Food Consumption

Sourced from good.is

The above infographic illustrates that the sugar consumption of Americans have grown by 19 percent since the last 3 decades. But it's not just sugar consumption. It's the serving size, portion size, and calories as well. In the 1970s, about 47 percent of Americans were overweight or obese; the figure is 66 percent now. In addition, the number of just obese people has doubled, from 15 percent of our population to 30 percent. Twenty years ago, the average pizza contained 500 calories. Now it's a whopping 850 calories. Twenty years ago, popcorn had 270 calories. Now it's 630 calories, and is served in a tub! Bagel was about 3 inches in diameter. Nowadays it's 5-6 inches. You can follow up on it in detail from this link.

Now, I was reading these and the article does provide some explanations as to why we are eating more. And it's probably because, paralleling the growing American consumerism culture, the consumerism rate of eating out or drive-in's have also increased. And the article guesses that increased serving portions and sizes encourage us to eat more and more. It's probably true, but I was talking to a friend and he raised a good question on just how much our energy expenditure changed since the last 20 years. If I had to guess, it would be that the average calories burned per day actually decreased, and if that were true, that would make the news even more alarming.

I have other questions as well regarding how much more food additives went in to our food since the last 20 years, how much has our food chemistry changed, how much has our food been genetically altered or engineered, how much has the average time spent on cooking changed (probing into the rise in instant food culture), how much has the distance our food travel being imported or exported changed, how much the occurrence of food poisoning changed or food-related diseases have resulted in outbreaks, etc. I wonder..