Diet Gender Gap

[Opsa]

Here's a continuation of the gender gap and diet discussion that a couple of people started in Virtual Halloween.

Please reiterate before continuing.

[Aggie]

Original article here, based on a study from Sweden that found that a woman's level of education is more relevant to her husband's likelihood of dying than his own level of education is:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8291667.stm

The larger discussion may be whether women in general are more likely to eat healthy than men are, and whether they tend to be a good influence on men in relationships.  Or anything else we wander into.

[Opsa]

...and it's really a good discussion, although on second thought I notice that "Diet Gender Gap" sounded like a carbonated beverage!

I think that maybe since traditionally the women are generally in charge of the household menu and meal preparations, they are more in control of what the family eats. The more educated she is, the more likely it is that she would buy and prepare healthy meals.

[Aggie]

I tend to agree - also, educated people in general are more likely to self-educate, I think (being in the habit of learning).  It's certainly not exclusive; my mother has a high-school education but is very health conscious and is always trying to learn something new in regards to her health. She's passed that on to me and uses me as a resource for vetting health claims.  She was also a big influence on her mother-in-law for year, and encouraged her to start cooking with vegetable oil instead of exclusively with lard and butter, among other things.

My father is generally a healthy eater for his main meals and is very fitness-oriented, but does like his indulgences (fried snacks, sweets, chocolate and alcohol, although the latter is probably at a healthy amount as he typically has one drink per day).   Mom has definitely been a big influence on him, diet-wise.

The study does note a strong link to material resources*; healthy eating is not particularly expensive in itself, but if one has extra disposable income it's easier to get your hands on specialty superfoods and supplements.  My parents are quite thrifty** (financially secure due to careful money management but not wealthy), but they`ve always gardened to keep fresh produce available during the growing season.

<sub>*perversely, I will spend sometimes too much money on healthy food, especially fruits and hate spending it on sweets and snacks, but have a hard time saying no to things I would not normally eat from a health perspective if they are free.

**however, their discretionary income these days does end up going towards healthy pursuits to a large degree; Mom spends it on health products and organic food, Dad spends it on mountain bikes.</sub>


It goes both ways in our house; Christie`s got me to make fruit a regular part of my diet (back home I was a seasonal fruit binger as we lived in a very fruitful region, but it was not easy in past decades to get good fruit all year round, and I fell out of the habit when I first moved to AB due to limited funds and supermarket choices when I was a student), got me eating fish on a regular basis (availability in the city helps here as well) and also initiated my cutbacks on meat consumption - I`ve taken it even further since I started getting into legumes, which she`s not a fan of. 

I`ve been encouraging her to cut back on sodium consumption (coming from a perpetually low-sodium household, I often undersalt) as Korean food tends to be quite salty, especially from her mother`s region of the country.

I find that I have a more tolerance of / drive to eat healthy things that don't actually taste good - a remnant of that bizarre North American puritanical food morality that anything that tastes good must therefor be unhealthy and cause guilt, and anthing that is healthy should be tasteless or nasty and eaten as an ascetic act to maintain the moral high ground through self-denial.  My actual cooking has moved away from that as I use lots of spices and flavours to make sure healthy food tastes good, but I will still put health ahead of taste in my day-to-day meals.  Her traditional diet is based on principals of health from the ground up, with very little need to worry about heath if one is eating a good variety of normally available foods; the lack of healthy-ingredient availabilty and ridiculously easy availabilty of red meat here makes it more difficult to keep it up.

We diverge on fat consumption; I like eating lean but need a ton of calories to maintain a reasonable weight, so I go heavy on the olive oil and other healthy fats when I`m cooking for myself (legumes for lunches).  I've come to the conclusion that my body is best fueled by a middle-Eastern style diet, which tends to be too heavy for her.

[Griffin NoName]

Some research suggests that people at the same level of income are less healthy if they live in a generally low income area than people with the same level of income who live in an area of higher income. So it may all be down to demographics.

(this is straight off my MSc course.... I am drowning in conflicting facts on health.... IMHO anything can prove anything in health research.... ie its not the five fruit and veg you eat, its how much the folk next door earn. and I am supposed to write an authorative essay on that?).

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

[Aggie]

Or what they are ethnically inclined to buy - I don't trust any supermarket catering exclusively to white people.  The produce is terrible and the fish is sold by 100 grams instead of the pound (at the same price per unit!).

[beagle]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

You do realize Griffin is getting you both to provide all the key essay points for her? I hope you charge for this 

IMHO anything can prove anything in health research....

I hope you can back that up with some research. 
IMHO, the clue is when the paper ends with "It's is clear from our study that further research is needed". That's researcher speak for "My grant has ended and I don't want to have to get a real job" or "I made the results up so don't do anything serious with them".

[Griffin NoName]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

You do realize Griffin is getting you both to provide all the key essay points for her? I hope you charge for this 

IMHO anything can prove anything in health research....

I hope you can back that up with some research.

Actually I am quite shocked by the (sub) academic level of the course material (Uni is 18th in the overall league table) - statements like positive thinking improves the immune system ---- utter crap ---- some studies showed that 15 years ago, couldn't be reproduced, and since then other studies have proved the exact opposite including one that showed absolutely without doubt that positive thinking does not extend life with breast cancer*. The trouble is that I have to please the person who marks the essay so I can't challenge the nonesense.

* sorry don't have the web links to hand

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

There was a book mentioned in the Daily Show about that, the lady who wrote it was very adamant on the subject (that positive thinking doesn't work). I found the link (hopefully it works in the UK):

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-14-2009/barbara-ehrenreich

[Griffin NoName]

Thanks for that Zono. Video won't show in the UK but I followed the bi-line up and found interesting stuff, including cited research which supports my own understanding that being happy has no effect on the immune system.

Still though it includes gender and diet (well apples):

quote from Linus Pauling (1962)

The appearance of the concept of good and evil that was interpreted by Man as his painful expulsion from paradise probably was a molecular disease that turned out to be evolution.

Chew on that !

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

quote from Linus Pauling (1962)

The appearance of the concept of good and evil that was interpreted by Man as his painful expulsion from paradise probably was a molecular disease that turned out to be evolution.

Chew on that !

I think he is reading too much into it, but I've always loved that metaphor, it suggests that part of what define us as human is the labeling of good and evil, that conformity is bliss and what separates us from other animals in this planet.

I could go further to say that what the judeo-christian paradigm actively seeks that conformity (why else the medieval Platonist ethos?) and questioning is by definition evil (for whom?).

[Aggie]

What the grocery stores in your area carry will depend on what people buy, which is what they can afford to buy.

OTOH, it may be a case of thresholds rather than being directly proportional to income levels.  Very poor areas where few residents own cars and transit is inadequate will not easily support the type of supermarkets that rely on large-volume purchases (refrigeration units for fresh foods are expensive, and if turnover is not high, it's tough to keep fresh, good-quality produce and meat on the shelf).  However, once a certain standard of living is reached (upper lower/lower middle) is reached and the population density is sufficient, shopping options expand and prices drop rapidly to compete for that market.  I'm thinking of a couple of areas of my city that are perceived to be the "bad" area of town, but have the most diverse offerings even within major chains and almost always the best price:quality ratio (plus tons of small-business specialty markets). 

People with too much money can eat whatever they like, but are usually getting ripped off for any given item, as they don't have to watch every penny they spend.  There's one national budget supermarket chain I can think of here that MANY people of a certain income threshold actively avoid, mostly so they don't have to shop alongside of "those people"; however, the price, quality and selection (especially of house-brand items, which are generally better than the national brands) are excellent, and it's about the best place to get organic staple items and basic produce.   There's another local premium supermarket chain that I'm convinced exists primarily so one doesn't have to shop with "those people" - the deli/butcher/bakery/pre-made food counters are OK, but prices for food readily available elsewhere is atrocious and the produce is generally sub-par (half the quality, twice the price!).

There's definitely a "health food" threshold at which point one can afford to shop at the local health-food / organic market and drop ridiculous amounts of disposable income on sometimes ridiculous powders and potions in addition to overpaying for rather basic food items. I think this threshold may be more important in terms of overall health, but as a caveat, the people who shop in these types of places are generally more interested in health and wellness, so IMHO it's more of the educational / awareness aspects that make the difference than necessarily spending the money on any particular items (there's still a pretty big fried-salty-snack aisle at a health food store, and last time I checked health-food-fried-salty-snacks are still high in fat and sodium; however, at $7 for a bag of potato chips, one is more likely to consume them in moderation ).  I do shop frequently at the health food store, especially in summer when organic produce is in season and reasonably priced (in winter, prices rise there and it's largely back to the above-mentioned budget chain), especially since it's downtown and I don't need to drive 15 - 20 minutes to get there.

---------------------------

WRT the original premise here - more men are cooking for the family on a regular basis than was the case 50 years ago.  In everyone's experience, does Dad-as-chef generally cook as healthy as Mom does, or is there a difference in priorities (ease of preparation, taste, did it have a face, etc. )?

[Opsa]

I like it when my husband cooks, because he really loves to fuss over details, whereas I usually am concentrating on getting the stuff onto the table PRONTO. I do fast and healthy, he does the fancier stuff but far less frequently.

Speaking of organic, I was shopping for natural peanut butter today and was flabbergasted at what can be called "natural" and "organic". We like the stuff that's just peanuts and salt. I saw one brand that claimed to be natural and organic, but had both oil and sugar added. WTF?

I guess there's another place where my husband and I differ as we shop. I read labels. He just grabs.

[Aggie]

Speaking of organic, I was shopping for natural peanut butter today and was flabbergasted at what can be called "natural" and "organic". We like the stuff that's just peanuts and salt. I saw one brand that claimed to be natural and organic, but had both oil and sugar added. WTF?

Organic*, natural oil and sugar, mind.

It's the health equivalent of greenwashing - I get flabbergasted that many people will assume something is healthier because it's promoted as 'natural'.  Glad to hear you are a label reader and can sift through the mixed signals.  I've found that sulphites*** are permitted in quite a few organic products as well (wine, dried fruits/spices), which bothers me a little.

IMHO, 'natural peanut butter' should be peanuts and possibly a bit of salt (both options are appreciated, but I don't like the taste of unsalted).  OTOH, if you do eat sweetened, fatted-up peanut butter, the organic version is still worthwhile because peanuts are notoriously contaminated with pesticides and oils tend to be good carriers of organic** contaminants.   I haven't heard whether organic peanuts differ in aflatoxin content or not, but I doubt it's lower as no fungicides would be permitted on organic crops. 

Incidentally, some types of peanut butter with added sugar and fat are actually lower-fat than the peanuts-only variety, as the sugar displaces some of the peanut oil in the mix.  However, the fats added are often (historically) shortenings and may boost the saturated fat content significantly.




<sub>*chemists giggle about this because most of the nastiest chemicals are organic**, and even the inorganic nasties (mercury, lead) tend to be more toxic and/or bioavailable when complexed with organic ligands.

**carbon-based

***definitely inorganic as there's no carbon, although this also applies to good ol' NaCl</sub>