What are Americans eating? A whole lot of crap, that’s what. Carbs and fat, baby. Carbs and fat.
Check out the changes that have happen in just the past fifteen years. Far less sugar, which is good. But there’s a huge spike in fats and flour products. Meat and vegetables are way down at the bottom.
Michelle Obama is sad.

Looks like flour is flat or down over the last fifteen years.
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Passover?
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What’s most startling is that the average consumption has gone up 20 percent in just 30 years.
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My suspect is restaurant dining.
There’s a lot of hidden fat in it.
I was just looking at the official info for Chili’s salads. The number on the left is the total calories. The number on the right is the total number of fat calories.
Boneless Buffalo Chicken Salad 1030 610
Quesadilla Explosion Salad 1430 860
Santa Fe Chicken Salad 700 440
The interesting thing is that the fat calories alone for those three would be a more than presentable total caloric intake for dinner, particularly for the first two.
(I used to get the Quesadilla Explosion Salad now and then. Oops.)
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People are fooled by the word “salad”.
Even high end restaurant meals have a lot of fat – that pat of butter melted on the steak just before serving, etc.
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This is why I only eat salads with fries on them. At least I’m not kidding myself.
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And it’s probably fewer calories overall!
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I don’t see how. It’s the all the same stuff, plus fries.
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We’re doing the primal diet. All I eat are veggies, fruit and meat. I would kill for a pretzel. Not seriously, but almost. It doesn’t help that about 80% of the floor space in your average grocery store is devoted to carbs and sweets, neither of which we can eat.
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If I had to guess, I’d bet that an apple is no more primal than wheat.
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Carbs and fats are my favorite foods (never really understood sugar, or meat, as alternative, potentially bad for you foods).
What does “primal diet” mean?
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Primal is Paleo plus dairy. For us that’s lots of fruits and veggies, prepared from fresh, using dairy and served with meat. Practically, it’s cutting out all refined sugars and grain products. No bread, pasta, rice or conventional baked goods. *sob*
It cuts down on our snacking both from lack of options (not too much besides fruit and nuts) as well as that we don’t feel hungry between meals. Downside? I spend a lot more time prepping vegetables and fruits these days (but I’ve gotten really good at shredding cabbage, ricing cauliflower and chopping up pineapples).
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that’s lots of fruits…, prepared from fresh, using dairy
Huh. So I guess I had that for breakfast the other morning when I ate blueberries, strawberries, and bananas w/ some cream in a bowl for breakfast. Tasty, even. I am pretty much convinced, though, that the trick for all of these diets is not what’s in them, but making people think about what they are doing and not just shoving everything they can down their pie-holes.
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Matt,
The mainstream diet books I’ve been reading would say that the effect comes from calorie restriction. If 50% of your diet is processed carbohydrates and you suddenly stop eating that 50%, voila, miracle!
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I’m glad it includes the dairy–it’s not like there’s a lot of people chugging milk to excess. (Although I think a lot of restaurants have a cup-of-cheese-on-everything policy.)
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What does “primal diet” mean?
That’s the brand of dry cat food I give to my cat. (He mostly eats wet food, but it’s a good supplement) I can see you you’d lose weight on it, but I think it would be hard on the teeth.
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Funny!
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Hah!
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Is there any explanation for the startling spike in fats & oils in 2000?
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