Official nutrition recommendations have really lost the forrest in the trees.
Historically, almost every human population survived primarily on plant-based carbohydrate-dominant diets, so it should be super clear that carbohydrates are not ‘bad for us’.
The problem is the processing. Over the last few hundred years, we have started isolating and refining individual nutrients from whole foods, producing fundamentally new and unnatural nutrient combinations our bodies are completely unprepared for. And everywhere these new and improved foods become widely adopted, a predictable constellation of diseases turn up… Go figure.
Personally, I was raised on a standard American diet (99% hot pockets & McDs), was overweight like most of my family, and being fit seemed impossible. In collage I started cooking my own food, to my own taste (plenty of salt, fat, etc.), have been an effortless size 4 since, and I really feel like the answer is no where near as difficult as we like to pretend.
To my mind, the major impediments to widespread dietary health are all societal, as almost no one has the time or money, much less the know-how, to cook real food.
Moreover, processed food makes a lot of money for the processors, so does treating the diseases processed food causes. As such, the powers of capitalism strongly favor continued public confusion, and discourage any meaningful improvement.
Official nutrition recommendations have really lost the forrest in the trees.
Historically, almost every human population survived primarily on plant-based carbohydrate-dominant diets, so it should be super clear that carbohydrates are not ‘bad for us’.
The problem is the processing. Over the last few hundred years, we have started isolating and refining individual nutrients from whole foods, producing fundamentally new and unnatural nutrient combinations our bodies are completely unprepared for. And everywhere these new and improved foods become widely adopted, a predictable constellation of diseases turn up… Go figure.
Personally, I was raised on a standard American diet (99% hot pockets & McDs), was overweight like most of my family, and being fit seemed impossible. In collage I started cooking my own food, to my own taste (plenty of salt, fat, etc.), have been an effortless size 4 since, and I really feel like the answer is no where near as difficult as we like to pretend.
To my mind, the major impediments to widespread dietary health are all societal, as almost no one has the time or money, much less the know-how, to cook real food.
Moreover, processed food makes a lot of money for the processors, so does treating the diseases processed food causes. As such, the powers of capitalism strongly favor continued public confusion, and discourage any meaningful improvement.