Honestly I’d respect them more if they went with that more frequently. At least we could agree on facts, then, even if we might depart on moral judgements.
Sanctions aren’t relevant here to the outcome though you could relate them to the need for protest which still wouldn’t justify the outcome. It would let you side with the protesters for being the power of the people and exemplifying Juche
however the US’ track record with both Cuba and the governments of other American countries does reasonably lead to paranoia
Also worth noting Cuba is a dictatorship not communist
Agreed, but to your last point, it is also worth noting that there are different economic models under authoritarian regimes. Both Nazi Germany and the USSR were dictatorships. Is it Marixist Communism in Cuba? No. But it is recognizable as a communist state as was perpetuated by the Soviet Union historically, regardless if you feel the term has been misappropriated.
One person being able to kill and erase from the country’s history books anyone under him, but is unable to micromanage every detail for a country with millions of people and is still forced to delegate tasks, does not make a dictatorship. Got it CIA. Thanks for the details of the semantics of the situation of these authoritarian regimes.
“Every possible means should be undertaken to promptly weaken the economic life of Cuba,” Lester D. Mallory, then the deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in April 1960, arguing that U.S. policy should aim “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
I’m not a tankie, and it’s not a good thing, but this isn’t exactly a great time for the US to puff it’s chest out about our right to protest and protections for whistle blowers.
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Brian A. Nichols also criticized the convictions. " The harsh sentencing this week of up to 15 years in prison for Cubans who peacefully assembled in Nuevitas in 2022 is outrageous,” he said on X. “The Cuban government’s continued repression of Cubans striving to fulfill their basic rights and needs is unconscionable.”
By referring to “tankies” it was already an implied comparison between Cuba and more western democracies, and this is the Midwest instance. Accusations of “Whataboutism” are way overdone.
It’s hard to find “fit” people anymore. Walking around some grocery stores is mind blowing. I honestly feel bad for people. The “food” we have is shit and life is getting busier and busier.
This is a big deal people often don’t realize. Even something as simple as an alfredo pasta will have way too much butter in it when you order it at a restaurant. (Why do you think it tastes so good?) An entire stick of butter for a single serving is quite common.
Not only is cooking for yourself significantly cheaper than ordering food, you are also significantly more aware of the calories you are putting into the food.
Even something as simple as an alfredo pasta will have way too much butter in it when you order it at a restaurant.
Hell no. It will have too little and probably doesn’t contain proper parmesan, either. Also it’s not actually simple, it’s minimalist, but hard to actually get right – Italian cuisine in a nutshell. I almost wanted to say “and be extended by starch slurry” but then realised that pasta water vs. starch isn’t really something one should complain about, if anything that’s a fault of sub-par noodles… anyway:
The butter unhealthy / saturated fat unhealthy thing is due to plant fat manufacturers trying to sell hardened fats as healthy giving us the wonders of trans fats, flanked by the sugar industry’s “fat makes fat”. While I’m at it the cholesterol stuff is the equivalent of “dead firefighters found at conflagration site, thus, abolish the fire department”. Not to mention that dietary cholesterol has no correlation to blood cholesterol. And how could I forget the tobacco industry which was very successful in blaming the cardiac arrest epidemic on anything but smoking by concern trolling the scientific process.
There’s processed foods which are perfectly fine but as an experiment try avoiding anything that has been invented in the last 100 years or so for a while and observe the difference. There’s certainly restaurants around which cook like that but it’s not going to be the ones people with two jobs eat at.
Oh and I don’t think the science is completely in yet but it seems that the “gluten intolerance” epidemic is due to increased use of glyphosate directly before harvest to make wheat grow faster: It’s not the gluten but some people’s stomach just don’t take the residue as well as others. So YMMV on being able to get proper ingredients for that experiment.
Go into the produce isle for once, veggies are cheap…fish and chicken is cheap. A single trip to McDonald’s for 2 is like $25 or more now. You can get like 6 or 7 whole chicken breasts for that price and have money for potatoes and fresh veggies.
Domestically produced crops tend to be much cheaper. Think corn in the US. The stuff is so cheap they even turn much of it into sugar for foods and ethanol for cars.
Which is why all known “advanced” civilisations (scare quotes for lack of better term) have formed around some kind of grain. Wheat in Egypt spreading to Europe, rice in Asia, Maize in the Americas: All basically don’t spoil when stored properly, because dry they can be transported well, and they’re also all nicely divisible. Ask the Irish whether the English wanted them to pay taxes in grain or potatoes.
Beyond the time/energy cost, you’re comparing two different things: cooking healthy food from scratch vs. buying boxed ‘unhealthy’ food. Buying boxed ‘healthy’ food is more expensive than buying boxed ‘unhealthy’ food, and cooking ‘unhealthy’ food is cheaper than cooking ‘healthy’ food.
For example: I could make a huge mess of white rice and oil very cheaply and quickly. Every other ingredient I add will raise the cost and time investment. People say, “oh, just throw in some eggs/grilled chicken breast/fresh veggies and you have a cheap healthy meal!” but it’s still a lot more expensive to do that (in both money and time) than to just make rice.
I spend about $12/day on ingredients, which is about the cost of a single meal at McDonald’s which is far less healthy. I don’t think that actually stands up when you look at the prices of cheap food (chicken, rice, beans, other legumes, potatoes) plus the costs of sides (fruits, vegetables).
I imagine it would be pretty easy to take the list of what people buy/eat and their health issues and see clearly what foods are causing what health problems.
I bet the average cashier would even be able to point out the worst products.
But never, ever, will that happen. Grocery store is full of dead animals and animal proteins and cancer look to go hand in hand. The other big one is sugar. People are hooked on it like cocaine.
It’s not just any regular sugar, it’s that high fructose corn syrup that’s the killer. Consuming a bit of sugar here and there isn’t that bad, but consuming something that is foreign to the body and accumulates in the liver is a whole new level of fucked up.
While high fructose corn syrup isn’t great for you, it’s clearly not the problem. The US domestic use of HFCS peaked in the 90s, yet obesity has continued to skyrocket.
The UK also has a obesity epidemic…and so does the entire EU basically… it’s not what we eat, it’s how much we eat and how little people are moving these days.
It’s not really foreign many fruits have an even worse fructose/glucose ratio than HFCS.
The thing about fructose is that unlike glucose the body can’t burn it (pretty much) as-is, it first has to be processed by the liver, and that via turning it into fat. Evolutionarily that wasn’t an issue: Fruit appears in summer, exactly the time when you want to get fat to then have some storage for the winter, what the system isn’t made for is consuming the stuff all the time.
That is, HFCS in winter should be just as suspect to you as strawberries in winter.
True. And lot of these fruits come with fibers, which helps in slowing down the absorption of the sugars. That’s why I barely eat grapes and any fruit that is low on fiber, nor drink any juice, period. You’re right, though.
I imagine it would be pretty easy to take the list of what people buy/eat and their health issues and see clearly what foods are causing what health problems.
True, but it entirely ignores what’s driving them to buy those things. For example, if you’re a single parent working two jobs, when you get home do you want to start cooking a meal, or just put a Stouffer’s in the microwave and veg out?
Maybe but that entirely ignores that capitalism has been marketing to them with commercials and coupon clubs for decades and that these products advertise themselves as things they are not because the government is in cahoots with the ag industry and happily deregulates so JBS can sell more meat to chinas growing demand. How can we over look this? How about the got milk campaign? sugar drink advertised as health food by the government for decades 67% of people are allergic to. More context there is that one particularly marginalized group of americans is 3-4x as likely to be allergic, so it isn’t not a racial issue also.
I cook rice in a rice maker, and beans in a crock pot. It really doesn’t get tougher. Like at some point it has to get put on a plate or in a bowl and then some would have to use tools like forks and spoons to get it into their mouths. Then there are the dishes, oh man who wants to wash dishes, think of all that time saved. /s
Isn't that mainly red meats that appear to have a relation to cancer? Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe poultry is fine and that seafood has even been shown to possibly prevent certain cancers.
red meat, any charred meat, chicken is reported back and forth often depending on things like who owns the media outlet or who funded the report. Fish is all over, its too broad a net to cast. Different types of fish from different parts of the world, Trillions of them are eaten every year.
With capitalism and the government entangled in the industry. I know they use propaganda to enhance their markets. My personal outlook on it is that the stance that cancer and animal consumption has solid findings. Our government (US) actively promotes the industry and subsidizes it with billions of $$$. Then on the cdc page they list red meat as a cancer causing carcinogen. In America, profits are #1. Cancer, heart disease, and diabetes are big money makers for pharmaceutical companies. JBS is a huge company. Owners are convicted criminals for bribing politicians. They raise animals in africa and california and then ship them to china. None of this has any concern about our health. For me, I have seen and read enough to make the decision to stay away from it. Anything to keep me out of the US healthcare system.
Something I haven’t seen other commenters bring up that can have a huge impact, is the overall lifestyles people are living.
The unhealthiest years of my life were when I was working 2 jobs and struggling to keep a roof over mine and my 3 kids heads. Stress and depression were huge problems and money was tight, so sometimes the little bit of dopamine or serotonin from eating a “treat” were the highlights of the day. Add to that, the guilt of not being around to cook regular meals for my kids lead to 1) making large amounts of food on my one day off that could be eaten as leftovers throughout the week or 2) easy convenience foods (frozen pizzas, boxed Mac and cheese, etc) that the kids could make when I wasn’t around.
Fast forward many years - my kids are adults taking care of themselves and I’m down to 1 good job that offers financial stability. My diet and health have completely changed. I actually have the time and energy to cook and plan better.
I’m not saying this to shift blame or responsibility, but to bring a different experience. When I hear (hopefully well meaning) people suggest “just cook healthier meals” it strikes me about the same as “stop eating avocado toast and you could afford a house.”
Lack of free time to cook healthy food with a busier and more expensive life with salary raises that don’t keep up with inflation or layoffs for many people definitely doesn’t help. Healthy food ends up costing twice as much, if not more than unhealthy food. It’s a multi-faceted problem and should be treated as such.
I don’t think healthy food is necessarily more expensive, at least not if you know what you’re doing. My personal experience is actually the opposite.
The problem, as you mentioned is the time, and the emotional and physical labor of figuring out something the whole family will want to eat and cooking it. Those things are all expenditures in their own ways, but not financial.
Ingredients: rice, black beans, eggs, onion, garlic.
The night before, let the beans soak. Before cooking, change the water on the beans. Heat until boiling, change the water again, add salt and let the beans boil slowly for 1.5-3h.
Slice the onion and garlic in small chunks. Fry in a shallow pot, in just a bit of olive oil. Add some oregano or whatever spices you enjoy. When it is fried to your taste, add the rice. Mix it for a bit, and then add 2.5 cups of water for each cup of rice.
Let it boil until the water doesn’t cover the rice, then turn the heat down until it’s just evaporating water (I like my rice dry). Meanwhile, fry a couple eggs, use a strainer to get the beans out, and add everything to the rice (or you can serve the eggs on the plate).
• 1kg of rice: 2€ • 1kg black beans: 4€ • A carton of eggs: 2.5€
YMMV but this is tasty and pretty inexpensive, if you don’t count the 2h of boiling beans, but I prefer them on the soft side :P
You’re not feeding 4 people on a red baron pizza and no one is getting fat from sharing one with 4 people. Fast food is expensive, and so is pre packaged meals. To many people get home from work and just eat shit instead of learning to cook.
Steamed veggies are cheap, rice is cheap, beans are cheap, grab some seasoning and a pack of chicken breasts and you can eat good for a few days for less than a single trip to McDonald’s for 2 people now.
I guess the dinner I served saturday night was just a drug induced hallucination then, afterall… You seem to clearly know what I do and have done better than I do.
Funny how the goalposts shift from “its easy and cheap to eat healthy” to “You’re not who we’re talking about, we’re talking about other, more convenient and strawmannable people”
That’s not shifting the goal post, it’s calling out your bullshit that somehow a $5 red Baron pizza for 4 people is enough to make people fat. 380 calories is 1/4 of a red Baron Pepperoni pizza, if you ate one 3 a day, that’s less than most adults can survive on, you’re going to lose weight. So no I’m not the one moving some goal post or creating a strawman, that’s your doing.
Literally no one said a red baron for 4 people will make you fat. I asked for a healthy alternative that can feed a family for the same exceedingly low price. Nothing more, nothing less. Certainly nothing to deserve your insane aggression and bullshit over.
So now you are not only shifting goal posts, you are doing the classic internet bullshit of replying to your own imaginary idea of what people said.
No shit, that’s why I said you pointing this out was not the discussion at hand. You pointed it out that a $5 red Baron could feed 4 people, because healthy food is more expensive. I called that out as bullshit. This entire thread is about people who complain that it’s hard to eat healthy and not be fat.
I called that out as bullshit. This entire thread is about people who complain that it’s hard to eat healthy and not be fat.
… where you proceed to lose your shit and act like a cunt when someone asks how to provide a “healthy” meal for the same low costs as an unhealthy meal.
Beans and rice. (Red beans and rice, black beans and rice, garbanzo beans in curry on rice, you can make probably a hundred delicious variations on beans and rice)
A can of pureed pumpkin and a can of white beans with seasoning and a little chicken broth, heated and blended, makes a healthy and delicious soup.
A can of tomatoes, an onion, a couple dried Chiles and a can of pinto beans also makes an incredible pureed soup.
Up until recently I’d have said eggs and toast, but eggs are expensive lately. Still probably under $5 to feed 4 though.
We bought a frozen turkey cheap after Christmas and my God that made so many meals, I still have 3 quarts of stock too.
I don’t think a frozen pizza is a good deal in terms of nutrition but we do sometimes have that or the Little Caesars one if I can’t cook that night.
None of us are fat, husband is overweight but fit, and the rest of us are on the thin side.
Love how everyone is like “beans and rice!” and totally ignoring the energy and time it takes to make such things. And not everyone is a fan of beans and rice. At the end of the day being able to have a slice of pizza may be the only bright spot when you’re living paycheck to paycheck.
Yep. My boomer dad: “When I was a kid, we walked everywhere! Nobody walks anymore!” Also my dad: “I’m afraid to drive into Portland because my truck might get stolen.”
Well said, that’s what we call canard advice. Unhelpful advice that’s obvious to everyone and does no fucking good to say whatsoever. You can cook more when your primary financial needs are met, so you can just work 40 hours in a week. That and the RTO mandates going around are robbing people of a significant chunk of time yet again ontop of overemployment. When you have to work a 10 hour day and commute an hour plus each direction, then come home and “cook” something, it usually translates to heating up frozen shit and then wishing you weren’t miserable.
Here we go again, giving no accountability. Yes, healthy food is more expensive, but that doesn’t mean fat people didn’t eat themselves fat.
The Internet will bend over backwards to ignore the algebra of calories. Base metabolic rates are basically identical between all humans. The lie of a “fast metabolism” is not why some people are skinny.
People are fat because they consume more calories than they burn. Blaming someone else doesn’t fix it.
“Oh gosh, I don’t drink soda and rarely eat treats, why am I still fat?” Because you eat too much for your daily expenditure.
I get what youre saying, but people are fatter in America than their counterparts in European countries. Is it more realistic to suppose we as humans are different across the pond, or is the lifestyle enforced and the additives allowed within the food Americans eat contributing to the difference?
I think diet is a part of it, but car culture and fast food is the biggest difference. Many developed European countries still rank much higher than the US in steps taken per day. Plus, fast food is usually a treat and not the default with a drive thru. It is back to the algebra of calories in the end.
This would make sense… If it was exactly the same everywhere with a similar level of convenience.
But it’s not, America is much much worse than Europe on this, and rich countries in Europe don’t exactly have less convenience than the US. How else would you explain it other than a systemic difference? American brains are not fundamentally different to European ones.
I think diet is a part of it, but car culture and fast food is the biggest difference. Many developed European countries still rank much higher than the US in steps taken per day. Plus, fast food is usually a treat and not the default with a drive thru. It is back to the algebra of calories in the end.
Correct, which isn’t an excuse to eat your way to an early grave. We can change them, but we live in the conditions we have while working for the ones we want.
Exactly so we should be personally accountable to ourselves and externally sympathetic as well as follow known best practices like being encouraging to fat people seeking weight loss rather than encouraging fat people to associate their weight with shame in their body.
I keep myself skinny and muscular. But I’m sympathetic to people who fail to do so. I’d much rather be an annoying prophet of cycling and home cooked vegetarian meals than the bitch who tells people to feel bad about their body. Their bodies are great, they just aren’t in the best condition at the moment. People tend not to take care of things they have but are ashamed of, even if they’d be proud of it were it better cared for.
In short, some Europeans live on easy mode when it comes to weight and fitness. Their portions are probably smaller, fast food less common. There are better social safety nets reducing sources of stress.
Perhaps the food industry hasn’t achieved the level of regulatory capture as in the US and so sucrose / HFCS isn’t added to things as much (idk I am guessing)?
Yeah it’s all about the calories in vs out but there are clearly systemic issues that, once fixed, would help us greatly in the US.
Car culture is not quite accurate. It is more like, “the entire mode of existence of anything outside of downtown areas is designed around cars and is so ingrained in laws, infrastructure, city planning, etc. that it will take many decades of committed, relentless, focused, unopposed effort to undo.”
I agree with all your points, but I think knowing that you don’t use your full 2,000’ish calories a day should be factored into what you choose to eat. Personally whenever I move, I always look for the most walkable neighborhoods so I can at least try to live a more passively active lifestyle.
I understand that this is a privilege, but I also eat one cheeseburger and maybe a six piece chicken nugget when I go to McDonald’s. I don’t need fries or a soda, because I don’t burn enough calories to justify them.
I generally agree with you but I don’t think you are taking into account individual nutrition. For a fat person to lose weight they need to eat less. When this happens your body literally screams at you not to. This doesn’t end when you are no longer fat. It is a constant battle and your body is constantly trying to reach the fat state again. Unfortunately when you restrict your diet to lose weight, or keep it off, this itself can cause deficiencies and malnourishment.
This is very much a systemic issue but it is also tied into culture and personal responsibility. Unfortunately it is very complicated and not the same for everyone.
But losing it is hard and the battle to maintain a lower weight is a bitch and a half.
If it were easy, everyone would do it.
Not all of us are equipped with unassailable willpower (I think that’s part of the executive function of the brain). Additionally, many people maladaptively cope with stress, trauma, boredom, lack of dopamine, etc., by eating. Others have mentioned factors that discourage cooking at home.
I think any dismissive, simplistic, judgemental take on weight loss is worth the toilet paper I just flushed. It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t help anyone who needs help.
About all it does is make the preachy people feel superior to those who they’re preaching to … while making the overweight people feel shame, usually a counterproductive emotion. If shame effectively motivated people to lose weight, few would be overweight because there’s been plenty of fat shaming over the years.
People are individually responsible. But people are also responsible for finances. Telling someone they should manage their money better, get a better job, and spend less is equally tone deaf as much weight loss “advice”.
Better to understand the whole picture and figure out what we can do to systemically and individually set people up for success rather than denigrating them for personal and systemic issues.
As an Europan I can tell you, that the food in de US often tasted sweet to me. It’s like people in the US lost their taste buds for bitter and sour. There is no need to add sugar to every dish, especially bread. The other thing was the amount of fat in nearly everything. Salad? With a creamy sauce or tons of oil. Of course you have to add 400g meat AND a high calories cheese to it. Served with some sweet bread and it’s basically a burger in disguise. We were told that California was the healthy and rich state. If that was the healthy food, I’m starting to believe all those images on social media of fat dripping dishes.
In the end we cooked ourselves most of the time and payed the horrific price.
Try eating it for a few months and I bet you will see that people acclimate. Just like if you cut out salt suddenly processed shit tasted way too salty. Hell, I just had a peanut butter cup, first candy in weeks and it was like hyper sugar. Yuck.
A buddy of mine spends time in an easy Asian country where even desert is barely sweet and he noticed the same coming back to the states.
See, food companies figured out they could make more money selling food with cheap HFCS because it “tastes better”. It’s cheaper than sugar because we grow boat tons of corn + govt subsidies. It isn’t banned because corruption and regulatory capture that is ubiquitous in the US.
You’re speaking from your very tiny corner of the world. I understand that there are people who fall under whatever you said, but a big chunk just don’t have the time to give a single fuck about how healthy their food is, or they can’t afford it money and time wise. Some people do multiple jobs and have kids. I get what you mean, though.
Yes, but not thinking about your food choices is the problem. If I get fast food, I don’t get the double quarter pounder, large fries, and a drink. I get a single cheeseburger and an iced coffee with only cream. People act like being hungry is torture, but if you meet your caloric needs, that should be enough.
Personally, I want to get drunk every day and all the time. My brain screams at me to go buy booze. I chose not to drink today.
That really depends on where you live. I know when I go to visit my parents I’m always very impressed by the older people (65+) that I see on their daily walks. They are definitely fit. It’s the same when I go to the supermarkets in that area, I see a lot of fit, healthy people of all ages. Even the people working the register are in good shape.
It’s very cool. The race was between a climate scientist and a software engineer, both women. The climate scientist was much more liberal and won by a huge margin. Really good news all around, I’m jealous.
If by more liberal, you mean literally a socialist (at worst a social democrat) who outright states that neoliberalism is the cause of Mexico’s current problems.
“Neoliberalism” is one of those terms that’s starting to lose meaning because different people use it to mean different things. I’m not an expert on her, but from what I’ve read, her views seem pretty vanilla progressive to me. Here’s what Wikipedia says about them:
Social issues
Sheinbaum has openly identified herself as a feminist, aligning her beliefs and actions with the principles of gender equality and women’s rights.[73] She advocates for the legalization of abortion, aligning her stance with broader movements aimed at promoting reproductive rights and autonomy for women.[74] During her leadership in Mexico City, Sheinbaum championed LGBT rights by implementing a gender-neutral policy for school uniforms.[75] In 2022, she became the first Head of Government of Mexico City to attend the city’s pride march.[76] Economy
Sheinbaum has criticized the neoliberal economic policies of past presidents of Mexico, arguing that they have contributed to inequality in the country.[77] She has promised to expand welfare under her presidency[78] and intends to continue programs started by Obrador, such as universal pension.[79] Climate
Sheinbaum has a background in environmental policy, having served as environment secretary for Mexico City and worked on the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). [80] She has both spoken in favor of clean energy and praised Mexico’s largest oil company.[72]
Wow, where did that come from? I said I feel that word is losing meaning, not that you used it incorrectly. Instead of discussing what neoliberalism is/isn’t, I just posted a reference to her main ideals, which I thought would be more helpful. Not sure why you’re responding with claws out.
She is one that is using it, the incoming president of Mexico, and you lead with “that word is losing all meaning.”
I don’t believe that being a literal authority figure makes her honest or even trustworthy, but can you see the problem with that being the first thing you bring up, at least without having specific criticisms of her usage in mind?
I understand she’s the one using it, that doesn’t change the fact that, in my opinion, it’s not a good word for communication because different people been different things by it. For purposes of this discussion, I thought it would be better to avoid it. It’s like “conservative;” by itself it’s almost useless because people mean so many things by it.
It’s a well-defined term. But it’s one not really discussed much or talked about in america. And largely used in propaganda when it is used. Which is only aided by people not understanding and knowing the definition.
Liberal is basically a shortening of economic liberal. Think founding fathers, Adam smith, invisible hand circle jerk off the economy. Free markets yada yada yada. Basically that is what liberal means in the rest of the world. And still means in the United States even though it’s misused heavily. You might also comment to yourself that that sounds an awful lot like people who call themselves libertarian. Which is because they are not libertarian they are economic liberals. They’re just masquerading.
In the early 20th century, the glaring problems with economic liberalism we’re becoming impossible to ignore. Robber barons exploiting labor en mass and running roughshod over government. It was pretty blatantly apparent to most people what economic liberalism always was. It wasn’t about free markets for everyone. You can ask Black Wall Street about that. And it wasn’t about creating free societies for everyone. You can ask Black Wall Street about that. It was clear that they needed to abandon the hands off social policy of economic liberalism and apply pressure socially to achieve better outcomes. Which the market abhorred. And post world war II the violent oppressive Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist revolutions combined with fascistic rhetoric convinced them that capitalism was still the only answer. But hands on capitalism.
Enter neoliberals. Republicans and Democrats both are neo-liberals. Their current stances decided by who passed the civil rights act. Democrats solidified themselves as the party of limited social assistance. Republicans taking the opposite stance socially. No longer just socially “neutral” in pursuit of free markets and non wasps to exploit. They became punitive and actively socially oppressive.
And no Democrats are in no way socialist. Work requirements are antisocialist. Little poison pills that Democrats and Republicans both have worked into every single social assistance program ever implemented in the United States. As a mechanism to keep control and power over labor. Leaving them distinctly vulnerable and easily exploitable as father for the factories and businesses of wealthy capitalists. If an unemployed person had social protections and guarantees. Capitalists have no leverage over them. They could be discerning about what jobs they worked and what jobs they didn’t. Without having the fear of starvation and death hung over them. And that doesn’t work for capitalists.
I work on OpenFoodFacts, and the big issue is simply the amount of saturated fats and refined sugars there are in a lot of processed foods.
Like, sure, people have to be held personally responsible to some extent, but it should also be on the government to properly regulate how foods are advertised. I really appreciate the Nutriscore system that's being pushed for in Europe despite the flaws it has, and here in Canada they've been making some changes in how certain products are shown on shelves such as requiring labeling if they're high in sugar or fats and changing the previous confusing labels for energy drinks with a more easy-to-read Supplemental Food Facts label.
End of the day though, if something is still being labelled as being "healthy" when it really isn't, that's all it takes to fool the average consumer unfortunately. Stuff like Lucky Charms shouldn't be advertised to kids as "part of a complete breakfast", and it's absurd that a lot of "healthier" alternatives to certain foods are being advertised that way despite only being barely any better than the original product, like turkey bacon or veggie straws.
My brother-in-law eats a huge bowl of cold cereal every morning with skim milk… I drink a coffee with heavy cream or half and half and don’t eat breakfast. He’s a bigger guy that can’t figure out how to lose weight and I’m not anymore.
Shitty cereal is my weakness, but even then you can fit it into an otherwise healthy diet as a treat every now and then. I just buy the tiny box once a month and only have a few bowls. Working on a box of fruity pebbles right now, lol.
My son has celiac. Fruity pebbles is one of the few he can safely have. I made the mistake of reading into the food coloring they use I guess there’s some unconfirmed links to ADD lol. FML we can’t win.
To be fair I can’t figure out what to have for breakfast. I have issues with low blood sugar recently so I’ve been having… Lucky Charms :/. I just need to cut calories elsewhere I guess
The problem could be how fast you digest your food. As high as fat is in calories, it also digests much slower than sugar. So low fat might actually worse for you in a lot of cases.
Eggs are great. Protein is also very slow to digest. Eggs are mostly protein and fat, and the fat is largely good fats. Eggs also take well to being mixed with other foods. Once you get sick of basic eggs, like fried eggs and scrambled eggs, then you can sprinkle a little bit of cheese on it and it’s a completely different flavor. Full fat cheese please, none of that 2% bullshit. Add some bread and you have an egg and cheese sandwich, toast and eggs, toad in the hole, or basic French toast.
I have spent most of my life struggling with low blood sugar issues. It is not only difficult to live with, but it is impossible to find real advice on how to deal with it. Most doctors are arrogant pricks that tell you just to eat less. Sure, I’ll just go on a diet again and lose consciousness on the way home from work again, great fucking advice.
If it is really negatively affecting your health, you might also look at semaglutide. It works by making you digest slower. That has been a game changer for me. Being able to eat like a normal person is freeing… I actually worked through lunch this weekend. Completely forgot to eat because I was doing something really interesting. If you don’t understand how big a deal that is, then you just need to work on eating better foods, you don’t need the semaglutide. If that sounds like a fantasy thing that You would never f****** dare, then it might be something to look into.
Oats cooked in full fat non-homogenized milk, toss an egg or two in near the end and stir well. Top with ripe bananas or blueberries. Stir in some honey, but not the pasteurized shit and avoid spring variants.
Edit: this (and variants) was my breakfast for a year at the age of 35 and I went from 90kg to 75. No lunch, only dinner around 6PM, only coffee in between. Admittedly I also biked 20-40km a day and did some dumbbell and calisthenics exercises.
Yeah I had a seizure in early January and the culprit seemed to be low blood sugar. When I came to, they took a blood glucose reading and it was 50. I suspect some medicines I was taking at the time were artificially reducing my blood sugar without me realizing it.
So these days, I would never dare it yeah haha. Isn’t protein something I want to avoid though, since it doesn’t really add to my blood sugar and just makes me feel full? I’m not following I guess.
There may be a lot of reasons that you should avoid protein, but as a general rule of dieting, protein is harder to digest than carbs, so it slows your digestion down, and it has less calories than fat. The idea is to dispense the calories as measured and slow as possible, while still having enough to feel energetic.
Sort of, but carbs are problematic.so its not cut and dried. Also, not all your calories have to come from carbs. For instance, Keto diets get rid of most, if not all, carbs from your diet. I suspect that a keto diet would probably be ideal for me considering how badly my body handles carbs, but I just don’t have the willpower, money, or time to do a keto diet.
I’m no dietitian or doctor, so I can’t actually give you advice on your diet directly. I get on here to rant because I’m sick of being sold bad information and bad foods just to increase corporate profits, and then having so called professionals treat me like it’s my fault that their continued bad advice makes everything worse for me.
The simple fact is that some people’s bodies are different, and some of us really need fat in our diets.
From what you have said, it really seems like you need to find a proper nutritionist. Not someone trying to sell you a specific diet, or supplement, but someone who can look through your medical history, and help you figure out something that will work for you.
I am willing to bet that unless you have allergies, or other medical issues that preclude them, that eggs will be one of the top things on their food recommendations.
Overnight oats with protein powder and fruit, Chia pudding with fruit and Greek yogurt, eggs and whole wheat toast with guacamole or avocado, protein pancakes with fruit and Greek yogurt,
Something high in protein and with low glycemic index carbs.
You want something that will digest over a long time and release sugars and nutrients into the blood steadily, not something high in refined highly available sugars which hit the bloodstream all at once and spike blood sugar, then when it’s all used up your blood sugar dips back down sharply.
Mmmm. Scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast with real fruit jam, and then fruit or Greek yogurt should be good too then right? Because that actually sounds delicious.
Lobbyists have even polluted the ingredient label on the back. Now they can list a brand name as an ingredient, then list the ingredients of that. This lets them disguise the most prevalent ingredients if they’re also part of the brand.
Water, oil, sugar, xantham gum, Bob’s secret spice (enough sugar so that if the label were truthful, sugar would be the second ingredient instead of the third, cinnamon, nutmeg).
I never used the ingredient list to determine sugar content, since there also is a table on the back with g sugar / 100 g product. Is that not printed on the products package where you live?
How does it hurt Cuba’s economy that people can’t do business with them? How does it hurt Cuba’s economy that the most powerful country with the most influence over the world doesn’t let people do business with Cuba? How does it hurt their economy that its a pain in the ass to travel there? You must be joking
But things that help them grow food does fall under the embargo, such as farm machine parts, gas, and tools. Also, it’s still hard for them to buy food because the US males it hard to trade money, use banks, or send money back to Cuba.
Not even the CIA believes it was the fault of Cuba “In January 2022, the Central Intelligence Agency issued an interim assessment concluding that the syndrome is not the result of “a sustained global campaign by a hostile power”. Foreign involvement was ruled out in 976 cases of the 1,000 reviewed”
Also the embargo started way before 2016 so what weird point you have there to try and justify the richest government in the world punishing one of the poorest countries while it also bombs countless other countries.
I forget what award show it was but I’m pretty sure Tina Fey and Amy Pohler brought her up and listed a lengthy resumé of all her accomplishments. Then transitioned to “And tonight we’re here to give her husband a lifetime achievement award.”
There are three famous Clooneys. Two of them are married, one of them is the nephew of the third. When you think of them, you should think of Amal first, then George, then Rosemary. Sorry, Rosemary. Them’s the breaks.
I think you’re leaving out a few dozen or so extremely highly-rated and award winning George Clooney films. You could have mentioned films like Good Night, and Good Luck or O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Meanwhile, I would say most people associate White Christmas with Bing Crosby.
But more importantly, neither of them are human rights lawyers who argue in front of the ICC.
I can get behind the logic of more screen time probably meaning less physical activity. But someone needs to explain to me how eating less would ever lead to weight gain. Especially when your typical breakfast junk is just as unhealthy as snacking could ever be.
I know that if I skip a meal, I can get really hungry later. That or I start snacking on crap. So skipping a meal could potentially lead to weight gain because you end up eating more than if you didn’t skip the meal.
I’m not sure exactly how it works tbh! But this was also one of the findings of the National Weight Control Registry when studying people who successfully lost weight and kept it off.
78% eat breakfast every day. 75% weigh themselves at least once a week. 62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week. 90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
Some more tidbits:
98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. 94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
If I had to speculate, my guess is that having breakfast results in a better workout. And then a better workout makes you more likely to comply with your meal plan, which then results in better long term weight results
your body adjusts to fasting by increasing hunger hormones and sensitivity to them. This can lead to overconsuming food when its available.
additionally roads and traffic have also reduced effective social and play areas even as vehicles become more dangerous to pedestrians.
Its possible even that the evolutionary adaptation to cars is that low energy kids have less risk of injury/death while more high energy kids get hit by cars, possibly selecting for less active kids generation to generation (notably it may also be selecting for taller heights)
I’m interested in the idea of selection adaptation and motorised vehicles, however I think selective adaptation takes much much much longer than motorised vehicles have been with us so far. We’re talking hundreds of years for selective adaptation to take affairs.
I could be wrong about that though.
The more likely adaptation reason currently is that we like over eating. Food used to be scarce, and when it was available you ate as much as you could or you died. The survivors of that scenario are the ones that made us, and as such we love eating lots when it’s there.
I think our fascination with sweet foods makes sense from this perspective also. Our ancestors exposure to sweet foods were mostly fruit. Fruit would have improved their immune system significantly. Unfortunately we’ve since began mass producing sugar which doesn’t offer the same benefits, but our bodies are still set up to love that sweet taste.
car accidents are one of the largest causes of death of people below the age of 35 in the US if I recall. This means its likely one of the largest selection factors for people at or below reproductive age.
i absolutely hate that this correct answer gets any downvotes.
so much anti-intellectualism on the internet, so much surface level “BuT CaLoRiEs iN CalOriEs OuT” combined with outright denial and doubt of empirical evidence.
humans are a mess. yes, sometimes skipping morning meals can have an effect on the rest of your day and you eat more later. why are we so quick to doubt that?
Yea i can absolutely see that. Though it’s also understandable to doubt it because personally it just doesn’t apply - which I think is largely because I don’t changr my portion sizes, and I’m probably not the only one. I make food and eat all of it, and I usually eat 2 meals a day + sometimes breakfast. I’ve found that delaying food intake for as long as possible leads to me eating less overall and losing weight.
In my case, eating breakfast or not is more of a result of how much I ate the previous day.
Here you encounter the difference between personal anecdote and statistical averages in risk factors :)
Risk factors don’t mean you, personally are doing something wrong, risk factors just help identify patterns that inform action in health care where it is needed
General trends should only be applied by trained professionals, such as physicians or dietitians, who can do so with the necessary care and attention. Unless you are a doctor, you’re right that it’s hard! In fact you shouldn’t do it at all.
It is important for people to understand this concept, because it seems to be commonly overlooked. The average person should not create a diet or fitness plan based solely on data like what is discussed in this article. Rather, it is far more healthy to defer to professionals and their recommendations in the form of interpretation of that data for guidance rather than attempting to interpret this information on your own.
Edit: My apologies, it’s in the subtitle line cut out of context like this. I think this is the egregious fault of the publisher more than the author, probably some SEO BS, because again this was obviously not the intent of that sentence.
My browser’s reader mode cut out that subtitle line, hence my original comment:
Bad reading of the author’s intent and you ignore the immediately preceding sentence which provides context for your cherry picked quote:
The researchers identified great heterogeneity in the prevalence between countries and also diverse risk factors, from dietary to behavioral.
The intent of that paragraph is to highlight the diversity of risk factors, not to give the most prevalent ones.
When you ask a text to do something it didn’t ever even pretend to want to do, of course you are going to come away disappointed. Media literacy. < Publisher accountability.
Bad reading of the author’s intent and you ignore the immediately preceding sentence which provides context for your cherry picked quote
It is the subtitle in its entirety, as the author of the article intended. That sentence didn’t grow legs and and walk all the way up to the top of the article by itself.
hot damn my apologies my reader view cut out the subtitle. somehow i doubt that was the author’s intent though. i would blame the publisher for this because that’s a really poor manipulation of the text.
We built a system based on continuous growth and consumption. People freeze like deer in the headlights when it gets brought up that it isn’t sustainable and get offended that maybe we should try to make some changes to it.
Well, if you used the correct mathematical term, population decay, then you’re gonna have a lot of rubes rioting about some conspiracy on how a population can’t decompose or some shit.
Scientist had to change global warming to climate change when they realized some people can’t look past the buzz words and learn something.
I genuinely think you’re misreading that comment. I read this as an acknowledgement/warning of past human idiocy recurring, which, when we extrapolate from known data, is fucking likely.
Ironically, your misinterpretation has led to your own hyperbolic reaction, so maybe this is about self-pity.
“Keep your democracy. I saw democracy failing somewhere and being displaced by authoritarianism so I’m just opting for going straight to authoritarianism. I am smort but, also, do not trust me with the ability to influence my own society. I also don’t see the irony of expressing here how my society should be run (even though I’m anti-democracy).”
effort that might be unreasonable to expect under the circumstances, having abandoned your commitment to an educated electorate more than 40 years ago now. Shit has consequences.
A third take: Authoritarian groups have been historically successful in wiping out (usually by force) less authoritarian groups and their methods of organizing.
I frequently think this too, but then remember that progress towards less authoritarianism does occasionally actually happen. For example the USA PATRIOT Act used to be everyone’s example of authoritarianism in the US, but that has by now expired. For another example, the Snowden revelations actually led to everyone’s devices and communications getting encrypted. When is the last time you heard about random small people being sued for copyright infringement by the RIAA or MPAA or something?
For less recent examples, consider the 1989-1991 fall of communism in Eastern Europe, making those countries a lot less authoritarian.
When the world gets better, we tend not to notice as much as when it gets worse.
Cuba is overall liberalising, just have a look at the gazillion of reforms after Castro. OTOH authoritarian habits die hard especially in places such as courts backing up the “thin blue line”.
I’m torn on this topic because on the one hand there’s enough evidence for the harm it does, but one thing these finger wagging experts seem to ignore is that if you keep kids isolated from the tools then you’re leaving them behind.
I was probably an Internet addict as a kid with dial up and a CRT monitor, but I don’t regret it given how well it prepared me for the tech-dominated present.
Nice. Hi! And you seem interested in some of the same stuff. selfhosted, linux, random stuff… not that that’s extraordinary here on Lemmy. But maybe you’re me from the future… Or I’m your evil twin with a mustache…
I’m inclined to agree. I was definitely an internet addict when I was a teenager, but now as a 40 year old, I’m persistently depressed by how many people my age simply cannot use more than the absolute basics of their phone and computer. Like sure, they can send a text and write in a Word document, but become completely paralysed by anything more complicated than that because they’re so terrified they’ll break something if they click on the wrong button. Those of us that are used to technology have no fear of pressing buttons to find out what they do.
I feel like there ought to be a sensible middle ground somewhere, where kids can be taught how to use the tools they’ll be relying on as adults, without exposing them to all the downsides of the internet and exploitative apps.
I generally agree. I think there are no great answers, but the expert they interviewed makes good points. The main point that resonates with me is the network effects: if everyone feels pressured to begin using tools because they feel like everyone else is on them, it’s very difficult for any parent to constrain their kid’s use.
Age prohibitions aren’t very restrictive because they’re difficult to enforce. They’re basically just advice and a legal tool to go after the very most flagrant business targeting minors.
As for the positive effects: that’s a great point. I want my kid to have access to explore cyberspace in the same way I want them to have access to explore our city and nearby wildlands. I want them to have as much freedom as possible while teaching them to recognize and avoid danger. I think in all these cases, exposure with supervision before gradually increasing unsupervised access to areas that have become familiar is the only strategy to achieve that that in aware of.
I’m a father of two young kids nowadays, and I also was a teenager in the 90s with internet access when my parents didn’t really know what it is.
I think her statement should read “no unrestricted/unlimited smartphone access for children”, but I think for a child time limited, guided smartphone access is important - just by letting her use my phone now and then I don’t think I’d be able to have her build up the media competency required for not wasting her pocket money on nonsensical predatory games when she’s a teenager.
She’s 7 now - she generally can chat with a limited amount of people (family members and some friends), make pictures, and request app installation. I’m approving pretty much every free app nowadays - at the beginning I was curating, but we went over game mechanics several times, so she’s now recognizing predatory or low effort games herself, and gets rid of them after trying them out. I have my doubts educating a teenager with significantly more technical skills, disagreeing with everything you say, and some ability to throw money at the problem will be as open as her to slowly learning those kind of pitfalls.
I will say one thing: my mother didn’t let us have a TV or by extension a nintendo back in the 80s.
Now, as a 41 year old man, I play video games almost every day.
I think it’s connected. If I don’t play video games, I feel like I’m not in control of my life. Having a video game system that I’m allowed to interact with is a part of my sense of accomplishment in the world.
I think they’re related. I don’t blame her at all (not because I don’t think there’s a causal link, but because I think blame is useless).
You make a very good point. It’s super important for kids to be on the same page as their peers.
Ideally no kids would have these things. Kids could bond with each other over the cruelty of the adults depriving them of tech, while growing up with healthy brains.
Dial-up and a CRT implies you had to learn a little bit about computers in order to use them for entertainment. A baby can use a modern smartphone. It’s not “preparing” them for anything beides being unable to self-pacify without consumption.
I keep getting into it with people I mostly agree with. Yes, it’s fucked up that we add HFCS to everything and that corporations have weaponized addiction, but we can fight back.
Yep, way to many people over eat, and it has nothing to do with what’s in the food, people are just super seditaty these days and eat constantly.
Clicking the downvote button doesn’t magically make me wrong. There is a reason that you can eat straight Twinkies for a month and watch the calories and still lose weight. You’re not smarter than physics.
That’s part of it but the deeper question is why are people more sedentary? Why do people eat more often?
What is it about our society that promotes eating more processed foods?
My feelings are that food for many people is a sedative for a stressful life. Sugar is a great drug to make you feel good temporarily.
Then there is very little quality education around good nutrition and cooking in the US. Most people just take what the learned from their parents and go with it. And if their parents weren’t food smart then they probably will not be either.
there is a lot more to the obesity epidemic than just “stop eating so much”
There really isn’t though, it’s not rocket science. People just eat to damn much. Even the EU is having issues with it now. The UK is basically our fat neighbor at this point.
Bitching about down votes doesn’t magically make you right. You’re being downvoted because what you said is idiotic.
It has a lot to do with what’s in the food. Sure, if you eat nothing but 1500 calories of Twinkies every day, when you were eating 3000 balanced calories, you’ll lose weight.
That is about 12 Twinkies. Not even an entire box of Twinkies. And that’s all you get to eat in a day.
It would be much easier to reduce calories if half of them were from vegetables and the other half from meat. Feeling hungry has a lot to do with why diets fail. You can’t just apply physics to the human body and expect emotional and hormonal changes not to have an impact on the choices that human makes.
Naa I’m being down voted because people want the easy way out, all the time. You’re the same type that runs with the Healthy at any size. The same groups that promote that sudo science bullshit. No where did I say it was healthy to eat Twinkies and lose weight, but acting like people are fat because of the food that’s offered is a fucking cop out.
Eating ultra processed foods are not only unhealthy, they also cause you to eat more than you would if you were eating exactly the same thing with real food.
An argument you’ll note that is not only consistent with my guest comment, but actually argues for people doing more work than they’re likely doing to lose weight.
Subjects were instructed to consume as much or as little as desired.
The study also lasted 2 weeks and had less than 40 people in it. This is a bullshit study, we know people are going to eat ultra processed foods because it tastes good. Hell I’m guilty of it even, I will eat an entire pizza on my own if I don’t stop myself. This study should say, people lack will power to not eat free fast food… it’s a complete nothing burger of a study.
Buddy either you have hard data to back your claim or you don’t. You’re saying that diet has less impact on weight than exercise and that’s literally false. It’s the most wrong thing you could say and still sound like you’re speaking English.
Where the fuck did I say that? I’ve literally said multiple times in this post that CICO is not rocket science. The fuck are you talking about? Go back and read what I’ve stated. No where did I say diet isn’t more effective. I’ve literally states the opposite, people eat to much. Period. Even your own study shows that… people enjoy eating big macs more than healthy food…aka water is wet.
would be much easier to reduce calories if half of them were from vegetables and the other half from meat.
you’re saying like eating twinkies is the only option. Veggies and meat are in every market. Are people generally this stupid that they think they have to only eat junk food?
I think SupraMario has a good point - people (over)eat and they sit all day, every day. Personally, I eat a shit ton - but I also burn a shit ton, about 900 calories extra daily through exercise. If i didn’t exercise I would probably overeat, too. We need to get people off their asses.
73% of all of the food sold in the US is considered ultra processed, so no it’s not just Twinkies, but at this point unless you’re only buying neat and vegetables, you’re buying something that is lower in nutrients and bound to make you feel more hungry than you would if you ate something nearly identical that you made yourself.
Getting up and moving is great, I’m not discounting exercise. You do not lose weight by exercising. You lose weight through diet control.
You do not lose weight by exercising. You lose weight through diet control.
you lose weight by CICO. You either restrict calories in, or increase calories out, it does not matter.
73% of all of the food sold in the US is considered ultra processed, so no it’s not just Twinkies, but at this point unless you’re only buying neat and vegetables, you’re buying something that is lower in nutrients and bound to make you feel more hungry than you would if you ate something nearly identical that you made yourself.
agreed. But it’s not too difficult - buy some zuchinni, potatoes, tomatoes, onion, garlic, eggplant - dice it up, put in a pan, salt, pepper, nutmeg, together with whole, skin on chicken, roast for 45 min and you have a delicious nutricious meal. It’s literally 15 minutes of prep and it feeds a whole family at once. Everyone can do it. There’s no need to buy any processed food.
See my first comment, applying physics to the human body and ignoring the hormonal and psychological impacts is going to lead to failure. It is much more like treating addiction than anything else.
Yeaaaah you’re probably getting into it cause your points don’t really have much merit and that can be frustrating. Like a simple look at when the obesity epidemic took off should have saved me from having to write this comment.
I’ve been about 160 lbs my entire adult life, last year I was getting close to 200 lbs and when my clothes stopped fitting I realized I needed to acknowledge my dietary choices. I’m not 25 or even 35 anymore so I had to figure things out and did some research on calorie management. I still eat pizza, burgers, drink beer, drink soda and enjoy candy. I’m just mindful of my calorie budget +/- 200.
This is my weight in kilos after peaking around 90 kgs last year I stopped recording my weight for a few months. Then I stuck to my “diet” and it wasn’t crazy hard to manage. I’m not an athlete, in fact, I live a pretty sedentary life. These results are from saying no to snacks, avoiding potato chips, and grabbing two pieces of pizza and freezing the rest instead of eating the entire pie.
That’s great and I applaud you, seriously. But we mercilessly bullied fat people in the 80s, 90s, 00s and yet obesity skyrocketed. And you should probably consider what health (note not healthy) at every weight (HAES) actually is before dismissing it. Like we should encourage people to be healthy even if they’re overweight. This is like addiction, we’re not going to moral police our way out of this health issue.
My wife and I share an entrée and an appetizer here in the US because there’s no way anyone is meant to eat our portion sizes. We tip well to not look cheap, but Jesus Christ I don’t need a full rack of ribs and 5 lbs of french fries.
I wish Mexico had a better system, this sort of shit is a tragedy. I don’t know how or even when this will change, but I’m hopeful it will one day in my life
They don’t want to get rid of the cartels. The DEA has a vested interest in staying relevant, as it’s part of the whole law enforcement industrial complex. Hell, one of the deadliest cartels’ soldiers were previously trained by American special forces back in the day ( aljazeera.com/…/us-trained-cartel-terrorises-mexi… ). Guess who trained Taliban? You got it, the US. Who trained many of the guerrillas that would turn into tyrants in South America? Correctomondo, the US once again. We love to destabilize regions for corporate interests.
Not just the DEA, we’ve built a whole economy around drug offenses staying illegal. Drug testing companies, technology firms that develop law enforcement gear, law enforcement seminars, to say nothing of the thousands of companies that profit off of prison labor for what is effectively free, and the fact that a lot of the nonviolent offenders wind up turning violent because nobody will hire or rent to someone with a drug conviction.
The problem is systemic. You kill one cartel, another one pops up. It’s because there’s a demand for their products. Get rid of the demand and you’ll dry up the supply. Do it in a smart way, not by destroying people’s lives which inevitably throws them back in the cartels’ hands.
And how would you implement such a thing? Sure, on the internet it sounds all nice and dandy, but we don’t live in lala land. How do you separate civilians from the cartel when most of these cartels exist in populated civilian areas? Do you want the military to go scorched earth on the civilian population or what? Or do you create a police state to deal with the fact that the state is too incompetent to give people actual opportunities so they don’t end up making drugs for a living?
How about you give people in Mexico proper financial opportunities so they don’t have to grow crops for drugs to feed themselves and their families? And on the other end, how about you deal with mass homelessness and poverty in the US so people don’t have to take drugs to cope with their situations? How about not incarcerating every single drug user, then throwing them on the streets after spending 5 years in prison around actual criminals, and then wondering why they go straight up back to using drugs?
These “opinions” are just armchair expert discussions. If it was that easy to deal with this shit, it would’ve been solved a long time ago.
I’ve been around long enough to know that your pie in the sky version of fixing things through social programs is NEVER going to happen. Ever. So your solution equals doing nothing. Not to mention that people are forced to grow cartel crops, it has nothing to do with programs. No social assistance is gonna counter a guy with a gun to your family.
Go to the homes of known cartel leaders and drop precision missiles right up their ass and tell me it wouldn’t be effective in ridding the world of a cartel leader. One will take his place? Sure, take him out too, they’ll replace them with even less competent leaders till they’re nothing but a street gang. Go ask el Salvador how they’ve fixed their gang problem and dropped crime by 95%. Ask them if it was hugs and social help, or brute force.
I can assure you that there are regions within the European Union where people are even less poor and not trying anything criminal to get rich. I’m referring to parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and southern Italy.
Not to mention Third-Party-Members like Albania, Moldovia, Bosnia or Macedonia who are partially Third-World-Nations.
You won’t find poppy plants there. And while there is some organized crime - surely more than north of these countries - they are more or less under control and operate in the shadows.
But then the EU is also relaxed about giving work visas. Lots of people from those nations do some seasonal work within the EU, earning good money. We have all sorts of Ukrainians, Albaniens and even Tunesiens around Germany doing such jobs. Usually they earn enough money within two years to return home and start a family and a business.
I can assure you that there are regions within the European Union where people are even less poor and not trying anything criminal to get rich. I’m referring to parts of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and southern Italy.
I’m Romanian. I’ve also been to Mexico. I highly suspect that you have no clue what you’re talking about. The poverty in Mexico is a lot worse than in any part of Romania. Besides that, being poor in Romania means getting a job 50km away from your village, in the next city at most. Jobs are fairly easily accessible.
Not to mention Third-Party-Members like Albania
Are you also aware that Albania has the most drug traffickers in Europe? They import pretty much all the heroin here.
If you are living in Romania you might also remember how life was there 20-50 years ago. The stories my buddy told me about his time over there are… wow. The story how his Grandpa as a major of a small village during communism stole enough money from the communist party until he could bribe his way to the West - and actually nobody minded him stealing like 90% of all money going to his village… In the late 1990ths my buddy was robbed at gun point twice. By Highway-Police. When he invited his Uncle to a good restaurant in the capital the simple farmer didn’t dare to step through the door because “I am not worthy”… Nowadays… it is a lot more relaxed. Not perfect but the really big shit is gone. Still he thinks most Romanian youngsters are kinda crazy but most Europeans are, just in a different way. And the tourist regions are actually quite nice.
The Albanian Government ist pretty well aware of their lack of control and gave full control over shipping lanes to FRONTEX around ten years ago.
That by the way is the main reason nowadays drugs mostly arrive in Rotterdam again. Easier to hide between millions of metric tons of cargo than in a single fishing boat.
Gun point robberies are no longer a thing in Romania nowadays. Do you think we drone striked those that did that or do you think that by giving people better opportunities they just stopped doing that shit?
Besides that, I think life was okay back during communism if you lived in the city. People had jobs, crime was low. Most crime came after the revolution after the entire country was deindustrialized and people had no opportunities left to make a living.
My buddy said the police really laid Ambushes for the corrupt cops and the arrests sometimes escalated. So, well, they didn’t got struck down by a drone but they really were at risk of getting taken out by 5.54mm bullets. Sure not everyone was corrupt and violent but still quite a lot.
If you say violent crime was low I am gonna believe that. Corruption and theft though were everywhere in the Eastern Block really bad, I know it myself from my visits in East Germany and Czechoslovakia and the simple casualness everybody took possession of government property was insane. A fellow of my uncle build his whole house in East Germany with stuff people he stole from the communist government. It was straight forward insane. Violence on the other hand was rather low and mostly because the cops were not shy about getting very violent you up just because they could. I remember when two border guards beat up a class mate in Berlin in 1989 because he had long hair. He stood in a queue waiting for being checked, the two border guards walked by, grabbed him, punched him a couple of times and send him back into the queue. My whole class was starring like “WTF what just happened”…
I know at least two Soviet/Russian Vehicles in my Munich neighbourhood straight forward stolen from the Soviets/Russia. One 60 year old Ural Truck which an East German buddy used to flee from Iraq in the 1980th to West Germany, another also pretty old GAZ used by a team of Russian soldiers fleeing from Ukraine through Turkey to Munich last Year.
While I once have been in Communist Romania it was during a holiday when I was eight and in a fenced hotel area. I can only remember it was kinda boring because no kids of my age were around. I should definitely visit the place again when I do my Europe tour after retiring, I guess it changed a lot.
My buddy said the police really laid Ambushes for the corrupt cops and the arrests sometimes escalated. So, well, they didn’t got struck down by a drone but they really were at risk of getting taken out by 5.54mm bullets. Sure not everyone was corrupt and violent but still quite a lot.
That sounds crazy. While I am too young to have experienced such things in the 90s after the revolution, my parents, grandparents, and older friends never mentioned any of that. And I do talk extensively to people about the times before and after the revolution. Not even once have such things been ever mentioned and I can’t find much of any of that in any archives.
I do have friends from the ex soviet block (Ukraine, Repulic of Moldavia) and they indeed had a lot of gun violence, I even met people that have been shot or have had family members shot, but that was never the case in Romania. No shootings or any of those things. Hell, even nowadays Romania has less gun violence (and guns altogether) than pretty much any other country in all of Europe.
Stealing government property? Sure, but people do that even nowadays. Systemic corruption stems from the lack of opportunities and checks and balances. But again, comparing any of that to Mexico is straight up bonkers to me. Most crime is very petty crime. Like stealing minor things. Most people just get a job in the city and go on with their lives.
Well, last time I checked El Salvador was 93 times smaller than Mexico. Besides that, the cartels are part of the civilian population, hiding in civilian dense areas. Do you really recommend Mexico going scorched earth on their own people or what? Are you also aware of the dire human rights violations in El Salvador? When all you’ve got is a hammer everything starts looking like a nail.
Do you really recommend Mexico going scorched earth on their own people or what? Are you also aware of the dire human rights violations in El Salvador?
Unfortunately, that’s what’s necessary when you let your nation be run by gangbangers.
There is no perfect solution when things get this bad. At some point, they’ll have to ask themselves if it’s preferable to live under gang members who rape their children as intimidation, or take a more heavy-handed approach like El Salvador so they don’t have to live in fear.
Results speak louder than any ideology. Right now, El Salvador’s results are something Mexico should be learning from.
Unfortunately, that’s what’s necessary when you let your nation be run by gangbangers.
Oh, how nice that you’re okay with killing innocents from another nation in the process because your country is drug thirsty and can’t get its shit together.
We’ve tried that under previous administrations. Doesn’t work. Lending Mexico a hand is just playing whack-a-mole so long as the conditions for the cartels (including the massive corruption in government, police, and military) remain.
The best thing the US can do for Mexico is reduce demand for cartel products domestically.
Weeding out FARC and Shining Path actually did teach valuable lessons which habe been repeatedly reapplied successfully during modern counter-terrorism.
Both where heavily invested in organized crime but are nowadays toothless or non-existant due to coordinated goverment and civilian efforts.
The Best example might be “The Sons of Iraq” who helped to pacify Iraq quite well. The Coalition literally hired local people suffering most from extremists to fight the extremists and it worked like a charm. FARC and Shining Path were pushed into insignificance by roughly the same methods.
Yes, there were “revenge” killings by the “somewhat good guys” against the “really bad guys”. But in hindsight it was necessary to show the “really bad guys” that the tables had turned. As long as the overall violence decreases - deal with it.
Oh, by the way, did you know that the Mafia once was an organized military organization fighting for Sicilian independence? Over the last 200 years they slowly degraded into a bunch of sometimes wealthy oligarchic stock market fraudsters, but mostly pick pockets and low level fraudsters, at most bribing officials for construction jobs, if at all. 40 years ago they killed judges and police officers in the dozen. Nowadays they get beat up if they show up in Palermos shops and demanding the Pizzo (protection money). And the police stands by and collects the beaten gangster afterwards without minding the locals doing local justice. Works fine.
The best thing to do would be to legalize and regulate cartel-related drugs. The cartels would not be able to compete if the war on drugs was ended, basically.
Not only would it have the effect of weakening the cartels, but it would also lead to a lot of harm reduction, because drug addicts would actually know what they are putting in their bodies.
A good example of this is Marijuana being legalized in most of the US, and its effect on the cartels. The cartels have almost completely backed out of the cannabis trade, because they can’t compete with the quality, price, and convenience of being able to buy weed legally at a store.
There are a lot of places that are safe to visit, but you should be careful of some specific locations. The government publishes daily statistics about homicides, from there, you can have a pretty good idea of where not to go. Still, if things keep getting better, in a couple of years, things will become manageable for local governments. The current annual rate of homicides for every 100,000 habitants is down to 2011 levels. It’s still very high, but it’s not as high as the 2015-2021 streak.
We all should hope for that. It’s a bit weird for me that media keeps repeating that things just don’t change or are even worse. This April was bad, it was a month so violent as we haven’t seen in two years. I really hope this doesn’t start a trend.
Oh, I was talking about violence in general. I guess we will see if this is the most violent election ever, but we should take into account the relative number of candidates, which is no doubt a factor here. It’s really a great thing that the media finally piqued some interest on this topic. Let’s hope it’s not only because they have a financial interest on it.
Optometrists believe that the reason for this is that we’re tending to be inside more than we used to be, rather than going outside as much, so our eyes basically aren’t getting as much exercise in looking at stuff far away.
You mean to tell me, that in this day and age, with half a zillion cars out on the road damn near every day, that people don’t go outside as much as they used to? Let alone have to look half a mile down the road to find the exit sign on the highway?..
Oh, I’ve got myopia, like -5 vision, and yes I was born with it. That’s why I ain’t buying that whole ‘we don’t go outside as much’ theory for even a second.
I grew up on a 40 acre horse ranch and had to walk about a quarter mile to even catch the school bus, yet couldn’t see a pile of horse shit until I accidentally stepped in it.
So still, I ain’t buying that whole ‘spending more time indoors causes myopia’ thing, I was literally born with it.
Yes, you’re right. I can’t see my own fingerprints (without my glasses), past about 1 foot (~30.5 centimeters) in front of my face.
I didn’t even get glasses until I was 8 years old, which basically meant I was running around legally blind until the age of 8, when they finally stopped punishing me for not being able to see shit and actually took me to an optometrist.
There’s a difference between seeing your dick versus seeing your pubic hairs clearly. Whether you take my word on it or not, my member is of a decent size, I just can’t see the hairs without my glasses or contact lenses.
Do you even know what causes myopia at birth? The eyes aren’t properly spherical, they’re elongated. This doesn’t tend to change all that much over one’s lifetime either.
You aren’t born with adult sized eyes. Your eyes grow as you grow, and their growth appears to be regulated by how they’re used. It’s covered in the article, maybe read it?
No shit Watson. It’s still all about the shape and proportions of the eye, not the size. Anyone with myopia can literally push their eyes in gently via the eyelids and see a bit better.
Your eyes don’t get longer from being indoors, you’re either born with longer than normal eyes or you aren’t. Some are even born with shorter eyes, called hyperopia (also better known as farsightedness).
And yes, I also have 42 years of actual real life experience with myopia. What the fuck a scientist gonna tell you if they haven’t literally lived and experienced bad nearsighted eyes?
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