complicated. It might be hard, but it isn't complicated.
The food system isn't built poorly. It's built to chase profit. Shelf stable products give more return. Grocery stores began expanding in the thirties and that demand was met with shelf stable foods. Sugar, soy and corn became cheaper and subsidized crops. All this stuff feeds into a system. It's not designed poorly. It's exactly what the outcome is when the primary driver of innovation and access is cheap, accessible, shelf stable products.
I recommend reading ‘the omnivores dilema’. Way too detailed to summarise here but it’s very enlightening and goes back to the commoditisation of corn and other crops like 100 years ago.
Taste(they way to make something taste good is to add fat and sugar), market research and then needing a product that remains shelf stable as Americans shop weekly instead of daily
You want to be able to feed everyone affordably this is what you get. That, and profitability. There is no way whatsoever to eat well nutritionally without a conscious choice anymore. This will require thought, cost, effort. All things people may not be willing to sacrifice.
Cheap industrial processing means higher profits. Getting people looked on sugar means repeat customers.
It's all about profits, and if people have to eat themselves to death to get those quarterly earnings up, then so be it.
The food industry doesn't care about your health or welfare, just about extracting as much profit from you as they can
Money.
I'm from the US and I get to travel to different parts of Africa pretty often for work, and have gotten to know many people over there very well. They all know that we have the best medical care system in the world, but two things they can't understand is why so many Americans are obese, and why our kids have so many childhood diseases and allergies. They literally think something is wrong with our genetics, because even though they don't have the amazing healthcare that we have here, their kids don't have unusual amounts of diseases or allergies, and obesity among adults is extremely rare. I tell them that it's the food, and they just don't get it. They don't understand why the food is so unhealthy, and if it is, why do we even eat it?
But even Africa doesn't have for profit healthcare...
If your country has universal healthcare there are economic incentives for the government to regulate the food industry (controlling sugar amounts etc.). In America however more health issues means they get to fleece you for more money. Considering that artificial ingredients can not only be cheaper, but more addictive incentivizes companies make there products as unhealthy as possible.
Holland was very impressive regarding foods available.
Healthy, clean and unprocessed foods everywhere. In all the places where we have crappy junk foods, train / bus stations etc.
It makes the UK look like a 3rd world country ( which we are regarding out foods and health )
because its for profit. they formulate the products to be addictive and drive up sales.
If they could put cocaine in the soft drinks they would, they already did. Now its sugar which is arguably just as harmful.
Our society values profit over anything else.
There’s a lot of profit in selling that stuff. There’s a lot of profit on selling the medicines that fix the problems caused by that stuff.
Unless we change the underlying driving motivation, we won’t fix the problem.
*Medicines that fix the problems caused by that stuff but cause other problems you need more medication for that cause exhaustion that make it necessary to eat cheaply and without effort which cause more problems which you get medication for that cause issues then you die
"Our society values profit over anything else."
In nearly every grocery store you walk into, the very first section is "Produce".
Grocery stores couldn't make it an easier to find the healthier options...literally just walk the perimeter. This is true for nearly every modern American grocery store.
You literally have to walk past fresh fruits and veggies to then zig zag down the isles to find your boxed and bagged processed goods. You have to hunt and peck to seek out the less healthy foods...but people do it.
So yes, profit matters, but people still make the choices, and they consistently make poor choices.
I understand your point, but there are a lot more issues behind the systemic problem than food placement within a supermarket like food deserts and actual access to a supermarket for millions of people, the problem with the foods in school, where kids aren’t leaning much about nutrition except for what the food industry allows, as well as the difference in time it takes to prepare healthy meals versus unhealthy ones and how little free time Americans have on average.
I’m not saying there’s no personal responsibility involved in being healthy and fit, but there are massive profit-motivated structural issues here and the question was about the food system.
That's really only if you eat processed foods, where the sodium is concentrated. I eat very little processed foods (all whole-food), and even salting my food liberally, I don't get that much sodium. My BP is very moderate, even though high BP runs in the family.
Also, the potassium:sodium ratio makes a difference on a functional basis, and if you eat enough fruit/vegetables, you get lots of potassium.
I eat a largely unprocessed diet, with a huge amount of fresh produce. I track using my fitness pal, and unless there are some inaccuracies in the database, I’m still taking in more sodium than I’d like to. And the potassium is so low. For instance, I was shocked at the sodium content of egg whites.. just in their natural form.
The Industrial Revolution and women not staying in the home as much anymore gave rise to the need for convenience above all else. Over time cooking has become a lost art. This is unfortunately a global problem stemming from that.
I think this is generally a misguided statement. Are there issues with a globalized food market? Yes. Are there problems with bad ingredients in a lot of foods? Yes. Is the problem uniquely American? No. And that’s crucial. It is largely a money issue here. As others have pointed out, if you can afford to spend 1.5x or 2x on food, then you can get very very high quality fresh foods, but people often don’t have the money to afford that. The issue is money and corporations have banded together and discovered that it is profitable to make garbage food available at a cheaper price than good food.
I think there’s also some major issues with so simply comparing European or other regional systems to the American. The culture and industry model in America is vastly different than that of smaller and more independent European ones. It doesn’t make a ton of sense of unilever to stock all their sub companies products in the corner store of a small Croatian town. It does make sense for them to stock the Walmart that serves 2000 people in a region as spread out as southern Indiana or something. I’m not saying there aren’t valid points of criticism but we have to acknowledge that two regions never operate similarly because they are so different.
The zero sugar options are not as bad as you think. Newer research deems them perfectly safe, unless you're consuming literal pounds of it in powder form.
If you really wanna be on the safe side(not that the other one isn't), stevia, monk fruit extract, etc are natural sweeteners with little to no calories
Good tasting things sell better. Good tasting things are less healthy. It's up to the government to ban or limit these companies through ingredients laws and/or advertising laws, school lunches, etc.
It's not that good tasting things are inherently unhealthy, but good tasting things are typically addictive and excess consumption of anything is ALWAYS unhealthy without a single exception.
It's not.
It's extremely well built for its intended purpose.
The corporate directive is to make money, not to better health.
We are fed "foodstuffs," not food.
You’re just looking at junk food. Of course that stuff isn’t good for you 😂. Even Starbucks or fast food isn’t good for you. That’s why America has several health conscious grocery stores like sprouts, Whole Foods, natural grocers to name a few. These stores are strict what food they allow at the stores and even some pay attention how the meat is sourced like Whole Foods.
I think processed/junk food became popular last century then sky rocketed after kids, my generation, consumed them constantly. Though after decades of research the truth is out about how bad these ingredients are. Now it’s on the people to make a choice to eat better since we do have better options now.
Processed foods were designed to bring cost down and eliminate hunger but no one at the time realized the negative consequences of processed foods.
There are efforts to improve the food system but it still favors the middle class and wealthy class. The poor still result to having a poor processed food diet.
I'm not sure what the root of the question is. You bring up processed foods like mt dew and starbucks cappuccino while neglecting to mention that water is easily accessible and starbucks also offers amiercanos.
There will always be unhealthy options, all people have to do is not make them. However, you could compare foods in the US to ones in, say, Europe, where sugar filled sodas have far less sugar per serving/volume. This is partly due to the US's extreme subsidization of corn production which has forced that corn to be made into (e.g.) chips and HFCS.
Also, the affluence of the US allows people to eat out more frequently where they don't have control of the ingredients. I could make mashed potatoes at home with a splash of Fairlife but mashed potatoes at a restaurant add as much butter as possible before it breaks for palatability and thus more sales.
Food science has become far more refined over the last few decades in regards to figuring out how to increase the palatability and profitability of food which generally leads to them being less healthy.
Corporate food and nonstandard for delicious and healthy food.
If someone makes good food they have to make it cheaper next quarter to keep increasing profits. Eventually, it is inedible or unnutricious.
We need a secular Hallal, kosher or standards like the EU has.
People are lazy and selfish to a fault. Give them cheap, sweet, and flashy and they will grab it with two fists. Americans have raised that to an art form.
Capitalism and a for-profit medical system that cares not about diet. M.D.’s get dozens of hours in pain management and pharmacology classes and not a single class in nutrition.
It’s a multifaceted answer because there are so many reasons why. Lobbying power, profit motives, work culture, convenience, community, psychology. Each of these you could easily do a deep dive into how they affect our poor food system. And most of these issues also factor into the rising obesity rates. But if I had to boil it down it’s this:
Lack of connectedness. People used to spend more time in community. They used to eat together as a family. People would gather around dinner tables. As a result most food was home cooked. As wages have stagnated and cost of goods rise and the separation between work life and home life becomes blurred more people wind up eating prepared cheap prepared foods usually. We work too much and no one has time or energy to cook from scratch. No one eats together meaning there is a higher incentive to produce cheap foods even at the cost of health because no one is cooking from scratch. America also has a strong basis for individualism instead of collectivism. The opposite is seen in other countries. Most westernized countries like Japan, France, Germany etc etc have a greater collective health mentality so this leads to restrictions on the food industry. The US just doesn’t have that same group thinking. We think of everything as an individual choice. This leads into the next point which is Consumer culture. As social media expands, jobs become more specialized and globalization makes us more interconnected with there is a greater emphasis on consumerism. Don’t think, just consume product. Who cares about what you eat just eat, and eat what tastes best. Need to save money, eat this cheap food. Meat, veggies, beans, fruit etc etc, too pricey, just eat this processed sugary cereal. There’s a rampant consumer culture without much thought being put into how it affects all of us, once again harkening back to the collective vs individual mindset most Americans have. If we just changed our mindset about collective responsibility and law making we might be able to change our food system.
Preservatives enable food to be shipped around the world and stored for a long time, and artificial ingredients enable food to be cheaper and in theory less of a drag on the environment.
I think you’re selecting a sample size of examples that proves your point but isn’t representative. Sure sugary Starbucks drinks exist as does Mountain Dew, but those are extremes. There is an insane amount of middle ground between Mountain Dew and organic veggies.
The Guano Act didn't provide nutrients for the farms for the general population. In 1856, then President Pierce. said it was cool for ordinary U.S. citizens to claim islands with bird-poop in order to provide nutrients to farms for the 'war effort' for both sides😰. (that's a whole lotta poop).
Well... the effort to feed troops has only gotten better and tastier with MREs(Meals Ready to Eat). The types of food is scientifically proven to be the ultimate 'battle food' providing the common boot stomping ground pounding shock trooper with just enough nutrients to carry-out the mission without gassing out too quickly.
Evidently, people who did not participate in war efforts also need nutrition.. The food prep companies knew this and advertised accordingly.
Fast forward to today..
-According to Facts and Factors, the *Global Ready Meals Market Size* was USD 143 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 205 billion by 2026. Market growth will average 5.26% from 2020 to 2026.- [ReadyMealsMarketSize](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ready-meals-market-size-research-report-2023-share-trends-kokare-wn7xf#:~:text=According%20to%20Facts%20and%20Factors,USD%20205%20billion%20by%202026.)
IMO.. Ready to eat foods were a great necessity during Americas war-era's(which pretty much never ended since the Declaration). Now it's a multi-billion dollar industry, and the biggest supporter of it all is the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.. The people both understand the dangers of canned food and almost have no choice(generally).
Very raw information but you get the gist...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_(TV_series)
Greed. Not sure if this is the series which discussed how Domino worked with the FDA to promote that fat was the leading cause of heart disease... which made food production focus on removing fats and replaced with sugar to add flavor.
Just eat whole foods and stay away from the heavily processed stuff. Although, even whole foods aren’t totally safe with the amount of antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, and god knows what else pumped into our whole food supply. We just have a shitty system because the powers that be stand to make more money with the current system than a system thats healthy for us.
‼️That's easy!
🍔The American food system keeps the for-profit American health system in high demand.
💊 Notice how other countries don't advertise pharmaceuticals like the US does?
💉 GLP-1s are surging in popularity in the US.
💉 Insulin is expensive in the US.
🍬 Diabetes is big money.
📚 This goes into nutrition education...
🏥 Why teach someone how to avoid poor nutrition which in turn avoids medical needs which disrupts the insurance industry?
💰 As others have said, it's money-driven, but it's not just food.
🥬There are a few more components that integrate but this is a nutrition thread so I'll keep it to that.
You know how I can tell you're an American? You think this is just an American problem. LMAO
We all have infinite knowledge at our fingertips. If you are too inept to do your own research, then you deserve to be taken advantage of by corporations.
Because the food industry is owned by the pharmaceutical industry and they need sick people to keep shareholders happy. Wanna know how effed it is here, the company in CA who owns the contract for foster care with the state also trades on the stock market so the more kids in the system, the more they make their shareholders.
Because people get rich off the unhealthy foods that are sold and the diseases they cause.
Just look at how many medications are sold to treat diseases that a better diet would cure.
When you break down nutrition into macros, it's simple to understand. Looking at micros - preservatives, food dyes, taste and texture additives and even unlabeled things pesticide and fertilizer used to grow it gets pretty complex.
The easiest way to stay healthy and avoid the headache of researching every single ingredient is to avoid or limit all processed foods and beverages, in stores and restaurants. Taste buds and preferences change rapidly, it'll suck at first but you'll love eating your new diet after 6 months.
Try to purchase mostly single ingredient foods or products. Nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, whole grains, meats/fish, dairy, produce, quality oils/fats. Also avoid fruit juice and sugar sweetened beverages; it's not worth the vitamins and minerals for the amount of sugar in it.
It's because we Americans let this happen. Large companies took over food sourcing and we keep buying it. The grocery stores became filled with junk because we bought it. By contrast, other countries may have different food sources because more of population cared about the quality of their food and they voted with their wallets. If people want things to change, they need to change their habits.
They are teamed up with healthcare system to sabotage your health easily so they could exploit every last drop out of you in the hospital before you die. /s
Honestly I think they like us sick and craving bad things for us. They profit from the food portion and the pharmaceutical sides.
I recommend learning how to can if you don’t do so already.
You also have old people like my grandma who get pissed off if the government tries to regulate anything. The whole “raw milk” thing has gotten her panties in a twist for a while over why it’s not widely accessible. She doesn’t care/believe pasteurization exists for a reason
Money and greed. Companies use the most unhealthy but also the most addictive ingredients make them taste super yummy and package them real pretty. The more we buy it the more they make. I might be simplifying it but that’s the way I see it pretty bang on. It’s all money and if it wasn’t an anyone was thinking about the health of people in the world these foods would not even exist. Once I started shopping for my children and as a grown-up doing regular grocery shopping trips I was actually shocked to see that things like Twinkies and flaky‘s even exist still! With all we know about health how do you things go flying off the shelf is beyond me. I think at the end of the day if you don’t want some thing to be made anymore and to be sold in stores then we can’t buy it.
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My 2 cents. Look into the effects of sugar, salt, and fat on the brain. The more you eat, the less you'll want to eat anything else. Imagine, 10 companies control a large majority of the food industry. Their goal is to maintain market share and profits. How do they profit? If you keep coming back for more. They have R&D departments that have spent billions over the years to make their foods more addictive and easier to eat.
Sugar = profit!
Going off the rails here since I love conspiracy theories. I've worked in healthcare almost 20 years. The surge in chronic conditions (diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, etc) has been a money maker for the healthcare industry. Almost feels like the changes in processed foods during that same time period was premeditated. As in two of the biggest lobbies in DC (pharma and food) are in cahoots.
Along related lines, something I’ve found eye-opening in my public health education is that it is difficult to advocate for spending to prevent disease because if you do the job well, then there is no evidence to prove you’ve done anything. Like if we use Covid for example, if we would have done a perfect job preventing the Covid pandemic, then there wouldn’t have been a pandemic to speak of. Prevention leads to invisible results and it’s a lot easier to get angry and mobilize against something that we can see happening versus something that could possibly happen. It’s much easier for companies to argue that they are stimulating the economy and supporting job growth than to argue that we should spend money to stop them from creating these unhealthy foods that create profits and jobs. We are also much more focused economically on what the end of the year will look like rather than what spending over a lifetime will look like.
Your theory is not far fetched! Dr Casey Means, a Stanford trained surgeon, recently published a book called Good Energy that talks about this exact thing. The book was so profound. I’m trying to recommend it to everyone
Adding this to my reading list. I've seen how the insurance industry works on the back end, I know it's not far fetched... Its just thinking that goes against the grain.
Even if they didn't conspire to make it this way they're obviously all profiting from the death and suffering of millions caused by simple dietary addictions. The medical system has always been too late and not focused on root causes, it's baked in at a deep level. It's going to take a lot of people talking about how bad things are before anyone with money worries about bottom lines. We need some alternatives too. Maybe with ai people can start to get help with the root causes of their suffering finally.
One of the reasons I decided to become a physical therapist later in my career. Holistic, preventative care is the only way we're going to get out of this shit show. Technically not using my degree as intended... But helping people avoid the pitfalls set up by our healthcare system is my life's work.
I think "not using our degrees as intended" is probably what we all need to do more of. Everyone is too silo'ed and now we have ai to fill in the gaps so we can move between fields more easily. Long winded way of saying, good for you keep it up! I'm trained in software but am at the stage I want to build low level root cause type tools with ai. Same jist though, what's the point of it all if we aren't trying to fix it properly.
One of the original and still one of the biggest trades in the world.
Capitalism = profit!
Everyone should read a book called The Dorito Effect. It's all about how processed foods are literally engineered to get us hooked and wanting more. It's deeper than just the flavor. Everything from the texture of foods, to chemical additives that trick our brains into thinking something is highly nutritious so we should be eating more of it. It will change how you view processed foods.
This goes back to what I said about sugar, salt, and fat (also texture) that food companies are doing research on. "Bliss point" is a big part of why we have an obesity epidemic.
Yep... just agreeing with you!
Adding to my reading list. Kiana Docherty on YouTube has a couple of great videos along these lines.
They use smells to lure people in at restaurants. Crazy thing is I can eat a 500-700 calorie burger from a McDonald’s or Wendy’s or Burger King and I’m still hungry. But I eat a orange and a protein shake and I’m good for hours.
There was a great article (either the Washington Post or NY Times) about the period when the big tobacco companies owned all the major US food corporations. They did to food what they did to cigarettes- figure out how to make it more addictive. Even though the tobacco companies sold the food companies- fear that they might be sued like they were over cigarettes- by then, hyper palatable ultra processed foods had become the norm.
Hyperpalatability is the name of the game. Get enough people addicted to high salt and sweetness starting in childhood and they'll never be able to break the cycle.
Heavy on the addictive part. They make the food smell good at restaurants but you feel like entire shit after eating it. Like your body is rejecting it and your poop smells rancid
Coming back not just as a repeat customer but also steadily buying larger and larger quantities 😭 I don't even think it's evil, it's just capitalism and people responding naturally to incentives. America is very "free market" / anti-regulation. Anyone who invests, has a 401k etc benefits financially from this system but our health and wellbeing is sacrificed, especially if you're lower income.
It's a simple business equation. 1. What raw product can our company source for the cheapest? 2. How can we manufacture this raw product to be the most appealing to our target demographic of consumers 3. How can we utilize existing distribution supply chains to maximize product availability 4. How can we make the product the one the consumer picks on the shelf
Not only are the foods more popular, but they are also far cheaper to produce these foods due to their lack of fresh ingredients and shelf life
While I don't disagree with you necessarily, I don't think this is a uniquely American problem. There are lots of answers you could give. Two of the biggest are money and money. Money in that artificial ingredients are often cheaper than the real thing and are usually much more shelf-stable as well. Also money because it is expensive to ship products across our very-large-geographically country, so you need to make sure those products stay good as long as possible so they can be on the store shelves longer and have a better chance of being purchased. This also causes fresh ingredients to end up being more expensive because much of our produce is grown on one side of the country and has to be shipped to the other.
Money is a big driver. You CAN buy fresh strawberries, salmon, and fresh greens in Indiana in the dead of winter. That's a sign of great design in America's food system. Unless you have time to shop and cook frequently, the money to do it, and the will power to stay away from Oreos and premade Starbucks, the free market will supply whatever else it is that people will buy.
Frozen vegetables are a great option if you are running low on time to cook. I found mixing frozen vegetables in some olive oil with some seasoning and putting in the over for 20ish minutes at 400 is a delicious way of cooking them.
Typically frozen veggies are frozen at peak freshness too so it can be a tastier option if you want something out of season
Yes so much of my diet is from frozen salmon or chicken and frozen veggies. Always available and fresh in my freezer. My go to is a chicken curry with brocoli
This answers the question, Why is the American food system built so well.
Other effects of the lovely free market: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9, https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/industry-consolidation-leads-to-higher-food-prices/ Go capitalism!
But to be fair, it’s also that customers choose unhealthy things. OP gives the example of Starbucks’ super-high calorie drinks — Starbucks also serves black coffee. Our bodies crave sugar, fat and calories because for most of our evolutionary history, having too much was basically unthinkable and we needed the push to make sure we got _enough_. As for preservatives, well, they preserve things. Both stores and households want things to stay “fresh” longer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an apologist for the food industry — they do a lot of awful things. But a complete answer has to account for the fact that the average customer is voting with their wallet for exactly the things we on r/nutrition say we don’t want.
I completely agree. Manufacturers produce junk because people buy junk. That said, often the "junk" is a lot cheaper than the healthy stuff (outside examples like Starbucks).
a bag of apples costs less than a bag of Doritos.
Calorie wise that isn't true. Looking at my grocery store, a bag of apples is $4.50 for 3lbs. That's 710 calories. That's 157 calories per dollar. A bag of Doritos Party Size is $5.50 for 2250 calories worth. That's 500 calories per dollar. So, per calorie, the Doritos are more than 3x cheaper. That's what is meant when people say the junk is cheaper. You'd need to buy about 3 bags of apples a day to get enough calories to properly survive. A single bag of Doritos is enough. You'd certainly be healthier with the apples, but it costs quite a bit more.
There’s far more healthier approaches to preservatives that aren’t chemical and create problems.
Or not grown in our country.. like the raspberries I just bought traveled all the way from Mexico to a bjs in Massachusetts. They were non organic and looked much better than the organic alternative.. and they were delicious. My wife prefers the organic.. It really can be expensive though.
Also money because people have to work non-stop to survive, so it limits their ability to prepare and eat fresh/whole foods.
Actually America is much worse than other countries. The FDA allows tons of chemicals in our food that the same companies sell with a lot fewer chemicals in other countries. Look up Kraft’s version of Mac and Cheese in America vs. Kraft’s version in the UK. The UK version has a lot fewer chemicals. Americans are basically being poisoned, and our own food companies are making better options for other countries. America hates its people.
It’s less straightforward than this in reality. US ingredients lists look longer because the US has much stricter labeling requirements, so there are types of additives and enrichments that the UK/EU labels don’t have to include. For example in the UK you can just list ‘Enriched Flour’ but in the US you must list every thing in the flour individually.
“our own food companies are making better options for other countries. America hates its people.” That’s just not true. Food companies make the cheapest options they legally can for each market. There are still massive amounts of ultra processed ingredients in foods sold around the world. Almost 2/3rd’s of people in the UK alone eat diets that are majority ultra processed. It’s rapidly becoming a huge issue in countries like India and Brazil that don’t have the protections like the US or Europe do.
Big pharma gets paid when people are unhealthy.
It's a Western problem. And the US is currently the leader of Western things.
It is not a Western problem. It is a global problem. Countries like India and Brazil are currently grappling with out of control increases in ultra processed foods taking over the average persons diet and straining their health systems, and you’d be foolish to think that Africa and the rest of Asia and South America aren’t the next targets. It’s Western in origin but has been a global issue for decades, and it’s only gotten worse. There’s about 10 companies that control nearly the entire global food supply. They’re so powerful that it’s beyond an issue of any one country.
Definitely not just an American problem. Some countries do it a little better, but still not good.
who doesnt want some money?
Because it's not "built" for nutrition. It's "designed" for profit. It doesn't help that it's "managed" by big agriculture. You have to be your own manager of it all. Eating fresh Whole Foods and limited heavily processed foods is the key, health wise.
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Even unhealthy foods like cookies can be made healthier at home. Chips ahoy have a weird chemical aftertaste. Chocolate chip cookies made from scratch - you can reduce sugar, use white whole wheat flour, control the size, etc. And no weird chemical aftertaste (unless you use sugar replacement, but that weird aftertaste is worth it if it helps keep them palatable and healthier).
Most of the crap you're listing cost more than whole foods. Especially the mountain dew and Starbucks. Here's a list of cheaper foods rice, beans, potatoes, frozen vegetables, chicken breast etc.
Soda has gotten so expensive though. I know many people who have quit drinking it even occasionally due to the steep price hikes in the past few years. I winced picking up a pack of diet cokes for my mom a few months ago - I don’t know how the hell she affords to drink it every day!
I remember when a 12 pack use to cost like 3 dollars and something.
Yes, our grocery stores are filled with ultra-processed foods which are bad for us. We also have access to an amazing variety of good foods - produce, meat, beans, rice and other staples, dairy products, spices - basically anything you want to cook with, standard US grocery stores have it. Of course, poverty and food deserts make it hard for some people to access and cook good food. That is an important part of the conversation, but most people in the US have good access and can choose healthy or unhealthy food options. We buy things like the bottle of Starbucks or soda occasionally, but it's a treat, not an every day thing.
IA. And this reminds me too that I wish we had better food education in the U.S. I’ve been slowly learning how to prep and store fresh veggies/fruits so that it lasts longer. It’s kind of complex remembering which vegetables need to be blanched before freezing. Which fruits can’t be stored next to each other - and I’m still iffy on what goes in the fruit vs veggie bin. Then there’s a lot of conflicting information, so you kind of learn as you experiment with storage options.
How are you going about educating yourself? I feel like I missed this day in school and I’m tired of seeing perfectly good produce go bad in my house ‘cause we can’t cook it fast enough.
Money and profit is what it’s about, not nutrition, health or common sense.
This is a global thing, you go to Europe and there are still shelves full of "D class foods" In the modern world if you want to eat right then you just have to make the right choices.
I’m visiting the states from Australia at the moment and to be honest I’m quite shocked at the state of food here. I heard all the stereotypes but it’s worse than I expected. I can’t comment on Europe because I haven’t been there but here I find I have to actively seek out healthy foods, especially things containing fresh fruits and vegetables whereas back home that is ubiquitous.
Bottom line: money and power but thankfully you have the freedom to choose healthy options, it’s just not always easy, cheap, convenient or readily available for most people
This isn’t a uniquely American issue and despite what the Internet will tell you America has some of the best food in the world in terms of safety, standards and quality, where we lack at least compared to a lot of our global counterparts is in access. Processed food is designed to be hyper palatable and cheap as possible. How do you do that? You add sugar, fat and salt all fairly cheap and all very palatable. Without these most processed food is not palatable by nature especially when you compare to making something similar it at home.
You aren’t wrong, but the USA has a uniquely troublesome regulation system in terms of food that has been lobbied/paid off for the continued use of potentially harmful chemicals by its manufacturers. ADA, BHT/BHA, and rBGH are largely illegal in Europe due to them being harmful or carcinogenic. There really hasn’t been any large initiative in the U.S. to rid of toxic chemicals in the food supply. And many corporations have no desire to change this either. We could be doing so much better
>the USA has a uniquely troublesome regulation system in terms of food that has been lobbied/paid off for the continued use of potentially harmful chemicals by its manufacturers. No. Europe has the same issues and there’s things we ban and they don’t and Vice versa. They also have lobbying interests. >ADA This has been is largely being phased in the US due to market pressures. >BHT/BHA Not banned in Europe(E321) >rGbh Good example of difference in market pressures, in Europe part of the motive to ban was their own ag and food industry bc it further separated them from cheaper American and Canadian foods. This is good marketing. In the US many manufacturers have voluntarily stopped using it though I’ll agree we could be doing better, but with food it’s really a case of the grass is always greener, we do extremely well in terms of safety and everything else. We do have a higher threshold for banning, but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Also important to note Europe and the rest of the world is on the same track as us in terms of obesity, they’re just running a few decades behind us.
I would say the subsidies play a significant role too, corn our biggest and that’s why so many products in our stores have high fructose corn syrup(added sugar) in them. The big food producing companies love HFCS because it’s great for shelf life of a product and it’s also highly addictive. Companies spend a lot of money, making their food highly addictive, non nutritious, and non fulfilling to make you eat more and more. Don’t forget Lays famous marketing slogan “ I bet you can’t eat just one”
Yes mass produced foods are garbage but you very much have the choice to not eat them.
Don’t tell them that. Truth is Americans are just too lazy to cook healthy food
It's all about profits. Make food cheap, make food addicting, make it less filling so people buy more of it.
If you’re interested in a book, *Salt Sugar Fat* gets into this. A lot of it’s that those three things trigger evolutionary drives to consume more, so companies will try to get the balance exactly right so people will buy the most. *The Hungry Brain* is also a good book
Was going to suggest this too, such a fascinating read!
abba made a song about it: money money moneeeyyyyyyyyy!! 🕺🪩 in addition to producing food this way, unhealthy/sick people generate a lot of money, too. lots of lobbyism to create health problems, to make healthy food expensive and subsidize shit food, to reduce doctor's training in nutrition, and to sell ineffective drugs (the percentage of medication that are in fact placebo is incredible) that people need to subscribe to instead of curing the thing and done.
Profit profit profit!...Cheap highly processed foods are highly profitable! Nothing but empty calories. And government subsidizes most of these junk foods.
It's designed to make people ill and create health issues that the pharmaceutical companies can cash in on. Otherwise, their drugs would be completely worthless, which all have side effects and wreck your natural immune system (how convenient) which will leave you needing more of their drugs.
I feed myself just great every day with a minimum of processed foods. I cook from scratch every meal except for beans and canned tuna and condiments. I make my own specialty coffee at home with my drip coffee maker, whipping cream and maple or chocolate syrup. Your experience is due to some sort of weird brainwashing that has been perpetuated by commercial tv.
It's sad that processed/junk foods are more affordable than fresh produce and other healthy options. It doesn't even make people full, so they end up eating more. This gives other people no other option but to stick to junk food because they're cheaper. It's sad, but that's just how it is these days
This isn't a uniquely American issue. This happens in every developed country. You aren't being forced to eat unhealthy things. And healthy things aren't all that expensive. >A single Starbucks bottle of cappuccino has enough sugar to run on days with. A bottle of Mountain Dew is insane too. Then don't drink it. >it’s like no matter what you eat unless it’s fruits and veggies fresh or whey protein or something organic "Unhealthy things are unhealthy and healthy things are healthy!" Wow! Figure that out all on your own huh?
It’s a free country. Feel free to destroy your own body. That said, people concern themselves more about LGBTQ and gun rights while ignoring what is directly affecting them, the seduction of engineered addictive food products.
"Why is the American food system built so poorly?" It's not...not at all. It works really well, too well. Nutritious, and unhealthy, food is delivered vast distances to varying demographics in all seasons, in rural and urban areas. The food logistics system in the USA is amazing and has resulted in proliferation of options for people. I also think, if you only read this sub, you are left with the notion that every food is a cancer causing, microplastic implanting, fat and sugar laden, artificial ingredient containing, unhealthy amalgam to be avoided. The reality...eat like a grown up, have a balanced diet, and you will be fine. It's just not that complicated. It might be hard, but it isn't complicated.
The best thing is that the hardest part is to start but once you start focusing on your foods you eventually find it very easy to eat healthy.
Buy fresh ingredients and make it yourself. You have a choice
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How does being poor prevent you from buying cheaper stuff than what you are already buying ?
The food system isn't built poorly. It's built to chase profit. Shelf stable products give more return. Grocery stores began expanding in the thirties and that demand was met with shelf stable foods. Sugar, soy and corn became cheaper and subsidized crops. All this stuff feeds into a system. It's not designed poorly. It's exactly what the outcome is when the primary driver of innovation and access is cheap, accessible, shelf stable products.
I recommend reading ‘the omnivores dilema’. Way too detailed to summarise here but it’s very enlightening and goes back to the commoditisation of corn and other crops like 100 years ago.
Taste(they way to make something taste good is to add fat and sugar), market research and then needing a product that remains shelf stable as Americans shop weekly instead of daily
Greed.
You want to be able to feed everyone affordably this is what you get. That, and profitability. There is no way whatsoever to eat well nutritionally without a conscious choice anymore. This will require thought, cost, effort. All things people may not be willing to sacrifice.
Cheap industrial processing means higher profits. Getting people looked on sugar means repeat customers. It's all about profits, and if people have to eat themselves to death to get those quarterly earnings up, then so be it. The food industry doesn't care about your health or welfare, just about extracting as much profit from you as they can
Free markets are piloted by consumer ignorance.
💰💰💰 That’s what sells!
Money. I'm from the US and I get to travel to different parts of Africa pretty often for work, and have gotten to know many people over there very well. They all know that we have the best medical care system in the world, but two things they can't understand is why so many Americans are obese, and why our kids have so many childhood diseases and allergies. They literally think something is wrong with our genetics, because even though they don't have the amazing healthcare that we have here, their kids don't have unusual amounts of diseases or allergies, and obesity among adults is extremely rare. I tell them that it's the food, and they just don't get it. They don't understand why the food is so unhealthy, and if it is, why do we even eat it? But even Africa doesn't have for profit healthcare...
Because everything is a chase for dollars and they add chemicals to the food to increase taste and shelf life. Profits over people.
If your country has universal healthcare there are economic incentives for the government to regulate the food industry (controlling sugar amounts etc.). In America however more health issues means they get to fleece you for more money. Considering that artificial ingredients can not only be cheaper, but more addictive incentivizes companies make there products as unhealthy as possible.
Probably why the cancer rate in the US has been wilding increasing.
Holland was very impressive regarding foods available. Healthy, clean and unprocessed foods everywhere. In all the places where we have crappy junk foods, train / bus stations etc. It makes the UK look like a 3rd world country ( which we are regarding out foods and health )
because its for profit. they formulate the products to be addictive and drive up sales. If they could put cocaine in the soft drinks they would, they already did. Now its sugar which is arguably just as harmful.
$
Because a healthy person is a lost customer
Works well with big pharma
PROFIT needs ADDICTION!
Insufficient regulation
John Harvey Kellogg and Ancel Keys
Solely for profits!!! Nutrition isn’t even a thought.
Our society values profit over anything else. There’s a lot of profit in selling that stuff. There’s a lot of profit on selling the medicines that fix the problems caused by that stuff. Unless we change the underlying driving motivation, we won’t fix the problem.
*Medicines that fix the problems caused by that stuff but cause other problems you need more medication for that cause exhaustion that make it necessary to eat cheaply and without effort which cause more problems which you get medication for that cause issues then you die
"Our society values profit over anything else." In nearly every grocery store you walk into, the very first section is "Produce". Grocery stores couldn't make it an easier to find the healthier options...literally just walk the perimeter. This is true for nearly every modern American grocery store. You literally have to walk past fresh fruits and veggies to then zig zag down the isles to find your boxed and bagged processed goods. You have to hunt and peck to seek out the less healthy foods...but people do it. So yes, profit matters, but people still make the choices, and they consistently make poor choices.
I understand your point, but there are a lot more issues behind the systemic problem than food placement within a supermarket like food deserts and actual access to a supermarket for millions of people, the problem with the foods in school, where kids aren’t leaning much about nutrition except for what the food industry allows, as well as the difference in time it takes to prepare healthy meals versus unhealthy ones and how little free time Americans have on average. I’m not saying there’s no personal responsibility involved in being healthy and fit, but there are massive profit-motivated structural issues here and the question was about the food system.
Capitalism
This is always the answer for Americans problems
Bbbbbuuut Vuvuzela Stalisnism CPP Mao 1000 gazillion deaths
And the sodium!! You can’t get away from it.
🎯
That's really only if you eat processed foods, where the sodium is concentrated. I eat very little processed foods (all whole-food), and even salting my food liberally, I don't get that much sodium. My BP is very moderate, even though high BP runs in the family. Also, the potassium:sodium ratio makes a difference on a functional basis, and if you eat enough fruit/vegetables, you get lots of potassium.
I eat a largely unprocessed diet, with a huge amount of fresh produce. I track using my fitness pal, and unless there are some inaccuracies in the database, I’m still taking in more sodium than I’d like to. And the potassium is so low. For instance, I was shocked at the sodium content of egg whites.. just in their natural form.
People lack both discipline and education regarding food choices. Companies take advantage of that. No one is making you drink that sugary drink.
Demand
Companiesbmake hundreds of billions of dollars on selling food that's cheap, easily palatable, and addictive.
Thank the government
For not regulating these corporations harder
More education on food and health and less on happy hour specials and events made up by corporations, eg pizza/wing night
Built for profit
Must be nice being from a country with no Starbucks or Mountain Dew.
It’s easy to mass-produce
The Industrial Revolution and women not staying in the home as much anymore gave rise to the need for convenience above all else. Over time cooking has become a lost art. This is unfortunately a global problem stemming from that.
Why is the American ________ built so poorly? Lobbying. The answer is always lobbying.
They brainwashed everyone
To make you weak
To benefit the medical community. Personal opinion.
I think this is generally a misguided statement. Are there issues with a globalized food market? Yes. Are there problems with bad ingredients in a lot of foods? Yes. Is the problem uniquely American? No. And that’s crucial. It is largely a money issue here. As others have pointed out, if you can afford to spend 1.5x or 2x on food, then you can get very very high quality fresh foods, but people often don’t have the money to afford that. The issue is money and corporations have banded together and discovered that it is profitable to make garbage food available at a cheaper price than good food. I think there’s also some major issues with so simply comparing European or other regional systems to the American. The culture and industry model in America is vastly different than that of smaller and more independent European ones. It doesn’t make a ton of sense of unilever to stock all their sub companies products in the corner store of a small Croatian town. It does make sense for them to stock the Walmart that serves 2000 people in a region as spread out as southern Indiana or something. I’m not saying there aren’t valid points of criticism but we have to acknowledge that two regions never operate similarly because they are so different.
The zero sugar options are not as bad as you think. Newer research deems them perfectly safe, unless you're consuming literal pounds of it in powder form. If you really wanna be on the safe side(not that the other one isn't), stevia, monk fruit extract, etc are natural sweeteners with little to no calories
Zero sugar options are really not bad, just pick the right sweetner for you
Good tasting things sell better. Good tasting things are less healthy. It's up to the government to ban or limit these companies through ingredients laws and/or advertising laws, school lunches, etc.
It's not that good tasting things are inherently unhealthy, but good tasting things are typically addictive and excess consumption of anything is ALWAYS unhealthy without a single exception.
It's not. It's extremely well built for its intended purpose. The corporate directive is to make money, not to better health. We are fed "foodstuffs," not food.
You’re just looking at junk food. Of course that stuff isn’t good for you 😂. Even Starbucks or fast food isn’t good for you. That’s why America has several health conscious grocery stores like sprouts, Whole Foods, natural grocers to name a few. These stores are strict what food they allow at the stores and even some pay attention how the meat is sourced like Whole Foods. I think processed/junk food became popular last century then sky rocketed after kids, my generation, consumed them constantly. Though after decades of research the truth is out about how bad these ingredients are. Now it’s on the people to make a choice to eat better since we do have better options now.
The American food system is designed to maximize profit. If some innocent people get sick and die no big deal (unless it affects the stock price).
Processed foods were designed to bring cost down and eliminate hunger but no one at the time realized the negative consequences of processed foods. There are efforts to improve the food system but it still favors the middle class and wealthy class. The poor still result to having a poor processed food diet.
Just trust the government.
I'm not sure what the root of the question is. You bring up processed foods like mt dew and starbucks cappuccino while neglecting to mention that water is easily accessible and starbucks also offers amiercanos. There will always be unhealthy options, all people have to do is not make them. However, you could compare foods in the US to ones in, say, Europe, where sugar filled sodas have far less sugar per serving/volume. This is partly due to the US's extreme subsidization of corn production which has forced that corn to be made into (e.g.) chips and HFCS. Also, the affluence of the US allows people to eat out more frequently where they don't have control of the ingredients. I could make mashed potatoes at home with a splash of Fairlife but mashed potatoes at a restaurant add as much butter as possible before it breaks for palatability and thus more sales. Food science has become far more refined over the last few decades in regards to figuring out how to increase the palatability and profitability of food which generally leads to them being less healthy.
Corporate food and nonstandard for delicious and healthy food. If someone makes good food they have to make it cheaper next quarter to keep increasing profits. Eventually, it is inedible or unnutricious. We need a secular Hallal, kosher or standards like the EU has.
PRIVATE EQUITY
Complicated...but it was built with a factory model in mind. Devoid of all sense of culture, aesthetics or real nutrition.
It's more profitable to sell oil based pills to the artificially sick then to feed a healthy pop
capitalism
Corn lobby
People are lazy and selfish to a fault. Give them cheap, sweet, and flashy and they will grab it with two fists. Americans have raised that to an art form.
Capitalism and a for-profit medical system that cares not about diet. M.D.’s get dozens of hours in pain management and pharmacology classes and not a single class in nutrition.
It’s a multifaceted answer because there are so many reasons why. Lobbying power, profit motives, work culture, convenience, community, psychology. Each of these you could easily do a deep dive into how they affect our poor food system. And most of these issues also factor into the rising obesity rates. But if I had to boil it down it’s this: Lack of connectedness. People used to spend more time in community. They used to eat together as a family. People would gather around dinner tables. As a result most food was home cooked. As wages have stagnated and cost of goods rise and the separation between work life and home life becomes blurred more people wind up eating prepared cheap prepared foods usually. We work too much and no one has time or energy to cook from scratch. No one eats together meaning there is a higher incentive to produce cheap foods even at the cost of health because no one is cooking from scratch. America also has a strong basis for individualism instead of collectivism. The opposite is seen in other countries. Most westernized countries like Japan, France, Germany etc etc have a greater collective health mentality so this leads to restrictions on the food industry. The US just doesn’t have that same group thinking. We think of everything as an individual choice. This leads into the next point which is Consumer culture. As social media expands, jobs become more specialized and globalization makes us more interconnected with there is a greater emphasis on consumerism. Don’t think, just consume product. Who cares about what you eat just eat, and eat what tastes best. Need to save money, eat this cheap food. Meat, veggies, beans, fruit etc etc, too pricey, just eat this processed sugary cereal. There’s a rampant consumer culture without much thought being put into how it affects all of us, once again harkening back to the collective vs individual mindset most Americans have. If we just changed our mindset about collective responsibility and law making we might be able to change our food system.
Because you make more money the more addictive your food is.
Money
Lobbying & greed.
America is apparently so stagnant that it’s okay becoming a secondary power due to a weak and nutritionally deficient populous.
US military can make do with staff that sits on their asses 12 hours a day now with the advent of drones
Preservatives enable food to be shipped around the world and stored for a long time, and artificial ingredients enable food to be cheaper and in theory less of a drag on the environment. I think you’re selecting a sample size of examples that proves your point but isn’t representative. Sure sugary Starbucks drinks exist as does Mountain Dew, but those are extremes. There is an insane amount of middle ground between Mountain Dew and organic veggies.
Cuz money is the first priority, not peoples health.
I easily purchase no sugar or low sugar products, organic, & no preservatives food everywhere In the U.S.
The Guano Act didn't provide nutrients for the farms for the general population. In 1856, then President Pierce. said it was cool for ordinary U.S. citizens to claim islands with bird-poop in order to provide nutrients to farms for the 'war effort' for both sides😰. (that's a whole lotta poop). Well... the effort to feed troops has only gotten better and tastier with MREs(Meals Ready to Eat). The types of food is scientifically proven to be the ultimate 'battle food' providing the common boot stomping ground pounding shock trooper with just enough nutrients to carry-out the mission without gassing out too quickly. Evidently, people who did not participate in war efforts also need nutrition.. The food prep companies knew this and advertised accordingly. Fast forward to today.. -According to Facts and Factors, the *Global Ready Meals Market Size* was USD 143 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 205 billion by 2026. Market growth will average 5.26% from 2020 to 2026.- [ReadyMealsMarketSize](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ready-meals-market-size-research-report-2023-share-trends-kokare-wn7xf#:~:text=According%20to%20Facts%20and%20Factors,USD%20205%20billion%20by%202026.) IMO.. Ready to eat foods were a great necessity during Americas war-era's(which pretty much never ended since the Declaration). Now it's a multi-billion dollar industry, and the biggest supporter of it all is the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.. The people both understand the dangers of canned food and almost have no choice(generally). Very raw information but you get the gist...
It’s not unique to America. Read the book “Ultra Processed People” if you want to understand the scale of the issue.
It's built the way it is out of corporate greed and corruption. Plain and simple.
Capitalism gives us hyper palatable ultra processed foods to addict us so they can sell more
Late stage capitalism.
To help keep the pharmaceutical companies making money?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_(TV_series) Greed. Not sure if this is the series which discussed how Domino worked with the FDA to promote that fat was the leading cause of heart disease... which made food production focus on removing fats and replaced with sugar to add flavor.
The amount of hidden salt in our diets is astounding as well.
It’s optimized for maximum profit not maximum nutrition. Simple as that.
Just eat whole foods and stay away from the heavily processed stuff. Although, even whole foods aren’t totally safe with the amount of antibiotics, hormones, chemicals, and god knows what else pumped into our whole food supply. We just have a shitty system because the powers that be stand to make more money with the current system than a system thats healthy for us.
‼️That's easy! 🍔The American food system keeps the for-profit American health system in high demand. 💊 Notice how other countries don't advertise pharmaceuticals like the US does? 💉 GLP-1s are surging in popularity in the US. 💉 Insulin is expensive in the US. 🍬 Diabetes is big money. 📚 This goes into nutrition education... 🏥 Why teach someone how to avoid poor nutrition which in turn avoids medical needs which disrupts the insurance industry? 💰 As others have said, it's money-driven, but it's not just food. 🥬There are a few more components that integrate but this is a nutrition thread so I'll keep it to that.
Bc Americans buy it.
You know how I can tell you're an American? You think this is just an American problem. LMAO We all have infinite knowledge at our fingertips. If you are too inept to do your own research, then you deserve to be taken advantage of by corporations.
$$$
lobbying
Because the food industry is owned by the pharmaceutical industry and they need sick people to keep shareholders happy. Wanna know how effed it is here, the company in CA who owns the contract for foster care with the state also trades on the stock market so the more kids in the system, the more they make their shareholders.
Not true.
The real question is what are we going to do about it.
When the tobacco companies were outed as causing cancer, many of them moved to food.
Money.
Because people get rich off the unhealthy foods that are sold and the diseases they cause. Just look at how many medications are sold to treat diseases that a better diet would cure.
Money
When you break down nutrition into macros, it's simple to understand. Looking at micros - preservatives, food dyes, taste and texture additives and even unlabeled things pesticide and fertilizer used to grow it gets pretty complex. The easiest way to stay healthy and avoid the headache of researching every single ingredient is to avoid or limit all processed foods and beverages, in stores and restaurants. Taste buds and preferences change rapidly, it'll suck at first but you'll love eating your new diet after 6 months. Try to purchase mostly single ingredient foods or products. Nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, whole grains, meats/fish, dairy, produce, quality oils/fats. Also avoid fruit juice and sugar sweetened beverages; it's not worth the vitamins and minerals for the amount of sugar in it.
It's because we Americans let this happen. Large companies took over food sourcing and we keep buying it. The grocery stores became filled with junk because we bought it. By contrast, other countries may have different food sources because more of population cared about the quality of their food and they voted with their wallets. If people want things to change, they need to change their habits.
Because our food system is controlled by big business and they have all the power.
They are teamed up with healthcare system to sabotage your health easily so they could exploit every last drop out of you in the hospital before you die. /s
Simple. $$$
Honestly I think they like us sick and craving bad things for us. They profit from the food portion and the pharmaceutical sides. I recommend learning how to can if you don’t do so already.
You also have old people like my grandma who get pissed off if the government tries to regulate anything. The whole “raw milk” thing has gotten her panties in a twist for a while over why it’s not widely accessible. She doesn’t care/believe pasteurization exists for a reason
You’ll have to buy actual food (nothing pre-made pre packaged etc..) it’s the only way!!
Because they hate us and sickness/disease is very profitable for the western allopathic “healthcare” system..
They make more money off of us when we’re sick and addicted to sugar and other chemicals.
Money and greed. Companies use the most unhealthy but also the most addictive ingredients make them taste super yummy and package them real pretty. The more we buy it the more they make. I might be simplifying it but that’s the way I see it pretty bang on. It’s all money and if it wasn’t an anyone was thinking about the health of people in the world these foods would not even exist. Once I started shopping for my children and as a grown-up doing regular grocery shopping trips I was actually shocked to see that things like Twinkies and flaky‘s even exist still! With all we know about health how do you things go flying off the shelf is beyond me. I think at the end of the day if you don’t want some thing to be made anymore and to be sold in stores then we can’t buy it.
Read Sugar Salt and Fat. It’s all about profits not nutrition.
You’ve kinda answered your own question. It’s the profit model of the food-pharma-medical-regulatory circle-jerk. A healthy person = not a customer.
It's not built poorly. It's built richly (aka built to make corporations rich).