Asking "Are we being poisoned?" sets up the issue is an supotimal way. It frames very complex interaction as if they would be simple and with agency of an hostile agent.
I want to know what, specifically, is driving this problem (doesn't everyone) and
Part of being a rationalist is accepting that there are questions where the available evidence doesn't clearly answer the question.
David Chapman's Nutrition: the Emperor has no clothes is worth reading to be aware of how irrationally the issue of nutrition is commonly approached. If you want to do better, understand it is valuable.
what an ordinary person can do to minimize the risk of serious illness.
I don't know what you mean with the term "ordinary person". Solution for someone with bad body awareness and who has a program salary are quite different then for someone with awesome body awareness who lives on minimum wage.
For many people, internal drives get them to eat iron if they are deficient at it. The dynamic is strong enough that Alicorn wrote. Experiential Pica. If you pay good attention for the internal drives and understand your drives you are going to eat enough iron.
For myself, I have effervescent tablets for Magnesium, Calcium and Iron. With Magnesium in particular there are days where I clearly feel like a Magnesium tablet would be tasty and days I don't. Since I switched my diet, I don't find them appealing anymore.
On the other hand, for someone who doesn't really trust their impulses and has the cash to throw around (or healthcare that provides them with free access to testing), doing blood testing and supplementing iron if you need it is a great idea, as you can also do blood testing as Elizabeth lays out.
There are both ways that leverage high self awareness and ways that leverage having big financial resources.
Yesterday, I saw a video on social media of a woman discussing how, since moving to the US, she has started mysteriously gaining weight even though she's eating the same amount of food as before she moved here.
Just wanted to add a data point, that 20 years ago a classmate told me a similar thing. When she returned from USA, the mysterious weight gain stopped (I don't remember whether she returned to the original weight, or just stopped gaining more).
I would like to revisit some of the concepts Scott explored in his 2020 article "For, Then Against, High-Saturated-Fat Diets". I'm hoping someone will have some novel/updated insights or new research to share concerning the impacts of the Western diet on health in 2025.
I'm about to turn 32, and I sense that I'm moving toward becoming a prime candidate for one of the gastrointestinal cancers that (among many others) are on the rise globally among people under the age of 50. Demographically, I am disproportionately at risk due to genetic, socioeconomic, and other factors. And, guys, I don't want to die any time soon.
This trend in cancer rates among young adults has seen the most dramatic uptick specifically in rich, industrialized Western nations, and the consensus seems to be that diet and lifestyle choices are a factor, albiet one of many, not all of which are clear right now.
Yesterday, I saw a video on social media of a woman discussing how, since moving to the US, she has started mysteriously gaining weight even though she's eating the same amount of food as before she moved here.
The comments were full of people with similar stories. Some of them claim that we are all "being poisoned" via our own food systems and the corporations that run them, as evidenced by the prevalence of growth hormones in meat, the presence of microplastics in everything, the preservatives and toxic chemicals in common food staples, the chemical pesticides that are present in the environment, the fields, the water supply, and by extension even in natural foods and animal products.
The woman's experience is consistent with my own experience of Western vs non-Western diets and their respective impacts on health. Without veering too far off into the anecdotal wilderness, I lived in Turkey for most of 2012 and was a total glutton while there. I ate my weight in delicious Turkish food and sweets every day and exercised very little. I also smoked cigarettes (but have since quit). In spite of my gluttony, I lost so much weight that the US customs agent who stamped my passport on my way back into the country pointed it out to me and congratulated me on it.
I want to know what, specifically, is driving this problem (doesn't everyone) and what an ordinary person can do to minimize the risk of serious illness. What are we all being exposed to that's wreaking such havoc on our health? How significant is the microbiome theory? Should I try cutting gluten? Start raising my own chickens and growing my own produce on the kitchen window sill? Switch to a vegan diet? Leave the country altogether? Do you know of any promising updated research in this direction that you'd like to share, or have a story that could provide some valuable personal insight? Know of any good blogs covering this?