[UweSchmidt]

A surprising comment! I thought it was clear with all the obesity, diabetes and definitive rise in cardiovascular disease that there must be something fundamentally wrong with our food, one way or another.

Imagine that: people eat until their arteries clog, literally stopping the flow of blood so they die.

Oh but the branded, and yes, overpriced food-product was oh so satisfactory for the senses, the sugar, the fat, the flavoring, all carefully designed to overwhelm instincts and to create little addictions.

[dhimes]

To be fair, we are also out-living the other stuff that used to kill us, namely infectious diseases. We now have the luxury of dying from heart disease and dementia. That's not so say that there is no room for improvement...

[UweSchmidt]

That's true for certain things - maybe people didn't really recognize dementia as such back then, when old and frail people died from some infection before other problems could manifest.

On the other hand, heart diseases are an area where things got significantly worse for no good reason.

We can be safe from common infections (thanks to hygiene) and also not all suffer from heart diseases (by not eating junk), there's no trade-off here.

[ZenPro]

How many old and frail people do you think were cutting around prior to the 18th Century?

I would wager not many.

Humans have to die from something at some point. If you have compelling evidence that fast food reduces your life feel free to post it.

A number of journals have begun to dispute that obesity even causes the conditions we currently associate with it.

[UweSchmidt]

Ah, this is the infographic I was looking for:

https://i.imgur.com/vuegm5x.png

My point is not that people were doing better then. My point is we could do better given what we know and what we have.

The simple fact that we are debating nutrition on such a basic level ("is something loosely defined as fast food bad?"), shows how fucked we are in that regard.

(Similarly, nutritional concepts, whatever their merits and benefits, that come with a name, be it "atkins" or "paleo", also resemble a pre-scientific worldview based on superstition and vague knowledge. Think "We're building this bridge according to the teachings of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Whatshisname.")

[ZenPro]

All that chart shows me is the following -

If you remove X cause of deaths in human beings then it will result in a rise of Y cause of death in human beings.

As stated earlier; humans beings must die. If not from infection or injury then from lifestyle factors.

The fact that we have lived to an age whereby lifestyle not predators, infection, war, crime or malnutrition will kill us should be celebrated.

So have a damn burger. You are probably at greater risk from going skiing (no one is proposing limits or awareness about the inherent dangers of skiing). Last time I checked I was not subject to daily discussions about the economic cost of injured skiers.