War against food choices moving into high gear

Several notes:

Well, firefly, you can disagree with me but I can not believe that someone would gain more than 10 or 15 . . . even 20 pounds . . . without saying whoa! I am not saying that everyone who is overweight wants to be overweight . . . or even that the majority do . . . but that both of the women I used as an example ought to have done something about their weight other than buy larger clothing.

On the other hand, I agree with you that a tax on soda will do little to nothing to fight fat. A friend who is a nurse said to me when our kids were small the juice boxes filled with corn syrup thinned with water and flavored with fruit were as bad as soda and I agreed. Neither of us were big on juice boxes.

In fact, I am taking a beekeeping class and it is thought that Colony Collapse Syndrome has many contributing factors, including feeding corn syrup to bees. They can't metabolize it.

I also agree with you on pizza, which is no different than a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. And pizza can be played with to make it very nutritious because anything can be put on a pizza.

Unfortunately, when my daughter worked in text book publishing, she learned that pizza can not be mentioned in a text as the state of CA feels talking about pizza will encourage kids to eat it and get fat. That's nonsense.

hawkeye -- The big soda companies are investing in bottled water and really screwing people over. There is a lake in India that people have used for irrigation for years. One of the soda companies bought the water rights and posted armed guards to keep the citizens away. The soda companies are trying to purchase aquifers throughout the country to have a product to bottle.

Mame -- My mother also believed in home cooked meals. She bought large beef roasts and carved the left overs for sandwiches because they cost less per pound than luncheon meat. We never had processed cheese and no one liked it although we ate a great deal of cheese. Her cakes were from scratch because she felt cake mixes tasted of cardboard. A friend of mine once told me that every fall, she buys a 50 pound bag of flour and a 25 pound bag of sugar so that she can always prepare something for the family, even if they end up snowed in.

plainoldme, when I was growing up we had home cooked meals every night, and those meals always included vegetables and salad. My mother tried to stretch her food budget when she shopped. She would generally go to three different supermarkets a week because each of them had different food items on special sales. Our meals were all made from scratch, with no prepared mixes or ready-made items, so more of what we ate was fresh and unprocessed. My mother was very health and nutrition conscious. She was appalled that any mother would serve junk, like KoolAid to their children. In my home we drank water when we were thirsty.

But my mother didn't work during most of my childhood. So she had the time to shop, and plan, and prepare meals. Even when she did start working, she was home early enough to prepare a complete dinner.

Today, many mothers work. They don't have a lot of free time to shop or prepare food, let alone plan meals in advance. They are often tired at the end of the day and may opt for something fast and easy--frozen dinners, takeout food, fast food, pizza, prepared meals of some sort, or packaged mixes like Hamburger Helper, or instant mashed potato mixes. Consequently, many families and children are getting less in the way of truly home cooked meals, less fresh food, more processed food, more food that's higher in fat and calories, fewer vegetables, and just less of a healthy balanced diet. On top of that, a good many families no longer even sit down and eat dinner together every night. Everyone may eat at a different time, with each of them grabbing something different.

So, the changing role of women, and more women in the work force, may well have contributed to a change in our eating habits and patterns, and our food choices.

When I was a child, we didn't have shopping malls filled with food courts. Now when you go shopping, you are constantly tempted by the aromas and sights of food, most of which is rather unhealthy. You watch TV and you are bombarded by images of food, most of which is high fat, high calorie, or high sugar. You go into a supermarket and you find an entire aisle devoted to cookies lining the shelves on both sides of the aisle. And a long aisle devoted to soda and drink mixes. Another double-sided long aisle devoted to bags and boxes of chips and snack items. Another aisle has bags and bags of candy. Supermarkets have gradually expanded in size over the years and have devoted more and more shelf space to items of minimal nutritional value which are guaranteed to pack on the pounds. You go to the movies and the concession items have expanded in size--big tubs of popcorn, big sodas, big boxes of candy. Restaurants serve huge portions of food, and entice customers with all-you-can-eat bars. Fast food restaurants are everywhere. And lap-band bariatric surgery is a booming business.

We are constantly assaulted by images of food or the presence of food. People are no longer eating just when they are hungry, they are now eating or munching, or drinking something, a good bit of the time, for reasons that go far beyond hunger. And, when we do eat, many eat far too much. We no longer eat to feel merely satiated, now people eat to feel "full".

The problem isn't just whether we're eating too many carbs, or fats, or sugared items, it's also that we're eating way too much. We are surrounded by food all the time. Our abundance is also our undoing health-wise.

So, Roger was the only one who looked at my printed out link.

I have a cat to keep vermin away. One day during a mouse plague, I took out a packet of coco pops from the cupboard and there, inside was the fattest mouse I have ever seen. After a momentary pause whilst it sank into its tiny mind that paradise was lost, it let out a high pitched eep and jumped out onto my arm. After another pause, whilst it was still in shock that the day was going so badly, another eep and it lept from my arm onto the cats tail. It was clearly distraught and was shaking when it realised that a very bad day had just got worse. The cat turned around and looked at it, it went into shock so badly that it could barely eep and lept a pathetic distance that took it a couple of inches in the air and a couple of inches sideways, landing almost up side down. It scrambled to right itself and with its legs flailing madly slowly got enough traction to slowly move under the fridge. All this time its chest was heaving like a heart attack was imminent. The cat looked at me as if to say, thanks but I couldnt possibly eat another one.

The moral of this story :
1) if you eat nothing but coco pops you will get fat
2) if you eat mice you will have a well balanced diet and can say no to overeating
3) if you are fat you will be a poor jumper
4) no matter how good things are you just watch some bastard come along and stuff things up
5) it takes a very long time to dust mouse **** off one coco pop at a time
6) you never know when you are going to need your heart - take care of it

I read the Slate article, if that's the one you are referring to, ossobuco.

I can't say that I found anything really eye-opening in it. I have always felt that processed carbohydrates are bad news in terms of health, and I have tried to limit them for a long time. When I cut back on fat, I did not increase my intake of processed carbs. Info about the glycemic index, and how to make food choices based on it, has been around for years.

I still wouldn't want to increase my intake of certain fats based on that article. There are other concerns beyond cardiovascular distance, and there may be other benefits to decreasing intake of certain saturated fats. For instance, a higher consumption of red meat has been linked to a higher incidence of Alzheimer's, foods like bacon, which are high in nitrates, have been linked to an increased risk of some cancers, etc.

People need to eat a balanced diet, and the average person should eat far more vegetables and fruit, on a daily basis, than they currently do. Increasing fruits and vegetables decreases the amount of either fat or processed carbs you are likely to eat because fruit and veggies help you to feel full. They also supply fiber. People need to eat more whole grains. Portion sizes have to be controlled. Food should be weighed and measured, so you know how much you are consuming--every kitchen could use a little digital food scale.

The best diet to try to follow is the Mediterranean Diet:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mediterranean-diet/CL00011

The problem is, an awful lot of people don't seem to care about what they put in their mouth, as long as it tastes good. If they think about good nutrition or healthy food choices, it's only minimally. Eating, for many people, really isn't seen as part of a healthy lifestyle. If it was, we'd see much less obesity, and much less disease connected to dietary habits.

I like mice, it comes from my laboratory days. I could deal with mice in my house, if they didn't leave mouse **** and perhaps carry Hanta virus, more likely here in NM. So far so good re mice here in Abq.

I'm a mediterranean diet type, not so much for health reasons as that I like it. My protein purchases for this week were.. fishy.

However, I didn't know that there were differences in LDLs. And that larger particle ldls were ostensibly neutral. I cook bacon myself about once a year. I plan to continue that...

I didn't care so much that anyone agree with the article, as that someone would at least read it.

Not sure that Hanta virus is carried by any mice but Deer Mice. That's all I've heard associated the disease associated with. Mice can be destructive little things. Not that I have them in the house, of course.

Hanta is famously prevalent in NM, but you're right, probably not here. As I said, I sort of like mice. I did have them in the house twice in old north north. Little scamperers... it's their yard too.

I bought some battery operated zapperoo devices, and they worked. I was mixed on that, don't just hate mice. But, mouse **** I find worrysome. It may actually not be, unless Hanta, etc. - but I was wary of mouse takeover.

I think lots read it. For my part I was a bit confused and have since found time to read it again. Still confused though. The article raises questions on what I thought were matters of hard fact. HDL's limit LDL's still ? Or have they changed their mind on that ? Cereals were supposed to help the processing of fats - is this still the case ? I know the article didnt address these issues but it raises more questions than it answers, so I was happy to wait and read, maybe someone would clarify it a bit more.

40 years from now we'll still be seeing headlines proclaiming, "New Study: Diet and Exercise Promote Healthy Weight"!

http://shine.yahoo.com/event/makeover/five-weight-loss-myths-1106336/

Can we all agree now that the EXPERTS are still trying to figure out the truth about what the best approach to biological fitness is? They also tend to ignore psychological fitness, different people study that, and the two fields are not joined at any point. We are both biological and spiritual people and so until the study of health is unified all advise is highly suspect.

Thanks for the link to the Mediterranean diet - it describes my diet pretty well, except for the 'no red meat' part; I eat too much red meat.

But **** it; that's the best stuff.

Cycloptichorn

Thanks, Ionus. I was being crabby, since I thought (obviously) that the article is important, if only as a stepping stone. I still eat red meat, but something like 1/5th, or even less, of what I used to. Now I use it more for flavoring in primarily vegetable soups, in burritos with beans and rice, a sandwich once in a while. Still, on a dark and drear and drafty cold rainy day, nothin' I like better than a good old fashioned steak. (Luckily, it doesn't rain here that much).

I wish I were better at cooking indian food. I could imagine being happy with a vegetarian indian food diet.

It's surprisingly not that hard to cook! Takes time tho.

Cycloptichorn

and asafoetida and other stuff I don't have at my local Albertson's..

I still have to try making saag paneer again - one of my alltime favorite, nigh addictive foods. The recipe I made was so strong it probably made the refrigerator move an inch or two.

Asafoetida? Ah, you mean Hing. Yeah, I never use that stuff. Too much work and it doesn't make that much a diff in the dishes in my experience.

While indian dishes take spices to cook (lots of em!), they don't take MUCH per meal - only a dash or two normally does it. Do what I do and hit up an Indian store in your town somewhere, and get a tin of spices - like 10 of the most common spices you need in their own little tins, inside the big one. Cheap and they last a long time.

Cycloptichorn

Thanks, I didn't know they package them like that. I have a few things, like garam masala, turmeric, a couple of curry mixes, saffron. basil, bay, cardomon, cinnamon. clove, coriander, cumin, dried ginger, fennel seeds, just recently bought mustard seeds.. but somehow I always don't have something, like fenugreek. We do have an international market way'cross town that I like. I'll see what they have next chance I get over there.

**** you have all the ones you need already! You could make hundreds of different dishes with the stuff you have. Add in some Cayenne pepper and you have every spice I use when cooking Indian food - except for maybe fresh curry leaves, they are rather pricey but give an awesome flavor.

Toasted cumin is also a popular choice, it gives a smoky cumin flavor.

Cycloptichorn

Aha, now my excuse of no asafoetida or fenugreek has flown away..