Why are We Still Living
 

Why is every food group (listed below) so bad in our senior years when we've been eating them all our lives? :icon_hungry:

Don't preach to me why you think they're bad now, preach to me why they haven't killed most of us yet. :mad: :22yikes:

Lunch meat,
Pizza,
White bread,
White rice,
Soda,
Microwave popcorn,
Can soup,
Breakfast Cereal,
Fruit in a Can,
Coffee creamer. :confused:

My guess? didn’t over indulge or gorge. Too much anything not good And you forgot fried foods.

You forgot SPAM!!!!!

In my opinion, genetics has a lot more to do with it than what you choose to eat. Weight is very important but a lot of people will gain weight regardless of how disciplined they try to be with their diet. Also, certain diseases are determined by your genetic chemistry. You can try to force yourself to develop healthy habits, but it usually doesn't work.

One thing I notice there is more younger people watching and paying
attention to what they eat.

Also, any older villages people remember eating lard sandwiches?
Or raw beef and onions?
How about can beef or pigs knuckles.

A few years ago during my annual physicals my doctor started to ask me how long my parents had lived. Apparently genetics is the greatest longevity factor assuming one does not die in an accident, get murdered, smoke cigarettes, become an alcoholic, meth addict or otherwise lead an unusually dangerous or unhealthy lifestyle.

I eat what I want for the most part and do not worry about it. I no longer consume much fried food or large quantities of red meat but I no longer crave them. I have never been drawn to salty or very sweet foods (I never liked cakes).

They haven't killed anyone who's still living yet. But a diet consisting primarily of the above list certainly has contributed to the deaths of many people who are dead. And it's not the fact that the popcorn comes from the microwave. It's the artificial flavoring, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and salt that makes it unhealthy. Canned fruit *in heavy syrup* is a culprit. Canned soup *with high sodium levels* is less than healthy. *Sugar-coated* breakfast cereal is a trigger. Coffee creamer is more partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, with artificial flavoring and chemical emulsifiers. Lunch meat = sodium, nitrates, nitrites, and other potentially dangerous chemical additives. There's nothing wrong with pizza in moderation.

I'd say there's really nothing wrong with ANY of the above, as long as it's not your primary source of food. Ask everyone who died from the *combination* of obesity, diabetes, and heart failure, whether these foods are what killed them. Oh wait - you can't. Because they're dead.

Poor diets don't necessarily kill you all of a sudden. It could take on a long, painful, agonizing last decade of life. Can you still fit in the clothes from 10 years ago? Have you had any cavities? How is your blood pressure? Do you have any pain? Any depression? Can you go up and down a flight of stairs without being winded? Then there is also the advancement in medicine. As long as we have our beta blockers, statins and insulin, we will keep eating all these foods you mentioned.

You have to love survivorship bias :icon_twisted: It is the reason that most investment companies can show such good performance. All of their under-performing funds have been discontinued, so the remaining ones all show above average returns. If you included all of the funds that they have closed, their average performance would be considerably lower.

"Living" is not always the same as "living well".

If we are overweight we may not be able to do everything that we could if we were lighter.

Also we may have to take numerous medications.

Eat what you enjoy, but in moderation or be prepared to accept the consequences.

It’s not that they’re bad for you in your senior years, they have always been bad for you. Food and nutrition was not really well understood, spoken of and taught. Now, it’s become more front and center.

Just because a food manufacturer makes something, don’t think it’s good for you. Buyer beware. Marketing is a powerful tool.

Modern medicine is helping your body offset your bad lifestyle choices (diet). That’s why everyone is on meds, overweight and stressed out. Your life span has decreased because of your diet.

Stints, pacemakers, statins, blood thinners, CPAP

While there is no question modern medicine is helpful not everyone is on meds, overweight and stressed out.

As for diet, Warren Buffett breakfasts at McDonald's, drinks several cokes a day, apparently never eats vegetables, is in his early nineties, drives himself to work every weekday, plays bridge in the evenings and retains adequate cognitive function to run BRK.

Why don't you ask all the people who are healthy, looking forward to enjoying a long, healthy life who suffer(ed) from dementia or Alzheimer's...oh wait, you can't because they suffer from a horribly debilitating disease and they lack the ability to answer you.

We are all going to leave this world at some point. Having seen first hand what dementia and Alzheimer's does to people, I pray that is not for me, or you.

I eat healthy, I exercise and I do what I can for myself but I don't judge other people. I've never walked in their shoes and they haven't walked in mine.

Partially hydrogenated oils (aka trans fats) were banned in the US several years ago and have been largely been replaced with Palm Oil, which is highly saturated and while better than trans fats is probably still not good for you. Commercial palm oil production is also bad for the environment.

That being said, I agree with your general assessment.

It’s very simple - several of the delicacies you list are part of your basic food groups. They are intended to keep us healthy and help us grow - specifically cold breakfast cereals, pizza, and soda. Personally, I would add White Castle cheeseburgers to that list of delicacies

We are a very adaptable species. I'm grateful to have been brought up in a healthy environment, but I agree genetics has a lot to do with wellness. Like everything else, nature/nurture at work!

Genetics and luck of the draw. We see many seemingly healthy individuals eating a good diet, exercising and doing all the right things and yet dying in their 50's or earlier from heart attack or disease. While at the same time seeing overweight, out of shape, eating junk foods and not taking care of themselves living into their 80's. Bigger factors are at play other than diet.

Better Medicine
 

Better medicine is the answer. I know that in my parent's day that the medical problems I have lived through would have killed them at an early age. In fact, it did. I'll bet most of us with bad diets have survived a medical problem that would have been deadly 25 or 30 years ago.

I think the chemical makeup of our food has change. Screwing around with nature and putting additives in food is bound to cause problems.

For the last five years there has been no partially hydrogenated oils in coffee creamer or microwave popcorn or any food sold in the US. Trans fat has been banned in the U.S. and partially hydrogenated oils were a major source of that.

You will see palm oil, palm kernel oil, and hydrogenated oil (has no trans) on your food labels now.

As a PhD biologist, I can speak with authority in noting your failure to place beer appropriately at the peak of the food pyramid. Pleaae don't feel bad - our USDA bureaucrats failed similarly on their adoption of this useless cartoon.

I believe most people are predisposed to health problems more than others.
I'm 73 and have never eaten what the 'experts' say you should eat. I eat massive amounts of salt along with red meat (med rare) and all the other bad things. I usually only eat 1 meal a day now. I take zero medications.
Just saying that some people don't need to sweat their diet. I'm very fortunate and I wish everyone had my metabolism.

Biochemistry
 

Interesting about the "gain weight regardless of discipline". Have never been able to get to the bottom of that one. Could be so, I suppose. But for me, "fat shaming" (self imposed) is my only means of dealing with that "discipline" thing - and it *can* work, when my priorities (and mood) are so aligned.

What I find concerning when I read opinions about "nutrition" are how rarely the basic terms fats, proteins, and carbohydrates are mentioned. I believe all those "bad" foods contain those three items. The "bad" aspects of those would seem to me to be the sugars from the carbohydrate category. A case can definitely be made for too much sugar being problematic for most humans. Have seen no convincing evidence that one kind of sugar is any worse than another, despite how the word "fructose" gets pontificated about. :-)

As for vitamins and minerals, yeah you need enough vitamins for preventing beriberi, scurvy, etc., but I've never read where "additional" vitamins serve any proven purpose. Salt, in excess, is problematic for those with certain kinds of blood pressure issues, but I salt my country ham. :-) Seem to be (mostly) immune to BP problems. One should always acquire the right genes, right from the start.

Got curious enough about the expression "processed foods" recently to visit the google about them. Best I can tell, the "processes" are things that make stuff taste really good. Shame on them. :-) And, how can the government be allowing humans to make their own decisions about such matters?? Been kinda wondering what percentage of these treats are found in bags and can be eaten with the fingers. . . That "cookies and chips" aisle must definitely be avoided when I go on one of these "discipline" tears.

Anyway, them's *my* opinions. Now wondering what percentage of folks who lecture us about "nutrition" have even a rudimentary understanding of physiology and biochemistry. . .

Mom survived for 16 years from this dreadful disease with the help of myself and Dad. Now I just have my 90 year old Dad. I feed him fairly healthy, but he loves his soft drinks, cookies and ice cream!

Dreadful is right. Dementia is a thief, stealing what makes us, us, over time. Unfortunately the "miracle" of modern medicine has drawn out that time by years--often a decade--beyond the time when natural processes would have killed us.

Dad had dementia. Parkinson-related. From the time he was diagnosed to the day he died was eleven years. six of them in a nursing home. It was hard on Mom; she and my sister cared for dad at home for as long as possible but often the onset of dementia can include violence, which is what happened. Fortunately the nursing home where he spent his last years was in Las Vegas, state-of-the-art, and only a few miles away from the home of my sister so she and Mom could visit Dad frequently, monitoring his care and making sure things went as they should.

I remember my wife telling Mom how sorry she was about Dad. I'll always remember her reply. "The man I knew died years ago".

The recommendations are for the general population to live longer, better
 

As has been pointed out, a lifetime of eating all these and more food will catch to "most" people, not "all" people. It will make your later years less healthy and productive and a series of daily pills like my mother took after a lifetime of poor health choices.

That said, for every recommendation or rule, there is always an exception that we all can think of. We all know the folks who have smoked for decades and never had a cold, let alone lung cancer.

And - I stopped drinking soda most of the time decades ago and lost ten pounds in two months. I stopped hydrogenated oils decades ago and I lost more weight and my skin cleared up and my cholesterol dropped.

I don't eat popcorn much anymore because at my age the stuff gets stuck in my gums!

Anyway, everything in moderation. Life is a journey, and the recommendations are trying to make it a better one. It is our choice to eat better or not.

Wait, are they bad??

When you die you have no idea if the foods you have eaten in later life sped it up. So go ahead.......In years to come foods will be more connected to diseases than they are now. Diet plus meds important.

Not the same food
 

When we were growing up, food did not have all the chemicals in it that it has now. We are eating mostly fake foods that lack the nutritional value to sustain a healthy body and mind. As a nation, we consume more pharmaceuticals than any other country, yet we are the sickest nation in the world. Everything you eat, drink, swallow and inhale has a direct effect on how we think and act and feel every minute of every day of our lives. Eating real food, mostly organic and local is best. The whiter the bread, the sooner your dead. Most of the wheat bread is just Carmel colored white bread.

Have you not seen all the threads on TOV for people looking for specialists and best places for surgery? Do you think a healthy population would be asking so many questions about that? The healthcare resources available in TV is a major reason so many people retire here.
How many people over 70 do you know that don't take prescriptions. So chronological age is a very poor metric.

As humans, we are designed to have the same blood pressure at 75 than we do at 20. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes should be rare at almost any age. Odds will increase over time but not that much. In some societies people work out in the fields in their 90s.

And BTW, healthcare costs are 17% of our GDP. That is not a healthy country.

As Americans we eat like crap and rarely exercise to the point of raising our heart rate for an extended period of time. That is why we are the sickest and fattest large population in the history of mankind.

Most Obese Countries in the World | ProCon.org

If you really believe the nonsense you are espousing, find the research to back it up.
PubMed

What doesn't kill you, mutates and tries again!

Good Health
 

My dentist always asks about the last time I flossed. I always reply, "Check your records, you were here doing it."
"I'm 71 with all my own teeth...don;t worry about it."

A 106-year-old was asked by Oprah what her secret to longevity was. She said to not go by her because she smoked and didn't eat any fruit or vegetables. Her brothers were also still alive at 104 and 102.

Now that's what I call real science!:jester:

There is anecdotal and then their is established scientific protocols. We all can cherry pick examples to try and prove our point.

We know that fast food diets is terrible for the average person. For him to brag about eating McDonalds is deplorable. Most people don't have billions of dollars and can afford the the latest and greatest that modern healthcare has to offer to offset our terrible habits. And again, it is called anecdotal. There will always be other factors like genetics.

If he wants to influence people he should release his medical records and tell us the last time he ran a few miles.

Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Now this is how you use science.

Ornish Lifestyle Medicine

Ornish Lifestyle Medicine is the only scientifically-proven program to reverse heart disease without medication or surgery. The 9-week online program is reimbursed by Medicare, BlueShield of California, and Aetna.

Someone, Anyone, provide an example of a program that allows eating the standard American diet(SAD) that can make these claims and back it up with research based on established protocols.

I play the odds. People who do everything right sometimes die too young. People who do everything wrong sometimes outlive us.

I had an uncle who smoked a pack a day his whole life and lived into his 90's. I had an aunt who was obese her entire life and lived into her 90's. But I would be stupid to follow their example.

I eat healthy most of the time. I exercise daily most of the time. I maintain a healthy weight all of the time. Will it work? Who knows, but I'm going with the odds.

Oh, I left out that Dairy Queen products are part of Warren's diet.

Charlie Munger is now 99, close to 100. I have no idea about what constitutes his diet.

I am not advocating anyone eat junk food, fast food or otherwise unhealthy food. Nor am I advocating an extreme vegetarian or any other trendy so called healthy diet. Humans are omnivorous. We can get by on all sorts of diets. Look at the traditional diets of indigenous hunter gatherer people such as Eskimos and Bushmen.

Inuit cuisine - Wikipedia

San people - Wikipedia