Modern Food Controversies! The Food Pyramid, Seed Oils, Corn Syrup, the 'F' in FDA, Processed Foods and More!

[S'task]

Ok at the risk of sounding like a normie. How much of these dangers are real and how much of it is fearmongering designed to sell you stuff? As a hypochondriac i've done my fair share of internet health searching. both WebMD and Mayo Clinic should be renamed to "Itsprobablycancer.com" & "YouHaveCancer.com" respectively and at the very bottom they always encourage you to make an appointment with a specialist (Which they just happen to have a list of) and I notice with a lot of these food news sites, there are a lot of organic food & supplement sponsors. You can find a "Study" with just about any result you want if you look long enough. I don't know, my fearmongering senses are tingling.

So, in order of how bad the thing is for you and if you should take trying to minimize/cut it out of your diet entirely, the top of the list that even normie doctors and pretty much everyone agrees on is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Sugars in general are terrible for you except in moderation, but unfortunately are extremely difficult to avoid since pretty much all processed foods have a lot of them in it.

The Seed Oil stuff is, as you can tell reading this threat, more controversial, but there is a growing consensus that fats are not as bad for you as was once thought, and that most weight gain doesn't come from eating things high in far and protein, but rather high in sugars and carbohydrates.

Basically a healthy diet consists mainly of meat and vegetables, sugars can be had in moderation and then carbohydrates in many respects being the least important to get, and especially if you're American store bought sliced bread (especially white bread) is should be avoided.

The thing is, when it comes to cooking via frying or sauteing, a large part of the pushback labeling seed oils as "unhealthy" is because that they were originally sold as "healthy" alternatives to things like Lard, Tallow, and Butter. Meanwhile things cooked in seed oils taste worse than things cooked in those oils derived from animal products, though this is not because of any taste the seed oils are ADDING, but rather they lack things that enhance the flavor that butter, tallow, and lard all have. Now, something to note, Lard, Tallow, and Butter were literally used in cooking for thousands of years with no issues, with no impact on human health that could be tracked historically. Meanwhile seed oils displaced them in the late 20th century and we've seen a massive rise in numerous health issues that humans didn't have before, especially weight. Though seed oils are not responsible for that, the general attack on animal fats DID play a huge role in it, you see, prior to the 1970s mass produced food was made with things like tallow, lard, and butter, but due to the systemic demonization of animal fats (as well as rising costs) companies phased out their use replacing them with seed oil and corn syrup to make up for the loss of flavor... this means that in the late 20th century we suddenly began eating MASSIVELY increased amounts of highly processed oils and sugars that humans had never before eaten at that scale... and then combine that with the onset of a more sedentary lifestyle, we've seen massive health problems due to weight develop.

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

So, in order of how bad the thing is for you and if you should take trying to minimize/cut it out of your diet entirely, the top of the list that even normie doctors and pretty much everyone agrees on is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Sugars in general are terrible for you except in moderation, but unfortunately are extremely difficult to avoid since pretty much all processed foods have a lot of them in it.

The Seed Oil stuff is, as you can tell reading this threat, more controversial, but there is a growing consensus that fats are not as bad for you as was once thought, and that most weight gain doesn't come from eating things high in far and protein, but rather high in sugars and carbohydrates.

Basically a healthy diet consists mainly of meat and vegetables, sugars can be had in moderation and then carbohydrates in many respects being the least important to get, and especially if you're American store bought sliced bread (especially white bread) is should be avoided.

The thing is, when it comes to cooking via frying or sauteing, a large part of the pushback labeling seed oils as "unhealthy" is because that they were originally sold as "healthy" alternatives to things like Lard, Tallow, and Butter. Meanwhile things cooked in seed oils taste worse than things cooked in those oils derived from animal products, though this is not because of any taste the seed oils are ADDING, but rather they lack things that enhance the flavor that butter, tallow, and lard all have. Now, something to note, Lard, Tallow, and Butter were literally used in cooking for thousands of years with no issues, with no impact on human health that could be tracked historically. Meanwhile seed oils displaced them in the late 20th century and we've seen a massive rise in numerous health issues that humans didn't have before, especially weight. Though seed oils are not responsible for that, the general attack on animal fats DID play a huge role in it, you see, prior to the 1970s mass produced food was made with things like tallow, lard, and butter, but due to the systemic demonization of animal fats (as well as rising costs) companies phased out their use replacing them with seed oil and corn syrup to make up for the loss of flavor... this means that in the late 20th century we suddenly began eating MASSIVELY increased amounts of highly processed oils and sugars that humans had never before eaten at that scale... and then combine that with the onset of a more sedentary lifestyle, we've seen massive health problems due to weight develop.

So in other words environmentalist are quiet literally killing us.

 

[Blasterbot]

So in other words environmentalist are quiet literally killing us.

always have been. the carbon they wish to reduce is us.

 

[Terthna]

Get a funnel, a coffee filter or cheesecloth, and a clean milk or other sealable carton. Once the used peanut oil is cool you can then filter it through the coffee filter/cheesecloth, store, and use it for cooking other things. Oil, unless you burned it badly (got it above its smoke point and kept it there for a long period), can be reused. You wouldn't want to use it as oil in recipe sure, but you can cook in it again, multiple times even. After all, it's not like bacteria or viruses will survive the temperatures you get oil to when cooking and so long as you've strained it for large particles, you're generally not going to be carrying over any flavors beyond what's already in the oil.

NOTE: this mostly applies to oil used for deep frying. You can, theoretically, do this for oil used in pan frying, but generally speaking the particulate to reusable oil ratio for that is way lower so its questionable if it's useful there, depends on the cost of the oil. Obviously you're not going to recover the oil used when sauteing.

Oh, and if you use a GLASS container and a metal funnel for this process you can do it with hot oil and then let it cool. This is useful for cooking oils that are not liquid at room temperature like lard, tallow, and the ultimate frying medium: bacon fat. Using the hot method you can recover rendered BACON FAT and store it for future use.

I saw this video on using cornstarch to clean oil used for deep frying; it seems to work pretty well:

 

[Typhonis]

Olive oil should be okay too, right?

If you get the 100% pure extra virgin oil but American manufacturers tend to add soy oil to the mix.

 

[Vyor]

If you get the 100% pure extra virgin oil but American manufacturers tend to add soy oil to the mix.

Still haven't found this happening with me.

 

[Rocinante]

Still haven't found this happening with me.

How do you know? Are you lab testing it?

 

[Vyor]

How do you know? Are you lab testing it?

... the ingredient list.

 

[Rocinante]

... the ingredient list.

Are you missing the point that the problem is that the ingredients list is a lie, and companies are fraudulently selling adulterated products?

 

[TheRejectionist]

So, in order of how bad the thing is for you and if you should take trying to minimize/cut it out of your diet entirely, the top of the list that even normie doctors and pretty much everyone agrees on is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Sugars in general are terrible for you except in moderation, but unfortunately are extremely difficult to avoid since pretty much all processed foods have a lot of them in it.

The Seed Oil stuff is, as you can tell reading this threat, more controversial, but there is a growing consensus that fats are not as bad for you as was once thought, and that most weight gain doesn't come from eating things high in far and protein, but rather high in sugars and carbohydrates.

Basically a healthy diet consists mainly of meat and vegetables, sugars can be had in moderation and then carbohydrates in many respects being the least important to get, and especially if you're American store bought sliced bread (especially white bread) is should be avoided.

The thing is, when it comes to cooking via frying or sauteing, a large part of the pushback labeling seed oils as "unhealthy" is because that they were originally sold as "healthy" alternatives to things like Lard, Tallow, and Butter. Meanwhile things cooked in seed oils taste worse than things cooked in those oils derived from animal products, though this is not because of any taste the seed oils are ADDING, but rather they lack things that enhance the flavor that butter, tallow, and lard all have. Now, something to note, Lard, Tallow, and Butter were literally used in cooking for thousands of years with no issues, with no impact on human health that could be tracked historically. Meanwhile seed oils displaced them in the late 20th century and we've seen a massive rise in numerous health issues that humans didn't have before, especially weight. Though seed oils are not responsible for that, the general attack on animal fats DID play a huge role in it, you see, prior to the 1970s mass produced food was made with things like tallow, lard, and butter, but due to the systemic demonization of animal fats (as well as rising costs) companies phased out their use replacing them with seed oil and corn syrup to make up for the loss of flavor... this means that in the late 20th century we suddenly began eating MASSIVELY increased amounts of highly processed oils and sugars that humans had never before eaten at that scale... and then combine that with the onset of a more sedentary lifestyle, we've seen massive health problems due to weight develop.

I can only comment that when I was in Portugal (but in addition to the place I stayed being extremely hilly or hill-like) I had cut from my diet dairy/milk products and lots of carbohydrates and lost 18 kilos.

 

[Zachowon]

Are you missing the point that the problem is that the ingredients list is a lie, and companies are fraudulently selling adulterated products?

And are these companies willing to lose billions and potentially get thier entire market shut down?

 

[Rocinante]

And are these companies willing to lose billions and potentially get thier entire market shut down?

I'm not the one doing it. You'll have to ask the companies that are committing the fraud.

 

[Abhorsen]

Are you missing the point that the problem is that the ingredients list is a lie, and companies are fraudulently selling adulterated products?

They don't outright lie. They are lawful evil. They just claim that bad stuff is good for you. Why sell a small, illegal, testable lie, when you can do a large, legal lie instead?

 

[Rocinante]

They don't outright lie. They are lawful evil. They just claim that bad stuff is good for you. Why sell a small, illegal, testable lie, when you can do a large, legal lie instead?

They literally sell EVOO that isn't really EVOO. They might use some weird labeling laws to get away with it.

 

[Vyor]

They literally sell EVOO that isn't really EVOO. They might use some weird labeling laws to get away with it.

the only possible way to get away with it would be to include the adulterated stuff in the ingredient list.

 

[Rocinante]

the only possible way to get away with it would be to include the adulterated stuff in the ingredient list.

Newsflash: organized crime lords don't care about the law.

They're doing it, and so far despite attempts to crack down, they're getting away with it.

No one is stopping you from googling this.

 

[S'task]

So in other words environmentalist are quiet literally killing us.

The anti-animal fats movement didn't come from the environmentalists as far as I can tell. Rather it was a confluence of events that began in the 1930s and culminated in the 1970s.

So, firstly, in the 1930s American farmers were struggling, so the government, in it's infinite wisdom, started pushing "nutrition standards" that were heavily skewed towards grains as a way to stimulate consumption of grains and thus increase demand. This led to Americans eating more carbs but back then this wasn't as big a deal because these tended to be more complex carbs and mass produced food was made pretty much the same as home made food just done on a mass scale (IE, mass produced bread was made with the same ingredients that a person baking bread at home would use, just on a VASTLY LARGER scale... maybe sometimes adding a few chemicals meant to preserve freshness longer.)

Then WW2 happened and the government began rationing all kinds of things; however, people still wanted more complex food. This drove food developers to increase production of substitutes for things that were rationed. IE Margarine in place of Butter, and various seed oils in place of animal fats and other traditionally used oils (Peanut Oil, Olive Oil though that wasn't as popular in the US back then). When the war ended and rationing ended, these industries that had appeared to supply the alternative demand were then competing with the originals, and while some people preferred the substitutes, other people of course preferred the originals.

Then beginning in the 1950s we saw the rise of something new: Fast Food. This is important as fried food was actually not that common outside of the US South prior to the rise of fast food (in the South both deep frying and pan frying were longstanding traditional methods of cooking whereas outside of the South it was so uncommon as to end up becoming a racial stereotype when black southern migrants brought frying food, specifically chicken, with them to northern cities*.), specifically the rise of everyone's favorite potato side dish: French Fries.

French Fries, due to the way they are cooked and the nature of the Potato, tend to absorb a decent amount of the oil they're cooked in, and thus the oil they're cooked in greatly impacts the taste of the finished product. This meant that the big fast food chains actually spent considerable efforts to create specific blends of oil to maximize their fries taste and these tended to be blends of tallow, lard, and other oils.

And all was well... until 1964 and Omaha car sales mogul Phil Sokolof had a heart attack. A fast food fan with a family history of heart disease, he blamed his fast food habit for his heart attack and decided that animal fats, palm, and coconut oil were the real culprit and so set out to replace these fats in EVERYONE'S diets with healthier alternatives. He spent his money on demonizing animal fats (IE tallow, lard, butter) while claiming that seed and vegetable oils were healthier. He was backed by early nutritional research that linked fat and cholesterol and the agricultural industries, specifically corn, that benefitted from the reduction in use of animal fats and rise in use of vegetable oils and corn syrup.

This crusade managed to get fast food chains to replace their previous frying oil mixes with vegetable oil mixes**. The anti-fat in food movement also managed to get mass food producers to cease using animal fats in mass production and reduce overall fat content in many of their recipes. As anyone with any basic cooking knowledge knows, fat is flavor, and thus to keep their foods tasting good, these companies replaced fat with sugars, often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

So through the 80s and 90s American food had natural fats removed... and had them replaced with sugars.

Further, almost all the research linking fat to heart disease was... flawed to incomplete (similarly to research linking salt to heart disease by the way, but this essay is about fats, not salt). In fact, as more research has come out, human body fat is more likely to result from eating carbohydrates (AKA grains and sugars) than it to from eating protein and fats, but due to this early flawed research and the personal crusade of Sokolof we instead changed our processed foods to become HIGHER in carbohydrates and sugars... and have seen obesity explode since***.

---------------------------
* Let me expand on this a bit longer. The idea that "Fried Chicken is Black Food" is a racial stereotype that is non-existent anywhere in the Southern US, even among Progressives. I've spoken with Progressives who grew up in Texas and other farther southern states, while also growing up in the DC Metro area (which is culinarily very much part of the South, even if culturally it's not so much) and nobody around DC thought this either, they all first heard of the stereotype online, usually from non-Southerners, and it confused them. To Southerners "Fried Chicken" is just... food, and many small towns and cities have a local fried chicken joint (or three) that everyone knows is the best fried chicken in the country.

** If you've ever heard Boomers and older GenXers who bemoan how McDonalds french fries don't taste as good as they used to, this is why it happened and who to blame for it, as the negative press this guy managed to push out got them to change from using a beef tallow mix for frying french fries to no longer using animal fats.

*** Again, this is compounded by the increase in sedentary lifestyles through the 1980s and 90s to present.

 

[Vyor]

I would never object to legislation that limits added sugar for non-dessert meals. Maybe via taxes.

 

[Zachowon]

The anti-animal fats movement didn't come from the environmentalists as far as I can tell. Rather it was a confluence of events that began in the 1930s and culminated in the 1970s.

So, firstly, in the 1930s American farmers were struggling, so the government, in it's infinite wisdom, started pushing "nutrition standards" that were heavily skewed towards grains as a way to stimulate consumption of grains and thus increase demand. This led to Americans eating more carbs but back then this wasn't as big a deal because these tended to be more complex carbs and mass produced food was made pretty much the same as home made food just done on a mass scale (IE, mass produced bread was made with the same ingredients that a person baking bread at home would use, just on a VASTLY LARGER scale... maybe sometimes adding a few chemicals meant to preserve freshness longer.)

Then WW2 happened and the government began rationing all kinds of things; however, people still wanted more complex food. This drove food developers to increase production of substitutes for things that were rationed. IE Margarine in place of Butter, and various seed oils in place of animal fats and other traditionally used oils (Peanut Oil, Olive Oil though that wasn't as popular in the US back then). When the war ended and rationing ended, these industries that had appeared to supply the alternative demand were then competing with the originals, and while some people preferred the substitutes, other people of course preferred the originals.

Then beginning in the 1950s we saw the rise of something new: Fast Food. This is important as fried food was actually not that common outside of the US South prior to the rise of fast food (in the South both deep frying and pan frying were longstanding traditional methods of cooking whereas outside of the South it was so uncommon as to end up becoming a racial stereotype when black southern migrants brought frying food, specifically chicken, with them to northern cities*.), specifically the rise of everyone's favorite potato side dish: French Fries.

French Fries, due to the way they are cooked and the nature of the Potato, tend to absorb a decent amount of the oil they're cooked in, and thus the oil they're cooked in greatly impacts the taste of the finished product. This meant that the big fast food chains actually spent considerable efforts to create specific blends of oil to maximize their fries taste and these tended to be blends of tallow, lard, and other oils.

And all was well... until 1964 and Omaha car sales mogul Phil Sokolof had a heart attack. A fast food fan with a family history of heart disease, he blamed his fast food habit for his heart attack and decided that animal fats, palm, and coconut oil were the real culprit and so set out to replace these fats in EVERYONE'S diets with healthier alternatives. He spent his money on demonizing animal fats (IE tallow, lard, butter) while claiming that seed and vegetable oils were healthier. He was backed by early nutritional research that linked fat and cholesterol and the agricultural industries, specifically corn, that benefitted from the reduction in use of animal fats and rise in use of vegetable oils and corn syrup.

This crusade managed to get fast food chains to replace their previous frying oil mixes with vegetable oil mixes**. The anti-fat in food movement also managed to get mass food producers to cease using animal fats in mass production and reduce overall fat content in many of their recipes. As anyone with any basic cooking knowledge knows, fat is flavor, and thus to keep their foods tasting good, these companies replaced fat with sugars, often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

So through the 80s and 90s American food had natural fats removed... and had them replaced with sugars.

Further, almost all the research linking fat to heart disease was... flawed to incomplete (similarly to research linking salt to heart disease by the way, but this essay is about fats, not salt). In fact, as more research has come out, human body fat is more likely to result from eating carbohydrates (AKA grains and sugars) than it to from eating protein and fats, but due to this early flawed research and the personal crusade of Sokolof we instead changed our processed foods to become HIGHER in carbohydrates and sugars... and have seen obesity explode since***.

---------------------------
* Let me expand on this a bit longer. The idea that "Fried Chicken is Black Food" is a racial stereotype that is non-existent anywhere in the Southern US, even among Progressives. I've spoken with Progressives who grew up in Texas and other farther southern states, while also growing up in the DC Metro area (which is culinarily very much part of the South, even if culturally it's not so much) and nobody around DC thought this either, they all first heard of the stereotype online, usually from non-Southerners, and it confused them. To Southerners "Fried Chicken" is just... food, and many small towns and cities have a local fried chicken joint (or three) that everyone knows is the best fried chicken in the country.

** If you've ever heard Boomers and older GenXers who bemoan how McDonalds french fries don't taste as good as they used to, this is why it happened and who to blame for it, as the negative press this guy managed to push out got them to change from using a beef tallow mix for frying french fries to no longer using animal fats.

*** Again, this is compounded by the increase in sedentary lifestyles through the 1980s and 90s to present.

That's why I was always confused about that being a stereotype

 

[KilroywasNOTHere]

The anti-animal fats movement didn't come from the environmentalists as far as I can tell. Rather it was a confluence of events that began in the 1930s and culminated in the 1970s.

So, firstly, in the 1930s American farmers were struggling, so the government, in it's infinite wisdom, started pushing "nutrition standards" that were heavily skewed towards grains as a way to stimulate consumption of grains and thus increase demand. This led to Americans eating more carbs but back then this wasn't as big a deal because these tended to be more complex carbs and mass produced food was made pretty much the same as home made food just done on a mass scale (IE, mass produced bread was made with the same ingredients that a person baking bread at home would use, just on a VASTLY LARGER scale... maybe sometimes adding a few chemicals meant to preserve freshness longer.)

Then WW2 happened and the government began rationing all kinds of things; however, people still wanted more complex food. This drove food developers to increase production of substitutes for things that were rationed. IE Margarine in place of Butter, and various seed oils in place of animal fats and other traditionally used oils (Peanut Oil, Olive Oil though that wasn't as popular in the US back then). When the war ended and rationing ended, these industries that had appeared to supply the alternative demand were then competing with the originals, and while some people preferred the substitutes, other people of course preferred the originals.

Then beginning in the 1950s we saw the rise of something new: Fast Food. This is important as fried food was actually not that common outside of the US South prior to the rise of fast food (in the South both deep frying and pan frying were longstanding traditional methods of cooking whereas outside of the South it was so uncommon as to end up becoming a racial stereotype when black southern migrants brought frying food, specifically chicken, with them to northern cities*.), specifically the rise of everyone's favorite potato side dish: French Fries.

French Fries, due to the way they are cooked and the nature of the Potato, tend to absorb a decent amount of the oil they're cooked in, and thus the oil they're cooked in greatly impacts the taste of the finished product. This meant that the big fast food chains actually spent considerable efforts to create specific blends of oil to maximize their fries taste and these tended to be blends of tallow, lard, and other oils.

And all was well... until 1964 and Omaha car sales mogul Phil Sokolof had a heart attack. A fast food fan with a family history of heart disease, he blamed his fast food habit for his heart attack and decided that animal fats, palm, and coconut oil were the real culprit and so set out to replace these fats in EVERYONE'S diets with healthier alternatives. He spent his money on demonizing animal fats (IE tallow, lard, butter) while claiming that seed and vegetable oils were healthier. He was backed by early nutritional research that linked fat and cholesterol and the agricultural industries, specifically corn, that benefitted from the reduction in use of animal fats and rise in use of vegetable oils and corn syrup.

This crusade managed to get fast food chains to replace their previous frying oil mixes with vegetable oil mixes**. The anti-fat in food movement also managed to get mass food producers to cease using animal fats in mass production and reduce overall fat content in many of their recipes. As anyone with any basic cooking knowledge knows, fat is flavor, and thus to keep their foods tasting good, these companies replaced fat with sugars, often in the form of high fructose corn syrup.

So through the 80s and 90s American food had natural fats removed... and had them replaced with sugars.

Further, almost all the research linking fat to heart disease was... flawed to incomplete (similarly to research linking salt to heart disease by the way, but this essay is about fats, not salt). In fact, as more research has come out, human body fat is more likely to result from eating carbohydrates (AKA grains and sugars) than it to from eating protein and fats, but due to this early flawed research and the personal crusade of Sokolof we instead changed our processed foods to become HIGHER in carbohydrates and sugars... and have seen obesity explode since***.

---------------------------
* Let me expand on this a bit longer. The idea that "Fried Chicken is Black Food" is a racial stereotype that is non-existent anywhere in the Southern US, even among Progressives. I've spoken with Progressives who grew up in Texas and other farther southern states, while also growing up in the DC Metro area (which is culinarily very much part of the South, even if culturally it's not so much) and nobody around DC thought this either, they all first heard of the stereotype online, usually from non-Southerners, and it confused them. To Southerners "Fried Chicken" is just... food, and many small towns and cities have a local fried chicken joint (or three) that everyone knows is the best fried chicken in the country.

** If you've ever heard Boomers and older GenXers who bemoan how McDonalds french fries don't taste as good as they used to, this is why it happened and who to blame for it, as the negative press this guy managed to push out got them to change from using a beef tallow mix for frying french fries to no longer using animal fats.

*** Again, this is compounded by the increase in sedentary lifestyles through the 1980s and 90s to present.

Fries made with butter or beef tallow sounds freaking delicious to be honest with you.

What I find interesting is that in response to super size me many colleges did studies of their own and found that the budgets and even the fries weren't all that bad nutrition wise. It was the soda that packed all of the calories and encouraged weight gain, the refined sugar soda.


Which makes me honestly wonder if there is some kind of refined sugar cabal running around because it seems like anytime there is a alternative brought up whether it's a natural or even artificial alternatives, there are studies talking about how they are ineffective at best and carsaginics at worst only for those studies to be proved false.