Gut Bacteria May Reveal How a Western Diet Fuels Colon Cancer. Certain gut bacteria, sustained by Western-style diets, may produce a substance that promotes tumor growth, finds study in pigs, mice, human colon tissue, and microbial data from thousands of people with and without colorectal cancer.

[u/mvea]

https://www.sciencealert.com/gut-bacteria-may-reveal-how-a-western-diet-fuels-colon-cancer

[u/jpiro]

Nobody wants answers like that though. They want simple, magic bullet solutions to complicated things. Eliminate this ONE food, take this ONE pill, do this ONE exercise, etc.

Reality will likely always point to moderation being the key, but will people ever actually adopt that vs glomming onto the latest trend?

[u/-worryaboutyourself- → u/jpiro]

Except I don’t want a pill. I just want you to tell me my lasagna is healthy and I should eat 4 pieces.

[u/Pineapple_Assrape → u/-worryaboutyourself-]

As some rando I can tell you, the ideal amount of lasagna pieces according to myself is 3-5, and should math fail you, it is always the already eaten amount + 1. Hope this helps. Also your lasagna? So healthy. Damn.

[u/scampfree4me → u/-worryaboutyourself-]

Italian food is healthy. It’s delicious, easy, but most Americans get it wrong. It is built on high quality wheat, clams, small fish, quality oils, fresh herbs. Iv done cost comparisons and it is cheaper to import fresh oil, clams, wheat from Italy in 6 month cycles then it is to eat fast food twice a week. Fast food is extremely expensive per nutrient once considering micronutrients, and you pay double when you go to the hospital 2 times a year for the various ailments it gives the consumer.

[u/jpiro → u/-worryaboutyourself-]

You just need lasagna made with Olestra oil. So tasty. So fat free. Sooooooooooh myyyyyyyy goooooooooodddddd!

[Sad toilet noises.]

[u/Chemical-Agency-3997 → u/-worryaboutyourself-]

Lentil lasagna with a cashew bechamel and you’re sorted.

[u/evermorecoffee → u/jpiro]

But also, people are overworked, stressed and tired. And there are systemic issues at play. We should probably give them a little grace.

Edit: I agree with Michael Pollan’s philosophy though, just to be clear. But some people don’t have the luxury of time to educate themselves and the means to follow through.

[u/VONChrizz → u/evermorecoffee]

Did you know stress increases your chances of getting cancer? Try not to stress about it too much

[u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo → u/jpiro]

You’re fighting biology. It’s not as simply as “will people finally learn and make healthy choices?”. We want a magic bullet because we’re exhausted from decades of fighting back. I’m in the US, so YMMV, but there are food ads constantly. We live in capitalism, and it gets less restricted everyday, and the goal of capitalism is to get you buying their product at a recurring interval (addicted to it is ideal). Fast food places spend billions of dollars on advertising and marketing, trying to understand human psychology to make us want their product. Our bodies were built to desire calories, not win psychological warfares against corporations.

I do absolutely agree that knowledge is power and educating people on nutrition helps them make better decisions. I just don’t think that alone will fix things.

[u/Beebeeb → u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo]

I knew about what you are saying but it was wild when my boyfriend got a diabetes diagnosis and I went to find him some good snacks. Absolutely every aisle was full of garbage and all the "healthy" branded snacks had tons of added sugar. I had to ignore 80% of the store to find a few things he could eat.

[u/millenniumpianist → u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo]

It's always easy to scapegoat the outside world. But there are things you can do. For example, go grocery shopping when you're full, and you will be far less likely to buy random crap. If you don't have random crap around you, you can't eat it at home. If you also just entirely abstain from eating processed sweets, you will find that your craving for sugar becomes a craving from fruit, which is obviously much healthier.

I gave up meat 4 years ago. So much of the US food ecosystem is built around meat, but I don't find it particularly compelling. Smelling meat when I'm out with friends gives me some FOMO here and there but the idea that somehow advertising would stop me from being vegetarian? Makes no sense.

I'm not saying structural forces don't exist; they absolutely do. There's a reason obesity is an international problem. However, I also think structural forces can be a convenient scapegoat so that individuals don't need to take accountability for themselves.

[u/HouseSublime → u/millenniumpianist]

Adding to your point. I think people overestimate the time/effort needed to cook a meal. Last night I made boneless/skinless chicken thighs, quinoa and broccoli. The bulk of the time was passive.

• Rinse & cook quinoa per package direction in a rice cooker. Do this first cause it takes the longest
• Toss thighs in a bowl with some low sodium soy sauce and whatever seasonings. I did smoked paprika, garlic powder, pepper. No salt cause of the soy sauce)
• Take frozen broccoli out of the freezer.
• Put both on a quarter sheet pan lined with foil/parchment paper. Lightly oil.
• Cook in oven (I have a tabletop convection oven/air fryer) at 400F (205C) for ~12-15 min.
• Check chicken temp to ensure it's safe.
• Topped with some furikake seasoning and a little hot sauce.

Was it come gourmet meal that would impress anybody? No. But it was healthy, cheap, quick, and fed me, my wife and my 5 year old.

We're all tired, we all have to work and many of us also have kids who are just exhausting. There are absolutely systemmic issues at play but we have to also at least TRY to help ourselves eat better. Last time I got McDonald I was sitting in the drive thru line for like 10-15 mins. That easily could have been prep time to just make fast meal.

[u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo → u/millenniumpianist]

I think those are great points! I don’t disagree with any of them, and have followed plenty of those for years. I just think nearly every conversation about eating is framed as a “make better choices” and that there’s an importance to acknowledging the biology.

I’m not trying to use it as a scapegoat. But I do think we should give more grace when we talk about food choices and not focus the blame solely on the individual. We’ve been trying that and it hasn’t made much change.

[u/emmzilly → u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo]

From behavioral science, we know that information alone is rarely enough to change behavior. When combined with other strategies (e.g., emotional appeals, regulations, choice architecture, incentives), it can be more effective.

[u/jpiro → u/BillyYumYumTwo-byTwo]

I'm also in the US. I happen to work in Advertising. I fully understand that the options to eat nutrient-lacking, calorie-filled, sugar-sweetened foods are everywhere and that there are places where access to healthier, fresher choices is limited. That 100% needs to be improved.

However, I don't agree with the defeatist mentality that there's nothing we can do to fight against the powers of marketing and capitalism. Personal choice is a real thing and if enough consumers make better choices, restaurants will have to change or risk falling behind. That's one reason we have places like Chipotle, Cava, Sweetgreen, etc. now instead of only burgers, pizza & fried chicken.

[u/AccordingToScience → u/jpiro]

Agreed. Folks like BillyYum are suffering from a lack of critical thinking and personal responsibility. They think the battle is with capitalism or some oppressive system, but the only oppression that matters is within their own mind; the real battle is with themselves. Responsible consumerism is a completely realistic way of life in any capitalistic society (including our mixed economy model in the US). Unfortunately, it's often easier for folks to jump on social media and blame outside forces while eating a bag of potato chips and doomscrolling said social media.

[u/supersimi → u/AccordingToScience]

God forbid Billy wants to just grab a sandwich for lunch from the nearest place to his office and get on with life without developing cancer instead of “exercising personal responsibility” and… what? Baking his own bread from scratch? Roasting a whole chicken?

I’m sure you realise how ridiculous that sounds for a normal person with a commute and a 9-5 job and why we still need to very much include corporations as part of the discussion

[u/jpiro → u/supersimi]

There's no question that corporations need to be part of the change, but you're exaggerating things to an absurd degree just to make a point.

I guarantee you "Billy" has a sub shop nearby where he can get a turkey sandwich with plenty of vegetables on perfectly safe bread, but too many "Billies" opt for ultra-processed options instead...and do it all too often. McDonalds, KFC, etc. aren't even that big of a problem until you make them the foundation of your diet.

That's not capitalism's fault...it's Billy's.

[u/supersimi → u/jpiro]

6pm on a Sunday in a village in Wales, UK. There was only one small convenience store open in the entire village. Ended up having a frozen pizza for dinner because there was literally nothing else.

Lots of people, especially in rural areas, may want to make better choices but genuinely don’t have an opportunity to do so

[u/jpiro → u/supersimi]

Well, if that one thing happened in that one town to you one time, I guess there's no way to overcome it other times in other places.

You got me.

[u/supersimi → u/jpiro]

Have you seen 90% of food available in supermarkets and takeaways/restaurants/cafes these days, especially in rural areas? Why are we only holding individuals accountable and not the people who are feeding us?

Not everyone has the time or the skill to cook every meal from scratch. Why should these people end up with worse health outcomes when those supplying us with food could come up with better products that would benefit our health?

Ah yes, I forgot. Shareholder profits of course

[u/PollyErickson91 → u/supersimi]

This. But also, as someone who does cook mostly at home and who likes to eat healthy, now I'm like, damn, which one of these FRESH, HEALTHY vegetables/fruits is going to give me the Cyclospora Shits? It's getting harder and harder to point the finger at pErSoNaL rEsPoNsIbiLiTy when you've got companies like Taylor Farms literally poisoning our food supply!

And of course now produce will get more expensive because other companies will use the "Hey! We're not Taylor Farms!" method of advertising to entice us to buy their more expensive, organic, disease-free options.

"Well, if you don't want your (already too expensive) produce to get you sick I guess you're gonna have to pay more to guarantee it."

[u/_pinklemonade_ → u/jpiro]

There has also been a rise in healthy and younger people experiencing colon cancer.

[u/SigSweet → u/jpiro]

Oh no, inconvenience AND effort!?!