Yeah, as someone from the shit hole to the south, I was very relieved Canada didn't go in the populist, right wing, direction it was looking like. I am hoping the failure of the trump administration instigates a push back to the general trend right that has been going on in the west. My bigger, less likely hope, is that we can reflect on what happened and actually address the popularity of fascism.

Also, sedentary life styles are far more common, then there are the more wild card things, like the microplastics epidemic, and many other things.

true, but I can attest that people were saying it in the 90s. It wasn't as popular, but chud was an insult when I was in high school, in the 90s.

Do the ingredients not have strange, synthetic additives?

They do not, each ingredient has to list everything that went into the product you get, and it will say only the stuff you want. If you buy a bag of flour, it will say (type) flour, and maybe give you the average protein content of the flour. If you buy a spice it will say the only ingredient is that spice. So, smaller scale bakers, as in not the "bakeries" in places like Walmart, will not have any of that in their food. If there is something that is heavily processed, in a not traditional manner, it will usually be an aspect that stands out, and you can simply ask them about what they use, like coloring in icing. If they make bread, they make normal bread, that will harden over night, and start molding in a couple days. A lot of places like this will also be happy to explain exactly how they make their products too, as they know that information can be crucial due to allergies, cultural stuff, etc. Most bakeries I know, now, exclusively use coloring that come from juices, spices, herbs, etc., that have vibrant colors. The trade-off is that they will not stay that vibrant for more than a day or two. If you request abnormal colors that are not sourced that way, they will inform you that they will have to use a dye that may be synthetic. I realize this isn't everywhere, but I live in a small, dying, rust belt, city, so if I can get this kind of service, it should be fairly common outside of truly rural places. Though you might have to leave your suburb to get something in the city.

the movie CHUD came out in 1984

I don't think these factors are specifically unique to the US, some more than other. I think a lot of the environmental stuff you can see in many places, lead is not just a problem in the US, we are just more talkative about it.

https://www.cgdev.org/publication/combatting-hidden-epidemic-lead-poisoning-ideas-eu

This reads like creative writing. This is the form of someone that went into the situation specifically to document this like a documentarian, not like someone who had a short conversation with their aunt. I could be absolutely wrong, but when anecdotes online read this way, my default is to reject their veracity without further evidence.

Yes the lead is one of the many issues i didn't get into, it is on the decline though. However, microplastics is the new lead. We know it affects the endocrine system, as of yet, though, we do not know how, or what the effects will be. Point being, blaming this behavior on education isn't shooting at the right target, and there are so many targets.

No shit, that is their purpose

Ok a recent example I have come across.

I recently had my partner grab a loaf of pumpernickel, or other dark rye, while she was out shopping. Instead of going to the bakery we normally shop at, she grabbed a bag of "pumpernickel" off the shelf, at the super market. It is less than 2% rye. The flour mix is processed with cocoa and an unspecified alkali, to achieve the color, in the absence of enough dark rye flour. They also add an unspecified caramel coloring into the dough to complete the coloring. They then add natural, but otherwise not traditionally used, flavoring to better achieve the flavor of "pumpernickel", again, minus the proper flour mix. They then add an extract propionic acid, mixed with a synthetic sorbic acid, to extend shelf life. They use synthetic monoglycerides to improve the stability of the emulsification, which both improves texture, and extends shelf life. They add soy based lipid extracts to preserve the "moist" feel of the bread.

This is what people have in mind when they say ultra-processed. This is, in no way, how you would normally make pumpernickel. This is like a farce of this bread, that is cheaper, and much longer lasting, approximation of bread.

No, based on the relative size of the balcony to the woman standing on it, this underwear would not be something anyone could actually use.

yes, it is so relieving that this right wing populist trend seems to be failing in our closest neighbor. Hopefully the failure of this administration will wake a lot more places up, and create a greater push back against this trend to the far right.

While what we currently define as humanity has only been around for about 300k years, this person might have gotten a definition that includes hominids in that, which would go back something liker 6 million years, and our direct "branch" something like 2 million.

At the moment, “processed food” seems more buzz & connotation than substance

Yes, we both agree on this. Organic, natural, etc. are all, scientifically, ill defined, advertising labels. However, in this particular discussion, people are pointing towards the way it is used in common lexicon, rather than a scientific, or technical one. When your average person says these things, they mean things that have gone through more processing than what was traditionally done, before the point of making a meal from it, or the after processing it goes through to make a meal have as long a shelf life as possible, etc. These processes include things like introducing additives to make the color better, the introduction of extracts, synthesized chemicals, etc., to enhance flavor, improve presentation, extend shelf life, etc. That are not traditional things like salting, smoking, drying, freezing/cooling, etc. That page from Harvard isn't trying to be an authoritative statement on exactly what "ultra-processed" means to an industry, rather than to be a common framework, for the most general level of understanding, of the contemporary processes that food is put through, that are beyond traditional methodology.

No, just me interacting with my neighbor who is on the spectrum.

Amongst wealthy countries, the US scores above average in science and reading comprehension, and are only really showing lag in mathematics. In terms of critical thinking, this has been a baked-in element of the curriculum, that was intentionally baked-in, for a long time now. Most countries are this way, and those that have dedicated time to specifically critical thinking, as its own subject, are relatively new, and not many do it, in primary education, yet. So this means the US is not unique in how poorly students are taught critical thinking, amongst countries with similar levels of resources.

Also, baby boomers demonstrated a lower level of critical thinking skills, than kids do today, they also show sharper cognitive decline, earlier in life, than X, and millennials have been. So is it that the conservatives have been trying to disassemble the public school system, to move funds to privatized education, thus eroding the common access to education? If so, why does the US actually score well compared to its peers? Why is it that the oldest common generation is actually the worst of the common generations, still alive, for things like critical thinking, and cognitive decline?

So there is some other factor(s) that make the US seem to stand out on this issue, amongst peers. Could it be US media specifically empowering the voice of morons, because outrage drives viewership, and profit is the only goal to US news/media companies? Is it that the elites within the conservative party have redesigned their entire party structure, and playbook, to empower morons, because morons vote for them more often than not? Is it a combination of these factors, and others, that have been shaping the US in this fashion? Could this be why we have been seeing greater, and greater, pushes from political influence groups, in other countries, that have ties to US wealth? Things like dismantling the NHS, establishing US style media as the dominant party in places like europe (murdoch family owned outlets getting larger pieces of the pie, and pushing sentiment to dismantle not for profit sources, like the BBC, and NPR/PBS, for example), far right parties, trump cocksuckers, putin cocksuckers, etc. have been on the rise for past ten plus years? Could it also be that people are growing increasingly disaffected with capitalism, and there are a lot of people lashing out, lacking understanding of what is causing life to be more difficult, and reaching out, in desperation, to anyone who sounds different from those who got us here, even if it should be obvious those people would likely make these specific issues worse? Is it that these things are also compounded with a growing desire, amongst the growing disproportionately wealthy set, to push all the bad aspects of societal structure, to hasten its collapse, and then swoop in to take over directly?

IMHO it is all of the factors in the previous paragraph, and others I haven't bothered to bring up, and not so much the education system, at least not yet. Sorry for the word vomiting in this post.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-are-ultra-processed-foods-and-are-they-bad-for-our-health-2020010918605

well that is good to hear.

I mean, it is the FBI, after all

yes, that was the amount I was responding to