It boggles my mind we need “science” to tell us this stuff that is frankly just common sense that has been beaten down by pop culture.
Plus, American version of everything contains more sugar - notably bread, sauces, cola, cereals, everything. Bread is the thing that makes massive difference. Aaaand milk is invariably low fat, which makes it less satiating.
When I heart Americans talk about healthy food, they often end up citing food that can't work long term. Or that just seem designed to be tastles and punish you. You can't have the same beans your only protein source long term.
Rice+beans easily amount to food that makes you both fat and hungry. Vegetables add vitamins and fibre, but absent some other fat and protein source you are bound to feel hungry.
I am lactose intolerant and so don't drink raw milk, but I don't have any problem buying full fat milk products. I guess restaurants might not serve full fat stuff, but stores pretty universally stock the range.
Do European breads have negative sugar in them?
Whose sugary content is also bigger. It is that thing I noticed - I eate roughly the same in different counties and put sand effort into food. And sometimes I was gaining weight and other times loosing it. It was not me that was changing.
All of that adds up and the form od sugar do matters too.
It's true that sugar is added to things that typically wouldn't contain them elsewhere, e.g. bread and pasta sauce, but I'd argue not in amounts that are nutritionally meaningful.
The issue we have is over-consumption.
I'll give you that lunch is more of a struggle if you're short on time and don't want to meal prep but you could still just buy a value menu taco or burger from a fast food joint and be fine (the ultra calorie monster items are not in the value menu). Sure, it'll come with transfats and some of the other non-christian food ingredients but one Breakfast Jack, Value Cheeseburger, Potato Taco, etc. per day aren't going to be what makes you fat. Which winds back around to my point that the issue isn't really one of access for most Americans, it's one of preference and excess.
We're treating adults more and more like kids.
Why is being harsh seen as being more adult? It's just harmful and creates many social barriers and ill will.
We used to teach that, not tell everyone they did good for participating
Somehow we've lost the distinction between the outcome and the person.
In some developer circles, merely opening an issue or criticizing a feature is now considered rude, because someone worked on it very hard and they might get offended at pointing the bug or lacking design. This problem is getting more and more widespread.
Some people see disagreeing with any of their mundane opinions as assault on their character.
With the advent of social media, blocking people for having different opinions, institutionalizing “safe” “spaces” in academia, so that freedom from “offense” or “insult” is seen as more virtuous than having freedom of opinions and ideas, it’s no surprising that people expect to be awarded for merely participating, or they fall in existential depressions.
In my opinion, the 2nd choice is a very common mental disease, in the sense that I see no benefits but lots of drawbacks from generalizing a failure in one part of your life into a character attribute. So most likely, such a trait would have been evolutionary selected against.
In short, people who internalize failure are evolutionary less fit.
It is completely unsurprising that there are people who think like you.
But oh God, so many Westerners are absolutely clueless in the kitchen. I am not sure whether this is caused by not having enough time, by successful advertising from processed food producers or from a cultural stigma that cooking is somehow backward and a kind of self-oppression. But cooking is dying out, for the first time in human history.
When my friends talk about "knowing how to cook" they are talking about making rich, luxurious foods with lots of butter, oil, eggs, and meat. It's probably worse than a hamburger from McDonald's.
Can highly recommend the book The Body Keeps The Score for further reading.
I blame the intersection of capitalism and food, the normalization and expansion of horrific fast food choices solely because it is profitable and advertising is cheap.