
The poor can’t afford to follow public health advice - DanBC
https://www.hsj.co.uk/comment/the-bedpan-the-poor-cant-afford-to-follow-public-health-advice/7025532.article
======
madmax96
>If everyone followed Public Health England’s eating advice, people in the
bottom decile of household income would spend 74 per cent of their income on
food

I find this very interesting. I'm a graduate student in Midwest of the US. My
income places me in the bottom 20% of household incomes. Not poor, but money
must be carefully managed. In my experience, eating well isn't that expensive
in terms of time or money, provided you are willing to adjust your diet. I
keep good track of my finances and diet, and I spend nowhere near that figure
(and I still wouldn't, even if I made half of what I do) and I have a pretty
healthy diet and reasonably active lifestyle.

What are in these guidelines making them so expensive? Or in the US,
particularly in the Midwest, is the cost of food _that_ much cheaper than the
UK?

~~~
wongarsu
Part of the advice [0] is "Over a third of the diet should come from fruit and
vegetables". Also "Aim for at least two portions (2 x 140g) of fish a week".

Neither of those two are necessarily cheap. However I don't see that
approaching 74% of the income either when you choose sensible options for
vegetables and fish.

0:
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/742746/A_quick_guide_to_govt_healthy_eating_update.pdf)

~~~
sametmax
Things like dried beans/peas, eggs, full grain rice, sunflower seeds, whole
potatoes, green leafs, tomatoes, brassicaceaes, onions, apples, bananas and
carrots can all be obtained at a fair price. You can cover a lot with these,
and it's much better than fried chips and pasta.

My take is more than:

\- a scary amount of people of my generation are completely uneducated about
food. They don't know what a balanced diet is. They don't know how to cook.
They don't know where to shop. They don't know how to choose a product. They
don't know how much their health is affected by this. And they rather spend an
hour on facebook than starting to figure it out.

\- food is hard. Our society make it harder: we have a huge quantity of low
quality food at our disposal. We solved the starving problem, but replaced it
with a malnutrition problem, aggravated with the desire to make money which
lead to the promotion of shitty food and the production of it. Getting proper
information on nutrition is a hell of confusion, contradictory messages,
social pressure and guilt.

\- tasty balanced food is expensive and requires time + work + planning.
Anybody can buy the stuff I talked about. But if you go to your usual
supermarket and buy them, they will taste like crap. In fact, it's even hard
to find nice food at the farmer market nowadays. So of course they don't want
to eat them. I mean, between this red plastic ball they call a tomato and a
kit kat, why the hell would a kid not choose the kit kat ? Why would the
exhausted parents fight again and again to force the kid to eat something
themselves think taste bad ? Life is hard enough.

\- there are too many of us. To feed everyone we need to use use production,
processing and distribution methods that lead to crappy food. Over population
affects everything, from medical care quality to democracy. Food is no
exception.

\- our culture is messed up. We made it so that eating meat was a social
status indicator. So everybody started to want to it meat. Then everybody
started to eat it every day. Producing meat is incredibly expensive, so we
have to use tricks to produce such a quantity, which lead to terrible food
again.

\- morality is an issue. I've work in OHS for some times. The amount of
disgusting things that are done to food for profit is astonishing. And people
just shut up. SEP field. If you photophop food for a living, if you
participate to those marketing studies, if you work in a factory making crap,
if you cook in a fast food, if you sign on contracts for bad food, if you code
a website for an immoral actor, you are part of the problem. I know people
have many constraint, and I don't pretend to have the moral high ground. I'm
part of it as well. But my point is, we are responsible too.

~~~
smileysteve
> \- a scary amount of people of my generation are completely uneducated about
> food

A scary amount of my peers are afraid of cooking; I mean they're suddenly
comfortable w/ their Blue Apron w/ instructions, but having a home standby is
unheard of them for the most part.

~~~
sametmax
Afraid ? Like afraid, afraid ?

~~~
RandomInteger4
Is it not within the bounds of believability that the same generation that has
safe spaces and fears of sauce
([https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/snowplow-
parenting-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/style/snowplow-parenting-
scandal.html)) on college campuses might also be literally afraid of cooking.

~~~
Djvacto
Saying a generation has a "fear of sauce" seems a little exaggerated, given
that the article quoted one college student who came home because she "didn't
like food with sauce", which was clearly an outlier given that her parents
went way overboard throughout her childhood helping her avoid sauced foods.

------
turc1656
_" If everyone followed Public Health England’s eating advice, people in the
bottom decile of household income would spend 74 per cent of their income on
food"_

Bullshit.

I'll preface what I'm going to say next by saying I'm in the US and I know
this was a UK report - but I highly doubt things are so incredibly different
over there in terms of cost. That being said, there's utterly no way that has
to be the case. Raw produce (not meats) from a farmer's market or most major
supermarkets are very cheap. I can spend $30-$40 and have enough for 3-4
people for a full _week_. Also, sausage is usually very cheap. I buy the store
brand (which happens to be delicious) and it's usually <$3 per lb. The 73%
beef from Walmart is cheap as hell and usually hovers around $3-$3.25 per lb
most of the time. One of those burgers (quarter-pounder, so 4 oz) has 340
calories and is a dream for anyone doing keto. So that $3 package contains
about 1350 to 1400 calories! The cereal I make myself has only 4 ingredients
and is loaded with healthy carbs (steel cut oats, flax seed, walnuts, and
raisins). $12 to $15 dollars buys a bag of each of those ingredients which all
have around 15 or so servings - that's over two weeks...or less than a dollar
a day (per person). And that is a very high calorie breakfast, BTW. Water
costs essentially nothing per gallon. Eggs are cheap and super healthy.
There's plenty of cheap, tasty cheeses you can buy in bulk, too. You can get
whole seasoned, rotisserie, _cooked_ and ready-to-eat chickens for $5! That's
multiple meals for a single person or a meal for an entire family. And I don't
live in a rural part of the US where prices are cheaper - I live in an
expensive area of the northeast.

You can _easily_ feed a family of 4 on $125 a week using the items I outlined
above (along with other cheap options).

~~~
cortic
In the US you have sacrificed ethics and standards for price and profit. Its
why there is such a panic around Brexit leaving us open to US farming
practices. You also have hugely cheaper transportation costs. I'd like to
compare the cost US to UK, i wouldn't be surprised if it was x2 or x3 times
more in the UK overall, fruit is especially pricey eggs locally are as much as
3$ for 6. 74% is a bit much though, most of the poorest spend at least half of
their wage on rent as the last thirty years of government has brought right to
buy with no new social housing.

It is expensive to be poor, where i can buy in bulk, saving some money, poorer
people have to pay through the nose, wealthy people have pantries and chest
freezers, poorer people generally have small fridge freezers that hold a week
of food at most so they can't take advantage to most deals. Farmers markets
are not generally much cheaper than supermarkets and you would be lucky to
live near one. There is a minimum limit on delivery from supermarkets (about
$60). I'm quite close to a supermarket only about $14 in diesel for every
trip. I cook everything, and freeze dozens of meals at a time, I've been able
to get down to about $2-$3 per day, but couldn't get near that if i was poor,
and my diet has almost no fruit to speak of.

~~~
UglyToad
The 74% is disposable income once the cost of housing has been removed. It
still seems a little high but not completely fanciful
[https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2019/02/The...](https://foodfoundation.org.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2019/02/The-Broken-Plate.pdf)

------
growlist
It's not about economic poverty. Firstly food is (as I understand it) pretty
much at its cheapest ever, even zero cost from food banks (notwithstanding the
supposed shame, and I can tell you my family would have had no shame in taking
food from a food bank when they were starving in rural Wales during the Great
Depression, and this family history somewhat limits my sympathy to arguments
about the shame of using food banks); secondly people are not poor in economic
terms, with our definition of poverty having had to be changed (making it a
relative measure) because it had ceased to be meaningful; and thirdly under
rationing food was obviously strictly limited, and yet the nation was so (we
are told) never fitter.

The problem is that the person at the sharp is incapable for whatever reason
of providing nutritious meals despite the basic conditions generally being
available for them to do so. It's a poverty of history, culture, community,
education, imagination, willingness, instinct, morale perhaps, but not money.
None of that is the fault of the socially deprived, but the idea that more
money will magically fix everything (as the left constantly parrot) is just as
much of an untruth as the idea that the poor are too stupid and lazy to sort
out their own lives.

Apart from that I do think it's amazing that politicians are surprised that
despair is increasing. When was the last time you heard a politician stand up
and praise Britain and the British people absent virtue signalling about
diversity etc.? Constantly demoralise people for decades, do nothing to
properly integrate minorities nor construct a cohesive unified nation: get
demoralised people.

------
ngngngng
I ran out of money in college and didn't think to turn to loans, grants,
parents, food bank or anything. I managed to keep paying rent but ran out of
food except for a bag of flour and a gallon of oil. I literally lived on
nothing but Navajo style fry bread. Just a simple water flour dough fried in
some oil.

It's absolutely insane to look back on, but it makes me understand how people
fall into eating so terribly when you're poor.

Looking back I would instead just eat potatoes, carrots, rice, beans, and try
and throw some apples/oranges in there occasionally. Homemade bread when
you've got time is a nice and cheap addition as well. You can live just fine
on everything I just listed and it won't cost you much.

~~~
neilv
A friend of a friend, as a poor MIT student, actually got scurvy, from eating
mostly instant ramen noodles, plain (without the seasoning packet).

Presumably the student had previously taken health classes in primary school,
and probably gotten good grades. But it's very easy to be slammed with work
and stress (like a poor person might be), and just not have the time/energy to
think about nutrition.

~~~
ngngngng
That's what I find so interesting about Samin Nosrat's "Salt Fat Acid Heat".
Sure it's a list of what it takes to make food taste good, but it also happens
to be a comprehensive list of what you need to stay alive. It's also why I
added oranges into the list, although there's probably a cheaper way to not
get scurvy?

~~~
ryanmcbride
Onions actually! They keep pretty long, they go well with a lot of dishes, and
they have a fair bit of vitamin c!

------
opportune
I wonder why supermarkets themselves aren't making more blue-apron style meal
plans aimed at different income categories. It is a relatively inexpensive way
to value-add items you already have and differentiate yourself from other
supermarkets. And you can help people that either don't know/don't care about
nutrition (enough to come up with a nutrition regime) eat healthy; perhaps
creating the meal kits could be partially subsidized by the gov.

You can feed someone _very_ well for $50/week. And you can even do it in a way
that requires only low-effort cooking: meat that can be baked, microwaveable
vegetables, eggs that can be simply boiled or cooked in a pan with butter,
pasta and oatmeal. Dairy products, fruits, some vegetables, and nuts can just
be eaten without processing. Canned food that can be eaten right out of the
can or just heated up.

Assuming a main reason poor people don't eat healthier food is due to lack of
time, cognitive overhead, or lack of knowledge (not only re: what food is
healthy or not, but also how to optimize nutrition/f(cost, time, effort)) it
could help. I don't have time to go into how it's even possible healthy food
could take 75% of someone's income (assuming that person has an income of
$10k/year, that is over $140/week) but there are surely compromises you can
make to get the majority of the benefits of eating healthy food without
spending nearly that much.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
I'm surprised the government, some nonprofit or some university's sociology
department isn't doing this. It wouldn't be hard to publish a weekly
newsletter with meals for various family sizes that can be made at various
price points using all SNAP-compatible ingredients.

How much would it really cost to send a weekly pamphlet of cheap and not
nutritionally terrible meal ideas to the address of every kid who gets free
lunch?

------
silvestrov
The word "food" occurs only 2 times in the body of the executive summary. So I
think it's a stretch to use "can't afford" as the main title of the article.

The full report doesn't have much to support it, it never shows us what food
cost, how they're unable to afford it. At best it talks about "availability"
of healthy food as if the supermarkets doesn't sell it.

The report never considers that the unhealthy food might be a taste preference
just like smoking even though everybody knows it's very unhealthy and very
expensive. Giving up smoking isn't expensive, it's not money that stops people
from quitting smoking.

 _Low-income groups are more likely to consume fat spreads, non-diet soft
drinks, meat dishes, pizzas, processed meats, whole milk and table sugar than
the better-off_ (pg 133)

My personal observation from observing shoppers in a number of supermarkets:
poor people buys _quite a lot_ more soft drinks than the well educated.

The health of the poor is not improved much by giving them (free) fresh
produce when they drink a couple of liters of non-diet Coca Cola every day.
They end up obese or with diabetes which are the mother of all ills. An ounce
of broccoli can't cure 2L of Coca Cola.

I think the single most effective policy would be to ban sugar in drinks and
severely restrict its use in fast food (and bread). The fat-free policies must
be reverted to avoid foods using sugar as replacement for fat.

~~~
ahelwer
Your prescribed initiative to improve the lives of poor people is to remove
one of the few cheap pleasures available to them?

I think many people here understand how stress and mood inform eating habits.
Who among us has not indulged after a particularly bad day? Now imagine that
bad day was every day, and you don't have the money, time, and energy to drown
your feelings with healthier activities like strenuous exercise.

The best way to improve the lives of poor people is to give them money. Enough
with this know-better-than-thou ban & incentize crap. Poor people get jerked
around enough already.

~~~
silvestrov
When that "pleasure" ends up making peoples live a lot worse, then yes I do
want to remove it.

If we were never to take away pleasures no matter their consequences, you
could just as well legalize "the Russian Krokodil" (don't google images that).

~~~
ahelwer
It may amaze you to learn the world is not a binary between "legalize
krokodil" and "ban sugary drinks".

------
tempsy
I'm more surprised when I come across very rich people (e.g. VCs, CEOs, etc.)
who are obese. You have all the money in the world and somehow made it to the
top without the self-control and determination to take care of your body (and
in turn mind)?

~~~
the_economist
To me, this indicates that obesity is a function of something other than self-
control and determination.

~~~
vorticalbox
Yup, eating to much and doing to little.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Nope.

There are many other reasons. The most obvious one is _self-medicating_ ,
either stress or some undiagnosed condition. People are good at unconsciously
developing coping mechanisms.

~~~
marcusverus
Some people have medical issues causing obesity, sure, but we’re the same
species we were 50 years ago. Any physiological cause of obesity in people
today was also present then, presumably at the same rates. But they didn’t
have an obesity epidemic.

Whatever thing (or set of things) is driving the change in obesity rates, it
is not a biological force that is outside of out control.

------
throwing838383
Here, even in super expensive CA, In college I got by with less than 2-3$ per
day on rolled oats (70c per lb), Onions, potatoes, flax seeds, green peppers,
bananas, whole wheat flour etc, all of which were less than 1$ per lb if you
go to the right stores (for example Sprouts).

Going to McDonalds is much more expensive, something like 20$ per day!

With the proper education, you can eat cost effectively and very healthily.
And, I know it's really controversial to say this because of the decades of
conditioning we've received from the dairy and meat industry, but Meat and
Dairy aren't needed in the diet, and have been shown to even cause cancer,
heart disease and heart stroke for many. (source Forks over Knives, the
documentary, plus the China study -> check it out, seriously.)

~~~
learc83
>Going to McDonalds is much more expensive, something like 20$ per day!

If you're ordering off of the value menu it's nowhere near that expensive in
most of the country.

>rolled oats (70c per lb), Onions, potatoes, flax seeds, green peppers,
bananas, whole wheat flour etc

Most of those particularly the wheat flour requires significant preparation--
knowledge, time, a stocked and functioning kitchen.

A lot of those people in the bottom 10% of income in the UK aren't going to
have an oven.

>With the proper education,

Yes, proper education, plus time, plus a working kitchen. 3 things that the
very poor aren't likely to have. And keep in mind this was when you were a
single college student, not a working single mother with 2 small kids.

------
oneepic
...both financially _and_ mentally.

~~~
Ensorceled
I don’t understand what you are saying here?

~~~
swampthinker
It's too cost prohibitive to be healthy, and even if it wasn't there is too
much mental energy needed to be picky about which foods/ingredients you're
buying (Checking labels, researching nutritional values, etc)

~~~
pknopf
The path of least resistance for the typical American is fatty foods and empty
carbs.

It takes effort to do anything else.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Is there any good reason for that? Are fatty foods and empty carbs cheaper to
produce than less processed, healthier food?

More to the point, is there money to be made by making real food more readily
available?

~~~
kaibee
> Is there any good reason for that?

No.

> Are fatty foods and empty carbs cheaper to produce than less processed,
> healthier food?

They are subsidized by the government, ie: Corn subsidies. That said, even
without subsidies, I'd imagine that they'd be cheaper for another reason: You
can store them long term without too much cost.

> More to the point, is there money to be made by making real food more
> readily available?

Not likely. Any advantage you squeeze out could probably be copied by another
company willing to sell less healthy food. So the only your only real option
for differentiation would be marketing how healthy your food is. But that
requires people to care.

If the government provided free healthy food to everyone, fully cooked, ready
to go, at a reasonably well-prepared level, at as many locations as there are
fast food restaurants, then, I think it would actually make some impact on
health.

Hm. Maybe the government should just subsidize salads at restaurants/fast food
joints.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> > More to the point, is there money to be made by making real food more
> readily available?

> Not likely. Any advantage you squeeze out could probably be copied by
> another company willing to sell less healthy food. So the only your only
> real option for differentiation would be marketing how healthy your food is.
> But that requires people to care.

I wasn't trying to make real food _cheaper_ \- just on par, so that the "path
of least resistance" wasn't to eat garbage. We can't make people care. But can
we make them not have to care so much, or try so hard?

------
scythe
The trouble is one of priorities. Even if you can’t afford to eat fresh fruit
you can choose better options. Health recommendations are expressed in a huge
package all at once, take it or leave it.

Lean meat and fish in particular are also expensive and over-emphasized. You
can get a similar protein/fat ratio by eating cheap meat or cheese with
legumes or oats and it comes with fiber.

Eggs are unfairly demonized. Only a tiny proportion of the population needs to
limit egg consumption beyond what taste will do naturally. But protein is the
most expensive macronutrient and eggs are a cheap source with relatively low
fat and loads of vitamins. Cheese also falls into this category, with many
people who do not currently have any tumors rigorously avoiding a small
increase in their IGF-1, a hormone which performs many essential functions but
slightly increases tumor growth rates. You can thank T. Colin Campbell for
this absurdity.

Potassium is very confusing. The most economical sources for most people are
probably from canned tomato products, beans and fresh potatoes — the latter
being a cheap vegetable whose nutritional value is highly underrated thanks to
a proliferation of processed potato products. Most people, however, will reach
for bananas and avocadoes — delicacies to the poor.

Bread, too, deserves a more nuanced look. It ranges from sweet, thick and
highly glycemic to relatively health-neutral and highly pragmatic wrt home-
made lunches. “Bread” here can be extended to wraps and tortillas. “Don’t eat
bread” is very often impractical. Pasta, on the other hand, is loved by diet
authorities for its satiating bulk, but it’s a mess to make and requires you
to wash a pot and a bowl. The rice cooker has yet to assume its rightful place
on the counter.

Home cooking in general has been neutered by making everyone terrified of
adding butter or salt. So people choose between bland foods with no butter or
salt or packaged foods with absurd amounts of salt, palm oil and artificial
flavor. This advice should be revised with an eye to taste.

It is not too surprising that health advice designed for the rich does not
serve the poor. I don’t think the obesity crisis can be solved with health
advice alone, but I also think the advice could be a _lot_ better than it is.
I don’t think we need to teach people to cook — people can learn to cook. Most
people, however, do not have the number sense to assimilate hundreds of
nutrition labels and prices into a diet strategy. That is difficult and
boring. It doesn’t help that many products have such tiny serving sizes that
the nutrient label is meaningless thanks to rounding errors. The system could
be simpler and clearer. (Even with extreme effort I find myself constantly
revising my own plans.)

~~~
growlist
It's a real mess isn't it. Personally I'm awed by Japanese cuisine, which
seems to have integrated the need for healthy nutrition with amazing flavours
and satiety, and embedded it into the culture as a cherished component.
Replicating that with a bunch of rules is nigh on impossible I'd suggest.

Certainly not a fan of their hunting of whales though.

------
wtdata
My parents were born very poor (they were both taken out of school and put to
work at 11 years old - yeah let this sink in for a minute). They did work all
their lives until they retired though, specially my mom that having no job
formation kept picking up any jobs she could find. My father went to school at
night (started studying again while he was forcibly conscripted for war) and
had two jobs.

We always did eat very healthy at home. First because my parents saw that as
one of the priorities (they never went to dinner out, lunch out, even coffee
out in my early years, since they couldn't afford that lifestyle and keep
their finances in a proper state... I guess the only luxury we had was having
a dog - for which I am very grateful), second because they would take the time
and effort to prepare a proper meal (yes, even after arriving home from
working all day in their physically demanding jobs) and the ingredients to a
healthy meal are cheap, but it takes effort to put that kind of meal together.

All this happened in what is today a somewhat rich western European country.

It really bothers me (and I guess other people like me), this culture of
constantly dismissing people lack of self responsibility. In the EU (and I
would go as far as saying, in the all 1st world), if you are willing to work
and to watch how you spend your money (and this means closely, no 5$ latte
like another article today just talks about, or ordering pizza because you
don't want to prepare dinner), anyone can end up having a comfortable life.

------
philipkglass
_It must steer clear of the idea that “all we have to do is convey to people
how to eat sensibly and then everything will be fine,” he says. “That would be
a significant step backwards.”_

 _“I’ll give you an example,” he adds, “If everyone followed Public Health
England’s eating advice, people in the bottom decile of household income would
spend 74 per cent of their income on food. So, there’s not much point telling
them follow the healthy eating advice they can’t afford._

I think I can see why. Here is Public Health England's "A Quick Guide to the
Government’s Healthy Eating Recommendations":

[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/742746/A_quick_guide_to_govt_healthy_eating_update.pdf)

It advises people to eat more expensive meat (oily fish) in place of cheaper
meats, and to eat large portions of fruits and vegetables. Those two factors
look to explain the cost increase. The other advice (choose unsaturated oils,
eat complex carbohydrates instead of simple ones) does not require buying more
expensive foods.

If you just bought foods according to the pictures and examples in the Public
Health England brochure, you could spend a _lot_ more money on food. It's
possible to follow dietary recommendations without spending much (if any) more
if you know how to budget and optimize, and if you already have a stove and
refrigerator/freezer. I don't really think it's possible if you don't have a
refrigerator/freezer. Limited transportation options can make it harder too.

Worst of all, IMO, is that the brochure and linked eating guides contain no
sample meal plans, shopping plans, or example prices/budgets. Bridging this
sort of gap used to be (still is?) sometimes taught in Home Economics and
Personal Finance classes in the United States. (I took both in high school.)
It's also the sort of skill that children often used to acquire from their
parents, but perhaps acquire less often now. It's _way_ too hard for someone
without that skill to go from this Healthy Eating brochure to a cost-and-
health satisficing shopping plan with accompanying meal plans.

------
aszantu
I'm a poor person (less than 750€/month) I do art
([https://aszantu.deviantart.com](https://aszantu.deviantart.com))

It's funny how I don't use as much money since I went carnivore. My health has
improved greatly, my depression went away.

For about 3 months I was keto, basically unaffordable, so I cut the fresh
greens and went with meat alone.

3 months of eating 1.5 KG pork every day, still expensive. went with about 500
grams of ground meat for about a year and after I figured out the keto-
carnivore thing it's about

1 block of butter every 3 days as well as 250 grams of beef is enough to
survive.

I'm building my own mealworm farm for protein and fat as well as a snail
hatchery for giant african snails for protein.

as poor person you basically never know when you will have to rely on
yourself. So I'm trying to build for self sufficiency with solar panel and car
battery as well as my own food production.

so many questions help! 1\. Why? - I wanted to try it for the depression - it
worked for multiple other ailments
[https://meatheals.com](https://meatheals.com) has a lot of similar stories -
some people live like that for a long time now.

2\. Will I die from scurvey or other nutrient deficiency? - I dont't know.
Bloodwork looked okay. Cholesterol is high (Dave Feldman has some interesting
things to say about that) Yes I do fear that I don't get some nutrients but I
eat some organ meat now and then, add gelatine to my meat, drink milk and eat
butter, eggs, cheese, fish, different animals, different states of
fermentation now and then.

3\. Did I supplement? - yes, I took magnesium citrate for a while but not
taking any now, except for when I have a headache. When I still ate "normal",
zinc did a lot for my depression.

4\. why insects rather than plants? - Plants in general seem to give me
allergic reactions -> Carbs and sugar seem to make me depressed, greens and
onions seem to amplify anxiety, plant oils give me headaches. After having
symptoms every time I tried another plant, I stopped trying and these trials
are getting less and less. There is something about anti-nutrients in plants
that seems to screw with the absorbtion of minerals and vitamins from food.

5\. Did I talk to a doctor? - Yes, I did, she just sat there and noded asked
for a blood test and that's it. LDL is high, trigs are low (Dave Feldman
prediction for cholesterol)

6\. what about cancer? protein spikes IGF1 or something? I don't know... I
don't want to go back to Plants because they make me feel like shit. Everyone
dies and I will too one day. There is some article of someone who researched
the WHO connection of cancer and red meat, and it doesn't seem to hold up.

7\. do I still have symptoms? - Yes, depression is there sometimes and anxiety
as well. I've lived with them for so long that I still have the habits of
depression and they're hard to break. But I've accomplished about 500 km of
the camino trail in europe as well as worked 9-5 hours which was never
possible for me before. Childhood hunger never leaves you,(also it feels like
germany is destabilizing as a democratic system) hence the preparation for
crisis.

~~~
komali2
I'm genuinely shocked you find an all-meat diet to be the best calorie/protein
to cost ratio, especially for red meat.

When I was poor it was beans and rice, maybe chicken, and vegetables were the
"fillers," I could get them dirt cheap at the local mexi-mart.

Where are you getting beef and pork that it's cheaper than beans or chicken?

~~~
jorvi
But beef and pork are pretty much always cheaper than chicken?

If I go to my supermarket's site right now, chicken is ~€12 per kilo[0], beef
is ~€7 per kilo[1] and pork-beef mix (can't get pure pork minced meat) is
€5,30 per kilo[2]. And it'll be like that in every supermarket in The
Netherlands (and possibly Europe)

[0] [https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-kipfilet-2-stuks-
ca-390g/187400K...](https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-kipfilet-2-stuks-
ca-390g/187400KGR/)

[1][https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-rund-
rundergehakt-500g/131278BAK...](https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-rund-
rundergehakt-500g/131278BAK/)

[2][https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-rund--varken-gemengd-
gehakt-500g...](https://www.jumbo.com/jumbo-rund--varken-gemengd-
gehakt-500g/87858BAK/)

~~~
aszantu
someone told me that in industrial slaughtering they make the animals thirsty
by feeding them artificial sweeteners so the meet will have more water

------
ekianjo
> Public Health England’s eating advice,

Not sure why there is no question if the Public Health advice is actually good
to begin with. In France for decades the French authorities heavily promoted
the consumption of milk-derivative products as part of a "healthy diet" and
this seems to have sparked the percentage of people suffering from lactose
intolerance.

Eating advice is usually based on very poor quality data to begin with, and
observational studies is not really good science either.

~~~
raverbashing
> milk-derivative products as part of a "healthy diet" and this seems to have
> sparked the percentage of people suffering from lactose intolerance

You're mixing up cause and consequence

~~~
ekianjo
Intolerance also develops from increased consumption.

------
the_economist
Everyone can afford to fast, which is one of the best health levers we have
access to.

~~~
bachmeier
Rather than thinking of the six-figure professional overdoing it on ribeye and
baked potato, think about a 20-year old without a job and no family to support
them. On a good day they might have one meal of ramen noodles.

------
fasteddie31003
I am going to get flack for this but I believe both health and wealth are both
highly correlated with personal will power. For instance, intermittent fasting
for me has been the best thing I've done for my health and I really have no
trouble doing it, but I do believe it takes significant will power.

~~~
jahewson
If you look at the research then habit formation is all about _not_ relying on
willpower. Willpower is a limited resource and is easily drained. People do
not form long-term behaviours by willpower alone.

Yes, you need some willpower to start doing something new - but it’s all about
habit formation after that.

[https://angeladuckworth.com/publications/](https://angeladuckworth.com/publications/)

~~~
ulucs
> Willpower is a limited resource and is easily drained

That study unfortunately failed to replicate

[https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/willpower-ego-
de...](https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/willpower-ego-depletion-
social-psychology-replication)

~~~
jahewson
Not the study I’m talking about.

------
PaulHoule
What I find funny about food banks is that they often have products that are
lower quality than you find on supermarket shelves.

For instance, the food bank around here gives out cans of "tuna fish" that
contain about 10% protein from soy that are imported from Mexico. They also
have Peanut Butter imported from India.

There was an article the other day about how you shouldn't give cans to
charity because it is more cost effective for them to buy food through their
supply chain but in this case it is more cost effective because their supply
chain is getting worse stuff.

~~~
chrisseaton
> They also have Peanut Butter imported from India.

Wow what a scandal.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Sorry I'm just checking that this is sarcastic, because why should it matter
that peanut butter is from India? Or did I miss a memo about Indian peanut
butter?

~~~
chrisseaton
You need to ask the person who thinks it’s so obviously an issue to use
peanuts from India that it requires no explanation - the person I replied to.

~~~
PaulHoule
I'm not saying it is an issue, but I have never seen peanut butter from India
for sale in the U.S before.

~~~
ebg13
> _I 'm not saying it is an issue_

You did say that, though. You said "lower quality...for instance...peanut
butter from India...worse stuff". If it's not an issue, why did you include it
in a statement of issues?

