First a calorie is not a calorie. Second, it’s not just the quantity, it’s what’s done to the food. The muffin of 1960 was not just smaller, but lasted far less because it was not as highly processed. The real food experiment started in the 1980s when the industry convinced us the devil was fat. It was sugar.

Third…back in the day, the good old days, it was not just portions…but also a lot more home cooked, from fresh ingredients, food.

These days monoculture, plus CAFO, with a dash of hyper-processed, hyper-palatable junk mean we have a global obesity epidemic. Don’t believe me? Explain India and their skyrocketing rates of NCDs, non communicable diseases.

It is time to regulate, and yes, tax, this shit and to reach people to cook once again.

It sucks when you remove industrial quantities of sugar from your diet, but at a population level that is precisely what we all need to do.

The halcyon days of the 1960s have part of the key, but it’s not the calories. The added sugar interferes with leptein in the brain, meaning you are still hungry after eating what should be a normal portion.

The food industry knows this.

They don’t care if you get metabolic syndrome. And all that added sugar, (it’s the fructose flooding the liver with low fiber diet) also leads to things like fatty liver disease in kids, as well as diabetes T2.

But the profits are good, so who the hell cares?

So you want to follow the 1960s, cook at home. Eat desert once a week, not with your salad, your breakfast…every meal. Just look at added sugars. That is your key.

I make my dressing at home. I cook at home. And you know what? I hardly stress about calories any longer.