Dietary Information
Just to be clear, I am NOT for suing restaurants - or anybody - because of obesity. I fear that may not have been clear in my entry below. The "Oh Brother" was meant as commentary about the foolishness of it all! I received this email from my friend and thought it worthy of sharing. I certainly learned a few things!
"I was checking out your blog and I had something to say. I really don't think we can blame the fast food industry because we are fat. If we did that we would have to blame virtually all manufacturers for putting high fructose corn syrup in the products we eat. We would have to blame the advertising industry for making us believe that we need that product or need to visit that restaurant. How about blaming the doctors and medical research groups that wrote and professed the Low Fat diet, even though as further research has shown it made people even fatter and is inherently unhealthy. We could blame capitalism as a whole because it has given the freedom to food manufacturers to come up with a cornicopia of snacks and treats of every variety and spent millions of dollars telling us why we should eat them.
In 1950 the average person in this country ate 5 pounds of sugar per year - in 1998 the average person in this country ate 150 pounds of sugar per year!! What happened? The food industry found a fabulous cheap method of sweetening products called high fructose corn syrup. It has no inherent nutrional value but it sure is cheap.
A 12oz Coke of Pepsi has 10 teaspoons of sugar. So when you go to your 7/11 for a 64oz big gulp you are getting appoximately 50 teaspoons of sugar! Add this in to the sugar content of virtually every processed food product we consume - it's frightening! This isn't even taking into account the sugar that is found naturally in foods.
Then add the low fat diet. There were so many products becoming "low fat" but when they took out the fat they had to add something to make the foods palatable. Guess what? High Fructose Corn Syrup! 15 years later the results are in, Americans after 15 years of low fat dieting are even more obese. AAAAARGH! Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in adults and (gulp) children!
We have become busy, busy, busy, people need quick fixin ideas to put meals on the table for their families. The products targeted to them line the grocery store aisles. How much sugar do these meals have. Read some labels.
Every 4 grams of sugar per serving equals one teaspoon of sugar. Slim Fast is loaded with sugar. You could eat a hershey bar and take a vitamin and be better off than drinking slim fast.
There are so many factors that contribute to our nation being the fattest in the world. We are working ourselves to death in this fast paced world with no time spend on feeding our families healthy food. We have food manufacturers giving us products with way too much sugar and with teams of people dedicated to convincing us we need to eat their products. We have restaurants giving us super size servings and meals served on serving platters. The stomach can comfortably hold about a cup of food. It really doesn't require much food for us to live yet we consume more and more.
I guess I went on a tirade....but you can't just blame a fast food restaurant because you're fat. Even though there are so many poor choices put in front of us you can't blame anyone but yourself."
Just to be clear, I am NOT for suing restaurants - or anybody - because of obesity. I fear that may not have been clear in my entry below. The "Oh Brother" was meant as commentary about the foolishness of it all! I received this email from my friend and thought it worthy of sharing. I certainly learned a few things!
"I was checking out your blog and I had something to say. I really don't think we can blame the fast food industry because we are fat. If we did that we would have to blame virtually all manufacturers for putting high fructose corn syrup in the products we eat. We would have to blame the advertising industry for making us believe that we need that product or need to visit that restaurant. How about blaming the doctors and medical research groups that wrote and professed the Low Fat diet, even though as further research has shown it made people even fatter and is inherently unhealthy. We could blame capitalism as a whole because it has given the freedom to food manufacturers to come up with a cornicopia of snacks and treats of every variety and spent millions of dollars telling us why we should eat them.
In 1950 the average person in this country ate 5 pounds of sugar per year - in 1998 the average person in this country ate 150 pounds of sugar per year!! What happened? The food industry found a fabulous cheap method of sweetening products called high fructose corn syrup. It has no inherent nutrional value but it sure is cheap.
A 12oz Coke of Pepsi has 10 teaspoons of sugar. So when you go to your 7/11 for a 64oz big gulp you are getting appoximately 50 teaspoons of sugar! Add this in to the sugar content of virtually every processed food product we consume - it's frightening! This isn't even taking into account the sugar that is found naturally in foods.
Then add the low fat diet. There were so many products becoming "low fat" but when they took out the fat they had to add something to make the foods palatable. Guess what? High Fructose Corn Syrup! 15 years later the results are in, Americans after 15 years of low fat dieting are even more obese. AAAAARGH! Type 2 diabetes is on the rise in adults and (gulp) children!
We have become busy, busy, busy, people need quick fixin ideas to put meals on the table for their families. The products targeted to them line the grocery store aisles. How much sugar do these meals have. Read some labels.
Every 4 grams of sugar per serving equals one teaspoon of sugar. Slim Fast is loaded with sugar. You could eat a hershey bar and take a vitamin and be better off than drinking slim fast.
There are so many factors that contribute to our nation being the fattest in the world. We are working ourselves to death in this fast paced world with no time spend on feeding our families healthy food. We have food manufacturers giving us products with way too much sugar and with teams of people dedicated to convincing us we need to eat their products. We have restaurants giving us super size servings and meals served on serving platters. The stomach can comfortably hold about a cup of food. It really doesn't require much food for us to live yet we consume more and more.
I guess I went on a tirade....but you can't just blame a fast food restaurant because you're fat. Even though there are so many poor choices put in front of us you can't blame anyone but yourself."
posted by Jan at 11:22 AM
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