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Notes -
I think our positions are pretty close, although I'd be more specific. After all, tasty food existed before the mid-20th century, and any food is 'fattening' tautologically if eating it leads to obesity. People in the past ate vast amounts of calories, but their bodies handled it. Even processed food existed for hundreds of years before the obesity epidemic.
What distinguishes the modern western diet is vegetable oil. All the data on 'processed' or 'junk' food is really just looking at foods with lots of vegetable oils. Consider a big mac meal with a shake from McDonalds. There is nothing modern about minced beef, bread or pickles, nor about fried potatoes, milk or sugar. What defines it as fast food the fact that everything is fried in, or contains vegetable oils. The same is true of essentially all processed food.
The fact that vegetable oil turned up at the exact time that the obesity epidemic kicked off makes it the most plausible candidate in my mind.
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