Shocking HFCS rise since 1972 [Nutrient Content of the U.S. Food Supply, 1909-2000]

[taylor108]

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8529217/40 ... sive-chart

This chart tracks decreases/increases in foods since 1972. At the very bottom, you can see an almost 4000% increase in the consumption of HFCS. Think this would correlate nicely with the rise of obesity in America?
I'd like to take this data and compare it with obesity rates here, as well as compare it to the rise of HFCS in other countries with their obesity rates....

 

[tara]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Hi,
I took a quick look at this chart and only cursorily scanned the article. I'm not in America, so my assumptions come at a distance. I'm assuming it is about US, as opposed to the rest of North and South America.
Is the chart a list of what people ate, or what they bought?

If it is what they bought, then:
1. That might explain the massive increase in edible tallow. I'd expect that several decades ago people would have used their own tallow more often than they would have bought it.
2. The articles reference to much increased fresh fruit and vegetable consumption may not be valid? I would guess that what would have changed is that people now buy a much larger proportion of the fruit and vegetables that they eat than they used to. Also, it just shows percentage increases and decreases, so without the quantity data, it's hard to assess such claims anyway.

If you are looking for correlates with current health issues, there are other things in that chart that could be making more of a difference than the HFCS.

The 'salad and cooking oils' increased less than I expected, but they still look like a promising candidate to me.

 

[schultz]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

HFCS only became available in the 1970's so it's not surprising that there is a 4000% increase. I'm sure the same thing can be said about mangoes, which has a 2800% increase in consumption. Mangoes were just not that available back then.

More interesting to me is the increase in fat and specific fats from 1909-2000

Fat has increased from 122g in 1909 to 170g in 2000 per person
Saturated fat has stayed almost the exact same the entire time hovering around 50g a day.
Carbohydrate has stayed almost the exact same at around 490g
Salad and cooking oils rose from 0.7% of calories to 10.5% of calories
PUFA has risen from 13g a day to 36g a day
Butter has dropped from 4.4% of calories to 1.1%

Also the drop in whole milk is pretty interesting.

http://origin.www.cnpp.usda.gov/publica ... 9-2000.pdf

 

[Anonymous]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

What's wrong with HFCS? Most people don't even consume foods with it.

 

[tara]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

HFCS only became available in the 1970's so it's not surprising that there is a 4000% increase. I'm sure the same thing can be said about mangoes, which has a 2800% increase in consumption. Mangoes were just not that available back then.

More interesting to me is the increase in fat and specific fats from 1909-2000

Fat has increased from 122g in 1909 to 170g in 2000 per person
Saturated fat has stayed almost the exact same the entire time hovering around 50g a day.
Carbohydrate has stayed almost the exact same at around 490g
Salad and cooking oils rose from 0.7% of calories to 10.5% of calories
PUFA has risen from 13g a day to 36g a day
Butter has dropped from 4.4% of calories to 1.1%

Also the drop in whole milk is pretty interesting.

http://origin.www.cnpp.usda.gov/publica ... 9-2000.pdf

Yes, interesting. The PUFA increase is large. Fats gone from 12% of energy to 22% also seems significant - though both are lower than I expected.

Looks like this study includes home produce as well as retail supply. It does not take into account waste.

Also from the PDF you linked, it seems the supply of fresh veges has reduced, in contradiction to the OP's article:

The lower level of vitamin B12 in 2000 was due to the decreased consumption of eggs and organ meats; whereas, the lower level of potassium reflects lower consumption of plant foods, fresh potatoes, in particular. The lower level of dietary fiber in 2000 was attributable to decreased consumption of grains, fresh vegetables (mainly potatoes), and non-citrus fresh fruits since 1909.

Also:

The availability of both copper and selenium were higher in 1909 than in 2000.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Too bad we are back at 1980s levels.

 

[schultz]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Yes, interesting. The PUFA increase is large. Fats gone from 12% of energy to 22% also seems significant - though both are lower than I expected.

Looks like this study includes home produce as well as retail supply. It does not take into account waste.

The figures in the USDA link I posted claim fat has gone from 31% of calories in 1909 to 39% in 2000.

That's true about the waste! I would love to see accurate numbers but that's probably impossible.

 

[tara]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Yes, interesting. The PUFA increase is large. Fats gone from 12% of energy to 22% also seems significant - though both are lower than I expected.

Looks like this study includes home produce as well as retail supply. It does not take into account waste.

The figures in the USDA link I posted claim fat has gone from 31% of calories in 1909 to 39% in 2000.

31 to 39% is more like what I expected. Guess I was reading the wrong page or reading wrong. I was looking at Fig. 12. Sources of food energy in the US food supply, pg 20 (pg 30 of PDF). Maybe they were measuring % in some units other than energy for those charts.

Yeah, waste would be hard to measure.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

The figures do include a loss estimate.

edit- it doesn't matter, they're percentages

 

[Peata]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately to when I was growing up and you didn't see as many overweight or obese people in this country (70s, 80s). Just looking at old photos from fairs I attended in the 80s, people from all over, and mostly thin. Anyway, I keep wondering what really happened by the late 80s/early 90s in the USA to cause this increase of big people?

Some ideas: In the 80s came the low fat craze and the aerobic exercise craze. Larger portion sizes in restaurants and packaged food. Food manufacturers switched from SFAs to PUFAs. HFCS instead of sugar in soda and everything. Going into later decades, less play outside in the sun for kids. More sedentary adults too. What else am I missing?

 

[Blossom]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

It's funny you mentioned the 80's Peata because I've been thinking about that time period too lately. I just found out that my 59 year old uncle recently had a hip replacement and he partially blames the running/jogging phase he went through in the 80's (while on the Adkins diet). I remember my mom and so many other people's moms doing jazzercise, aerobics etc and trying to be like Jane Fonda who later admitted to having an eating disorder. I wonder how many people wrecked their metabolism doing excessive breathless exercise in the 80's and never recovered? :?

 

[Peata]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

It's funny you mentioned the 80's Peata because I've been thinking about that time period too lately. I just found out that my 59 year old uncle recently had a hip replacement and he partially blames the running/jogging phase he went through in the 80's (while on the Adkins diet). I remember my mom and so many other people's moms doing jazzercise, aerobics etc and trying to be like Jane Fonda who later admitted to having an eating disorder. I wonder how many people wrecked their metabolism doing excessive breathless exercise in the 80's and never recovered? :?

Yes, and there was a lot of yo-yo dieting going on with my Mom and her friends too. They'd all do this diet or that diet (grapefruit diet, anyone?). And most of them weren't big women to begin with though at the time they thought they were. All that dieting over the years didn't do much for metabolism, I'm sure.

I think that's partly my problem with weight loss now in my 40s - that I calorie restricted in my 20s and 30s quite a bit. Because even if I wasn't on a diet to lose weight (I was almost never really in need of losing weight but plenty of times I thought I needed to anyway), I still would do some kind of "way of eating" to be "healthy". And I ended up restricting calories anyway because it might involve cutting out whole food groups, for example. I never realized how much I was damaging my metabolism but it did catch up to me.

 

[pboy]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

gotta keep in mind social things also...even when I was a kid in the early 90's...people played outside as the main thing, all the kids in my neighborhood..most at least, would all meet up and play outside and do adventurous things. It was normal to make fun of Richard simmons and other diet aerobics things that came on TV. There was less cable TV...not like today with engineered programs like...reality TV and those competition shows that like engage people. There was soap operas but that was like only during the day during week days when old people were at home, lol. There wasn't EMF and wi fi and 3g and 4g and all that, like...internet wasn't even really developed to any significant degree until like...2001 ish
Basically even though people might have been stressed out, it wasn't to the same disordered level as today, where everyone seems to have something...tht theyre neurotic or obsessed with. As good as internet is, because all its capabilities, but still...people these days are like...not really present with people that they are around, its more everyone in their own bubble world and they kidn of manage their external world but theyre more in their head. Of course this is a generalization, but anything that's like...an obsession pertaining to a not good enough belief, automatically produces stress chemicals that can lead to weight gain. You aslo have to keep in mind, GMO's came out in early - mid 90's, which from what I remember was a big turning point. I remember as a small kid we'd go to water parks, probly around then...mid 90's, and if there was like a huge fat person it was something to laugh at. By late 90's me and my brothers would be like omg...everyone here is fat, like disgusting level, and we'd for fun count the number of people and it was over half, empirically. Obesity was on the steady rise but it really shot up huge mid to late 90's up to now, where its just a sad joke...67% americans overweight? LOL...I mean..its not funny but its like, its such a blatant huge problem and no one wants to or is willing to address anything larger...like we have many psycho social environmental problems, and each person just sedates themselves with mainstream 'science' and advice, such as the eat lean meat and vegetables and go to a gym or run, or whatever...almost no one ever thinks to l imit stressful people, places, and toxic chemicals. No one thinks to realize dopamine, actually trying to enjoy life like when you were young, is quite possible the biggest single health tool there is. Living without a sense of joy and pursuit of happiness is like having a tunicate on your whole circulatory system 24hrs a day. However I think our nation was always predisposed to this, it just became more obvious as technology increased, and the food supply got worse and worse. But the root cause of it is like, an authoritarian leadership and business structure that basically wants to trains and tailor programmed, programmable workers, and doesn't care about how toxic or trapped their lives are, so we get hit with every kind of psychological entrapment, confusion, physical toxins, food toxins, mental retarding propaganda, and all that...its just easier now cause as technology increases they can be more ruthless and total in their effort. But at the end of the day, you don't have to play along. I don't know what the determinant is between people that just allows themselves to become propagandized, programmed, and spread the stuff, and become part of the cancer themselves, and then someone like me who absolutely refuses and had some kind of inkling that there were many things wrong and embarked on a knowledge quest to figure it out. It cant just be ignorance, because the people...its like the kapo during ww2, jews that were given power over other jews as like...guards, and they'd whip them and stuff to avoid being a basic worker themselves. That's how I see the average mainstream person...all trying to gain an upper hand and will pollute, propagate, and essentially put others in torturous situations for their souls, just to be a little less bad off themselves. Its partially ignorance, its mostly a lack of courage and a weak soul, and that predisposes them to becoming part of the larger cancer and spreading it.

pufas are definitely a part of it, but that just fits into the larger storyline...more technology, more able to do stuff like that, more ignorance of the people so they just eat it up, ect

 

[Peata]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Yeah, definitely with the internet (and phone technology) came more of us on it nearly continuously instead of doing other activity such as interacting with people, doing activities, even reading actual books and thinking more for yourself and creating things.

Ever notice how in movies and TV nowadays they can't actually depict what most people are doing in real life- looking down at their phones, constantly checking texts or something, or they would have a boring show/movie?

 

[jyb]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Too bad we are back at 1980s levels.

The plot shows as huge increase pre-1980 and relatively stable since 1980. Now assume it takes 10-20 years for a poison to show widespread effect on a population... Well, we've started to be sick a few decades ago... I think the plot is pretty damning for HFCS in the sense that it is one of these things we suddenly started eating in larger quantities at the end of the 20th C. Whether it is the worst poison among these new things, I wouldn't know.

 

[Such_Saturation]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Too bad we are back at 1980s levels.

The plot shows as huge increase pre-1980 and relatively stable since 1980. Now assume it takes 10-20 years for a poison to show widespread effect on a population... Well, we've started to be sick a few decades ago... I think the plot is pretty damning for HFCS in the sense that it is one of these things we suddenly started eating in larger quantities at the end of the 20th C. Whether it is the worst poison among these new things, I wouldn't know.

What do you mean? Almost a third of the increase happened after 1985 AND vanished before 2012.

 

[tara]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately to when I was growing up and you didn't see as many overweight or obese people in this country (70s, 80s). Just looking at old photos from fairs I attended in the 80s, people from all over, and mostly thin. Anyway, I keep wondering what really happened by the late 80s/early 90s in the USA to cause this increase of big people?

Some ideas: In the 80s came the low fat craze and the aerobic exercise craze. Larger portion sizes in restaurants and packaged food. Food manufacturers switched from SFAs to PUFAs. HFCS instead of sugar in soda and everything. Going into later decades, less play outside in the sun for kids. More sedentary adults too. What else am I missing?

So many things have changed since the early 80s.
Here, political changes have resulted in a situation where now many families need to have two adults working (and/or sometimes two jobs), whereas before that we had 'living wage' policy, and it was very common to have only one adult in a nuclear family out to work, and back then we had forty hour weeks, too.
That changes stresses all through the society. For instance, I think it means less people cooking food at home, more people buy food out, less people growing their own fruit and veges (more infill housing, and various other factors involved here too - many more people used to have larger sections round their homes). Less time for everything, including raising children, and just more rushing.

 

[tara]

Re: Chart of Diet Data since 1972 shows shocking HFCS rise

Too bad we are back at 1980s levels.

The plot shows as huge increase pre-1980 and relatively stable since 1980. Now assume it takes 10-20 years for a poison to show widespread effect on a population... Well, we've started to be sick a few decades ago... I think the plot is pretty damning for HFCS in the sense that it is one of these things we suddenly started eating in larger quantities at the end of the 20th C. Whether it is the worst poison among these new things, I wouldn't know.

There are so many variables in that chart alone, that I don't think it provides any causal evidence of anything at all. Not that I'm promoting HFCS, I just don't think that picture damns it.