I wouldn't regulate corporations. I would regulate people's choices, by limiting what kind of food schools are serving for example. They don't have to serve McDonald's and coke machines everywhere.
Before they ditched that old food pyramid, some nutritionists thought it was practically impossible to follow every day. They should come up with an easily identifiable accounting system with a universal measurement that everyone can imagine. What the heck is a gram of fat? Economists use the Big Mac index to study the buying power of countries around the world. They should make an average adult's daily intake of fat equivalent to around 1 Big Mac and 1 Large order fries. Keep the percentages for vitamins and minerals while weighing other standards for fruits and vegetables. The biggest health craze right now is carbs and processed sugars. Advertise difference between refined and complex sugars. Corn and refined rice might be just as bad culprits as sweets for type 2 diabetes. A lot of foods in general are processed. If trans-fats are any indication, they're probably harder for the body to break down and metabolize. I wouldn't say it's good for you either. Pesticides are always bad, but hormone-like pollutants are everywhere and unavoidable. Subway can be healthy and sometimes insanitary, but for a 6 dollar lunch (footlong with chips), I'd rather get something at a sit in restaurant. Is there anyway to make beef cheap and healthy?
But if you sit down at a restaurant, most likely you will eat a lot more calories and fat, and pay probably like 10 bucks and tip. I avoid beef usually. You can buy lean beef, though I am not sure how cheap it is.
Beef is so good, it'll probably kill me in the future... I don't mind restaurants as long as I know if the majority of ingredients isn't artificially processed beforehand. In my head, at least, I think it takes less time to work off.
It's not just big corporations that sell unhealthy foods. There are tons of mom and pop burger joints, taco stands, etc. that knowingly serve unhealthy foods. I can get a greasy plate of bacon and eggs from the Mexican food joint down the street. The owners are hardly faceless big corporate execs. What would you do with the people that knowingly consume unhealthy foods? I would guess that there are millions of such people. I think all the govt can really do in this regard is make sure that the vendors provide honest, nutritional information on their products. Penalties for non-compliance can be made stricter and harsher. It seems that this may not be happening - but I think things are starting to change..slowly. Maybe a government sponsored program to promote the value of good nutrition is the best we can do in a free society.
Actually, several nutritionists I have spoken to explain that (at least here in the states) beef is actually safer and less unhealthy than chicken. They have told me that beef and pork are grown and handled in somewhat cleaner conditions than chickens and do not contain the cocktails of hormones and antibiotics that poultry does. They also say fish is by far healthier than all three, but to make sure that the fish you are eating is wild and not farm raised.
Interesting...I thought beef had more cholesterol and saturated fat. Do they have any thoughts on how those hormones effect our bodies? Maybe that's why Americans are taller and wider.... This mad cow thing could be overblown, but it doesn't hurt to stay away from ground beef from unknown sources.
Yes, beef does contain more cholesterol and saturated fat. Plus there is apparently a direct link between incidence of colon cancer and red meat intake. But these nutritionists explained that you can just eat lean beef (grass-fed beef), and that will be healthier than eating US poultry. Actually some of the beef available does have hormones also, but if you stick with grass-fed you will be okay. Regarding ground beef, that is the major exception here. This is because it is generally produced from many many different animals, with the meat of each all mixed together. This means that you have many potential pathogens combined from many different animals when you eat that quarter pounder. It is much safer to just eat a lean piece of steak instead. Americans are wider, but not necessarily taller. At least not compared to Northern Europeans (such as the Dutch) who have been steadily gaining height versus Americans for decades now, even though they have far less hormone-enhanced poultry at market. The hormones have all sorts of effects, especially on children and pregnant women. These include early onset of puberty, reproductive problems in adults, and increased suseptability to cancer. Hormones in poultry is actually supposedly illegal in the states. But producers just bypass this law by feeding them additives and growth enhancers which contain or have essentially the same effect as the hormones. Most milk in the states also contains growth hormone, which has ridiculously nasty effects on dairy cows. Just watch the documentary film "The Corporation" to get a good idea of what that stuff does. After watching that film, you will absolutely hate Monsanto! Of course, Clinton was the biggest w**** and enabling architect of Monsanto's hegemonic conquest during the 90's. Basically, almost anything you eat around here is gonna eventually kill you one way or another. Whether it's pesticides, hormones, cholesterol, bacteria, radioactive soil, mercury, altered gene make-up, processed flour, yellow FD&C #6, etc. etc. Try going to Whole Foods and stick to the organically grown produce.
Thats great in principle, but probably only a number of top restaurants serve wild fish versus farm raised. Unless i'm eating at Tony Mandola's Seafood House everyday, i'll have to stick to fish filets.
Fact of the matter is that the market has already dictacted what it wants. In this case, most Americans want cheap hamburgers that taste good. As a result, you're left with the Big Mac combo meal, which sells for like $3.89.
It is also in just about all processed foods, and drinks. High-fructose corn syrup sweeteners are more likely to be turned into fat then real sugar. Obesity in many countries has gone up since the corn syrup was introduced in the '70s. The Corn Refiners Assoc. even has pages on their website addressing this, they seem pretty defensive: http://www.corn.org/web/Obesity.html But people sitting in front of tvs and cpus all day doesn't help.
I don't know about other grocers, but I do know that Whole Foods labels their seafood as to whether it's caught wild or farm raised. But if you're eating out, then yeah you're probably right. Just go to decent restaurants then. I vaguely recall you ordering a 5-series and mentioning some other decent cars. So your health is just as important. It's all about asset allocation
