I'm reading a very interesting book called "Fat Chance - The Bitter Truth About Sugar" by Dr Robert Lustig, published last year. It's the most comprehensive & informed look at the diet of the developed world that I've come across. It's full of the most up to date research on our food & how what we eat adversely affects us. It's not particularly difficult to read, but it's not a novel, so requires your full attention. I recommend you to read it if you want to avoid obesity, diabetes & heart disease etc & live a longer life.
Basically, the book confirms what I have long thought. We eat and drink a load of crap & it's not doing us any good at all. In fact it's killing us. Processed food is addictive because of the sugar & salt the manufacturers add & the fibre they remove. Even when we think we are being healthy we aren't because the food industry doesn't tell us all we need to know on the labels. If you think drinking a smoothie is one or more of your 5 a day think again. It's pure sugar, more than in a Coke for example, because all the fibre, which you really need is removed.
I remember going to America years ago & seeing obese people for the first time. I was appalled & disgusted that anyone could be so greedy and stuff so much food down that they became a grotesque parody of a human being. Until I read this book I thought that obese people were just lazy & didn't exercise. Not true. Our relationship with food & the modern diet has messed up the complex mechanisms of our beautiful bodies to the point that they can no longer function effectively. We really don't know what hunger is. We have lost the ability to know when we are full. Think addiction, like smoking, drinking or drugs & you are closer to the truth.
A lot of this has been known for some time now. We know when we are eating rubbish, but it's quick & we are time poor. It's also cheap, so the disadvantaged relied on it most. However, now it's appeal has spread to the middle classes because they are too busy to cook good food from scratch. Especially when both parents work. How many people regularly cook a meal from good quality, raw, ingredients nowadays, despite the plethora of TV chefs?
Then there is the all powerful food lobby. Cheap ingredients, mass produced = massive profit & greed. They aren't going to let scientific fact about the danger & damage they do get in the way of a very healthy bottom line. They are one of the most powerful lobby groups. Add to that the billion dollar diet industry, which promotes the fallacy that they can make you slim & there really is very little hope that this epidemic is going away anytime soon.
We are lemmings rushing over the cliff to suicide. Me too, I could do with losing a stone. I'll just have that last chocolate biscuit first!
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