- The modern diet is the reason why people
all over the world are fatter and sicker than ever before. In this video, I'm looking at five graphs that clearly show why things have turned out the way the have. Sometimes, we have to face the truth. (chimes)
Number one. Added fat intake has spiked dramatically, mainly from vegetable oils. The total amount of fat we consume has increased a lot over the past century. You can see the red line shows
total added fat intake. In the 2000's, it was around 50 pounds per person per year, whereas it was much closer to 30 pounds per person per year for most of the century. Fat is the most calorie dense nutrients, so that's a heck of a lot of extra calories
each person is eating per year. You can also see from the blue line the types of added fats we eat have shifted from animal fats like butter, tallow, and lard. We're now eating way more vegetable and seed oils instead.
Which is shown by the green line. That's things like soy bean, corn, canola oil, and sunflower oil. Interestingly, this graph and several others all show that total and added fat intake did not decline at all when the low fat guidelines
were introduced in the 1970's. They all show that fat intake just kept on increasing which indicates that a, the low fat guidelines didn't work particularly well, and b, nobody ever reduced their fat intake. So, we can't blame a low fat diet
for the current health problems because nobody was eating a low fat diet. Number two. Vegetable oils have altered the fatty acid composition of our bodies. Now, this is really fascinating, also very concerning.
But, Dr. Stephan Guyenet who makes many of these great graphs found that the amount of seed oils, vegetable oils, that we're consuming is so high, that it's actually altered the fatty acid compositions in our bodies. The dots in this graph show the average percent
of linoleic acid found in human fat tissue at different time points. Now, linoleic acid is a type of omega six fat rich in vegetable and seed oils. And, there is a really strong correlation between the linoleic acid we eat
and the linoleic acid in our fat tissue. The percentage has more than doubled since the 1960's. The most commonly consumed vegetable oil in the US is soy bean oil, which accounts for about 70% of calories in the US diet in 1999, which is a lot. Most don't realize that this increase is coming from
the processed and junk foods that we eat, which typically contain large amounts of vegetable oils. So, even if you don't think you eat vegetable oil much, you do. Now, just how influential this high amount of omega six fats in our tissue is to our health
is a highly debated topic. All we do know is that it's definitely not a natural amount to have. Number 3. Consumption of soda and fruit juice has increased dramatically.
Increased fat is certainly not the only problem, but increased sugar as well. The brain doesn't register liquid sugar calories in the same way it registers calories from solid foods. So, even though we consumed the liquid calories,
we're still not satiated. We feel like we haven't eaten anything so then we eat food calories from solid foods as well. And, this combination is pretty much the reason why calorie intake has increased so much. This graph shows the beverage consumption of US adults
from the late 70's up until the mid 2000's based on USDA data. So, you can see that the green line, fruit drinks, which is like juice, remained quite consistent until the 90's. And, then it went up quite a little bit.
Milk has remained consistent. So, the calories we get from milk is about the same the whole way through. The red line is non-diet soda, that means sugar sweetened beverages or soft drinks. And, you can see they were gradually increasing
and then in the 90's especially have gone up. And, it's kind of plateaued which is good, but that's largely where a lot of our extra calories have come from. It's no surprise that one study even found that in children, each daily serving of sugar sweetened
beverages is linked to sixty percent increase of obesity. Number 4. People are eating more junk food than ever. Now we all know this to be true but, most of us don't appreciate the scale of it. Now, this graph shows how the US population
changed it's eating habits in the past 120 to 130 years. Now, at the turn of the 20th century, over 90% of meals were simple, home cooked meals shown in green. Now, less than 10% was other foods shown in blue. By around 2009, about half of what we ate
was home cooked food. Now, you can see the emergence of fast food in our diet shown in red. And now, this graph actually underestimates the true change because a lot of what people are eating at home these days is junk as well.
Compared to what they would have had in the year 1900. Number five. Increased calorie intake overall. So, we've seen from these graphs that people are consistently eating more
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