[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.