Comment by slothtrop | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slothtrop | Hacker News Reader

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Dietary guidelines are a red herring. Notwithstanding that the "Americanized" diet has shifted well beyond those, average people don't typically consult it. Rates of obesity have been shooting up for a century so I see no reason to believe guidelines play a substantial role. Guidelines have also recently changed (at least in my country) yet there is no sign of improvement in obesity rates.

There was a key turning point that is weirdly understated: women joined the workforce. New conveniences in the form of appliances and fast-food, canned food, ready-made food freed up more time for them to pursue careers (at least, part-time) and still raise kids. The US enthusiastically embraced these modernities and many families effectively threw away their knowledge of cooking over time.

After this the institutions that feed us garbage became entrenched, began to both lobby to protect their interests and increase their adoption rate as much as possible. It's not unlike the story of Tobacco companies.

I tend to agree with this take. Shifting from home cooked meals to processed meals probably has far more impact on diet and health than published guidelines.

The only nuance I'd add is that it doesn't follow that the optimal solution is for women to leave the workforce and get back in the kitchen. Domestic responsibilities can be shared by husbands and wives.

Also, when eating processed foods it's a good idea to pay attention to the nutrition information. Most people don't do much of this, which is why those published guidelines probably don't have much impact anyway. Those guidelines should be updated, and most people should probably start paying more attention to them.

Of course. We would not go back to that any sooner than working our own land, turning back the clock is no solution. The problem area is policy and culture rather than technology in itself. Between kitchen innovations and store-bought items (and other services) it's possible to eat healthy delicious food with increasingly less effort (and it's possible to have a horrifically bad diet).

I think the younger generations, starting from millenials on, are more health conscious than the previous, but you also notice a class divide in that sense.

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