Said Ashley Gearhardt, associate professor in the psychology department at the University of Michigan, director of the Food and Addiction Science and Treatment lab at the University of Michigan, quoted in "Are Addictive Foods Making Us Fat?/Food researchers debate whether highly processed foods like potato chips and ice cream are addictive, triggering our brains to overeat" (NYT).
The other side of the debate is Johannes Hebebrand, head of the department of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatics and psychotherapy at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany: "You can take any addictive drug, and it’s always the same story that almost everyone will have an altered state of mind after ingesting it. That indicates that the substance is having an effect on your central nervous system. But we are all ingesting highly processed foods, and none of us is experiencing this altered state of mind because there’s no direct hit of a substance in the brain.... It’s the diversity of foods that is so appealing and causing the problem, not a single substance in these foods."
What do you think? Is it that some foods are just so appealing that you want to eat a lot or that some foods have a certain something that hooks you? Maybe these 2 experts could get along if they looked more philosophically at what wanting is.
Also, I get the feeling that there's a somewhat political urge to blame big corporations for manufacturing tasty food. And a snobbish aesthetic preference for the idea of the "natural." Are the strawberries in the supermarket "naturally occurring foods"? That seems like a rather silly assertion. Strawberries make a visual argument for themselves... or do they?
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161 comments:
Franken-wheat.
Read what they have done to wheat. It is an eye opener...
For the record, I think that carbohydrates — in more natural seeming things or not — are the problem in weight gain. I think they do affect the brain and cause you to want more of them. Eliminating them as much as I can puts me in a more serene mental state with regards to food. If I eat them, I'm always prowling for more. It's much harder to control.
I'm simply glad that (hopefully) real, serious research is going on. The change in our average weight is a major social change and deserves serious attention.
It could be as simple as the total cost of tasty high caloric food has plummeted, where total cost includes the time costs of preparation (which has plummeted due to fast food and things like potato chips).
Or something in the water.
>>Are the strawberries in the supermarket "naturally occurring foods"? That seems like a rather silly assertion.
I tried growing naturally occurring strawberries once, but I must have done something wrong. They were just hanging there on the plant, and not piled up in those little green baskets.
Agree about carbohydrates, Ann, at least wheat, corn, rice, and potato based. I have never had a problem with drugs or alcohol, but put a loaf of fresh bread on the table, and I will eat it all. I just cannot be moderate with those particular carbs. But I won’t overeat asparagus or broccoli. When I eat meat there is a moment when my body says “quite enough”. I also feel more clear mentally when I avoid them, and feel less pain from arthritis.
Many of the "natural" foods we eat have been genetically modified over thousands of years of selective breeding. Teosinte, anyone?
@Harsh Pencil - I suspect we did something to our gut bacteria, probably from bunches of anti-biotics in the 60s and 70s. Eastern European young women must weigh 25’ lbs less on average than their American counterparts.
What do the media and Joe Biden say that science says? That's what I believe!
People would eat less if they'd smoke more cigarettes.
"People don’t experience an addictive behavioral response to naturally occurring foods that are good for our health, like strawberries."
Person has never eaten dates.
how much are fresh strawberries a pound? i'm seeing $28
i WONDER, are people "Addicted" to Godiva chocolates?
to wit:
The REASON WHY people get "addicted" to 'junk food' is because it is basically free
your body is DESIGNED to eat AS MUCH sugar and fat as can be found
because sugars and fats are (WERE!) very scarce, and VERY compact
If junk food cost $28 a pound, or $50 a box, people would NOT eat as much
If junk food cost $28 a pound, or $50 a box
I'm sure our betters are working on that..
Strawberries are an amusing choice, as they are one of the most recent foods to be added to the human diet. They were bred intensively in the middle ages from wild strawberries, which evolved to attract birds. They are very much NOT a naturally occurring food.
I wonder what would happen if I ate nothing but raw onions for a week straight?
They are very much NOT a naturally occurring food.
Basically any human food is not naturally occurring. We've been aggressively breeding for specific traits for thousands of years.
Not addictive. Two causes to excessive weight:
1. Our affluence. We have so much wealth that scarcity of food is not even close to being an issue.
2. We don’t do heavy manual labor - work in the fields or hand wash the clothes - any more. We sit on our duffs.
I’ll add another one. We’re more in need of comfort as our society gets more and more brutal. Food is often a comfort.
Instant mashed potatoes makes everything better. With powdered egg whites for breakfast (otherise powdered egg whites are a problem mixing with water); with Amy's soups to make a satisfying soup flavored paste.
None addictive.
The big food companies intentionally design many food products to give them better "mouth feel" to make you want to keep eating them...
See "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food" NYT. 2/24/13
Salt, thickeners, artificial flavors and other additives in highly processed foods strengthen their pull by enhancing properties like texture and mouth-feel, similar to the way that cigarettes contain an array of additives designed to increase their addictive potential, said Dr. Gearhardt. Menthol helps to mask the bitter flavor of nicotine, for example, while another ingredient used in some cigarettes, cocoa, dilates the airways and increases nicotine’s absorption.
“ I think that carbohydrates — in more natural seeming things or not — are the problem in weight gain.”
My take is that carbohydrates are not per se bad. They are just too loaded with energy for our desk-sitting lifestyles.
I think that carbohydrates — in more natural seeming things or not — are the problem in weight gain. I think they do affect the brain and cause you to want more of them. Eliminating them as much as I can puts me in a more serene mental state with regards to food. If I eat them, I'm always prowling for more. It's much harder to control.
That's been my experience as well.
@Oso Negro.
You might be right. Something like that is what I meant by maybe something in the water. Some kind of environmental change other than cheaper tasty food.
Here's one bit of data: Our average internal temperatures have fallen. 98.6F is no longer correct. And it certainly isn't for me, but used to be when I was younger.
That, in and of itself, implies I need less food to maintain my body temperature. Why is that happening not just to me, but to everyone? I have no idea.
Churchy LaFemme: said...
gilbar said...
If junk food cost $28 a pound, or $50 a box
I'm sure our betters are working on that..
Never happen. I mean, if Americans started eating better how would the elites prove their superiority? I don't think Ashley Gearhardt, associate professor in the psychology department at the University of Michigan, would be satisfied with only being able to claim that she was better at shitting than the rest of us.
I think it's a couple of factors:
I think that there are some foods, generally carbohydrate rich ones, which trigger the pleasure centers in our brains and encourage us to eat. Heavily processed foods are worse, because they've been designed for maximum appeal to those areas.
I also think that the lack of physical activity plays a role. Not in burning calories, but in relieving boredom. People overeat because it's a form of stimulation when they're sitting all day in front of the TV, computer, or in the classroom.
Ah the food police! Humans are hard-wired to respond to high calorie foods because for virtually all of history FOOD WAS SCARCE. Where supplies are now abundant (and engineered to be pretty and tasty) we eat more than we need. It is a sign of wealth and success that food is so abundant. The rub is that with so much abundance comes the responsibility to make smarter choices. Calling overeating “addiction” is not helpful IMO.
My take is that carbohydrates are not per se bad. They are just too loaded with energy for our desk-sitting lifestyles.
I read carbs spike insulin, protein and fats do not. Insulin is the fat storage hormone.
Does anybody know if that's fact?
One other thing might be that immigration patterns over the past century play a role as well. Humans in one region adapt to efficiently process a specific diet, only to move half-way around the world and change their diets completely. But their bodies haven't adapted and so can't efficiently process new types of food.
Controlling food addictions is fairly simple if you eat the right kinds of food,
"Donuts - is there anything they can't do?"
If strawberries came with salty fat we'd be addicted to those too...
The potato is the delivery mechanism for the salty fat. It's the fat we crave but eating fats satiates hunger. The empty potato carbs help keep the craving going.
"Does anybody know if that's fact?"
In a very oversimplified way, yes. In reality, the actions of insulin are much more complicated than that.
Insulin secretion largely tracks with blood glucose.
I've never been a carboholic but have been eating more carbs this winter [not sugar, mostly complex carbs like oatmeal, pasta, beans, rice & cornbread] and actually dropped a few pounds. Totally unexpected. Maybe a diet change every few years is a good idea.
Strawberries require effort to prepare. They need to be washed and the leaves/stalk trimmed, and maybe sliced up. Also, they are sweet, but not super sweet.
A bag of chips or a chocalate bar just need to be opened. If you were presented with a bowl of cut-up stawberries with whipped cream in your fridge every day by kindly elves, you would become addicted to that.
I dunno. I'll eat an entire pound of strawberries in any giving setting.
maybe I'm weird.
Just go to the gym 2 hours a day, like me, and you will be great, tight, lean and muscular. And you will get hot sex!
Tits
About those strawberries:
“The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit organization focused on human health and the environment, issues the “Dirty Dozen” report each year. EWG researchers this year found that more than 98% of samples of strawberries, along with spinach, peaches, nectarines, cherries, and apples, had residue of at least one pesticide. A single sample of strawberries had 20 different pesticides.”
Strawberry even made Pedro feel uncomfortable.
"Whatcha' lookin' at, man?"
It was a black hearted woman what drove me to them demon carbs.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...
I wonder what would happen if I ate nothing but raw onions for a week straight?
2/18/21, 7:41 AM
You would be a most aromatic nocturnal flying mammal.
"I read carbs spike insulin, protein and fats do not. Insulin is the fat storage hormone. Does anybody know if that's fact?"
Using the word "carb" is very imprecise. There are carbs in broccoli and in chocolate boom booms. The problem is blood sugar spiking. The body reacts, sends out lots of insulin. The insulin spike is the problem, as it hurts the body if occurring repeatedly (atheroscleoris, anyone). Reoccuring insulin spikes cause the body insuline resistance, and thus we proceed to prediabetic and diabetes Type II.
In terms of insulin spike damage, the best thing is to avoid the spikes :-). Thus, food with lots of carbs and fiber, which slows down the digestion of the carbs to sugar. One problem with "junk food" is that it metabolizes quickly, giving a "high". I think this is part of the "addicition".
I avoid processed foods as much as possible, including fructose and sucrose. I eat sweet fruit when it is ripe, which is not common, and that memory sustains me so much that I don't like the substitutes, imitations, and unripe foods.
Moderation in all things, yes. However, the Standard American Diet is not moderate.
I’m surprised you don’t have an everything’s a problem tag.
Person has never eaten dates.
Or had fig trees in their backyard.
The named processed foods that are possibly 'addictive' are loaded with sugar and salt.
The just need to get together with their Animal Science Dept. The Nutrition branch.
A simple look at the ingredients in hog feed will give you all the information.
Fat and sugar.
Our brains are hardwired to crave fat and sugar.
How is ice cream highly processed? It's milk, cream, sugar and some kind of flavoring. Chocolate, similarly, is not highly processed.
I can eat an entire tray of raspberries in one sitting. I do find them rather addicting. But the consequences of eating too many strawberries is a bit different than a bag of potato chips, isn't it?
I'm guessing the problem is that processed foods are more calorie dense, not that they are addicting.
Strawberries in Wisconsin in winter go bad very quickly because they get bruised in transit from whatever far way place they come from. They are very expensive if you figure the actual cost of what you can eat. Plus they are unripe and watery and easy not to like in winter. Potato chips, now, aren't harmed in transit and are ripe year round but, face it, they aren't perfectly crisp after the bag has been open only a short while. Doughnuts, nature's miracle food, if nature had been up to the job which it wasn't, always taste good because they don't last long enough to get stale and, even if that happens, they can be restored to perfection by nuking while wrapped in brown paper. Save the paper bags from at your local health food store for this purpose. Tips From Wild Swan's Kitchen.
"Person has never eaten dates."
This made me laugh. I love dates. But I can't eat a lot of them -- they're just too sticky sweet for me. Feels like my teeth are just coated with sugar after having one or two.
Now, date bars: those are where it's at. Dates plus oats plus butter plus brown sugar. (drool)
Gary Taubes covers a lot of the carb/insulin/fat impact in his book “Why We Get Fat”. I have been following most of his guidance and have maintained a 20lb weight loss. Have established Saturday as a “cheat” day to have bread/bun on a sandwich. The Whole30 plan is something the wife and I do a couple times a year to “reset”. Guidance there cuts out a lot of added sugar/alcohol/dairy. And I agree with the impact that dates can have on carb cravings.....
Strawberries are carbs, no?
Ann Althouse said... I think that carbohydrates — in more natural seeming things or not — are the problem in weight gain. I think they do affect the brain and cause you to want more of them.
A few years after grad school my weight shot up from 180 to 235 mostly because of a stressful consulting job where I ate tons of carbs. I was also traveling a lot and found little time for exercise. I went on the Atkins (low carb) diet and lost 40 pounds rather quickly. I have maintained that loss for over 30 years by mostly avoiding sweets and exercising.
My wife is short and has struggled with weight her entire life. She runs 30 miles a week, more when she trains for marathons. The only time she has been able to maintain a weight loss is when she is on the Keto (low carb) diet.
2. We don’t do heavy manual labor - work in the fields or hand wash the clothes - any more. We sit on our duffs.
Yep. This is the real issue. You can eat whatever you want if you're working hard. Though everyone's metabolism slows down when you get older. Thus, Tom Brady does have to radically change his diet to compete with guys twenty years younger.
Ditto on the delicious dates and figs comments above. Especially paired with coffee .... mmmm I’m going to have 2-3 right now in fact! Wait ... just did.
Make your carbs count.
Althouse at 7:24. Bingo. The problem in the beginning is that the body might want protein but the brain is thinking biscuits.
If strawberries were the only sweet food that existed, I guarantee you masses of people would be addicted to strawberries. One only need look to films and such made in the UK during WWII. Because of severe rationing, they treat a jar of jam like it is worth its weight in platinum, and when they put the jam in their mouths they react like they have been bodily assumed into heaven
by mostly avoiding sweets and exercising
I enjoy any diet that includes avoiding exercising!
One of my favorite stories on the subject of staying fit and eating what you want.
The Amish diet. Two minute listen.
I'm an alcoholic and haven't had a drink in over 20 years because I can't run my life and have a drink. I had to make a choice. Every now and then my wife will open a bottle of wine, pour herself a glass, drink half, then throw out the rest of the glass and the bottle too since it will go bad before she has another glass (for her, drinking at home is more expensive than drinking out!)
I can have a small bowl of ice cream and then forget there is a container in the freezer. My wife will keep eating until it's gone. We can't keep sweets in the house because she can't stop eating them.
So no, I don't think we can blame to food or drink. People can get addicted, or not, to anything. It's about them, not the particular food.
There's more than enough evidence that most carbs (not all) and sugar are our downfall. But that said, yeah, potato chips are my addiction and have been since...well...forever. My wife eats like Brady. She has for years (not Brady's diet, but on her own.) I, on the other hand, feel a responsibility to workers in other segments. Dairy farmers (ice cream and cheese makers). Potato farmers. (need I say more?). Wheat farmers (because...bread, duh). And cacao growers.
Someone has to support these people.
Drillers I worked with do hard manual labor all day and many of them are chunky to obese. I know plenty of fat and obese people who workout all the time.
From my own experience, the main triggers are sugar fat combination like cookies and ice cream or salt, fat, carb combination like chips and french fries. Alcohol also triggers my hunger response.
I try to focus on whole satisfying foods and a wide variety. One trick is using umami additives to trigger satisfying fullness.
Some have claimed this is controlled by the lizard brain, which makes sense because nutrition is a prime evolutionary driver.
Was starving this morning so I had a handful of raisins and cacao nibs. Great with coffee.
Anyone who thinks weight control is as simple as counting calories has never been handcuffed and dragged out of a Keebler warehouse at 3 in the morning, raving incoherently, covered in chocolate smears, cookie crumbs and broken glass.
Since when are potato chips and ice cream "highly processed?" You can make them at home with just a few staple staple ingredients.
I think lack of having a homemaker role in the family has as much to do with the obesity epidemic as anything.
"These are the foods that can trigger a loss of control and compulsive, problematic behaviors"
Anything can trigger anything in people who allow themselves to be triggered.
Problematic behaviors are problematic for people for whom they are problematic.
What we have here is an effort to deny human agency and moral responsibility.
Soon to be folded into the usual anticapitalist, antiracist prog narrative. Our obesity is due to capitalism, black obesity due to racism, etc. etc.
If eating half a carton of chocolate Breyers ice cream is wrong, I don't want to be right.
Natural and unprocessed isn't always better. Poison ivy is natural and unprocessed, and it's vegan too.
Last time I checked, psychologists aren't medical doctors while psychiatrists are.
Points awarded to the German.
"Anyone who thinks weight control is as simple as counting calories...”
And yet it is. After about five months of weighing and writing down everything I ate, reading “Nutrition for Dummies” and applying the lessons, and creating active habits, I have come to terms with the way my metabolism has slowed as I aged and managed to avoid thus far becoming the jovial fat old man that my uncles all seemed to become.
A twenty year old burns something like 2000 calories a day before he does the first bit of activity, a sixty year old it’s more like 1700. That’s a pound every two weeks gained if you don’t make some adjustments. And it’s amazing if you cut out the junk food long enough, that it loses its appeal. I bought a small packet of Milano cookies the other day (180 calories for the whole packet) ate one and threw the rest away because it just didn’t taste very good so what was the point?
MayBee said...
Strawberries are carbs, no?
No. Most berries are low-carb but strawberries are particularly low: 1.8g per 1/4 cup.
I'm also skeptical that particular foods are broadly addictive, though individual people may have their own demons to contend with.
As far as carbs go, I had a 75 lb weight loss from minimizing carbs a few years back that caused me to go on a bit of a research spree on the topic. Now I tend to focus more on eating fat and protein - if carbs are involved in the dish, I try to make them nutrient dense.
A few people recommended Gary Taubes. Along with him I'd like to also recommend "The Big Fat Surprise" by Nina Teicholz. Taubes makes a good case, but Teicholz goes into more of the history behind the internal politicking involved over the years that caused the High Carbohydrate Low Fat diet to become considered the health standard for decades.
I think that carbs affect the pancreas by conditioning the pancreas to overproduce insulin producing the sensation of hunger. It feels like your brain is doing it.
The Amish diet. Two minute listen.
Most of the Amish women I've seen are overweight. Not the men, though. I suspect too much time in the kitchen.
Since when are potato chips and ice cream "highly processed?" You can make them at home with just a few staple staple ingredients.
Ice cream from the store often contains other ingredients such as stabilizers, etc. plus lots of sugar. And making potato chips or ice cream at home requires enough work that you're not likely to eat them every day.
Brains are low carb and you rarely see a fat zombie.
Draw your own conclusions.
"Most of the Amish women I've seen are overweight."
Do any of them look like Kelly McGillis?
Triggers are not addiction
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hungry_Brain
Addressing the original topic, I recall the 60 Minutes did a segment some years ago about the flavor enhancers added to many foods. Even products that contain 'natural flavors' are really concentrated enhancers. I make nearly everything from scratch*, order my grains, etc., from a reputable supplier and have never liked potato chips or french fries. When I eat meat, I prefer real meat, not fake meat. But I dare not have any chocolate in the house.
*scratch is, alas, getting harder and harder to find.
See, Joe. We have something in common. Witness was peak Kelly McGillis.
I like stewed prunes and cook up a batch every few days. A few prunes with a spoonful of peanut butter is as delicious a treat as you can find. Dates are good but too sweet for me.
Dates with good swiss cheese is particularly tasty.
Fiber is the good carb.
Starch is ok in relatively small amounts. If you have vigorous exercise after eating starch that’s better. It’s a good fuel but you have to use it.
Sugar tastes good but is useless.
Eat less. Do more physical work. Life is not without effort. Fer Christ's sake, this is simple stuff.
Lays potato chips. you can't only eat just one. Engineered food at its finest.
Personally, I find there are some naturally occurring foods i could eat all day. Cheese with apples or pears. Dates. Love Dates. Walnuts and yogurt. Almonds and raisins. chicken thighs with some rice and ginger or curry.
Hmmm...I go eat.
Some one talked about people throwing away 1/2 bottle of wine. Yeah, that's a problem for me. I was brainwashed into not "wasting" food. So, i always tell my wife to get the small containers or whatever, so we don't feel like we have to eat everything. She wants save by buying large amounts (look at this 5 lbs of beef, what a price!). And i'm like, no we're not going to eat all that. And we'll either throw it out, or bore ourselves with endless meals of the same thing.
I would agree that getting rid of carbs is the key to losing weight. Every diet I've been on succeeded because I cut them out, and went to meat and vegetables.
""People don’t experience an addictive behavioral response to naturally occurring foods that are good for our health, like strawberries.""
The person that said this is profoundly dishonest or very very stupid.
Do they think alcohol is synthetic?
An apple if you skin it has less nutritional value than a snickers and it's sugar density is comparable.
When it comes to losing weight, there are simple answers. Just no easy ones.
"An apple if you skin it has less nutritional value than a snickers and it's sugar density is comparable."
I can't resist. Almost right. A pound of apples is about the same calories as a snickers bar. 200-250. So, that's about 3 SMALL apples = one snickers bar.
Every food you see in the market is not in its "natural" state. Strawberries were intensely bred for hundreds of years to a size and taste that was worth growing and marketing.
People overeat because food is cheap and convenient and tasty. It is wicked to try to make food more expensive, less convenient, or less tasty simply because too many people make the "wrong" choice.
There are too many people who want to manage the behavior of others for their own good.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.
I had to swear off peanut butter last week. I would split a date open and fill it with a teaspoon of Teddie's Chunky. Once I got to a large jar per week, I had to quit. Now it's dried fruit and Cocoa nibs. More satisfying less triggering.
I am liking strawberries more and more though.
Trying to get the kids to eat strawberries rather than bananas which are the devil.
Final Post. Someone else mentioned "hard manual labor". There was TV series, Pioneer House or something, and these people lived like Montana homesteaders in the 1880s. Any way, the husband was doing farm work, and despite scarfing down mass quantities of salted pork, meat, pancakes, bread, bacon, etc. he kept losing weight. At first he enjoyed trimming down and losing all his excess fat, but he kept on losing weight. No matter how much he ate. I didn't stay around to see how it resolved itself, but I assume he just cut back on the amount of work, and took more time off.
As for carbs, fat, it is not the case that an entire macronutrient is "bad for you". There's not "good food" and "bad food". There's "appropriate quantity relative to activity level and nutritional need".
People are highly individual. No diet will work for everyone and any crazy diet will work for someone.
I'm afraid we have to be adults and learn for ourselves how make trade offs and accept consequences.
Oh the strawberries, that's where I had them. They laughed and scoffed at me, but I proved by geometric logic....
Achilles, you are one dumb fuck equating a peeled apple to a Snickers bar. Whole fruit sugars are not processed through the liver like table sugar. Fatty liver disease is the #1 first world epidemic. Even China who suffers from skinny fatty liver disease.
Sorry, but that's utter garbage.
I can blow though a container of strawberries just as easily as a bag of chips. And pistachios are "natural". Those are a great way to get fat. Same for peanuts.
It is arrogant stupidity and / or religious zealotry, not science
Ann Althouse said...
For the record, I think that carbohydrates — in more natural seeming things or not — are the problem in weight gain.
Yes, they are.
Carbs go through quickly, and then you're hungry again. Fat makes you satiated, and lets you stop eating.
At first he enjoyed trimming down and losing all his excess fat, but he kept on losing weight. No matter how much he ate.
Cursed by a gypsy, most likely.
rcocean said...
"An apple if you skin it has less nutritional value than a snickers and it's sugar density is comparable."
I can't resist. Almost right. A pound of apples is about the same calories as a snickers bar. 200-250. So, that's about 3 SMALL apples = one snickers bar.
I was working at a summer job decades ago where there were a bunch of retired guys and a bunch of college kids. Lots of hours good short term money for college students and fixed income people.
We had a bunch of MRE's "expire." So we had to tear them all apart and throw them away. 1 out of 4 had a King Sized Snickers bar in it. We filled up the bottom trays of the refrigerator with king sized snickers bars. The wrapper said 600 calories per serving. Some finally noticed they were 2 servings each.
That event completely blindsided everyone. People were eating 2 of those a day with normal meals. The retired guys gained weight fast. This was my first real experience with just how ridiculous some of our food economy can get.
1st world problems of course.
@Mr Wibble,
I think you are right about boredom. I joke that when I spend too long driving or sitting in front of my computer, my mouth gets bored. CoVid has been terrible for this, as I no longer am moving from place to place constantly. Pre-virus, I had given up Wheat Thins (my personal weakness). Now, I go through a couple of boxes every week.
Fortunately for me, my weight set-point is far below normal (my BMI is 18). Partly a genetic trait (my mom used to eat potato chips DIPPED IN MAYONNAISE and was never heavy) and partly because I run between 30-70 miles per week. While I have noticed less of a buffer as I have aged (10 years ago, I regularly ate a box of Wheat Thins every night and couldn't keep weight on), I can still consumer well over 2500 calories a day and not gain an ounce.
Howard said...
Achilles, you are one dumb fuck equating a peeled apple to a Snickers bar. Whole fruit sugars are not processed through the liver like table sugar. Fatty liver disease is the #1 first world epidemic. Even China who suffers from skinny fatty liver disease.
I understand I hurt your feelings Howard.
I am sorry for pointing out your limits.
Thank you sir, can I have another.
Nina Teicholz's Big Fat Surprise is a great starting point and a terrific read. I think Taubes's semi-encyclopedic Good Calories, Bad Calories is essential reading in this area. If you were to read only two parts of the book, it should be the introduction and the chapter on "Diseases of Civilization". He shows how doctors working in the colonies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries discovered that natives eating their traditional diets were far healthier than European colonists eating sugar and refined wheat.
Insulin does a lot things, and one of the most important is that it keeps fat tissue in place via an enzyme called "hormone sensitive lipase". Base levels of insulin are low enough to allow some release of fat so you can live off of stored fat. Higher levels of insulin, such as after eating, suppress this effect.
Ever know someone who gained weight over a period of time, suddenly lost it, and were later diagnosed diabetic? Their fat cells became insulin-resistant, and there was nothing to stop them from "bleeding fat". Didn't fix their diabetes though.
I think long term elevated "basal" insulin is far more of a problem than insulin "spikes". Some proteins, such as milk and beef protein can cause spikes, but they don't make you fat.
Carbohydrate is not inherently fattening unless you become metabolically "broken" (which mostly means insulin-resistant). Lots of dietary sugar over time seems to be the principal culprit. Vegetable oils (corn, safflower, soy, basically "seed" oils) high in omega-6 fatty acids seem to turbo-charge the process and also have their own issues.
I think the point of the posted article was about something sometimes called "food reward". Certain combinations of fat, carbohydrate, and added flavorings and textures seem to trigger addiction-like responses in the brain that encourages consumption. Seems to be limited to packaged, processed carbohydrates, so a meat-and-fat-oriented diet (or a high-glycemic carb diet if you're not "broken") avoids this problem.
Just a brief, oversimplified summary of what I've been reading over the last ten years. And believe me, there's a lot available to read.
Most of the Amish women I've seen are overweight. Not the men, though. I suspect too much time in the kitchen.
It's not just less physical labor, it's that the women got used to eating a certain amount of food when younger and pregnant and nursing. I think it's similar to NFL players who become obese after they retire. It's hard to get used to eating less.
I had my last two children really close together, so I went from pregnant to nursing to pregnant to nursing without a break. That was almost 4 years of an extra two hundred calories a day. After I stopped nursing, I gained about ten pounds. This is fairly common I think.
And importantly, every individual has to figure out what works for him.
I participated in a research study at Stanford that was looking at pre-diabetes and carbohydrate metabolism. My blood sugars had been running a bit high--over 100 fasting, which qualified me for the study. I had been eating far fewer carbs than normal and tracking my blood sugar to see what happened; I was surprised that it went up.
The researchers found me fascinating--when given a bolus of glucose (arrive fasting, get a huge bolus of glucose, track blood glucose changes every 10 minutes), my blood sugar never peaked where they thought it should, and it plummeted very quickly. To the point that they had to terminate the experiment (at one point, my blood glucose was 35; that scared them. I felt fine--it must be a regular occurrence for me.)
My takeaway from all this is that I need carbohydrates to function. Other people, including some ultra runners, do great on keto.
Gabriel said...
People overeat because food is cheap and convenient and tasty. It is wicked to try to make food more expensive, less convenient, or less tasty simply because too many people make the "wrong" choice.
There are too many people who want to manage the behavior of others for their own good.
Gabriel wins the post
The Texas folks are all eating frozen foods.
My addiction is Peet’s coffee. They put some marvelous addictive in it.
Psychologists love to use phrases like "experience an addictive behavioral response and "trigger a loss of control and compulsive, problematic behaviors that parallel." Her UM faculty page says that she "developed the Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS) to operationalize addictive eating behaviors, which has been linked with more frequent binge eating episodes, an increased prevalence of obesity and patterns of neural activation implicated in other addictive behaviors."
I don't know what the hell any of that means, but UM happily notes that this food addiction scale "has been cited over 800 times and translated into over ten foreign languages." Out of morbid curiosity, I looked up the scale and was pointed to: "Preliminary validation of the Yale Food Addiction Scale" (2009).
Apparently, "survey data were collected from 353 respondents from a stratified random sample of young adults" and from these surveys it was determined that the scale was "a sound tool for identifying eating patterns that are similar to behaviors seen in classic areas of addiction." Similar to? Well, the paper does concede that "further evaluation of the scale is needed, especially due to a low response rate of 24.5% and a non-clinical sample."
In 2012, Dr. Gearhardt published "An examination of the food addiction construct in obese patients with binge eating disorder." This time they surveyed 81 people seeking treatment for a binge-eating disorder (BED). It turned out that the "subset of BED patients classified as having YFAS 'food addiction' appear to represent a more disturbed variant characterized by greater eating disorder psychopathology and associated pathology."
Ooookay. In short, Dr. Dr. Gearhardt doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
"If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit." -W.C. Fields
Birches said...
It's not just less physical labor, it's that the women got used to eating a certain amount of food when younger and pregnant and nursing. I think it's similar to NFL players who become obese after they retire. It's hard to get used to eating less.
I expect it may also happen when a society is moving from a labor intensive economy to a non labor intensive economy.
My wife had strawberries for breakfast, i had an orange. As for addictive food behaviour, don't get between me and a pineapple. I will eat those things till my throat and mouth burn. Grapefruit too. My son, when younger, wanted a grapefruit for some reason. They were on sale, 10 for $10. He didn't realize that it was 1$ per, so bought 10 to get the deal as he understood it. It worked out, as we had extra fridge space.
After 15 plus years of studying and experimenting on myself, dietary wise, I've come to two conclusions: 1. Gut health is primary. Not only to weight management, but also to overall health. I take soil based probiotics daily - not the cheap dairy derived ones. (We could have a long discussion on our over obsession with cleanliness. But, let's just say we use to consume a lot more dirt.) 2. Chewing. Remember, chew every bite X number of times? That was in the days when what we ate was a little harder to swallow if you didn't. Today nearly everything we eat could be swallowed without chewing more than a couple of times. It's the difference between a hamburger patty and a steak, a raw carrot and a cooked one, an apple and apple sauce, sandwich bread and a crusty dense loaf. The easier something is to swallow with little chewing, the more you'll consume. Try it with any snack like a bag of Fritos and a bag of corn nuts. Basically, the same thing in different forms.
So, take care of your gut and eat anything you want, as long as you have to chew it more than a couple of times in order to swallow it.
@JFarmer,
I suffer from an eating disorder (bulimia), controlled now for the past 20 years (but still lurking). I have reflected long and hard about my behavior. It seems to me that the behavior developed in response to anxiety and shame--meaning it had nothing to do with food, really. It is addictive only in the sense that it is a conditioned response. I was fascinated by the fact that after some years, merely thinking about bingeing was enough to trigger the behavior.
Therapy, meditation, CBT--nothing changed the behavior. Finally, one of the psychiatrists I was calling on for work told me she had used the antipsychotic I detailed successfully in treating bulimia (she did not know I was bulimic; she was just telling me about her experience). I went home, took a capsule (samples, yay)--and it was like magic. The urge vanished.
Over the ensuing decades, I would periodically DC the drug (gave me intractable insomnia). Within a few weeks, I would being bingeing and purging again. Rechallenge--instantaneously gone.
Clearly, there is a chemistry problem here, involving dopamine and serotonin.
Greg The Class Traitor said...
Gabriel said...
" People overeat because food is cheap and convenient and tasty. It is wicked to try to make food more expensive, less convenient, or less tasty simply because too many people make the "wrong" choice.
There are too many people who want to manage the behavior of others for their own good."
Gabriel wins the post
1. Agree.
2. People need to be educated about how shitty this food is for you.
Of course the government is the worst way to accomplish any positive goals. We got the food pyramid from the FDA.
Insulin spikes are just bad. Our race grew up for thousands of years without refrigeration or the ability to eat fresh fruit for more than a few months a year. It is the stressing of your pancreas and liver and the bodies metabolic system that lead to most of the serious health issues.
Someone else mentioned "hard manual labor". There was TV series, Pioneer House or something, and these people lived like Montana homesteaders in the 1880s. Any way, the husband was doing farm work, and despite scarfing down mass quantities of salted pork, meat, pancakes, bread, bacon, etc. he kept losing weight. At first he enjoyed trimming down and losing all his excess fat, but he kept on losing weight. No matter how much he ate. I didn't stay around to see how it resolved itself, but I assume he just cut back on the amount of work, and took more time off.
“Frontier House” was the name of the (2002) PBS series. (There are also several other related TV series, such as the “1940's House” in which a family is placed in a London townhouse, with all the rationing restrictions and so forth that residents there were subject to during the WWII Blitz.)
As for the food required for fueling major human exertions, the late physicist Philip Morrison — in his remarkable 6-part (1989) PBS series “The Ring of Truth” (in episode 2, “Changes”, offset 21:01 within it) — considers the energy (food) demands from the participants in the Tour de France bike race (in which each rider expends the energy equivalent of several marathons, day after day, for weeks).
Highly recommended! That segment, but beyond that, the whole episode, indeed the entire series.
It all comes down to calories in, calories out. Keep that in mind and you'll either know why you are fat, or you won't be fat.
"Trying to get the kids to eat strawberries rather than bananas which are the devil.”
I eat a banana every day. I count the calories in my total of course, bananas aren’t free, nor are potatoes, but they are both good for you. Usually I slice one up and lay it out on a slice of toast with peanut butter for breakfast, or slice it into a bowl of bran and oatmeal, but bananas work if you treat them with healthy respect. You can’t just eat one whenever you feel like it and then go on and eat your meals as if you hadn’t. Or at least I can’t.
I can deny that I am an old man all I want, but it doesn’t fool my body, so this is how I have to eat.
"...considers the energy (food) demands from the participants in the Tour de France bike race (in which each rider expends the energy equivalent of several marathons, day after day, for weeks)."
Michael Phelps consumed 12,000 calories a day when competing.
I am so very happy to live in a time and place such that the biggest health problem facing the poor is that they have too much food.
It would be helpful if the medical "community" would stop dumbing-down definitions of common words. Using "addiction" in place of "rewarded behavior" is doing no one any good and is just muddying the waters.
Then again, messing with language is what tyrants do. Given this psychologist's druthers in the public policy world, in the future we would be seeing mostly peaceful food riots as supply fails in the face of demand.
"We had a bunch of MRE's "expire." So we had to tear them all apart and throw them away. 1 out of 4 had a King Sized Snickers bar in it. We filled up the bottom trays of the refrigerator with king sized snickers bars. The wrapper said 600 calories per serving. Some finally noticed they were 2 servings each."
haha. Yeah, they're getting quite sneaky about it. I just bought a small container that had 2 servings. The whole container was only 6 ounces. Who the hell eats only 3 ounces? But they fooled a lot of people into thinking it was 170 calories and not 340!
A banana a day does NOT keep the Doctor away. Used to love them as a kid, but for some reason, can't stand them now. I'd rather have an apple or strawberries. Guess your attraction to sugar goes down as you get older.
Ah to be young again. I can remember scarffing down a whole bag of Cheetos with milk, and of course, not gaining an ounce.
Now, you couldn't pay me to eat a Cheeto. what are they? Fried flour with salt and orange dye? Talk about Engineered food.
This just in: People like sugar and salt.
Women and minorities hardest hit.
J. Farmer said...
Ooookay. In short, Dr. Dr. Gearhardt doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.
You aren't supposed to read what they actually did or what the actual data was.
People who work all their lives in University research have a really warped view of how the world actually works. The thinking is inbred and self referential. The more I learn about University based research the more it looks like a priesthood.
I think that giant corporations and government support this model because it is so easy to tweak the inputs and get whatever bullshit you want out.
I think you are right about boredom. I joke that when I spend too long driving or sitting in front of my computer, my mouth gets bored. CoVid has been terrible for this, as I no longer am moving from place to place constantly. Pre-virus, I had given up Wheat Thins (my personal weakness). Now, I go through a couple of boxes every week.
I spent six weeks last year driving around the country and visiting family while I was unemployed. When I started the trip I was 214 lbs. When I finished it I was 230 lbs. Spending eight hours on the road drove me to snack like crazy, and eat crap from fast food places. Even when I was with family, the lack of a job and the lockdown meant I was stuck in the house with lots of junk food and nothing to do.
@Anne-I-Am:
Clearly, there is a chemistry problem here, involving dopamine and serotonin.
You could make that statement about any maladaptive behavior a person engaged in. The role that dopamine and serotonin play in human behavior is not known. The mind-body connection is a black-box problem. We know that it can receive inputs and product outputs, but how does this is still mostly a mystery.
What do I think?
From whom does the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany get its funding?
Almost nothing in the produce department grows wild in nature. Have you ever seen iceberg lettuce or tomatoes growing in the forest?
With the exception of some nuts, berries and fungi, everything we eat has been genetically modified over the last few hundred years. The GMO controversy is a scam in that regard.
Farmer at 11:04 destroyed the study, and the author.
Al diets work if you stick with it. Trick is finding the most tolerable.
Blogger Titus said...
Just go to the gym 2 hours a day, like me, and you will be great, tight, lean and muscular. And you will get hot sex!
Tits
Titus, if we all do this you won't be special anymore. Did you think about that?
Now, you couldn't pay me to eat a Cheeto. what are they? Fried flour with salt and orange dye? Talk about Engineered food.
HELLO! Cheetos are Delicious Fried flour with salt and orange dye
rcocean said...
Final Post. Someone else mentioned "hard manual labor". There was TV series, Pioneer House or something, and these people lived like Montana homesteaders in the 1880s. Any way, the husband was doing farm work, and despite scarfing down mass quantities of salted pork, meat, pancakes, bread, bacon, etc. he kept losing weight. At first he enjoyed trimming down and losing all his excess fat, but he kept on losing weight. No matter how much he ate. I didn't stay around to see how it resolved itself, but I assume he just cut back on the amount of work, and took more time off.
2/18/21, 10:22 AM
The family asked that they bring in a "country" doctor for him as he got so worried about the weight loss and thought something was seriously wrong. He was fine, just not used to doing so much work.
If I recall, he was the one had an authentic period still made and brought it with them thinking he would have the time to make moonshine to sell to the local store.
They had two girls. The girls smuggled in makeup and hid it in the woods so the parents didn't see, but played with it while the cameras were rolling?!?
Both are right. First none of the foods that people commonly eat are addictive drugs in the classic meaning of "addictive drug".
Second the obesity epidemic in America, and the world, is largely a consequence of food producers designing foods that people really like to eat. All of these are refined foods that combine different stimuli to a degree and in a way that nature will almost never manage. The only natural food that I can immediately think of that some people will eat to excess and that will make them fat if they do so is honey. But still most people will not overconsume honey, and even if they would, honey is a rare thing in nature.
Almost all kids were skinny at twelve years old when I was young. Now half of them are overweight.
This is not because human nature has changed. It is because of the ready availability of inexpensive designed foods that combine stimuli to make foods that most people will eat to excess.
The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting The Instincts That Make Us Overeat
Written by a neuroscientist and obesity researcher, the book summarizes a lot of the research on the subject, explains a lot of what we understand about why obesity is happening, and offers some counter-intuitive strategies as to what to do about it.
@JFarmer,
That was my point. A chemistry problem is not necessarily an addiction. And the question of chicken and egg arises. Does a certain behavior, such as overeating, used to deal with uncomfortable emotions such as anxiety, imply a pre-existing chemical problem; or does it change the chemistry?
You are right. A black box. I was just grateful a pharmacologic intervention worked.
Oso Negro said...
Blogger Titus said...
Just go to the gym 2 hours a day, like me, and you will be great, tight, lean and muscular. And you will get hot sex!
Tits
Titus, if we all do this you won't be special anymore. Did you think about that?
The problem is there is a strong genetic component to body shape and composition.
I know I was born lucky and I don't have to work nearly as hard to appear to be in good shape. I am in wretched shape right now and I have been making it maybe 4 or 5 times a week to the gym but I know I look like I am in better shape than I am.
I was lactose intolerant for 25 years (long story). Discovered a few weeks ago that was no longer the case. You haver no idea how wonderful ice-cream tastes after a 25-year hiatus.
Yes there are addictive foods, at least in the case of people like me who are genetically prone to Metabolic Syndrome/pre-diabetes/diabetes.
All my life, young and thin and athletic as I was, I enjoyed all food but was (in retrospect) abnormally attracted to starchy foods like bread and pasta. One "serving" would never satisfy me; instead it was more like once I had one piece of pizza, I was suddenly voracious for two or three more. Since I wasn't eating sugar or high fat, and always liked veggies and salads, I thought my diet was optimal. Only to find in middle age that I had developed diabetes through eating all that healthy, non-fatty pasta and butter-less bread.
Information I could have used ten years earlier when I first began gaining weight and didn't understand the metabolic process--I then could have consciously cut back on the starchy food and would have been able to enjoy a pretty normal American diet with no weight gain/diabetes. Now I have to go very low carb if I want to keep blood sugar in a good range.
Let's just say that Covid isolation hasn't helped my efforts at regimented eating.
rcocean,
"naturally occurring foods...Cheese"
Uh, dude......
Other than that little slip up ;-) we've been having a great intelligent conversation here, and then on long comes mikee at 11:30am and asks us to forget everything we've learned (or re-learned) about human digestion and metabolism and just go with his silly cliche. Bleah.
@Achilles:
People who work all their lives in University research have a really warped view of how the world actually works. The thinking is inbred and self referential. The more I learn about University based research the more it looks like a priesthood.
There is a hierarchy of prestige within the academy that is often associated with level of "purity" or seriousness. Mathematics, physics, and chemistry occupy the top tier, biology beneath that, then psychology, and then sociology. The humanities are somewhere down in the basement. This is associated with the level of mathematics required for the field, which follows the same pattern.
The problem is that even though biological systems emerge from chemical systems, we cannot understand a cell solely in terms of chemistry. We can draw a boundary between physical things and biological things, but that boundary is fuzzy at the edge. Psychology faces the same problem. Because human consciousness emerges from a biological system, it cannot be reduced to biology to understand it. Biology is unified by the theory of evolution, but psychology has no such unifying theory. Human beings really can't be understood as discreet entities because much of their behavior is produced in response to other human behavior. We can experience ourselves as individuals and as members of group Thus, sociology is not reducible to psychology.
But here's the real kick in the balls. We all have to believe lots of things about sociology in order for social organization to work. This is probably why non-physical explanations have proven so popular in human history.
"I was lactose intolerant for 25 years (long story)."
Maybe you could have taken some sort of class or therapy.
Democrats have grudgingly learned to tolerate black people, maybe you could have done the same for milk...
rcocean said...
Final Post. Someone else mentioned "hard manual labor". There was TV series, Pioneer House or something, and these people lived like Montana homesteaders in the 1880s.
Must be the one where they set out in covered wagons and get stuck in the mud and have to be rescued by a farmer with an earth killing carbon producing tractor.
And, didn't it have at lest one lazy guy who didn't prepare for winter and expected the preppers to take care of him?
Michael McNeil said...
“Frontier House” was the name of the (2002) PBS series. (There are also several other related TV series, such as the “1940's House” in which a family is placed in a London townhouse, with all the rationing restrictions and so forth that residents there were subject to during the WWII Blitz.)
The BBC also did a "1910's House". The family consisted of an active-duty Major in the Royal Marines, his wife and three kids. Based on what their social position would have been c. 1910 they were allowed one domestic servant, in this case a maid. I remember the episode on laundry day; the lady of the house and the maid started at sunup and spent 10 hours boiling, beating and hanging up a week's worth of clothes. At the end of the day they were exhausted and still had to get supper on. People just do not understand how much manual labor people used to have to do, even during what by our standards would be more modern times.
"Person has never eaten dates."
THIS is the thread winner! One of the highest on the glycemic index, dates are worse than potato chips. It is impossible to eat only ONE date, especially Medjoul Dates--lusciously fat, ultra sweet, and deceptively fattening. The Talmud equates dates with bread and I must agree.
After years struggling to maintain my type 2 diabetes with dietary restraint, Covid happened and I simply indulged way too much (of course I had been living with the Confiture Queen of south France for six years).
The result was I found myself in the public hospital in Essaouira, Morocco, for eight days after going into diabetic shock and a small stroke. I told the attending that I controlled my diabetes with diet; she responded: "not anymore."
I now stab my fingers three times a day, write down the sugar readings on my little friend's window, eat a meal chased by glucophage, and wait four to five hours before I repeat. The result is that my blood sugars range from 79 to 99 and I have lost 15 kilos.
For me, this is the best biofeedback I have found to control what I eat, how much, and resist binging (although when strawberries drop to 60 cents a box, I buy five or more with some fatty creme fraiche at least once a month). No eating after dinner (about 11 pm).
What keeps me on this regime: have you ever spent eight days in the Old Men's Diabetes Ward of a Moroccan Public Hospital?
@Anne-I-Am:
That was my point. A chemistry problem is not necessarily an addiction. And the question of chicken and egg arises. Does a certain behavior, such as overeating, used to deal with uncomfortable emotions such as anxiety, imply a pre-existing chemical problem; or does it change the chemistry?
My apologies. I am not sure why, but I have noticed a tendency on my part to misperceive you as being critical. Perhaps out of a desire to spar. Hearing what I want to hear and all that.
I am also perpetually annoyed by the Internet culture around people like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, Sam Harris, and Seven Pinker. Their fanboys are part of a social media cult that churns out and consumes endless hours of news appearances, lectures, and debates where people are "destroyed" with 'facts" and "logic." Having good argumentation skills does not make you right; it only makes you persuasive. And being persuaded by an argument is not the same thing as understanding the subject.
rcocean said...
"Lays potato chips. you can't only eat just one. Engineered food at its finest."
All the engineering went into the machines that process the potatoes. The only thing in a bag of Lays chips is potato, very expensive frying oil and salt.
Skippy Tisdale said...
You haver no idea how wonderful ice-cream tastes after a 25-year hiatus.
The only way ice cream could be more enjoyable is if it were a sin.
J. Farmer DESTROYS Ann-I-am with massive dose of LOGIC and TRUTH.
Ben Shapiro saddened.
"The only thing in a bag of Lays chips is potato, very expensive frying oil and salt."
OK, I'll give you a bag of potatoes, some salt, and oil and you can recreate Lays potato chips. Should be easy-peasy since it just basic cooking.
"Eastern European young women must weigh 25’ lbs less on average than their American counterparts."
I lived in that part of the world several years a couple decades ago. Much of my time was spent ogling the young ladies and eventually marrying one.
My observations:
1) They walk a lot more so they get more exercise without even thinking about it.
2) They smoke a lot more.
3) Food is more expensive so they eat less.
4) They haven't bought into the whole body positivity thing and are more traditional. They want to look good to attract a mate, and there is a lot of competition.
"The only way ice cream could be more enjoyable is if it were a sin."
It was probably one of the 11th through 15th commandments...
But we'll never know.
"I lived in that part of the world several years a couple decades ago. Much of my time was spent ogling the young ladies and eventually marrying one."
Where, exactly? Asking for a friend : )
The 25 pounds less part depends on geography.
Ever been to Goshen, Indiana?
J. Farmer said...
There is a hierarchy of prestige within the academy that is often associated with level of "purity" or seriousness. Mathematics, physics, and chemistry occupy the top tier, biology beneath that, then psychology, and then sociology.
No, that's 9other than the Math) a hierarchy of "real sceince" to "trash"
In Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, you can do experiments, get results, and, if your experiment isn't garbage, reproduce them and build working predictions off of them.
Psych and Soc? All they provide is mental masturbation.
"P value hacking" is math. but it's not science
"Where, exactly? Asking for a friend : )"
Anywhere will do, but I'm partial to the Slavic countries. And though not Slavic, Budapest in the springtime is a sight to behold. Those ladies get upset if you don't look.
"The 25 pounds less part depends on geography. Ever been to Goshen, Indiana?" During her first visit to the States my wife wandered into the plus size section at the Sacramento Walmart. The look on her face as she held up the clothes was priceless.
I was lactose intolerant for 25 years (long story). Discovered a few weeks ago that was no longer the case. You haver no idea how wonderful ice-cream tastes after a 25-year hiatus.
I am lactose intolerant, but I can eat Ben and Jerrys or Haagan Daz. As long as it’s a premium ice cream made with cream and not milk, it’s fine. But don’t put half and half in the mashed potatoes or I will have to sleep in the barn.
"Those ladies get upset if you don't look."
Sounds like Rome 20 years ago.
Walking in the pedestrian malls, the women seemed to be vying to see who was hottest (you're all winners in my book, ladies).
I think even the gay male tourists were checking them out : )
In most of the world (still) men are men and women are women, and people aren't too confused about it.
Here, we have too much time, money, and liberalism on our hands.
J.Farmer,
This one sentence doesn't seem quite coherent to me -- I cannot possibly see how the consequence follows from the cause:
"Because human consciousness emerges from a biological system, it cannot be reduced to biology to understand it."
Did you perhaps mean to say something more along the lines of: despite human consciousness emerging from a biological system, it cannot be reduced to biology to understand it? Or if not, please elaborate.
@Greg The Class Traitor:
No, that's 9other than the Math) a hierarchy of "real sceince" to "trash"
In Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, you can do experiments, get results, and, if your experiment isn't garbage, reproduce them and build working predictions off of them.
Psych and Soc? All they provide is mental masturbation.
"P value hacking" is math. but it's not science
The phrase "real science" makes no sense. What are "working predictions"?
Assuming you have any opinions on human behavior or social interaction, what is the basis for them? No economist or economic model can reliably predict the financial markets. Why do we have economic views, and where do they come from? If you have any ideas about "human nature", where do those come from? We can't avoid being psychologists and sociologists. We're not going to find the answers in differential equations.
@Kirk Parker:
Did you perhaps mean to say something more along the lines of: despite human consciousness emerging from a biological system, it cannot be reduced to biology to understand it? Or if not, please elaborate.
Consider the chemistry-biology distinction. Biology is understood in terms of the structure and behavior of cells. But if a cell is just a bundle of molecules and ions, why isn't biology just chemistry? Because cells exhibit unique properties that aren't seen anywhere else in chemistry. The entire reason biology exists as a discrete area of inquiry is because chemistry is insufficient in explaining biological phenomena.
The same dynamic occurs in the biology-psychology distinction. Human consciousness is a unique property that is not seen anywhere else in biology. We cannot use biology to understand it precisely because it emerged from biology. It's the same notion that is conveyed in the saying, "The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
J. Farmer said...
The phrase "real science" makes no sense. What are "working predictions"?
"Real science" is a field of study where the scientific method is actually followed, and predictions are made, tested, and successful.
The Scientific method:
1: Design an experiment
2: Make predictions what will happen
3: Test your predictions against the experimental result
4: Write up a paper where you provide all the data and methods necessary for your greatest rival / enemy to be able to replicate your results
5: Have others actually test out your results, and find them accurate
"I predict that in 5 years the temp will increase 1 C" is a working prediction.
"I predict that in 500 years the temp will increase 20 C" is not. Because it can't be tested
"I predict the wether will change if we don't cut CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere" is not a meaningful prediction, because it can't be falsified. Which is to say it can't be tested, and it provides no useful information.
"Assuming you have any opinions on human behavior or social interaction, what is the basis for them?"
I have opinions on all sorts of things. Science doesn't tell me which flowers are beautiful, and which are ugly.
Not all subjects are amenable to scientific investigation, of those that are, not all actually have scientists (as opposed to politicians in lab coats) studying them.
Assume a sociologist did a study that compared children from 1: Families with two parents, one male, one female, 2: Single male parents, 3: Two female parents, 4: Single female parents, 5: Two male parents.
Suppose the sociologist found that the quality of the child rearing (as determined by future life success of the children) was in the order listed about (i.e. traditional two parent nuclear family is the best), with a huge gap in qualify between 1 and 2.
Would that paper get published in the US today? Would the results even get written up?
No, and no.
Sociology and psychology are political activism, not science. Whether or not they could be anything more, the reality is that right now they are not, and they haven't been, for decades, if ever
@Greg The Class Traitor:
Sociology and psychology are political activism, not science. Whether or not they could be anything more, the reality is that right now they are not, and they haven't been, for decades, if ever
You've missed my point by a mile. The point is that sociology and psychology can't be physics, chemistry, or biology. Such a "study" as you describe isn't science by your own definition and the results you describe don't tell you what you think they tell you.
J. Farmer said...
You've missed my point by a mile. The point is that sociology and psychology can't be physics, chemistry, or biology. Such a "study" as you describe isn't science by your own definition and the results you describe don't tell you what you think they tell you.
Wrong.
A study that reported what I postulated would provide a prediction: That in the future the results would be the same. Children in families with #1 parents would do best, down to #5 doing the worst.
That's a testable prediction, that can be tested over a year, or a range of years.
Which makes it potentially science.
The problem is that the people in charge don't want science, they want politics.
And only an idiot would pretend otherwise
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