[the_gastropod]

This kind of conspiratorial thinking blows my mind. The claim is: big ag, with all their grain production, wants Americans to eat lots of grains, and corrupts government agencies to recommend such diets. The real healthy diets include lots of “protein” (meat), but “they don’t want you to know”...

What’s incredibly absurd about this is: where do you think the vast majority of the farmed grain goes? Feeding the cows, chickens, and pigs providing your “high protein” diets. If these “big ag” businesses did have any sway or disinformation campaigns, they’d absolutely be pushing the “eat more meat” narrative.

There’s no conspiracy. There aren’t any u-turns in nutritional science. The USDA guides are almost completely identical to WHO nutritional guides, and the guides for virtually every other modern country. Lots of whole grains, fruits, vegetables. Limit sugars, salt, and fats. As Michael Pollan says: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That’s pretty much it. We complicate things so much with fear mongering and conspiracy thinking.

[toomuchtodo]

It's not a conspiracy per se. I don't think Big Ag and the government got into a room together and said, "we're going to kill everyone over time with a Western diet leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and eventually death". It's more simple than that: greed of industry and regulatory failure on the part of government. Mexico has one of the highest rates of Coca Cola consumption, it's even fed to babies instead of formula. You know why it can't be stopped? Multinational power and greed, with trade weaponized against countries who attempt to counter these multinationals [1]. In country, instead of trade, it's campaign contributions to representatives that keep more substantial regulation at bay.

But you simply cannot argue that Western diets aren't causing epidemic levels of obesity and civilization disease [2], and that food producers and government aren't contributing to it.

Sidenote: Was "they don’t want you to know” a Kevin Trudeau reference? If so, I get that reference!

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/03/obese-soda-suga...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6817492/

[the_gastropod]

No no. I think we agree that there are capitalist-driven incentives that may be at odds with providing the best nutritional advice.

Where we differ (it seems?) is the implication that a diet rich in animal products (meat, cheese, eggs, etc) isn’t part of the Big Ag industry, but pasta, bread, cereal, etc. are. Livestock consume far more grain than the human population. So again, if big ag had any say (which, of course they do), they’d profit most by encouraging the consumption of meat, cheese, and eggs, not encouraging people to eat bread, pasta, and oatmeal. The fact that the USDA recommends eating whole grains at all is implicit proof that it’s not entirely corrupted by big ag.

[toomuchtodo]

I would agree with this, and concede that my original comment was not as accurate as it could be representing historical events that have led us to this point.