ad Friedemann: (…)
Robert,
the thing with fast food and soft drinks is that there are indications that especially the sugar can have a very addictive effect on us. …Modern days processed food is just designed to get us hooked and given the scale and the rapid increase of obesity rates all over the world it seems just unlikely that we all have suddenly become mentally weak and gluttonous. (…)
My friend is a medical doctor and he used to work at a diabetes centre. He now is involved in research at an EBM (Evidence Based Medicine) centre here in Austria. I sometimes translate some of their studies and/or studies they have to evaluate. Most people probably would stop going to their local supermarket if they had read some of these studies. Personally, I’m convinced that industrially processed food is an enormous threat to our health and we will soon pay the price for this and other erroneous developments. Yes, it is true that we live longer now than most of the generations before us as Steven said, but this is mainly due to better hygiene and advanced medical treatment. This has nothing to do with the way we eat.
It is well known that even baby food contains certain ingredients that have a major influence on the development of our sense of taste. There is a reason why so many young people can’t live without those sugar bombs (soft drinks, snacks, etc.). I am convinced this is mainly due to the fact that we were made to like this kind of food. It is a biological reaction you cannot really escape and this is why certain regulations need to be in place. If we try to ban the sale of certain products we are already one step behind the industry. Certain foodstuff simply should not be produced. Admittingly, this is a highly complex matter and with all the lobbying going on it is also very difficult to get to the bottom of things.
Due to the fact that one of my family members was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer this summer and I have already lost three members of my larger family to this deadly disease I have started to read up a bit on the scientific information available with regards to the causes of the staggering increase in deaths caused by cancer worldwide. Sugar seems to be one of the major reasons, together with the serious impacts of environmental pollution on our health. The number of toxic agents an average citizen is exposed to practically on a daily basis is unbelievable. In even the most remote places people are contaminated by toxic substances found in fish etc.
While I agree with Steve that it is up to the invididual to decide what he or she ought to eat, we must not forget that not everybody is in the same position as a middle-class white citizen in a Western country. There still is an incredible lack of knowledge out there and there are certain economic constraints as well that influence people’s choice of food (even though I believe that with the right information you will actually be able to eat less and healthier for less money; unhealthy food is not cheap).
I also agree with you concerning the huge amounts of meat we eat. This is a major problem on so many levels.
And yet I am optimistic that we can change these things and living in a small community I can see change in the way people eat, buy food and use certain products. Nobody knows how things will turn out eventually, but most of us realize that we can’t just sit back and continue to exploit this planet’s natural resources the way we have done for too long.
Besides, often less is more. I remember that as a child we would have meat only once a week and that was on Sundays. I’m 44 years old now, so the time I am talking about was not that long ago. We also only had cakes and cookies for special occasions. Firstly, my parents would never have been able to serve meat for six kids on a daily basis and secondly we thoroughly enjoyed so many other dishes which now are often completely unknown to the younger generation, or at least parts of them.
The bottom line seems to be that we need to be much more careful about what we eat and how we produce our food. People sometimes treat their cars with more care than their own bodies. While they would never get into their car with dirty shoes, they don’t seem to mind fillig their bodies with huge amounts of clearly unhealthy food. There are movements to stop this development. Some of our social security institutions now offer reduced tariffs for people who can prove with a medical certificate that they lead a healthier life style (reducing weight, improving blood sugar values, etc.). Just a few weeks ago all the parties in our National Parliament agreed on a new law which increased the number of PE classes at school from one hour per week (totally ridiculous) to one hour per day.
Certain fast food products have been banned from school canteens (yes, I know kids can buy those things outside of school but just as you can get young people to eat that stuff you can make sure they at least have an option to choose healthier food and so far the schools that have increased the amount of vegetables and fruits in their canteens have had great success with their new policy).
All in all, we probably need better informed citizens on the one hand and stricter production regulations on the other hand.
