PeterMP

Just a reminder to enjoy the little things.  My oldest has been playing soccer since she was like 4 but isn't playing next year in college.  She played her last game this weekend.  We have a tradition of rehashing the game later at home, so just like always we did that.  It really struck me the next day that will be the last time we do that.

2 hours ago, justice98 said:

Folks do seem to want to treat Clark with kid gloves. Every transcendant rookie has a target on them and gets roughed and tested to some degree by the vets.  I remember when Wemby got drafted, vets were openly talking about seeing what he was made of.

 

That hip check on Clark was the most mild thing ever.  You would have thought Carter took a running start and dumped Clark into the 3rd row with all the hysteria. She got a receipt out in the open for the elbow on the other end. Absolutely a foul by Carter, call it, keep it moving.  The fact that this has turned into a national discourse that, essentially, the rest of the WNBA should let her get off because the league needs her is kinda crazy.  

I missed the play/game when Wemby was knocked to the ground when the ball wasn't even in play.

Nobody (at least most people) aren't saying she should "get off".  But saying people shouldn't intentionally run into a player during a dead ball in a non-basketball play isn't saying some one should get off.

4 hours ago, BringMetheHeadofBruceAllen said:

I just don't think we should risk nuclear war over Taiwan or send our soldiers there. It's inevitable that China will take Taiwan and all we can do is make it costly for them by giving Taiwan weapons.

 

China doesn't care if it hurts their image, the fact is many in the world respect power and not international rules, which China and Russia push back on because it constrains them.

It certainly isn't inevitable.  China is a country in (a slow) decline.  It is clear their economy has peaked (and with sanctions will decline) and was never as strong as they claimed.  Their demographics are upside down and getting worse.  And (especially given their size) they are natural resource poor.

The general consensus is that the Chinese are making an effort to do it by 2027 (there has been some statements by Chinese leaders to that affect).  Partly, that time frame is because of their larger situation (e.g. population demographics).  Similar to Putin invading Ukraine where many people believe Putin did it now vs. playing a longer game because he saw that the Russia wouldn't be able to do it in a decade or so because of demographics and a declining population.

If you let China take Taiwan, it will come with larger costs associated with much of Asia moving towards China.  It will also likely result in nuclear proliferation as you can expect other Asian states (and maybe even Australia) to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves.  Taiwan isn't a nuclear state and killed their nuclear program partly out of pressure from us, but as part of that pressure came some security.  Our protection is also one reason why states like S. Korea and Japan don't become nuclear.  If we let China take Taiwan, you can expect other states question our ability/willingness to protect them and look to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves.  If Japan and S. Korea become nuclear states, then you might even see it spread to countries like Vietnam (and then certainly Australia).

(In terms of it being inevitable, even Taiwan has the ability to develop nuclear weapons (i.e. the money, technology, and know how).  If they did, that would certainly prevent a Chinese invasion.)

**EDIT**

I will point out that nuclear non proliferation/prevent an arms race is really why we fought the first Gulf War.  We were actually allies with Saddam at the time (supported him during the Iran-Iraq war and saw him a balance force against Iran), and he would have gladly continued to sell us Kuwaiti oil.

The issue is we also had a long standing relationship with Kuwait and while not an official defense agreement a general understanding.  If we simply let Iraq take over Kuwait, other countries in similar situations would have questioned our support and been more likely to develop nuclear weapons/start arms races, including the Saudis and Taiwan.

You'd likely want to fight a war against China with hopes that it doesn't go nuclear for the same reasons.

China actually really got messed up with Russia invading Ukraine, and then their response.  Before that, people sort of weren't taking China seriously, but with their upgrading their military, their other initiatives, and Russia invading Ukraine people are now taking it seriously.

Their other problem is the vast majority of relatively powerful countries aren't neutral on rising Chinese power.  Many of the Asian countries (e.g. India) don't really care about Russia taking Ukraine and are still buying from Russia and selling to Russia.  But India is very much worried about rising Chinese power, is upping their military spending, and recently did things like role out a new aircraft carrier.  Realistically, they are 15-20 years behind China.  They don't have the ability to take on the front line Chinese military, but in terms of shutting down the shipping of oil to China if the core of the Chinese navy was destroyed or engaged elsewhere, they'd be fine.  They also have a younger population and an economy that's actually growing.

(Most of the oil to China has to go through some tiny strait that connects the Pacific to the Indian Ocean which is why they've talked about building a new canal through Thailand.  https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/01/china-india-conflict-thai-kra-canal/)

And the EU doesn't want to become dependent on China for technology (things like chips).  To them, China isn't a threat at the level of Russia, but they also don't see the rise of China as a neutral thing and wouldn't see a Chinese invasion of Taiwan neutrally.  They are already sanctioning China (ostensibly over support of Russia) but are looking at other sanctions too.  If China tries to take Taiwan, they'll get no support from anywhere other than Russia and maybe Iran (but Iran is also pretty friendly with India.  Iran would probably go towards China, but it isn't a sure thing.), and China doesn't have the oil to keep their economy afloat and Russia can't afford to and won't just give things to them.

There's no way it makes sense for China to try to take Taiwan (unless they've pretty thoroughly infiltrated the Taiwanese government/military and can do it relatively bloodlessly and/or have infiltrated the cybersecurity systems of their opponents and can take them off the board before they start).  Hopefully, the Chinese leadership acts rationally.

5 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/first-battle-next-war-wargaming-chinese-invasion-taiwan

CSIS developed a wargame for a Chinese amphibious invasion of Taiwan and ran it 24 times. In most scenarios, the United States/Taiwan/Japan defeated a conventional amphibious invasion by China and maintained an autonomous Taiwan.
 

However, this defense came at high cost. The United States and its allies lost dozens of ships, hundreds of aircraft, and tens of thousands of servicemembers. Taiwan saw its economy devastated. Further, the high losses damaged the U.S. global position for many years. China also lost heavily, and failure to occupy Taiwan might destabilize Chinese Communist Party rule. Victory is therefore not enough. The United States needs to strengthen deterrence immediately.

I want to point out that CSIS is heavily funded by the defense industry.  Their answer is almost always more defense spending.

In particular in this case, they mention fighters (as in fighter jets) 14 times in their report.  They mention drones twice and one of them is a reference.

If Taiwan is competent, their ability to resist an invasion across the strait's is not going to be dependent on their use of fighters (and so to protect them and their bases).   We've seen with Russia/Ukraine how cheap drones have been able to attack and neutralize the Russian navy.  China is going to have move their whole military operation across the straits.  

There's no doubt that China can pretty much destroy Taiwan using missiles, including air force bases and runways.  But to actually take Taiwan, they have to put a large amount of military hardware and people on ships which will be vulnerable by attacks by relatively cheap, inexpensive, and safe drones that don't need a real base or much of a runway.

Now, China has a vast drone fleet itself, but Taiwan gets to play defense and is working on closing the gap.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/us-china-tech-taiwan/

(There are three real concerns with respect to a Chine attacking Taiwan:

1.  How far have the Chinese infiltrated the Taiwanese government/military and is it to the point that Taiwan won't be able to function?

2.  How good is China's cyberwarfare compared to us and Taiwan?  If our systems aren't secure, then that very much might tip the balance to China.

3.  If (when) things go badly, will they resort to WMDs?)

1 hour ago, Bang said:

Everything is turned on it's head.
All these scientists say we are alone, meanwhile the military is scratching its head and admitting in public that things they don't understand are flying around, and I think a former Admiral came out the other day and said that he believes they are extraterrestrial.

 

~Bang

Time travel.  We are alone but humans from the future are coming back.

https://gizmodo.com/drake-equation-update-fermi-paradox-intelligent-life-1851503974

Updated Formula on Alien Intelligence Suggests We Really Are Alone in the Galaxy An adjustment to the famous Drake Equation could radically refine estimates of intelligent civilizations in our galaxy.

2 minutes ago, BringMetheHeadofBruceAllen said:

 

Yep, just like Nazi Germany. German citizens didn't have any experience with authoritarianism before Hitler came to power either...

Germany was a dictatorship (empire) before and during WWI.  WWI ended the German Empire (so about 1919).  Hitler takes power in Germany in the early 30s.  They literally had about a decade as a democracy and it wasn't very stable/peaceful during that decade.

(I think the election will be close where Trump will get at least 45% of the popular vote, and he doesn't need to get 50% to win.  Whether he wins will depend on what happens between now and the election.  A good and stable economy, no terrorist attacks, etc. I think will give Biden the win.  If there is a recession starting in Aug. or a pretty major terrorist attack, Trump wins.

I think perception of the economy will break as long at stays strong.  Especially now with the news that stores are dropping prices.  That seems to have made pretty big news.  But I think in the end, people will look at their own pocketbook.)

1 hour ago, LadySkinsFan said:

Clinton 42 was the Democrat who moved the party to center right. It's not recovered yet.

 

 

I don't think this is really true.  Certainly based on today's standards Carter wasn't liberal and even at the time he wasn't considered liberal.  Through that post-Vietnam stretch there certainly a strong liberal wing of the party, but it couldn't win elections at the national level.  The Democratic party moved to the right because that was what was necessary to win national elections.  I think Clinton was more of a product of a move right to win national elections then created a move right.  

6 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

That supposes that the American public hasn't moved left though in the last 30 years. I truly don't see moderate Democrats moving right to capture pre maga GOPers (assuming that split happens) because frankly, that right wing faction is still against what the majority of the American public wants. 

 

Pre maga Republicans are still against Roe and Obergefell (and even Loving), despite it being extremely popular with the American public. 

I can't find pure numbers for support of Roe by party longer term.

But through the 1990s just under 30% of Republicans wanted abortion legal under any circumstances and as late as 2018 over 50% of Republicans didn't want Roe over turned.   

https://news.gallup.com/poll/246278/abortion-trends-party.aspx

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/nbc-wsj-poll-support-roe-v-wade-hits-new-high-n893806

I don't think broadly classifying pre- maga Republicans as anti-Roe and certainly anti Loving is very accurate.  

(Nationally, moving to much too the right would be a mistake for Democrats.  In certain areas, it would be beneficial.  I don't know if that's possible any more.  Once upon a time, people said all politics were local.  

With the death of small local newspapers and the creation of the 24-hour national new organizations and even right-wing radio and today the internet, I don't think that's true any more.)

https://www.propublica.org/article/3m-forever-chemicals-pfas-pfos-inside-story?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

"Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe"

Really a story about how long and how much 3M knew about forever chemicals before things became public knowledge.  It doesn't seem that they really ever convinced her the chemicals were safe.  She knew they were there and decided not to push it.

Just to add onto the last thought, my mom's 77.  In her early to mid-30's she was overweight.  She's sort of short, but she was over weight and had to be at least pushing obese based on BMI and must have dropped at least 20 pounds.  And she's kept if off.  My mom today weighs less than she did in early 30's so pretty large weight loss and keeping it off is possible.

And my mom does it with a diet that I don't think anybody would expect to be key to weight loss.  Her #1 snack is pretzels (and even salted pretzels).  She takes pretzels every where with her.  She keeps a bag next to her bed.  @Califan007 The Constipated and I talked about diet soda earlier.  She drinks 2-3 bottles of diet soda a day and has done so ~40 years.  Her breakfast is cinnamon raisin toast with fake butter on it (and not a special whole/wheat whole/grain bread but whatever the cheap processed stuff you buy in the grocery store is).  That and pretzels get her through to lunch, and I don't think she eats any protein with lunch.  I think she has a salad, a piece of fruit, and goes back to eating pretzels.

From what I know of the science, if you took somebody in their early 30's and said they are going on a weight loss plan that is mom's I'd tell you not only is that person not going to lose weight, but they are going to gain it.

Not an MD and obesity isn't close to what I do for research, but I'd say if you have issues with weight, there's nothing wrong with trying something new.  Especially if you have issues with yo-yoing where you try the same thing over and over and lose the weight just to regain it.   Science is great, but if the "normal" science stuff isn't working for you, then I'd say it might be worth trying something different.

1 hour ago, mcsluggo said:

 

 

these again sound like short term changes (and drastic ones, at that).   AND ...they sound more descriptive of eating less than exercising more:   when you eat drastically less and lose weight, your body metabolism changes to try to protect the remaining fat, which is increasing cherished in the body's "value function. Your body starts to shut down things like building muscle and even starts breaking down muscle to preserve the remaining fat-stores.     Lethargy sets in and metabolism plummets.   

Look, you understand in science there are always exceptions.  If you've found that you can lose weight by exercise alone, good for you you're an exception.

The NYT article that I posted more recently and the Vox article that I posted before lay out the science pretty well.  But science at that level is based on the averages.  And some people will be exceptions.

Any time a topic like this comes up like this, I'm pretty careful to include things like for most people in most of posts.  Following the science is good, but if you've got something that works for you I'd say ignore the science and keep doing it.

@tshile

I think many people over do it, and that makes it worse.  I'll talk about myself here some.  I'm 6-5 208 (thin), but if I get 215 my blood sugar levels will be high and I'll put essentially all the weight on at my stomach.  In may late 20s I got as high as ~225.  Staying 208 is a fight.  In college, I was like 190.  I'd love to get back to that, but that's just not practical (though I'm also stronger now than I was then).  

I still play full court basketball once a week at lunch with much younger guys.  I exercise other days, but that's easiest the hardest thing I do all week.  When I get done, I'm very hungry.  If I'm not careful, I can easily ending up weighing more the day after I played than the day I did play.  I'll go from 208 to 212 overnight.  No problem.  It's like ugh.  I did all of the exercise yesterday, and I've actually gained weight.  To fight this, I do a couple of things (some of it is backed by science but the science here gets pretty weak and there aren't a lot of good studies so take it for what it is worth.  I'm hoping the new weight loss drugs don't kill this as an area of research.  Hopefully people will still see value in helping people know how to lose weight without the drugs.)

1.  pre-hydrate.  Make sure you start drinking water before you start and drink a lot after.  Don't let your body mix thirsty up with hungry.

2.  Have a plan to replenish electrolytes that doesn't mean taking in a bunch of extra calories, especially as carbs.  I also avoid artificial sweeteners.  I gave my normal lunch earlier.  The day I play I'll eat a different lunch.

3.  Give yourself some extra carbs.  Just control how many and how you take them in.  Waiting a while after exercising, slowly, and with other things is better.  I'll wait to eat "extra" until I'm home (by which time I'm starving).  And then I'll come home and have hot chocolate (with 2% milk and a little fiber supplement).  Yes, I'm counteracting some of calories from exercise, but it being hot makes me drink it slowly, I'm getting a mix of things, in a relatively large volume, and I end up feeling pretty full to get me through dinner.  My kids laugh at me because I'll be drinking hot chocolate in the evening during the summer.  But it works for me.

The getting tired thing is harder.  For me most times, it goes away after a day.  But not sitting down that night until I go to bed helps me not go to sleep early that night.  I just plan on doing whatever I'm going to do that day standing up.  If I sit down in a comfortable chair, I can go to sleep an hour earlier than normal easily.

The other thing I've found is I've had to change what I eat over time to maintain the weight.  When I was in my late 20s, cutting out sugary beverages (soda) got me down to 210.  Over the years, I've had to lose/substitute other things to stay under 210.  Today, I can't eat like I did at 40 and stay under 210.

8 minutes ago, tshile said:

@PeterMPwhat you’re talking about sounds like a fancy way of saying yo-yo dieting/exercising, which I touched on earlier. 
 

I can’t read the article. But this research you keep brining up and stuff you keep linking - is this what they’re seeing with people that establish an exercise routine over 6 months and stick to it?

 

or is it something people are seeing as a short term result?

 

because it’s well known that starting/stopping exercise and dieting causes the problems you describe. And what I’ve always understood is that to actually get results you have to push through it. You have to make serious life style changes - from regular exercise, to eating less, to eating more healthy things, and other things about your life. 

In cases, where people truly make the life stye change exercise and eat less and eat more healthy things, people can lose weight.

But that's rare.  Because once you've gained pounds most people's bodies start sending out all sorts of signals to counter act that (and doing things like lowering your base line metabolic rates).  For most people once they've put on weight losing that weight gets hard because their body fights them.  It is hard and stressful walking around feeling hungry all day even you if you intellectually understand that you don't need to eat.  Most people if they drop 5-10 pounds, the body starts making and sending out the your hungry signal even if you've eaten.  And sends out the your tired signal even if it shouldn't be and you've taken in enough calories that day.  

People yo-yo because their body is fighting them.  For short periods of times they can fight the your hungry/tired signals and lose weight.  But over longer periods of time, they fail.

The literature on whether poor people make bad decisions is mixed at best.  Some find no real relationship between decision making and poverty, especially when you take into account they have to consider more immediate financial needs.

https://healthpolicy.usc.edu/evidence-base/poverty-and-decision-making/

Even in cases where there appears to be bad decision making by people that are poor, teasing out what is the horse and what is the cart has turned out to be hard.

Are people poor because they made bad decisions or do they make bad decisions because they are poor?

https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/does-being-poor-lead-to-poor-decisions#:~:text=One of the obstacles that,only make their situation worse.

2 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

 

i hear people often say that exercise isn't the way ... and your statement here really lays that view on the line.   

 

But it doesn't make any sense to me.

 

Your statement SEEMS to apply to an out of shape person that exercises once and never before or after.   then it MIGHT be true that the exercise would have minimal impact--- 500 calories burned, and then eat extra calories to make up for it, and sit on your couch recovering instead of doing whatever minor activity you might otherwise have done.     

 

But contrast that with a new steady state that involves exercising hard several times a week (for years)?   ------   you burn the direct calories from exercising.   you burn LOTS more calories building up (and eventually maintaining) 20 pounds of muscle that burn a lot of calories just existing.  and even beyond that you just plain increase your energy level.   Fit people have more energy, do more... and eat more.     The extreme case (not as an example of a target, just as an asymptotic boundary example) is football players that eat like 8,000 calories a day during the season, and STILL lose weight as the season progresses.     \

 

Muscle is "expensive" (in terms of calories)   

 

What the science says it doesn't help you lose weight for most people.  There are a couple of things:

1.  Most people don't burn most of their calories from exercise.  Most people burn about 1400 calories a day as a baseline metabolic rate independent of exercise.  But that can vary quite a bit (for reasons we don't really understand).  When you gain weight and then try to exercise to lose it, people's bodies slow down the baseline metabolic rate and so just their resting calorie burning goes down.

An increase in calories out in exercise doesn't equate to a true increase in calories spent in many cases.

(The people on the "Biggest Loser" are great an example of this in many cases.  In many cases, they ended up with baseline metabolic rates lower than when they went on the show.  The net effect is after being on the show in many cases they went back to their previous life and actually ended up heavier than they were.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/well/move/exercise-weight-loss-metabolism.html

Once your body achieves a certain weight it tries very hard to maintain that including seemingly lowering the number of calories you burn when your sleeping.)

2.  You can't out exercise your stomach/processed food.  Running a mile burns about 170 calories.  That's nothing to eat today.  That's a poptart.  You've exercised, lost weight, the body just starts flooding the system with signals that it's hungry.  

21 hours ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

There is always a cut-off point where eating unhealthy/bad food starts to affect our bodies negatively for the long haul.

 

So, eating 6 pop tarts a day as meals could lead me to gaining 40 lbs over the next year, as where cutting it down to 4 pop tarts a day I'll only gain 30 lbs lol...either way, you're gaining too much weight, as well as ****ing up your body in numerous other ways from that unhealthy diet.

This got lost in the shuffle the other day.  Great your down to four poptarts for your meal and still easily putting on weight. Cut it to 2 poptarts.  You've now gone from 6 poptarts to 2 poptarts which means you're saving money that you can use to buy healthier food.  Even cut it to 1 poptart and use the saved money to add in some healthier food.

You're still gaining weight.  Great.  Eat 1/2 a poptart.

(The science of nutrition is some what still in flux, but generally in terms of obesity it appears the issue with most processed foods is they are carb/fat  and calorie heavy and water, fiber, and nutrient poor.  I think this is a better reflection of actuality of most people's eating than the 2 hot dog and lentil soup example.  Somebody eating 3 poptarts is getting a reasonable number of calories for a meal and not even an unreasonable number of carbs, but they are probably going to feel hungry soon and their body is probably shunting more of those calories into fat than if they ate something else.  Carb spikes cause hormones that shift metabolism to fat production to spike.

There appears to be an interaction between the physical act of eating and being hungry and how much space the food physically takes up in the stomach.  I think most people can eat 3 poptarts in 3 minutes.  Your body isn't evolved to be used to being able to take in over 300 calories that quickly taking up that little space and so won't think it is full.  Small bites, chew well, eat slowly can help with that.  Compared to most natural foods, the poptarts are water and fiber poor.  I'd generally suggest eating real foods that are high in fiber and water (celery would be good) and even drinking some water while eating.  But you can buy fiber supplements cheaply, and there is evidence that they help suppress appetite.  Those things will help convince your body that it has taken in a reasonable number of calories as with the fiber and fluid the stomach feels full and the length of time to eat wasn't too fast.  Fiber also slows down the metabolizing of the carbs in the poptart and can even out the carb spike and make it less likely the body triggers increased fat production (eating more slowly itself also helps with that).

Poptarts and most processed food are nutrient poor so even if you've eaten them and your body thinks it has taken in a normal amount of calories because you've eaten slowly and added fiber and liquid, you're likely still going to be hungry again soon.  Again, eating real food is probably better, but there is evidence that a multi-vitamin can help with that (and also not very expensive).  That should help some in terms of your body won't be hungry because your missing some vitamins.  

Your still carb heavy and protein poor, so you'd likely still end up hungry again and so adding some protein somehow would likely be a good idea.  Even protein powders can likely help with this.  They're relatively expensive (I calculated $2.85 per a serving at my local grocery store, but a serving is your 50 g of protein which if the FDA suggested total protein for a day, so you can really split that over 3-4 meals).  Eggs, bean, and nuts, are generally good relatively cheap natural options.)

And again, my original comments were based on the majority of the Americans.  Your person eating 6 poptarts for a meal because that's what they can afford isn't the majority of the people.  We lead the world in drinking sugary drinks and in eating fastfood.  Those aren't money issues.

But the reality is that if you are eating processed food because it is what you think you can afford and your are gaining an unhealthy amount of weight, you don't have a money problem.  You have a knowledge/decision making problem.  You are actually spending more money than you need on food.  You can afford to buy less processed food and spend some money on other things that increase your fiber, increase your nutrient in take, and balance out your calorie distribution.

2 hours ago, Renegade7 said:

In the interest of keeping this convo honest, I may be biased and I do have strong opinions. But I do wish to see more posts about actually feeding their own family, especially with their own kids, and what's its like to do that on a budget and not dominated by junk food (especially when both parents work).  Don't give advice you won't take yourself.

 

First, I wouldn't stress over it too much.  It is interesting because at some level there is conflicting science.  The studies show that forcing kids is a mistake and that parents doing X, Y, and Z have affects A, B, and C.  But studies also show other than the extremes not much you do actually impacts the final results of kids growing up.  So I think generally kids are going to come out the way they are going to come out.

And I see that with my own kids.  With my oldest daughter, we absolutely used coercion in terms of eating vegetables (We did you can't leave the table until you at least eat some small part of whatever the vegetable was).  We regulated candy in take. Etc.  Today she eats great and regulates well on her own.  She's now 18 but even the last years she was trick or treating, she'd have left over Halloween candy at Easter without our input/regulation.  She goes out to eat, and she almost always brings home leftovers.  And she'll try all sort of things and has expended her diet on her own to include vegetables we didn't have her eat growing up.

With my younger daughter we had less time to worry about the eating and doing things like sitting at the table for a long time because she wouldn't eat a vegetable and I became more aware of the literature (it really seems the literature grew in those 4 years).  We got away from coercion in terms of eating vegetables and did more in terms of what the science is/was saying.  Today she eats 4 vegetables.  Hasn't added another one in years.  Doesn't regulate well and will eat all of her Halloween candy in a few days.

The science say coercion doesn't work.  In my household, the out come was better when we used coercion.  I have a feeling if we'd flipped things, the outcome would have been pretty much the same.

I think in terms of the science, the people doing the work would say don't bribe.  That's really just a step away from coercion.  The science says to model and just keep putting things in front of them in repeatedly (repetition appears to be key for anybody eating something new) but also try different forms.

In terms of being busy, I think eating on a schedule works well (I also think it helps in terms of a budget).  It isn't something that we've done, but it is how my wife and I both grew up (I think food shows, blogs, and like the NYT cooking section (that my wife likes to read) has affected people's thinking and my wife essentially won't schedule dinners, even though she complains about how hard it is to come up with different dinners.  I suggest just having a schedule, but she doesn't want to.  There is a sense that you have to try new things and make exciting and new dinners that didn't seem to exist among our parents when we were young.  I'm not sure where that's come from, but I think food tv shows, blogs, etc..)  Growing up, I didn't have to ask what was for dinner.  It was Monday night, we had the Monday night dinner.

Certainly, I think modeling for kids is good.  I see that with my kids some and when I was growing up.  But don't pretend.  It is okay if you don't like everything with every dinner.  I don't claim to like broccoli, but I eat. it.  Even pasta.  Saturday night was spaghetti night when I was growing up.  I don't like pasta.  Every Saturday night I ate spaghetti.  Sunday night was meatloaf.  My mom loved meatloaf.  My dad didn't like it.  Every Sunday night my dad ate meatloaf.  We had dinners that mom didn't like too.  She'd normally eat a salad.  I didn't like spaghetti but to young me, it was better than a salad.  Today we have pasta some nights.  My kids and wife like it.  I don't, but I eat it anyway.

Now as part of that, I think not having things that shouldn't be eaten in the house not in the house is important (and I don't mean have it but hide it).  One reason I ate spaghetti every Saturday was because as much I didn't like it there wasn't anything really in the house that I did like.  (I grew up relatively poor so there was rarely just extra food in the house.  Things like crackers and chips essentially didn't exist in our house.  Pretty much all the food we had was earmarked for something.  If you didn't eat the dinner on the table that night there were limited options (salad).  And we do that today but differently.  There are lots of fruits and veggies in the house.  We rarely have chips, crackers, etc.  If you are hungry and looking for something to eat, you are much more likely to come across a fruit or veggie first.  I believe without real coercion kids will eat when they are hungry, and they will eat is (readily) available.  If the most readily available thing is fruit or veggies, that's what they will eat.  If you don't eat processed food and don't have it in the house, just practically they can't it either.)

1 hour ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

 

My eyes glossed over while reading that lol 😐...what's the tl:dr version?

Basically, that doctors don't do a good job of talking to their patients about their health and/or people don't go to doctors regularly.  But if a patient sees something advertised to treat something they have wrong with them, they will see a doctor specifically bring it up to the doctor.  And then the doctor can prescribe it for them.  And then getting people treated for diseases is good and saves everybody money.

There is some evidence that drug ads are actually in totality beneficial.

https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/the-hidden-benefits-of-tv-drug-ads1

56 minutes ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

No offense, but that's a terrible definition. The cost of individual items compared to the total amount spent on all items is not a good way of defining "relatively cheap."

 

And what effin' family is spending $6,000 a month on food?!?!?!?! lol...

 

According to the Census Bureau, the average U.S. family spends $1,000 a month on groceries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/01/20/average-grocery-cost-per-week-us-states/72260684007/

 

According to the USDA, the average family spends between $600-$1200 a month.

https://jow.com/guide/category/saving-on-groceries-c-5SCg/how-much-is-the-average-weekly-grocery-bill-for-a-family-of-4-q-p6Wb4k

 

Where are you getting the $6,000/month figure from?

 

 

I'm not seeing it now.  Pulled if off a web page.  Though it does seem like I must have messed it up.  But groceries aren't getting the whole picture either, because it excludes people eating out.  Even basic fastfood isn't going to be included in that.  In a society where many people eat out often and that's partly a contributor to obesity, the grocery bill isn't capturing the full picture.  I did also mess up the math before.  You'd already taken into account a family of 3 so I've got an extra multiplication in there so (and certainly $7.74 to feed a family of 3 is better than you are getting eating out today even eating out at fastfood).

Though I don't understand why that's an awful comparison.  What people could spend on something that is relatively healthy vs. their actual total spending seems like a reasonable comparison.

Why don't you tell me what you think we should compare things to and we'll go from there?

What would be a reasonable costs or a relatively cheap costs for most Americans to eat healthy and why that number?

29 minutes ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

tshile responded specifically to my mentioning making kids eat foods that they don't like, though.So a study on coercion would be highly appropriate to back up my original comment.

Actually he didn't.  He talked about adults doing things that they don't like and eating things they didn't like as kids.  Adults do things they don't like.

11 minutes ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

 

And by the way...

 

 

 

Did you define this yet? lol...I may have missed it if you did. Relatively cheap...relative to what?

 

Because if "relatively cheap" is a usable term in this discussion, then so is "relatively expensive." I abso-stinkin-lutely guarantee you that damn near all healthy food you deem as "relatively cheap" will validly be deemed "relatively expensive" to a wide swath of the public. It's a someone objective term that has a somewhat subjective definition, mainly because of the word "relative"...are apples "relatively cheap" compared to strawberries? Yes. Are apples "relatively cheap" compared to ramen noodles? No. That nuts/apples/peas meal you described earlier is "relatively expensive" when compared to a meal of ramen noodles and hot dogs.

Relatively cheaply compared to what people generally spend on food in the US.

(The average American family spends over $6000 a month.  Let's say 4 people per the average American family (that's an over estimate).  You put my meal at $7.74, and I'm a large adult male so at the upper end of what people should be taking in terms of calories (so that's an overestimate).  We'll say 3 meals a day.  We'll say 31 days in a month (so again we'll say the extreme).

That's $2,879.28 a month.  That's well below what the average American family spends on food a month.  Compared to what most Americans spend on food a month, it is a cheap meal.  (And again, that's with things biased to be high in terms of calories in taken and the size of the average family).

The vast majority of Americans could eat that version of healthy and cut their food costs.

8 minutes ago, Califan007 The Constipated said:

 

A few things:

 

- It seems like you're of the belief that a calorie is a calorie, regardless of its source. So reducing calories will lead to people not becoming obese. Unfortunately that's not true, other than in extreme scenarios (like eating 200 calories a day or some **** lol). The whole Keto diet thing is centered around removing types of foods from your diet, not calories from your diet. So eating unhealthy meals in smaller portions doesn't really address the root of obesity. If you eat 2 Ramen noodle meals a day instead of three, you're still overloading your system with sodium and all types of bad **** that is still bad **** even if you reduce your intake. For the record, this is specifically for the ultra cheap ramen noodles, could be healthier versions out there. And I'm only using Ramen noodles as a way of making my point lol...I'm not actually trying to say anything about ramen noodles per se.

 

- You don't have to eat 4,000 calories of processed foods to lead to obesity. It's what the food contains, not the calories. 1 salmon fillet has about the same amount of calories as eating 5-6 Pop Tarts. But you eat 5-6 Pop Tarts as a meal it's gonna lead you down the obesity path as where that salmon fillet will just taste good and be good for your body. And cutting back to 4 Pop Tarts for a meal won't really do much lol (figured I'd get off ramen noodles). However, one salmon fillet can be 5 to 10 times more expensive than 6 Pop Tarts.

I'm not a believer that a calorie is a calorie.  I think that's pretty clear in the context of talking about metabolic reprogramming that can happen and talking about using fiber supplements to even out glycemic loads.

But there's no science that supports the idea that if you have a person that is eating 6 poptarts a day and they cut back to 4 (without replacing those calories with something else), that they won't be less likely to gain weight (or lose more weight).  A calorie of fat is not the same as a calorie of a protein isn't a calorie of carbohydrates.  But there's no science that says all other things staying the same that reducing the calories of what would be the same carbohydrate (pop tart carbohydrates) won't impact weight.

I'm also not talking about just bad stuff (e.g. salt in the ramen soup or the nitrates in the hot dog).  I'm specifically talking about obesity.  Going from 2 hot dogs to 1 hot dog might not impact your risks of nitrate/processed meat associated cancer to any measurable level, but that's not the point I'm making.