What Americans ate on an average day, for the past several decades | Hacker News Reader

What Americans ate on an average day, for the past several decades

flowingdata.com

112 pointshokkos54 comments

Sugar and corn syrup seem like glaring omissions, given that a lot of recent data suggests that sugar is much more of a leading cause of obesity than we once thought. It would also have been nice to see some indication of the processing involved - for example, wheat is there, but what part of the wheat is consumed by humans

Would be interesting to know how the composition of the wheat consumed changed over time. (According to paleo foods people, wheat now contains more gluten per gram, more carbohydrates and less fibers.)

It's not the composition but the quantity but here is a graph of it. I was trying to find a graph of bread consumption over time, because the decline correlates quite well with the introduction of mass produced factory bread - devoid of flavour imho. http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/wheat/wheats-role-in-th...

The visualization makes no sense. You can't go back or forward in time to check out a trend a little closer. It looks good on the surface but in my view it's totally useless to get real information.

Yeah, it feels like one of those immediately neat things that falls apart when you look a little closer. The data behind it is quite easy to work with though, and I think there's some better (more interactive, a bit more control) visualizations someone could come up with.

I used it myself last year when I was wondering about the emissions associated with different diets (specifically I was curious about what was more effective from a reduction standpoint: being a vegetarian at different points of time vs. owning an electric car. Since the disposition of electricity has changed pretty significantly since the early 90s in some places it varied pretty widely [the informal lit review of food-based emissions was quite a mess though]).

if you click on "pause", then you can actually move the time.

But then it doesn't re-order? That seems to limit the experience.

if it reordered, it would be based on mouse location, as soon as it moved youd be over something else, then it would update... endless loop.

It does if you click on one of the graphs at that point.

What would have been easier to read are snapshots at significant intervals rather than the animation

Pause and mouseover on the graphs. It'll give you a different year depending on where you are on the graph.

It's also very hard to see patterns since they live sort each tick in time and are constantly swapping graphs around.

The animation makes no sense to me, but I think the visualization is extremely informative.

The big surprise for me is how little things have changed when viewed in this manner.

The majority of the diet is taken up by the things in the top row, and those haven't changed as dramatically as I had assumed.

In my mind there was this exponential explosion in sugar since the 70s, but the big change seems to be the drop in consumption of whole milk.

The infusion of food as science is not represented in the chart. For example people eating boiled corn 30 years ago vs Doritos 10 years ago.. both would show up as "corn".

Yes I was surprised at the "Potatoes" amount being so high and was thinking people couldn't possibly be consuming that much mashed potatoes at home then realized this probably included French-fries that are included with every meal from the majority of fast-food vendors.

I tend to wonder if the demonization of fat harmed diets more than it did any good. Whole milk getting substituted out means more carbs getting substituted into the average diet.

At first I assumed this meant we were eating significantly less dairy, but it seems most of the loss in whole milk was just cannibalized by lower fat milk, coinciding with the low fat craze.

Edit: Actually, on actually doing some math, there is a substantial decrease in overall milk consumption. It's just hard for me to visually account for this since there is so much shuffling between the categories.

    sum_milk= ->(Whole Milk + 2pct Milk + 1pct Milk + Skim Milk)

    sum_milk(1970)=.91 cups
    sum_milk(1990)=.74 cups
    sum_milk(2013)=.53 cups

In my mind there was this exponential explosion in sugar since the 70s

It was probably not so exponential, it's more like an increased intake of everything.

ERS data show that on average, US adults consumed 363 more calories per day in 2009 than we did in 1960.

The extra calories are coming from carbohydrate, fat, and protein, and increased intake of all three tightly correlate with increased obesity prevalence. In other words, we're eating more of everything than we did 50 years ago.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.dk/2014/04/calorie-intake-...

I wonder why Americans eat so little lamb compared to beef, chicken and pork? I once had shepherd’s pie in the US and it was made with beef!!

American here.

I grew up not eating lamb. It is a weird thing to me. If I went to a restaurant and saw 2 options "Beef meatballs" or "Lamb meatballs", I would pick Beef because it is familiar. I think Lamb is a more tasty and more healthful food, but I think it is just not being part of our culture we eat it less.

On not being part of our culture, I am sure price has something to do with it. Factory mass produced beef is much cheaper than lamb.. but for example Shrimp is also more expensive than beef, and we eat a lot of shrimp..

American midwesterner here.

There is really only one food I ever ate that had any lamb in it. That's the Kronos GyroKones, from Chicago. Those come in all-beef, beef/lamb, and all-chicken. The Greek-American restaurant that my family frequented had to drive their own truck to Chicago to get their gyro meat.

The US just doesn't raise much sheep for food. We grow corn, soy, wheat, alfalfa, and non-alfalfa hay. Then we feed it to cattle, dairy cows, chickens, pigs, layer hens, and turkeys. (The beef cattle and dairy cows might as well be different species, along with the meat chickens and egg-laying hens.)

If you count the heads of cattle in the US, and multiply by 7%, that's about the headcount of sheep. It's all due to the profit margins. If the US really wants wool or lamb, it ships them in from Australia or China. Local farmers can't compete unless they brand as "local" or "free range/organic".

I think a lot of not that fancy restaurants will have lamb chops.

Not Applebee's, but the next tier up will start to.

But why would I, a consumer, get lamb chops over tried and true pork chops?

I recently had lamb chops for the first time because it sounded like something good to try. They were delicious.

I'm pretty happy with the pork chops I can grill myself so I am not inclined to pay extra for them. I've never prepared lamb chops so perceive more risk of wasting the meat if I make them myself.

Have you never wanted to try something different?

Especially when pork chops have been running $1.50 - $2.00 a pound for the past couple years

We just don't have a big culture of eating lamb for whatever reason. It may be a result of how the country was settled: sparse population, big open spaces with often harsh weather and large predators (coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions), long distance travel needed to bring the animals to market. I could see those factors favoring larger animals like cattle, smaller animals like chickens which can be raised locally, and "easy" animals like pigs. My family used to raise sheep and they definitely had a tendency to die easy, however delicious they are.

Few (non-immigrant) families eat it, therefore few people know how to cook it properly. And so when they decide to try lamb on a whim, it comes out tasting bland, they say, "Ugh! Lamb is awful!", and never try it again.

It took me over a year to help my girlfriend un-learn that initial reaction by repeatedly taking her to Mediterranean and Indian restaurants where they actually know how to cook lamb.

There's a lot of minced (ground) beef in US cuisine (tacos, burritos, on pizza, hamburgers, chilli, sloppy joes, etc). That's a place where lamb could fit in really well.

This 1000%. To me, plain lamb tastes bad, but it is fine in Indian food. I prefer goat curry anyway.

I think a lamb roast, lightly seasoned before roasting, is one of the finest meals you can get. The flavor of the meat is exceptional, and you really owe it to yourself to try it if you can.

Costco sells lamb roasts for a reasonable price. This looks like a pretty decent recipe, although I never make sauce for my lamb--it's certainly juicy enough as-is: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/rosemary-a...

Another great use for the Costco lamb: cube it, marinade it in French dressing for a few hours, then make kebabs alternating the lamb cubes, chunks of bacon, and pineapple pieces. Cook it on the grill, it's fantastic.

Or a quick, light curry. Add onions, chilli, garlic, mint sauce (simply chopped mint in malt vinegar + sugar), peppers.

Because our winters are harsher so we don't get that grass fed deliciousness like the rest of the world. Beef stands up to corn better.

I don't like -any- 'gamy' meats. I am sure that I am not in a minority in that opinion among most Americans raised on the bland burgers prevalent in fast food establishments.

For us, it was expensive and we didn't really know how to cook it best (no family experience). I did get some in my college years when a greek drive-up only place did kabobs. Chicken was cheaper, and there was much more beef.

Was wondering the same thing. Lamb is by far my favourite, commonly available, meat. Roast leg of lamb and mint sauce, unbeatable!

By contrast from 2014 statistics the UK eats roughly 1/3 the amount of lamb as beef. Chicken is the most popular here too. I suspect if lamb weren't noticeably more expensive than beef, pork or chicken the rates would be higher.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/family-f...

I think it fell out of favour after WW2 - returning G.I.s had their fill of poor-tasting low-quality mutton from war-ravaged and rationed Europe and wanted their steak, dammit. [1].

[1] http://www.qmfound.com/food_wwII.htm

The problem with this type of study is that it averages all Americans together. I haven't looked in details at the graphs, but let's assume they show that nothing has really changed in 30 years. What does it mean? Maybe all Americans have kept their diet the same, but maybe some people started making a lot of effort to eat better (the ones with the awareness, the will and the means to do so), while others started eating very un-healthy food.

It is still a useful metric.

If we show Diabetes rate has doubled in the past 30 years, and the consumption of something (Cheese?) has tripled in the past 30 years, it may be worth doing a study on the effects of cheese on health. Note I didn't say immediately blame cheese for obesity like the news would...

Consumption has increased across categories.

http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.pdf

Oils, grains and sugars are the big ones.

edit: Ignore this, I'm an idiot and got hypnotized by the pretty graphs without actually reading the FA.

The thing that really jumped out at me was the more than tripled cooking oil consumption over that time, without a corresponding decrease in usage of other oils (cooking oil went from 13g to 44.7g; margarine went from 6.5g to 1.6g). That's an enormous change, and it ramped up fast starting in 2000 (13g to 23g 71-88; flattish 21g to 24g 89-99; 28g to 45g 2000-2008; flattish until 2013 with a dip in 2009).

Putting it in calorie count numbers, that's a change of +230ish calories in oils over that time period ignoring the less-used ones. In terms of decreases there are really only a couple that seem notable - beef dropping from 2.6 oz/day to 1.8 oz/day and whole milk dropping from 0.7c to 0.16c - neither of which is going to have a significant impact on calories consumed.

I wonder what changed at the inflection points on the cooking oil (and shortening, which had a bump during 2000-2007) scales - they somewhat correspond with presidencies, but not directly (e.g. Clinton was still in office in 2000 during the first year of the rapid rise period).

It explains the cooking oil rise in the article as:

"a change in reporting to the Census Bureau"

I wonder what a "monkey with the charts" diet of lamb, carrots, avocados, rye bread, lard, and ice cream would be like. For the diet to be palatable at all, you'd have to go very easy on the lard, but the rest of it actually sounds pretty appetizing.

with regards to dark greens coming up the charts. better farming techniques and especially packaging and timely shipping increased the availability. throw in some heavy marketing from the prepackaged crowd and its easy to see why the increase is there.

Lard puts on a pretty lackluster performance. Very disappointed.

Come to the reservations and let me introduce you to Indian Tacos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frybread

They used different units of measurement for each category. It makes direct comparison unnecessarily difficult, maybe misleading.

Meat->Ounces; Vegetable->cups; Fruits->cups; Grains->ounces; Dairy->cups; and finally, Fat->Grams

Let's look at 2008.

Meat->Chicken->2.10 ounces; Vegetable->Potatoes->0.59cups; Fruits->Apple->0.11cups->Grains->Wheat Flour->4.07ounces; Fat->Cooking Oil->45.10grams;

In other words, they ate more cooking oil than every other category combined! To me, it seems like this was cooked up to support the "Fat is BAD" fad.

The great beef to chicken switch of 2004/2005.

I guess all those Chick fil A ads worked

Gotta love any article with relevant nerd notes!

I wish there was only one chart per category.

meat + potatoes

That's a nice diet to have. Add some junk food in too Ice cream/chips and fries. You got yourself a overweight population

Reply on news.ycombinator.com