Since the answer is basically either A: "no good reason" or B: "I believe I have science on my side", this really isn't a good response to an article about how controversial the science is. Which science do you think you have? Why is it better than the other half of the science?
This is a generic reply to everybody jumping up to explain what the truth really is.
I agree that it's not a response that is constructive to the science at hand, but it's a fine response for an individual. Unless you want to obsess over having the perfect diet, you can have a diet that is 80% healthy with 20% of the focus if you just diversify your diet across many different sources. The only thing we really know about scientific knowledge is that it will continue to evolve.
Would "people ate less and suffered less heart diseases time ago?" qualify as C?
Of course this point has the same problem of lacking details. But recognizing "modern food" as a culprit is actually less overeaching than putting the blame on a single substance that has been used for centuries.
"Would "people ate less and suffered less heart diseases time ago?" qualify as C?"
No; that would fall under "no good reason". Are you sure people "ate less"? Given that we (think we) know that people of the past were also more active (although history is definitely on your side for that one), and how much more active people need to eat to sustain their activity, I would be completely unsurprised to learn that people in the past consumed more calories than the average American. You'd need to do quite a bit of science to nail this down.
Unless, of course, you've seen the relevant science, in which case it falls under B.
It's hard to escape from needing to have done science to really know what the problem is, and it's also hard to escape from the fact that all the science is really a great deal less clear than we've been led to believe by our government and public health organizations. It's clear we have problems; it's way less clear what the cause truly is. It also is reasonable to observe that you can "eat better" with less processed food, etc., and exercise is reasonably well established as helping, but why, exactly? We may speak in English of that as being one or two changes, but it's not; it's hundreds, thousands, perhaps even more changes, all at once. Which of them are relevant, and exactly how? Those questions are much less well answered. It also doesn't necessarily matter to you personally in the end. But it does mean that confident declarations about what is "really" the cause are poorly supported right now on all fronts.
I've been looking at this for many years too, and just about the only conclusions I've come to are A: less processed does seem better B: exercise does seem to be important but it's surprising how much debate about which types of exercise are good for what is still happening, again, despite what we've been led to believe and C: the consensus I was taught growing up in the 1980s is dead wrong in almost (but not quite) every detail, but that doesn't mean I know what is right.
There are still entire massive dimensions poorly explored by science; for instance, go look up the science on "intermittent fasting". One of the first things you ram into is that while there have been several studies on it, they all use the exact same schedule, which happens to be fairly unrealistic. No exploration of the space as a whole, just this one point, sampled over and over again. Does the schedule of your food intake matter? What's the best one? Science very nearly just shrugs at this question. Who knows what else we're missing?
Although not a perfect proxy, the USDA has tracked data for "food available for consumption" (an inventory based statistic) per capita per day since 1909. This makes it good for this question simply due to duration.
Charts with the data from 1909-2010 can be found here:
The kilocalorie availability per capita per day was pretty consistently in the 3100-3400 range until about 1976 or so. After 1976, the kilocalorie available per capita per day slowly creeps up until it reaches about 4000-4200 calories a day.
This metric is not perfect by any means, but I would say there's a high probability that this correlates to the United States consuming more food, for what it's worth.
It's honestly the one food metric with this particular dataset that stands out. The percentage of calories from sugars and sweeteners, sodium levels, and grain consumption seems consistent with the 1950s.
The only other data metric that stands out with to me (if this dataset can be inferred as a proxy of changes in the food industry) is a large rise in the percentage calories consisting of fat. Specifically, the "salad / cooking oils" rises from being 0.5% of calories available in 1909 to a whopping 15.1% of calories available in 2010.
Unless, of course, you've seen the relevant science, in which case it falls under B.
My point was that, even if not exactly science, basic facts are known. Yes, I'm sure people ate less in the past. I've seen the numbers and, to a certain extent, I've seen people changing their habits in my lifetime.
This is like a tide, while many studies are focusing in a few waves. That's what my point anyway.
I do see the connection between that and the ongoing discussion, but it's subtle and mostly caused by my careless use of terms. Let me fix it a little: the diet of our ancestors was mostly "slow" carbs and a modest amount of proteins, except if you have rich ancestors, that's it. Now there are cheap proteins and a lot of refined carbs that are the equivalent to a nuke for metabolism. So I should have said that heart diseases have raised while much has changed in diet but salt intake has probably decreased because of medical recomendations.
Yes - modern Western diet is much closer to what pharaohs with all their deceases have eaten, rather than what a typical person experienced, say, 100 years ago.
You mean millenia. There's evidence of people harvesting salt dating back as far as archaeology takes us. Salt mines dating over 8000 years ago. Ancient observers writing about the salt trade 2500 years ago. And so on.
The later seems tongue in cheek, isn't it? But the former is actually true. I guess cancer is now a bigger cause of mortality just because we live longer and so we have more time to get it, instead of dying earlier of another, now tractable, illness. I don't think raise in heart diseases can be explained just by that effect.
Since the answer is basically either A: "no good reason" or B: "I believe I have science on my side", this really isn't a good response to an article about how controversial the science is. Which science do you think you have? Why is it better than the other half of the science?
This is a generic reply to everybody jumping up to explain what the truth really is.