DailyDirt: Is Eating Healthy Foods Getting Easier?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Modern food processing and distribution methods have created an ecosystem that can feed millions of people, but some folks argue that the resulting food isn’t very healthy. Do people have to give up on food technology — or should we just wait for food innovators to create food that is economical, healthy and sustainable? Here are just a few interesting food developments.

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Comments on “DailyDirt: Is Eating Healthy Foods Getting Easier?”

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16 Comments
Colonel Panic says:

No, it's harder than ever, and won't change soon.

Incidentally, the greatest bane of any healthy diet is sugar… all this “low-fat,” “low-carb” and “vegetarian” nonsense really doesn’t belong in 21st century dietary plans, having been essentially debunked over a decade ago. Unfortunately, we still cling to it as a guideline, and the often cited “healthy” alternatives really aren’t that healthy at all. In fact, I challenge you to find any food advertised as “a fat-free food!” which isn’t straight up loaded with sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup. (“Low-fat” alternatives to popular foods usually have more sugar than the normal variety). Fat is an important part of the human diet, and fatty foods contain many essential nutrients that you don’t find anywhere else, while providing triggers for an improved satiary response. Sugars on the other hand, which have been replacing fats and fiber in processed foods over the years… is the root cause of metabolic syndrome and many adverse health effects, while having no benefits.

Ultimately, no. Thanks to the prevalence of increasingly high sugar and low fiber in everyday foods, even staple foods, eating healthy is harder than ever. Furthermore with the amount of misinformation and archaic misconceptions of the public, combined with government subsidies on corn, it’s not likely to change anytime soon.

bushman says:

WTF

“…Should we just wait for food innovators to create food that is economical, healthy and sustainable?”

Um, WTF!?!?! We already have food that is economical, healthy and sustainable. They’re called Whole Foods! Fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. They are natural, have evolved with us and being part of our diet for, how long, millions of years?

For gods sake, we shouldn’t even need the term “food technology”. We’re not living on Mars, are we?

Overcast (profile) says:

No, because in spite of how most of it’s spun, it’s almost all processed and screwed with ad infinum before we ever get to it.

It’s just marketing spin. Like salads and their ‘wonders’ – but good luck trying to find a salad dressing without sugar in it, unless it’s oil/vinegar types.

It’s like the ‘green’ BS – everything is ‘green’ now – I even seen ‘green’ bug spray at the store – are they serious? ‘Green’ bug spray? LOL – I don’t WANT bug spray to be friendly to the environment because chances are it’s also friendly to the bugs.

And as it stands, food is sustainable – otherwise, I suspect we would have ran out long ago. It’s been sustainable for at least 8500 years or more I suppose.

Colonel Panic says:

Re: Re:

Unfortunately food is not ‘sustainable’ without a lot of meddling, both chemical and genetic. To produce only natural grown foods to feed today’s world population would be impossible. The fact that we can keep up can be largely attributed to yield-increasing bio-engineered plants, fertilizers, and pesticides. God forbid we ever run out of phosphorus.

Shelf stability is the other side of the coin, and it is possible through extensive processing of foods after they’re harvested. This involves removal of fiber, and addition of preservatives. So much fiber is discarded, in fact, that we’ve actually been modifying plants genetically now to produce less of it in step 1 as a part of their yield increase–less fiber, more starch and sugar.

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