Hello everyone, long time no chat.
A couple things here...one, I will be doing a race recap of my first race of the season shortly. Also, I will add my thoughts on the Boston Marathon bombing too. But first, something I have been thinking about for awhile.
I'm reading a book called Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss. To sum it up, it is an interesting read about how the food companies over the last 60-70 years have added more salt, sugar, and fat to our foods, experimenting in labs and with focus groups to come up with "foods" that cause our brains to light up and get excited.
Having seen Super Size Me back in 2005, I was literally disgusted to the point I couldn't eat McDonalds for 6 months. If you haven't seen the documentary, a man eats McDonalds for 30 days straight, breakfast, lunch and dinner. He also gets very little exercise in an attempt to live like an "average American". At the end of the film, he gains nearly 25 pounds and has more health problems. Now, having read Salt Sugar Fat, it does cause me to think.
We eat so few natural foods in our life. Even the meat you eat from the grocery store has gone through some processing. Orange juice from the carton? It's been grabbed by the food companies and turned into a food product. Cheese? Modified. Bread? You know. Aside from a cucumber, an apple, or a chicken from your own backyard, the food you eat has most likely been modified by one of the food giants. And for those who didn't know, Kraft was at one point under Phillip Morris, the same manufacturer of...CIGARETTES!
But really, what can we do about it? I mean, I don't live on a farm. I live in Denver, an urban environment. I can't raise my own food.
I think the best thing we can do, ultimately, for our health/obesity is to eat as smart as possible. Read nutrition labels. Limit your intake of sugar/sodium/salt as best you can. And for the love of all that's holy, get some exercise!
Okay, now with that being said, I'm off to make brownies! (they aren't for me. ;-))
We may need to check out that book. One of the reasons Webb became a vegetarian (or rather a pescetarian ... for now?) was in part due to the food supply chain, the processing of animals before they become food and then the processing of grains and vegetables into what you aptly call a "food product."
ReplyDeleteAlso there used to be a giant company called RJR-Nabisco. RJR being RJ Reynolds, another major cigarette manufacturer.