> Most people don't believe it anyway

Maybe because so much of it is wrong, or (very charitably, as much is industry-biased) outdated?

Lifestyle modification is a definite challenge and I’m not dismissing it.

Still, hamburgers and milkshakes don’t give you heart disease and cancer. Overeating, oxidative stress from low-quality ingredients, etc might.

> hamburgers and milkshakes don’t give you heart disease and cancer

They absolutely do, particularly if you're getting most of your calories from them. If evidence-based medicine doesn't convince you, uh, hamburgers and supermarket milk tends to be processed.

They absolutely do not, unless you’re getting too many calories.

Individual foods are—with some exceptions—neither bad for you nor good for you. A healthy diet can occasionally include doughnuts, and milkshakes. Your overall diet is what matters.

Sure, they are not mercury-level toxic. However, these recommendations are for people who consume way too much of these dishes, and it's a safe assumption that this is the case for a significant part of the population.

Sure. We’re saying roughly the same thing. For most Americans, hamburgers cause heart disease because we don’t exercise enough or eat enough plants. If you’re backpacking twenty miles a day, sure, eat whatever, you won’t suffer inflammation or obesity from it. (Though you may run nutritional deficiencies. And you’re building bad habits for when your activity necessarily tapers off.)

> Still, hamburgers and milkshakes don’t give you heart disease and cancer. Overeating, oxidative stress from low-quality ingredients, etc might.

What? “Oxidative stress”? Oh come on, at least go full “seed oil” if we’re going to talk nonsense.

We already left the land of reason far behind by the time OP implied hamburgers and milkshakes give people cancer.

Depends on the nutrients that comprise them to the extent they contain a lot of omega-6 or not. Not heart disease so much but the other killer - might as well mention in this context. 'A high omega-3, low omega-6 diet with FO for 1 year resulted in a significant reduction in Ki-67 index, a biomarker for prostate cancer'. https://doi.org/10.1200/JCO.24.00608. Also Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases (2024) 27:700 – 708 'Our preclinical findings provide rationale for clinical trials evaluating ω-3 fatty acids as a potential therapy for prostate cancer'.

Seed oils are not as bad as painted but some caution is needed given for instance the industrial processes used to bring them to market sometimes. Plus the way the oils are cooked when they create free radicals. This is not nonsense.