Posted on 12/01/2015 10:13:35 AM PST by dennisw
Group of food-science experts were painting an increasingly grim picture of the publics ability to cope with the industrys formulations from the bodys fragile controls on overeating to the hidden power of some processed foods to make people feel hungrier still. It was time to warn C.E.O.s that their companies may have gone too far in creating and marketing products that posed the greatest health concerns.
Pillsburys auditorium. First speaker was vice president of Kraft, Michael Mudd. œI very much appreciate this opportunity to talk to you about childhood obesity and the growing challenge it presents for us all, Mudd began. œLet me say right at the start, this is not an easy subject. There are no easy answers for what the public health community must do to bring this problem under control or for what the industry should do as others seek to hold it accountable for what has happened. But this much is clear: For those of us who've looked hard at this issue, whether they're public health professionals or staff specialists in your own companies, we feel sure that the one thing we shouldn't do is nothing.
Mudd clicked through a deck of slides 114 in all projected on a large screen behind him. The figures were staggering. More than half of American adults were now considered overweight, with nearly one-quarter of the adult population 40 million people clinically defined as obese. (This was still only 1999; the nations obesity rates would climb much higher.)
Mudd then did the unthinkable. He drew connection to the last thing in the world the C.E.O.s wanted linked to their products: cigarettes. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The heart of liberal gobblydegook is that people have no capacity to self-monitor and must be told what to do by others.
Agreed. Self control was, is and ever shall be the key to the “obesity epidemic.”
I get sick and tired of people throwing the word “addiction” around, just for anything or any product which people like to have habitually. Real addiction involves serious and potentially fatal withdrawal. Real addiction involves ever-increasing tolerance and usage. Real addiction involves a reverse relationship between serum levels and cravings. Real addiction involves serious, and potentially fatal, systemic changes within the body, as the body adapts to the ever-increasing usage. Real addiction involves serious, and potentially fatal, behavioral and mental changes.
Real addiction is tragic and frightening. Habits, whether they be junk food, shopping, or, yes, smoking, can be devastating, but they are fundamentally different things. And, unlike addiction, habits are broken through self-will alone, since the physical systems and mental processes are changed only superficially, if at all. By contrast, with addiction (real addiction, not habits-gone-wild), the person is so fundamentally changed, both physically and mentally, that it is no longer a question of self-will alone.
The Man Show had a great idea - make the plastic rings on six packs of beer out of beef jerky.
As a food service professional I saw a lot of both.
/johnny
People who want to stop smoking remove all cigarettes from the house
People who want to lose weight will clean out their refrigerators and cupboards and give away a lot of tempting foods
My point is we have so many weak willed and stupid people in America. That they are no match to the addictive junk food available everywhere. Not mere junk food but addictive junk food.
Further point is that diabetes is the fastest growing expense for Medicare and Medicaid and if you want to know who will be paying for this, just look in the mirror
Don’t get me started on “allergies”, lol. I have a real allergy to scallops and crabmeat, as in “I very well may die” kind of allergy. I also have a few “the hives they are a-coming” types of allergies, such as milk protein. But this is very different than, say, my general intolerance of tomatoes, apples, and (I think), gluten (it may be something else in gluten-bearing foods). These are not “allergies”, not in any real sense of the word.
When I go to restaurants, I have to make sure that they don’t use the same pan for scallops, and my dish. It could kill me. But it drives me crazy when people who have no idea what a serious allergy looks like, start ordering wait-staff around like they are on a life-or-death, top-secret mission, to make sure that not a trace of something touches their plate.
/johnny
You have obviously never experimented with Cheetos. :-)
BTTT
Doritos is just a gateway snack to Cheetos. :-)
I knew enough to be scared of cheese dust. One day you are eating a box of mac-n-cheese a day. The next day you are pureeing Cheetos and shooting it up with a needle. My self-preservation instincts kicked in, and told me to go no further than the occasional bag of Doritos. And I never bought my own. I only ate from other people’s stash.
I remember when this story first broke. I thought then what I think now: it’s a weird world when we complain that companies that make food put a lot of science into making the food enjoyable.
I’m a binger. I can go for months and then boom I eat a whole bag of Cheetos. :-)
Many people eat junk food/fast food because they think it’s cheap. But, for the amount of nutrition you obtain, it’s very expensive.
If they understood this, maybe they would self-monitor and monitor their children better.
I was doing fine until they brought back lard-cooked potato chips. Thirty pounds later...
Nothing finer. Well except Cheetos. :-)
Enjoyable but you left out addictive. I am sure some of those strange additives in junk foods are addictive in a mild way.
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