EnMasse

[Hephaestion]

Controversial gym ad warns that aliens will eat overweight people

[Hephaestion]

Obesity's disease burden worse than smoking

[Hephaestion]

"Cruel Kindess," a 1967 UK educational film about childhood obesity

[anne cameron]

So if obesity is a bigger problem to public health than smoking, are they now going to persecute the overweight the way they've systematically persecuted smokers for a couple of decades?

No overweight people allowed within three meters of a doorway or air intake...no eating on airplane flights... not allowed to eat in beer parlours, bars, pubs, cafe's, restaurants or other public places...

[Willow]

If someone is smoking in the same room as me, I have to breathe 2nd hand smoke. If someone is overweight in the same room it does not affect me. I see a big difference.
_________________
There is a wisdom of the head, and....a wisdom of the heart. Charles Dickens

[Timebandit]

Not allowing smokers to make the people around them ill with their fumes is not persecution. That some smokers feel entitled to give me an instant headache and expose me to carcinogens that I've opted not to put in my body by making the decision not to smoke rather than step outside for their fix is narcissistic in the extreme.

What you do to your body is your own business, be it food, alcohol or nicotine. As long as your nicotine delivery system doesn't mean I have to cede the decision about what to put or not put in my body, I don't have a problem with it. Sadly, cigarette smoking in public means that non-smokers do cede, and that's unreasonable.

[anne cameron]

I agree completely. I do not have the right to inflict on you the smoke and smell of my cigarettes. That's not what bothers me about this latest statement about obesity being more of a threat to public health than smoking...instead of knee jerking and assuming I want to fill your lungs with my second hand smoke, look at the b.s. the government and a concerted group of do-gooders can pull off...maybe you wouldn't mind paying for two seats on a bus...or a plane...because I have to tell you it would annoy the supreme hell out of me to be squashed against the wall because someone needed more room. I've actually been in that position on a plane...I had the "window" seat...the person next to me was past large to huge...the arm rests fold back, you know...the overflow was , at first, annoying...the large arm, the elbow ...then try to climb over to get to the bathroom...it was a crowded plane, I couldn't switch seats...I've been on a bus with the same kind of neighbour-pressure...so what if they start charging extra for the "over" weight...or deciding that for the good of your health you're restricted to the dietetic menu...or...for the betterment of public health...

I actually do not mind the present anti-smoking restrictions. I'm not going to go into a nic fit, start foaming at the mouth, or screaming or... and there is always nicotine gum...

They never come out and admit they've found a new way to charge you more in return for less...it's always for the good of your health..or your peace of mind...or some damn thing...and it costs you more...the damn Harmonized sales tax, for example...or the cap-and-trade tax..or... it always winds up costing you more...at the pump or at the store or both...

and now they have a new target group...public health threat this time...

You think I'm going overboard and being paranoid? Give them five years. Did you really believe five years ago that the price of gas would skyrocket...? Well, didja? And it's all for your own good, you understand. It has nothing to do with the massive profit the oil industry is making, nothing to do with that at all... used to bail out an open boat after a rain, now they are bailing out banks and car manufacturing companies...and YOU will pay for that...

where in hell do you think all the money comes from that they play around with so cavalierly?

And now they have a new target group...oh, oopsie, the health mavens just announced that a raw brocolli diet is healthy and will peel the pounds off you..now watch the price of brocolli head for the clouds...surtax on potato chips...surtax on chocolate bars...huge sur tax on black forest cake... all for your own good, you understand...

And you thought I was whining because I couldn't smoke a cigarette in the pub? Wait until the price of beer doubles because it's proven to add pounds and inches...wait until the chicken wings and buffalo wings sur tax comes along because it's proven such "snack" food or "bar" food is causing people to put on inches ...

You'll pay. They'll figure out a way to allow each of us 1500 calories a day and then you pay overweight tax on anything more than that...

Flaherty is probably already trying to find bean counters to work on it.

He's too dim to figure it out himself. He'll have to hire some number people.

And you'll pay for that, too.

I don't mind not being able to smoke in church, or in a movie theatre. I never did, not even before it was banned.

Now can we do something about people who drench themselves in that godawful Axe body scent and then get on public transit or come sit next to me while I'm having soup and a sandwich in the diner?

[Tehanu]

Axe should certainly be banned. No argument there.

While we're on the ban-wagon, a big chunk of North America's obesity problem could be solved by eliminating some food additives like high fructose corn syrup and any added fats. Then slap a big-ass tax on highly processed/low nutritional fast food, and use the money to subsidize low-processed/unprocessed/high nutritional food. Change the agriculture and food distribution system so that there's a cumulative manufacturer's tax on each additional processing & transport step, and put that money towards supporting local, sustainable growers ...

And ditch pop. Seriously. Pop should at the very least be twice as expensive as fruit juice or milk.

I know plenty of people who slimmed down considerably when they cut junk food and pop out of their daily diet.

In effect, let's take a good, hard look at our food system before we start pointing accusatory fingers at overweight or obese people. It's no coincidence that obesity and poverty are linked, when the least nutritious and most calorie-laden foods are the cheapest.

[Hephaestion]

[Vundo Draxon]

[TS.]

[Timebandit]

anne, I'm grateful that you're not one of the smokers who think going outside is unreasonable. They are out there, and I find the argument pretty hard to take.

I'm sympathetic to the problems of people who have weight issues - my kids' godlessmother is in the morbidly obese category. She doesn't travel. Flying is pretty much out of the question, and I've watched her struggle for years on restricted calorie diets. The problem is, after following the dieting advice given her over the years, her weight has fluctuated up and down so much that the diets don't really work. Now knee problems have left her in a difficult place because exercise is painful, but the only way she can lose weight.

I agree with Tehanu that our food system needs to be overhauled. The amount of crap in food is disgusting. But I also think we need to educate kids on some of the physiological issues and food.

I don't know that it's possible for government to control calories, and it's not like they restrict alcohol or cigarette consumption. Anyway, I hope not to be topped out at 1500 calories a day, as I'm sure I consume more than that.

Don't even get me started on perfume junkies... Agh. I had to move three rows back at my kid's violin concert last year because one of the other orchestra mothers had doused herself in scent and my eyes were watering, sinuses filling up - and the headache. Allergies suck.

[Vundo Draxon]

[TS.]

[anne cameron]

My tantrum is based on much of what Tehanu has more calmly and sanely outlined. My grandgrrrrrrrrrls are FN, and that connecton has made me "grandma" to about a dozen other FN kids who share no DNA with me but call me "grandma" and , because I have allowed that, expect me to behave as and BE exactly that. Their grandma.

The link between poverty and shit-food is, I feel, undeniable. And it's no use yammering on about "education" because some highly educated people I know, regardless of racial background, are huge.

People think it is "funny" and "cute" and even "odd" that I flat-out refuse to buy pop. My grrrrrrrrrls go to "Friday night dinner and a movie", it's a huge social thing for the short set in Tahsis, and after dinner the kids get a bag of popcorn, then watch a recent-release video on the big screen which was donated to the Rec Centre. And I buy the grrrrrrrls juice. Other kids have pop. There was some nagging at first (everyone else....) but now, if asked, the grrrrls just say "grandma won't buy pop". One of the grrrrrrrrrls says "grandma won't buy poison"...but pop sales are a steady source of income for the Rec Centre. And when I tried to get pop banned, I got no support at all.

And chips. Jeebus, how many kinds are there? BBQ, blue cheese, chive, ketchup...and on and on...and "cheezies", and...

Poor people often do not have the transportation to get to the stores which sell good quality food. Even in towns and cities with public transit, it is not easy to go shopping ... and it is in the poorer areas of town you have the stores which sell mostly processed crap...

don't believe me. Take a half a day and go to the poorer end of town and look, really look, at the stores and what is in them. When you've got two kids dragging at your coat and you have to carry bags of groceries and use a bus and...you grab what you can and get it over with and as long as their bellies have something in it you think you've done what's needed.

My grandgrrrrrrls think it is funny that in this house Alpha-Getti is only for a treat...they seldom get it...Lilli will get some canned "rabioli" this weekend because she just lost her first baby tooth and the tooth fairy is coming tonight, but they know they don't get it as a regular thing. Ditto Krap Dinner...and when they do get KD they get it with extra real cheese grated in...(they love it that way)

But for some of their cousins KD is supper. With sliced white bread (it is cheaper to buy that "fog" than to bake real bread)...

And do you seriously think Harpo and his boys are going to in any way at all inconvenience CocaCola or Pepsi or whoever is making cheap crap food? Those money interests support Harpo and his gang.

Jeebus, you'd think this was a subject about which I had a strong opinion!

Sorry for that.
(not really)

They do things and allow things without telling us...every potato sold in a supermarket in Canada in the past ten years has been irradiated...and nobody told you that...try, just try, to find spuds grown in your area, or even grown in Canada...out here most of the spuds in supermarkets come from Idaho or Oregon...

Food distribution SHOULD be a scandal. Perhaps not on the same scale as the torture of detainees in the middle east, but damn close.

And now that they've encouraged this "fatso" crisis...do you really think their solution will put the cost on the companies? YOU are going to pay for "carbon capture" and you are who will pay for whatever steps they take to slim down the morbidly obese.

And the corporations who support the major political parties will continue to make obscene profit. And children will be damaged for life.

Capitalism. Ain't it great! Three cheers for the marketplace.

The politics of food is a very dirty politic.

[Donna]

If obesity is such a problem, then perhaps the Canadian government should put a tax on all fast foods and every other "bad-for-you" product, just like they do with cigarettes and alcohol.

Smokers pay for their addiction. I started smoking ten years ago at approximately $7.50/pack. Now, a package of cigarettes run me $12.50/pack. And you know what? I understand why it's like that. If I have made the choice to slowly kill myself, that's my problem, and I shouldn't be a drain on the health care system because I've chosen to smoke. I also don't smoke indoors (and never have), and try to avoid all human contact while doing so. But I do have on gripe on this note: why are the ashtrays always next to the entrance to public places? I personally prefer not to litter my butts where ever, but having the ashtrays in places where non-smokers frequent tends to make it difficult to satisfy anyone.

So anyway, let's tax those things that cause these "grievous" problems. Obesity has just as many health issues (heart problems as the result of high blood pressures and cholesterol, Type 2 diabetes, joint problems/arthritis, mobility concerns, etc.) as smoking or alcoholism. Tax it all. That is the Canadian solution.

[TS.]

I agree with the proposal to tax unhealthy foods with one caveat: the money gained from those taxes must be specifically ear-marked for good nutrition policies, including subsidies for local and organic food production, subsidies for low-processed and unprocessed food, nutrition education for kids (when I was in elementary school we had a couple sessions on learning to read the nutrition labels on food and they have stood me in good stead) and public education campaigns for adults and for providing meals that are both healthy and tasty in school cafeterias, hospitals and shelters.
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[Senor Magoo]

All I ask, if we're going to start taxing "unhealthy" food, is that we do so rationally and scientifically, not emotionally. And we do it across the board. No sense adding a whack of tax to a Snickers bar, while letting me buy a kilogram of pure sugar untaxed.
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[TS.]

[Senor Magoo]

[TS.]

[Senor Magoo]

I'd go for something less extreme, like eating roughly the same amount of sugar (in cookies, muffins, on cereal, etc.) as is in the Snickers.

But we seem to have found a fly in the ointment. It's hard to say that any one particular food item is a problem, unless we know whether it's being consumed responsibly or irresponsibly. And that's exactly why I expressed my hope that if we go down this road, we can do so objectively and scientifically, and not based on how much we hate McDonald's.
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ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°`°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,¸_¸,ø¤°°¤ø,

[Rufus Polson]

[Rufus Polson]

[Timebandit]

But one could still say that a muffin, in spite of its sugar, likely has more nutritional value than a chocolate bar.

It's not just the calories, but the empty calories that cause problems. And food can't always be judged in isolation - it's always tied to the physical fitness of the individual and the level of activity engaged in.

I also have a couple of friends who are diabetic and are both heavily into athletic activities (one runs marathons and the other is a martial artist) - they both carry a chocolate bar most of the time. Apparently it can be easy to misjudge insulin dosages when paired with intense physical activity, and it's a safety thing...

[A_J]

[TS.]

[A_J]

Well, that's a bit of a stretch, especially in light of your earlier caveat that the revenues raised:

[TS.]

Right, ensuring that local farmers can continue to produce is punishing the Chilean apple growers. Those apples from Chile likely come to Canada by boat. Marine bunker fuel is one of the dirtiest and most polluting fuels used on the planet. It makes a lot more sense to eat locally grown apples that don't need to travel nearly as far and also thereby help keep rural areas vibrant.

I must say, claiming that subsidies for local food production will cause more terrorism is a truly awesome entry in the contest for most ridiculous argument ever.
_________________
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

[A_J]

[Rufus Polson]

[anne cameron]

I'm with Rufus on this. I first tasted pineapple juice when I was fifteen. I have been mad about all things pineapple since then.

Until: I read about the pineapple industry and how third world farmers who were working land which had been in the family for at least four generations were kicked off the land because they had no ownership papers...and the pineapple conglomerate moved in on their land, mon-cropped it, put a road through it, gave a few of them marginal jobs in a production plant and those who didn't get work became homeless, jobless, and basically doomed...

and my love of pineapples began to wither...and the more I learned about the power behind my pineapple juice the more I turned to tap water to drink...

and ditto tomatoes. There is room in the tomato industry for the international court to charge them with crimes against humanity...

and corn....
and...

imported food might just as well be fertilized with the blood of peasant farmers...

we need to be self sufficient in food, but it's all a mess. A deliberate mess.

[Tehanu]

Seems calorie counts for fast food outlets and frozen supermarket food are often way under. So snarfing down that Whopper, or Lean Cuisine pre-prepared pap, may indeed mean you're eating more than you thought you were.

[anne cameron]

Gawd, I'm glad I'm heading on toward 73 and grew up dirt poor! We continue what we learned as children and in our family we ate at home, at the table, together. Period. As close to "processed" food as we ever got was when the local supermarket had an "introductory sale" on Kraft processed cheese "food", I remember it came in a foot-long block, in a blue package. They were almost giving it away so Annie brought some home. We tried it, we agreed it was "different" and tasted "okay" but she went back to real cheese as soon as the block of glup was finished. The "hundred mile diet" wasn't known then, but it was what we had, and I was in my teens before I tasted pineapple juice (and fell totally under its' magical spell.).

We picked fruit when it was ripe, from my grandpa's trees. Apples were carefully wrapped in paper and stored, gently, in a big cardboard box. My grandma and my Auntie Jean had lovely barrels, with wrapped apples in them. Everything else went into jars. We picked blackberries until our fingers were so stained with juice it took days of dishwashing to get them clean again.

A restaurant? Heh. Once in a blue moon we went to the Fish'n'Chip shop and on really rare occasions we went, with our own pots, up to Chinatown to Number 13 Chop Suey House where they filled our pots with chow mein and we raced home with it.

In Tahsis, today, we have a couple of small cafe's and once in a blue moon I take the treasures there for "poutine" which probably in no way resembles the real thing. I cook mostly from scratch except for spaghetti sauce, I cheat and use the commercial kind in bottles...and add it to my own "fridge mix"...aging vegetables get chopped or grated and sort'a kind'a stirfried before the "spaghetti sauce" is added...

counting calories? I don't. I'm about the same size I've been for the past forty years, people say I am "lean" if they're kind, "skinny" if they're unkind. My kids are all lean, my FN in-laws are all dreadfully overweight with type two diabetes, and it's sad but it's part of the Residential School Sydrome and will take generations to solve. My treasures are lean, and they are the only ones in the vast extended family who do not have silver caps on what little is left of their teeth. And that's a sin, but one we will not as a culture address.

I know their mom uses far more canned and procesed stuff than I do and I say nothing about it. I'm not into pushing rocks uphill with my nose, she does the best she can with what she knows, and she's the best mom a little treasure could have. She's doing her grade twelve, now, and is determined to graduate, and she doesnt' use as much crap food as she did when I first met her, but she's the only one who insists on toothbrushing and mouthwash afterward...

Poor people, especially those who are second or third (or more) generation dirt poor, oppressed, marginalized and ignored haven't been given the opportunity to understand the importance of nutrition. They just want to fill those empty bellies.

Count calories? Not an issue. MacDonalds', etc., aren't in Tahsis, and the few times we go Out, a visit there is a huge treat for the treasures. And since it's only once in a while, it doesn't bother me that they're eating glup with ketchup. I'll make up for it the next day with a raw veggie plate and a home-made dip. Even their cousins have learned to enjoy that.

We do what we can. And sometimes, it isn't easy.

But I'm glad I was born 'way back when people knew how to prepare real food. My treasures reap the benefit of that several times a week when they have supper here, with me, at the table with the TV turned off and the conversation dominated by "what I learned in school today".

It's the best I can manage for them.

[Senor Magoo]

Interesting that back in the day, a bit of poverty would push you toward potatoes, rice, dry beans and garden vegetables, rather than toward processed convenience junk.

Conversely, nothing's more chi-chi these days than food that used to be peasant food: osso bucco, pork belly, brisket, or even "heirloom" vegetables that used to be quite commonplace (eg: a Brandywine tomato).

My own upbringing was a curious hybrid. My parents would scold our in-laws for buying frozen, pre-made hamburgers and frozen vegetables, and yet the only rice my parents ever made was boil-in-the-bag. We'd buy fresh-baked bread from a bakery, and then make sandwiches of rectangular pink ham and Miracle Whip.
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[swirrlygrrl]

On calorie counts, the article's writing makes me think that they only tested the calorie counts of one of each item. While informative, I'd be more interested in knowing if there was systematic undercounting of calories in the foods tested (i.e. most Lean Cuisine dinners had significantly more calories).

For restaurant food, I think calorie and fat counts should be provided on the menu as a guide, but they should be interpreted as the likely minimum amount of fat and calories in the dish. I've worked in family-oriented restaurants - I don't recall the cooks ever underutilizing the oil, cheese, side dishes, etc. A full plate meant value to the customer. I also worked someplace with unlimited bread and butter available with a meal...I have to think if the calorie count of each loaf and ramekin was advertised in any way, people would have eaten quite a bit less of it.

[anne cameron]

Oh gawd, that rectangular pink "ham"...I had an aunt used to fry it and give it to us with scrambled eggs. Her house was the first place I ever tasted "catsup". You can imagine the jokes about the name!

Am I the only one left who cooks turnip? WHich I'm now told isn't "turnip" at all, but "rutabaga". The big yellow ones with the almost purple top...we called them "Swede turnip"...love'em, mashed, with butter. Does anyone else eat parsnips? boiled, baked, in soups, stews...yum! And who else grows dandelions deliberately? great for salads, or quick-steamed with a drop of vinegar. Pepper grass grows everywhere here, toss it in with your rhubarb chard...

[Raos]

Cooks it? When it's so delicious just freshly cut up into sticks and snacked on?

[anne cameron]

And kohl rabi...does anyone else like kohl rabi? Cooked or raw...

I'm making "fridge stew" tonight...tired vegetables...and I had some left over deer meat plus some left over pork tenderloin roast so that and some bouillon (however in hell you spell it) with a dash of vinegar, mustard, and brown sugar...now cook, you bugger, I'll have it over mashed spuds...

did you know that you can use the "core" of a cabbage... put it in the stew, let it simmer forever, even if it's too woody to chew and eat it adds good flavour and if it's not really appetisingly edible the crows will make short work of it the next day...

I don't eat carrots. People tell me how sweet they are, how delicious...all my life I put carrot in my mouth and there's a metallic taste, same as if I had put a penny under my tongue.

and to hell with the "night vision" story! How far do you need to see in the dark, anyway?

[Timebandit]

I use turnip (swede if you're English) in a couple of things. I have a shepherd's pie recipe that includes diced carrot and turnip with lamb... Cheese on top of the mashed potatoes. Good stuff.

I grew up with "processed cheese slices", the ones individually wrapped in plastic. The square ham, too. Bakery bread was too expensive, we bought the mass-produced stuff. Margarine instead of butter. Lots and lots of canned vegetables. And then there was the period of time that my mother discovered that she could buy powdered milk cheaper than fresh and look! we never run out!

Lumpy milk. Ugh.

So while my mother was a convert to the canned/frozen/cheap-shit food revolution, I had the good fortune of having my father's side of the family and their obsession with growing their own food. My dad's uncle was the best market gardener in the valley (less than a half hour drive from the city), and we got corn, potatoes, carrots, turnip, onions, cabbage, tomatoes and corn at a reduced price (if we paid) from Uncle Harvey - and he was the one who knew where the fiddleheads were in spring, too. My grandmother, mad as a hatter, and her sister had serious city gardens. Auntie Annie's was her whole yard - she didn't care to have a lawn (she also baked all her own bread, heavenly stuff!). They were the only people I knew who had compost heaps. We picked saskatoon berries because my father knew where to find them and they weren't something you could buy back then and the wild ones are the best anyway. If we happened to be out near one of the Hutterite colonies, Dad would stop and buy farm butter and cream so thick it couldn't be poured. And he hunted, too. I remember the year he got an elk... We didn't eat beef for a long, long time! Deer sausage, ducks, geese. My grandmother and all my aunties canned their own fruit, too.

I don't know that I'd have developed a taste for the fresh veggies and real bread and such if it hadn't been for that influence. They loved their food, but there wasn't a chunky one in the bunch.

[Timebandit]

[A_J]

[Timebandit]

I so rarely eat at a fast-food joint that I wouldn't notice.

My version of "fast food" is getting take-out Thai coconut soup at a restaurant that's only a few minutes from here.

[Legless_Marine]

[DSquared]

[Raos]

[anne cameron]

Crazy, huh? My taste buds iz crazy? Nah, what's crazy is taste buds which don't relish the taste of parsnips. Or beets...you grate your beets and simmer them in a heavy cast-iron skillet with lots of garlic and butter, then yum yum...and what's truly crazy is folks who don't like yams... or pickled beets...or sauerkraut...

Maybe I should start a support group for non-crazies who do not like the taste of carrots but have been afraid to admit it because of the overwhelming disapproval of a society which seems to worship the dam things...??

And what's not to enjoy in dandelion leaf salad?

[Rufus Polson]

Parsnips . . . Sorry Anne, I think I have to go with Ogden Nash on parsnips.

"The parsnip, children, I repeat
is simply an anemic beet.
Some people call the parsnip edible--
myself, I find this claim incredible."

[Senor Magoo]

[Hephaestion]