A friend on FB linked a report on this study, and I thought it interesting.
ABSTRACT
Food and nutrition occupy an increasingly prevalent space on the web, and dishes and recipes shared online provide an invaluable mirror into culinary cultures and attitudes around the world. More specifically, ingredients, flavors, and nutrition information become strong signals of the taste preferences of individuals and civilizations. However, there is little understanding of these palate varieties. In this paper, we present a large-scale study of recipes published on the web and their content, aiming to understand cuisines and culinary habits around the world. Using a database of more than 157K recipes from over 200 different cuisines, we analyze ingredients, flavors, and nutritional values which distinguish dishes from different regions, and use this knowledge to assess the predictability of recipes from different cuisines. We then use country health statistics to understand the relation between these factors and health indicators of different nations, such as obesity, diabetes, migration, and health expenditure. Our results confirm the strong effects of geographical and cultural similarities on recipes, health indicators, and culinary preferences across the globe.
I don’t know that this is a rock solid way to go about it, but given that all the advice for eating carbs comes from food frequency questionnaires, 24 hour menu samples, and other poor research methods, this doesn’t really seem any worse.
Of interest to folks around here who aren’t big into cooking:
As the results suggest, nutrition values show a significant correlation with the health related measures of countries. The dominant positively correlated nutrients are the sugar and carbohydrate. It is intuitive because those are the main elements of snack meals like cakes, creams, etc which can contribute to the health difficulties and the consequence expenditures eventually. On the other hand, protein value shows strong negative correlation with the level of obesity and diabetes in countries.
I haven’t dug deeply into their data, but I would bet that high carb is correlated with low protein, so the prevalence of sugar coated meat (like teriyaki or sauced bbq) is likely still low protein, due to the amount of carbs eaten with such dishes or the rarity of the eating of such. I’m curious about sugar coated proteins, as Bikman’s 2018 presentation would suggest this is like the WORST thing you could possibly eat, and yet, in the absence of a large quantity of white rice, mashed potato or pasta… one is left to wonder.
That said, if you are what you eat, eating a lot of caramelized sugar on protein is not really what I’d like to be.