In-depth nutritional education should be taught in schools

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With all of the crap we learn in schools that we never end up using in our adult lives, I think room should be made for in-depth nutrition, vitamin and food education, and I think students should be able to leave high school with enough knowledge to build an optimal diet plan. The obesity epidemic in the west isn't going to get any better while we have masses of people uneducated about nutrition and food. We should all know how to read and interpret the dietary information on the back of foods and drinks

I think that at least some U.S. students do learn this. I remember learning basic nutrition in third grade and taking a mandatory home economics course in which we learned about cooking and reading food labels.

One problem is that most students are influenced by family and peers more than they are influenced by teachers and curricula. All the teaching in the world will not be able to sway many if their social environment indicates that eating garbage is ok.

What's served in school cafeterias is also a factor.

are you trying to say the obesity epidemic is caused by people not knowing that what they eat is garbage and that 5 liter buckets of coke are maybe a bit too much sugar, and that they shouldn't drive so much and walk more?

I can accept the idea of people being stupid and going for pleasure and lacking self control in an environment designed to make them consume s**t that's most of all cheap to produce and quite addictive. But I really don't believe people don't know. Like I know that I should quit smoking.

Yeah! We're never going to use algebra outside of school anyway!

We live in this environment designed to make people consume the sh*t out of everything and then they blame it all on personal choice.

The same people who want less regulation in the name of individual freedom want it so they can manipulate us as the cost of our individual freedom. They want less government control so they can control us.

A little while ago I viewed some family slides from the 1980s. Lots of group shots from outings, weddings, etc. Some slides had dozens of people in them. Not a single one of those people were fat.

I can tell you that my family and their friends are no smarter than the average person living then or now. They weren't all thin because they were more responsible than other people, they were all thin because they lived in a different environment with stuff designed to get them addicted to high-fructose mush.

Don't you need some concept of math to keep track of how much you have eaten?

During the summer I'll split my dinner and have four meals a day and adjust the portions so I don't gain weight.

I use math to choose packages of meat that divide into portion sizes. 3 pounds of meat divides nicely into my target six ounce portion size.

I think proper cooking lessons would suffice. The main problem as far as I can see it is ready made and processed foods stuffed with sugars and God knows what else. We don't all need to be fully qualified nutritionists.

No we don't, but how about some basic level nutritional education? Do they already have that?

Pretty sure they have very basic diet information on the curriculum in England, though whether it's based on the old discredited food pyramid I don't know. As in almost all things I look back 100 years for my advice. General understanding of nutrition back then was "meat and veg" are staple foods and "potatoes and sweets" will make you fat. As in almost all things, they were pretty much right and the moderns were wrong.

That, I think, is sufficient, if you are preparing and cooking your own food. Anecdotally, I believe if you are consuming processed foods, you are more or less guaranteed to have a poor diet, no matter how many calories you count. I left school barely able to microwave noodles, which I resent.

Schools teach behavior, above all. They are about creating workers. If you want to learn useful things, teach yourself.

I went to a school system that still had basic cooking classes. How to measure flour and liquids. Most likely the last generation to learn that in school.

Tonight I worked on my multitasking by tossing some chocolate chip cookies in the oven along with the meatballs for dinner. Everything turned out great. Freshly baked cookies are one of my favorite foods.