OT: Sugar and lies

MaxDarkside wrote: Middle of the Road is a personal decision, not a societal or cultural one (granting your "norms" are in part formed by your environment and what is available to you) and if a person allows the sugar industry, Monsanto, and/or McDonalds to decide what moderation is for them then they need to talk to a professional about that. Moderation has its downside too, skipping that whipped cream and drizzled chocolate eclair from the mom and pop bakery on a picturesque side street in Paris, or not having a Belgian Waffle in Brussels, might make life a bit too dull

It can change day to day too. If you have a desk job during the week in a nice temperature controlled environment you need a different kind of food from the week where you are hand building a house in the freezing rain, sleet and snow. During that week you will need lots of high protein and fat laden food in order to just function in those conditions - (you will eat as much as would fuel that desk job body for a month )

The fact is that those corporations spend millions trying to adjust the formulation to hit the exact addiction point in your bring. The problem is not the real Belgian waffle but the stuff in your grocery store that comes in a bag or container. Read the side of your breakfast cereal some time - it comes carefully tuned to hit your addiction centers. A real Belgian waffle is probably better for you.

DreamStalker wrote:I think you confuse "liberty" and "free will" with moderation. I have no problem with liberty and the freedom for any individual to worship the dark side and addict themselves to McDonalds. I think freedom of choice is what you are trying to compare to the OP's point. Apples and oranges.

Right. Liberty and free will, combined with information passed through a high quality BS filter, will enable us to make the choices that are right for us in the moment. It also makes the lady in the article's point moot. Anyone that reacts unthinking to what they see in TV commercials, or even "scientific studies", needs some help in life skills. Even in medicine, my doc says "Here's a prescription for X" and I decline. Nurse comes in with a syringe, "Time for your flu shot, doctor's ORDERS"... "No thank you."

BlackSpinner wrote:The problem is not the real Belgian waffle but the stuff in your grocery store that comes in a bag or container. Read the side of your breakfast cereal some time - it comes carefully tuned to hit your addiction centers. A real Belgian waffle is probably better for you.

I think the BEST THING in that regard is the requirement to list ingredients and nutritional facts and I think even more focus on the ingredients details is needed. We've made a lot of progress in this regard. However, one does not need to eat packaged foods, or can substantially avoid them. I don't think they have Target stores where you are "down in Canada" (LOL) but if you go to the "meat" section, flip over the package, there's a huge list of really nasty-for-you chemicals in there. OMG. DO NOT EAT !

There is a lot to be said in eating proper "bad for you" (in theory) foods. If you look at life quality and longevity, numerous nations that eat "bad things" per American standards live longer and the food tastes sooo much better. In our home, we've switched back to butter, away from margarine. Butter is probably better. heh.

MaxDarkside wrote:
There is a lot to be said in eating proper "bad for you" (in theory) foods. If you look at life quality and longevity, numerous nations that eat "bad things" per American standards live longer and the food tastes sooo much better. In our home, we've switched back to butter, away from margarine. Butter is probably better. heh.

There. You made my point. American standards have been hijacked by greedy corporate fascists who manipulate the perception of "moderation" through commercial marketing and influence within our educational system.

Did you know that just over 100 years ago, the medical profession included several different paradigms to the approach of health and healing? The AMA convinced the Carnegie Foundation to develop a study (Flexner Report) and create a monolpoly (quite the fad back then as today) and eliminate competition among the different medical paradigms by defining homeopathy, osteopathy, naturopathy, and chiropractic medicine as quackery and that only reductionist allopathic medicine should be allowed through university program development and state licensure to practice medicine in the US. Now we have an inefficient medical system based on pharmaceutical. hospital, and health insurance profits that manage disease (most of it caused by their reductionsit paradigm) rather than preventing and "curing" disease (not profitable or easily monpolized) of the other medical paradigms.

MaxDarkside wrote: I think the BEST THING in that regard is the requirement to list ingredients and nutritional facts and I think even more focus on the ingredients details is needed. We've made a lot of progress in this regard. However, one does not need to eat packaged foods, or can substantially avoid them. I don't think they have Target stores where you are "down in Canada" (LOL) but if you go to the "meat" section, flip over the package, there's a huge list of really nasty-for-you chemicals in there. OMG. DO NOT EAT !

There is a lot to be said in eating proper "bad for you" (in theory) foods. If you look at life quality and longevity, numerous nations that eat "bad things" per American standards live longer and the food tastes sooo much better. In our home, we've switched back to butter, away from margarine. Butter is probably better. heh.

They are opening them, Target, as we speak. They bought out a Canadian discount chain store and closed them all to replace some of them with Targets.

We buy most of our meats from a local ethnic (Dutch) butcher who also makes his own sausages and cold cuts. They cost more but I know what we are eating and it tastes better. The Hutterite raised free range chickens are amazing and so big I get many meals out of them. Vegetables are more problematic - most I buy frozen or canned because we have a growing season of about 2 months of maybe frost free. The "fresh" vegetables have to be seen to be believed and cost more then most meats per pound. Canada also has more stringent labelling laws that the food industry "down there" has been lobbying to change to make it easier/cheaper to ship packaged "food" to Canada. Dairy products especially are more tightly controlled. It can't say cheese unless there is actually real cheese in it - so we have "Kraft Dinner" instead of "Mac & cheese", because it isn't.

Vegetables need not be a problem either.
I have begun getting dehydrated and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables from a co-worker who is LDS.
Nearly everything is shelf-stable, delicious, and no additives--not even salt!
The quality of the freeze-drIed produce is excellent, and NO WASTE!
I'm not ready to commit to a long-term larder, but the cost can easily be justified
every time I clean out the bottom of my crisper. Fresh produce does NOT keep worth crap.

BlackSpinner wrote:We buy most of our meats from a local ethnic (Dutch) butcher

We also buy our meats from a local butcher, it's either Prime or Choice and really very good. If they open a "Super Target" (has groceries), go in there some time and look in the meat case. If they have the same meat as we do (Canada may not allow it), you'll see a sticker on the bottom with a LONG list of sodium-based preservatives, I mean like 20-30 compounds! (I don't think I'm exaggerating... OK, at least a dozen tho).

The Hutterite raised free range chickens are amazing

(jealous) I don't know where to get free range chicken around here. The last I had was in S.E. Asia. So much better. It actually has some substance to it.

Dairy products especially are more tightly controlled. It can't say cheese unless there is actually real cheese in it

I like much of Europe in this regard, I believe quite a few of the cheeses are not pasteurized and are really smooth and flavorful. I took a friend over to Europe last Sept and when we were de-jet-lagging in downtown Amsterdam for a couple days, I took him to the bar at the Prins Hendrik hotel, a mom and pop hotel kind of place, and ordered him a simple baggette with salami and cheese. Fairly austere in ingredients, but when he took a bite it was a life experience for him. He'd never had such good cheese on fresh bread with excellent salami. I can't say definitively whether the cheese was pasteurized, but I bet not because it was so smooth, deep and rich flavored. I prefer that 1000% over the crap they sell here, dead via pasteurization.

I love French Brie; can't stand the American-made stuff.

I really miss living in Montreal. I could walk down to the Atwater Market and even in winter the delis and cheese shops and bakeries were open. I miss the variety of really good cheeses. It was my monthly treat. Walk or cycle to the market, have a cafe au lait and a croisant with a nice cheese and pick up what what is season.

BlackSpinner wrote:I really miss living in Montreal.

Ah, you are in Edmonton, so you are "Up in Canada" to me. Maybe Edmonton affords you some benefit as there may be sources of wild game meat at a local butcher? As I understand it the health benefits substantially exceed that of farm raised "critters"?

MaxDarkside wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:I really miss living in Montreal.

Ah, you are in Edmonton, so you are "Up in Canada" to me. Maybe Edmonton affords you some benefit as there may be sources of wild game meat at a local butcher? As I understand it the health benefits substantially exceed that of farm raised "critters"?

No. Big Oil based city.
My daughter in Whitehorse,Yukon has enjoyed that though. Many of her employees hunt and bring gifts of moose and caribou for the boss.

MaxDarkside wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what the issue is here. If someone told me to eat something that I knew, and is commonly known, in excess, was not good for me, and I eat it, I'm not a victim, I'm an idiot. So, the real question is, how many "victims" that blame others for their self-abuses are merely idiots?

Max, I have to agree with you. I have some age on me and I can tell you my mother and my grandmother knew very well that too much sugar is not good for you. All their neighbors did too.

Everyone wants to overlook this quote which comes from the article link in BlackSpinner's first post:

a New York Times headline: "The Bitter Truth About Sugar," written by a prominent nutritionist in June 1976. "It's bad for the health, bad for the teeth, and we eat more of it than we think", the article declared.

That was 1976, 37 years ago, and my mother and grandmother and their contemporaries knew this a long time before it appeared in NYT.

"So are we tallking "victims" or eager participants?", I ask as I down four Girl Scout Samoas.

But, you know, it is so easy. Don't bring it home and you won't eat it. Every grocery store I go into has ample supplies of fresh meats, milk, eggs, nuts, vegetables and fruits.

CowFish wrote:I ask as I down four Girl Scout Samoas.

Mmmmm... my fav. Wife goes for thin mints, but I like the Samoas the best. I rarely hear the cute little Girl Scouts say, "Mister, would like to buy some fresh celery?" LOL. Evil marketing machine they are, you cannot resist their smiles, woeful "buy this" eyes, waving lethal sugar in my face (LOL ... somewhat sarcastic humor for those who don't know me). But, in the end, the Samoas are a rare annual treat and the celery, well, I eat a bit most every day.

BlackSpinner wrote:No. Big Oil based city. My daughter in Whitehorse,Yukon has enjoyed that though. Many of her employees hunt and bring gifts of moose and caribou for the boss.

Ya, locally harvested tar sands just aren't as tasty. I pity you living in that cold, cold place when the Arctic winds whip down from the NW. We get those here after you warm them up a bit. Maybe if you look out in the fields you can find some "deercicles" or "Pheasant Pops" frozen in place, walk up and snap a leg or wing off

MaxDarkside wrote: I rarely hear the cute little Girl Scouts say, "Mister, would like to buy some fresh celery?" LOL. Evil marketing machine they are, you cannot resist their smiles, woeful "buy this" eyes, waving lethal sugar in my face (LOL ... somewhat sarcastic humor for those who don't know me).

hahaha

Now let's wait for someone to post, "The evil sugar companies have deluded the Girl Scouts!"

Oh heavens to Daisy Low!