Natalie: The question of the day today is how many vegetables do you eat? Now it's kind of a three-fold question because I want to know how often you eat vegetables, whether it's every meal, once a day, once every few days, I also want to know what kind of vegetables you eat and you got be truthful. If you are considering French fries as your vegetable, I want to know that. Then the other thing is I want to know how many vegetables you think you should eat or how much vegetables you think you should eat? So pause the video and let me know and then restart it.
Today we are going to be talking about some crazy statistics about the American diet. It's really interesting, I mean I think after the end of this video, you're not going to really have any doubts about why Americans are overweight and how diseased with diabetes, it's going to be pretty clear because what we are about to discuss in these statistics show that the Americans, our society, we are doing the exact opposite of what we need to do in our diets to maintain a healthy way, stay healthy, live a long healthy life. We are doing the opposites, very ironic.
Fact number one; 52% of American vegetable consumption consists of iceberg lettuce, some form of a potato, French fry fresh potato or potato chip, and canned tomatoes. Then of course, our consumption of dark green leafy vegetables and brightly colored yellow vegetables are extremely low. I just think it's very interesting that three out of the top five vegetables eaten in the United States out of 52% of the country is a form of potato, two of those are fried. Then iceberg lettuce is probably the lowest nutrient dense lettuce that's out there and yet, you know, of course when you are at the restaurant and you are getting a salad from somewhere, it's usually always iceberg lettuce because it's cheap and I can't really harp on processed tomatoes because I know that antioxidants are more available in processed tomatoes so I am fine with that. But iceberg lettuce and potatoes, we can do better than that.
Fact number two; high fat cheese consumption increased 76% in a 20-year period between 1979 and 1999. Well in general, our fat intake is way too high in the wrong type of fats. Our saturated fat is extremely high and our intake of healthy fats is way too low. So you know eating a lot of fast food, eating a lot of restaurant made foods, cheese burgers, fried foods, French fries, those type of things have so much fat in them, so that's where we're getting a lot of our extra calories which is of course promoting weight gain. But I just think it's really interesting that in that 20-year period, that high fat cheese consumption went up that much.
Fact number three; Americans eat less than half of the recommended servings of fruits every day. The recommended serving is three, so a typical American eats less than one and a half servings of fruit every day. 19% of the fruit consumption in America is in the form of orange juice. Well, I got to tell you guys that orange juice is not really in my opinion, can't really count as a fruit. There is an exception if you are buying the right kind of orange juice, but typically the orange juice out there has added sugar, it's from concentrate and there is no fiber in it. So it's not the same as if you are eating an actual orange. Then the other commonly eaten fruits are watermelon, grapes, bananas, those are either high in sugar or they spike up your blood sugar very quickly. So in comparison to all the other fruits that we could be consuming, we're actually consuming the wrong ones.
Fact number four; whole grain consumption went up 13%. Well, that's good, right guys? Well, unfortunately those whole grains were present in cakes, cookies and pies. So if we're going to increase our intake of whole grains, it doesn't help us if we're adding a whole bunch of sugar to that. Notice that whole grain consumption went up from whole grain pasta or whole grain bread or oat meal. Our whole grain consumption increased because we are eating more cakes, cookies, and pies.
Fact number five; the average American consumes 156 pounds of sugar every year, that's equivalent to 315 pound bags of sugar for each person. 156 pounds is equivalent to a person, you know a whole person, so some one around you that weighs about 155 pounds. Basically you are eating that much sugar the whole year per person, that is just insane.
Fact number six; our intake of added fat has increased 32%and that's coming from margarine, shortening, oil, lard, and butter. 32% in 20 years.
Fact number seven; 40% of Americans skip breakfast. You've heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you wake up, you have been in a fasting state and if you start your day and try to get stuff ready for work and get off the door, take your kids to school, whatever the case may be and you skip breakfast, your metabolism stays really low because it's thinking, maybe you're not going get any more food and it needs to preserve your body and your cells and your organs. So you really do need to eat your breakfast if you're going to maintain a healthy weight and keep your metabolism higher.
Fact number eight; sugar is the most heavily subsidized crop in the US and that's equivalent to $500 per acre per year for sugar crop, sugarcane. So we are basically subsidizing from our own tax money products like Coca-Cola and soda drinks and candy and sugar sweetened cereal and all the things that we're not needing to be eating on a daily basis. We are saying, no, go ahead, make it, it's going to be cheaper because we are subsidizing it.
Fact number nine; Americans only make up 5% of the world's population yet we consume over 33% of the world's sugar production which is equivalent to over 10 million tones of sugar every year.
Fact number ten; obesity and diabetes are epidemic in our country. With hearing all the other facts and statistics that I've just mentioned, it's no wonder why we are having these issues. Our sugar consumption is incredibly high, our fat consumption keeps going up and our consumption of fruits and vegetables is way too low. I mean it's really amazing that in spite of these health issues that there are more dramatic changes in our diet.
So here are my crazy statistics about the American diet. Of course we didn't cover everything but I think this will definitely bring to light some of our own issues in this country. If you do have questions about how to eat healthier, how to live healthier, how to be healthier, I have made a ton of other videos that are available on this channel from, how to choose the right foods, how to lose weight, how to have more energy, I mean just all kinds of topics that are available. So just start watching because I know that they will change your life. I get emails everyday from people just really saying, they have lost weight, they feel better, they are starting to eat healthier, you know everything. So thank you so much for watching. Stay tune, subscribe because we always put out more videos and I'll see you next time, bye, bye. For more great videos like this one, check out the psychetruth's channel on Youtube.
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